Warnock, Raphael G

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Warnock’s Narrow Victory Over Walker in Georgia

      by

      More from our inbox:Trump’s Very Bad DayThe Crypto IllusionEncourage BreastfeedingFood Buying That Reflects Our Values Nicole Craine for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Warnock Victory Hands Democrats 51st Seat in Senate” (front page, Dec. 7):Although I am relieved that Senator Raphael Warnock prevailed in the Georgia runoff, I am absolutely disgusted that this election was so close.We have lost our way as a country when we do not see that political leadership takes skill; knowledge of the law, the Constitution and history; the ability to negotiate and cooperate; and a worldview that is larger than your own.I would not be at all qualified to play professional football, and it was clear from the start that Herschel Walker did not have the knowledge or skill to be a U.S. senator.Dawn MenkenPortland, Ore.The writer is the author of “Facilitating a More Perfect Union: A Guide for Politicians and Leaders.”To the Editor:I have new respect for Herschel Walker: He gave a concession speech. He declared that he lost. He called on his supporters to respect their elected officials and to believe in America. He said he had no excuses for his loss because he put up a good fight. This probably reflects both who he is and his football heritage — you win but also lose games fair and square.He may have helped us back to the old pre-Trump norms. We may disagree with his views and abhor his scandals, but the most important thing is that he believes in democracy. Let’s hope Donald Trump watched that concession speech.When Mr. Walker said, “I want you to believe in America and continue to believe in the Constitution and believe in our elected officials most of all,” it could be the biggest takeaway of the election.James AdlerCambridge, Mass.To the Editor:Raphael Warnock was extremely lucky to win the Senate race in Georgia — lucky because he faced an opponent plagued by ignorance, myriad character flaws and an endorsement by Donald Trump. Almost certainly, a moderate Republican, Black or white, could have defeated Mr. Warnock, perhaps by a margin as large as the seven-plus percentage points that Brian Kemp scored over Stacey Abrams for the Georgia governorship just four weeks earlier.I am very happy about Mr. Warnock’s win, but it should not be interpreted as signaling a major shift in the political landscape of Georgia.Peter S. AllenProvidence, R.I.To the Editor:Every time the Republicans lose an election — most recently Tuesday in Georgia — the Times coverage predicts that the party will engage in “soul-searching,” suggesting that the G.O.P. has a desire to change course. Yet, again and again, the party persists in its pandering to far-right, anti-democratic forces of white nationalism and heteropatriarchy.The G.O.P. has made its soul abundantly clear. Perhaps some Republican voters have done their own soul-searching and decided to reject what their party has become.Pamela J. GriffithBrooklynTo the Editor:As a liberal Democrat I am very pleased with the results of the Georgia runoff and most of the rest of the 2022 U.S. Senate results in competitive races. How do we make sure that Donald Trump continues to influence the choice of Republican candidates for Senate in 2024?Michael G. RaitenBoynton Beach, Fla.Trump’s Very Bad Day Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Tuesday was a Trumpian negative hat trick: a defeat in the Senate runoff in Georgia, the conviction of the Trump Organization on tax fraud and other crimes, and a report of grand jury subpoenas from the special counsel to local officials in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.Of course the Republican Party has neglected to take any prior offramps to dump Donald Trump, most notably Jan. 6, so unfortunately the latest Trump failures will probably go by the wayside too. And the G.O.P. of yore — the party of Lincoln, T.R. and Ike — will continue to be the clown car it has become.Bill MutterperlBeverly Hills, Calif.The Crypto IllusionFederal authorities are trying to determine whether criminal charges should be filed against the founder of the crypto firm FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, and others over the company’s collapse.Winnie Au for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “‘It Just Angers Me.’ Crypto Crisis Drains Small Investors’ Savings” (front page, Dec. 6):Is it too early, or far too late, to suggest that “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” in relation to the FTX and BlockFi difficulties? Should this concern be extended to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general?There was a time when people earned the coins in their wallets from the sweat on their brow rather than from a computer program most people can’t understand that creates imaginary coins to be stored in wallets that seem easy to rob or lose. It is, however, sad to read of people who have lost so much in such a short time.As a teacher, I wasn’t that well paid, and so I saved as much as I could to buy a house and set myself up for retirement by sensible, boring approaches. But the gains to be made from Bitcoin are in its questionable uses or in realizing the increase in its value before it drops. For me it seems to have no actual value or use, and I doubt that I am the only one who thinks that.It’s time for me to forget the world of imaginary computer profits and go back to a boring life on my unicorn farm.Dennis FitzgeraldMelbourne, AustraliaEncourage Breastfeeding Vanessa Leroy for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “What It Really Takes to Breastfeed a Baby” (news article, Dec. 6):As a pediatrician who spends many hours with new mothers and their babies discussing the challenges and difficulties that come with breastfeeding, I felt that this article was not as positive as it should have been. It focused on following mothers who were having a hard time keeping up their breastfeeding.These days, any literature or news related to breastfeeding should only be encouraging new mothers to breastfeed, not scaring them away from doing it and making it sound so hard while working and raising other children.In my practice, I share my own personal experiences of breastfeeding my three children, each for a year, while working in a busy pediatrics office. My stories are useful and effective in making the breastfeeding experience achievable to the new moms I meet.We need to reverse the steady decline of breastfeeding mothers in this country.Naomi JackmanPort Washington, N.Y.Food Buying That Reflects Our Values Pavel PopovTo the Editor:Re “Help Black Farmers This Holiday Season,” by Tressie McMillan Cottom (column, Nov. 30):New York State’s food procurement laws are an extension of the disenfranchisement of Black farmers. Provisions require that municipalities contract with farmers who sell their produce at the “lowest” cost. This often comes at the expense of small, hyperlocal farmers and bars them from entering negotiations for public contracts — meaning that opportunities to support historically marginalized food producers are currently limited in New York.The Good Food New York bill would democratize local food purchasing decisions by allowing municipalities to galvanize around racial equity, animal welfare, environmental sustainability, nutrition, local economies and workers’ rights — and contract with producers that uphold these values.It is more critical than ever to rectify the wrongs of this country’s past and prepare for a future where the strength of our food systems and supply chains will be tested by the consequences of climate change. New York State legislators, we are counting on you to make the right decision for our food futures.Ribka GetachewTaylor PateNew YorkThe writers are, respectively, director and campaign manager of the NY Good Food Purchasing Program Campaign for Community Food Advocates. More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Walker, Trump’s Celebrity Pick, Underscores Trump’s Fall

