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      Conor Lamb Had All The Makings of a Front-Runner in Pennsylvania. So Why Is He Struggling?

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      Representative Conor Lamb was supposed to be a Democratic rising star — a Marine veteran, former prosecutor and Pennsylvania moderate who had won in Trump territory and swing suburbs alike. Scores of Democratic officials endorsed him in his run for Senate, eager to pick up a Republican-held open seat and have him roll into Washington next year to bridge the partisan chasm.It hasn’t quite worked out that way.Mr. Lamb now heads into the state’s Democratic primary on Tuesday on a much less competitive footing than he or his supporters had hoped. He trails by double digits in polling behind John Fetterman, the shorts-wearing lieutenant governor whose outsider image has resonated with the Democratic base.Two distinct forces appear to have worked against Mr. Lamb: his campaign’s strategic missteps and his misfortune to be running at a time when Democrats, much like Republicans, are rejecting their party’s centrists.The seeming meltdown for Mr. Lamb — whose initial victories in Western Pennsylvania had been a model for President Biden’s 2020 race — reflects a frustration among Democrats nationally with politicians who promise bipartisan accord, including Mr. Biden, and who have yielded meager results in Washington. It comes as the left sees a rising Republican extremism on voting rights and abortion. Some Democrats appear more eager to elect fighters than candidates who might be tempted, like party moderates, to block their priorities.“I look at him as another Joe Manchin,” said Elen Snyder, a Democrat and member of Newtown Township’s board of supervisors in Bucks County, referring to Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the Democrat who has stymied the White House on many issues. Her local Democratic committee interviewed Mr. Lamb but declined to endorse him.Mr. Lamb’s initial victories in Western Pennsylvania had been a model for President Biden’s 2020 race.Amr Alfiky for The New York TimesDemocratic strategists in Pennsylvania said the Lamb campaign’s missteps included running the race as if Mr. Lamb were the front-runner, failing to aggressively attack Mr. Fetterman and focusing almost exclusively on the message that Mr. Lamb was the most electable Democrat, when base voters appeared to want someone more partisan. And they said the campaign placed too much emphasis on winning endorsements from the Democratic establishment, when voters seemed to show that they did not really care.“He had rock star potential — their campaign flittered that away,” said Mike Mikus, a longtime Democratic operative in Pennsylvania and a Lamb supporter. “They ran a campaign that said, ‘Let’s stay above the fray. Everyone’s going to love it.’ But they were behind from the day he got in the race and ran the wrong campaign to close the gap.”Several strategists said the Lamb campaign, with its aversion to going negative and emphasis on endorsements from Democrats statewide, seemed modeled on elections from decades past. One operative invoked Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee who projected reserve and lacked a killer instinct.Abby Nassif-Murphy, Mr. Lamb’s campaign manager, disputed such characterizations. She said Mr. Lamb entered the race as an underdog and grew support that was more substantial than “dubious polls” have suggested.Understand the Pennsylvania Primary ElectionThe crucial swing state will hold its primary on May 17, with key races for a U.S. Senate seat and the governorship.Hard-Liners Gain: Republican voters appear to be rallying behind far-right candidates in two pivotal races, worrying both parties about what that could mean in November.G.O.P. Senate Race: Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator, is making a surprise late surge against big-spending rivals, Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick.Democratic Senate Race: Representative Conor Lamb had all the makings of a front-runner. It hasn’t worked out that way.Abortion Battleground: Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states where abortion access hangs in the balance with midterm elections this year.Electability Concerns: Starting with Pennsylvania, the coming weeks will offer a window into the mood of Democratic voters who are deeply worried about a challenging midterm campaign environment.“In nine months, he’s built a broad, diverse coalition of union workers, African Americans, women, men, progressives, moderates, religious leaders, teachers, firefighters, nurses, construction workers — people from all parts of Pennsylvania and all parts of the Democratic Party,” Ms. Nassif-Murphy said in a statement.Long a battleground represented by center-right or center-left statewide officials, Pennsylvania could host a matchup in the fall between far less consensus-minded candidates, especially since the leading Republicans have all professed loyalty to Donald Trump. Kathy Barnette, who has surged in the final days, has actively promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.Mr. Lamb, 37, a native of the Pittsburgh area, boasts of scores of endorsements, including from the mayors of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, officials in the all-important Philadelphia suburbs and members of the state legislature. He has the backing of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, and of labor unions. Multiple Philadelphia officials endorsed him, even though a third candidate in the race, Malcolm Kenyatta, is from the city.Conor Lamb at an event earlier this month in Philadelphia hosted by the National Organization for Women, which endorsed him.Matt Rourke/Associated PressMr. Fetterman has made his lack of endorsements into a kind of badge of honor: He has long disdained glad-handing other elected officials and is an unpopular figure even in the statehouse, where he officially presides over the State Senate.Still, his progressive politics — he was an early backer of Bernie Sanders — and iconoclastic style have made him well-liked by the party base and created an online fund-raising juggernaut. Mr. Fetterman’s approval with Democrats in the state was 67 percent in a recent Franklin & Marshall College Poll, compared with 46 percent for Mr. Lamb.“Fetterman astutely ran a campaign focused on Democratic voters more than Democratic elites,” said J.J. Balaban, a Democratic strategist in the state.Mr. Fetterman has stayed ahead in the fund-raising race by soliciting small online donations.