Wisconsin

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Democrats Worry for Mandela Barnes as GOP Attack Ads Take a Toll

      by

      MADISON, Wis. — Politicians who visit diners know the deal: In exchange for photos establishing their working-class bona fides, they must cheerfully accept heaping portions of unsolicited advice.But on Tuesday at Monty’s Blue Plate Diner here in Madison, one of the first people to approach Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Wisconsin, took the tradition to a new level, presenting him with a typed-up list of concerns about his campaign.The supporter, Jane Kashnig, a retired businesswoman who has spent recent weeks going door to door to speak with voters, told Mr. Barnes his backers were jittery about his inability to repel an unending volley of attack ads from Senator Ron Johnson and his Republican allies.Show more fire, Ms. Kashnig urged the Democrat and his campaign. “The people on the doors want him to fight,” she said.Democrats in Wisconsin are wringing their hands about how Mr. Barnes’s political fortunes have sagged under the weight of the Republican advertising blitz. Grumbling about his campaign tactics and the help he is receiving from national Democrats, they worry that he could be one of several of the party’s Senate candidates whose struggles to parry a withering G.O.P. onslaught could sink their candidacies and cost Democrats control of the chamber.At Monty’s Blue Plate Diner in Madison, Wis., one voter presented Mr. Barnes with a list of concerns about his campaign.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesMr. Barnes held a “Ron Against Roe” event at the diner, referring to Senator Ron Johnson’s opposition to abortion rights.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesBeyond Wisconsin, Republican Senate candidates and their allies in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia have alarmed Democrats with their gains in the polls after an enormous investment in television advertising. In those three states, Republicans and their allies outspent Democrats in September, according to data from AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.The Republican wave of ads has helped counteract the Democratic momentum that followed the Supreme Court’s decision in June to end the constitutional right to an abortion. Republicans have shifted the debate to more friendly terrain, focusing in Wisconsin and other places on crime.“There were weeks where we would get outspent two-to-one on TV,” Mr. Barnes said in an interview. “There has been an unprecedented amount of negative spin against me.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Trouble for Nevada Democrats: The state has long been vital to the party’s hold on the West. Now, Democrats are facing potential losses up and down the ballot.It has been an abrupt turnaround for Mr. Barnes since late summer, when he won the Democratic primary by acclimation and opened up a lead in polls over Mr. Johnson, who has long had the lowest approval ratings of any incumbent senator on the ballot this year. But the hail of attack ads from Mr. Johnson and allied super PACs has tanked Mr. Barnes’s standing, particularly among the state’s finicky independent voters.Republicans have seized in particular on Mr. Barnes’s past progressive stances, including his suggestion in a 2020 television interview that funding be diverted from “over-bloated budgets in police departments” to social services — a key element of the movement to defund the police. Since then, Mr. Barnes has disavowed defunding the police and has called for an increase in funding.Mr. Barnes entered the Democratic primary race as a favorite of the party’s progressive wing.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesRace has also been at the center of the televised assault on Mr. Barnes, who is Black. Mail advertising from Republicans has darkened Mr. Barnes’s skin, while some TV ads from a Republican super PAC have superimposed his name next to images of crime scenes.Those overtones come as no surprise to Wisconsin Democrats. He is only the third Black statewide official in Wisconsin’s history; the first two both lost re-election in campaigns widely regarded as racist. And Democratic strategists and voters are well aware that fighting back aggressively has its dangers.“It’s real easy to go from ‘fired up for change’ to ‘the angry Black guy from Milwaukee’ in the public perception,” said Alexia Sabor, the Democratic Party chairwoman in Dane County, which includes Madison.For all of the Republican optimism, Mr. Barnes still has a path to victory. Wisconsin elections over the last two decades have been very close, with Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. each winning the deeply polarized state by fewer than 25,000 votes in their successful presidential campaigns. And Wisconsin Democrats have a record of winning tight races: Including nonpartisan State Supreme Court elections, the party has won nine of the 10 statewide elections since 2018. Mr. Johnson is also less popular in the state now than he was when he won narrow victories in 2010 and 2016.“I have not met somebody who’s like, ‘Oh, gee, how should I vote in the Senate race?’” said Mayor Katie Rosenberg of Wausau, a longtime friend and political supporter of Mr. Barnes. “I mean, mostly people know.”Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin and other prominent Democrats in the state held a rally for abortion rights at the State Capitol on Tuesday. Mr. Barnes was not present.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesMr. Barnes entered the primary as a favorite of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. When he first ran for office, in 2012, he wrote on Twitter that progressive candidates who moved to the political center were “compromising all integrity.” In 2019, he delivered the Working Families Party’s response to Mr. Trump’s State of the Union address.Mr. Barnes, 35, a former state legislator who was elected lieutenant governor in 2018, consistently led in the primary polls. Two weeks before the primary, his leading rivals dropped out and endorsed him one by one, saying they hoped to give him a runway to raise money and begin attacking Mr. Johnson..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“I gave him a two-week head start,” said Tom Nelson, the Outagamie County executive, who was the first Democratic Senate candidate to end his campaign and back Mr. Barnes.But now, Mr. Nelson said, “The campaign needs to fire its media consultant.” He added, “They’re losing.”The Republican ads have been remarkably effective. Shortly after the Aug. 9 primary, Mr. Barnes led Mr. Johnson by seven percentage points overall and by 15 points among independent voters, according to a poll conducted by Marquette University Law School. But 41 percent of voters still didn’t have an opinion about Mr. Barnes. A month later, Mr. Johnson led by a point overall and by two points among Wisconsin’s independents.Mr. Johnson declined an interview request. In an interview with a conservative talk radio host in Milwaukee last month, Mr. Johnson accused Democrats of “playing the race card,” adding, “That’s what leftists do.”Mr. Johnson has the lowest approval ratings of any incumbent senator on the ballot this year. But he has pulled out narrow victories twice before, in 2010 and 2016.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesA Barnes event in Racine, Wis. On Monday, his campaign begin airing an ad criticizing Mr. Johnson’s anti-abortion stance.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesMr. Barnes, who announced on Wednesday that he had raised $20 million during the three-month fund-raising period that ended Sept. 30, has responded to Mr. Johnson with gentle advertisements in which he speaks to the camera and calmly asserts that the senator is lying about his record. In one, he is at a kitchen table making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Only on Monday did the Barnes campaign begin airing an ad criticizing Mr. Johnson’s opposition to abortion rights.Some Democrats also worry that Mr. Barnes is not sufficiently motivating Black voters, a key constituency largely concentrated in Milwaukee. Most of the city’s leading Black elected officials endorsed other candidates during the Senate primary.“The progressives have been Mandela’s base from the day that he was elected — it really has never been the Black community,” said Lena Taylor, a Black Democratic state senator from Milwaukee whom Mr. Barnes unsuccessfully challenged in a 2016 primary for her seat. “Because of that, he does have to do a little bit more with what other people would have seen as his natural base.”Even Mr. Barnes’s longtime supporters are frustrated that his campaign has allowed Republicans to frame the contest as being about crime rather than Mr. Johnson’s past support for overturning the 2020 election and the misinformation he continues to spread about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.Mr. Barnes once spoke of diverting money from “over-bloated budgets in police departments” to social services, but now emphasizes his support for giving more money to law enforcement.Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times“To call what happened on Jan. 6 an armed insurrection, I just think is not accurate,” Mr. Johnson said on Tuesday during remarks to the Rotary Club of Milwaukee.Senior Democrats in Wisconsin and Washington concluded long ago that condemning Mr. Johnson over Jan. 6 in television ads is not a winning argument with swing voters.“To make Mandela and Black folks endure the relentless racist attacks, then not hit back on treason, corruption and lies, is unfortunate,” said Francesca Hong, a state representative from Madison who was an early supporter of Mr. Barnes.In the interview with Mr. Barnes, held after a campaign stop at a brewery in Racine, he both reiterated his support for increasing funding for law enforcement and said he had not changed any progressive positions he took earlier in his political career.“Things haven’t changed, right? But it’s what we talk about,” he said. “My positions are the same and where I stand on those issues is the exact same.”He also said he did not believe he faced extra hurdles running to represent Wisconsin as a Black Democrat from Milwaukee — the state’s largest city but one that has long punched below its weight in statewide elections. Since 1913, when the ratification of the 17th Amendment provided for the direct election of senators, Wisconsin has elected only one from Milwaukee, Herb Kohl, who served four terms.“There’s a Black dude from Chicago whose middle name was Hussein,” Mr. Barnes said, referring to former President Barack Obama. “He won Wisconsin twice.”Mr. Barnes joined United Auto Workers members on a picket line on Monday in Mount Pleasant, Wis.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesPerhaps the clearest sign of Mr. Barnes’s political challenges is the lack of eagerness by some of his fellow Democrats to campaign with him.Three hours before Mr. Barnes’s stop at the Madison diner, Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat locked in a tight re-election race of his own, held a rally on the steps of the State Capitol calling on voters to punish Republicans for refusing to consider changes to the state’s 1849 law banning abortion. Those present included the state’s attorney general, treasurer, Democratic state legislators and the state Democratic Party’s chairman.Mr. Barnes wasn’t there, and the parade of speakers barely mentioned him.“It wasn’t that he wasn’t invited or was invited,” Mr. Evers said afterward. “He just scheduled something different at the same time to talk about the same thing.”Mr. Johnson, for his part, appears to be in a jubilant mood. On Wednesday, he thanked the Tavern League of Wisconsin, the state’s trade association for bars, for endorsing him by posting a video in which the 67-year-old senator chugs a Miller Lite in four seconds. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Which Midterm Polls Should We Be Taking With a Grain of Salt?