      by

      Donald Trump loved Herschel Walker.He told him so when he “fired” him from “Celebrity Apprentice.” As Trump put it: “You know how much I like you. I love you. I love you. I am not a gay man, and I love you, Herschel. Herschel, you’re fired.”As Walker said in an interview years ago, “I’ve known Donald before he became the Donald. I started out with Donald Trump. I tell everyone that little Donald and little Ivanka lived with me during the summer.” He took them to Disney World, Sea World, the Bronx Zoo, “any place.”Walker’s son Christian referred to Trump as Uncle Don.The men were clearly close. Trump believed in Black exceptionalism — but only for athletes and entertainers.When New York’s elite shunned Trump, he found a home in pop culture. He came to understand the currency in it and the power of it. Unlike high society, which thrived on exclusion, entertainment fed on the possibility of inclusion and economic ascendance.Trump learned early the lucrative industry of dream selling. He learned early the power of celebrity as the embodiment of those dreams.To him, celebrities were a class unto themselves, people who could transcend race and wealth, crossing over into the golden plane of the hero. You can admire a Black celebrity, cheer for him, be thoroughly entertained by him and never relinquish your animus for or prejudices against other Black people.As long as those entertainers avoided any mention or invocation of race — other than to discuss their upbringing or praise a parent — even people hostile to Black people could be fans of theirs.This is why Trump could argue that he was not racist — he could always say he had known and been friendly with so many Black entertainers. But he was friendly with them even as he was hostile to other Black and Brown people. Walker has said his warm relationship with Trump dates back to 1982, but it was only a few years later, in 1989, that Trump took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York, so that the Central Park Five, who were just boys at the time, would “be afraid.”The boys implicated in the attack have since been exonerated, but Trump has refused to apologize for his ad.Trump, like many people, is able to compartmentalize on the issue of race, segregating the masses whom he abhorred from the few he idolized.And so, when there was a need for a Republican to run for the Senate seat in Georgia against Raphael Warnock — a man who, with the support of Black voters as well as others, shocked the political establishment in that state when he won his first Senate race nearly two years ago — Trump did a simplistic racial calculation: he knew a conservative Black acolyte who could run against the liberal Black intellectual.He called on his old friend Walker. It didn’t matter that Walker was not a political figure or even a politically engaged person. It didn’t matter that he was wholly unsuited for any form of public office. It didn’t even matter that he didn’t live in Georgia.Trump drafted him, and he agreed. Celebrity, Trump thought, would cover all flaws.In the end, it did not. Trump’s brand, his celebrity worship and promulgation, was not enough to push Walker over the edge. But while Walker failed, Trump failed even worse. Unlike some races this cycle in which Trump simply endorsed a candidate, Walker was one Trump personally chose.And even before Tuesday night, Georgia had rejected Trumpism, choosing some Republicans in November who had defied Trump’s pressure campaign to steal the 2020 election and incurred his wrath because of it.Yes, Walker was a historically horrific candidate, but the Trump brand has also begun to sour in Georgia. This is in no way to excuse the Georgia Republicans who went along with the Walker charade, even after seeing up close that he was not only unqualified to be a senator, but likely incapable of performing the duties. They saw up close his incompetence, intellectual deficiencies and glaring defects, but they still hewed more to their partisanship than to their principles.They twisted themselves into knots to excuse Walker, using a roundabout racism to do so. Some said that what we saw as a lack of intelligence was in fact a regional affectation: Walker speaks the way many Black people in Georgia speak.In their construction of things, deficiency was endemic to Blackness and ubiquitous among Black people. The best that could be hoped for was a Black person who was willing to fall in line and vote with the party. Walker had proven that he would do that. He would be a willing puppet for their ventriloquism.And he came dangerously close to winning.This will remain a stain on the Republican Party. But Walker didn’t win. Cynicism didn’t win. Trump didn’t win.Competence and common sense prevailed.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 and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Warnock’s Victory Forges Democrats’ Path Through the New Battlegrounds