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMelinda Wedde, a 37-year-old yoga teacher who is a volunteer door-knocker for the Lamb campaign in the Pittsburgh suburbs, said it was too early to count him out. “He’s out there talking to voters every single day,” Ms. Wedde said. “I think a lot of people are still waiting to make decisions.”One advantage for Mr. Lamb in winning the endorsements from Democratic officials is that when he visited a town or city far from home, local officials often pulled in a crowd to hear him.“People can say ‘establishment officials’ all they want, but these people are the trusted people in their communities, who people elected, and they have to have some sort of favorability amongst the masses,’’ said State Representative Ryan Bizzarro, a Lamb supporter who escorted him on a trip to Erie County on Tuesday.Still, Mr. Lamb’s electability argument, the core of his pitch to party leaders, seems to have left many rank-and-file voters unmoved. And his central-casting image may be working against him.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Club for Growth Starts Ad Blitz for Kathy Barnette in Pennsylvania Senate Primary

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      After months of a bruising television ad war between Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick and their allies, the relatively shoestring campaign of Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator showing surprising strength in the polls, will receive a late boost in the Republican primary for Senate in Pennsylvania.The Club for Growth, the pro-business and anti-tax group, began booking television ads on Tuesday on behalf of Ms. Barnette worth $2 million, according to AdImpact, the ad-tracking firm. That sum is more than 10 times what Ms. Barnette’s campaign had spent in total on television to date, and the total pro-Barnette reservations could continue to grow.Super PACs backing Mr. McCormick, Dr. Oz and their campaigns have already spent or reserved $40 million in the primary.Despite that disparity, Ms. Barnette, author of the book “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America,” is running neck and neck with Dr. Oz and Mr. McCormick after strong debate performances turned heads.A Fox News Poll on Tuesday showed her at 19 percent, behind Mr. McCormick at 20 percent and Dr. Oz at 22 percent — within the margin of error.The new ad has Ms. Barnette narrating her impoverished upbringing on “a pig farm in Alabama” and saying how “this country allowed a little Black girl to claw her way from underneath a rock,” while warning of a disappearing American dream.The ad buy took the Barnette team by surprise.“Don’t know anything about it,” Bob Gillies, Ms. Barnette’s campaign manager, said of it on Tuesday.Ms. Barnette has the backing of State Senator Doug Mastriano, who has been the front-runner in the Republican primary for governor, and she has run an unabashedly hard-right campaign, attacking her better-funded rivals as “globalists” on the debate stage and questioning their commitment to gun rights and the anti-abortion movement.“I am the byproduct of a rape,” she said in one debate, challenging Dr. Oz about his past positions on abortion. “My mother was 11 years old when I was conceived. My father was 21. I was not just a lump of cells.”The Club for Growth has not formally endorsed Ms. Barnette, which makes the group’s late intervention all the more politically intriguing. The group did not respond to requests for comment.The group noisily sparred with former President Donald J. Trump in the Ohio Senate primary. The Club for Growth, which backed Josh Mandel, continued to attack J.D. Vance, the eventual winner, even after Mr. Vance won Mr. Trump’s endorsement.Its continued assault on Mr. Vance angered both Mr. Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr., who attacked the Club for Growth on the campaign trail. And Mr. Vance made clear he was still bitter about all the attacks, calling out the Club by name in his victory speech even as he praised his rivals for their efforts.The Club for Growth and Mr. Trump are allied in another Senate race next Tuesday, in North Carolina, where both are backing Representative Ted Budd against former Gov. Pat McCrory. More

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      How Democrats Want to Put Republicans on the Defensive on Abortion

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      While conservatives control the courts and key states, the public tends to lean in favor of abortion rights. Democratic leaders are trying to translate that sentiment into victories for the party.In politics, sometimes you need to lose in order to win.Wednesday’s planned vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act, Senate Democrats’ bill to codify Roe v. Wade, will fail. Democrats are unlikely to persuade any Republicans to cross party lines, and Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, also opposes abortion, in keeping with the politics of a state Donald Trump won by 39 percentage points in 2020.So why is Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, holding a doomed vote?It’s what’s known in Washington as a “message vote” or a “show vote.” My colleague Annie Karni puts it plainly in her piece today: The move is meant to force Republicans to take a vote that could hurt them in November. Now that the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe, Democrats believe there’s a political opportunity.Which, of course, there is. Democrats are hoping to anchor Republicans to an impending court decision that is well outside the American mainstream.They plan to spend the rest of the campaign season telling voters that if they want to protect the right to abortion — let alone contraception and same-sex marriage — they should expand Democrats’ Senate majority. It’s an argument they believe will appeal to suburban college-educated women, a key swing demographic, among others.Until the leak of the draft opinion on Roe, Democratic strategists I’d spoken with in private had been skeptical that abortion would move many voters in November. That’s changing rapidly.In the Virginia governor’s race last year, for instance, Glenn Youngkin, the eventual Republican winner, appeared to pay no price for his views on reproductive rights even though Terry McAuliffe’s campaign spent several million dollars on abortion-themed television ads. Back then, many voters just didn’t believe that Republicans would really ban abortion.At one point, McAuliffe even said he would encourage companies to move their operations to Virginia to escape restrictive abortion laws in states like Texas, a move that caused Youngkin’s campaign to consider running ads condemning those comments.