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      Colombia Election: Angry, Mobilized and Voting for Gustavo Petro

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      A large and loud youth electorate hungry to transform one of Latin America’s most unequal societies could propel Gustavo Petro, a former rebel, to the presidency.May 26, 2022FUSAGASUGÁ, Colombia — The man onstage surrounded by a screaming, sweating, fawning crowd seemed like an odd choice for a youth icon. Gustavo Petro is gray-haired, 62, and, in his speeches, he’s more roaring preacher than conversational TikTok star.But after an improbable rise from clandestine rebel to Bogotá mayor and bullish face of the Colombian opposition, Mr. Petro could soon become the country’s first leftist president, a watershed moment for one of the most politically conservative societies in Latin America.And his ascent has, in no small part, been propelled by the biggest, loudest and possibly angriest youth electorate in Colombia’s history, demanding the transformation of a country long cleaved by deep social and racial inequality.There are now nearly nine million Colombian voters 28 or younger, the most in history, and a quarter of the electorate. They are restive, raised on promises of higher education and good jobs, disillusioned by current prospects, more digitally connected and arguably more empowered than any previous generation.“Petro is change,” said Camila Riveros, 30, wrapped in a Colombian flag at a campaign event this month outside Bogotá, the capital. “People are tired of eating dirt.”Gustavo Petro this month in Santa Marta. He has held a steady lead in most polls, though he may not have enough support to avoid a runoff. As Colombians prepare to vote on Sunday, Mr. Petro has promised to overhaul the country’s capitalist economic model and vastly expand social programs, pledging to introduce guaranteed work with a basic income, shift the country to a publicly controlled health system and increase access to higher education, in part by raising taxes on the rich.Mr. Petro has been ahead in the polls for months — though surveys suggest he will face a runoff in June — and his popularity reflects both leftist gains across Latin America and an anti-incumbent fervor that has intensified as the pandemic has battered the region.“We have a decision to make,” Mr. Petro said at another campaign event this month in the Caribbean city of Cartagena. “We maintain things the way they are, or we scream: Freedom!”But critics say Mr. Petro is ill-suited for office, arguing that his policies, which include a plan to halt all new oil exploration in a country where fuel is a critical export, would ruin the economy.He has also taken direct swings at the country’s major institutions — most notably the armed forces — escalating tensions with military leaders and leading to concerns about the stability of Colombia’s longstanding but vulnerable democracy.Mr. Petro’s main opponent, Federico Gutiérrez, 47, a former mayor of Medellín, the country’s second largest city, and the candidate of the conservative establishment, proposes a more modest path forward.“Of course we need to change many things,” he said in an interview, citing a plan that would ramp up fracking for oil, steer more money to local governments and create a special unit to fight urban crime. “But changes can never mean a leap into the void without a parachute.”A third candidate, Rodolfo Hernández, 77, a former mayor with a populist, anti-corruption platform has been climbing in the polls.Mr. Petro’s main opponent, Federico Gutiérrez, is a former mayor of Medellín, the country’s second largest city, and the candidate of the conservative establishment.The election comes at a difficult moment for the country. Polls show widespread dissatisfaction with the government of the current president, Iván Duque, who is backed by the same political coalition as Mr. Gutiérrez, and frustration over chronic poverty, a widening income gap and insecurity, all of which have worsened during the pandemic.Among those hurt the most by these problems are younger Colombians, who are likely to play a big role in determining whether the country takes a major lurch to the left.Young people led anti-government protests that filled the streets of Colombia last year, dominating the national conversation for weeks. At least 46 people died — many of them young, unarmed protesters and many at the hands of the police — in what became referred to as the “national strike.”Some analysts expect young people to vote in record numbers, energized not just by Mr. Petro, but by his running mate, Francia Márquez, 40, an environmental activist with a gender, race and class-conscious focus who would be the country’s first Black vice president.“The TikTok generation that is very connected to Francia, that is very connected to Petro, is going to be decisive,” said Fernando Posada, 30, a political analyst.Some analysts expect young people to vote in record numbers, energized not just by Mr. Petro but by his running mate, Francia Márquez, an environmental activist.Today’s younger generation is the most educated in Colombian history, but is also grappling with 10 percent annual inflation, a 20 percent youth unemployment rate and a 40 percent poverty rate. Many — both supporters and critics of Mr. Petro — say they feel betrayed by decades of leaders who have promised opportunity but delivered little.In a May poll by the firm Invamer, more than 53 percent of voters ages 18 to 24 and about 45 percent of voters ages 25 to 34 said they were planning to vote for Mr. Petro. In both age categories, less than half those numbers said they would vote for Mr. Gutierrez or Mr. Hernández.Natalia Arévalo, 30, a single mother of three, marched for days during protests last year, with her daughter, Lizeth, 10, wearing a placard around her neck that read: “What awaits us children?”“You have to choose between paying your debts and feeding your kids,” said Ms. Arévalo, who supports Mr. Petro.“You can’t eat eggs, you can’t eat meat, you can’t eat anything,” she added. “We have to give a 180-degree turn to all that we’ve had for the last 20 years.”José Fernando Mazo, a law student, waving in the crowd at a rally for Mr. Petro in Cartagena on May 14.To be sure, many young voters are skeptical of Mr. Petro’s ability to deliver on his promises.In Fusagasugá, Nina Cruz, 27, a cafe worker, said Mr. Petro would fail Colombia’s struggling families, and she was particularly repulsed by his past as a member of a leftist rebel group.The country has a long history of violent militias that claim to help the indigent — and end up terrorizing them.