Spanberger, Abigail

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    Abigail Spanberger Announces 2024 Run for Virginia Governor

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    The centrist Democrat helped deliver her party the House majority in 2018, and her decision to seek higher office could make it more difficult for Democrats to reclaim control in 2024.Representative Abigail Spanberger, a prominent Virginia Democrat who was repeatedly able to win in a conservative-leaning district, announced on Monday that she would run for governor in 2024, leaving open a competitive seat that could be crucial to her party’s efforts to win back control of the House next year.Ms. Spanberger, 44, is seen as among the strongest Democratic contenders to succeed Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who is term-limited. Her decision not to seek re-election to Congress leaves House Democrats scrambling to hold a seat that is regularly in play for both parties.“Virginia is where I grew up, where I am raising my own family and where I intend to build a stronger future for the next generation of Virginians,” Ms. Spanberger said in a statement.Ms. Spanberger is the first candidate to announce a run for Virginia governor. Her early announcement is intended to allow a successor to build a campaign for the 2024 House race, which Democrats believe would provide a more favorable electorate than a special election.But House Republicans said their odds of claiming the seat improved substantially with Ms. Spanberger’s planned exit, pointing to it as the latest example of a Democrat in a competitive seat choosing to run for higher office rather than remain in the House.Other examples include Representatives Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Katie Porter of California, both of whom are pursuing Senate seats.“Swing district House Democrats are scrambling for the exits and creating @NRCC pickup opportunities from coast to coast,” Jack Pandol, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “We are in prime position to pick up this seat.”Ms. Spanberger, a former C.I.A. officer, won election in 2018 as part of a wave of centrist women — many of them with national security experience — who said they were running to counter President Donald J. Trump and whose victories propelled Democrats to the House majority. She developed a reputation in Congress as a Democrat willing to buck her party, refusing to vote for Representative Nancy Pelosi of California to be speaker and pushing to bar members of Congress from trading stocks.Even so, Ms. Spanberger was recently elected as a member of Democratic leadership to represent the interests of members from battleground districts.Ms. Spanberger currently holds the central and Northern Virginia seat formerly occupied by Representative Eric Cantor, a Republican and former House majority leader. He was defeated in a primary in 2014 by a Tea Party-aligned Republican, Dave Brat, who then lost to Ms. Spanberger in 2018.She won two close re-election campaigns, though the seat was redrawn ahead of the 2022 race, making it slightly more favorable to Democrats. More

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      Moderate House Democrats Are at Risk, Putting the Majority Up for Grabs

