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What’s at Stake in These Elections
Midterm elections in the United States are often presented as a referendum on the party in power, and that message appears to be resonating this fall. But voters need to consider the intentions of the party that hopes to regain power, too, and what each vote they cast will mean for the future of this country.Eight Republican senators and 139 Republican representatives sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election on the basis of spurious allegations of voter fraud and other irregularities. Many of them are likely to win re-election, and they may be joined by new members who also have expressed baseless doubts about the integrity of the 2020 election. Their presence in Congress poses a danger to democracy, one that should be on the mind of every voter casting a ballot this Election Day.It will also be the first time that the U.S. electoral machinery will be tested in a national election after two years of lawsuits, conspiracy theories, election “audits” and all manner of interference by believers in Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. That test comes alongside the embrace of violent extremism by a small but growing faction of the Republican Party.The greatest danger to election integrity may, in fact, come from the results of state and local races that will determine who actually conducts the election and counts the votes in 2024. In the weeks that followed the 2020 election, Mr. Trump and his supporters saw their efforts to deny the election results and prove rampant voter fraud thwarted by two things: first, their inability to produce credible evidence that such fraud had occurred and, second, an election infrastructure that was defended by honorable public servants who refused to accept specious claims of wrongdoing.Over the past two years, Republicans in dozens of states have tried to dismantle that infrastructure piece by piece, particularly by filling key positions with Trump sympathizers. As this board wrote in September, “Rather than threatening election officials, they will be the election officials — the poll workers and county commissioners and secretaries of state responsible for overseeing the casting, counting and certifying of votes.” Many of those positions are being contested this week.With Mr. Trump said to be readying his bid to return to the White House, this board urges American voters to consider how important each vote cast on Election Day, at every level of government, will be. Even if the member of Congress in your district has refused to accept Mr. Trump’s lies about this election, there are other races on the ballot in many states for offices — including secretary of state, attorney general and governor — that will play crucial roles in overseeing and certifying the 2024 presidential election.Still, with that election two years away, many voters say they are more concerned with the present threats to their livelihoods than with the equally serious but less visible threat to democracy. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that “more than a third of independent voters and a smaller but noteworthy contingent of Democrats said they were open to supporting candidates who reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election, as they assigned greater urgency to their concerns about the economy than to fears about the fate of the country’s political system.”Indeed, voters have good reason to look at the current moment and wonder whether the Biden administration and congressional Democrats are doing enough to meet it. High inflation is making it harder for Americans to afford what they need and want. Overall crime has risen, causing people to fear for their safety. The federal government is struggling to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and America’s increasingly tense relations with China are undermining global peace and prosperity.Republicans have presented these midterm elections as a referendum on Democratic leadership, and that message appears to be resonating.But voters need to consider the intentions of the party that hopes to regain power, too.Republicans have offered few specific plans for addressing issues like inflation, immigration and crime — and even if they win control of Congress, they are unlikely to win enough seats to shift federal policy significantly over the next two years.A Republican-controlled Senate would, however, be able to block President Biden from filling vacancies on the federal bench and on the Supreme Court. It would become more difficult to obtain confirmations for executive branch officials, as well.Republican candidates have also pledged to devote significant time and energy to investigating the Biden administration. “I don’t think Joe Biden and his handlers are exactly eager to sign Republican legislation into law, so our hearings are going to be the most important thing that we can have,” Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado told a recent rally.In addition to that spectacle, Republicans are threatening to stage another showdown over federal spending.At some point in the next year, the government is expected to hit the limit of its authorized borrowing capacity, or debt ceiling. To meet the commitments Congress already has authorized, it will need to raise that limit. This ought to be a matter of basic housekeeping, because failing to pay the nation’s bills would risk a global financial crisis. But debt ceiling votes have instead become recurring opportunities for extortion.This board has called for Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling, replacing it with a common-sense law that says the government can borrow whatever is necessary to provide for the spending authorized by Congress. There is no public benefit in requiring what amounts to a second vote on spending decisions. But for now, the ceiling endures, and Republicans have made clear that if they win control of Congress, they intend to use it as a bargaining chip with the White House to advance their party’s fiscal goals.One priority on that list is cutting taxes. Republicans already are preparing to move forward with legislation to extend the 2017 tax cuts for individuals, which mostly benefit wealthy households, while eliminating some of the offsetting increases in corporate taxation — a plan that is not easily reconciled with the party’s stated concerns about inflation or the rising federal debt.Republican proposals would also make it more difficult for the Internal Revenue Service to prevent wealthy Americans from cheating on their taxes. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, who is in position to become speaker if Republicans win a majority, has said the “first bill” that would pass under his leadership would reverse an $80 billion funding increase for the I.R.S. Congress approved that funding in August so the I.R.S. can crack down on rampant tax fraud by high-income households.Some senior Republicans have called for repealing another key piece of the August legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act: a measure that limits drug costs for seniors on Medicare, including a $35 monthly cap on payments for insulin.Republicans also have floated plans to roll back more firmly established benefits. The Republican Study Committee, a conservative policy working group whose membership includes more than half of the current crop of House Republicans, published a budget plan in June calling for Congress to gradually increase the retirement age for full Social Security benefits to 70 to check the rising cost of the program. The plan also would increase the age of eligibility for Medicare.Democrats could make it more difficult for Republicans to pursue these goals by raising the debt limit or changing the rules in the weeks between the election and the end of the year.Democrats have largely failed to connect with voters’ concerns about inflation and public safety during this campaign season. They have struggled to communicate their tangible achievements, including a big boost in funding for local law enforcement and bipartisan gun safety legislation, a historic federal investment in developing clean and low-cost sources of energy to confront climate change and the cost of living, and a breakthrough measure to bring down the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients.Undoubtedly, there is more work to be done on these and other issues, including the health of the economy and the broken state of immigration policy. Voters need to decide which party they trust to do that work.But the 2022 elections are also an opportunity for every American to do their part in defending the integrity of American elections. The task of safeguarding our democracy does not end with one election, and it requires all of us to play a role. Our nation’s governance depends on it.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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Confidence, Anxiety and a Scramble for Votes Two Days Before the Midterms
As candidates made their closing arguments on Sunday, Democrats braced for potential losses even in traditionally blue corners of the country while Republicans predicted a red wave.DELAWARE COUNTY, Pa. — The turbulent midterm campaign rolled through its final weekend on Sunday as voters — buffeted by record inflation, worries about their personal safety and fears about the fundamental stability of American democracy — showed clear signs of preparing to reject Democratic control of Washington and embrace divided government.As candidates sprinted across the country to make their closing arguments to voters, Republicans entered the final stretch of the race confident they would win control of the House and possibly the Senate. Democrats steeled themselves for potential losses even in traditionally blue corners of the country.On Sunday, President Biden campaigned for Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York in a Yonkers precinct where he won 80 percent of the vote in 2020, signaling the deep challenges facing his party two years after he claimed a mandate to enact a sweeping domestic agenda. Former President Donald J. Trump addressed supporters in Miami, another sign of Republican optimism that the party could flip Florida’s most populous urban county for the first time in two decades.In the rally at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., Mr. Biden characterized Election Day and the coming 2024 campaign as “inflection points” for the next 20 years. Voters, he said, had a clear choice between two “fundamentally different visions of America.”Mr. Trump, meanwhile, took the stage for about 90 minutes to blast Democrats as being soft on crime, re-litigate grievances about his presidency and the 2020 election, and boast that he has motivated Hispanic voters, especially in Florida, to shift toward the Republican Party.