Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Republicans and Democrats are sifting through the aftermath of the first and only debate in Pennsylvania’s marquee Senate race to determine if Democrat John Fetterman’s performance — on his biggest stage some five months into his recovery from a stroke — will move the needle against him in an era when candidate faceoffs are becoming a moribund exercise.

A final answer will come soon enough, with Election Day less than two weeks out and more than 600,000 people having already cast early ballots.

But, operatives said, a widely seen development such as a poor debate performance can change race dynamics even in the closing stretch of a campaign: fueling new ads, driving up fundraising, drawing headlines and more.

Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, joined Republican Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and former TV host, on Tuesday night in Harrisburg for the debate, which opened with heightened media attention because of Fetterman’s stroke in May.

Above the moderators hung two monitors to transcribe the questions and Oz’s answers in real time, to aid Fetterman. He has said the stroke affected his speech and ability to process spoken language — symptoms that outside neurologists said do not indicate cognitive issues for stroke survivors.

The two contenders, running in a race that could decide party control of the currently 50-50 upper chamber, fielded questions on policies ranging from fracking to abortion to crime during the hourlong debate.

On stage Fetterman was quick to acknowledge the “elephant in the room” — his stroke, which he said caused him to miss and sometimes “mush” words — and he said that overcoming a health challenge made him like so many other Pennsylvanians.

But while he touted his recovery and his resiliency, his halting, repetitive speech and auditory symptoms seemingly made it difficult for him to articulate his views and proposals, including on inflation, and he stumbled in responding to a follow-up question on fracking, for example.

Party experts split by partisanship on whether or not the public would be swayed, though.

“Never seen a more painful debate,” veteran Pennsylvania GOP strategist Chris Nicholas bluntly said. “It’s hard to imagine an undecided voter here moving toward Fetterman after that performance last night.”

“There’s no doubt that Fetterman struggled with his words at times, but I don’t think that’s what will move undecided voters,” Pennsylvania Democratic strategist Mike Mikus countered. “Undecided voters already had plenty of time to weigh whether he was capable to do the job. It’s going to come down to the issues they care about, and I still think Fetterman wins on November 8.”

The debate over the debate was sparked when Fetterman fumbled while answering several questions, including about his record on crime as mayor of Braddock and his reversal on fracking, a core if environmentally controversial part of Pennsylvania’s economy for which he once backed a moratorium.

“I was able to stop gun violence for five and a half years as mayor — ever accomplished before since my time as mayor because I’m the only person on this stage right now that is — can successful about pushing back against gun violence and being the community more safe,” Fetterman said.

“I do support fracking and I don’t, I don’t — I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking,” he added in another remark that Republicans seized on.

Other comments were more fluid, but Fetterman consistently dropped words or spoke in a choppy cadence — leaving Republicans to pounce and Democrats to spin.

“It was really bad for Fetterman. Worse than I thought,” said Pennsylvania GOP consultant Josh Novotney.

“I watched the debate last night. It was hard to watch, frankly,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said on CNN Wednesday. “At the end of the day, they’ve got a pretty stark choice between John Fetterman, who looked uncomfortable in a suit and tie, whose answers were at times halting, but who is authentic and will fight for working families in Pennsylvania and who’s got a real and strong record as lieutenant governor and mayor to run on. And they will contrast that with Mehmet Oz, who looked very comfortable in a tailored suit, who’s very good on television.”

In a sign that Republicans smell blood in the water after the debate, Make America Great Again Inc., former President Donald Trump’s super PAC, rolled out a $870,000 ad buy in Pennsylvania highlighting worries around immigration and crime raising questions of Fetterman and President Joe Biden’s fitness for office.

“Biden is stumbling around, and Fetterman just isn’t right,” the narrator says in the ad, which was first reported by Fox News.

Among Democrats, the aftermath sparked questions over whether Fetterman should have even agreed to debate Oz in the first place.

“No,” one Pennsylvania party strategist, granted anonymity to discuss the race frankly, said when asked if Fetterman should have appeared. “No upside.”