“Youngkin’s abortion quotes would lose him that election if it were held today, I think,” said Brian Stryker, a Democratic pollster who worked on the Virginia governor’s race. “The court changed all that by making this issue way more real to people.”Of course, how Democrats try to seize the advantage will matter. They can’t just call this vote on Wednesday, pump out some press releases and expect to carry the day. Execution matters.Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Chicago last weekend in support of abortion rights.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThe polling picturePolling shows that abortion rights are popular. But the answers depend heavily on how the questions are worded. The public often shows conflicting impulses: Americans approve of Roe by large margins, but also approve of restrictions that seem to conflict with it.From Opinion: A Challenge to Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Maureen Dowd: Samuel Alito’s draft opinion, which calls for overturning Roe v. Wade, is the culmination of the last 40 years of conservative thinking, showing that the Puritans are winning.Tish Harrison Warren: For many pro-life and whole-life leaders, a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe would represent a starting point, not a finish line.Matthew Walther, Editor of a Catholic Literary Journal: Those who oppose abortion,  should not discount the possibility that its proscription will have some regrettable consequences. Even so, it will be worth it.Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan: If Roe falls, abortion will become a felony in Michigan. I have a moral obligation to stand up for the rights of the women of the state I represent.A Pew Research Center poll taken before the Roe leak is instructive. It found that 19 percent of adults said abortion should always be legal. Just 8 percent said it should always be illegal, with no exceptions. Most Americans are somewhere in between those two poles, though a healthy national majority of about 60 percent say it should be legal in most cases.Republicans would like to force Democrats into that 19 percent corner. Democrats would like to push Republicans into that 8 percent cul-de-sac. And so would each side’s activist community, even though voters tend to see the issue in shades of gray.“Voters are not looking for a change in the status quo on either side,” said Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster who advises House and Senate candidates. But, she added, the nuances in the polls reflect the fact that voters struggle to decide when, and under what circumstances, it is appropriate to end a pregnancy.What is making the abortion issue especially potent now that Roe is likely to be overturned, Murphy said, is that “Republicans now need to defend where their line is.”Regional distinctions are also important. When you break down public opinion on abortion by state, as Nate Cohn recently did, you find large differences between culturally liberal states like Nevada and New Hampshire, where more than 60 percent of the public says abortion should be mostly legal, and culturally middle-of-the-road Georgia, where that number shrinks to 49 percent.Where Democrats are on firmer groundAnother way to gauge the politics of an issue is to ask: Who wants to talk about it, and who doesn’t?Abortion rights seem like a clear political winner for Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, a Democrat who is defending her seat against several little-known Republican challengers. Hassan did seven interviews the day after Politico published the Roe leak.The favorite candidate of the state’s G.O.P. establishment is Chuck Morse, a state senator who describes himself as “pro-life.” Morse pushed a ban on late-term abortions last year that did not include exceptions for rape or incest. It also required all women to take an ultrasound exam before terminating a pregnancy.Morse issued a statement last week highlighting his role in passing legislation that “settled the law in New Hampshire that permits abortions in the first six months.” Through a spokesman, his campaign has said it prefers to talk about the economy, inflation and immigration.Awkwardness for RepublicansIn other key Senate contests, Republican candidates are scrambling to defend or explain their past comments.In a statement last week, Adam Laxalt, the likely Republican challenger to Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Democrat of Nevada, praised the draft ruling but noted that abortion is already legal in Nevada, “so no matter the court’s ultimate decision on Roe, it is currently settled law in our state.”“He can’t play it both ways. He’s already come out and said he would overturn it,” Cortez Masto said in a brief interview. “He’s already said it was a ‘historic victory.’”In Ohio, J.D. Vance, the G.O.P. nominee, has said that women should bring pregnancies to term “even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society,” referring to rape and incest. Vance does, however, support exceptions to spare the life of the pregnant woman.Blake Masters, a Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, has said that Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 Supreme Court case that barred state bans on contraception and established the federal right to privacy, was “wrongly decided.”Masters clarified in a statement that he did not support “any ban on contraception, and that extends to I.U.D.s,” or intrauterine devices, which some abortion opponents view as abortifacients.For both sides, precision mattersRepublicans would much rather talk about late-term abortions, even though nearly nine in 10 abortions take place within the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy.An interview this month on Fox News with Representative Tim Ryan, Vance’s Democratic opponent in Ohio, offered a telling example of how this could play out.Pressed twice by the Fox host on whether he supported any limits to abortion, Ryan gave an answer that was faithful to standard Democratic talking points.The State of Roe v. WadeCard 1 of 4What is Roe v. Wade? More

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      Inflation concerns are at the center of an Ohio Senate contest.