      by

      Forget about Florida and Ohio: Georgia and Arizona are poised to be the next kingmakers of presidential politics.Follow our latest updates on the Georgia Senate runoff.For decades, Florida and Ohio reigned supreme over presidential politics. The two states relished their role crowning presidents and spawning political clichés. Industrial Cleveland faced off against white-collar Cincinnati, the Midwestern snowbirds of the Villages against the Puerto Rican diaspora of the Orlando suburbs.But the Georgia runoff, the final note of the 2022 midterm elections, may have said goodbye to all that. The Marietta moms are in charge now.Senator Raphael Warnock’s win over Herschel Walker — his fifth victory in just over two years — proved that the Democratic surge in the Peach State two years ago was no Trump-era fluke, no one-off rebuke of an unpopular president. Georgia, with its storied civil rights history, booming Atlanta suburbs like Marietta and exploding ethnic diversity, is now officially contested ground, joining a narrow set of states that will select the next president.Mr. Warnock’s race was the final marker for a 2024 presidential road map that political strategists, officials and politicians in both parties say will run largely through six states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.The shrunken, shifted battlefield reflects a diversifying country remade by the polarizing politics of the Trump era. As white, working-class voters defected from Democrats, persuaded by Donald J. Trump’s populist cultural appeals and anti-elitist rhetoric, demographic changes opened up new presidential battlegrounds in the West and South.That is not good for Mr. Trump, who lost all six of those states to President Biden two years ago, as he begins to plot his third presidential bid. Other Republicans have found more success pulling together winning coalitions in states defined by their growth, new transplants, strong economies and a young and diverse population. But if the party wants to reclaim the White House in 2024, Republicans will have to improve their performance across the new terrain.“You’re going to have your soccer moms and Peloton dads. Those college-educated voters, specifically in the suburbs, are ones that Republicans have to learn how to win,” said Kristin Davison, a Republican strategist who worked on Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s win in Virginia, a once-red state that, until Mr. Youngkin’s victory, had turned a more suburban shade of blue. “It’s these growing, diverse communities combined with the college-educated voters.”“I secured my vote!” stickers at a polling place in Georgia.Nicole Buchanan for The New York TimesVoters at Morningside Presbyterian Church in Fulton County on Tuesday morning.Nicole Buchanan for The New York TimesIn most of the six states, midterm elections brought out deep shades of purple. In Arizona, Democrats won the governor’s mansion for the first time since 2006, but a race for attorney general remains too close to call. In Nevada, the party’s candidate won re-election to the Senate by less than one percentage point, while Republicans won the governor’s office. The reverse happened in Wisconsin.Mr. Warnock narrowly defeated Mr. Walker on Tuesday. But Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, handily toppled Stacey Abrams, a Democratic star, in his re-election bid last month.Only Pennsylvania and Michigan had clean Democratic sweeps in statewide offices.Republicans, meanwhile, swept Florida, with Gov. Ron DeSantis winning re-election in the state by easily the largest margin by a Republican candidate for governor in modern history. In Ohio, Representative Tim Ryan, widely considered to be one the Democratic Party’s strongest candidates, lost his bid for Senate by six percentage points.That new map isn’t entirely new, of course. Since 2008, Democrats have hoped that demographic changes and millions of dollars could help put the growing pockets of the South and West in play, allowing the party to stop chasing the votes of white, working-class voters across Ohio and Iowa.But the party has made inroads before, only to backslide later. When Barack Obama carried North Carolina in 2008, pundits and party officials heralded the arrival of the Democratic revival in the New South. President Obama lost the state four years later and Mr. Biden was defeated there by a little more than a percentage point.Democrats argue their victories in Georgia will be