      by

      Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report and Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster, to discuss the state of polling and of Democratic anxiety about polls ahead of the midterms.Frank Bruni: Amy, Patrick, as if the people over at Politico knew that the three of us would be huddling to discuss polling, it just published a long article about the midterms with the gloomy, spooky headline “Pollsters Fear They’re Blowing It Again in 2022.”Do you two fear that pollsters are blowing it again in 2022?Patrick Ruffini: It’s certainly possible that they could. The best evidence we have so far that something might be afoot comes from The Times’s own Nate Cohn, who finds that some of the Democratic overperformances seem to be coming in states that saw large polling errors in 2016 and 2020.Amy Walter: I do worry that we are asking more from polling than it is able to provide. Many competitive Senate races are in states — like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that Joe Biden won by supernarrow margins in 2020. The reality is that they are going to be very close again. And so an error of just three to four points is the difference between Democratic and Republican control of the Senate.Ruffini: This also doesn’t mean we can predict that polls will miss in any given direction. But it does suggest taking polls in states like Ohio, which Donald Trump won comfortably but where the Republican J.D. Vance is tied or slightly behind, with a grain of salt.Bruni: So what would you say specifically to Democrats? Are they getting their hopes up — again — in a reckless fashion?Walter: Democrats are definitely suffering from political PTSD. After 2016 and 2020, I don’t think Democrats are getting their hopes up. In fact, the ones I talk with are hoping for the best but not expecting such.Ruffini: In any election, you have the polls themselves, and then you have the polls as filtered through the partisan media environment. Those aren’t necessarily the same thing. On Twitter, there’s a huge incentive to hype individual polling results that are good for your side while ignoring the average. I don’t expect this to let up, because maintaining this hype is important for low-dollar fund-raising. But I do think this has led to a perhaps exaggerated sense of Democratic optimism.Bruni: Great point, Patrick — in these fractured and hyperpartisan times of information curation, polls aren’t so much sets of numbers as they are Rorschachs.But I want to pick up on something else that you said — “polls will miss in any given direction” — to ask why the worry seems only to be about overstatement of Democratic support and prospects. Is it possible that the error could be in the other direction and we are understating Republican problems and worries?Ruffini: In politics, we always tend to fight the last war. Historically, polling misses have been pretty random, happening about equally on both sides. But the last big example of them missing in a pro-Republican direction was 2012. The more recent examples stick in our minds, 2020 specifically, which was actually worse in percentage terms than 2016.Walter: Patrick’s point about the last war is so important. This is especially true when we are living in a time when we have little overlap with people from different political tribes. The two sides have very little appreciation for what motivates, interests or worries the other side, so the two sides over- or underestimate each other a lot.As our politics continue to break along educational attainment — those who have a college degree are increasingly more Democratic-leaning, those with less education increasingly more Republican-leaning — polls are likely to overstate the Democratic advantage, since we know that there’s a really clear connection between civic voting behavior and education levels.Ruffini: And we may be missing a certain kind of Trump voter, who may not be answering polls out of a distrust for the media, polling and institutions generally.Bruni: Regarding 2016 and 2020, Trump was on the ballot both of those years. He’s not — um, technically — this time around. So is there a greater possibility of accuracy, of a repeat of 2018, when polling came closer to the mark?Ruffini: The frustrating thing about all of this is that we just don’t have a very good sample size to answer this. In polls, that’s called an n size, like n = 1,000 registered voters. There have been n = 2 elections where Trump has been on the ballot and n = 1 midterm election in the Trump era. That’s not a lot.Bruni: We’ve mentioned 2016 and 2020 versus 2018. Are there reasons to believe that none of those points of reference are all that illuminating — that 2022 is entirely its own cat, with its own inimitable wrinkles? There are cats that have wrinkles, right? I’m a dog guy, but I feel certain that I’ve seen shar-pei-style cats in pictures.Walter: First, let’s be clear. Dogs are the best. So let’s change this to “Is this an entirely different breed?”I’m a big believer in the aphorism that history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.Ruffini: Right. Every election is different, and seeing each new election through the lens of the previous election is usually a bad analytical strategy.Walter: But there are important fundamentals that can’t be dismissed. Midterms are about the party in charge. It is hard to make a midterm election about the out-party — the party not in charge — especially when Democrats control not just the White House but the House and Senate as well.However, the combination of overturning Roe v. Wade plus the ubiquitous presence of Trump has indeed made the out-party — the G.O.P. — a key element of this election. To me, the question is whether that focus on the stuff the Republicans are doing and have done is enough to counter frustration with the Democrats.Ruffini: 2022 is unique in that it’s a midterm cycle where both sides have reasons to be energized — Republicans by running against an unpopular president in a time of high economic uncertainty and Democrats by the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe. It’s really unique in the sweep of midterm elections historically. To the extent there is still an energized Republican base, polls could miss if they aren’t capturing this new kind of non-college, low-turnout voter that Trump brought into the process.Bruni: Patrick, this one’s for you, as you’re the one among us who’s actually in the polling business. In the context of Amy’s terrific observation about education levels and the Democratic Party and who’s more readily responsive to pollsters, what are you and what is your firm doing to make sure you reach and sample enough Republican and Trump-inclined voters?Ruffini: That’s a great question. Nearly all of our polls are off the voter file, which means we have a much larger set of variables — like voting history and partisan primary participation — to weight on than you might typically see in a media poll (with the exception of the Times/Siena polls, which do a great job in this regard). We’ve developed targets for the right number of college or non-college voters among likely voters in each congressional district. We’re also making sure that our samples have the right proportions of people who have registered with either party or have participated in a specific party’s primary before.But none of this is a silver bullet. After 2016, pollsters figured out we needed to weight on education. In 2020 we weighted on education — and we got a worse polling error. All the correct weighting decisions won’t matter if