Thursday, October 21, 2021

On Politics: The irony in Youngkin’s “vote early” push

Glenn Youngkin is encouraging early voting despite catering to a skeptical Trump base.
Glenn Youngkin early on said his top issue was "election integrity," code for the false view that the 2020 vote was stolen.Eze Amos for The New York Times

With the much-watched election for Virginia governor 12 days away, Glenn Youngkin, the Republican nominee, has been getting the word out: Vote early.

His campaign texts supporters asking if they know their early voting site, and door knockers ask if voters have requested a mail-in ballot. Youngkin holds rallies near early polling locations, including a recent one in Rockingham County after which the campaign said 100 people walked in to vote.

"We've been encouraging all Virginians to come vote, vote early," Youngkin said when he cast his own ballot weeks before Election Day on Nov. 2.

There is no small irony in that message. Former President Donald J. Trump has loudly, falsely and egregiously claimed that early voting, especially by mail, led to a "rigged" election in 2020 that cost him a second term. (His latest provocation was a statement on Thursday: "The insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day. Jan 6 was the protest!")

In response to baseless claims of fraud, Republican-led states around the country have enacted laws this year to narrow access to the polls by groups that tend to vote for Democrats.

Virginia, where Democrats are in charge, has gone the opposite way, expanding voting access, including establishing a 45-day window to vote early in person or by mail, and extending the hours and locations of early polling sites.

Youngkin, a former financial executive who reminds many of an even-tempered Mitt Romney more than the bullying Trump, has still catered to the Trump base that believes the former president's election conspiracy theories.

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Youngkin early on said his top issue was "election integrity," code for the false view that the 2020 vote was stolen, and he offered supporters a "membership card" in his Election Integrity Task Force. He campaigned with State Senator Amanda Chase, a prolific spreader of conspiracy theories about Jan. 6. This month he said voting machines should be audited, even though Virginia's Elections Department audited machines after the 2020 vote and confirmed the results. (Trump lost by 10 points.)

Still, Youngkin has invested heavily in turning out his supporters early, a strategy at which Republicans once excelled in many places. An early vote, cast in person or by mail, means a campaign doesn't have to pursue that voter with phone calls and door knocks in the final frenzied weeks.

Kristin Davison, a senior strategist for the Youngkin campaign, rejected the notion that Youngkin was sending supporters mixed messages about early voting through his emphasis on election security.

"Glenn has been consistent the entire way through that the best way to ensure a safe and fair election is to go and be a voter," Davison said.

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As of Wednesday, 515,000 Virginians had voted early, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, drawing on state Elections Department data.

Virginia voters don't register by party, but the Democratic data firm TargetSmart, using demographic information, has modeled the early voters. It estimates that 55.4 percent of early ballots have been cast by Democrats, 30.1 percent by Republicans and 14.4 percent by independents.

The overall early voting total is 31 percent of early votes cast in the same period in 2020. Even though off-year turnout is bound to drop off from a presidential year, the Youngkin campaign maintained that it was an ominous sign for Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee, showing low enthusiasm from his supporters.

"Republicans typically don't win the early vote," Davison said. "If Terry were in place to win, turnout would be at least 10 points higher."

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McAuliffe's campaign dismissed that analysis. It argued that there were important differences between early voting this year and last year, when the pandemic drove up the use of mail ballots. Last year was the first time Virginia offered no-excuse absentee voting; in 2021, the McAuliffe campaign said, Virginia voters are returning to what they are used to, namely Election Day voting.

"The comparison to 2020 isn't really a good one," said Simon Vance, a data adviser to McAuliffe. "What you're seeing is not any drop-off, but people reverting back to behaviors they've done for years."

The McAuliffe campaign pointed to the large number of mail ballots that have been requested but not yet returned — around 175,000. "We know those are our people and we're aggressively chasing them," Vance said.