“We need a landslide so big that the radical left cannot rig or steal it,” he said, minutes before a rainstorm soaked the crowd. “We are going to take back America.”The appearances represented an unusual capstone to an extraordinary campaign — the first post-pandemic, post-Roe, post-Jan. 6 national election in a fiercely divided country shaken by growing political violence and lies about the last major election.While a majority of voters name the economy as their top concern, nearly three-quarters of Americans believe democracy is in peril, with most identifying the opposing party as the major threat. Should Republicans sweep the House contests, their control could empower the party’s right wing, giving an even bigger bullhorn to lawmakers who traffic in conspiracy theories and falsehoods like Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida.A gas station in Mineral County, Nev., had gas prices well above $5 a gallon last week. A majority of voters say the economy is their top concern.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesA central question for Democrats is whether such a distinctive moment overrides fierce historical headwinds. Since 1934, nearly every president has lost seats in his first midterm election. And typically, voters punish the party in power for poor economic conditions — dynamics that point toward Republican gains.After days of campaigning across rural Nevada, Adam Laxalt, the Republican challenging Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, rallied supporters in and around Las Vegas this weekend, predicting a “red wave” that is “deep and wide.” Mr. Laxalt noted that Mr. Biden did not campaign in Nevada this year and blamed him for the state’s 15 percent inflation.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.House Democrats: Several moderates elected in 2018 in conservative-leaning districts are at risk of being swept out. That could cost the Democrats their House majority.A Key Constituency: A caricature of the suburban female voter looms large in American politics. But in battleground regions, many voters don’t fit the stereotype.Crime: In the final stretch of the campaigns, politicians are vowing to crack down on crime. But the offices they are running for generally have little power to make a difference.Abortion: The fall of Roe v. Wade seemed to offer Democrats a way of energizing voters and holding ground. Now, many worry that focusing on abortion won’t be enough to carry them to victory.“He’s going to call you anti-democratic for using the democratic system to give us a change,” he told supporters on Saturday in Clark County, the state’s largest county. “But that change is coming.”The midterm’s final landscape hinted that voters were prioritizing fiscal worries over more existential fears about democracy or preserving abortion rights. From liberal northeastern suburbs to Western states, Republican strategists, lawmakers and officials now say they could flip major parts of the country and expand their margins in Southern and Rust Belt states that have been fertile ground for their party for much of the last decade.There were also some early signs that key parts of the coalition that boosted Democrats to victory in 2018 and 2020 — moderate suburban white women and Latino voters — were swinging toward Republican candidates. Top Democratic officials made 11th-hour efforts to shore up their base. Vice President Kamala Harris made stops in Chicago to help Illinois Democrats. The first lady, Jill Biden, traveled to Houston on Sunday, trying to lift party turnout in Harris County, a stronghold for Democrats in Texas.In the House, where Republicans need to flip five seats to control the chamber, the party vied for districts in Democratic bastions, including in Rhode Island, exurban New York, Oregon and California. Republican strategists touted their surprisingly close standing in governor’s races in longer-shot blue states like New York, New Mexico and Oregon.At the same time, the Senate remains a tossup, with candidates locked in near dead-even races in three states — Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania — and tight races in at least another four. Republicans need just one additional seat to win control.“Everyone on the Republican side should be optimistic,” said Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican and the head of the Republican Senate campaign arm. Mr. Scott predicted his party would flip the chamber, going beyond the 51 seats needed for control. “If you look at the polls now, we have every reason to think we’ll be over 52.”Lt. Gov. John Fetterman with supporters at a rally in Pittsburgh on Saturday.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesTwo supporters of Senator Raphael Warnock greeted each other at one of his events in Monroe, Ga., on Thursday.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesFor months, Democratic candidates in key races have outpaced Mr. Biden’s low approval ratings, aided by flawed Republican opponents who had been boosted to primary victories by Mr. Trump. Continuing to outrun the leader of their party grew more difficult as perceptions of the economy worsened and as Republican groups unleashed a fall ad blitz accusing their opponents of being weak on crime.“It’s a close race — it’s a jump ball for sure,” Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democrat running for Senate in Pennsylvania against Mehmet Oz, the television personality, told a group of supporters in suburban Philadelphia.Dr. Oz and Mr. Fetterman both spent time in the Philadelphia area on Sunday, battling, in particular, in the crucial swing suburbs. A day after joining Mr. Trump at a rally in the Pittsburgh exurbs, Dr. Oz campaigned with Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, two more moderate Republicans.In Georgia, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley told supporters not to feed into national headlines about Republicans’ strength, as she campaigned with Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee, in the conservative northwest Atlanta exurbs.