the non-college or low-turnout voter you’re getting to take surveys isn’t representative of those people who will actually show up to vote.Bruni: Does the taking of polls and the reporting on polls and the consciousness of polls inevitably queer what would have happened in their absence? I will go to my grave believing that if so many voters hadn’t thought that Hillary Clinton had victory in the bag, she would have won. Some 77,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — the margin of her Electoral College loss — are easily accounted for by overconfident, complacent Clinton supporters.Walter: In 2016, there were two key groups of people that determined the election. Those who never liked Clinton and those who disliked Trump and Clinton equally. At the end, those who disliked both equally broke overwhelmingly for Trump. And, those Democratic-leaning voters who didn’t like her at all were never fully convinced that she was a worthy candidate.Ruffini: I don’t worry about this too much since the people most likely to be paying attention to the daily movement of the polls are people who are 100 percent sure to vote. It can also work in the other direction. If the polls are showing a race in a red or blue state is close, that can motivate a majority of the party’s voters to get out and vote, and that might be why close races in those states usually resolve to the state fundamentals.Bruni: Evaluate the news media in all of this, and be brutal if you like. For as long as I’ve been a reporter, I’ve listened to news leaders say our political coverage should be less attentive to polls. It remains plenty attentive to polls. Should we reform? Is there any hope of that? Does it matter?Ruffini: I don’t think there’s any hope of this getting better, and that’s not the media’s fault. It’s the fault of readers (sorry, readers!) who have an insatiable appetite for staring at the scoreboard.Walter: We do pay too much attention to polls, but polls are the tool we have to capture the opinions of an incredibly diverse society. A reporter could go knock on 3,000 doors and miss a lot because they weren’t able to get the kind of cross-section of voters a poll does.Ruffini: Where I do hope the media gets better is in conducting more polls the way campaigns conduct them, which are not mostly about who is winning but showing a candidate how to win.In those polls, we test the impact of messages on the electorate and show how their standing moved as a result. It’s possible to do this in a balanced way, and it would be illuminating for readers to see, starting with “Here’s where the race stands today, but here’s the impact of this Democratic attack or this Republican response,” etc.Bruni: Let’s finish with a lightning round. Please answer these quickly and in a sentence or less, starting with this: Which issue will ultimately have greater effect, even if just by a bit, in the outcome of the midterms — abortion or gas prices?Walter: Abortion. Only because gas prices are linked to overall economic worries.Ruffini: Gas prices, because they’re a microcosm about concerns about inflation. When we asked voters a head-to-head about what’s more important to their vote, reducing inflation comes out ahead of protecting abortion rights by 67 to 29 percent.Bruni: Which of the competitive Senate races will have an outcome that’s most tightly tethered to — and thus most indicative of — the country’s mood and leanings right now?Walter: Arizona and Georgia were the two closest races for Senate and president in 2020. They should both be indicative. But Georgia is much closer because the G.O.P. candidate, Herschel Walker, while he’s still got some problems, has much less baggage and much better name recognition than the G.O.P. candidate in Arizona, Blake Masters.Ruffini: If Republicans are going to flip the Senate, Georgia is most likely to be the tipping-point state.Bruni: If there’s a Senate upset, which race is it? Who’s the unpredicted victor?Walter: For Republicans, it would be Don Bolduc in New Hampshire. They’ve argued that the incumbent, Senator Maggie Hassan, has low approval ratings and is very weak. It would be an upset because Bolduc is a flawed candidate with very little money or history of strong fund-raising.Ruffini: I’d agree about New Hampshire. The polling has shown a single-digit race. Republicans are also hoping they can execute a bit of a sneak attack in Colorado with Joe O’Dea, though the state fundamentals look more challenging.Bruni: You (hypothetically) have to place a bet with serious money on the line. Is the Republican presidential nominee in 2024 Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or “other”?Walter: It’s always a safer bet to pick “other.” One of the most difficult things to do in politics is what DeSantis is trying to do: not just to upend someone like Trump but to remain a front-runner for another year-plus.Ruffini: I’d place some money on DeSantis and some on “other.” DeSantis is in a strong position right now, relative to the other non-Trumps, but he hasn’t taken many punches. And Trump’s position is soft for a former president who’s supposedly loved by the base and who has remained in the fray. Time has not been his friend. About as many Republicans in the ABC/Washington Post poll this weekend said they didn’t want him to run as did.Bruni: Same deal with the Democratic presidential nominee — but don’t be safe. Live large. To the daredevil go the spoils. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or “other”?Walter: History tells us that Biden will run. If he doesn’t, history tells us that it will be Harris. But I feel very uncomfortable with either answer right now.Ruffini: “Other.” Our own polling shows Biden in a weaker position for renomination than Trump and Democrats less sure about who the alternative would be if he doesn’t run. I also think we’re underestimating the possibility that he doesn’t run at the age of 81.Bruni: OK, final question. Name a politician, on either side of the aisle, who has not yet been mentioned in our conversation but whose future is much brighter than most people realize.Walter: If you talk to Republicans, Representative Patrick McHenry is someone they see as perhaps the next leader for the party. There’s a lot of focus on Kevin McCarthy now, but many people see McHenry as a speaker in waiting.Ruffini: He’s stayed out of the presidential conversation (probably wisely until Trump has passed from the scene), but I think Dan Crenshaw remains an enormously compelling future leader for the G.O.P. Also in Texas, should we see Republicans capitalize on their gains with Hispanic voters and take at least one seat in the Rio Grande Valley, one of those candidates — Mayra Flores, Monica De La Cruz or Cassy Garcia — will easily be in the conversation for statewide office.Bruni: Thank you, both. I just took a poll, and 90 percent of respondents said they’d want to read your thoughts at twice this length. Then again, the margin of error was plus or minus 50 percent, and I’m not sure I sampled enough rural voters in the West.Frank Bruni (@FrankBruni) is a professor of public policy and journalism at Duke, the author of the book “The Beauty of Dusk” and a contributing Opinion writer. He writes a weekly email newsletter and can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) is a co-founder of the Republican research firm Echelon Insights. Amy Walter (@amyewalter) is the publisher and editor in chief of The Cook Political Report.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Republican senator’s wealth boosted by stake in company with Chinese links