“I think you have to put him out there and have him answer some questions,” Pennsylvania Democratic consultant Mustafa Rashed said, referencing concerns over Fetterman’s health after the stroke.

After the debate, his campaign almost immediately and forcefully insisted on their victory.

“For a guy who’s just been in the hospital months ago, he took it to Dr. Oz pretty f—— hard tonight,” Fetterman spokesperson Joe Calvello said Tuesday before later announcing that the campaign had raised more than $2 million in the day after the debate.

And Democrats were able to knock Oz on abortion after he said Tuesday that while the federal government shouldn’t have a role in restricting the procedure, “I want women, doctors, local political leaders, letting the democracy that’s always allowed our nation to thrive to put the best ideas forward so states can decide for themselves.”

Fetterman’s team swiftly cut video of the comment into an ad, which Biden later shared.

“If Dr. Oz gets his way, where does this end? Would he recommend local officials make decisions about cancer treatments? Colonoscopies? Or is this kind of scrutiny reserved just for women?” Biden tweeted.

Later Wednesday, when ABC News’ Cecilia Vega asked press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if Biden had ever raised health concerns about Fetterman, Jean-Pierre said: “The president, in his personal conversations with the lieutenant governor, finds him to be an authentic, really brave individual.”

Outside disability advocates also described the scrutiny of Fetterman’s performance as ableism, a form of prejudice.

“Equating an auditory processing disorder, or what others might describe as aphasia, with a lack of intelligence or cognition is commonplace and bigotry,” said Luke Visconti, chairman of the National Organization on Disability. “This bullying is a key factor in preventing roughly half of the almost 200,000 Americans under 65 who have a stroke from returning to work.”

How permanently the debate may shift voter attitudes remains unclear.

Such events are becoming a vanishing breed, with candidates in states across the country increasingly opting out of something that can be hard to win but easy to lose, operatives said.

“It’s high risk, low reward. You spend a lot of time preparing for it, the [return on investment] isn’t really there,” Rashed, the Democratic consultant, said. “The high risk is that you make a gaffe and it turns into a social media meme or something else that’s untoward. And … I think candidates are viewing it as there’s just not a lot of upside in doing these things.”

The race between Fetterman and Oz was already tightening, with FiveThirtyEight’s polling average showing Fetterman’s lead dropping from 7 points a month ago to about 2.3 points as of Wednesday.

Democrats who spoke to ABC News disagreed on whether the debate would have an impact, with many saying not enough people would care or some suggesting Oz’s abortion remarks could turn voters off.

“Regular partisans will stay in their corners, as the reactions make clear,” the anonymous Democrat said.

Republicans, meanwhile, were bullish the sliver of undecided voters remaining would find Fetterman unappealing.

“In a close race,” said Keith Naughton, a GOP strategist with extensive experience in Pennsylvania politics, “a disastrous debate performance like John Fetterman had is enough to tip the scales against him and probably will.”

When asked about the debate, voters were torn.

“I’m not sure if Mr. Fetterman’s people should have him in this race. I feel bad for him,” said Tom Lawlor, a lawyer and a Democrat who said he’s still undecided on who to back. “If my decision had to be made today, I think I would lean for Dr. Oz.”

“Okay, he has a little bit of trouble talking. His mind is okay. I mean, if it affected his mind in some way, I could say okay, but he’s still a smart guy. Has nothing to do with his speech,” Richard Ferro, a retiree from Pittsburgh said of Fetterman’s performance.

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(WASHINGTON) — Amid a disturbing uptick in gun violence across the country, the political power of gun reform will be put to the test this election cycle.

There have been more than 500 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, according to a tracker from the Gun Violence Archive. Two of those shootings — one at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York and the other at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas — sparked nationwide outrage and debate about gun violence.

In fact, the tragedies prompted a response from Congress for the first time in decades. Lawmakers this summer passed a bipartisan gun safety package to fund the implementation of red flag laws, close the “boyfriend loophole” and enhance background checks for potential gun buyers under the age of 21.

But the legislation didn’t go as far as many gun control advocates wanted, and now some citizens are using the midterm elections as an opportunity to make more progress on the issue at the state level.