“What he is saying is: ‘I’m going to help the poor,’” she said. “That’s a total lie.”Mr. Petro, an economist, grew up outside Bogotá. As a teenager, he joined the M-19, a leftist urban militia that sought to seize power and claimed to promote social justice.The group was never as large or as violent as the country’s main guerrilla force, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. But in 1985, the M-19 occupied a national judicial building, sparking a battle with the police and the military that left 94 people dead.Mr. Petro, who did not participate in the takeover, ended up in prison for his involvement with the group.He eventually demobilized and ran for a senate seat, emerging as the combative face of the left, pushing open conversations about corruption and wrongdoing.Some critics have warned that Mr. Petro’s energy proposals would bankrupt the country. Oil represents 40 percent of Colombia’s exports and Juan Carlos Echeverry, a former finance minister, has said that halting oil exploration “would be economic suicide.’’Ballistic shields on stage during Mr. Petro’s appearance in Cartagena. He has been the recent target of death threats. Mr. Petro also has a reputation for an authoritarian streak. As mayor of Bogotá, he circumvented the City Council and often failed to listen to advisers, said Daniel Garcia-Peña, who worked with Mr. Petro for a decade before quitting in 2012. In his resignation letter Mr. Garcia-Peña called Mr. Petro “a despot.”The election comes as polls show growing distrust in the country’s democratic institutions, including the country’s national registrar, an election body that bungled the initial vote count in a congressional election in March.The error, which the registrar called procedural, has led to concerns that losing candidates will declare fraud, setting off a legitimacy crisis.The country is also being roiled by rising violence, threatening to undermine the democratic process. The Mission for Electoral Observation, a local group, called this pre-election period the most violent in 12 years.Candidates pushing change have been murdered on the campaign trail before.Both Mr. Petro and Ms. Márquez have received death threats, and at his campaign event in Cartagena, he took the stage flanked by men holding bulletproof shields.Young supporters of Mr. Petro at a rally in Cartagena on May 14. A recent poll found that Mr. Petro was the leading candidate among voters 18 to 34.Some voters held signs that read “Black children’s lives matter,” and “if it’s not Petro, we’re screwed.”There was excitement — but also trepidation.“What we want are opportunities for everyone,” said Lauren Jiménez, 21, a university student.But “if Petro can’t follow through, I know we will see the same thing that happened with the Duque government: a social explosion,” she warned. “Because we’re tired of staying quiet.”Sofía Villamil More

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      Elecciones en Colombia: cómo votan los colombianos en el exterior

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      Desde el domingo, hora colombiana, los votantes elegibles alrededor del mundo están acudiendo a las urnas para participar en los comicios presidenciales.Los colombianos que residen fuera del país han empezado este lunes a emitir sus votos en las elecciones presidenciales. Según la autoridad nacional, hay más de 972.000 votantes elegibles para participar en las mesas de votación ubicadas en el extranjero.La elección presidencial se llevará a cabo en el territorio nacional de Colombia el domingo, pero las urnas ya abrieron en embajadas, consulados y otras oficinas en 67 países alrededor del mundo y permanecerán abiertas hasta el cierre de la jornada electoral.Los colombianos en el exterior, una diáspora de alrededor de 5 millones de personas, representan más del 10 por ciento de la población del país y viven principalmente en Estados Unidos, España y Venezuela.Un escaño de la Cámara de Representantes de Colombia está asignado a la diáspora a través de la circunscripción internacional. En las últimas elecciones legislativas, celebradas en marzo, la ganadora a la cámara baja fue Carmen “Karmen” Felisa Ramírez, una mujer de la etnia wayuu que ha vivido en Suiza por más de una década. Ramírez fue la candidata de la coalición de Gustavo Petro y derrotó al candidato del uribismo que buscaba reelegirse.Los votantes colombianos que residen en el extranjero tienen hasta el 29 de mayo para participar en las elecciones presidenciales si se inscribieron para hacerlo antes del 29 de marzo. Pueden ubicar su lugar de votación en el sitio de la registraduría. Solo podrán emitir el voto con la cédula de ciudadanía; no se acepta el pasaporte ni otro tipo de documento de identificación. More

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      Early Voting Surges as Georgia Watches for Impact of Election Law

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      ATLANTA — Early voting turnout in Georgia’s primary elections surged past previous milestones, signaling an energized electorate in a newly minted political battleground that remains ground zero in the national fight over voting rights, and setting off a fresh debate over a major voting law that had largely been untested before this year.Republicans quickly pointed to the early totals — more than 857,000 ballots were cast in an early voting period that ended Friday, roughly three times as many as in the same period in the 2018 primary elections — to argue that the law, passed last year by the G.O.P.-led legislature, was not suppressing votes.Democrats and voting rights groups said that the numbers were evidence that their redoubled efforts to overcome the law’s effects by guiding voters through new rules and restrictions were paying off so far, and that any focus on total turnout ignored whether voting had been made harder or had placed new burdens on marginalized groups.It is too soon to draw any sweeping conclusions, because the true impact of the voting law cannot be drawn from topline early voting data alone. The picture will grow slightly clearer on Tuesday, when Election Day turnout can be observed; clearer still in the days afterward, when final absentee ballot rejection rates and precinct-level data will emerge; and will fully come into focus after the November general election, when turnout will be far higher and put more strain on the system.The early aggregate statewide turnout figures could obscure the effects of the new law on specific groups, like Black voters, that advocates contend were targeted by it.Ultimately, election experts cautioned, it remains unclear if the law made voting harder, if Democrats have been energized by the legislation or if some combination of the two is unfolding.“Just because turnout is up doesn’t mean that voters face no hurdles,” said Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine. “It could well mean that voters overcame those hurdles, and that means that time and money were put into efforts to assure that voters could overcome those hurdles. And that seems unjustified if those hurdles serve no important anti-fraud or other purpose.”The top election official in the state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican running for re-election, underlined his confidence in the state’s elections under the new law, adding that he was sure county elections administrators would be adequately prepared for what will most likely be a steep increase in voter participation on Election Day.“It’s been tested and it’s coming through with straight A’s,” he said in a recent interview. “We’re having record turnout. We have record registrations, and lines have been short. Everything’s really been running very smooth.”Brad Raffensperger, a Republican and Georgia’s secretary of state, is running for re-election.Audra Melton for The New York TimesGeorgia was one of the first states to pass a new voting law after the 2020 election, when former President Donald J. Trump targeted the state with a flurry of falsehoods about its results.Republicans in the legislature passed the voting law to address what they argued were widespread problems with election oversight and expanded ballot access that could create openings for voter fraud. (Multiple recounts and audits after the election found no evidence of meaningful fraud or other wrongdoing.) Other states soon followed: At least 19 passed 34 laws last year that included new restrictions on voting or changed the way elections are administered.Democrats, civil rights groups, businesses and voting rights organizations denounced the Georgia law. President Biden called it “Jim Crow 2.0,” and Major League Baseball moved its All-Star game out of Atlanta in protest. But some of the public outcry focused on provisions that ended up being removed from the final version, such as banning voting