      by

      Republican senator’s wealth boosted by stake in company with Chinese linksFinancial disclosures show how Ron Johnson’s wealth sharply increased thanks to his holding in Oshkosh-based Pacur Wisconsin Republican senator Ron Johnson, a vocal critic of Beijing who has vowed to launch investigations into the Biden family’s alleged relationships with Chinese businesses, declared $57m in income in his first 10 years in office in connection to his ownership stake in a company whose growth has closely been linked to China.Financial disclosures show the senator’s wealth has sharply increased during his years running for and serving in the Senate thanks to his holding in Oshkosh-based Pacur, a plastics maker where Johnson previously served as top executive.Revealed: leaked video shows Amy Coney Barrett’s secretive faith group drove women to tearsRead moreJohnson is seeking re-election for a third term in a tough contest against Democrat Mandela Barnes, who polls show has a slight edge over the Republican incumbent.During his first run for public office before his 2010 election, Johnson portrayed himself as a successful businessman who knew how to create jobs. An advertisement he used in both his successful 2010 and 2016 campaigns showed the 67 year-old standing in front of a white board, touting his own record as a manufacturer, a fact that he said made him stand out in a sea of lawyers who serve in the Senate.A close examination of Johnson’s financial disclosures and other public filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, legal filings and other public records reveal that Johnson’s wealth was boosted by his company’s ties to another company that was owned and managed by his family, which in turn grew its business in China, acquired businesses in China, and reported having a loan worth tens of millions of dollars from the Bank of China.In one case, the company run by Johnson’s family sued the US government to try to press for softer trade relations with Beijing, a position that Johnson himself adopted in a rare break with Trump administration policies.Johnson sold his stake in Pacur in 2020, although documents show that an LLC owned by Johnson and his wife, Jane, still receives up to $1m annually through rent and royalties as owners of the building where Pacur operates.Pacur was co-founded by Johnson and his brother-in-law in the 1970s. It was in effect closely tied to a larger company called Bemis, which was founded and run by Johnson’s father-in-law, Howard Curler.SEC documents show that, from about 1998 to 2010, Bemis paid tens of millions of dollars to Pacur, which was a supplier to Bemis. Johnson also personally owned Bemis stock, valued at between $1m and $5.2m on financial disclosure forms. The stock was later gifted to the senator’s family foundation, called the Grammie Jean Foundation.A spokesperson for Johnson said the senator had no beneficial interest in the foundation.Bemis, records show, had a steady and growing presence in China under the leadership of Jeffrey Curler, Howard Curler’s son and Ron Johnson’s brother-in-law. The company has plants in China and in 2013, records show, appear to have acquired tens of millions of dollars in Chinese debt in connection to a Chinese acquisition. SEC filings show that Bemis also disclosed in 2016 that it had a $50m Bank of China loan.Bemis was sold to Australia-based Amcor in 2018 in a deal valued at $6.8bn. The Guardian reached out to Amcor for more details about the $50m loan, which appeared in Bemis filings before Amcor acquired the company. A spokesperson for Amcor said Amcor was not involved in the loan and did not have insights into the transaction.Bemis was also active on issues related to trade during Johnson’s Senate tenure.In two cases, the group filed suit against the US government’s policies on trade in China, including one suit in 2018. In the legal action brought by Bemis and Rollprint Packaging Products, the plaintiffs sued the United States to contest a finding by the International Trade Commission in support of tariffs on China. The lawsuit did not appear to proceed beyond the complaint. At the same time, Johnson was a vocal critic of US trade policy against China, marking a rare disagreement with Trump.Johnson has also made speeches in the Senate that criticized financial transactions by Hunter Biden, which he claimed were tied to “Communist China” and meant that US Joe Biden was “probably” compromised on China.The Biden family’s “vast web of foreign financial entanglements”, Johnson alleged, had serious implications, and Johnson said he and fellow Republican senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa would continue to investigate them.“Our challenge is the deep state does not give up its secrets easily,” Johnson said in a speech on the Senate floor in March.A recent investigation by the Washington Post found that CEFC China Energy, a Chinese energy conglomerate, paid nearly $5m to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle. But it did not find evidence that Joe Biden personally benefitted or knew about the transactions, which occurred after Biden left the vice-presidency and before he announced his presidential run.Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Johnson, denied that Johnson had any connections to his own family company’s previous business interactions with Chinese companies.“He never had any managerial involvement in, or knowledge of the management actions taken by Bemis Company” and had “no connection to China or conflict of interest there”.“Until your inquiry, he had no knowledge of Bemis’s business holdings in China or any legal action Bemis was involved in. The Bemis company was one of many customers Senator Johnson’s business sold plastics to,” Henning said.She also defended Johnson’s position on tariffs. “His belief is politicians in both parties have used China’s trade abuses to demagogue against their political opponents without enacting effective solutions.”Henning also denied that Johnson accrued $57m in income in connection to Pacur from 2009 to 2020, because she claimed some of the funds were designated as “gross receipts” even though they are listed in financial disclosure forms as “income”.Gross receipts are the amount of business that an organization reports before stripping out expenses. When asked by the Guardian to explain why Johnson had listed the funds as income in his financial disclosures, and what the Gross Receipts referred to, Henning did not respond.Got a tip? You can contact the reporter at Stephanie.Kirchgaessner@theguardian.comTopicsWisconsinRepublicansUS politicsChinanewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Democrats’ Midterm Dilemma: How to Back Biden, Yet Shun Him, Too