Take Oregon, for example, where voters will consider the country’s most comprehensive gun reform measure on the ballot this November.

“Everybody in the nation has been throwing their hands up saying, ‘Enough is enough. What can we do?’ And this is the one state in the country right now where real action can be taken,” said Rev. Mark Knutson, one of the chief petitioners behind Measure 114 and chair of the group Lift Every Voice.

“It’s been called the Oregon model,” Knutson said, adding, “I think it’ll give a lot of courage to state legislatures, if they can see a major victory come out of Oregon.”

The ballot measure, developed by a coalition of faith leaders, gun control advocates and others, would require permits to buy firearms and prohibit ammunition magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. It would also require those applying for a firearm permit to pass a criminal background check, attend safety training and pay a fee.

Knutson’s group started preparing for the ballot measure after the shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. But he said the shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo prompted a “wave” of new volunteers to help gather signatures for the measure to be included on the ballot.

After Uvalde, where 19 children and two teachers were killed, one Oregon resident decided to turn in his AR-15 rifle and a 9mm handgun to local police.

Ben Beers went viral on TikTok for the move — which he said was emotional but also relieving.

“It’s like, why is this weapon, that’s [a] lethal weapon, here — that I’m seeing throughout these horrible tragedies,” Beers told ABC News. “Why is it in my house?”

Beers described the transformation of once being excited to customize an AR-15 after leaving the military to being horrified when that style weaponry was used to kill young children.

“I have personally done what I can as a U.S. citizen, as a former Marine,” he said. “I have a strong opinion on this. We need to do whatever we can do as citizens to change legislations for our future.”

A second state is also considering a ballot measure related to guns, but on the opposite spectrum. Iowa residents this election cycle will consider adding a gun rights amendment to the state constitution, which would further protect gun ownership.

But polling shows the issue of gun reform has dropped somewhat on voters’ list of concerns as the midterms draw closer, with the economy and abortion rights becoming the hot-button topics this cycle. One poll from Quinnipiac University conducted in June found 17% of Americans thought gun violence was the most urgent issue facing the nation, but as of late August that number dropped to 9%.

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(WASHINGTON) — In the Pennsylvania race for a seat in the U.S. Senate, Democratic candidate John Fetterman has had to continuously defend his ability to serve as he recovers from a life-threatening stroke.

“Again, my doctor believes that I’m fit to be serving, and that’s what I believe where I’m standing,” he said on the debate stage Tuesday night, citing a letter from his primary care doctor and declining to commit to releasing medical records.

According to Fetterman’s doctors, the candidate sometimes has difficulty speaking and experiences auditory processing issues five months after his stroke. This prompted criticism and speculation by some about his ability to take on a role in the Senate — however, neurologists have told ABC News that language issues do not indicate cognitive impairment for stroke survivors.

Still, disability advocacy groups say ableism has been continuously thrown at Fetterman throughout his campaign since his stroke by Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz’s team, though the doctor himself has expressed empathy toward Fetterman’s condition.

Ableism refers to discrimination against people with disabilities.

“It’s been, frankly, a distraction,” said Seth Ginsberg, president and co-founder of disability advocacy groups Global Healthy Living Foundation and CreakyJoints.

Ginsberg continued, “We hear daily, from people with chronic diseases that they’ve experienced social prejudice and diminished opportunities based on people’s assumptions about how or what they can or cannot do with their conditions.”

Fetterman’s stroke has played an ongoing role in the political playbook of Oz’s team.

When Fetterman declined to debate Oz in September, Oz’s team released a seemingly mocking list of “concessions” they would make to get Fetterman on the debate stage, including: “We will pay for any additional medical personnel he might need to have on standby.”

After Fetterman’s social media team made fun of Oz for calling a “veggie tray,” “crudité,” Oz’s senior communications advisor Rachel Tripp responded by telling Insider: “If John Fetterman had ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke and wouldn’t be in the position of having to lie about it constantly.”