on Sundays (the law allows counties the option of providing Sunday voting, and added a second mandatory Saturday of early voting).In this week’s primary, there are no major statewide battles for a Democratic nomination, with Stacey Abrams running largely uncontested for governor and Senator Raphael Warnock running as an incumbent for re-election. In the three weeks of early voting, 483,149 Republicans voted early, compared with 368,949 Democrats.The law instituted new regulations for mail voting, such as additional identification requirements and limits on how drop boxes could be deployed. During the 2020 election, counties across the state relied heavily on drop boxes, which were permitted by a ruling from the state’s election board, to help voters returning absentee ballots.But the new law sought to rein in their use, capping the number of drop boxes at one per 100,000 registered voters in a county — which could cut the amount of drop boxes in urban areas by as much as two-thirds — and limiting their availability to office hours. The law did, however, codify drop boxes as an option for voters into state election law.Overall turnout for absentee voting has been difficult to parse so far.During the 2020 election, when voters turned en masse to mail ballots because of the pandemic, more than 1.1 million Georgians voted by mail in the primary, and in 2018, fewer than 30,000 voted absentee. This year, more than 61,000 voted absentee in the primary, an increase over 2018 but less than 10 percent of the 2020 totals.Voters in primaries also tend to be more motivated and engaged than general-election voters, and they are more likely to be aware of new rules and willing to work through them to cast ballots.“The people who are highly engaged are the people who are voting in primaries, and those highly engaged people are often most equipped to get around any sort of change to voting,” said Michael McDonald, a voter turnout expert at the University of Florida.Gov. Brian Kemp, campaigning in the final days of his Republican primary race for governor, condemned Democrats for their criticism of the law, suggesting that their claims that it was “suppressive” were hyperbolic and politically motivated.Understand the Battle Over U.S. Voting RightsCard 1 of 6Why are voting rights an issue now? More

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      Anthony Albanese to Become Australian Prime Minister

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      Like Biden before him, Anthony Albanese enters office more on the back of disgust at the conservative incumbent than enthusiasm for his leadership.SYDNEY, Australia — The incumbent prime minister, Scott Morrison, pushed Australia to the right and called himself “a bit of a bulldozer.” His Labor challenger, Anthony Albanese, ran as a modest Mr. Fix-It, promising to seek “renewal, not revolution.”In the end, moderation triumphed. Mr. Albanese won Saturday’s election with a campaign that was gaffe-prone and light on policy but promised a more decent form of politics, delivering a stark rejection of Mr. Morrison after nearly a decade of conservative leadership in Australia.It was a combination that carried powerful echoes of President Biden’s victory a year and a half ago. Both Mr. Albanese and Mr. Biden are political lifers, working-class battlers with decades of experience in government and reputations for pragmatic compromise.But they also both face the problem of how they won. Disgust with an incumbent put them into office. Governing, and staying in power, requires rallying enthusiasm from a fickle public.“It’s a question of whether he can be a galvanizing leader,” said Paul Strangio, a politics professor at Monash University in Melbourne. “Whether he can learn on the job.”In a reflection of Australia’s broader mood of discontent, voters did not just grant Labor a clear victory. They delivered a larger share of their support to minor parties and independents who ran against the political status quo, with a surge of grass-roots enthusiasm for candidates demanding more action on climate change and greater accountability in government.Prime Minister Scott Morrison conceding defeat on Saturday in Sydney.Loren Elliott/ReutersIn Sydney, Allegra Spender, an independent, was projected to defeat Dave Sharma, a moderate from the conservative Liberal Party. In Melbourne, the current treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, who has often been mentioned as a future prime minister, was projected to lose to another independent, Monique Ryan, a pediatrician, while Zoe Daniel, an independent and a former journalist, also won in the city’s bayside suburbs.“What this says is that community can make a difference,” Ms. Daniel said at a victory party on Saturday night.“Climate, integrity, equality,” she added. “We now have a chance to actually make a difference.”In addition to the victories by independents, minor parties — from the Greens on the left to the United Australia Party on the right — also made gains, delivering what analysts described as a “tipping point” in a country that has been gradually moving away from major party dominance.“Voters have sent the major parties the message that their support can’t be guaranteed,” said Jill Sheppard, a politics professor at the Australian National University.“It’s really a massive shift,” she added. “And it’s one we don’t really have our heads around yet.”Australian voters have called for more action on climate change after severe flooding and bush fires.Matthew Abbott for The New York TimesFor Mr. Albanese, who has spent his entire career in Labor Party politics, including 23 years in Parliament, this sea change presents an unexpected challenge.Contrasting his approach with the pugnacious style of Mr. Morrison — who led a government that passed little memorable legislation but successfully managed the early months of the pandemic — Mr. Albanese ran a “small target” campaign.He proposed incremental reforms, including a promise to increase the minimum wage and provide more support for health care, nursing homes and child care. Mostly, though, he focused on altering the tone and style of leadership.“I want to change politics,” he said after voting on Saturday in the Sydney neighborhood where he grew up. “I want to change the way it operates.”Without a grand and well-defined vision already sold to the electorate, some analysts said it would be more difficult for Mr. Albanese to make rapid progress on his agenda.“It doesn’t make it impossible, but governments need momentum,” said Tim Soutphommasane, a politics professor at the University of Sydney.Some of the issues voters want addressed are unsurprising. The cost of living is rising. Businesses are struggling with labor shortages and wondering when the usual flows of skilled migrant workers will return. The pandemic has revealed gaps in health care and nursing homes.A Covid-19 ward in Melbourne. Gaps in health care, laid bare by the pandemic, were of concern to voters.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York TimesBigger questions — about how to bring light to a political system awash in dark money, or how to build a less racist, more equal society, or how to counter a more ambitious and belligerent China — were largely sidestepped by both Labor and its opponents in the campaign.“It’s been a very mundane election campaign, but that doesn’t deny the fact that there is still a global pandemic and a war and shifting global power dynamics in the Indo-Pacific,” said Professor Sheppard, of the Australian National University.Mr. Albanese, 59, does arrive with a reputation for building consensus, and for nodding toward colleagues in his cabinet on issues in which they have greater expertise. During the campaign, Penny Wong, who will serve as foreign minister, announced Labor’s plans to expand aid and diplomatic ties to Southeast Asia in an effort to counter Chinese influence.