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      It’s Never a Good Time for the Hunter Biden Story

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      Gail Collins: Bret, here’s one question I don’t think I ever asked you before: What do you think of daylight saving time?Bret Stephens: About the same way I feel about Volodymyr Zelensky. The light of the West.Gail: Your ability to have everything remind you of foreign affairs is awesome.I was sorta impressed the other day when the Senate voted unanimously to make daylight saving time permanent, year-round. What’s the last thing they agreed about that easily?Bret: Invading Afghanistan?Gail: I think switching back and forth is stupid. But many sleep scientists seem to think standard time — winter time — is healthier. So I’ll go with them, just to be difficult.Bret: This is a major difference between liberals and conservatives. Modern-day liberals are often quite happy to defer to the wisdom of experts, at least when it comes to subjects like public health or economics. Whereas those of us who are conservative tend to be — skeptical. We prefer the wisdom of crowds, or markets, to the wisdom of the purportedly wise. It goes back to William F. Buckley Jr.’s famous line that he’d rather “be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty.”Gail: Do you happen to know what William F. Buckley Jr.’s position on daylight saving time was?Bret: Given that daylight savings was initially signed into law by Woodrow Wilson, I’d have to assume Buckley would have been against it.Gail: And you know, if the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory did take control, polls suggest we’d very likely be right in line for Medicare for all and universal early childhood education.Bret: Isn’t that because people love liberal policy ideas until you show them the price tag?On a gloomier subject, Joe Biden has now called Vladimir Putin a “war criminal,” a “murderous dictator” and a “pure thug.” Hard to disagree with the characterizations, but is it prudent?Gail: Well, in the grand scheme of things I’d say Biden could have been more … restrained.Bret: I’m happy he said it. It reminds me of Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union the “evil empire,” which liberals once considered provocative but had the benefit of being absolutely true.Gail: Ukraine’s troops seem to be doing way better than people expected, and even if average Russian citizens aren’t allowed to know about that, they can’t help noticing that their economy is cratering.So what happens next? I’m just terrified Putin will feel cornered and drop a nuclear bomb or do something else that’s planet-destructive. Am I being paranoid?Bret: The scary thing is that you’re being completely rational.Gail: Truly scary if I’m being rational on foreign affairs.Bret: If Russian forces are capable of firing on a nuclear power station, they’re capable of worse. And Russia’s battlefield incompetence, along with its mounting losses, is probably tempting Putin to use chemical weapons or even a tactical nuclear weapon to win a war his generals can’t.Gail: Yep, that’s my nightmare.Bret: On the other hand, it’s in Putin’s interest to make us think he’s capable of anything: It’s his version of Richard Nixon’s “madman theory” of international relations, in which a leader cultivates the appearance of being capable of anything in order to terrify his adversary into backing down. The best thing Biden can do is continue to provide our Ukrainian friends with all the means we can offer so they can defend themselves by themselves, without us getting into combat directly. I understand why Biden is reluctant to impose a no-fly zone, but I don’t get why he won’t supply the Ukrainian air force with fighter jets or any other equipment they ask for.Gail: Meanwhile, on the domestic front, have you been keeping an eye on the primary elections? There’s a big Republican fight coming up this spring in Georgia, where Donald Trump and his folks are trying to nominate Herschel Walker for a Senate race. Despite allegations of violent behavior toward his ex-wife and his recent demand to know why there are still apes if evolution works the way scientists say it does. And then there’s a primary this summer in Wyoming, where Liz Cheney is fighting to keep her House seat ….Bret: People often forget that Cheney actually supported Trump in the 2016 election, only to become a convinced anti-Trumper after she saw the guy in action. Her main challenger in this race, Harriet Hageman, went in the opposite direction: from fervent Never Trumper in 2016 to a fervent Trumper today. Cheney has a big campaign war chest and she could still pull off a win, at least if Wyoming Democrats switch parties to vote for her in the primary.Gail: Well, if Wyoming Republicans can reward Cheney for her independence, I promise to stop complaining that a state with a population of less than 600,000 has the same number of Senators as California, which has nearly 40 million.Bret: I feel just the same way about Vermont and Texas. But about Cheney’s chances, I wouldn’t bet on them. A party with a cult-of-personality problem is like a person with a substance abuse problem, meaning they’re going to ride the addiction to rock bottom.By the way: Did you read The Times’s account of the government’s investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax and foreign-business affairs? The news here has less to do with Hunter himself and more with the fact that those emails recovered from the discarded laptop were his, despite the best efforts by Twitter and other social media and news media companies to bury or not look closely enough at that fact on the eve of the 2020 election.Gail: I’m so glad our colleagues are still doing strong reporting on this story — Hunter Biden’s scummy business dealings shouldn’t be swept under the rug any more than anyone else’s.Bret: Not to mention those paintings he tried to sell for up to $500,000 a canvas in nontransparent sales. Nothing at all fishy there.Gail: That said, I have to admit I’ve never found Hunter’s behavior criminal — just very, very depressing. Fragile son in a family buffeted by tragedy, grows up to have a drug problem and makes a lot of money by working for companies that presumably like to have a famous American politician’s relative to trot around.Bret: The D.O.J.’s investigation will tell.Gail: Some of Hunter’s behavior was obviously unseemly in the extreme. Any new evidence needs to be carefully examined to see if Hunter’s behavior ever went past that into actual criminality — did he claim, for instance, that he could deliver favors from the government because he was Joe Biden’s son?So far I haven’t seen it, but whenever Hunter’s name comes up, I do find myself holding my breath.Bret: The book to read on this subject is “The Bidens,” by Politico’s Ben Schreckinger. It’s no right-wing hit job, which makes its description of Hunter’s business dealings that much more damning. But what really bothered me was the not-so-subtle media effort to bury the email story right before the election as some kind of “Russian disinformation” campaign. If someone had discovered that, say, Ivanka Trump had left a laptop at a repair shop stuffed with emails about 10 percent being held “for the big guy”— to use a reference that appears to be to Joe Biden, which comes from one of the emails found on Hunter’s computer — would the story have been treated with kid gloves?Gail: Well, Ivanka is a much tidier person. Your mentioning her does remind me that it’s never been clear to me exactly how much, if any, of the campaign donations Trump’s been piling up are going to his kids’ activities.Not trying to downplay the Hunter story, but in the grand scheme of things I still think his misdeeds are going to wind up as a sidebar on the Biden saga. Feel free to remind me I said that if half the family winds up indicted.Bret: I honestly hope not. The world needs another White House corruption scandal like I need a hole in my head, to borrow a line from one of the better songs of the 1990s.Gail: On another subject entirely — have you noticed that earmarks are back?Bret: Don Young dies but pork is forever. I don’t think pork is such a bad thing in the grand scheme of things. It brings projects to constituents who need them and makes politics a whole lot more fun to cover. What do you think?Gail: Makes me sorta sad remembering John McCain’s long, long battle to get rid of them. The biggest problem, as I remember, wasn’t lawmakers trying to get some special bridge overpass for their district; it was lawmakers trying to get a contract for some big, unnecessary project that would go to one of their donors.Now we’re stunned that the Senate can come together on daylight saving time. Guess things are just darker now than in the olden days.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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      How Candidates Are Using TikTok to Secure Younger Voters

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      If all politics is theater, Representative Tim Ryan is one of its subtler actors. A moderate Democrat from Ohio’s 13th district who has represented the state for nearly two decades, his speeches and debate performances are often described as coming out of central casting. His style choices are D.C. standard. He’s not usually the subject of late-night skits or memes.That’s not to say he isn’t trying. Back in the spring of 2020, as Covid-19 was overtaking the country and a divided Congress was duking it out over a sweeping stimulus bill, Mr. Ryan, 48, was so frustrated at the stalled legislation that he decided to channel his emotion into a TikTok video.The 15-second clip features Mr. Ryan lounging around his office in a white button-down and dress pants, his tie slightly loose, as he mimes a clean version of “Bored in the House,” by Curtis Roach. It’s a rap song that resonated with cooped-up Americans early on in the pandemic, featuring a refrain (“I’m bored in the house, and I’m in the house bored”) that appears in millions of videos across TikTok. Most of them depict people losing their minds in lockdown. Mr. Ryan’s interpretation was a little more literal: Bored … in the House … get it?