In an interview with NBC News, Oz said he had “tremendous compassion” for what Fetterman is going through.

“Not only do I, as a doctor, appreciate the challenges, but I know his specific ailment, because it’s a specialty area of mine,” said Oz.

He added that he would not speak to a patient the way Tripp had spoken about Fetterman.

However, Oz has criticized Fetterman for not releasing his medical records, saying that voters deserve to know more about the health of a potential incoming politician. When the editorial boards of various news organizations urged both candidates to release their medical records, Oz obliged.

“In the interest of full transparency over my own health, I saw my doctor again to get the most current appraisal of my health status,” said Oz in a statement to City & State PA. “I agree that voters should have full transparency when it comes to the health status of candidates running for office.”

This, and other commentary, has prompted a wave of conversation and speculation about Fetterman’s abilities.

“I was completely ignorant about strokes and stroke recovery – until I had one at age 54,” said Luke Visconti, a chairman of the National Organization on Disability. “Many stroke survivors are able to recover – in my case and apparently with Lt. Governor Fetterman, it takes brutally hard work. People have told me that I’m a nicer person since my stroke. I certainly know I’m more perceptive and empathetic. Don’t we all need more empathy?”

Disabled activists say persistent, ongoing jabs about Fetterman’s condition despite his perseverance on the campaign trail highlight the ways in which ableism turns a condition someone is experiencing into a weapon to be used against them to make assumptions about their abilities.

“We all know Fetterman has this rough-and-tumble, strong, get-things-done persona,” said Sophie Poost, the program director at the advocacy group Disability EmpowHer Network. “He’s adjusting the way he communicates, how he works, how he campaigns, [so] there’s this ablest thinking that says that because these adjustments aren’t ‘normal,’ they’re ‘unnatural.’ Because they aren’t typical to non-disabled people, it’s seen as a weakness.”

In 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found the unemployment rate for disabled people was 10.1% — which is about twice as high as the rate for those without a disability.

“Roughly a third of [Global Healthy Living Foundation] staff has a chronic disease that might otherwise prevent them from holding a job. And, frankly, these people absolutely excel at their jobs,” said Ginsberg.

Fetterman wouldn’t be the first politician to serve with a disability. President Joe Biden has been open about his experiences with speech impediment that causes him to stutter. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is paralyzed from the waist down. Sen. Tammy Duckworth is a double amputee.

Former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who contracted polio in 1921, was paralyzed from the waist down.

According to the National Council on Independent Living, dozens of other politicians with some kind of disability — neurological, physical or otherwise — are currently running for or are currently in office on the federal, state and local level.

“Systems of oppression for individuals who are considered ‘the other,’ be it, disability, race, poverty and gender, need to be actively dismantled,” said Jane Dunhamn, the director of the National Black Disability Coalition. “At the same time when we are dismantling systems of oppression we need more intellectual, cultural and lived-experience humility.”

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(WASHINGTON) — With less than two weeks until midterm Election Day, President Joe Biden is doubling down on the message that a Republican-run Congress would be worse for the U.S. economy.

“If I had asked you — and we were just walking down the streets — can you tell me what the Republican platform is? What they’re for? I’m not joking. I’m being deadly earnest,” Biden said as he delivered remarks Thursday at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, New York.

“I’ve been around a long time in public life. Republicans used to always have platforms,” Biden continued. “Well they can’t tell you what they’re for, but they’ll make sure they tell you what they’re against.”

Arriving in Syracuse, Biden was asked by a reporter how he planned to help Democrats across the finish line this midterm cycle.

“I think they’re going to come across the finish line,” Biden replied.

The economy is top of mind for voters heading into Election Day, and polls show Americans trust Republicans to handle the issue more than they do Democrats. GOP candidates have seized on inflation in their midterms messaging, blaming higher costs on Democratic policies.

The White House, in an aggressive push to counter that message, sent out a document to reporters and held a conference call on Wednesday outlining what they are calling “congressional Republicans’ five-party plan to increase inflation and costs for American families.”