“He’s got an experienced and pretty talented frontbench, so I expect he will govern in a very collegial way,” said Professor Strangio, of Monash University.“The general view is he’s workmanlike,” he added. “He’s not exceptional. But maybe that’s the sort of leader we need — workmanlike, incremental change, dogged, doesn’t think he’s the smartest man in the room at all times. Maybe it’s the kind of government that would suit Australia’s circumstances.”In the best of times, Australians tend to see their government as a service provider more than a battleground for ideology. Now, with the pressures from the pandemic and the geopolitical fallout of the Ukraine war, they are even more eager to see policies that produce tangible results, and they are less convinced that traditional party politics can do the job.A polling station at Bondi Beach in Sydney on Saturday. Many voters threw their support to minor parties and independents who ran against the political status quo. Steven Saphore/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have these antiquated parties that are male-dominated,” said Roslyn Lunsford, 74, a voter in Western Sydney on Saturday. “It’s the same old, same old — we need a broom to go through.”As if he could sense the need for a bolder policy statement, Mr. Albanese opened his acceptance speech Saturday night with a promise to support the Uluru Statement From the Heart, a call from Indigenous Australians to establish a formal role for Australia’s First Nations people in the Constitution. It was issued in 2017 — and rejected by the conservative coalition.Similarly, Mr. Albanese pledged to make equal opportunity for women a national priority, to end Australia’s “climate wars,” which have held back pledges for emissions cuts, and to make the country a renewable energy superpower.Recognizing increased concern about integrity in government and oversight of public spending, Mr. Albanese also promised to quickly pass legislation to create a federal anticorruption commission, following through on an unfulfilled promise from Mr. Morrison in the last election.“Tomorrow we begin the work of building a better future,” he said. “A better future for all Australians.”Supporters of Mr. Albanese reacting to polling updates in Sydney on Saturday. Jaimi Joy/ReutersTo get it done, he now has to persuade a more fractured and more demanding country to believe in him and stick with him, at a time when it is cautiously emerging from two years of Covid isolation, with a surge of coronavirus cases, rising inflation and growing government debt all fueling anxiety.At the same time, China’s regional ambitions have become more threatening, with a new security agreement in the Solomon Islands. And the raging bush fires of 2020 have given way to extreme flooding — a relentless reminder of the country’s vulnerability to climate change, even as it remains the world’s largest exporter of coal.The challenges are colossal. The opposition from a more conservative Liberal Party promises to be fierce. And many analysts note that Mr. Albanese lacks the charisma of prior Labor leaders who won elections and moved the country in a new direction.“It usually takes excitement and a bit of dazzle in a Labor leader to change the government,” said James Curran, a historian at the University of Sydney. “Albanese upsets that historic apple cart.”Victoria Kim contributed reporting from Sydney, Natasha Frost from Melbourne and Yan Zhuang from Cessnock, Australia. More

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      How a Group of Female Independents Aims to Revive Australian Democracy

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      A community-driven movement has recruited around 25 candidates, most of them successful women preaching pragmatic reform. They could shape the balance of power after Saturday’s election.SYDNEY, Australia — On a cool morning at 5:50 a.m., Allegra Spender prepared to dive into the surf alongside dozens of ocean swimmers at Bondi Beach. She was there not just for exercise. She was there to meet voters.Her name was all over volunteers’ teal T-shirts and swim caps, identifying her as an independent candidate for the Australian federal Parliament.“Takes a lot of courage, what you’re doing,” said Jason Carr, 50, a security consultant, who came over to pledge his vote. “Good luck shaking things up.”Ms. Spender, 44, looked down and laughed.A first-time candidate, she said she still found the attention that comes with politics embarrassing. But that has not stopped her from shaking the political establishment — she is part of a movement of around 25 independents, nearly all of them women with successful careers, who are aiming to do nothing less than rejuvenate Australian democracy by saving it from the creep of corruption, right-wing populism and misogyny.The so-called teal independents, who tend to share the campaign colors of a Pacific wave, offer a sharp rebuke to Australia’s rigid party system. Recruited by energetic community groups that have formed only in the past few years, they are the public face of a fresh approach to politics that hopes to pull Australia back to the middle with a focus on climate change solutions, integrity and values like kindness.The “teals” could have a profound impact on Saturday’s election. Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the leader of the conservative Liberal Party, has warned of a “cavalcade of chaos” should too many independents win. But if the vote is close, as expected, and if neither the Liberal coalition nor the opposition Labor Party wins a majority, this group of loosely organized women who share common goals of making government more responsive and productive could decide who leads the next Australian Parliament.Ms. Spender, center in black, during a swim to meet voters at Bondi Beach in Sydney.Stephanie Simcox for The New York TimesThe gray-haired men fighting for power in the world’s third-largest exporter of fossil fuels — where sexual harassment in politics has long been ignored, where money pours in and out of government without oversight, where conservatives promoting populism make bans on transgender athletes a campaign plank — could soon find themselves forced to negotiate with independent working mothers demanding change, backed by mobilized constituents.“It’s a rebellion from the sensible center,” said Ms. Spender, who is challenging a Liberal incumbent in a district her father once represented in Parliament as a Liberal, in the days when the party was more center-right.“No, rebellion is the wrong word,” she added. “It’s a move by people who feel that they are not represented, and have had enough, and are hoping things will change.”The Indie From IndiAustralia’s major parties are gatekeepers with old operating systems. There are no primaries, and dark money pays a lot of the bills. The parties decide who runs, and those who win rarely break ranks, because a single breach can end a political career.In many districts, there has long been a sense that political ambition and party loyalty matter more than local interests. And while some of that discontent has flowed to minor parties like the Greens on the left and One Nation on the far right, what’s happening now with independents is more focused on how to improve representation rather than channeling frustration into one partisan wing or another.It began far from the cities, with a no-nonsense leader. Her name is Cathy McGowan.A sheep farmer and former president of Australian Women in Agriculture, she reached Parliament in 2013 as an independent from Indi, a rural area northwest of Melbourne. She defeated the Liberal incumbent. And the way she got there was even more groundbreaking than the victory itself.The process started before her candidacy with a group of local residents — Voices for Indi — gathering to discuss what they loved about their community and what they wanted to see changed. More than 400 people participated in 55 conversations around kitchen tables, over coffee or a beer, after a class or while camping.Those casual chats led to a thoughtful report that listed concerns from poor mobile phone reception to climate change. It also sought to define good political representation with phrases pulled from the conversations like “walk the talk” and “asks the community what it needs and is willing to listen.”Voices for Indi was the catalyst for Ms. McGowan’s campaign. When she won, Australians around the country started calling and emailing.