      by

      When President Biden appeared in central Ohio on Friday for the groundbreaking of a semiconductor manufacturing facility, he was joined by Tim Ryan, the Democrat running for Senate. The party’s candidate for governor, however, did not attend, saying from afar that she appreciated Mr. Biden’s visit to her state.Five days earlier, in Wisconsin, another crucial midterm battleground, the situation was reversed: Gov. Tony Evers shared a stage with the president at a Labor Day speech, while the state’s Democratic candidate for the Senate stayed away, marching in a parade beforehand but skipping Mr. Biden’s address.As they move into the final stretch of the midterm campaigns, Democratic candidates find themselves performing a complicated dance with an unpopular president, whose approval rating is rising but still remains stubbornly underwater. In ways big and small, Democrats have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, without alienating their base or distancing themselves from key parts of Mr. Biden’s agenda.It’s a dynamic that presidents often confront in midterm cycles. What has been especially striking this year is the degree to which Democrats have outperformed the president. Even those who say they somewhat disapprove of Mr. Biden were more inclined to vote for Democrats than Republicans in a Pew Research Center survey last month. Private polling conducted for the House Democratic campaign committee found that the net job approval of their most vulnerable incumbents, on average, was more than 20 points ahead of Mr. Biden’s, a dynamic that emerged as early as April and remained consistent at least through late August, according to a committee official.The distance between Mr. Biden and his party has forced Democrats to chart a particularly treacherous course in these midterms, in which success means defying nearly a half century of political history. The last time a party maintained control of Congress with a relatively unpopular president was in 1978. That November, Jimmy Carter’s approval rating hovered around 50 percent and Mr. Biden won re-election to a second Senate term.Those races are ancient history now to most in his party, who must navigate an intricate set of political decisions about how to deploy their leader in the midterms as the president accelerates his fall campaign schedule. The tensions are most acute in Senate races, where Democrats see a stronger opportunity to retain control than in the House. Candidates in both House and Senate contests have said pointedly, when asked about the president, that they are focused on their own races.“We’ve been very clear that I disagree with the president on things,” said Mr. Ryan, the Ohio congressman and Senate candidate whose contest in recent weeks has become more competitive than originally expected in a fairly Republican state. “People recognize that I am going to be for Ohio.”Tim Ryan, holding his son Brady, met voters at an Ohio State football game earlier in September.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Biden has joked that he will campaign for or against a candidate, “whichever will help the most” — a lighthearted acknowledgment from a political veteran that each candidate must make their own political calculations about their ties to the White House. Party leaders, candidates and the president have sought to recast the election as a choice between two radically different visions for the country, rather than the traditional midterm referendum on the president and his agenda.But the president’s advisers say they believe that Mr. Biden — who was a highly sought-after surrogate in 2018 — remains one of his party’s strongest messengers.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries winding down, both parties are starting to shift their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.Intraparty G.O.P. Fight: Ahead of New Hampshire’s primary, mainstream Republicans have been vying to stop a Trump-style 2020 election denier running for Senate.Abortion Ballot Measures: First came Kansas. Now, Michigan voters will decide whether abortion will remain legal in their state. Democrats are hoping referendums like these will drive voter turnout.Oz Sharpens Attacks: As the Pennsylvania Senate race tightens, Dr. Mehmet Oz is trying to reboot his campaign against his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, with a pair of pointed attack lines.In recent weeks, he has traveled to Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for events, appearing with a number of Democrats in challenging races. This week, he plans to appear with Maura Healey, the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts, and is expected to headline a fund-raiser for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Biden adviser said.At a summer gathering of the Democratic National Committee in Maryland, where Mr. Biden spoke on Thursday, a number of party officials argued that the president should be embraced across the country, emphasizing the burst of legislative achievements enacted under his watch in recent weeks. His allies argue that, unlike in 2010 and 2014, when vulnerable Democrats ran away from signature accomplishments of the Obama administration like the Affordable Care Act, many candidates are running on Mr. Biden’s agenda this year.“He has so many bold and broad accomplishments that he can go a bunch of places and talk to people about what he was able to accomplish,” said Cedric Richmond, a close Biden adviser who was dispatched to the D.N.C. ahead of the midterm campaigns.That balancing act between supporting Mr. Biden’s agenda and keeping the president at arm’s length will only become more difficult this fall, as Republicans plan to unleash tens of millions of dollars of advertising tying Mr. Biden to candidates.Mr. Biden’s recent visits to key swing states have prompted grumbling from strategists who fear the visits distract from their efforts to localize their races and keep the focus on missteps by their Republican opponents.Some candidates, like Mandela Barnes, the Senate nominee in Wisconsin, have skipped stops with the president. Former Representative Joe Cunningham, a South Carolina Democrat now running for governor in that largely conservative state, has gone further than many in his party by openly calling on Mr. Biden to forgo re-election to make way for a younger generation.“I’m not running against him, and I’m not running with him — I’m running against McMaster,” Mr. Cunningham said, referring to his Republican opponent, Gov. Henry McMaster.Another group of candidates has highlighted policy disagreements on issues like Mr. Biden’s student loan proposal and his plans to lift Covid-era border restrictions, in an effort to appeal to the independent voters who helped power Mr. Biden’s victory.Many try to reference the president only in passing, if at all. Just three Democrats have run ads that even mention Mr. Biden in their general election campaigns, all of which stress their independence from the president, according to AdImpact, the media tracking firm.Representative Kim Schrier, Democrat of Washington, has aired an ad highlighting her political independence, featuring both a Republican and a Democratic mayor and emphasizing her work on bills passed under both Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. Earlier this summer, she aired an ad that highlighted “taking on the Biden administration to suspend the gas tax.”“I will work with anybody for the benefit of the district,” she said in an interview. “I will also hold either president accountable” when it comes to constituent interests, she said.Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the House Democratic campaign arm, said that, overall, candidates in tight races are “making some version of the same argument, which is, ‘I know you have doubts about my party, but I’m getting the job done.’”A number of candidates have appeared with Mr. Biden in their capacities as government officials when he has visited their states to tout legislative achievements. It has been a way to suggest that they are fighting at the highest levels for local priorities, without necessarily rallying with him.When the president appeared in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in late August to discuss public safety, touting the federal money going to bolster community policing in the area, Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee running for governor, was in attendance — in his government role as state attorney general, his office indicated.Mr. Biden in West Mifflin, Pa., at a Labor Day event attended by the Senate candidate John Fetterman, right.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesWhether voters draw such distinctions is another matter, especially because Mr. Biden has discussed the midterm elections at some of these events. In Pennsylvania, he praised Mr. Shapiro as well as John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate. Mr. Fetterman did not attend that event but later appeared with Mr. Biden in Pittsburgh on Labor Day. At one point in Wilkes-Barre, Mr. Biden reversed the offices for which they were running, saying of the roughly 6-foot-8 Mr. Fetterman, “Elect that big ol’ boy to be governor.”Mr. Biden, too, has a lot at stake in these elections. Midterm victories could provide a powerful counterpoint to those in the party arguing that he should not run for re-election in 2024. The president has already positioned the midterm races as a proxy war with his former rival, Mr. Trump, who harbors his own ambitions for a second presidential term.Representative Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey Democrat running in a highly competitive seat, said he felt “​​much better about things than I did three or four months ago.” He said the political landscape seemed to be changing because of the spurt of legislative achievements Democrats had landed and concern over abortion rights, while Republicans “seem increasingly stuck in the mud of Mar-a-Lago.”Asked if it would be helpful for the president to campaign with him, Mr. Malinowski replied, “I’d be happy for Biden or any president to come to my district to help me deliver for my constituents as he has.”“Donald Trump,” he added, “came to my district to play golf.” More