According to the White House, the five parts of congressional Republicans’ economic plan include “$3 trillion in tax cuts skewed to the wealthy — which would add to the deficit and make inflation worse;” “raising prescription drug costs for millions of seniors;” “increasing health insurance premiums;” “increasing energy bills in 2023 and beyond;” and “increasing student loan payments.” As a “bonus,” the White House said Republicans are also “threatening the global economy to cut Social Security or Medicare.”

Biden in his remarks criticized his predecessor, Donald Trump, saying the previous president “made a string of broken promises” when it came to the economy and infrastructure.

“We’ve kept our commitments … and it’s working compared to what the very conservative Republicans are offering these days,” Biden said.

Biden on Thursday was bolstered by new government data showing the U.S. economy expanded in July, August and September. Gross domestic product grew 2.6%, a contrast to the first six months of the year when the economy shrank 2.2%.

“So economic growth is up, the price of inflation is down, real incomes are going up and the price of gas is down,” Biden said. He also touted the deficit reduction, his student loan forgiveness plan, the administration’s crackdown on junk fees and other policies.

During the Syracuse visit, Biden touted Micron’s pledge to invest $100 billion in semiconductor production over the next 20 years, calling it the “one of the most significant investments in American history.” The Micron pledge came after Congress passed the CHIPS Act, which allocates more than $50 billion to encourage more domestic production of the chips.

Appearing with the president were New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, up for reelection this November against Republican Lee Zeldin; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand; Congressman John Katko and Micron’s CEO Sanjay Mehrotra.

“We wouldn’t be here without him,” Biden said of Schumer. Highlighting the bipartisan support for the CHIPS Act, Biden also thanked Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., for voting yes on the legislation.

Schumer and Biden were heard discussing some midterm races, including the Pennsylvania Senate debate this week between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz, while they met at the Syracuse airport on Thursday.

“Let me close with this,” Biden said. “It’s been a rough few years for a lot of the people I grew up with, hard-working Americans. For a lot of families, things are still tough. But there’s some bright spots out there, where America’s reasserting itself.”

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(WASHINGTON) — With less than two weeks until midterm Election Day, President Joe Biden is doubling down on the message that a Republican-run Congress would be worse for the U.S. economy.

Senior White House officials sent out a document to reporters and held a conference call on Wednesday, outlining what they are calling “congressional Republicans’ five-part plan to increase inflation and costs for American families.” The aggressive push reflects a desire by the Biden administration to shift the narrative and convince voters — most of whom think the president is doing a poor job with the economy — that Republicans’ “economic plan will raise costs and make inflation worse.”

Biden, a Democrat, has frequently said that the 2022 midterm elections are a choice, not a referendum. That choice, the White House said, is between Biden and Republicans’ “plan to increase inflation and costs.”

According to the White House, the five parts of congressional Republicans’ economic plan include “$3 trillion in tax cuts skewed to the wealthy — which would add to the deficit and make inflation worse;” “raising prescription drug costs for millions of seniors;” “increasing health insurance premiums;” “increasing energy bills in 2023 and beyond;” and “increasing student loan payments.” As a “bonus,” the White House said Republicans are also “threatening the global economy to cut Social Security or Medicare.”

The White House said Biden will travel to Syracuse, New York, on Thursday to tout Micron, one of the world’s largest microchip manufacturers, for its plans to open a semiconductor plant in the area, which the company said could bring 50,000 jobs to the state. A presidential adviser told reporters that Biden will also talk about the specific ways Republicans would make the economy worse.

“Tomorrow,” the adviser said, “you will hear him lay out in stark relief the specific ways in which congressional Republicans want to take the country backward and undo the progress that we’ve made in lowering prescription drug costs, lowering healthcare costs, lowering energy costs, lessening the impact of student debt on middle class families, and strengthening Social Security.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A judge has ordered former President Donald Trump’s last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to travel to Georgia to appear before the grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election there, according to a spokesperson for the Fulton County district attorney’s office.

The ruling from the South Carolina judge comes after Meadows’ lawyer argued in a filing on Monday that Meadows cannot be compelled to testify because, although the special grand jury is investigating alleged criminal conduct, it does not have the ability to return a criminal indictment and can only make recommendations concerning criminal prosecution.