“I was quite surprised by the response,” Ms. McGowan said. “There was huge interest.”Cathy McGowan in Parliament in 2019. Her campaign sprang from a local grass-roots movement.Tracey Nearmy/Getty ImagesTo share what she had learned, she hosted small events in 2014 and 2017.After another voices group in Sydney helped an independent candidate, Zali Steggall, unseat former Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2019, the movement suddenly went viral.Ms. McGowan, who left Parliament that year, passing the seat to another independent, Helen Haines, wrote a book in 2020 that told her personal story. She also started leading conferences over Zoom during the pandemic, connecting hundreds of people with similar inclinations.Each voices group that emerged embarked on a listening tour and ended up with its own list of concerns. The groups also hosted virtual events with policy experts.“Political parties have become disconnected from any kind of local membership,” said John Daley, a professor at the University of Melbourne Law School who wrote a major report about disengagement and gridlock last year. “The independent playbook goes precisely in the other direction — it goes back to the original idea of representative democracy.”The strongest efforts seem to have sprung up in areas with conservative roots, professional families and intense frustration with the tilt away from the political middle by the Liberal-led governing coalition.Most of the contenders are pro-business, pro-innovation (especially on energy) and proudly pro-equality (on both race and gender).Their campaigns have been bolstered by money from a group called Climate 200, which has collected more than 12 million Australian dollars, or about $8.5 million, from 12,000 donors to go to 22 independent candidates.That has led critics to claim they are not really independent. But Ms. McGowan and others, including Simon Holmes à Court, a founder of Climate 200, say the traditional major parties just don’t get that they’ve been disrupted.The independents and their supporters describe what’s happening as a 21st-century movement, organized on Slack and Zoom, crowd-funded, decentralized and committed to pragmatism.“Whatever the issue may be,” Ms. McGowan said, “what they want is action.”Fun … and Climate ChangeFor first-timers like Ms. Spender, who has worked in education and renewable energy and for the fashion company founded by her mother, Carla Zampatti, campaigning with new community groups often feels like her swim toward a distant buoy with energetic neighbors — exhausting, a little scary, but also rewarding.After her ocean jaunt in Bondi, she walked to a nearby cafe with all the others. Waiting in line for coffee, Ms. Spender warmed up near other swimmers and a few dogs wearing Allegra scarves. For the next hour, she did less talking than her volunteers.“This is the alternative to a career politician,” said Jonathan Potts, 51, who said he spends five hours a day volunteering to get Ms. Spender elected. “It’s a different philosophy — we want to look after long-term interests rather than party interests.”In interviews, many of the independents said they were initially reluctant to run, but had been surprised by how fun it had been to work with an ideas-first, community-driven approach.Zoe Daniel, a former foreign correspondent for Australia’s national broadcaster who is an independent candidate in Melbourne’s bayside suburbs, said she had been amazed to see young schoolgirls stopping outside her campaign office, taking selfies. There is even a choir that sings songs with “Zoe-ified lyrics.”An independent candidate, Zoe Daniel, center, greeting constituents in the suburbs of Melbourne earlier this month.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times“All of us feel that we’ve made lifelong friends with like-minded people through this,” she said.Dr. Monique Ryan, a pediatric neurologist who is challenging Josh Frydenberg, the national treasurer, said the local support pointed to the power of “small ‘l’ liberal values.”In her district, 2,000 volunteers have come out, including several hundred with Voices of Kooyong, who signed up before she was their candidate. They’ve knocked on around 50,000 doors — almost every single household in the electorate.“We offer something that’s not the normal partisan politics,” she said. “We also offer something that’s very values based. For me, it’s about integrity and transparency and action on climate, which a lot of people feel deep anxiety about. It’s about gender equity, it’s about a more cohesive society.”Polls show close contests for Ms. Daniel, Ms. Spender and Dr. Ryan. Incumbent independents, including Andrew Wilkie in Tasmania and Ms. Steggall in Sydney, also appear to be in strong positions. The fortunes of some other independents are harder to gauge, but the momentum has clearly set conservative politicians on edge.Mr. Frydenberg, who has been talked about as a potential prime minister, recently admitted he was facing “the fight of my political life.”Ms. Spender, at a recent climate event with two other independents — Georgia Steele, a lawyer, and Kylea Tink, a businesswoman — said they were trying to fill a national void.“I’m angry, I mean, really angry that the moderates of the coalition and even the Labor Party are not taking enough action right now and that other people have to stand up in their stead,” Ms. Spender said.“This is a national transformation,” she added. “It’s not one business, it’s not one community. It’s all.”Yan Zhuang contributed reporting. More

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      John Fetterman: ‘Unfussy and Plain-Spoken’

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      John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, isn’t like most politicians in his party.Only 38 percent of American adults have a bachelor’s degree. Yet college graduates have come to dominate the Democratic Party’s leadership and message in recent years.The shift has helped the party to win over many suburban professionals — and also helps explain its struggles with working-class voters, including some voters of color. On many social issues, today’s Democratic Party is more liberal than most Americans without a bachelor’s degree. The party also tends to nominate candidates who seem more comfortable at, say, Whole Foods than Wal-Mart.All of which makes John Fetterman such an intriguing politician.Last night, Fetterman — Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor — comfortably won the state’s Democratic Senate primary, with 59 percent of the vote. Conor Lamb, a more traditional Democratic moderate, finished second.In the general election this fall, Fetterman will face either Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor endorsed by Donald Trump, or David McCormick, a former business executive. Their primary