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      Several Democrats elected in 2018 with an anti-Trump message in conservative-leaning districts are centering their closing argument on protecting democracy as they try to buck national trends.NORFOLK, Va. — In her final campaign ad, Representative Elaine Luria, a Democrat and Navy veteran who sits on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, practically dares her constituents to replace her in Congress with her Republican opponent, who has refused to condemn former President Donald J. Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.Representative Abigail Spanberger, a former C.I.A. officer, has blanketed her central Virginia district with ads portraying her challenger as a supporter of the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.In Michigan, Representative Elissa Slotkin, herself a former C.I.A. analyst, has been campaigning with Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who is the vice chairwoman of the Jan. 6 committee and has made combating threats to democracy the focus of her final year in Congress.The three Democrats, all of whom are in difficult re-election races in swing districts with conservative leanings, are at risk of being swept out in next week’s midterm elections, possibly costing Democrats the House majority.They are part of a class of moderates — many of them women with national security credentials who ran for Congress to counter the threat they saw from Mr. Trump — who flipped Republican districts in the 2018 election, delivering Democrats the House majority. Now they are centering their closing campaign argument on protecting democracy.For two election cycles, these Democrats have largely managed to buck Republican attempts to brand them as liberal puppets of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but the challenge has grown steeper in 2022.President Biden’s popularity has sagged. State redistricting has shifted some of their districts, including Ms. Luria’s on the eastern shore of Virginia, to include higher percentages of conservatives. And polls indicate that the issues at the top of mind for voters across the political spectrum are inflation and the economy, even though they overwhelmingly believe that American democracy is under threat.“This is the first time they’ve had to run in a hostile political environment,” David Wasserman, the House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said of the group. “The class of 2018 — we’re going to see some losses this year. But it’s remarkable that many of them are doing as well as they are given the president’s approval rating.”A dozen of Ms. Luria’s 2018 classmates lost their bids for re-election in 2020, and as many as a dozen more are at risk of being swept out next week. Two of them — Representatives Cindy Axne of Iowa and Tom Malinowski of New Jersey — are behind in the polls, and analysts believe more are headed for defeat.But these frontline Democrats believe if anyone can buck the national trends, it is them.“It’s a lot of pressure,” Ms. Luria said of holding onto a pivotal seat. A recent poll from Christopher Newport University showed her tied with her Republican opponent, Jen A. Kiggans.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Biden’s Speech: In a prime-time address, President Biden denounced Republicans who deny the legitimacy of elections, warning that the country’s democratic traditions are on the line.State Supreme Court Races: The traditionally overlooked contests have emerged this year as crucial battlefields in the struggle over the course of American democracy.Democrats’ Mounting Anxiety: Top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s pitch and tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.Social Security and Medicare: Republicans, eyeing a midterms victory, are floating changes to the safety net programs. Democrats have seized on the proposals to galvanize voters.As they battle for political survival, they have worked to dramatize the stakes for voters.“I believe that our democracy is the ultimate kitchen table issue,” Ms. Slotkin said during a sold-out event with Ms. Cheney in East Lansing. “It’s not even the kitchen table; our democracy is the foundation of the home in which the kitchen table sits.”Ms. Luria has campaigned on her reputation as one of the most bipartisan members of Congress, and her record of using her perch on the Armed Services Committee to secure tens of millions of shipbuilding dollars for her district.On a recent Tuesday, as she walked through the Dante Valve manufacturing plant in Norfolk, a small business where workers build key parts for submarines, executives said her support for the Navy fleet had proved “critical” for providing steady paychecks in a town where the economy is inextricably tied to the U.S. military.Republican strategists concede that this group of Democrats has proved tough to knock off, having built brands in their districts that outperform the typical Democrat. Their internal polling shows some of them outperforming Mr. Biden by double digits in favorability.To counter the Democrats’ national security credentials, Republicans have recruited military and law enforcement veterans of their own.Ms. Slotkin is facing off against Tom Barrett, a state senator and Army veteran who served in Iraq.