“Don’t listen to this red wave stuff they’re talking to you about. The win that will happen in Georgia will simply be based on turnout,” she said. “Do more of us show up than they do?”And in the Las Vegas suburbs, former President Bill Clinton appeared with Ms. Cortez Masto to urge a crowd of labor union members to warn their family and friends not to cast a protest vote for Republicans, who he said would be “terrible” for working-class people.“They’re gambling that they have this magic moment where we’ll all be so mad, we’ll stop thinking,” he said. “Between now and Tuesday, people here could change the outcome of this election.”Cheri Beasley, a Democrat running for Senate in North Carolina in a tight race against Representative Ted Budd, spoke to voters in Charlotte, N.C., in September.Logan R. Cyrus for The New York TimesIn the House, the question is how large next year’s Republican majority will be. Some strategists have increased their estimates of how many seats the G.O.P. will gain from a handful to more than 25, which is well over the threshold for control of the chamber. Some of the Democratic challenges are structural: Republicans could pick up three seats just from redistricting according to some estimates, and a wave of Democratic retirements means more than a dozen seats in competitive districts lack incumbents to defend them. Paired with the number of seats leaning Republican or considered tossups, those obstacles are the makings of a landslide if undecided voters break decisively for the party out of power.“It’s not a surprise that this is a tough cycle,” said Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democratic House campaign arm, who is in danger of losing his seat in New York’s Hudson Valley, which Mr. Biden won by 10 percentage points. “We’re very much aware of what we’re up against.”In governor’s races, Republican candidates modeled after Mr. Trump face decidedly mixed prospects, reflecting their party’s struggles with his continued influence. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida seemed poised for re-election, while Kari Lake, the Republican nominee in Arizona, faces a tough battle. Doug Mastriano, the far-right nominee in Pennsylvania, was expected to lose, but Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, both of whom clashed with Mr. Trump, appear to have solidified their hold.Kari Lake addressed reporters at a campaign event on Friday, alongside other Republican candidates at the U.S.-Mexico border in Sierra Vista, Ariz.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesSupporters of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida gathered at a campaign event in Coconut Creek, Fla., on Friday. Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesIn some ways, the congressional elections are less consequential than some of the state elections, given that Mr. Biden will still be in the White House to block Republican legislation. In Wisconsin and North Carolina, the party is on the verge of breakthroughs in state legislatures that would give it almost total control of their governments.If Republicans gain just a handful of House and Senate seats in North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, faces the prospect of a Republican supermajority, rendering his veto pen obsolete to stop policies like a state abortion ban. If Republicans flip only one of the two State Supreme Court seats up for re-election Tuesday, a Republican-controlled high court could ratify even more gerrymandered state legislative maps that would lock in Republican control for the foreseeable future.“Yes, we’re concerned about it because the Republicans got to draw their own districts,” Mr. Cooper said. “We know this is a very purple, 50-50 state, yet we have a situation with unfair maps of maybe a supermajority.”But the chaotic events of the post-Trump era along with questions about the very mechanics of elections have injected a heavy dose of uncertainty into the outcome of the 2022 midterms.Democratic strategists have been enthusiastic about early voting, saying that it matched or was higher than the turnout two years ago when the party swept the House. More than 30 million ballots have been cast already, exceeding the 2018 total, and the Democratic advantage is 11 percentage points nationwide, even better than in 2018, according to Tom Bonier, the chief executive of TargetSmart, a firm that analyzes political data.But Republican candidates have followed Mr. Trump’s lead in denouncing mail voting and encouraging their voters to cast their ballots on Election Day. So those early Democratic numbers could be swamped by Republican votes on Tuesday.New Yorkers cast their ballots during early voting at a polling station at John Jay High School in Brooklyn on Saturday. More than 30 million ballots have been cast already.Ahmed Gaber for The New York TimesRepublicans, meanwhile, point to polling averages that crept toward the G.O.P. in the final week. But a number of the polls were conducted by Republican-leaning firms, which could influence the outcome of those surveys. And after several cycles of polling underestimating Trump voters, it’s unclear whether pollsters have correctly captured the electorate. “I’ve never been one who has put my bets on any poll, because I think particularly at this time people are not sharing where they are,” said Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat of Washington, who is facing a tough re-election battle in her blue state.Hispanic voters are likely to play a crucial role in Tuesday’s election, though both sides remain uncertain how much the landscape has shifted. In two of the states that are likely to determine control of the Senate — Nevada and Arizona — they make up roughly 20 percent of the electorate. Latinos also account for more than 20 percent of registered voters in more than a dozen hotly contested House races, including in California, Colorado, Florida and New Mexico.