remains too close to call.The basic theory of Fetterman’s candidacy is that personality and authenticity matter at least as much as policy positions. On many issues, his stances are quite liberal. He has supported Bernie Sanders and taken progressive positions on Medicare, marijuana, criminal justice reform and L.G.B.T. rights. “If you get your jollies or you get your voters excited by bullying gay and trans kids, you know, it’s time for a new line of work,” Fetterman said at a recent campaign stop.He is also 6-foot-8, bearded and tattooed, and he doesn’t like to wear suits. “I think he is a visual representation of Pennsylvania,” one voter recently said.Fetterman is the former mayor of Braddock, a blue-collar town in western Pennsylvania where about 70 percent of residents are Black. He declined to move into the lieutenant governor’s mansion near Harrisburg and spends many nights at his home in Braddock. He talks about having been around guns for most of his life. And he does take some positions that clash with progressive orthodoxy, like his opposition to a fracking ban.Fetterman “does not sound like any other leading politician in recent memory,” my colleague Katie Glueck wrote from the campaign trail. Holly Otterbein of Politico called him “unfussy and plain-spoken” in contrast to “a party often seen as too elite.” One suburban voter in Pennsylvania — making the same point in a more skeptical way — told The Times, “I think sometimes he might come off as not a polished person.”To be clear, Fetterman may lose the general election. This year is shaping up as a difficult one for Democrats, and the Republican campaign will no doubt use his progressive positions to claim he is a leftist out of step with Pennsylvania’s voters. Republicans may also point out that Fetterman has a graduate degree from Harvard and that he pulled a gun on a jogger in Braddock during a disputed 2013 encounter.Still, I find Fetterman to be notable because Democrats have nominated so few candidates like him in recent years. The party is more likely to choose ideologically consistent candidates whose presentation resembles that of a law professor or think-tank employee. Fetterman, like many working-class voters, has a mix of political beliefs. On the campaign trail, he wears shorts and a hoodie.Describing his appeal to voters, Sarah Longwell, a Republican political strategist, said: “It’s not that he’s progressive that they like or don’t like. They like that he’s authentic.”Although the specifics are different, he shares some traits with Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, who comes off as “simultaneously progressive, moderate and conservative,” as the political scientist Christina Greer wrote in The Times. Adams won his election despite losing Manhattan, New York’s most highly educated, affluent borough.Fetterman also has some similarities with Senator Sherrod Brown, a populist Democrat who has managed to win in Ohio and who revels in “his less than glamorous image,” as Andrew J. Tobias of Cleveland.com has written.For years, most Democrats trying to figure out how to win over swing voters have taken a more technocratic approach than either Adams or Fetterman. Centrist Democrats have often urged the party to move to the center on almost every issue — even though most voters support a progressive economic agenda, such as higher taxes on the rich.Liberal Democrats have made the opposite mistake, confusing the progressive politics of college campuses and affluent suburbs with the actual politics of the country. Some liberals make the specific mistake of imagining that most Asian, Black and Latino voters are more liberal than they are. As a shorthand, the mistake is sometimes known as the Latinx problem (named for a term that most Latinos do not use).It remains unclear whether Fetterman represents a solution to the Democrats’ working-class problem. But the problem is real: It is a central reason that Democrats struggle so much outside the country’s large metro areas. And if Democrats hope to solve it, they will probably have a better chance if more of their candidates feel familiar to working-class voters.Politics isn’t only about policy positions. People also vote based on instinct and comfort.For more: In Times Opinion, Michael Sokolove asks whether Fetterman is the future of the Democratic Party.The latest resultsIn the primaries for Pennsylvania governor, Doug Mastriano — a far-right state senator endorsed by Trump — won the Republican nomination, while Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general, won the Democratic race. Mastriano’s victory caused The Cook Political Report to say that the general election was no longer a toss-up and Shapiro was favored to win.In North Carolina, Madison Cawthorn lost the Republican primary for his House seat. Cawthorn was endorsed by Trump, but had feuded with others in his party after a series of scandals.Representative Ted Budd, also backed by Trump, won North Carolina’s Republican Senate primary. He will face the Democrat Cheri Beasley.Brad Little, Idaho’s Republican governor, beat back a primary challenge by Janice McGeachin, the Trump-endorsed lieutenant governor.THE LATEST NEWSWar in UkraineBuses with surrendered Ukrainian troops under Russian escort yesterday.Alexander Ermochenko/ReutersHundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who defended the steel mill in Mariupol are in Russian custody.Negotiators on both sides say peace talks have collapsed.On a Russian talk show, a retired colonel stunned his colleagues by saying that the invasion wasn’t going well.The VirusPublic schools in the U.S. have lost at least 1.2 million students since 2020, with some switching to home-schooling and others dropping out.The F.D.A. authorized Pfizer’s booster for children 5 to 11.Hospitalizations are rising in New York City, nearing the threshold to reinstate an indoor mask mandate.The White House will send Americans eight more at-home tests, through covidtests.gov.PoliticsA memorial outside the Tops supermarket in Buffalo.Doug Mills/The New York TimesPresident Biden visited the site in Buffalo where a gunman killed 10 people. “White supremacy is a poison,” he said.A Pentagon investigation found no wrongdoing in a 2019 airstrike in Syria that killed dozens of people, including women and children.The Justice Department requested transcripts from the Jan. 6 committee, potentially as evidence in future cases.In a hearing on U.F.O.s, Pentagon officials revealed video of an unidentified craft flying past a fighter jet.The Justice Department sued the casino mogul Steve Wynn, saying he lobbied Trump on China’s behalf.Other Big StoriesThe suspect in the Buffalo massacre invited a small group of people to review his plan on the chat app Discord. None of them alerted law enforcement.The shortage of baby formula has hospitalized two children who can’t absorb nutrients properly.Gun manufacturing has nearly tripled in the U.S. since 2000, fueled by sales of handguns.Johnny Depp’s lawyer challenged Amber Heard’s account of abuse, asking her why she had not presented medical records to back up her story.OpinionsIbrahim RayintakathWe want to call heat waves, wildfires and other deadly weather events “extreme,” but climate change has made them increasingly common, David Wallace-Wells writes.The baby formula shortage is more proof that new mothers, venerated in theory, are unsupported in practice, Elizabeth Spiers says.MORNING READSLife hacks: How to become an early bird.Hype man: A trash-talking crypto bro caused a $40 billion crash.Stanley tumbler: The sisterhood of social media’s favorite water bottle.A Times classic: How to talk to someone who’s sick.Advice from Wirecutter: Freeze your food — without freezer burn.Lives Lived: Urvashi Vaid, a lawyer and activist, was a leading figure in the fight for L.G.B.T.Q. equality for more than four decades. She died at 63.ARTS AND IDEAS The music supervisor Randall Poster.