Meadows’ lawyer also argued that as a “special grand jury,” the panel lacks the authority to compel testimony from witnesses who live out of state. Meadows currently resides in South Carolina.

Meadows was on the January 2021 phone call that then-President Trump had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” him enough votes to win the state.

Trump, who has denounced the Fulton County probe, has repeatedly defended his phone call to Raffensperger, calling it “perfect.”

Meadows is likely to appeal the ruling ordering him to appear, according to his lawyer.

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(NEW YORK) — Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., is under federal criminal investigation, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News and confirmed by an adviser to the senator.

The investigation is being conducted by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, the sources said. The exact nature of the investigation was not immediately clear.

“Senator Menendez is aware of an investigation that was reported on today, however he does not know the scope of the investigation. As always, should any official inquiries be made, the Senator is available to provide any assistance that is requested of him or his office,” said the adviser, Michael Soliman, in a statement provided to ABC News.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment, as did representatives of the FBI.

The news was first reported by Semafor.

Menendez, who is chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was previously indicted on corruption charges in April 2015 due to his relationship with a Florida eye doctor, Salomon Melgen.

Prosecutors accused Menendez of accepting close to $1 million worth of campaign contributions and lavish gifts — flights on Melgen’s private jet, a first class commercial flight and a flight on a chartered jet; numerous vacations at Melgen’s villa in the Dominican Republic and a hotel room in Paris — from Melgen in return for the political favors. Menendez also allegedly used his office to support the visa applications of several of Melgen’s girlfriends.

He pleaded not guilty. The trial ended with a hung jury and the charges were dismissed in 2018.

Melgen was later convicted of defrauding Medicare patients but had his prison sentence commuted by former President Donald Trump in his final hours in office.

 

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden, highlighting his administration’s war on rising costs less than two weeks ahead of the midterm elections, announced new initiatives Wednesday he said will provide “a little breathing room” for American families.

Speaking at the White House, Biden said the initiatives on what he called “junk fees” aim to “lower the cost of everyday living for American families, to put more money in the pockets of middle-income and working- class Americans and to hold big corporations accountable.”

“These steps will immediately start saving Americans collectively billions of dollars in unfair fees,” he said.

The administration’s actions to provide financial relief come amid steep inflation. Republicans have seized on high prices ahead of the midterms, arguing Democrats’ policies are to blame for surging costs.

Polling shows the GOP has an edge on the issue. A new ABC News/Ipsos survey found 36% of Americans trust Republicans to handle inflation while 21% trust Democrats.

On the state of the economy overall, 36% of Americans trust Republicans to do a better job while 24% trust Democrats on the issue.

Biden announced Wednesday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued guidance effectively banning two popular “junk fee” practices: surprise overdraft fees or depositor fees. Those actions will save consumers more than $1 billion per year, according to the White House.

“This is real money back in the pockets of American families,” said Rohit Chopra, the director of the CFPB. “It’s good for them, and it’s good for businesses that follow the law.”

The CFPB will also develop guidance on other bank and credit card fees that currently cost consumers more than $24 billion per year, the White House said.

Biden said his administration’s looking to take action on other charges, including processing fees for concert tickets or resort fees. The Federal Trade Commission announced last week it would be launching a rule-making process to reduce such fee practices across the economy.

Such fees, Biden said, “hit marginalized Americans the hardest, especially low-income folks and people of color.”

Biden, speaking just 13 days before Election Day, also took the opportunity to tout other moves his administration made to lower costs, including making hearing aids available over-the-counter and a program to lower Americans’ monthly broadband bills.

He again blamed high prices, particularly energy prices, on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war in Ukraine. Biden also repeated his call on gas companies to pass savings down to consumers, and predicted gas prices will continue to fall.

“I’m optimistic,” Biden said. “It’s gonna take some time, and I appreciate the frustration and American people.”