“The data itself right now is a picture of uncertainty,” said Carlos Odio, who runs Equis, a Democratic-leaning research firm that focuses on Latino voters. “We’re not seeing further decline for Democratic support, but the party has relied on very high margins in the past.”The audience watched former President Barack Obama at a Democratic rally in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesKatie Glueck More
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Joe Biden and the Parable of the Raisin Bran
A remark in a local television interview undercut the president’s message: that his administration was tackling rising prices for gasoline and groceries.It escaped the notice of most in the national political press.But a stray comment President Biden made in a local television interview last week spoke volumes about Democrats’ struggle to find a winning message on inflation.“By the way,” Biden began, “the food prices — the main driver of food prices — is not the price of beef and eggs, etc., although they’re up. It’s packaged goods, packaged goods.”Then the gaffe: “You’re going to see people not buying Kellogg’s Raisin Bran. You’re going to see them buying other raisin bran, which is going to be a dollar cheaper.”Needless to say, eat generic raisin bran is not exactly a poll-tested, winning message. Clips of that comment went viral on the right, racking up tens of thousands of views on conservative YouTube and TikTok channels.Perhaps the president was reading the business section of The New York Times, which reported this week on how food companies are banking huge profits. Or perhaps he was just falling into the politician’s trap of playing pundit, which is rarely a good idea.Either way, Biden’s remark undercut what he had just claimed seconds earlier — that his administration was succeeding in tackling rising prices for gasoline and groceries.“We’re getting them down,” he said. “I told you I’d bring them down. We’re bringing it down.”True for gas, less so for groceries. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve cranked up interest rates another notch, indicating that the people who can shape the U.S. economy don’t believe they have licked the inflation problem.More to the point, Biden’s raisin bran comment unintentionally revealed just how inconsistent the Democratic Party’s message on inflation has come across to voters.Some of it has been bad luck — above all, the fact that Biden took office during a pandemic that scrambled global supply chains, driving up costs that businesses then duly passed along to consumers. “We’re not as bad as Turkey” is a hard case to make at the polls.There were also costly communications mistakes along the way. Last spring, administration economists were insisting that inflation would be “transitory.” That assessment proved to be wildly optimistic, and Republicans have not let voters forget it.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.When the war in Ukraine drove a fresh jump in prices, Democrats deployed the phrase “Putin’s price hike” to try to mitigate the damage. There were also scattershot attempts at whacking Corporate America for “price-gouging” — meatpackers and oil companies being among the main villains — although some liberal economists questioned the logic.In remarks on inflation in May, Biden tried out a new phrase: “the ultra-MAGA agenda,” referring to a plan by Senator Rick Scott of Florida that would require Congress to reauthorize spending for Social Security and Medicare. Republicans, including Scott, have distanced themselves from the idea.Finally, with the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage in August, Democrats had accomplishments that they could credibly argue would address rising costs for families. The legislation included price caps for insulin and provisions allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs, for instance. In isolation, those policies were overwhelmingly popular, polls showed.But that sentiment may have been an illusion: Polls also indicated that only a third of voters had heard of the new law and that the majority did not believe it would reduce inflation.Biden has spoken about the economy in speeches far more often than any other subject; he has made 22 appearances since August for midterm-related events, according my count. Even so, progressives complain that Democratic candidates neither put significant resources or energy into promoting those achievements, nor do they adequately punish Republicans for their own positions.Democrats felt crippled, too, by the president’s poll numbers: Few candidates were eager to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a leader whose approval rating went negative in August 2021 and has hovered around the low 40s ever since.In a prime-time speech on Thursday, Biden made his closing pitch to voters, arguing about the threat Republicans posed to democracy — not about what he had done to address inflation. Even though he spoke about the economy earlier in the day, his democracy speech led the news.