To boost his get-out-the-vote effort, McAuliffe is welcoming top Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and President Biden, to campaign with him in coming days. Last Sunday, Stacy Abrams, the Georgia voting rights activist, visited three churches in Norfolk, Va., and appeared with McAuliffe at a rally outside an early voting site. "We've got to get everybody out to vote," McAuliffe said at the event.

Total in-person early voters in Norfolk that day was 370. The Youngkin campaign called that an anemic figure. "If Terry's base was excited, that number should have been at least three times that," Davison asserted.

Vance disagreed. He said that McAuliffe was on track to have the turnout needed to win.

"If we're seeing 70, 65 percent of the total electorate voting on Election Day, that's where the real story will be told," he said.

The relationship has disintegrated between the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, center, and Representative Liz Cheney.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

Liz Cheney's consultants were given an ultimatum: drop her, or be dropped.

A prominent Washington lobbyist close to Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, is warning Republican political consultants that they must choose between working for Representative Liz Cheney and him, an ultimatum that marks the full rupture between the two House Republicans.

The message has already led one Republican firm to cut ties with Ms. Cheney.

After initially defending Cheney to House Republicans angry at her for voting to impeach former President Donald J. Trump earlier this year, McCarthy abandoned her after she continued to speak out against the former president. In May, with McCarthy's blessing, party lawmakers ousted Cheney from her role as the third-ranking House Republican.

Since then, Cheney has sharply criticized McCarthy and has made clear she will not support him as leader or, if Republicans take the House next year, as speaker.

NINE DAYS OF IDEAS TO REMAKE OUR FUTURE

As world leaders gather in Glasgow for consequential climate change negotiations, join us at The New York Times Climate Hub to explore answers to one of the most urgent questions of our time: How do we adapt and thrive on a changing planet? Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 3-11; in person and online. Get tickets at nytclimatehub.com.

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Tuesday, October 19, 2021

On Politics: What we learned in the latest campaign cash reports

Here are some takeaways, tidbits and trends from the financial disclosures.
Representative Mo Brooks, left, raised only $670,000 in the last quarter, despite being endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock

A startling amount of money is pouring into American elections, especially the race for control of Congress in 2022. Every House and Senate candidate in the country was recently required to detail their spending and fund-raising through the end of September. Here are some takeaways, tidbits and trends from those financial reports.

How Trump factors in

Former President Donald J. Trump has been doing a lot of endorsing in Republican primaries ahead of the 2022 midterms. His backing is, by far, the most coveted in the party. But a Trump blessing has not necessarily translated to a cash boom for those Senate hopefuls he backs, the records show.

In Alabama, Trump is supporting Representative Mo Brooks — who has literally worked the endorsement into his logo — but Brooks was nonetheless badly out-raised for the second consecutive quarter, pulling in only $670,000 compared with $1.5 million for Katie Boyd Britt, a former chief of staff to Senator Richard Shelby.

In Alaska, Trump is supporting Kelly Tshibaka, a primary challenger to Senator Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial. Murkowski doubled Tshibaka's haul. In North Carolina, Trump's preferred choice, Representative Ted Budd, was narrowly edged by former Gov. Pat McCrory.

In Pennsylvania, Trump's endorsement did seem to boost Sean Parnell, who has been a regular on Fox News and whose fund-raising doubled in the most recent quarter. But Parnell still faces a former Trump-appointed ambassador, Carla Sands, in the Senate primary and she gave her campaign $3 million from her personal fortune.

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In House races, Trump has made clear he is focused on defeating those who voted to impeach him. One such Republican has already retired. But none of the other nine House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in January were out-raised last quarter by a primary challenger, with Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming setting the pace by raising $1.7 million. (In some races, challengers combined to out-raise the Republican incumbent.)

One notable fund-raising haul was from Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina. She verbally lacerated Trump in January for his incitement of the Capitol riot but ultimately didn't vote to impeach. She has since, as my colleague Catie Edmonson put it over the summer, "quietly backpedaled into the party's fold." Now, the $973,000 she raised is among the highest sums for a freshman.