      @reptimryan In the (People’s) House bored. ♬ original sound – curtistootrill Mr. Ryan is not a politician one readily associates with the Zoomers of TikTok. His talking points tend to revolve around issues like reviving American manufacturing rather than, say, defunding the police. But the chino-clad congressman wasn’t naïve to the nontraditional places from which political influence might flow. Years ago he was all in on meditation. Why not try the social platform of the moment?His teenage daughter, Bella, got him up to speed and taught him some of the dances that had gone viral on the app. “I just thought it was hysterical, and that it was something really cool that her and I could do together,” Mr. Ryan said in a phone interview.Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio joined TikTok in 2020. “I started to see it as an opportunity to really speak to an audience that wasn’t watching political talk shows or watching the news,” he said.Elizabeth Frantz for The New York TimesSoon enough, he was posting on his own account, sharing video montages of his floor speeches and his views on infrastructure legislation, backed by the sound of Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well.” (As any TikTok newbie would quickly learn, popular songs help videos get discovered on the platform.)“I started to see it as an opportunity to really speak to an audience that wasn’t watching political talk shows or watching the news,” Mr. Ryan said. This year, he’s running for Ohio’s open Senate seat; he thinks TikTok could be a crucial part of the race.But as primaries begin for the midterm elections, the real question is: What do voters think?Privacy, Protest and PunditrySocial media has played a role in political campaigning since at least 2007, when Barack Obama, then an Illinois senator, registered his first official Twitter handle. Since then, enormous numbers of political bids have harnessed the power of social platforms, through dramatic announcement videos on YouTube, Twitter debates, Reddit A.M.A.s, fireside chats on Instagram Live and more. TikTok, with its young-skewing active global user base of one billion, would seem a natural next frontier.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.So far, though, compared with other platforms, it has been embraced by relatively few politicians. Their videos run the gamut of cringey — say, normie dads bopping along to viral audio clips — to genuinely connecting with people.“TikTok is still in the novelty phase in terms of social media networks for political candidates,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican political technologist.Republicans in particular have expressed concerns about the app’s parent company, ByteDance, whose headquarters are in China. In the final year of his presidency, Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to ban the app in the United States, citing concerns that user data could be retrieved by the Chinese government. (President Biden revoked the order last summer.)After a brief stint on the app, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican, deleted his account. He has since called on President Biden to block the platform entirely. In an email statement, Mr. Rubio, 50, wrote that TikTok “poses a serious threat to U.S. national security and Americans’ — especially children’s — personal privacy.”Senator Marco Rubio of Florida believes that TikTok “poses a serious threat to U.S. national security and Americans’ — especially children’s — personal privacy.”Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesThat point has been disputed by national security experts, who think the app would be a relatively inefficient way for Chinese agencies to obtain U.S. intelligence.“They have better ways of getting it,” said Adam Segal, the director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations, among them “phishing emails, directed targeted attacks on the staff or the politicians themselves or buying data on the open market.”Regardless, TikTok seems to have empowered a new generation to become more engaged with global issues, try on ideological identities and participate in the political process — even those not old enough to vote.There have been rare but notable examples of TikTok inspiring political action. In 2020, young users encouraged people to register for a Tulsa, Okla., rally in support of former President Donald Trump as a prank to limit turnout. Ahead of the rally, Brad Parscale, Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, tweeted that there had been more than a million ticket requests, but only 6,200 tickets were scanned at the arena.Such activity is not limited to young liberals on the platform. Ioana Literat, an associate professor of communication at Teachers College, Columbia University, who has studied young people and political expression on social media with Neta Kligler-Vilenchik of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, pointed to the political “hype houses” that became popular on TikTok during the 2020 election. The owners of those accounts have livestreamed debates, debunked misinformation spreading on the app and discussed policy issues.“Young political pundits on both sides of the ideological divide have been very successful in using TikTok to reach their respective audiences,” Ms. Literat said.You’ve Got My Vote, BestieMany of the politicians active on TikTok are Democrats or left-leaning independents, including Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and the mayors of two of America’s largest cities, Lori Lightfoot and Eric Adams (who announced he had joined this week with a video that featured his morning smoothie regimen).This could be because the platform has a large proportion of young users, according to internal company data and documents that were reviewed by The New York Times in 2020, and young people tend to lean liberal. (TikTok would not share current demographic data with The Times.)Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts has cultivated a following on TikTok, where young users often refer to him as their “bestie.”Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times“If you are a Democrat running for office, you’re trying to get young voters to go out and support you,” said Mr. Wilson, the Republican strategist. “That calculation is different for Republicans, where you’re trying to mobilize a different type of voter” — someone who is likely older and spends time on other platforms.For his part, Mr. Markey has cultivated a following on TikTok with videos that are a mix of silly (such as him boiling pasta in acknowledgment of “Rigatoni Day”), serious (for example, him reintroducing the Green New Deal with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cori Bush) and seriously stylish (him stepping out in a bomber jacket and Nike high tops). The comments on his videos are filled with fans calling him “bestie” (“go bestie!!”, “i love you bestie,” “YES BESTIE!!!!”).The feeling is mutual. “When I post on TikTok, it’s because I’m having fun online and talking with my friends about the things we all care about,” Mr. Markey, 75, wrote in an email. “I listen and learn from young people on TikTok. They are leading, they know what’s going on and they know where we are headed, especially online. I’m with them.”