more resilient. Mr. Warnock’s coalition looked very similar to Mr. Biden’s — an alliance of voters of color, younger voters and college-educated suburbanites.For Republicans, the winning formula requires maintaining their sizable advantage among rural voters and working-class, white voters, without fully embracing the far-right stances and combative politics of Mr. Trump that could hurt their standing with more moderate swing voters. Mr. Kemp followed that path to an eight-percentage-point victory.But Mr. Walker was in no position to expand his voting base. He was recruited to run by Mr. Trump, despite allegations of domestic abuse, no political experience and few clear policy positions, and spent much of his campaign focused on his party’s most reliable voters.While votes were still being counted late Tuesday, Mr. Warnock appeared to improve on Mr. Biden’s margins in the suburban counties around Atlanta, including Gwinnett, Newton and Cobb County, home to Marietta.Herschel Walker and his team after a campaign stop in Dawsonville, Ga.Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesGreeting supporters at a Dawsonville restaurant.Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesDemocrats recognized the rising influence of the Sun Belt in a high-profile way last week, when the Democratic National Committee advanced a plan to replace Iowa, a former battleground state that has grown more Republican recently, with South Carolina and add Nevada, Georgia and Michigan to the early-state calendar.“The Sun Belt delivered the Senate Democratic majority,” said Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat from Nevada who will face her first re-election campaign in 2024. “The party needs to invest in us and that’s what they’ve done by changing the calendar.”Already, investment in these new battlegrounds has been eye-popping. In Georgia, $1.4 billion has been spent by both parties on three Senate races and the one contest for governor since the beginning of 2020, according to a New York Times analysis.The flood of political activity has surprised even some of those who have long predicted that their states would grow more competitive.“We all thought Arizona would probably be a battleground state at some point like a decade or so down the road,” said Mike Noble, the chief of research with the polling firm OH Predictive Insights, which is based in Phoenix. “It’s mind-blowing that it came so quickly to be quite honest.”Political operatives in Ohio and Florida insist that their states could remain competitive if Democrats would invest in organizers and ads. But for presidential campaigns, the goal isn’t to flip states but to identify the easiest route to 270 electoral votes.David Pepper, a former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, acknowledged that the changed politics had created a national political dynamic that’s bad for Ohio but better for his party. “The fact that Ohio is less essential than it used to be is a good thing because it means there are other states that are now winnable that weren’t 10 years ago. Colorado and Virginia were Republican so you had to win Florida and Ohio,” he said, evoking the predecessor to the cable news interactive maps. “That’s why Tim Russert had them all over his white board.”Senator Raphael Warnock with the rapper Killer Mike at a campaign event on Monday.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThe Warnock campaign visited Georgia Tech on Monday.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThe country wasn’t always so dependent on such a small group of deciders. In the 1980s, presidential candidates competed across an average of 29 states. That number fell to 19 during the 2000s, according to data compiled by FairVote, a nonpartisan advocacy group that works on election practices. In 2020, there were just eight states where the margin of victory for either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump was under 5 percent.The shrinking map leaves one clear loser: The bulk of American voters. About 50 million Americans live in the six states poised to get most of the attention, giving about 15 percent of the country’s nearly 332 million people an outsize role in determining the next president.For nearly 11 million Georgians, the political attention showered on their state during the midterm elections won’t be gone for long. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Raphael Warnock Makes Victory Speech After Georgia Election Runoff Win