“I have no idea if I’m going to win my election — it’s going to be a nail biter,” she said recently.Ms. Spanberger, who has frequently criticized her party’s leadership, is also in a close race with Yesli Vega, a law enforcement officer.Ms. Luria won election to Congress in 2018 as part of a wave of Democrats who flipped Republican districts and turned the House blue.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesMs. Luria’s challenger, Ms. Kiggans, is also a Navy veteran and has run a campaign focused on pocketbook issues.“They talk to me about the gas prices that are too much even this past week,” Ms. Kiggans said of voters during a recent debate. “They talk to me about their grocery prices. They talk to me about their savings account. People don’t have as much as they used to in their savings account.”She has also tried to tarnish Ms. Luria’s independent credentials, portraying her as a stooge of Ms. Pelosi.Ms. Luria has not allowed the attacks to go unanswered. She has repeatedly cast Ms. Kiggans, who opposes abortion rights and has dodged questions about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, as an extremist and an election denier.“If standing up for what’s right means losing an election, so be it,” Ms. Luria says in her recent ad, adding: “If you believe the 2020 election was stolen, I’m definitely not your candidate.”Jen A. Kiggans is running to take Ms. Luria’s seat.Kristen Zeis for The New York TimesMs. Kiggans answered this line of argument with an ad of her own, in which she is shown sitting at a kitchen table and surrounded by family photographs, and declares that she is no “extremist.”Interactions between the two candidates have been testy.“She’s an election denier,” Ms. Luria said of Ms. Kiggans, with a note of contempt in her voice. “She has never clearly said in public that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.”Ms. Kiggans shot back at a recent debate, while not specifically denying the charge: “Shame on you for attacking my character as a fellow female Naval officer.”One reason some of the swing-state Democrats remain competitive in their races, despite the national headwinds, is their ability to raise enormous sums of money.Ms. Luria, for instance, has posted some of the highest fund-raising totals this cycle, raking in three times as much as her challenger in the most recent quarter.But national Republicans are working to counter that cash advantage, with political action committees pumping huge amounts of money into districts to prop up challengers, including about $5 million to aid Ms. Kiggans.“Frontline Democrats promised voters they’d be bipartisan problem solvers, but they came to D.C. and voted in lock step with Nancy Pelosi,” said Michael McAdams, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee. “Now their constituents are dealing with record-high prices and soaring violent crime.”For better or worse, Ms. Luria’s image is now bound up in confronting threats to democracy. She sought a seat on the Jan. 6 committee — a move she knew could cost her her seat — calling it an outgrowth of her life’s work serving in the military.Supporters of Ms. Kiggans at a rally in Smithfield, Va.Kristen Zeis for The New York TimesHer supporters have cheered the decision.“The people who serve in our Congress, they were at great risk,” said Melanie Cornelisse, a supporter who was on hand outside a Norfolk television studio for Ms. Luria’s final debate with Ms. Kiggans. “And I think it’s really admirable that she is one of the people who is leading that investigation.”Ms. Luria has posted some of the highest fund-raising totals this cycle, and raised three times as much as her challenger in the most recent quarter. Kristen Zeis for The New York TimesA reporter asked Ms. Luria recently why she had focused so intently on threats to democracy rather than, say, the price of gasoline. Ms. Luria has supported measures to make the nation “energy independent,” through increased use of nuclear and wind energy.But also, as a Navy veteran, Ms. Luria said, she felt she had to be true to herself — and that meant continuing to call out Mr. Trump’s lies.“To me, there’s really two things that keep me up at night: One is China and the other is protecting our democracy and our democratic institutions,” Ms. Luria said. “As a candidate, I’m going to talk about the things that I think are the most important for our future. There’s still a clear and present danger.” More