      @ed_markey you have to stop ♬ A Moment Apart – ODESZA – Hannah Stater Dafne Valenciano, 19, a college student from California, said that she’s a fan of Mr. Ossoff’s TikTok account. During his campaign season, “he had very funny content and urged young voters to go to the ballots,” Ms. Valenciano said. “Politicians accessing this social media makes it easier for my generation to see their media rather than through news or articles.”Several of the videos posted by Mr. Ossoff, 35, who has moppy brown hair and boyish good looks, have been interpreted by his fans as thirst traps. “YAS DADDY JON,” one user commented on a video of him solemnly discussing climate change. Another wrote, on a post celebrating his first 100 days in office, that Mr. Ossoff was “hot and he knows it,” calling him a “confident king.” The senator has more than half a million followers on TikTok.Some politicians end up on the platform unwittingly. Take, for instance, the viral audio of Kamala Harris declaring, “we did it, Joe” after winning the 2020 election. Though the vice president doesn’t have an account herself, her sound bite has millions of plays.Catering to such viral impulses may seem gimmicky, but it’s a necessary part of any candidate’s TikTok strategy. Political advertising is prohibited on the platform, so politicians can’t promote much of their content to target specific users. And the app pushes videos from all over the world into users’ feeds, making it hard for candidates to reach the ones who might actually vote for them.Daniel Dong, 20, a college student from New Hampshire, said that he often sees posts from politicians in other states in his TikTok feed, but “those races don’t matter to me because I’m never going to be able to vote for a random person from another state.”The Art of the Viral VideoChristina Haswood, a Democratic member of the Kansas House of Representatives, first started her TikTok account in the summer of 2020, when she was running for her seat.“I went to my campaign manager and was like, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if I made a campaign TikTok?’” Ms. Haswood, 27, said.“A lot of folks don’t see an Indigenous politician, a young politician of color,” said Christina Haswood, a member of the Kansas House of Representatives. She hopes to inspire young people to run for office.Arin Yoon for The New York TimesShe won the race, making her one of a handful of Native Americans in the Kansas state legislature. “A lot of folks don’t see an Indigenous politician, a young politician of color. You don’t see that every day across the state, let alone across the country,” Ms. Haswood said. “I want to encourage young people to run for office.”At first, Ms. Haswood created TikToks that were purely informational — videos of her talking directly to the camera, which weren’t getting much traction. When one of the candidates running against her in the primary also started a TikTok, she felt she needed to amp things up.Conner Thrash, at the time a high school student and now a college student at the University of Kansas, started to notice Ms. Haswood’s videos. “I really loved what she stood for,” Mr. Thrash, 19, said. “I realized that I had the ability to bridge the gap between a politician trying to expand their outreach and people like my young, teenage self.”So he reached out to Ms. Haswood, and the two started making content together and perfecting the art of the viral TikTok. A video should strike a careful balance of entertaining but not embarrassing; low-fi without seeming careless; and trendy but innovative, bringing something new to the never-ending scroll.One of their most-watched videos lays out key points of Ms. Haswood’s platform, including the protection of reproductive rights and legalizing recreational marijuana. The video is set to a viral remix of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” and follows a trend in which TikTok users push the camera away from themselves midsong. (Ms. Haswood used a Penny skateboard to achieve the effect.)

      @haswoodforks Meet Christina Haswood, the future for democratic politics in Kansas.❤️#kansas #democrat #progressive #vote #fyp #foryoupage ♬ Love Story – Disco Lines TikTok may have helped Ms. Haswood win her race, but few candidates have had her success. Several politicians with large TikTok followings, including Matt Little (a former liberal member of the Minnesota Senate) and Joshua Collins (a socialist who ran for U.S. representative for Washington), lost, “pretty badly — in their respective elections,” Ms. Literat said, “so technically they did not succeed from a political perspective.”The behavior of young voters in particular can be hard to predict. In the 2020 presidential election, about half of Americans between the ages 18 and 29 voted, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University — a record turnout for an age group not known for showing up to the polls.Still, “young people help drive the culture,” said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, the author of “Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age” and a professor of information studies at Syracuse University.“Even though they may or may not ever vote for Jon Ossoff, being on TikTok does help shape Ossoff’s image,” she added. “More people are going to know Ossoff’s name today because of his TikTok stunt than they did before.” More

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      Lynn Yeakel, Spurred Into Politics by Anita Hill, Dies at 80

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      She nearly unseated Senator Arlen Specter after his aggressive grilling of Ms. Hill during Clarence Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.For a brief period in 1992, Lynn Yeakel carried the hope of many American women on her shoulders.While watching the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas, she was among millions of people who were outraged by the way the Senate Judiciary Committee treated Anita Hill, a law professor who had accused Mr. Thomas of sexual harassment.The optics of the all-male, all-white committee grilling a Black woman and more or less dismissing her complaint about sexual harassment — not a widely acknowledged dynamic at the time — drove several women to run for office in what pundits called the “Year of the Woman.”Ms. Yeakel (pronounced YAY-kul), a Pennsylvania Democrat who had never run for office before, was among them.She took on Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, whose aggressive interrogation of Ms. Hill during the hearings, which riveted the nation, put him at the top of the list of men whom women voters most wanted to defeat.“If it hadn’t been for those hearings,” Ms. Yeakel told The New York Times in 1992, “it never would have occurred to me to run against Arlen Specter.”Ms. Yeakel lost her Senate race but saw 1992 as a turning point for women in seeking political power.Drexel University CollegeIn the end, she came up short. Still, she had caught the zeitgeist of a particular moment in history. As she told WHYY radio, in Philadelphia, she believed those hearings would be seen in retrospect as a turning point for women in seeking political power and standing up for their rights.Ms. Yeakel died on Jan. 13 at a medical center in Fort Myers, Fla. She was 80. The cause was complications of a blood cancer, said her husband, Paul Yeakel. They lived in Rosemont, Pa., and had a second home in Florida.Ms. Yeakel had been a longtime advocate for women’s rights and a fund-raiser for women’s charities but was largely unknown to the public when she challenged Mr. Specter, a former Philadelphia district attorney and two-term incumbent.Never having run for office, she barely registered in the polls. But during the Democratic primary, she ran a startling TV spot. It showed footage of Mr. Specter questioning Ms. Hill; Ms. Yeakel then stops the footage and asks the viewer, “Did this make you as angry as it made me?”She was the surprise winner of the five-way primary, earning 45 percent of the vote and becoming an overnight sensation. She initially led Mr. Specter in the polls by 15 percentage points.But Mr. Specter found his footing. He raised more than twice as much money as she did. He expressed some contrition for his treatment of Ms. Hill, saying he understood why her complaint against Justice Thomas “touched a raw nerve among so many women.”And he ran an aggressive campaign. He questioned Ms. Yeakel’s competence. He criticized her husband for belonging to a country club that had never had a Black member. And he criticized her father, a former member of Congress from Virginia, for his votes against civil rights.Ms. Yeakel noted that Mr. Specter was focusing on the men in her life, not on her, but he erased her lead. In the end, he beat her by three percentage points.Lynn Moore Hardy was born on July 9, 1941, in Portsmouth, Va. Her father, Porter Hardy Jr., a businessman, was a Democratic member of Congress from 1947 to 1968. Her mother, Lynn (Moore) Hardy, was a schoolteacher.Ms. Yeakel in 2019. Behind her is a photograph of Alice Paul, who helped secure passage of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote.Bob HortonLynn grew up in Virginia and went to Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (now Randolph College) in Lynchburg, Va. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1963 with a major in French literature. Much later, in 2005, she earned a master’s degree in management from the American College of Financial Services in King of Prussia, Pa.Before she ran for the Senate, Ms. Yeakel was a co-founder and chief executive of Women’s Way, one of the first and largest fund-raising coalitions dedicated to the advancement of women and girls.After her Senate bid, she ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1994. President Bill Clinton appointed her that year to be the Mid-Atlantic regional director for the Department of Health and Human Services.Ms. Yeakel later joined Drexel University in Philadelphia as the director of its medical college’s Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership. There, she established the Women One Award and Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships for medical students from underrepresented communities.Ms. Yeakel speaks at an event in 2019 celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s vote to ratify the 19th Amendment.Daniel BurkeAt Drexel, she also established Vision 2020, now called Vision Forward. Its goal is to help women achieve social, economic and political equality with men.She married Paul M. Yeakel in 1965. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her daughter, Courtney; her son, Paul Jr.; and six grandchildren. More

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      Why Rick Scott and Mitch McConnell Are Feuding Over Midterm Elections