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      Inflation and high gas, food and energy prices were among the top issues animating voters in this week’s primary contests in Ohio, where an intense general election battle for a Senate seat is now unfolding between Representative Tim Ryan and J.D. Vance, the author and investor. The race is expected to largely center on winning over establishment Republicans and working-class voters.Mr. Ryan, a Democrat, and Mr. Vance, a Republican, have both pledged to bring back jobs, rebuild Ohio’s manufacturing industry and withstand competition from China. But Mr. Vance’s stump speeches and ads have also included heavy appeals to social conservatives, with hard-right attacks on immigrants and transgender people, as well as digs at President Biden, whose low approval ratings are expected to hurt Democrats.“I’m sick of the president, Joe Biden, who will buy oil and gas from every single person in the world except for a middle-class southeastern Ohioan who’s trying to earn a living to support his family,” Mr. Vance said, to cheers, at an April rally with former President Donald J. Trump outside Columbus.Polls show that Americans, and Republicans in particular, are more concerned about inflation than at any other time since the 1980s. In Ohio, that worry was echoed at candidate events and forums, where voters often pointed to gas prices that had risen above $4 a gallon, despite other economic markers that have improved. The unemployment rate in the state was a low 4.1 percent in March, and Help Wanted signs have become commonplace outside storefronts, restaurants and gas stations across the state.At an election night event for former State Treasurer Josh Mandel, who came in a close second to Mr. Vance in the Republican primary, Matthew Kearney, 32, a partner at a law firm, said he supported Mr. Mandel because of his stances opposing abortion and “critical race theory,” the catchall conservative term for public school curriculums that focus on the functions of race and racism in American society.He also pointed to his pocketbook.“Inflation at the grocery store, gas prices,” Mr. Kearney said. “I think people are motivated to vote based on how that is impacting them.” More

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      Vance Wins Republican Senate Primary in Ohio After Nod From Trump

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      J.D. Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” won a G.O.P. race that saw nearly $80 million in television advertising. The author and venture capitalist parlayed an endorsement from Donald J. Trump into victory, beating out a crowded field of conservative challengers.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesCINCINNATI — J.D. Vance, the author whose memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” about life in Appalachia became a best seller, decisively won the Ohio Senate primary on Tuesday after a late endorsement by Donald J. Trump helped him surge past his rivals in a crowded primary field.Casting himself as a fighter against the nation’s elites, Mr. Vance ran as a Trump-style pugilist and outsider who railed against the threats of drugs, Democrats and illegal immigration, while thoroughly backpedaling from his past criticisms of the former president.The contest, which saw nearly $80 million in television advertising, was one of the most anticipated of the 2022 primary season for its potential to provide an early signal of the direction of the Republican Party.The result delivered a strong affirmation of Mr. Trump’s continued grip on his party’s base. But a fuller assessment of Mr. Trump’s sway will come through a series of primaries in the next four weeks — in West Virginia, North Carolina, Idaho, Pennsylvania and Georgia.Mr. Vance had been trailing in most polls behind Josh Mandel, a former Ohio state treasurer who had also aggressively pursued Mr. Trump’s backing, until the former president’s mid-April endorsement helped vault Mr. Vance ahead. A third candidate, State Senator Matt Dolan, ran as a more traditional Republican, sometimes mocking his rivals for their unrelenting focus on the former president instead of Ohio issues and voters.Cheers went up at Mr. Vance’s Cincinnati election party when The Associated Press called the race shortly after 9:30 p.m.“The people who are caught between the corrupt political class of the left and the right, they need a voice,” Mr. Vance said in his victory speech. “They need a representative. And that’s going to be me.”Mr. Vance is an unlikely champion of the Trumpian mantle, after calling the former president “reprehensible” in 2016 and even “cultural heroin.” But he had changed his tune entirely by 2022, and Mr. Trump called to congratulate him on his victory on Tuesday evening, according to a person briefed on the call.With more than 80 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Vance was leading across almost the entire state. But the results also captured some of the tensions and demographic trade-offs of a Republican Party pulled in different directions as Mr. Dolan was strongest in the voter-rich cities of Cleveland and Columbus.Trump-style Republicans did not prevail in the other top contest on Tuesday. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a more traditional Republican who has held offices in the state for more than 40 years, finished far ahead of his multiple primary rivals after a strong right-wing challenge never gained traction despite some conservative backlash to Mr. DeWine’s early and assertive response to the coronavirus pandemic.Gov. Mike DeWine and his wife, Fran DeWine, greet their daughter Anna Bolton and grandson Calvin after voting in Cedarville, Ohio, on Tuesday.Paul Vernon/Associated PressMr. DeWine had almost double the votes of his closest rival, Jim Renacci, a former House member. In the fall, he will be running against Nan Whaley, the former mayor of Dayton, who won the Democratic nomination on Tuesday, becoming the first woman in Ohio history to be nominated by a major party for governor.In the Senate race, Mr. Vance will now face Representative Tim Ryan, a 48-year-old Democrat from the Youngstown area who has positioned himself as a champion of blue-collar values and has not aligned with some of his party’s more progressive positions.If Mr. Vance prevails in the fall, the 37-year-old graduate of Yale Law School and investor would become the second-youngest member of the Senate, the chamber’s youngest Republican and a rare freshman who would arrive in Washington with a national profile.Mr. Vance’s metamorphosis from an outspoken “Never Trump” Republican in 2016 to a full-throated Make America Great Again warrior in 2022 echoes the ideological journey of much of the party in recent years. Republicans have moved closer and closer to the former president’s hard-line policy positions on issues like trade and immigration, and to his combative posture with Democrats and on cultural issues