    • 188 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Is the Democratic Midterm Surge Overrated? Why Republicans Can Still Win the House and Senate.

      by

      Ross Douthat, a Times Opinion columnist, hosted an online conversation with Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster, and the conservative writer and radio host Erick Erickson, to discuss whether Republicans are blowing the fall campaign — or whether a red wave is still possible.Ross Douthat: Kristen, Erick, thanks so much for joining me. Let’s start with the big picture. From early 2022 through the middle of the summer, Republicans consistently led the generic ballot for Congress, by around two and a half points. Today, the same generic ballot is either tied or gives Democrats a slight edge. Kristen, what changed?Kristen Soltis Anderson: The biggest thing that I’ve seen shift is enthusiasm on the Democratic side. During the winter and spring, Republicans had an advantage when voters were asked how motivated they were to vote. Key parts of the Democratic coalition were just not as tuned in or interested in participating.That’s a relatively normal dynamic in a midterm year, but the last two or three months have seen Democrats close that enthusiasm gap.Erick Erickson: I underappreciated how much the Dobbs decision would play a role in that.But the RealClearPolitics polling averages go back about two decades. For midterm elections where Republicans have done well, at this time of year, the polling has narrowed. Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics had a good piece on it last week. I actually told my radio listeners that we should expect a tying of the generic ballot in August, and here it is. I would wait to really assess the direction of the race until late September.Douthat: If we assume Dobbs has boosted Democratic enthusiasm, Kristen, how heavily should we weight that effect relative to, say, falling gas prices?Anderson: The Dobbs decision was the big turning point. It has been less about changing voters’ minds from Republican to Democratic and more about activating voters who might have been tuned out and less engaged. It has also given Democrats a message to run on that changes the topic from inflation and gas prices. I still see the economy as a huge driver of this midterm, which is why I still think at this point Republicans are in an OK position. But there’s a reason Democratic candidates have been running ads about abortion.Douthat: Erick, you just said you might have underestimated the Dobbs effect. Do you think G.O.P. politicians were actually prepared to have abortion back in democratic debate?Erickson: I have been more than a bit perplexed at the G.O.P.’s surprise over the Dobbs decision, considering it leaked weeks before it was official. They had time to prepare for it and find some common ground and never seemed to get on the same page. By not being prepared, they allowed more aggressive voices on the issue to spook voters. When you have loud voices in the G.O.P. start talking about making abortion a criminal offense after Dobbs, that tends to spook people.Still, I do continue to think the economy is going to be disproportionately at play in the election. As Kristen said, more Democrats will turn out than otherwise would have pre-Dobbs, but the G.O.P. should be OK if the party focuses on the economy and inflation.Douthat: Well, unless inflation continues to diminish, right? It seems like Republicans have pushed a lot of chips onto that issue. Do you both think the G.O.P. needs a highly inflationary economy or a potential recession to win Congress this fall?Anderson: I’m certainly not rooting for a bad economy. But there is typically a link between people’s perceptions of the economy and their willingness to stick with the party in power. It is worth noting that inflation and rising gas prices were an issue where even Democrats were expressing concerns before Dobbs. Republicans rightly saw it as an issue on which their party had two key things going for them: Independents thought it was a top issue, and voters trusted Republicans more on it.Erickson: We are not going to see deflation, so reduced inflation is still inflation.Anderson: It’s also worth noting that even though the chatter in Washington seems to be that inflation is fading fast as an issue for voters, I’m not necessarily buying that that’s the case.Erickson: Yeah, as a dad who does a lot of the grocery shopping and cooking, milk and meat are still expensive, even if not as expensive as they were a few months ago, and wage increases for Americans have not offset the costs of many consumer goods.Douthat: Have Republicans focused too much on the economy at the expense of other issues that might have worked for them — crime, immigration, even education?Anderson: Crime and immigration are areas where Republicans have an advantage with voters, but those issues just haven’t been as salient with them.Erickson: Republicans have a comprehensive story to tell about the deterioration of the quality of life in America.Douthat: Let’s talk about the candidates who are trying to tell that story. Erick, you’re in Georgia, where Herschel Walker is the G.O.P. nominee for Senate and not exactly impressing on the campaign trail. Popular Republican governors in swing states passed up Senate races, presumably because they didn’t want to deal with the demands of Trumpism, and now you’ve got G.O.P. candidates trailing in the polls everywhere from Arizona to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin.How bad is the candidate problem, and can a Walker or a Dr. Oz still win?Erickson: I’ll take the last part first. The G.O.P. has managed to nominate some clunkers of candidates. But yes, Republicans can still win. This is actually why I am a bit hesitant now to embrace the national narrative of this election.Walker is a flawed candidate, but the national narrative has the race worse than it actually is. Walker has actually been ahead in some recent polls. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair recently mentioned races he expected to do well in, and Georgia was not on the list. On the ground in Georgia, Walker has retooled his campaign, brought in new people, and the crowds are growing as his air war likely intensifies.Oz and Blake Masters are not great. But the political environment can get some of these flawed candidates elected. Remember, in 1980, a bunch of Republicans got elected as “accidental” senators; they were swept into office by Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory and because the national mood was so dour. Also, it is worth noting that in 2020, the G.O.P. exceeded expectations, and pollsters still do not have good answers for why they missed that. We could be experiencing part of that again.Douthat: Let me pitch that point to you, Kristen: Not only Republicans but a lot of liberals are very hesitant to trust polls showing big Democratic advantages in Senate races, especially in Midwestern states, given the record Erick mentions. How doubtful should we be about polling in this cycle?Anderson: I’m far from a poll truther or unskewer or what have you. But I am keenly aware of the ways in which public polling can miss the mark. And it is notable that in some of the last few election cycles, we’ve had public polls that told a very rosy story about Democratic Senate candidates that did not pan out and lost to incumbent Republicans. Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins, anyone? I’m also thinking of 2018, where states like Indiana and Missouri were considered tossup or close races in a blue-wave year and yet Republicans won.At the same time, those 2018 examples show that it is possible for candidates to outperform expectations even in the face of a wave that is supposed to be crashing the other direction.Douthat: Do you think the polling industry has substantially adjusted since 2020? Are the polls we’re seeing of, say, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin more trustworthy than past polling, in your view?Anderson: I’ll use a recent example to highlight my concerns. In Florida we just had a big primary election, and one of the major polls that got released before the primary showed in the governor’s race, the more progressive candidate, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, ahead of the more centrist Democrat and former Republican, Charlie Crist. The poll was very transparent in its methodology, but the underlying data had a large number of college-educated voters. Even if you do the appropriate things with data weighting, that underlying data is skewing quite progressive. Crist actually defeated Fried by a wide margin.I don’t say this to criticize those pollsters, as they were transparent about their data, but if Democrats are extra fired up to vote right now, there’s a chance they’re also extra fired up to take polls.Douthat: But we do have a few actual results, from the abortion referendum in Kansas to the recent special election in New York, where liberal causes and Democratic candidates have done well in real voting, not just in polls.How much do you read into those kinds of election results?Anderson: The Kansas result was a wake-up call for Republicans. It showed Democrats making real strides in speaking to voters in the center about abortion using language those voters might use and tapping into values those centrist voters might hold. But I’m reluctant to say that special election results are transferable to other races in other states on other issues.Erickson: I’m doubtful we can really extrapolate Kansas to the rest of the nation.Douthat: Erick, let’s talk about Donald Trump, because the other big change from the summer is that the former president is back in the headlines. Assuming, as seems likely, that the classified-documents scandal is somewhat frozen from here till Election Day, how long a shadow does Trump cast over the midterms?Erickson: Democrats have said for some time they wanted Trump to be an aspect of their 2022 argument. He, of course, wants to be part of it as well. Republicans have been terrible about taking the bait and talking about Trump. To the extent the G.O.P. is willing to ignore their reflexive “stand by your man” impulse and instead focus on the economy, education, crime, etc., they can move past his shadow quickly.I’m just not optimistic Republicans can do that, given their prior behavior on the matter.Douthat: And Kristen, as Erick says, from the Democratic side and especially the Biden White House, there seems to be a clear desire to make the midterms about Trumpism. That didn’t work particularly well for Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race last year. Is it a better strategy now?Anderson: In a midterm, the party out of power always wants it to be a referendum, while the party in power wants it to be a choice.The problem with Trump becoming more in the news is that it helps Democrats try to make it a choice. It gives them a prominent foil. But simply saying, “Don’t vote for candidate X because of Trump” isn’t foolproof.Douthat: If a bunch of Trump-picked candidates lose their Senate or governor races, does it weaken him for 2024 at all?Erickson: I have resigned myself to Trump’s core supporters insisting the G.O.P. establishment undermined those candidates in order to stop Trump and the only way to chart a better course is to double down on Trump. They will blame Mitch McConnell and others before Trump gets blame.Anderson: It is notable that when my firm asked Republican voters if they thought Trump was helping or hurting Republican candidates in the midterms, 61 percent said he was helping, and only 27 percent said hurting. This was from a survey we did in August.Even among Republicans who don’t think of themselves as “Trump first,” putting him before their party, a majority view him as helping. Granted, some of this may be Republican respondents circling the wagons in response to the question. But I doubt a poor showing in the midterms will lead to blaming Trump.Erickson: If Democrats really do want Trump to go away, they should just ignore him. Before the F.B.I. going to Mar-a-Lago, Republicans were doing their slow walk away from Trump. I somewhat suspect Democrats really want to keep Trump’s position in the G.O.P. elevated because independent voters just do not seem to care for the guy, and that gives Democrats an edge while making a 2024 Republican primary messy.The bigger issue for Trump is major donor support. Those people will see a need to move on. Trump will be less able to rely on larger dollar donors to build out 2024 than he did in 2020, though he won’t need them as much, since he can raise a lot from small-dollar donors. If they, however, consolidated behind someone else, it could cause problems for Trump.Douthat: OK, time to ask for predictions. Out of the competitive Senate races where G.O.P. candidates are seen as struggling or the race is just close — let’s say Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada, because I think J.D. Vance will win Ohio — which ones do you think are the most likely G.O.P. wins, and which the most likely Democratic victories?Erickson: The G.O.P. takes Georgia. The Democrats take Pennsylvania and hold Arizona. The G.O.P. takes Nevada. I continue to think Ron Johnson wins his re-election in Wisconsin, too. I agree on Vance and think the national narrative there is out of sync with Ohio voters, who’ve moved more Republican.Anderson: I have the same choices as Erick: Republicans taking Georgia and Democrats taking Pennsylvania. That’s not to say I think those are rock solid, and the Pennsylvania race is just strange in general.Douthat: And if the economy worsens and the possibility of a red wave returns, what could be the most unexpected G.O.P. pickup?Anderson: I keep hearing buzz around this Washington Senate race. Republicans are very happy with their candidate there, Tiffany Smiley, who is a former triage nurse. A female candidate with a health care background could be powerful in this cycle.Erickson: I would keep my eye on the Colorado Senate race and the Oregon gubernatorial race. Also, New Hampshire remains in play, though the G.O.P. needs to settle on a candidate.Douthat: Final predictions — give me House and Senate numbers for Republicans.Erickson: I’m going with 51 in the Senate and 235 in the House.Anderson: I’ll say 230 seats in the House and 51 in the Senate. But I would also like to note that we are two months away.Douthat: Your sensible humility is duly noted, Kristen. Thanks to you both for a terrific discussion.Ross Douthat is a Times columnist. Kristen Soltis Anderson, the author of “The Selfie Vote,” is a Republican pollster and a co-founder of the polling firm Echelon Insights. Erick Erickson, the host of the “Erick Erickson Show,” writes the newsletter Confessions of a Political Junkie.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Tired of trickle-down economics’: Biden calls for expansion of unions in Labor Day speech