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesA boxed set for birdsRandall Poster had never appreciated the songbirds of the Bronx, where he has lived for most of his life, until the quiet the pandemic brought in 2020. After speaking with an environmentalist friend, Poster — a music supervisor for filmmakers — was inspired. What if he harnessed his industry connections into a fund-raiser for bird conservation?This week, Poster will release the first volume of “For the Birds,” a star-studded, 242-track collection of original songs and readings based on birdsong. It benefits the National Audubon Society.“For the Birds” features electronic trance, fiddle tunes and field recordings. Alice Coltrane and Yoko Ono make appearances, and a song from Elvis Costello shares space with a Jonathan Franzen reading.“Of all the things we need to work harder to protect, birds, like music, speak to everyone,” said Anthony Albrecht, an Australian cellist who has led similar conservation efforts. “They’re such a visible — and audible — indicator of what we stand to lose.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDavid Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.Use up seasonal produce by adding tangy rhubarb to sheet-pan chicken.What to WatchManuel Garcia-Rulfo plays the lead in Netflix’s “The Lincoln Lawyer.” It’s a tricky job when your first language isn’t English.What to ReadNell Zink’s “Avalon” is about a girl who has a menacing stepfamily and a great ambition.Late NightThe hosts celebrated Sweden and Finland’s NATO applications.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was backfill. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Blue hue (four letters).If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidP.S. The Times covered the first same-sex marriages in Massachusetts on the front page 18 years ago today.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about a Ukrainian soldier. On “The Argument,” a debate about inflation.Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      In Madison Cawthorn’s District, Strong Opinions of Him, For and Against

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      The right-wing firebrand is counting on Republican primary voters to look past his bad press. Opponents are counting on them to lose patience with him.HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — When Representative Madison Cawthorn’s name comes up in this city of 14,000, where he was born and raised and it is not difficult to bump into someone who knew him from his home-schooling days, there tends to be a visceral reaction.There are sighs from Republicans who elected him to his first term in November 2020 and met his meteoric rise in Washington with the praise and excitement reserved for a hometown hero — only to be disappointed by his behavior and bad press ever since.There are groans and looks of utter disgust from people with Democratic and independent leanings — some of whom have chosen to cast a ballot in a Republican primary for the first time in hopes of removing him from office.And there are eye-rolls and shrugs from his die-hard supporters, “America First” conservatives after the fashion of Donald J. Trump, who chalk up Mr. Cawthorn’s controversies to youthful indiscretion and instead reserve their opprobrium for the liberal media, Democrats, his Republican opponents and political groups with deep pockets.“I don’t care what he’s done,” said Moiena Gilbert, 77, a retired certified nursing assistant who pulled up in an old Ford pickup to cast an early vote this week at Henderson County’s Board of Elections. “I am going to vote for the man.”What there is not a lot of is indifference. In this southwestern corner of the state, a largely working-class and Republican stronghold set against the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains, it seems as if nearly everyone has made up his or her mind on the young firebrand once seen as the future of the Republican Party.Representative Madison Cawthorn at a rally hosted by former President Donald J. Trump in Selma, N.C., last month.Veasey Conway for The New York TimesIn interviews with more than 30 voters in Mr. Cawthorn’s 11th Congressional District, including nearly two dozen registered Republicans, it was clear that his support had weakened, even among hard-right Trump followers who said Mr. Cawthorn’s immaturity and lack of focus on his constituents had led them to disregard his endorsement by the former president and give one of his rivals their vote.Mr. Cawthorn needs to garner only 30 percent of the vote on Tuesday to avoid a runoff in a crowded field split among seven other challengers. They are led by Chuck Edwards, a state senator who has the endorsements of most members of the Legislature from his district, and Michele Woodhouse, the elected Republican chair of Mr. Cawthorn’s district who once was among his staunch supporters.Whether Mr. Cawthorn can dodge a runoff has been a constant source of debate in his hometown among friends, co-workers and in Christian circles.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.“I think there is a lot of support for Madison — they just may be afraid to tell you,” said one Baptist deacon leaving the Bethany Bible Church after a Wednesday night Bible study.Chip Worrell, 62, a charter member of the same church and a woodworker who helped erect its building, disagreed.“I don’t think he is going to be re-elected,” he said.Mr. Cawthorn, 26, who was injured in a car crash at 18, has seldom been out of the headlines since making his first run for Congress in 2020, when it emerged that he had made up parts of his autobiography. He falsely claimed his injuries had kept him from attending the Naval Academy, but admitted in court that it had already rejected him. Young women at the conservative Christian college he attended before dropping out accused him of sexual harassment.Elected in 2020 as the youngest member ever to serve in the House, he helped spread Mr. Trump’s stolen-election lies and aligned himself with other incendiary far-right representatives, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.But his re-election campaign has been marred by a seemingly endless series of embarrassing reports — beginning when he claimed that people he “looked up to” in Washington had invited him to orgies and used cocaine. (The remark drew a scolding from the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy.)The revelations ranged from traffic violations, like driving with a revoked license, to two incidents in which he brought a loaded gun to an airport. Politico published photos of Mr. Cawthorn in lingerie. The Washington Examiner reported his involvement in a cryptocurrency scheme and suggested it may have violated federal insider trading laws. And nude photos and videos have circulated showing him in sexually suggestive antics, in what appeared to be attempts to raise questions about Mr. Cawthorn’s sexuality.Mr. Cawthorn’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Writing on Twitter, he told supporters that he and a friend had simply been joking around crassly.“I told you there would be a drip drip campaign,” he wrote. “Blackmail won’t win. We will.”Democrats have criticized some of the attacks for stirring homophobia. Supporters in Mr. Cawthorn’s district see the leaks as the work of his opponents or of G.O.P. leaders like Mr. McCarthy.But a super PAC created to oust Mr. Cawthorn, which has held itself out as a clearinghouse of damaging information about him, said the tips it has received have largely come from Mr. Cawthorn’s former aides and supporters.“From the very start, we have been focused on firing Cawthorn, but firing him in a way that was factual and honest,” said David Wheeler, a Democrat who co-founded the group, American Muckrakers Inc., with Mr. Cawthorn’s 2020 Democratic opponent, Moe Davis.Candidates for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional district including Madison Cawthorn, right, debating in Flat Rock in March.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesIn Henderson, Transylvania and Haywood counties, many voters recalled how Mr. Cawthorn won the seat — replacing Mark Meadows, who became chief of staff in the Trump White House — by modeling himself after Mr. Trump.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? 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      For Many Pennsylvania Voters, Trumpism Is Bigger Than Trump