that divide the two parties. For some Republican voters, the primary was animated by fears that traditional family values and a white American culture were under attack by far-left Democrats, establishment Republicans and elites.Mr. Vance also won the endorsements of some of the Make America Great Again movement’s loudest firebrands, including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, both of whom campaigned with him in the race’s final weekend, and Donald Trump Jr., who also traveled to the state. He also had a crucial financial benefactor: His former boss, Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley investor who pledged $10 million to Mr. Vance even before he joined the contest and who added millions more in the final stretch to trumpet Mr. Trump’s endorsement.The Senate primary was unusual in the extent that it unfolded in two places at once. In Ohio, there was the typical fevered competition for votes, in town halls, debates and television ads. In Florida, there was the battle for Mr. Trump’s approval at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s private club, with public shows of fealty, lobbying by surrogates and shuttle diplomacy. In one episode last year, multiple Ohio candidates vied for Mr. Trump’s support in front of one another at an impromptu meeting at Mar-a-Lago.In a verbal flub that seemed almost fitting to how the candidates ran, Mr. Trump accidentally conjoined the names of two rivals over the weekend. “We’ve endorsed J.P., right?” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Nebraska. “J.D. Mandel.”Mr. Trump’s endorsement set off a frenzy among Ohio Republicans who questioned Mr. Vance’s Republican credentials, with rivals circulating fliers online and at a Trump rally accusing him of being a Democrat in disguise and resurrecting his past comments against Mr. Trump.The Senate candidate Josh Mandel, center, with supporters, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, left, in Columbus, Ohio, last week.Joshua A. Bickel/The Columbus Dispatch, via Associated PressMr. Mandel had been the front-runner for much of the race, casting himself as the true pro-Trump candidate (“Pro-God. Pro-Guns. Pro-Trump” was the tagline in his TV ads). But that became an all-but-impossible argument to prosecute in the final weeks after Mr. Trump picked Mr. Vance.“If the whole issue in the campaign is who is most Trump-like, expect it to work against you when you don’t get the endorsement,” said Rex Elsass, an Ohio-based Republican strategist.At a restaurant in the Cleveland suburb of Beachwood on Tuesday, more than a dozen Mandel supporters and campaign volunteers struck an optimistic tone at the start of the night, expressing confidence. But it was not too long before Mr. Mandel took the podium to deliver the news. Mr. Mandel told the crowd that he called Mr. Vance “to congratulate him on a hard-fought victory” and would do what he could to help get him elected. “The stakes are too high for this country to not support the nominee,” Mr. Mandel said to a round of applause in the room.Beyond Mr. Vance, Mr. Dolan and Mr. Mandel, the crowded race included a single female candidate, Jane Timken, a former Ohio Republican Party chair, who was backed by the retiring incumbent, Senator Rob Portman, as well as Mike Gibbons, a businessman who poured millions of his own money into the race and at one point had vaulted to the top of the polls.Mr. Dolan had toiled for most of the contest far behind the polling leaders, avoiding direct attacks from his rivals. But he tapped into his own fortune to fund more than $11 million in television ads as he cut a path separate from the rest of the Trump-focused field by refusing to amplify the falsehood that the 2020 election was rigged. At one debate, Mr. Dolan was the lone candidate to raise his hand to say the former president should stop talking about the 2020 election.State Senator Matt Dolan greets supporters at a library opening in Bay Village, Ohio, last week.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesThe contest was nasty and lengthy, with nothing capturing the intensity more than a near-physical confrontation between Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Mandel at one March debate, where they bumped bellies as they lobbed verbal threats at one another.Mr. Vance scolded them both. “Sit down. Come on,” he said. “This is ridiculous.”Much of the race was shaped by huge sums spent on television — nearly $80 million, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, with a lot of it coming from outside groups and out-of-state donors. The conservative Club for Growth spent more than $12 million on television ads aimed to boost Mr. Mandel or tear down his rivals. Mr. Thiel, the Silicon Valley investor, seeded a pro-Vance super PAC with $10 million in early 2021 — months before Mr. Vance even entered the race. Mr. Vance is one of two former Thiel employees — the other is Blake Masters in Arizona — running for Senate with Mr. Thiel’s hefty financial backing. Mr. Thiel had served as a key link between Mr. Vance and Mr. Trump, attending an introductory meeting between them in early 2021. The politics of Ohio have changed drastically in the Trump era. Once the quintessential presidential swing state, Ohio broke for Mr. Trump by 8 percentage points in both 2016 and 2020, ending a half-century streak of the state backing the national winner. Republicans have sharply run up their margins among working-class white voters and in more rural areas, offsetting the losses that the party has suffered in the state’s suburbs around cities like Columbus and Cleveland.Representative Tim Ryan, right, with Michael S. Regan of the Environmental Protection Agency in Youngstown, Ohio, where lead pipes will be replaced as part of new federal infrastructure spending.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesIn the Democratic primary, Mr. Ryan, who briefly ran for president in 2020, easily turned back a primary challenge from Morgan Harper, 38, a former adviser at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who ran as a progressive, banking $5 million for the general election.Mr. Ryan has already run an anti-China ad that focuses on Ohio jobs and his opening ad of the general election has him tossing darts inside a bar and seeking to separate himself from the broader Democratic brand, lamenting those who have called for defunding the police.But Mr. Ryan faces an uphill race in a state that has trended Republican and in a year when his party is saddled with President Biden’s low approval ratings. Some Republicans see Mr. Ryan as formidable — Mr. Trump among them — but the general election is not seen by either party as among the half-dozen closest contests that will determine control of the Senate, now divided evenly 50-50.Shane Goldmacher reported from Cincinnati. Jazmine Ulloa reported from Beachwood, Ohio. More

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      What Do the Midterms Mean for Biden?