      by

      ATLANTA — Senator Raphael Warnock, basking in cheers of “six more years” and the glory of a hard-fought re-election victory, evoked the civil rights movement late Tuesday night as he praised Georgians, whether they voted for him or not, for rising above the “folks trying to divide our country.”In a contest that pitted Mr. Warnock’s calls for the healing of racial inequities against Herschel Walker’s view that racism does not exist, the Democratic senator’s victory speech was unapologetic in its evocation of past wrongs in the Deep South, even as he held out the promise of reconciliation.“I am Georgia,” the senator said. “I am an example and an iteration of its history, of its peril and promise, of the brutality and the possibilities. But because this is America, because we always have a path to make our country greater against unspeakable odds, here we stand together.”He addressed those who point to the results of the race as proof that there was no voter suppression in Georgia. He said that just because people stood in blocks-long lines in the cold to cast their ballots did not mean voter suppression did not exist.“It simply means that you, the people, have decided that your voices will not be silenced,” he said.Responding to the impromptu comments of the audience around him, as if standing at the pulpit on a Sunday at his Atlanta church, his remarks often blended the personal with the political.“I want to say thank you to my mother, who is here tonight,” he told the crowd. “You’ll see her in a little while. But she grew up in the 1950s in Waycross, Ga., picking somebody else’s cotton and somebody else’s tobacco. But tonight she helped pick her youngest son to be a United States senator.” More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Will Georgia Deal Trump Another Political Blow?