‘Hot dog, the Biden economic plan is working’Republicans, meanwhile, had a much simpler task in this election: blame Democrats for everything.In one telling episode recounted by Republican strategists, the National Republican Congressional Committee ran a small series of digital ads during the Fourth of July congressional recess in 2021 highlighting the cost of food. They resonated strongly with voters, even in focus groups run by Democrats.At the time, however, Democrats were still trying to convince the public that prices were not, in fact, rising.“Planning a cookout this year?” the White House said on Twitter. “Ketchup on the news. According to the Farm Bureau, the cost of a 4th of July BBQ is down from last year. It’s a fact you must-hear(d). Hot dog, the Biden economic plan is working. And that’s something we can all relish.”A graphic accompanying the tweet read: “The cost of a 4th of July cookout in 2021 is down $0.16 from last year.” In response, Representative Burgess Owens, a Republican of Utah, said on Twitter that the Biden administration was “bragging about saving us $0.04 on sliced cheese.”At the time, the Consumer Price Index had risen 5 percent between May 2020 and May 2021; the most recent numbers indicate that the index has climbed by 8.2 percent in the 12 months through September.Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, a former lawyer and the chairman of the Republicans’ House campaign arm, said in an interview that he was bringing his courtroom experience to the task of winning back the seats his party lost in 2018. He advised G.O.P. candidates to make Biden’s handling of inflation their top line of attack.“It’s something I learned when I was trying cases in front of juries,” Emmer said. “You figure out what the theme of the case is.” The same goes for politics, he said: “You know what your message is, and you hammer at it every single day.”“Democrats spent the last two years rescuing America’s small businesses, saving jobs, getting a pandemic under control and investing in America’s future,” Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York shot back. “Tom Emmer and his motley crew of MAGA extremists were hawking deadly conspiracy theories and ripping away 50 years of reproductive freedom — that’s what’s on the ballot Tuesday.”Grocery shopping in the Queens borough of New York City.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesThey had a hammerHammer it they did. For election ads, Republican researchers clipped examples of Democratic politicians taking their cues from the White House and downplaying the rising costs early on.Ads running nonstop in Michigan’s Eighth Congressional District, for instance, show Representative Dan Kildee saying that inflation was “transitory.” In the state’s Seventh District, Republicans have tried to undercut Representative Elissa Slotkin’s bipartisan image with incessant commercials that claim she voted with Biden “100 percent of the time” and that she “doesn’t get” Americans’ financial struggles.“She voted for trillions in new spending. That’s fueling inflation. I’ll stop the out-of-control spending,” Slotkin’s opponent, Tom Barrett, says in one of them.Republicans have said much less about how they would address inflation if they retake the majority in Congress; economists are highly skeptical that cutting the federal budget when the economy is softening would help.But few Democrats have delivered as sharp a rejoinder as former President Barack Obama, who mocked Republican ideas at a recent campaign rally in Michigan.“When gas prices go up, when grocery prices go up, that takes a bite out of people’s paycheck,” Obama said. He added, “Republicans are having a field day running ads talking about it, but what is their actual solution to it?”“I’ll tell you: They want to gut Social Security, then Medicare, and then give some more tax breaks to the wealthy,” he continued. “And the reason I know that’s their agenda is, listen, that’s their answer to everything.”But there are few signs that the Democrats’ counterattacks are working. In polls, voters now give Republicans an enormous edge on who would do a better job on the economy. In the latest Wall Street Journal survey, only 27 percent of voters said that Biden’s policies “had a positive impact on the economy.”Forecasting models using economic indicators predict that Republicans will pick up as many as 45 House seats next week, though other factors could limit Democrats’ losses, and it’s anyone’s guess who will win the Senate.Emmer, for one, expressed bewilderment that Democrats did not have better answers to Republican attacks on inflation. As early as February 2021, he said, “We knew this is the issue, we knew it was coming.”But when some Democratic lawmakers voiced their concerns that spring about rising prices, he said, their leaders “refused to listen to them.”What to readRepublican candidates are focusing on crime and public safety, but their message is rooted not so much in data or policy as in voters’ feelings of unease. Julie Bosman, Jack Healy and Campbell Robertson have the details.Danny Hakim reports on Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, of Nevada and her Republican rival, Adam Laxalt. Both parties are shoveling money into a pivotal contest defined by two top issues, the economy and abortion.Early turnout is high in most states, Nick Corasaniti writes, and experts see broad Republican energy as well as Democratic enthusiasm in major battlegrounds. But changes in how people vote have added new uncertainty.Fueled by billionaires, political spending is again shattering records, Jonathan Weisman and Rachel Shorey report.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. 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