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      For President Biden, the outcome of the midterm elections will be critical, both for the fate of his policy agenda and for his ability to function without partisan distractions for the next two years.The president has already struggled to pass legislation he promised as a candidate because Democrats hold a bare majority in the House and the ability to break a 50-50 tie in the Senate. But that difficulty will become a near-impossibility if Republicans take control of the House or the Senate — or both. Republicans would not only have enough votes to defeat most of Mr. Biden’s proposed legislation, but they would be able to keep Democratic measures from even being considered.Furthermore, Republican control of Congress would put Mr. Biden’s political enemies in charge of investigative and oversight committees. Republicans have already vowed to use those positions to conduct high-profile inquiries into Hunter Biden, the president’s son; the administration’s handling of migrants at the border; and the chaotic exit of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.The result would most likely be a White House in a defensive crouch, constantly forced to respond to demands for information from congressional committees. Some White House staff would hire lawyers to defend themselves against subpoenas requested by Republican-led investigations. And White House briefings would be filled with questions about the newly empowered Republican majority.Previous presidents have faced the same situation. President George W. Bush called the 2006 midterms a “thumping” after Democrats won control of both chambers. In 2010, Republicans won back the House in what President Barack Obama called a “shellacking” by his adversaries. In both cases, the shift in the majorities hampered the presidents’ agendas and ratcheted up the partisan attacks from Capitol Hill.— More

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      The Don Jr. Road Show in Ohio Was No Joke

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      WEST CHESTER, OHIO — It’s a chilly, drizzly evening, but Donald Trump Jr. is putting on a red-hot show at Lori’s Roadhouse, a bar and music joint in a strip mall on the outskirts of Cincinnati. Pretending to be a befuddled, senile President Biden, Don Jr. staggers around the low stage, eyes unfocused, making confused gestures and blundering into the giant red-white-and-blue backdrop.The crowd, a couple of hundred MAGA fans and local Republican players, laps up the wickedness. This is Don Jr.’s last public appearance of the day on behalf of J.D. Vance, whose Senate candidacy was recently endorsed by Trump Sr. As at earlier stops, the audience whoops and laughs and hollers “Amen!” as Trump the Younger slashes at a series of targets: Democrats, the media, RINOs (Senator Mitt Romney is taking a serious beating), Big Tech, America’s “stupid” military leaders and so on.Don Jr. clearly inherited the family flair for showmanship. (Democrats would do well to keep an eye on his political development. In particular, the ladies here are gaga over him.) He deploys funny voices and goofy faces, his comic timing is spot on, and he has a vicious streak untempered by decency or accuracy. “The other side has literally taken the stance that it’s OK to be a groomer,” he charges, promoting the MAGAworld calumny that Democrats are pro-pedophile. Even on this dark topic he draws laughs by marveling that, in his younger days, “being antipedophile was something that we could all agree on!”Off to the side, chuckling awkwardly, hands jammed into his jeans pockets, stands Mr. Vance. Tall and burly, with carefully manicured facial hair, the candidate has already done his quick opening act and faded into the background like a good sidekick. He gazes attentively at the former president’s son, nodding appreciatively, clapping and grinning at all the appropriate (or, rather, inappropriate) moments. He takes out his phone to snap the occasional photo. Once or twice, he shoots a glance at the audience, as if to see how this show is playing. (Answer: very well.) Distinctly overshadowed, Mr. Vance is aware that, while his name may be on the yard signs and stickers spread around the bar, he is not who most folks have come to see.Because Mr. Vance is no longer the star of his own race to win Tuesday’s Republican primary in Ohio for U.S. Senate. The moment he got the much-coveted Trump tap on April 15, the election became about one thing only: whether the former president has the juice to propel an unexceptional candidate to victory.Mark Peterson for The New York TimesMr. Trump’s kingmaking ability is, in fact, the Big Question facing the entire G.O.P. this election cycle. Ohio is just the first test, the first time voters go to the polls in a race where the former president has put his political credibility and influence so solidly on the ballot. Mr. Vance is arguably a perfect test case for Mr. Trump: weak enough to need a boost but with enough potential to make him a worthwhile risk. Anyone still hoping to see the Trumpified G.O.P. return to sanity any time soon should be rooting for Mr. Vance to fail.The contest to replace Senator Rob Portman, who is retiring, was already among this cycle’s rowdiest and most expensive. Multiple conservatives have been jockeying to present themselves as the most MAGA-rific, with party players and moneymen picking favorites. Among the many contenders, Jane Timken, a former state Republican Party chairwoman, has been endorsed by multiple senators (Mr. Portman, Shelley Moore Capito, Joni Ernst and Deb Fischer) and denizens of Trumpworld (Kellyanne Conway, David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski). Josh Mandel, a former state treasurer, is backed by Senator Ted Cruz, the Club for Growth and Ohio Value Voters.Until recently, Mr. Vance had not been doing so well. Best known as the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” his 2016 memoir widely embraced as a blue-staters’ guide to red-state values and grievances, his past was a bit too checkered for some conservatives. He attended Yale Law. He worked as a venture capitalist. Most damning, he was an avowed Never Trumper during the 2016 presidential election — and we’re not talking gentle criticisms. He called Mr. Trump “noxious,” “reprehensible,” “an idiot” and “cultural heroin”; fretted over Trumpism’s racist elements; and privately suggested Mr. Trump was “America’s Hitler.”Like so much of the party, Mr. Vance has changed his tune, now prostrating himself before Mr. Trump with as much zeal as anyone. (Except maybe Kevin McCarthy. That level of sycophancy is something special.) Even so, rolling into April, Mr. Vance’s campaign chest was light (despite the generosity of his former boss, the tech billionaire Peter Thiel), and polls showed him lagging other conservatives, including Mr. Mandel, who has made his own dash to the hard right in recent years.Mr. Trump has said he chose to bless Mr. Vance because “we have to pick somebody that can win.” Why he decided Mr. Vance is that somebody has prompted head scratching. Certainly, there is nothing the former president enjoys as much as watching a former adversary grovel, and Mr. Vance has been happy to gush about how wrong he was in 2016 and what a great president Mr. Trump turned out to