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      In the House, These National Security Democrats Face Political Peril

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      A group of lawmakers who have pushed centrist foreign policy goals, many of them elected in the blue wave of 2018, are confronting troublesome re-election bids.They played a decisive role in kicking off Donald Trump’s first impeachment. They’ve pushed hard for centrist foreign policy goals, working with Republicans whenever the stars aligned. And they’ve been persistent critics of their own team, taking calculated potshots at President Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi as they try to cast themselves as pillars of political independence.Now, with the midterm elections less than a month away, as many as half a dozen of the moderate national security Democrats in the House are in peril, and maybe more.Many of them were elected amid the anti-Trump blue wave of 2018, in districts that Democrats might otherwise have struggled to win.Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former C.I.A. analyst who is fluent in Arabic and Swahili, has established herself as one of the top intelligence experts on Capitol Hill. Republicans have identified Slotkin as a top target this year.Representative Elaine Luria of Virginia still speaks in the argot of a former Navy commander and decorates her House office with photographs of the submarines and cruisers that populate the country’s largest naval base, in nearby Norfolk. During last year’s race for governor of Virginia, the winner, Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, would have won Luria’s district by double digits. Her opponent, State Senator Jen Kiggans, is another Navy veteran and could easily unseat her.Representative Jared Golden of Maine, a retired Marine, is clinging to the most pro-Trump district held by a Democrat anywhere in the country. Golden squeaked into office in part because his Republican opponent, Bruce Poliquin, misplayed the state’s ranked-choice voting system, a mistake Poliquin seems to be rectifying during this year’s rematch.Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia is a former C.I.A. officer who has supplied some of the most memorable lines criticizing her party’s perceived leftward lurch. Although Spanberger’s seat in suburban Northern Virginia is now considered safer after Virginia’s redistricting cycle, her team says it is taking no chances.And Representative Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, a puckish former State Department official and human rights expert, has nudged the Biden administration to welcome more Afghan refugees, provide more help to Ukraine and seize the yachts of Russian oligarchs. Malinowski, whose Trump-leaning district grew slightly redder after New Jersey redid its maps, faces a stiff challenge from Thomas Kean Jr., who nearly defeated him in 2020.Together, they represent a fading tradition: the quaint notion that politics stops at the water’s edge. And all of them are vulnerable to being washed out in a red tide this fall. Their potential ousters, as well as a number of key retirements, threaten to hollow out decades of national experience in Congress at a time of great turmoil abroad.“They bring a lot of expertise to the table, which is really useful to have in-house on oversight committees rather than having to rely on the agencies all the time,” said Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona who fought in the Iraq war.Gallego, a member of the Armed Services Committee, added that experience working for the military or the C.I.A. exposed Democratic politicians to Americans from an array of working-class and rural backgrounds — which, he said, gave them valuable insights into the politics of those types of communities.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Attacks by Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, on the Jewish school where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate, sends his children have set off an outcry about antisemitic signaling.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but some conservative Christians have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause.These Democrats have also balanced out what some like-minded experts said was a risk that, in reaction to Trump’s foreign policy, the party might have drifted toward politically self-destructive isolationism at a time when voters were worried by the president’s seeming solicitousness toward authoritarian leaders in China, Russia and North Korea.“What they did is they served as ballast within the Democratic Party when there were some pretty loud voices that were trying to pull the Democrats off the cliff and into oblivion,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.Katulis pointed to a failed attempt by progressives last year to strip funding for Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense system, a move that the national security Democrats and pro-Israel groups quashed.Win or lose, change is on the horizon for DemocratsThree senior Democrats on the Armed Services Committee are also retiring: Jim Cooper of Tennessee, Jim Langevin of Rhode Island and Jackie Speier of California. So no matter what happens in November, decades of experience and interest in foreign policy on the left will be leaving Congress.And though other national security-minded Democrats, like Representatives Andy Kim and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, have been drawn into safer districts, a wave election for Republicans could threaten some of those seats, too.A Republican takeover of the House, moreover, would put the party in charge of important oversight committees, such as the intelligence panel, a platform Democrats used under Representative Adam Schiff of California to carry out investigations of the Trump administration. Those inquiries made news, damaged the president politically and ultimately helped lead to his first impeachment.If Republicans gain control of the House, even Democrats who survive the election will find themselves relatively powerless to help steer the country’s foreign policy, forced to play defense as their opponents control the agenda on the House floor and within each committee.Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, has already vowed to begin investigations of the Biden administration in retaliation for what Democrats did during the Trump years.That’s no idle threat.Under President Barack Obama, Republicans seized on the administration’s handling of the 2012 attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, to damage the future political prospects of two senior Democratic leaders: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who went on to run for president in 2016, and Susan Rice, who served as United Nations ambassador and national security adviser. Rice’s appearances on Sunday talk shows to discuss the Benghazi attack hobbled her chances of succeeding Clinton and may have helped scuttle her opportunity to become Biden’s running mate in 2020.Highly politicized oversight of foreign policy has been known to jump-start political careers, too.One of the ringleaders of the Benghazi oversight push, Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas, issued a report that went beyond the criticisms of his fellow Republicans toward the Obama administration. His prominence on the issue caught the eye of Trump, who named him C.I.A. director and later secretary of state. Pompeo, a vocal critic of Biden’s foreign policy, is now widely understood to be considering a presidential bid in 2024.What to readIn races across the nation, Lisa Lerer and Katie Glueck write, Republican candidates are “waffling on their abortion positions, denying past behavior or simply trying to avoid a topic that has long been a bedrock principle of American conservatism.”Los Angeles has been rocked by the leak of a secretly recorded private discussion in which three members of the City Council used racist insults and slurs. One of the council members resigned on Wednesday, Jill Cowan and Shawn Hubler report.The conservative activist Leonard Leo, who has led efforts to appoint conservatives to federal courts, has quietly built a sprawling network and raised huge sums of money to challenge liberal values. Read Kenneth Vogel’s investigation.Online misinformation about the midterm elections is swirling in immigrant communities, researchers say, in even more languages, on more topics and across more digital platforms than it did in 2020. Tiffany Hsu explains.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Ahead of Midterms, Democrats Bet on Abortion Rights