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      Senator Rick Scott has an 11-point plan to “rescue America.” Senator Mitch McConnell would rather he not.Republican insiders have long worried that they could blow a golden opportunity to retake the Senate this year. And while most are confident that a red wave will still wash enough of their candidates ashore in November to win a majority, some doubt occasionally creeps in.The latest reason: an ongoing disagreement between two of the top Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, and Rick Scott, the leader of the party’s campaign arm. At issue is the “11-Point Plan to Rescue America” that Scott has presented as a platform for the midterms, and that McConnell has emphatically rejected.And while Scott has said that the plan is just his opinion, developed using his own campaign funds, Democrats have been all too happy to pin its provisions on the Republican Party writ large.They’ve seized on one bullet point in particular, which reads: “All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.” That idea polls badly, according to Morning Consult, though other provisions of Scott’s plan are popular.On Thursday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee paid for a truck-mounted billboard to troll Senate Republicans during their one-day retreat. “Senate Republicans’ Plan: Raise Your Taxes,” the billboard read.Never mind that McConnell has brushed back Scott, telling reporters at the Capitol last week, “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years. That will not be part of a Republican Senate majority agenda. We will focus instead on what the American people are concerned about: inflation, energy, defense, the border and crime.”McConnell also made it clear who was in charge. “If we’re fortunate enough to have the majority next year, I’ll be the majority leader,” he said. “I’ll decide, in consultation with my members, what to put on the floor.”Scott defended himself last week in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, saying his plan had “hit a nerve” with Washington elites, whom he accused of misleading voters about the sustainability of federal deficits and entitlement programs.“Part of the deception is achieved by disconnecting so many Americans from taxation,” he wrote. “It’s a genius political move. And it is bankrupting us.”Scott’s plan has some powerful backers, including the Heritage Foundation, which plans to host him for an event later this month. The think tank has long advocated “broadening the base,” the preferred term on the right for increasing the number of Americans who are subject to taxation.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.“Conservatives in this country are demanding an ambitious, conservative agenda,” said Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation. “Therefore, it excites us to see members talking that way.”Democrats dust off a playbookScott’s plan is a fortuitous turn of events for Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, Democrats say.“Chuck, I’m sure, is salivating,” said Jim Kessler, a former Schumer aide who is now an executive vice president at Third Way, a center-left think tank.In the first sentence of a letter to his Senate colleagues this week, Schumer wrote, “As Senate Republicans debate their plan to increase taxes on millions of working Americans, Senate Democrats have focused on ways to get rising prices under control to help working families.”Senate Democrats are considering holding hearings, and possibly a series of votes, to highlight Scott’s plan and to force Republicans to take uncomfortable positions on it.It’s a playbook that Schumer has run before. In 1995, as a member of the House representing New York, he used Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” to accuse Republicans of trying to force cuts in popular spending programs. Gingrich, who became the speaker of the House in 1995 — either because or despite that plan, depending on whom you ask — has embraced Scott’s platform.“That was probably the first thing that Chuck did that showed him as a national political leader,” recalled Kessler. With Scott’s plan, he said of Schumer, “I’m sure he sees it and says to himself, ‘I’ve taken this apart before.’”Privately, Democrats are realistic about their chances of hanging onto the Senate, and say they must seize the “gift” Scott has given them to force Republicans onto the defensive. On the day of the State of the Union, for instance, Senate Democrats ran an ad accusing McConnell of fighting “for the same wealthy insiders who get rich by keeping prices high.”During their own retreat on Wednesday, Democrats heard a presentation by Geoff Garin, a pollster, that impressed many of the senators present. Garin’s surveys have found that more voters blame the coronavirus pandemic, “China and foreign supply chains” and “large corporations raising prices to increase their profits” than they do President Biden for inflation.“The bottom line here is that Democrats have a very strong case to prosecute on rising costs,” Garin said.Republicans see the attack on Scott as a desperation play in what could be a difficult election for Senate Democrats, who must defend incumbents in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire while trying to pick up seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.“If I were them, I would try to use it, too,” said Justin Sayfie, a Republican consultant who runs an influential Florida political news website. “But they’re going to have to put a lot of money behind it. How much penetration are they going to be able to get with a message about Rick Scott?”Two visions of how to winMcConnell and Scott have a fundamental difference of opinion about how to win the Senate, people who have studied both men say.There’s McConnell, the calculating insider, who is leery of putting forward a political agenda that could open Republicans up to Democrats’ attacks. Republicans have long memories of how, in past election cycles, Democrats have had success in accusing them of wanting to cut popular programs like Medicare and Social Security.“McConnell hates variables,” said Kessler, the former Schumer aide. “He’s like a boxer who likes to cut off the sides of the ring.”In January, when a reporter asked McConnell what his agenda might be if Republicans retake the majority, he replied simply: “That is a very good question. And I’ll let you know when we take it back.”Then there’s Scott, the ambitious outsider, a former businessman whose presidential aspirations are no secret. He’s rankled some of his fellow Republican senators by taking broad swipes at Washington — despite leading the committee in charge of electing more of them.And while they share the same goal of winning back the Senate, aides and allies of both men have sniped at one another through the press, particularly over their relationship with Donald Trump.Scott has cultivated a relationship with the former president — he made sure to send copies of his plan to Mar-a-Lago — while McConnell at times has condemned Trump, who in turn refers to the Senate minority leader as “the Old Crow.” Trump has even tried to recruit Scott as a future majority leader, according to a Politico account.McConnell’s office declined to comment.“There will always be critics, but we don’t waste much time worrying about the opinions of Democrat operatives or anonymous Washington consultants,” said Chris Hartline, the communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which Scott chairs. Asked what the Heritage Foundation would say to Senate leaders like McConnell, Roberts said, “We’re grateful for their service, and we’re looking forward to them embracing Senator Scott’s plan or coming up with a plan of their own.”What to read The U.S. Census Bureau says the 2020 census seriously undercounted the number of Hispanic, Black and Native American residents, even though its overall population count of 323.2 million was largely accurate, Michael Wines and Maria Cramer report.In February, the Consumer Price Index rose at its fastest pace in 40 years. Biden blamed Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, for the increase, though inflation has been a problem for months, Jeanna Smialek reports.As oil prices rise, many governments are working to boost global production, potentially neglecting longer-term efforts to cut use of fossil fuels to fight climate change. Brad Plumer, Lisa Friedman and David Gelles report.postcardVice President Kamala Harris called for an investigation into potential war crimes by the Russian military, during a visit to Poland on Thursday.Andrzej Lange/EPA, via ShutterstockTwo V.P.s, one message for UkraineThe world got a glimpse of two potential future presidents today, in what we’re told was a sheer coincidence.Vice President Kamala Harris was visiting Poland, where she met with the country’s leaders, called for an investigation into potential war crimes by the Russian military, held a round-table event with displaced survivors from the war in Ukraine and appeared with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada in a show of Western solidarity.It so happened that her predecessor, Mike Pence, was in Ukraine on the same day as Harris’s trip. Along with his wife, Karen, he met with some of the refugees who are living in camps near the border with Poland. As Pence noted on Twitter, more than 2 million Ukrainians have fled the country over the last 12 days, according to U.N. figures.Pence’s trip comes as the former vice president tries to establish himself as a leader of the Republican Party on foreign policy ahead of a possible 2024 run. Last week, Pence blasted unnamed people in the party who, he said, were “apologists for Putin,” the Russian leader.Our colleague, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, a White House correspondent, was traveling with Harris and sending dispatches from Poland all day long. According to a background briefing by an unnamed senior administration official, he reported, teams for the former vice president and the current vice president were “not in contact.”Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahIs 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

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      There Are Glimmers of Hope for Biden. Or Maybe Slivers.