be. (Best of his lifetime!) Mr. Trump may have been swayed by Mr. Vance’s admirers, notably Don Jr., Tucker Carlson and Mr. Thiel, a megadonor to Mr. Trump as well as to Mr. Vance. Mr. Trump is said to have been put off by an ugly confrontation between Mr. Mandel and another candidate during a debate in March.Mr. Trump may also be taken with Mr. Vance’s quasi-fame and frequent TV appearances. The former president has a longstanding love affair with celebrities — and, perhaps better than anyone, grasps the value of celebrity in electoral politics.Whatever its roots, Mr. Trump’s endorsement hit the Ohio race like the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, spreading chaos and carnage. Mr. Mandel’s supporters have taken it particularly hard, slagging Mr. Vance as an opportunist and Mr. Trump’s endorsement as, at best, ill informed.John Stover, the head of Ohio Value Voters, “firmly” believes the decision was heavily influenced by Mr. Thiel. Mr. Stover speculated to me recently: Who knows what exactly “came up” during the billionaire money man’s pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago?Before the former president and Mr. Vance appeared together at a rally in central Ohio a week ago Saturday, Mr. Stover’s group called on supporters to boycott the event. Alternatively, attendees were encouraged to boo when Mr. Vance was introduced. The group’s call to arms included a laundry list of the candidate’s past criticisms of Mr. Trump.The Club for Growth also finds itself feuding with Mr. Trump over its refusal to abandon Mr. Mandel. One of the group’s ads spotlighting Mr. Vance’s past attacks on Mr. Trump prompted the former president to have an aide fire off an obscene text to the group’s president, David McIntosh. The organization has doubled down with even more ad spending.Team Vance’s mission has been to hawk his status as “the only Trump-endorsed candidate” in the race. This is the verbatim message of a new TV ad running in the state, and it was one of the first things out of Don Jr.’s mouth at Lori’s Roadhouse.Even Mr. Vance seems to understand that what is at stake here has little to do with him.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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      In Trump’s Shadow, Republicans Campaign Ahead of Ohio Primary

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      Donald Trump’s endorsement of the author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance has shaken up the Republican race for the first major Senate midterm election.COLUMBUS, Ohio — Josh Mandel’s wager was simple: No one would outflank him in mirroring Donald J. Trump, either on hard-right America First positions or the bellicose, come-at-me style of the former president.So, Mr. Mandel said of Black Lives Matter activists, “They are the racists, not us.” He stirred animosity toward migrants, including refugees from Afghanistan, and falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump. The Jewish grandson of a Holocaust survivor whose website features a Christian cross, Mr. Mandel stumped mostly in evangelical churches, claiming “there’s no such thing” as separation of church and state.For a long time, it worked. Mr. Mandel was the presumed front-runner in the crowded Republican field for U.S. senator from Ohio.But two weeks ago, the one person he sought most to impress — the former president himself — spurned Mr. Mandel, a former state treasurer, and bestowed his coveted endorsement on J.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author, remaking the race overnight.Mr. Vance, who had been trailing in polls and running low on money, has seen a surge in donations and support since Mr. Trump’s embrace, as the first major Senate midterm primary election entered its final weekend before Tuesday’s voting.And around the state, Republicans including Mr. Mandel; Mr. Vance; Mike Gibbons, a self-funded businessman; and State Senator Matt Dolan fanned out in a preview of national G.O.P. politics to come — different moons circling Mr. Trump’s sun.On Saturday, Mr. Vance campaigned with two far-right members of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida. Mr. Mandel hopscotched across the state’s big cities — Toledo, Columbus and Cincinnati — with a conservative ally of his own, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.To longtime acquaintances and observers of Mr. Mandel, 44, who early in his career promoted civility and bipartisanship, his unrequited embrace of Trumpism and divisiveness suggested there was a price on political calculation.“I see the desperation there these last few months,” said Matt Cox, a former Republican operative who was an early adviser to Mr. Mandel before a falling-out. “I think his strategy was: All right, Trump won Ohio by eight points twice. All I have to do to become the nominee is to become the most like Trump.”The candidate most left on the sidelines since Mr. Trump’s nod at Mr. Vance, according to polls, has been Jane Timken. The only woman running, Ms. Timken was endorsed by Ohio’s retiring senator, Rob Portman, a center-right throwback to an earlier Ohio G.O.P. who voted with Senate Democrats for the bipartisan infrastructure bill.The Senate candidate and former Republican state chair, Jane Timken, has been endorsed by Senator Rob Portman, who is vacating his seat. Gaelen Morse/ReutersMs. Timken has solid Trump-era credentials — she chaired the state party while Mr. Trump was in office — but she does not mimic the former president’s aggrieved style, which has been a key to unlocking the most fervent Republican voters. She has set herself apart from rivals who she says seek every day to get themselves “canceled on Twitter” with their statements and antics.In a debate in March, Mr. Mandel nearly got into a physical confrontation with Mr. Gibbons.At a Baptist church in Columbus on Saturday, Mr. Mandel took aim at popular targets of the right, including transgender people, Republicans with “jelly knees” like Senator Mitt Romney of Utah and the “liberal media in the back of the room” (just minutes after greeting reporters amicably by name in a private room).Fitting the setting, the largely older crowd in the pews called out encouraging “amens!” or groaned audibly when Mr. Mandel named enemies.“The reason that we’re going to win on Tuesday is because we have this army of Christian warriors throughout the state,’’ he pledged.One pastor present, Dan Wolvin, said he “felt sorry” for Mr. Trump over the Vance endorsement, saying he was “listening to the wrong people.” Still, Mr. Wolvin predicted the Trump nod would gain Mr. Vance “about five points” on Election Day, while conceding, “it’s a lot for Josh to make up.”Spurned or not, Mr. Mandel was still flying the Trump flag.“I supported President Trump yesterday. I support him today, and I’ll continue to support him tomorrow,” he said. He predicted the former president would return to the White House, “and I look forward to working with him.”The candidates, to varying degrees, all concur. Here are snapshots from around Ohio in the last weekend of campaigning.J.D. Vance in Newark, OhioJ.D. Vance campaigned with two far-right members of Congress, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida. Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesJ.D. Vance, the author and venture capitalist, bounded onto the stage at the Trout Club in Newark, Ohio, with the confidence of the nominal front-runner, a status bestowed by Mr. Trump’s endorsement on April 15.The crowd of about 75 in the bar and restaurant of a well-manicured country club had been warmed up by Mr. Gaetz and Ms. Greene, who ticked through the talking points of the fringe right: “medical tyranny,” “open borders,” “gender pediatric clinics” turning boys into girls, men in women’s bathrooms and women’s sports, The Walt Disney Company “grooming” children into homosexuals and transgender people.Mr. Vance breezed through some of the same themes, but he appeared more intent on previewing the larger issues he planned to argue in the general election to come.He castigated both parties for free trade agreements that he said had sent Ohio manufacturing to Mexico and China, for the “bipartisan decision to allow American Wall Street firms to get rich off the growth of China and not off the growth of the American middle class.” He also accused financial firms of allowing “the Chinese into this country, buying up our farmland, buying up our single-family homes, making it impossible for young families to buy a home, to own a stake in their own country.”“That is the game they play, and I’m running for the U.S. Senate to go and play a different game, a game where we put our citizens and the people in this room first,” he said to cheers.The people in that room — just off a verdant golf course, far away from the illegal immigrant, drug-infested cities that Mr. Vance speaks of on the stump — were hardly the down-and-out white workers central to his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” But an unspoken truth is, his audience is the true core of the pro-Trump vote in Ohio. The one income group that President Biden won in this state in 2020 was that of voters who earn less than $50,000. More affluent voters went for Mr. Trump.But economic themes in general — and the China threat in particular — resonated.“That’s in the DNA in Ohio,” said Representative Tim Ryan, the likely Democratic nominee for the coming Senate race.Mr. Vance was asked by a reporter why he invited Ms. Greene and Mr. Gaetz to barnstorm through Ohio with him on the closing weekend of the primary campaign.“There is nothing more disgusting in politics than the way that leadership asks you to stab your friends in the back,” he said before heading with them to West Chester, outside Cincinnati. He added for emphasis, “I’m not going to disavow them because some scumbag who doesn’t have the best interest of Ohio at heart wants me to.”Jonathan WeismanMike Gibbons in Dublin, OhioMike Gibbons pumped nearly $17 million of his own money into the race. Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesMr. Gibbons likes to sport a navy blue suit coat and red tie reminiscent of Mr. Trump. He has a habit of reminding voters that he is a businessman, not a politician. And he speaks often of how, in 1989, he started his investment banking and financial advisory firm in a small Cleveland office with nothing but a desk and a phone.But imitation did not win Mr. Gibbons the endorsement of the former president he so sought to emulate, and he is closing out the final stretch of the primary much the way he started: with his own gumption and personal wealth.In an interview on his campaign bus Saturday, Mr. Gibbons emphasized his lifelong Ohio roots and business credentials as the best fit for Ohio voters.“I was shocked,” Mr. Gibbons said of Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Vance, referring to his opponent as someone who “flew in from the West Coast.” He added: “Ohioans should be insulted.”Outside, a couple of volunteers mingled in a grocery store parking lot near Columbus, picking up Gibbons swag and eating pizza, before fanning out to knock on doors.Mr. Gibbons grew up in Parma, a working-class suburb outside of Cleveland. He was a one-time professional football player, and at 37, he founded Brown Gibbons Lang & Company. He ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2018, and this time has pumped roughly $17 million into his campaign, making him the largest self-funder in the race.He drew some scrutiny in March for comments he made in 2013 on China and Asian people that used offensive stereotypes and was later criticized for the heated debate stage encounter with Mr. Mandel.Mr. Gibbons served as Mr. Trump’s Ohio fundraising co-chair in 2016. But in one crucial way, his supporters say, his path has sharply diverged from Mr. Trump’s: Mr. Gibbons did not receive a multimillion-dollar loan from his father to launch his business empire.“I like that he is from Parma, Ohio — real down-to-earth kind of guy who worked hard for everything he has in life and earned his way,” said Michael Palcisko, 54, a schoolteacher and military veteran in Cleveland.Jazmine Ulloa and Kevin WilliamsMatt Dolan in North Royalton, Ohio Unlike the other leading Republican candidates in the race, State Senator Matt Dolan acknowledges President Biden is the nation’s legitimate leader.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesOn an overcast Saturday morning, Mr. Dolan knocked on doors in an affluent suburb just south of Cleveland. He was making a last-minute push to get voters to the polls, and on his target list were registered Republicans who had yet to cast a ballot. But on his route, he was just as likely to encounter Democrats and independents who were backing his candidacy — or simply cheering him on.“If it has to be a Republican, I hope it is you,” Rich Evans, 69, a retired educator, told him, as he stopped manicuring his lawn to shake hands.From the beginning, Mr. Dolan, who has served in the statehouse since 2017 and whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, has been walking in his own lonely lane. He is the only Republican candidate who supports Mr. Trump but has attempted to put some distance between himself and Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump “did a lot of good things for Ohio,” Mr. Dolan said. But he said he wanted his own campaign to remain focused on Ohio. He wanted to get back to discussing policy, and he certainly did not want to re-litigate the last election.“I am not looking backwards,” he said.Like the other Republicans in the race, he said he wants to secure the border, cut the flow of fentanyl into the state and tackle inflation. But he also said he could do more than his competitors to bring workers to the state and put together a unique economic development agenda.He’s hardly a never Trumper. He said he voted for Mr. Trump in the last presidential election, opposed both impeachment cases against him and has said he would support the former president should he become the 2024 Republican nominee.But on Jan. 6, Mr. Dolan did not shy away from criticizing Mr. Trump for spreading lies about the results of the November 2020 election, writing on Twitter, “Real leaders lead not manipulate.” Unlike the other leading Republican candidates in the race, he also acknowledges President Biden is the nation’s legitimate leader.It was a stance that Pat Ryan, 64, said he respected. Standing at his front door, Ryan, who considers himself a Democrat, said he planned to vote in the Republican primary this year because of Mr. Dolan. “I looked at all the candidates, and he’s the most honest one,” he said.Jazmine Ulloa More