      by

      The former president faces serious legal jeopardy. A defeat for Herschel Walker would hardly help him with Republican voters.The polls are now closed in the Georgia runoff for Senate, and it’s time to start tallying the votes. We’re about to learn whether Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee, was able to rustle up the Election Day surge he needed to overcome Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democrat, who seems to have banked a significant lead in the early balloting.While you’re waiting for the returns to come in — follow them here, and track our live updates — dig into some reading material:Here’s an election-eve dispatch from my colleagues who have been reporting in Georgia: Maya King, Reid Epstein and Jazmine Ulloa. And here’s Jonathan Weisman’s take on the five factors that will decide the race.From Washington, Carl Hulse examines the stakes of the election within the Senate. “The potential upside for Senate Democrats and the Biden administration should their candidate prevail is far more substantial than a single vote might suggest,” he writes.And here’s some analysis from Nate Cohn, who writes that if Walker wins, “I don’t know how I would explain it. I would have to shrug my shoulders.”the former guyDonald J. Trump last month declared his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election.Saul Martinez for The New York Times‘Watch his political altimeter’As the political world awaits the outcome in Georgia, things are moving swiftly in the legal arena, where Donald Trump faces a serious threat from Justice Department investigators. A Manhattan jury convicted his business, the Trump Organization, of tax fraud on Tuesday. And if Walker — Trump’s handpicked candidate — loses the Senate race, these seemingly disparate events could soon intersect.Trump has been hammering away at Attorney General Merrick Garland and Jack Smith, the newly appointed special counsel for two cases that could lead to the indictment of a former president for the first time in American history. Trump has cast the investigations as a political “witch hunt,” with echoes of tactics he has long used to keep Republicans in his corner.Complicating matters, Trump has announced a third presidential bid. But he is a damaged commodity, burdened by the defeats his candidates suffered in the midterm elections. His Republican critics have grown increasingly bold; polls suggest that substantial numbers of rank-and-file G.O.P. voters now agree. Will Trump’s political force field fail him this time around?And another shoe may yet drop. On Tuesday, the head of the Jan. 6 committee, Representative Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, said the panel would “probably” make criminal referrals to the Justice Department. The committee is weighing whether to include Trump in that list.A referral from the Jan. 6 panel would be only a recommendation. But any such move would be freighted with uncertain political consequences — and it’s by no means clear how Trump’s battle for Republican hearts and minds would play out.To sift through these and other aspects of Trump’s challenges, I spoke with Glenn Thrush, a longtime political and White House reporter who now covers the Justice Department for The Times and has been tracking Garland’s moves closely. Our conversation:It sounds as if, from your reporting, Garland appointed a special prosecutor only reluctantly. What made him change his mind?I wouldn’t cast it as a change of mind by Garland so much as it was a gradual, grudging acceptance that it was an inevitable, and somewhat forced, move on a crowded chessboard with few lanes of maneuver.Garland’s aides have tried to portray the decision to pick Jack Smith as compulsory, dictated by the regulations governing the appointment of special counsels.It wasn’t. It was Garland’s choice. It was predicated on external forces rather than any deep self-examination of whether or not he was capable of investigating Trump impartially, and it chafed for the attorney general.Garland did not, notably, invoke the section of the special counsel regulation triggered by an actual conflict of interest — which Republicans have accused him of having; instead, he chose the “extraordinary circumstances” clause in the regulation.This is something a lot of people miss about Garland, whose quietude can be mistaken for passivity: He might appear to be a “smaller-than-life figure,” as one recent chronicler memorably quipped, but this is a man who once saw himself in the mirror as a Supreme Court justice, and who views himself as a capable arbiter of final resort in any case.When you talk to experts outside the Justice Department, how seriously are they taking the Mar-a-Lago documents case? Has there ever been anything like this before?The Mar-a-Lago investigation is very serious.The Jan. 6 inquiry deals more directly with Trump’s attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election, but it is an extraordinarily complex case — and there are indications that prosecutors have a long way to go before even considering the kinds of charges that could eventually be brought.The documents case, which Trump has tried to shrug off as a partisan spat over paperwork, would not be an easy prosecution, either, but it is a lot more straightforward, and hence more dangerous to him in the immediate future.The government has already made it clear that it is focused on two primary possible charges, the mishandling of sensitive national security documents under the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice. One of the biggest decisions Smith is likely to face, people close to the situation have told me, would be whether to charge Trump with both — or focus on obstruction alone, with the Espionage Act as background music.It’s also possible prosecutors would bring a case alone on the mishandling of documents. But that could be problematic, especially if there is no evidence that any of the material Trump possessed actually hurt the country.Moreover, it is unlikely the department would have embarked on a high-risk criminal investigation if Trump had effectively said, “My bad,” and returned everything he had taken when the government issued a subpoena in May.Trump is running for president again, but he appears pretty wounded after his candidates did poorly in the midterm elections. Does that affect whatever pressure Garland might be under from Democrats to indict Trump? That is, if he’s politically weak, maybe there’s less of a sense on the left that he’s a real threat to become president again.Two things seem certain. Democrats are going to want Garland to indict Trump whether he is the front-runner or polling below Asa Hutchinson. Politically, you could make the case that charging Trump would create a backlash that could help him. And Garland is going to say that he is paying zero heed to politics.Enter Jack Smith, who provides Garland with thin, but not negligible, cover.While Garland technically has the ultimate say over both cases, his power is one of negation. He can reject Smith’s final recommendations, but under the special counsel regulation, he must inform Congress that he is opposing the man he picked, so it seems pretty unlikely that Garland would reject Smith’s work unless something really crazy happens.Putting your old political reporter hat back on, what’s your read on how vigorously Republicans are inclined to defend Trump and attack the Justice Department? Are you seeing any signs that some in the party are now thinking, “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Merrick Garland and Jack Smith handled this problem for us”?This is a great question. We covered the 2016 campaign together, and how many times did we predict that some Trump disaster — a debate blunder, his refusal to quickly denounce David Duke, the “Access Hollywood” tape, you name it — would finally set off a mass defection inside the party?This time might be different, but let’s withhold judgment and watch his political altimeter.Anyway, that won’t have an impact on these two investigations. Evidence will. Jack Smith and Merrick Garland won’t bring a prosecution they can’t win, and public filings indicate that the Justice Department is not close to bringing charges.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Georgia Senate Race Tops Political Spending in 2022