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      Despite the terrible reality of the war in Ukraine, rising inflation and record gas prices, a faint ray of sunshine has fallen on Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. According to strategists for both parties, the Democrats now have a 50-50 chance of retaining control of the Senate in the midterm elections, crucial for the appointment of federal judges, but nowhere near enough electoral strength to give them a shot at keeping their House majority.Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, agrees that “Biden is finally getting some good news after a long period of horrible events,” but those pluses stand against the more sustained setbacks the president has experienced.Ayres argued in an email that Bidendrove his own job approval down by hanging onto an obviously hopeless BuildBackBetter, muddying his bipartisan success on the infrastructure bill. He ran as a center-left moderate but tried to govern as a progressive. That had two results: raising the hopes of liberals, when it was obvious he was never going to get Manchin or Sinema, before dashing those hopes, leaving liberals demoralized. On top of that, he left a bunch of people who voted for him thinking they were sold a bill of goods. Along with the fiasco of the Afghanistan withdrawal, he squandered majority job approval.Ayres noted:It’s hard to imagine Republicans not winning the House, given historical trends and Biden’s lousy job approval ratings. Control of the Senate depends on the kinds of candidates Republicans nominate. Nominate sane governing Republicans like Rob Portman, Richard Burr and Pat Toomey, and the Senate is theirs. Nominate far-right wing-nut cases and the Senate stays in the hands of the Democrats.Still, Biden has had some significant success and Republicans face serious obstacles.On the plus side for Democrats: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in February, employers added 678,000 new jobs and unemployment fell to 3.8 percent. Meanwhile, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection disclosed on March 3 that it has “has a good-faith basis for concluding that the president and members of his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”Politico reported on March 8:President Joe Biden’s approval rating is on the rise — for now — in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Biden’s State of the Union address last week. Multiple surveys over the past week, including a new Politico/Morning Consult poll out Tuesday, show a modest-to-moderate uptick in voters’ views of Biden’s job performance, up from his low-water mark earlier this year.And then there is the setback that never materialized: While many predicted the post-2020 census redrawing of congressional districts would be a disaster for Democrats, in practice the new congressional lines are a wash. “We now estimate Democrats are on track to net 4 to 5 more House seats than they otherwise would have won on current maps, up from two seats in our previous estimate,” David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report wrote on Feb. 24.On the negative side for Republicans: Donald Trump’s admiration for and long courtship of Vladimir Putin has begun to backfire, causing conflict within Republican ranks; and these intraparty tensions have been compounded by Mike Pence’s growing willingness to challenge Trump, as well as by an internal strategy dispute between Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and Senator Rick Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.Steve Rosenthal, a former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. who now heads The Organizing Group, a political consulting firm, contended in an email that the Biden administration has done a poor job promoting its successes:We’ve been canvassing white working-class voters in Southwestern PA and in the Lehigh Valley. They have no idea what the president and the Democrats in Congress have already done that directly impacts the issues they raise. When they hear about Biden sending $7 billion to PA for their roads, bridges and schools, they’re moved by it. This isn’t rocket science.“It’s a volatile environment,” Rosenthal adds: “Covid, war in Ukraine, inflation — and a lot can happen between now and November. But I definitely like the hand the Democrats are playing better this week than last. For now, let’s take it one week at a time.”Dean Baker, a co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal-leaning think tank, made a similar case in his emailed response to my inquiries:On the economic front, President Biden and the Democrats really need to up their game in pushing their record and their agenda. We have had record job growth since Biden took office, and somehow the economy is supposed to be a liability for the Democrats? If the shoe were on the other foot, the Republicans would be plastering the job numbers across the sky. This is the best labor market in more than half a century. Workers can leave jobs they don’t like for better ones; that is a really great story.In Baker’s view:Biden and the Democrats really need to move forward on what they can get from his Build Back Better agenda. This means sitting down with Senator Manchin and figuring out what he will go for. It is kind of mind-boggling that they didn’t do this last spring.The point, Baker argued, “is to get something that will have as much benefit as possible — climate tops the list — and push it through quickly.”Baker wrote that he has “no idea if the Democrats can hold one or both chambers in November, but things are looking somewhat better,” especially in the Senate, where “the Republicans are having trouble getting strong candidates in many potential swing states like New Hampshire, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and possibly even Ohio. This raises the possibility of the Democrats picking up seats.”Control of the House, where Democrats hold a slim 222-211 majority, will be another matter after the coming election.Frances Lee, a political scientist at Princeton, made the case in an email thatIt would be a major historical anomaly if Democrats retain control of the House in 2022. One of the most predictable features of American politics is the loss of seats in Congress for the president’s party at the midterm. Even presidents with majority public approval still almost always see losses for their party in Congress. With Democrats’ margin so narrow, the party just cannot spare any losses.Biden’s favorability rating, currently averaging 41.6 percent according to Real Clear Politics, would have to rise “above 60 percent — like George W. Bush in 2002 or Bill Clinton in 1998 — before it would become reasonable to expect Democrats to avert a loss of House control,” Lee observed. “Since the advent of public opinion polling, all presidents with approval ratings below 60 percent have seen losses of congressional seats at the midterm, in every case more than the 5 seats that Democrats can spare in 2022.”Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm, provided historical data to The Times based on Gallup polling and House election outcomes in nonpresidential contests from 1962 to 2018. When the president’s approval rating was 60 percent or higher, the president’s party gained one seat; when the rating was in the 49 percent to 59 percent range, the president’s party lost an average of 12 seats; when the favorability rating fell below 49 percent, the average loss was 39 House seats. Biden, with eight months until the midterms, is well below that mark.The picture, according to Lee,is not entirely bleak. The employment recovery is strong; the pandemic seems to be abating. The battle for the Senate is more evenly matched, and Republicans have come up short in some high-profile candidate recruitment efforts. But Democrats have no margin for error. Any losses given a 50-50 balance will tip Senate control to Republicans. In a midterm year, one would have to rate that outcome as the more likely outcome.Lee suggested that “the more plausible question for Biden is how bad things are likely to get for Democrats.”She pointed out:Thirty House Democrats have already retired rather than run for re-election. Inflation is expected to be running well above Federal Reserve targets through the rest of 2022. Even though Biden has been able to rally the democratic world in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, few experts expect a favorable outcome of the conflict on any near-term horizon. The pandemic has defied predictions to date, and public patience is wearing thinner.Charlie Cook, founder of the Cook Political Report, argued in an email that Biden is in a deep hole very difficult to climb out of:Between the Mexican border, not anticipating a rush across the border when Trump left town, being caught flat-footed, Kabul made the fall of Saigon look fairly dignified, ignoring/dismissing inflation. The worst sin for most voters, inflation, hurts 100 percent of people, a totally unrealistic legislative agenda, party line vote on coronavirus package, 7.5 months to get half of what they wanted on infrastructure, he has pretty much soiled his nest. Republican voters are hyper-motivated, Democratic voters lethargic, independents alienated, doesn’t sound terribly promising to me.Alex Theodoridis, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, is pessimistic about Democratic prospects, but less so than Cook.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Theodoridis wrote by email, “is an awkward one for GOP elites and voters. They have spent the last few years downplaying the nefariousness of Putin’s regime and portraying Ukraine as a hopelessly corrupt hotbed of profiteering for the Biden family.”This message, he continued, hastrickled down to the Republican rank-and-file. UMass Poll data from 2020 and 2021 show that Republicans, on average, rate Democrats, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and even people who vote for Democrats, as greater threats to America than Vladimir Putin and Russia. In the weeks before the invasion, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump, among others, peddled takes flattering to Putin. This stance has grown uncomfortable as Russia and Putin have clearly played the role of unprovoked aggressor and Ukrainians and Zelensky emerge as both sympathetic and heroic.But, in Theodoridis’s view, the “positive signs for Biden and Democrats over the last couple weeks” do not “yet rise to the level of changing the expectation that 2022 will likely follow the historical pattern of midterm loss for the president’s party. And, Democrats have precious little margin with which to sustain any loss of seats.”There are still major uncertainties to be resolved before Election Day, Nov. 8. These include the possibility that Trump will be embroiled in criminal charges and the chance that Trump himself will become an albatross around the neck of the Republican Party.The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a Mississippi case that could unwind Roe and bar access to abortion for millions of women with the political response quite likely to cost the Republican Party a significant number of votes. Trump’s legal status, in turn, will be determined by prosecutors in Georgia, New York and possibly the United States Justice Department.Finally, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a wild card, giving rise, among other things, to mounting speculation about Trump’s judgment and his fitness for office.On Feb. 22, the day after Putin said he would recognize the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk, two regions in eastern Ukraine, Trump remarked, “This is genius”— a comment in line with Trump’s history of fulsomely praising Putin.On March 2, Trump tried to cut his losses and abruptly told Maria Bartiromo of Fox News that the invasion amounted to a “holocaust” and Russia must “stop killing these people.” He condemned the Russian military: “They’re blowing up indiscriminately, they’re just shooting massive missiles and rockets into these buildings and everybody is dying​.”On March 5, speaking at a meeting of top Republican donors in New Orleans, Trump wandered farther afield, suggesting, however insincerely, that the United States should paste Chinese flags on F-22s and “bomb the [expletive] out of Russia.”On Feb. 27, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas was clearly discomfited by George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” when Stephanopoulos, speaking of Trump, noted:Last night, he finally condemned the invasion, but he also repeated his praise of Putin, calling him smart.Earlier in the week, he called him pretty smart. He called him savvy. He says NATO and the U.S. are dumb.Are you prepared to condemn that kind of rhetoric from the leader of your party?Pressed repeatedly, Cotton ducked repeatedly:George, if you want to know what Donald Trump thinks about Vladimir Putin or any other topic, I’d encourage you to invite him on your show. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. They can speak for themselves.Mike Pence, on the other hand, has determined that his best strategy as he continues to explore a presidential bid is to defy Trump.“Ask yourself, where would our friends in Eastern Europe be today if they were not in NATO?” Pence asked the Republican National Committee donors on March 4. “Where would Russian tanks be today if NATO had not expanded the borders of freedom? There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin.”The biggest unknown on the political horizon is the repercussions of the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies on Russia, which are certain to raise energy and food costs, exacerbating the administration’s continuing difficulties with rising prices.“War and sanctions means higher inflation,” The Economist warned on March 5. “Things could get much worse should sanctions expand in scope to cover energy purchases or if Russia retaliates against them by reducing its exports.” On Tuesday, the Biden administration announced that it was banning Russian oil imports.“JPMorgan Chase,” The Economist went on,projects that a sustained shut-off of the Russian oil supply might cause prices to rise to $150 per barrel, a level sufficient to knock 1.6 percent off global G.D.P. while raising consumer prices by another 2 percent. The stagflationary shock would carry echoes of the Yom Kippur war of 1973, which sparked the first of the two energy crises of that decade.A political minefield lies ahead and negotiating this terrain will require more tactical and strategic skill than the Biden administration has demonstrated in its 14 months in office.This is especially relevant in the context of another explosive unknown, the possibility of the largest land war in Europe since 1945 metastasizing into a global conflict.In an essay he posted on Monday, “The Nuclear Threat Is Back,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the recipient of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize and the former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, argues that “beyond the bloodshed and needless destruction, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also increased the risk of radiation leaks and even nuclear war” — events, it is almost needless to say, that would create mind-boggling suffering, throw current electoral calculations into disarray and raise the stakes of every political decision we make.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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      James Inhofe, Oklahoma Senator, Is Said to Plan an Early Retirement