      by

      ‘Tired of trickle-down economics’: Biden calls for expansion of unions in Labor Day speechPresident again pledges to be ‘most pro-union president’ in history during speech in Milwaukee Joe Biden used a Labor Day speech in the battleground state of Wisconsin to endorse the expansion of unions, reiterating his election promises to be the “most pro-union president” in American history.The US president argued in Milwaukee that a skilled, unionised workforce would help the US regain its place as a world leader in infrastructure and manufacturing.Drawing on Franklin D Roosevelt’s explicit support for unions during the New Deal, Biden said: “I am encouraging unions … we need key worker protections to build an economy from the bottom up and middle out. I am sick and tired of trickle-down economics.”Biden’s comments come amid a major resurgence for the labor movement in the US, with more support for unions than at any time in the past 60 years, especially as low-paid workers across a range of industries try unionising.Biden warns US democracy imperiled by Trump and Maga extremistsRead moreEarlier on Monday, Biden came out in support of a proposed law in California, the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act – currently on Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk – that would make it easier for farmhands to organise.“The least we owe them is an easier path to make a free and fair choice to organize a union,” Biden said.The Labor Day holiday in an election year typically marks the start of the final sprint before the November vote. With so much at stake in this year’s midterm elections, Biden and Republican leaders are revving up the rhetoric.There is also fevered speculation about whether Donald Trump will announce, before the election, a fresh run for the Republican nomination to recapture the White House in 2024, while he is embroiled in a host of criminal and civil investigations, from New York to Georgia.In Wisconsin, Biden again attempted to distinguish between the type of mainstream Republicans whom he has previously worked with and the “extreme right, Maga Republicans, Trumpies”, he said, who “pose a threat to democracy and economic security, and embrace political violence”.His use of the word “Trumpies” lit up social media. Biden in office has largely avoided referring to his predecessor by name in public or taking direct aim at his loyalist voter base.But last month he referred to the phenomenon of extremist Republicans hewing unshakably to Trump’s “Make America great again” nationalist agenda amid encouragement of “political violence” as “semi-fascism”, then last week said the US was in a battle for the soul of the nation.Biden refers to MAGA republicans as “The Trumpies” pic.twitter.com/I49hQZRzIe— Acyn (@Acyn) September 5, 2022
      On Monday he said: “You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy,” referring to defenders of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters hoping to overturn Biden’s victory. Biden continued on the campaign trail from Milwaukee to Pittsburgh for his third visit to Pennsylvania in a week – underscoring the importance of the swing state, which the president, a Pennsylvania native, won back for the Democrats in 2020. Trump, who won Pennsylvania in 2016, rallied there on Saturday.After months of dire polling, the signs are more positive for Biden and the Democrats after a spate of legislative and policy wins, including getting a historic bill to tackle the climate crisis and healthcare costs over the line.Could unexpected Democratic gains foil a midterm Republican victory?Read moreThe US supreme court’s decision in June to overturn the right to abortion also seems to be galvanising the Democrat base, independent and swing voters, especially women, which could hurt Republicans at the polls.In Wisconsin, Biden listed some of his administration’s key victories for workers and ordinary Americans through last year’s American Rescue Act (Arpa) and most recently the Inflation Reduction act (IRA) – without any Republican support.TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsWisconsinMilwaukeeUS unionsDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Ginni Thomas lobbied Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn 2020 election