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      EAGAN, Minn. — Before dozens of volunteers fanned out through the Twin Cities suburbs to knock on voters’ doors on a recent sunny Saturday afternoon, Representative Angie Craig, Democrat of Minnesota, gathered them in a campaign office in a strip mall here to make sure they remembered a specific message.“As you go to each door, what I want you to have in your mind is that if Tyler Kistner is your member of Congress, he is someone who has said he is 100 percent pro-life,” Ms. Craig said, referring to her Republican opponent. “Today, the people of this district have never had a more distinct choice. We are the party — and I am the member of Congress — who will be the wall to protect your reproductive rights, to protect your privacy, to protect your freedoms.”In competitive districts across the country like Ms. Craig’s, Democrats in difficult re-election races are leaning heavily into preserving abortion rights as a closing argument for their uphill bids to hang onto their seats in a year when their party’s majority is at risk.Armed with polling data that shows that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion has moved independent voters in their direction, they have reoriented their campaigns around the issue in the crucial final weeks before the election.The strategy is built around the hope that in the handful of close races that will determine control of the House, the demise of federal abortion rights has energized independent voters and conservative-leaning women so intensely that it could allow otherwise vulnerable Democrats to eke out victories that previously seemed out of reach.Supporters of abortion rights protesting in Washington. Polling data shows that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters toward Democrats.Anna Rose Layden for The New York TimesNearly every advertisement that House Democrats’ super PAC is funding is about reproductive rights, including one that dramatizes the consequences of a national abortion ban, featuring police officers handcuffing doctors, nurses and patients who sought or performed “health care services that have been legal for nearly 50 years.” Roundtables hosted by vulnerable incumbents flanked by OB/GYNs and elaborate events rolling out Planned Parenthood endorsements abound.It is a rare opportunity for Democrats to go on the offensive during a campaign cycle that was initially expected to deal their party steep losses, and in which their majority is still at risk amid rising inflation, concerns about crime and President Biden’s sagging approval ratings. In recent weeks, however, internal polling has shown that the threat of losing abortion access has energized some abortion rights supporters who might not ordinarily vote in a midterm election and swayed independents toward Democratic candidates, potentially affording the party a chance to stanch its losses. More

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      Spanberger’s New Ad Attacks Her Opponent’s Abortion Stance

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      Representative Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat locked in a competitive battle for re-election, is releasing a new ad that laces into her opponent’s stance on abortion rights, told from the perspective of a rape survivor.Ms. Spanberger is running against Yesli Vega, a Republican supervisor and auxiliary deputy with the Prince William County Sheriff’s Office, who falsely suggested in leaked audio this year that pregnancy from rape may be unlikely — a remark that has since become a flash point in the race.“Yesli Vega said women can’t get pregnant from rape because it’s not happening organically — that made me sick,” says the narrator in the direct-to-camera spot, who identifies herself as Adelle of Prince William County, Va., and says she was raped at age 17. “Yesli Vega would even vote to ban abortion with no exceptions, even for victims of rape. The thought of Yesli Vega in Congress is terrifying.”Ms. Vega’s team has said she does support some exceptions for abortion.Yesli Vega at her primary election night watch party in Woodbridge, Virginia in June. Ms. Vega falsely suggested in leaked audio this year that pregnancy from rape may be unlikely.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMs. Spanberger’s new ad buy, which her campaign said would begin at more than a half-million dollars, underscores that Democrats in highly competitive races continue to see abortion rights as a galvanizing and persuasive issue in the final stretch of the midterm elections after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. They are seeking to cast Republicans as far outside the mainstream on issues like abortion rights and matters of privacy, while some Republicans like Ms. Vega emphasize issues like cost of living and public safety (Ms. Spanberger, a former C.I.A. officer, has also been vocal on issues like combating crime.). “My opponent has doubted whether women can get pregnant from rape, a notion that denies both science and the experience of far too many survivors of sexual violence,” Ms. Spanberger said in a statement. “In recounting her own experience, Adelle provides a cleareyed assessment of what’s at stake in this election.”Ms. Vega’s team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new ad. In a statement over the summer, Ms. Vega said, “as a mother of two children, yes I’m fully aware of how women get pregnant.”More recently, she told reporters, according to Roll Call, “I am pro-life. I always have been and always will be. As a law enforcement officer, I have stood up for the defenseless, the voiceless, and I will continue to do that in every capacity that I can, and that is my comment.” The ad is slated to run at least through most of October, Ms. Spanberger’s campaign said. More