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      The 87-year-old Republican has told people that he will step down at the end of the year, four years before his term is up. His seat is likely to stay in G.O.P. hands.Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, has told officials in his state that he will step down at the end of this Congress, vacating a seat he has held since 1994 with four years remaining in his term.Mr. Inhofe, 87, was poised to announce his plans on Monday, according to two Oklahoma Republicans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment in advance. His retirement is unlikely to affect the balance of power in the 50-50 Senate, given Oklahoma’s solidly Republican leanings.A conservative and the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Inhofe has cruised to re-election, most recently in 2020.While he is expected to leave his seat well before his term expires at the beginning of 2027, Mr. Inhofe is not planning to quit before the end of this year, he has told people. By announcing his intention next week, he will assure that he can be replaced in a special election in November.That is because, under a new state law in Oklahoma, if Mr. Inhofe waited beyond March 1 to announce his resignation, the special election to replace him would not take place until 2024. And if he were to resign immediately, his seat would be temporarily filled by the governor.Instead, Mr. Inhofe’s announcement is expected to fire the starting gun on a wide-open dash to be his successor, a race that will most likely be decided in the Republican nominating contest.Potential G.O.P. candidates to succeed him include Matt Pinnell, the state’s lieutenant governor; T.W. Shannon, the former speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives; and R. Trent Shores, a former U.S. attorney in the state. Other possible contenders include Luke Holland, Mr. Inhofe’s chief of staff, and most members of Oklahoma’s House delegation.Mr. Inhofe’s career tracked his state’s political realignment. He was first elected to the State Legislature in 1966, but lost bids for Congress and governor in the 1970s, when Oklahoma was still dominated by moderate Democrats. It was not until 1986 that Mr. Inhofe won a seat in the House and, fittingly, he claimed his Senate seat in 1994, a landslide election for Republicans nationally and a watershed year in Oklahoma marking the state’s shift to the G.O.P.A stalwart of the ideological right, he has a penchant for grand gestures to make a point. Mr. Inhofe flew a plane upside down in a re-election advertisement in 2020 to show he was still fit for office even in his mid-80s. In 2015, when he was the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, he threw a snowball across the Senate floor in an attempt to undermine the validity of climate science.Mr. Inhofe has been vociferous in his support for a muscular American military presence around the globe. Intent on increasing the nation’s defense budget, he is seen as a hawkish guardian of one of Congress’s key responsibilities: passing the annual defense policy bill. In 2020, he led his party in a rare break from President Donald J. Trump to pass the crucial legislation over the president’s objections.Catie Edmondson More

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      The Senate’s Most Vulnerable Democrats