      by

      In the heady world of campaign finance, there’s everywhere else, and then there’s Georgia.While political spending in America seems to scale astonishing new heights every two years, these days no place in the nation can rival the Peach State, where an astonishing $1.4 billion has been spent on just four races since the beginning of 2020, according to a New York Times analysis.Two years ago, more than $406 million was spent by both sides during Raphael Warnock’s successful first run for Senate. Not to be outdone, Jon Ossoff and his Republican opponent were aided by $514 million in spending to support their candidacies, a sum that shattered the record for a Senate contest.This year, Gov. Brian Kemp and his Democratic challenger, Stacey Abrams, along with outside groups backing them, raised upward of $250 million. And so far, data from the nonprofit group OpenSecrets shows that nearly $401 million has been spent on the race between Mr. Warnock and his Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, which will be decided in a runoff election on Tuesday.“There’s never been anything like it,” said Bob Houghton, the president of the Georgia Association of Broadcasters, a trade group that represents the TV and radio stations that are, arguably, the real winners in these races. “It just keeps coming.”The torrent of cash is a product of two main factors.Georgia is one of just two states that hold general-election runoffs, which unfold when neither candidate attains at least 50 percent of the vote. These runoff contests essentially amount to second campaigns, with fresh rounds of advertising to buy, get-out-the-vote efforts to pay for, and direct-mail fliers to send.Over the four weeks leading up to Tuesday’s runoff, nearly $81 million had been spent on advertising to support Mr. Warnock or Mr. Walker, according to data from AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. That promotional blitz exceeded — by more than $25 million — the total amount spent in this year’s Senate race in Washington, which itself set a record for the state.The other factor is how Georgia, long considered a Republican stronghold, has slid into purple territory over the past few election cycles. The newfound parity between the parties in the state has drawn significant attention from donors around the country who see Georgia as being in play.“Because Georgia is now a battleground state, Democrats think they have a shot at it,” said Joseph Watson Jr., a professor of public affairs communications at the University of Georgia. “As a result, these local races have become nationalized.”Campaign finance data supports that notion. More than 80 percent of the $53.7 million raised by One Georgia, an independent leadership committee backing Ms. Abrams’s unsuccessful run for governor, came from outside the state, as did almost exactly half of the $38.4 million hauled in by Mr. Kemp’s leadership committee, Georgia First. Mr. Kemp won the race by more than seven percentage points.Those factors are particularly amplified when control of the Senate is at stake, which was the case for both Senate elections in Georgia in early 2021, a time when the runoff period was twice as long as it is this year. That helps explain the eye-popping $507 million in advertising spent during the eight-week runoff contests in Georgia that year, according to AdImpact data.This year, the second-most-expensive race was Pennsylvania’s Senate contest, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Mehmet Oz and their allies spent a combined $313 million. Overall spending in competitive, statewide races in Pennsylvania — including the race for governor — totaled more than $381 million. In Georgia, the amount spent on the races for Senate and governor added up to at least $508 million.All of that money is a boon to advertising firms and TV stations. Hilton Howell, the chairman of Gray Television, which owns stations in all but one market in Georgia, called it a “tremendous amount of spending” and “a nice Christmas present under the tree for our shareholders.” A single ABC affiliate in Atlanta, owned by a different company, has booked $86 million in political advertisements so far this year, more than any local station in America.But some experts question the utility of so much advertising when it comes to actually winning the hearts — and votes — of the citizenry.Erika Franklin Fowler, a professor of government at Wesleyan University and a director of the Wesleyan Media Project, a group that studies political advertising, said the impact of spending on races diminishes as more money and advertising flood into a state or media market.“Because control of the chamber is at stake, or the added cushion, at least, I think that certainly is what is driving these numbers,” she said. “Campaigns and parties care about winning and less about efficiency, shall we say.” More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Runoff Election Winner Will Become Georgia’s First Full-Term Black Senator

      by

      Senator Raphael Warnock already made history in 2021 when he became Georgia’s first Black senator, winning a runoff to secure a partial term. But whoever wins this year’s runoff will earn another distinction: the first Black senator to win a full six-year term in Georgia.The achievement is within reach of both Mr. Warnock and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker. But that’s about where their similarities end.Mr. Warnock is a sitting senator and a pastor, while Mr. Walker is a former football star and political neophyte. They have drastically different beliefs, public speaking styles and personalities. In the days leading up to the runoff, Mr. Walker held a series of modest events while Mr. Warnock held rallies and urged hundreds of congregants to vote during his sermon on Sunday.The race increasingly became an exercise in damage control for Mr. Walker. Unearthed details of his private life coupled with misrepresentations and exaggerations about his education, charitable giving, business and work in law enforcement have affected his campaign.But the polls still show a close race — not surprising, considering fewer than 40,000 votes separated the two men on Election Day last month. As each camp has sought the edge, the contest has become the second-most expensive Senate race in American history.After Mr. Warnock defeated Senator Kelly Loeffler in 2021, he became just the 11th Black U.S. senator in history. Mr. Walker, should he emerge victorious, would be the 12th. More