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      House Passes Police Funding Bills, as Democrats Remain Divided

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      WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday passed bipartisan legislation to increase funding for local police departments, after Democrats overcame bitter divisions in their ranks over a package aimed at blunting Republican efforts to portray them as soft on crime ahead of midterm elections.A broad bipartisan majority voted, 360 to 64, in favor of the centerpiece of the four-bill package, called the Invest to Protect Act, which would give $60,000,000 a year for five years to local police departments. The funds could be used for purchasing body cameras and conducting de-escalation training, as well as other activities.But a backlash by progressives, who balked at sending money to police departments without stronger accountability measures to address excessive use of force or other misconduct, nearly tanked the bills before they could be considered.The fate of the legislation is unclear, particularly given its bumpy road to House passage on Thursday. The Senate last month passed a different version of the Invest to Protect Act, and aides said leaders in that chamber had yet to discuss a path to get it to President Biden’s desk.Democrats who are in difficult re-election races in conservative-leaning districts had clamored for action on the measures for months, in part to answer a central line of attack Republicans have used against them during the midterm campaign season: that their party is soft on crime and bent on defunding the police.“Around the country, this is going to send a very clear signal that Democrats support law enforcement,” said Representative Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey and the sponsor of the Invest to Protect Act.Still, its path to passage exposed lingering divisions among Democrats on the issue of policing at a moment when the political map is looking more favorable for them than it did just a few months ago. After progressives threatened for weeks to block the legislation from reaching the House floor, Democratic leaders believed they had finally reached a deal to move forward.But the agreement appeared to fray before their eyes just as the House turned to the bill on Thursday morning, prompting a two-hour delay as a small group of liberal lawmakers said they would not supply their votes after all.“It’s a matter of unchecked, unmonitored money,” said Representative Cori Bush, Democrat of Missouri, who opposed the legislation. “This is money for training? Well, we have not seen this training. After all the protests, after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, 2021 saw the most police murders since police murders have been recorded.”The mini-rebellion in the House, where Democrats have a slim margin of control, prompted a scramble by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants, who quickly went to work trying to swing the would-be defectors.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Inflation Concerns Persist: In the six-month primary season that has just ended, several issues have risen and fallen, but nothing has dislodged inflation and the economy from the top of voters’ minds.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate candidate in Georgia claimed his business donated 15 percent of its profits to charities. Three of the four groups named as recipients say they didn’t receive money.North Carolina Senate Race: Are Democrats about to get their hearts broken again? The contest between Cheri Beasley, a Democrat, and her G.O.P. opponent, Representative Ted Budd, seems close enough to raise their hopes.Echoing Trump: Six G.O.P. nominees for governor and the Senate in critical midterm states, all backed by former President Donald J. Trump, would not commit to accepting this year’s election results.Ultimately, Democrats were able to convince Representative Ayanna S. Pressley, Democrat of Massachusetts, to vote “present” in order to secure the votes need to bring up the legislation — allowing it to move ahead without registering her support for it. That allowed a procedural measure to pave the way for the legislation to squeak through on a vote of 216 to 215.Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and a progressive who pressed for changes in the bill, said the process was so fraught, it felt as if “we were in labor, taking the last push.”She added, “I think it should be looked at as a victory for Democrats to be able to push this in the finish line.”Mr. Gottheimer dismissed the drama as “inside baseball” that the public would ignore. But it was the latest chapter in a long-running feud among Democrats about how to talk about and address law enforcement issues.Although 153 Republicans supported the centerpiece Invest to Protect Act — nine Democrats broke ranks to oppose it — most Republicans opposed the other three bills. One of those would create a grant program for states and local governments to train and dispatch mental health professionals, rather than law enforcement officers, to respond to emergencies involving those with behavioral health needs. Just three Republicans joined 220 Democrats in support of that bill.The package of bills also would provide federal grants for communities that practice violence intervention and prevention. It would offer assistance to law enforcement specifically addressing gun crimes and supporting shooting victims.Democrats had originally hoped to vote on the police funding bills over the summer and were planning to pair them with legislation to ban assault weapons that passed in July, before lawmakers left Washington for their August recess. But when disagreements emerged about accountability measures in the police bills, Ms. Pelosi chose to move ahead with just the assault weapons ban and revisit the law enforcement legislation in the fall..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Over the past few weeks, frustration had been building among moderates as the legislation languished without a vote, especially with midterm elections approaching.In intensive talks this week between Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington and chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Ms. Omar and Mr. Gottheimer, the liberal members pushed for changes. The bill had originally targeted police departments with 200 officers or fewer. Ms. Jayapal and Ms. Omar pressed for the money to be available only to departments with 125 or fewer officers.The two lawmakers also insisted on more accountability measures, such as allowing the funding to be used to collect data on the use of force and de-escalation training. Many local governments cite resource constraints in being able to report those statistics, and only 27 percent of police departments currently submit that kind of data to the F.B.I.Miami-Dade police officers participate in an active shooter drill at a high school. Republicans accuse Democrats of being soft on crime and bent on defunding the police.Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA, via ShutterstockProgressives also insisted on removing from the package legislation that would expand police departments, co-sponsored by Representative Abigail Spanberger, Democrat of Virginia, who has been a chief proponent of action on law enforcement funding measures.Although the changes were made, they failed to placate some civil rights groups, who said they remained opposed to the legislation. Suggestions earlier this year to address qualified immunity, which provides legal protections for officers accused of violating others’ constitutional rights, for instance, were rejected.“Congress should advance an affirmative agenda for safety that makes evidence-based, preventative investments in people and communities,” said Thea Sebastian, the director of policy at Civil Rights Corps, a nonprofit organization focused on injustice in the legal system. “The current package, in our view, does not represent this agenda.”Democrats have long been aware that the issue of crime remains a political vulnerability for members representing moderate districts.The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee shared guidance in March with members and candidates about how to respond to Republican attacks that they are soft on crime.“All Democratic candidates in competitive elections must proactively develop plans to counter this attack,” the memo, shared by a D.C.C.C. official, said. “Republicans will seek to tie every Democrat to ‘defund’ regardless of that Democrat’s record or biography. They are doing this because, sadly, these attacks can work even when they’re obviously false.”The group noted, “Multiple responses were tested, and the most effective one included both a clear statement opposing defunding the police, as well as a statement laying out what Democrats do support when it comes to crime and policing.”On Thursday, Republicans in the House accused Democrats of simply bringing the bills to the floor as a political exercise.“It is not to solve a problem,” said Representative Michelle Fischbach, Republican of Minnesota. “It is so my Democratic colleagues can look like they are solving problems.” She called it a “last-ditch effort for them” that was “coming just in time to see the results from election polling.”Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, summed up the Republican opposition in remarks on the floor.“It’s an election-year ploy for Democrats to try to look like they care about funding law enforcement,” he said.Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas, responded with anger.“If you could ever be fed up, I am fed up,” she said. Addressing her Republican colleagues, she said, “Where were you on Jan. 6, when law enforcement were bleeding out on the steps of the United States Capitol?” More