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      With inflation and President Biden’s sinking poll ratings beleaguering the party, incumbents in four battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire — face tough campaigns.Two senators from states with little in common and at opposite poles of the country found each other this month: Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Mark Kelly of Arizona, who banded together to push a gasoline tax holiday.Their bill — the Gas Prices Relief Act, which would suspend 18.4 cents of federal tax per gallon — soon found two other eager sponsors: Senators Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.A gas tax holiday may face dim prospects, but the fact that four of its chief backers just happen to be the four most vulnerable Democratic senators in the midterms this November underscores how much they want to ring a populist bell, one that might help them save their jobs.While most attention around the midterms until now has focused on the battle for the House and the state-by-state fights over redrawing districts, Democrats’ fragile Senate majority is also in play.Collectively, the four Democratic senators most at risk — Mr. Warnock, Mr. Kelly, Ms. Cortez Masto and Ms. Hassan — are neither national stars nor senior members of leadership. They are vulnerable not because of policies they passed or failed to pass. Rather, they are incumbents in battleground states in a year of hostile political weather for Democrats, with rising inflation, voter anger at the party in charge and President Biden’s sinking job approval.Even though the president won all four of their states in 2020, his margins were so slim that small shifts in partisan enthusiasm or the allegiance of swing voters, especially suburbanites, could bring Republican victories.Mr. Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator, and Mr. Kelly, a former astronaut, are defending seats in longtime Republican strongholds that Mr. Biden carried by less than one percentage point. Ms. Cortez Masto, the first Latina senator, is seeking re-election in a state where disapproval of the president registered at 52 percent in a recent poll.Even in New Hampshire, where Mr. Biden won by seven points, Republicans sense an opportunity to oust Ms. Hassan, a former governor, after a recent New Hampshire poll showed that fewer than one in five residents think the country is heading in the right direction.The 2022 climate could still shift. Galloping inflation could moderate. The confirmation of a Black woman to the Supreme Court, or the court’s gutting of abortion rights, could galvanize Democrats. And with much of the Republican Party captive to Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, the Republican nominees who come through bruising primaries could be too polarizing to win. Democrats also hope to pick up Republican-held seats in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.But history is not in Democrats’ favor. The party that holds the White House almost always suffers midterm losses. Even milestone legislation — Barack Obama’s health care reform, or Ronald Reagan’s signature tax cuts — has made little difference. Midterm voters have generally been more motivated by economic conditions or by a desire to put a check on the party in power.A Look Ahead to the 2022 U.S. Midterm ElectionsIn the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are 10 races to watch.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Campaign Financing: With both parties awash in political money, billionaires and big checks are shaping the midterm elections.Key Issues: Democrats and Republicans are preparing for abortion and voting rights to be defining topics.“Individual candidates and the races they run do matter, but history tells us the political environment is the most meaningful contributor to the midterm outcome,” said Kyle Kondik, an analyst at the nonpartisan Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.Here is a look at Democrats’ most endangered senators.Georgia: The pastor and the ex-football starSenator Raphael WarnockNicole Craine for The New York TimesMr. Warnock calls himself “the most vulnerable Senate Democrat up for re-election.” He won his seat in a 2021 runoff thanks to strong Black turnout and the failure of some Republicans to show up after Mr. Trump fanned the falsehood of rigged elections.But Georgia is still a right-leaning state, and disenchantment with Mr. Biden is more intense there than nationally. The president’s job approval was in the mid-30s in two public polls last month. While Mr. Warnock has emphasized how Democrats’ Senate majority delivered pandemic relief, his opponents have attacked his reliance on wealthy, out-of-state campaign contributors.“Biden has lost those white, highly educated voters who migrated to Warnock and are open to coming back to Republicans,” said Brian Robinson, a G.O.P. strategist in Georgia.A poll by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed Mr. Warnock statistically tied in a general-election matchup with the former football star Herschel Walker, who was beckoned into the race by Mr. Trump. Women have claimed Mr. Walker threatened them with violence, and he has acknowledged a history of mental illness. But his stature with Republicans has suffered little.Mr. Walker has avoided public events and generally all but friendly news media. In one interview, he said the Democrats’ proposed John Lewis Voting Rights Act “doesn’t fit with what John Lewis stood for,” though the Georgia congressman, who died in 2020, had dedicated his life to voting rights. Mr. Walker later complained it was “totally unfair to someone like myself” to be asked about the bipartisan, trillion-dollar infrastructure law, perhaps Congress’s biggest achievement of 2021.At some point, Mr. Walker may have to face off with Mr. Warnock, an orator who holds the pulpit that once belonged to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Jason Carter, the Democratic nominee for Georgia governor in 2014, said, “I have in my office right now a football signed by Herschel Walker, but I don’t want him to be my senator and I’m not alone.”Arizona: Drawing a contrast with progressivesSenator Mark KellyConor E. Ralph for The New York TimesMr. Kelly is defending the seat he won in 2020, where he outperformed Mr. Biden in all 15 counties. The race is taking place in the shadow of a yearlong right-wing crusade in Arizona to undo Mr. Biden’s victory, which has turned off many traditional Republicans.Among the Republican contenders, Attorney General Mark Brnovich acknowledged that Mr. Trump lost in Arizona, but he has tried to regain credibility with the base ever since. The Republican field also includes the venture capitalist Blake Masters, who has appealed to grass-roots anger at China and over the porous Mexican border, and Jim Lamon, a businessman who has run inflammatory TV ads.“You’ve got Republican candidates doing everything they can to out-Trump themselves in a state that defeated Trump,” said Tony Cani, a Democratic strategist.Mr. Kelly has held his attacks against Republicans so far, instead emphasizing his roots as the son of two police officers and his support for popular legislation like the gas tax holiday and a ban on congressional stock trading.Kirk Adams, a Republican strategist, said the G.O.P.’s often fractious wings in Arizona would rally around the eventual nominee.“There is a unifying thread right now, the alarm and concern over the Biden administration, across all factions of the Republican Party,” said Mr. Adams, a former top aide to Gov. Doug Ducey, whom anti-Trump Republicans have tried to coax into the race.Mr. Kelly, the husband of Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman who was critically injured in a mass shooting in 2011, has sought to insulate himself by drawing a contrast with progressives. He criticized Mr. Biden for not labeling the record number of migrants seized at the border “a crisis,” and he disavowed the state Democratic Party’s censure of Senator Kyrsten Sinema for refusing to change filibuster rules.Nevada: A fight over who would fight harderSenator Catherine Cortez MastoElizabeth D. Herman for The New York TimesA war of words over Mr. Trump’s loss in 2020 is likely to animate the Senate race in Nevada, where the leading Republican, Adam Laxalt, has pushed efforts to reverse Mr. Biden’s 33,000-vote win in the state. He has called the falsehood of a stolen election “the hottest topic” of his campaign this year. He has the backing of both Mr. Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader.Ms. Cortez Masto, first elected in 2016, was a protégé of Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader who died last year.“I’ve always been in tough races,” Ms. Cortez Masto said in an interview. “I know that Mitch McConnell will continue to put millions of dollars into this race.”Both Mr. Laxalt and Ms. Cortez Masto are former state attorneys general. Mr. Laxalt is hammering on fears of rising crime, undocumented immigrants and inflation. The state’s tourist-dependent economy has the nation’s second-worst unemployment rate at 6.4 percent.Mr. Laxalt has accused Ms. Cortez Masto of failing to stick up for the police and denounce violent crime. “Vegas can’t survive if violence continues to increase,” he said at a rally this month. “We’re a tourism economy. People are scared to come here.”Ms. Cortez Masto, who says she helped deliver Justice Department grants to local police departments, is trying to localize her race, promoting her procurement of funding to combat wildfires and drought in the infrastructure law, which Mr. Laxalt opposed.“Let me tell you, there’s a stark difference between me and Adam Laxalt,” Ms. Cortez Masto said. “Every day I’m talking to Nevadans, hearing what they need and fighting for them.”New Hampshire: A survivor of earlier red wavesSenator Maggie HassanMichael A. McCoy for The New York TimesMs. Hassan, who won her Senate seat by a mere 1,000 votes in 2016, seemed to catch a big break when the most popular official in the state, Gov. Chris Sununu, told fellow Republicans he wouldn’t run for Senate.But voters’ disapproval of Ms. Hassan, which has reached 51 percent, drew a second tier of Republicans off the sidelines, including Chuck Morse, the State Senate president, and Kevin Smith, the town manager of Londonderry. They joined Don Bolduc, a retired Army general.Ms. Hassan, who was twice elected governor, has $5.3 million in her campaign account, far ahead of rivals.Her campaign boasts that she was one of the original bipartisan negotiators of the infrastructure deal and secured funding for two state priorities, coastal resiliency and high-speed internet (many New Hampshirites work from home). Yet, Republicans point to New Hampshire’s receiving the fewest highway dollars of any state.“I would say there’s zero chance, barring a disaster in our primary — which is always possible — that she could get re-elected,” said David Carney, a Republican strategist who is advising Mr. Morse.The soaring cost of fuel, in a state with no mass transit and where most homes are heated with fuel oil, is one factor driving voters’ pessimism about the country’s direction. On the other hand, a Supreme Court ruling undermining Roe v. Wade this year could infuriate New Hampshire voters, among the most supportive in the country of abortion rights.Ms. Hassan has won three statewide races, including re-election as governor in 2014, a brutal midterm for Democrats. “President Obama was not popular in New Hampshire in 2014,” said Ray Buckley, the chairman of the state’s Democrats. “She was able to win.” More