The House leaderboard

Among the rank and file, the strongest Democratic fund-raiser in the House was, by far, Representative Katie Porter of California, who represents a swingy region in Orange County. She raised $2.7 million and spent only $1 million — and now has $14.5 million in the bank. That could help her no matter how her district is redrawn in 2022 — or in a potential future Senate bid. One problem with the latter is that the only House member with more money currently in their treasury is Representative Adam Schiff, another ambitious Democrat from California with $15.3 million in his treasury.

On the Republican side, Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas has emerged as a top fund-raiser, pulling in nearly $3 million. But Crenshaw was spending far more to raise those funds: He spent roughly 88 percent of what he raised in the third quarter, records show, including more than $1 million related to direct mail.

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On the left, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York continues to be one of her party's strongest fund-raisers, bringing in nearly $1.7 million. On the right, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the freshman congresswoman from Georgia, has continuously stirred controversy and cashed in along the way, raising $1.5 million, roughly the same sum as Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of Trump's favorite pugilists on the Hill.

In the political center, two moderate Democrats, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Tom Suozzi of New York, both topped the $1 million threshold.

Democrats have an early money edge in key Senate races

To keep the Senate next year, Democrats must first defend four incumbents up for re-election in the battleground states of Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia and Arizona. The good news for the party is that all four incumbents far out-raised their Republican challengers, with Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia raising the most of anyone in the country, $9.5 million.

The picture is murkier in three Republican-held battlegrounds: North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where the Republican incumbents are retiring, and Wisconsin, where Senator Ron Johnson has not said for certain if he is running again. Democrats face potentially messy primaries in all three races as do Republicans in the two open seats.

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But in each of the three states, the top fund-raiser last quarter between the two parties was a Democrat (not including those donating to themselves, like Sands).

In Florida, Representative Val Demings, a Democrat, has emerged as the surprise fund-raising star of the cycle, raising nearly $8.5 million — nearly $2.5 million more than the Republican she is challenging, Senator Marco Rubio. But Demings is spending extraordinary sums to raise that money — $5.6 million in the last quarter alone, much of it devoted to Facebook ads seeking new online contributors.

What campaigns are spending to raise money — known in the industry as the burn rate — is a key indicator, because it shows how much of what is raised will be available when voters are paying closer attention.

Of the top dozen Senate fund-raisers last quarter, Demings had the highest burn rate at 66 percent.

One Democratic senator on the ballot in 2022 actually spent more than she raised last quarter: Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire. She raised $3 million last quarter, but she spent $3.1 million. Records show she made a $1.5 million media buy to highlight her work for veterans.

The early ad was an unusual strategic choice. Most operatives believe TV ads that air a year from an election will be long forgotten when voting begins. But with money already flooding key states, the ad could be a chance to make an early, positive impression, especially with outside Republican groups on the airwaves.

The Fox News host Tucker Carlson, left, with Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary, in August.Office of the Hungarian Prime Minister

How the American right fell in love with Hungary.

For one week this summer, Fox News beamed the face of Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary into the homes of Tucker Carlson's 3.2 million viewers. In a two-tiered library adorned with dark wood and the Hungarian flag, Carlson sat across from the prime minister in Budapest with an expression of intense concentration.

Orban is inviting, at an increasing pace, important American conservative thinkers and politicians to Budapest and encouraging them to learn about Hungary, while profiting from the attention that they bring with them. Orban wants Budapest to be the "intellectual home" of 21st-century conservatism.

And some U.S. conservatives are taking a cue from the Hungarian prime minister on how to use the power of the state to win the culture wars.

NINE DAYS OF IDEAS TO REMAKE OUR FUTURE

As world leaders gather in Glasgow for consequential climate change negotiations, join us at The New York Times Climate Hub to explore answers to one of the most urgent questions of our time: How do we adapt and thrive on a changing planet? Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 3-11; in person and online. Get tickets at nytclimatehub.com.

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