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      in Elections

      Vulnerable Democrats, Seeking Distance From the Left, Offer a Midterm Agenda

      by

      The plan aims to inoculate Democrats in conservative-leaning states from Republican attacks on cultural issues, underscoring how successful the G.O.P. has been at weaponizing them.WASHINGTON — A cluster of House Democrats from conservative-leaning districts is circulating a reworked legislative agenda for the coming election season that would embrace some of President Biden’s most popular initiatives and tackle rising prices while distancing lawmakers from the left’s most divisive ideas.The plan, obtained by The New York Times, seeks to inoculate the most vulnerable Democrats from the culture wars pursued by Republicans trying to win back the congressional majority. Its existence underscores how successful Republicans have been at weaponizing issues like pandemic-related school closures and “defund the police” efforts against Democrats in politically competitive districts.The draft agenda was written by Representatives Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, Steven Horsford of Nevada, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Dean Phillips of Minnesota and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. It includes almost 75 bipartisan bills already drafted and broader bullet points such as “Combat Rising Costs for Food, Gas, Housing and Utilities,” “Reduce Prescription Drug Prices, Co-Pays and Deductibles” and “Fight Crime & Invest in Law Enforcement.”Rather than proposing cuts to funding for police departments, for example, it suggests financing the hiring of additional officers, especially in rural and small-town departments — though it would also fund body cameras and training, demands from liberal critics of law enforcement. Taking on Republican efforts to end mask mandates and school closures, the agenda includes legislation to “re-establish faith in America’s public health system and ensure preparedness for future pandemics, so that our economy and schools can remain open.”The plan avoids other items popular with progressives, such as a $15 minimum wage and a universal, single-payer “Medicare for all” insurance system, but it embraces some of the most broadly popular health care initiatives in Mr. Biden’s now-moribund Build Back Better Act: an agreement to allow Medicare to negotiate the prices of some of the most expensive drugs on the market and an expansion of Medicare to cover vision, dental and hearing care.Representative Steven Horsford of Nevada, one of the authors of the draft agenda.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesWith their wafer-thin congressional majority and a president whose approval ratings are mired around 42 percent, Democrats are facing formidable headwinds in November’s midterm elections. The document, though stuffed with actual legislation, is more notable for its political message than for its policy details — in part because it omits any mention of how to pay for its initiatives.Some of its headline initiatives are not backed by the legislation below those programs. The plan promotes “Combating the Climate Crisis,” for instance, but the bills listed on that topic address the reliability and resilience of the electricity grid, top concerns for climate change deniers.But the agenda’s authors hope to at least revive a sense of momentum in a Democratic Congress that has entered the doldrums since enactment of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure law in November, followed by the Senate’s stymying of House-passed climate and social safety net legislation and a far-reaching voting rights bill.It is no accident that the document is circulating just before Mr. Biden’s State of the Union address on March 1, and the following week’s House Democratic “issues” retreat.The dozens of bills listed in the agenda all have Democratic and Republican authors, many of them endangered either by anti-Democratic momentum or by challengers endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump.One such bill, written by Representatives Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, and Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, would make permanent Medicare tele-health expansions undertaken during the pandemic. There is a diabetes prevention bill by Representatives Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, and Tom Rice of South Carolina, a Republican who, like Ms. Cheney, voted to impeach Mr. Trump. An expansion of tax-favored education savings accounts is co-sponsored by Ms. Spanberger and Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, another Republican who voted to impeach. Also included is a significant expansion of eligibility for child and adult nutrition programs, drafted by Representatives Suzanne Bonamici, Democrat of Oregon, and Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Washington Republican facing a serious Trump-backed challenge for her impeachment vote.There are even incentives for utilities to invest in cybersecurity written by Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the Democrat who has raised the contempt of the left by blocking the social policy and climate change bill in the Senate, and refusing to join his party in changing the filibuster rule to pass voter protection legislation over Republican opposition.But most striking is how the draft agenda takes on issues that appear to be dominating the campaign trail, even if they have not generated much debate on the floors of the House and the Senate.To beat back inflation, one bill the group is pushing would “prohibit” foreign governments from participating in cartel-like activities, a hit at OPEC that would have no real impact. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would be granted the authority to order refunds for natural gas bills “that are unjust, unreasonable, unduly discriminatory or preferential.” And assistance would be given to new and small meat processors to combat monopoly pricing from the few dominant meat processors, an effort already underway by the Biden administration.Rising crime rates across the country would also receive attention, through an expansion of existing grants to local law enforcement, new safety requirements for ride-hailing companies, stronger reporting requirements for electronic communication service providers to help track child predators and a new federal crime designation for “porch pirates” who steal packages from home stoops.One measure included in the agenda appears to accept the Republican talking point that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory in China, then covered up by the World Health Organization — assertions that have been challenged repeatedly by scientific researchers.The Never Again International Outbreak Prevention Act, by Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Conor Lamb, a centrist Democrat running for the Senate in Pennsylvania, “would provide accountability with respect to international reporting and monitoring of outbreaks of novel viruses and diseases, sanction bad actors and review the actions of the World Health Organization.” More