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      Mitch McConnell vs. Republicans

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      Making sense of the G.O.P. leader’s squabble with his own party.Mitch McConnell has a long history of playing hardball — even changing the rules of American politics — to benefit the Republican Party.He has opposed limits on campaign finance, knowing that corporations and the wealthy donate to Republicans. As the Republican Senate leader, he has helped turn the filibuster into a normal tactic. He has boasted about his desire to damage the presidencies of both Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And McConnell in 2016 refused to consider any Supreme Court nominee by Obama, effectively flipping the seat back to a Republican nominee.In each of the cases, McConnell has been willing to break with precedent in ways that many historians and legal scholars consider dangerous. He often seems to put a higher priority on partisan advantage than on American political traditions or even the national interest, these scholars say.So how is the country supposed to make sense of McConnell’s actions this week?On Tuesday, he criticized the Republican National Committee for its response to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The committee — the party’s official organization — had described the events of Jan. 6 as “legitimate political discourse” and censured Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, two House members who are helping investigate the riot.McConnell repudiated his own party. “We saw what happened,” he told reporters. “It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration to the next. That’s what it was.”G.O.P., favoredThe remarks were striking because McConnell’s position on Jan 6. — and on Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud that inspired the attack — has been inconsistent. At first, McConnell harshly criticized Trump for inciting it, only to back off. He voted to acquit Trump of impeachment charges, effectively keeping Trump as the party’s dominant figure.“To this day McConnell has been unwilling to impose any political consequences on Trump,” Amanda Carpenter of The Bulwark, a conservative publication, has written. McConnell also waited more than a month to acknowledge that Biden had won the 2020 election.Still, I think there is a consistent explanation for McConnell’s behavior, whatever you think of it.McConnell’s biggest goals are plain to see. He wants to hold power and ensure that the federal government’s policies are largely conservative, pro-business and anti-regulation.Downplaying his rifts with Trump serves these goals. It helps the Republican Party remain united and increases its chances of winning elections. McConnell is surely savvy enough to understand that Trump appeals to some voters whom past Republicans did not win.At the same time, Trump alienates other voters whom Republicans have historically won, like the suburbanites who helped Democrats flip Arizona and Georgia in 2020. Fully aligning with the violence and lies of the Jan. 6 movement, as the R.N.C. did last week, brings potential political costs.McConnell understands that, as well. He remembers the 2010 midterms, when far-right “unelectable candidates” — a phrase he used last month, when recalling that year — lost winnable races.“This isn’t what he wants at all,” Carl Hulse — The Times’s chief Washington correspondent, who has been covering McConnell for years — told me, referring to the R.N.C. statement.The current political atmosphere looks quite favorable to Republicans, as Carl noted. Polls suggest they are heavily favored to retake the House and may retake the Senate, too. The Democratic Party is divided over President Biden’s agenda, and many Democrats seem out of step with public opinion on Covid-19 policies and several social issues. “It’s highly likely to be a situation where the wind is at our backs,” McConnell recently told CNN about this year’s campaign.Republicans also have some large long-term advantages, like control of the Supreme Court and the Senate’s built-in bias toward small states.Put all this together, and you start to understand why even somebody whose only goal was maximizing Republican power might choose to speak out against a violent insurrection that tried to overturn an election on Republicans’ behalf. In today’s political environment, such extremism might be both unnecessary and counterproductive.‘Partially courageous’Of course, there is another potential motivation for McConnell. He may genuinely believe in a hardball approach to partisan power while also opposing the fraudulent overturning of an election result. McConnell, who has spent decades working on Capitol Hill, was “personally appalled by what happened on Jan. 6,” Carl said.To people who are alarmed about the threats to American democracy, this principled explanation would be modestly encouraging.“He’s been only partially courageous,” said Richard Hasen, an election-law expert and the author of a new book on political disinformation. Even as he has overturned long-lasting political traditions, he has “drawn the line on election subversion,” Hasen told me.I also asked Daniel Ziblatt, a Harvard professor and a co-author of “How Democracies Die,” for his thoughts, and his email response is worth excerpting:When democracies face political violence, it’s almost as important how mainstream parties respond to it — Do they condemn it unambiguously and consistently? McConnell’s words were unambiguous (the good news) but he hasn’t been consistent (the bad news).The story isn’t over. Indeed, I fear he, and certainly his party are engaging in what I would call the “semi-loyalists’ swerve” — condemning anti-democratic behavior one day, backtracking the next, being ambiguous the next.The broader point is this: A democracy can’t survive in the way we have come to expect when one of two major political parties behaves as a party of authoritarians or democratic semi-loyalists. And that’s where the American Republican Party is today.An important thing to watch, Ziblatt said, is how McConnell and other Republicans react in coming weeks to the findings of the Jan. 6 investigation.THE LATEST NEWSThe VirusAn elementary school in Newton, Mass., this month.Tony Luong for The New York TimesIllinois, Massachusetts and Rhode Island joined other Democratic-leaning states lifting mask mandates.The changes leave school districts in charge of their own mask rules.Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlined plans to lift England’s remaining restrictions within weeks.PoliticsChuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that they were open to banning members of Congress from trading stocks.The National Archives found possible classified information in documents Trump took from the White House.J. 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He died at 98.ARTS AND IDEAS From left, Rick Glassman, Albert Rutecki and Sue Ann Pien star in “As We See It.”From left: Maggie Shannon for The New York Times; Ryan Collerd for The New York Times; Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesChildren grow up“A lot of what we read about and see about autism is about children with autism,” said Jason Katims, a producer on “Friday Night Lights,” “Parenthood” and other television shows.Katims himself created a young character on “Parenthood” with Asperger’s syndrome, inspired partly by his own son. But children with autism grow up, even if you wouldn’t necessarily know it from popular culture. When television and movies do include adults on the spectrum, they are often savants, like Dustin Hoffman’s character in “Rain Man.”Katims’s latest show, “As We See It,” sets out to portray a more realistic version of adult autism. It’s a dramedy on Amazon Prime that follows three young adults who are navigating life, love, family and less typical challenges in Los Angeles. The three lead actors are all on the spectrum.The goal, Katims said, is to create a show that is both deeply respectful and full of laughs. “He has this ability to sort of be very sincere and very sweet and then all of the sudden, just crack you up,” Sosie Bacon, who plays a behavioral aide on the show, told The Associated Press.More recommendations: 50 shows to watch on Netflix now.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookRyan Liebe for The New York TimesRosemary-paprika chicken with fries is a delightful sheet-pan dinner.What to Listen ToThe dishy podcast “Celebrity Book Club” delves into the bizarre genre of memoirs by the rich and famous.What to ReadLaura Kipnis’s book “Love in the Time of Contagion” is about how relationships, including her own, have changed during the pandemic.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was vanguard. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Like some slippers and memories (five letters).If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidP.S. Somini Sengupta will become the anchor of the Climate Fwd newsletter.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about mask mandates. On the Modern Love podcast, what teenage anthems teach us about love.Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More