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      LAUGHLINTOWN, Pa. — Michael Testa, 51, an Army veteran and handyman, drives a minivan plastered with stickers reading “Trump Won.”He recently stood in the rain and mud for hours to attend Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally. He calls himself a “conspiracy realist” and said he’s one of millions who believe the 2020 election was stolen from the former president.But as he sat on his front porch in Laughlintown, a small borough of Westmoreland County outside Pittsburgh that was once home to the Mellon family fortune, he was undecided about which candidate to vote for on Tuesday in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for Senate. He has misgivings about supporting Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor Mr. Trump has endorsed.“I’m not going to be somebody who does something just because one person says so, even if that person is Trump,” Mr. Testa said.Like other Republican primaries throughout the country, the Pennsylvania Senate race is testing just how strong Mr. Trump’s grip remains on the party. But unlike other primaries this year, the Senate contest in Pennsylvania has suddenly pivoted into something else — a case study of whether the movement Mr. Trump created remains within his control.In interviews with more than two dozen Republican voters in western Pennsylvania, many echoed Mr. Testa’s ambivalence and uncertainty about Dr. Oz — despite Mr. Trump’s backing, they view him with suspicion, call him “too Hollywood” and question his ties to the state. Those Republicans, including Mr. Testa, said they were instead voting for or considering voting for Kathy Barnette, the far-right author and conservative-media commentator who has surged in the polls on a shoestring budget.In a race that could determine control of the Senate, many Republicans in the state find themselves deeply devoted to Mr. Trump yet, at the same time, less swayed by his guidance. Trumpism, as Ms. Barnette herself has put it on the campaign trail, is bigger than Trump.Many voters said they were choosing who they believed would carry out Mr. Trump’s ideals, even if they and the former president disagreed on who could best accomplish that. And interviews showed how effectively Ms. Barnette, who has never held public office, had used her life story as a poor, Black child of the South to connect with white working-class voters in western Pennsylvania. At events and in her ads, Ms. Barnette often invokes the phrase “I am you.”Many voters who said they planned to vote for Ms. Barnette struggled to remember her name and said they were supporting “that Black woman.” Those who said they were voting for her said they were unaware of or unbothered by her history of homophobic and anti-Muslim views. But her strong anti-abortion beliefs — Ms. Barnette calls herself a “byproduct of rape”— have been a key part of her appeal to white conservatives.Dolores Mrozinski, left, and her daughter, Janey Mrozinski, are drawn to Ms. Barnette.Jeff Swensen for The New York Times“I like what she stands for,” said Dolores Mrozinski, 83, who first watched Ms. Barnette on the Christian Television Network and was immediately impressed. “She’s no-nonsense and the real thing.”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.Years ago, Ms. Mrozinski and her daughter, Janey Mrozinski, a 62-year-old physical therapist, watched Dr. Oz on television and even admired him. Now, the elder Ms. Mrozinski said, “he just doesn’t seem genuine.”“I don’t even know if he really lives in Pennsylvania,” she said, referring to Dr. Oz’s long history, until recent years, of living and voting in New Jersey. “He seems more Hollywood than here and it doesn’t impress me.”Her daughter added, “He looks like he had a face lift.” On the other hand, David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive who is also running in the primary, was simply, she said, “too much, too proud of himself.”In many ways, the vote for the Senate seat is as much a battle over the perception of authenticity as any ideological or policy debate. For months now, the leading candidates have each tried to align themselves closely with Mr. Trump and promote their conservative credentials. In the tight contest between the leading contenders — Dr. Oz, Ms. Barnette and Mr. McCormick — all three of them have tried hard to cast themselves as the true MAGA warrior.Some voters have clearly made up their minds about which one they believe is more authentic. But others are still deciding.One glance at John Artzberger’s auto body shop along Highway 8 in Butler County makes his political leanings clear: A “Let’s Go Brandon” flag flies from the shop’s marquee, and Trump paraphernalia covers a large wall near the entrance. When one customer asked him to place a Barnette lawn sign out front, he did not hesitate to agree. Still, the sign was just a sign — he said he was undecided and considering voting for either Ms. Barnette or Dr. Oz.John Artzberger, a body shop owner in Butler, Pa., said he was uncertain who would win his vote, Ms. Barnette or Dr. Oz.Jeff Swensen for The New York Times“She’s 100 percent on our side — close the border, pro-life,” Mr. Artzberger, 68, said of Ms. Barnette. “If she gets it, she’s going to be for the people.” Like many other Republicans in Butler County, Mr. Artzberger views Dr. Oz’s previous time in the spotlight with disdain.“But then again, Trump had been in the public eye, too, and he ended up being really with us,” he said. “I’ve changed, so maybe he changed, too.”In Laughlintown in Westmoreland County, it takes about 10 steps to travel from the front porch of Mr. Testa’s old Craftsman to the front doors of the small brick church next door. In that short distance lies a glimpse of the Republican Party’s identity crisis.Jonathan Huddleston, 48, the minister of Laughlintown Christian Church, calls himself a Never-Trump Republican but remains committed to the party to, in part, “help vote the wackos out.” He, too, is undecided — he is considering voting for Mr. McCormick, who tried but failed to win the Trump endorsement.Jonathan Huddleston, a minister in Laughlintown and a moderate Republican, is another undecided voter.Jeff Swensen for The New York Times“I want to support the Romneys of the world, the reasonable leaders, the ones who drew me to begin with,” Mr. Huddleston said. “Now I’m searching to find people like that. All of the other voices are drowning them out.”Some Republican voters said they had tried to tune out the deluge of attack ads on television from Mr. McCormick and Dr. Oz, who have each spent millions of dollars of their own wealth in the race. The backlash against the Oz and McCormick ads appeared to benefit Ms. Barnette, who has spent less than $200,000 in her campaign.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More