      by

      Ginni Thomas lobbied Wisconsin lawmakers to overturn 2020 election The wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas urged a Wisconsin state senator and representative to do their ‘duty’ Ginni Thomas, the wife of the US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, lobbied lawmakers in Wisconsin as well as Arizona in November 2020, seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s victories over Donald Trump in both swing states.Thomas emailed lawmakers in support of Trump’s lie that Biden won thanks to electoral fraud.Cheney and Kinzinger tee up possible January 6 subpoena for Ginni ThomasRead moreThe Washington Post reported Thomas’s efforts in Arizona earlier this summer. On Thursday it detailed her efforts in Wisconsin, citing emails obtained under public-records law.Thomas emailed a Wisconsin state senator and a state representative, both Republican, on 9 November, two days after the election was called for Biden.The messages used the same text as those sent to Arizona officials and were also sent using a form-emailing platform.The subject line read: “Please do your constitutional duty!”The text said: “Please stand strong in the face of media and political pressure. Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of electors is chosen for our state.”Ginni Thomas did not comment to the Post. Nor did a supreme court spokesperson.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, said: “Ginni Thomas tried to overthrow the government. Clarence Thomas gets to rule on that attempt to overthrow the government. See the problem?”After the deadly attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021 by supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat, Clarence Thomas was the only justice to say Trump should not have to give White House records to the investigating House committee.Ginni Thomas is now known to have been in touch with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and John Eastman, a law professor who claimed the vice-president, Mike Pence, could stop certification on January 6, about attempts to overturn the election.The House January 6 committee asked Thomas to voluntarily sit for an interview and provide documentation. Her lawyer, the Post said, told the committee she was willing but he did not think she had to.In July, Liz Cheney, the committee vice-chair, told CNN: “The committee is engaged with counsel. We certainly hope that [Thomas] will agree to come in voluntarily but the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not.”No subpoena has been issued.Cheney is a stringent conservative but last month she lost her Republican primary in Wyoming, over her opposition to Trump.She has become popular with some on the left but others have grown frustrated, particularly over the lack of an attempt to compel Ginni Thomas to testify.On Thursday, Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for the Nation, tweeted: “Answer the question ‘Why wasn’t Ginni Thomas subpoenaed by the January 6 committee?’ before you ask me to roll with Liz Cheney.”One of the Wisconsin lawmakers who Thomas contacted, the state senator Kathy Bernier, spoke to the Washington Post.She said: “As we went through the process and the legal challenges were made and discounted by the judicial system, there was nothing proven as far as actual voter fraud.”Bernier also said she did not link Ginni Thomas’s actions to her husband’s position.“I was married for 20 years,” she said. “I took on some identity of my husband, but I had my own mind. Just because you’re married to someone doesn’t mean that you’re a clone.”TopicsUS newsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpClarence ThomasUS politicsRepublicansArizonanewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Senate G.O.P. Campaign Arm Slashes TV Ad Buys in Three States

      by

      The Republicans’ Senate campaign committee has slashed its television ad reservations in three critical battleground states for the fall, a likely sign of financial troubles headed into the peak of the 2022 midterm election season.The National Republican Senatorial Committee has cut more than $5 million in Pennsylvania, including its reservations in the Philadelphia media market, according to two media-tracking sources.Reservations in Wisconsin, in the Madison and Green Bay markets, have also been curtailed, by more than $2 million. And in Arizona, all reservations after Sept. 30 have been cut in Phoenix and Tucson, the state’s only two major media markets, amounting to roughly $2 million more.So far around $10 million had been canceled as of midday Monday, though more changes to the fall reservations were in progress. The states where ad reservations have been canceled are home to three of the nation’s most competitive Senate contests.In a statement, Chris Hartline, the communications director for the N.R.S.C., said, “Nothing has changed about our commitment to winning in all of our target states.”Mr. Hartline added that the committee had “been spending earlier than ever before to help our candidates get their message out and define the Democrats for their radical agenda. We’ve been creative in how we’re spending our money and will continue to make sure that every dollar spent by the N.R.S.C. is done in the most efficient and effective way possible.”After this article was published online, Mr. Hartline called it “false” on Twitter and said that “there is money being moved from the I.E. side” — independent expenditures that cannot be coordinated with campaigns — “back to the N.R.S.C. side of the wall.”He declined to say how much was being rebooked.In Wisconsin, some ads were being reserved in Milwaukee, for instance, though significantly less than what had been canceled in Madison and Green Bay, as of Monday afternoon.In Pennsylvania, the Senate Republican super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, recently announced it was adding $9.5 million to its fall reservation in the closely watched race between Mehmet Oz, the Republican, and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democrat. The super PAC moved up the beginning of its ad buy by three weeks, to Aug. 19, a decision that may have eased pressure on the party committee to keep its reservation.As online fund-raising has slowed for Republicans in recent months, affecting both candidates and party committees, the party is increasingly dependent on major super PACs in the battle for the Senate. Entering July, the Senate Republican super PAC had nearly $40 million more cash on hand than the Democratic Senate super PAC.The Senate party committee said it had already helped fund $17 million in “coordinated” and “hybrid” ads with Republican senators and Senate candidates in Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin, according to the committee, and had spent $36 million on television overall.The N.R.S.C. entered July with $28.5 million in the bank and has millions of dollars reserved in other battleground states.A person familiar with the committee’s planning said some of the money saved by canceling reservations now would eventually be used to rebook advertising time in coordination with the Senate campaigns, which would help stretch the group’s dollars further because candidates are entitled to lower ad prices. Some of the new reservations were already being made on Monday. More