 

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(TOLEDO, Ohio) — At a community block watch meeting earlier this month outside of Toledo, Ohio, residents told personal stories of break-ins, burglaries, road rage and shootings in their neighborhoods and they pressed local police about the response to ongoing crime.

“This is my hometown. This is something unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my lifetime,” Florence McLennan, who helps organize the monthly gatherings, told ABC News. “When I grew up as a child, we didn’t lock our doors. We didn’t close our windows. We could walk anywhere at any time of the day or night. I would be apprehensive to do that today. Things have definitely changed drastically.”

McLennan is not wrong about the last few years.

Until 2021, Toledo averaged about 30 homicides a year. But then the number of homicides more than doubled in 2021 to 71 — and Toledo was not alone. An ABC News analysis found Toledo was one of more than a dozen cities to exceed previous homicide records last year.

While murders have started to decline again this year, both in Toledo and in other major cities around the country, Republican candidates have seized on spikes in violence and voters’ anxieties about the issue in the final stretch of campaigning before the midterm elections.

GOP ads across the country — in Georgia, in Pennsylvania, in Washington state — portray cities as lawless, frightening and out of control.

“Who’s going to sit down and say, ‘I’m pro-crime?’ Nobody,” Leah Wright Rigueur, a history professor at Brandeis University and ABC News political contributor, said in an interview. She referred to campaign messaging on crime as “a relatively easy, dunking point.”

“Here’s the thing about using crime as a political talking point: You don’t actually want to go through the nuances of crime,” she added. “You say, ‘Do you feel safe walking home at night? Do you feel safe in your neighborhood?’ These are things that you can use even in spaces that have disproportionately high safety ratings, even in spaces that have very low crime, because then you’re not just talking about crime, right? You’re also talking about the threat of it.”

Like many other Republicans around the country, J.D. Vance, running for Senate in Ohio, has made crime a cornerstone of his campaign and worked overtime to paint his Democratic opponent, Rep. Tim Ryan, as anti-police.

“Some fringe lunatics on the other side … decide they’re going to declare war on American police instead of violent criminals,” Vance said at a recent rally in Perrysburg, Ohio. “Two years ago, Tim Ryan tried to take qualified immunity from our police officers. If you did that, it would be impossible to recruit the police officers necessary to keep our streets in Ohio safe.” (Ryan’s campaign has said he doesn’t support defunding police, but he has criticized what he called racial disparities in criminal justice.)

At Vance’s event, voters who spoke with ABC News said they had mixed thoughts on the issue. Some did say crime was top of mind, while others said it was less of an issue where they lived.

According to a nationwide ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in September, crime was the fourth-most important issue to voters come November and respondents said they trusted Republicans by 14 points over Democrats on the issue.

Still, many Republicans candidates running for federal office, including Vance, have struggled to propose specific policies to combat crime beyond hiring more police officers, which is often actually decided at the local level.

GOP ads and talking points have focused on blaming Democrats, side-stepping issues of gun regulations and pervasive gun violence, recidivism and rehabilitation of offenders and whether to increase community economic opportunities.

Increasingly, some conservatives’ comments on crime have racially inflammatory undertones.

Speaking at a rally earlier this month next to former President Donald Trump, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said that Democrats were pro-crime and added, “They want reparations because they think people who do the crime are owed that,” the AP reported.

Reparations are almost always raised in America in relation to the country’s history of enslaving Black people.

While Tuberville’s comments were quickly condemned as “racist” by the NAACP and others, a spokesperson soon insisted, “The issue is crime, not race.”

“You can’t come out and say, ‘Black people are dangerous.’ It is ineffective at appealing to, you know, mixed communities or white liberals or white moderates, none of whom want to be associated with racism,” Rigueur said. “But when you do it in a really subtle way, all of a sudden all of these fears and biases that people hold within come rising to the surface and it ends up being a relatively effective political mobilization tool.”

As for practical solutions, Toledo Police Chief George Kral told ABC News that he does need more officers but recruitment has been really hard and that widespread access to guns is also a major issue in his city.

Kral said in the last few years, he has ramped up his work with federal officials to do everything he can to get firearms off the streets.

He argued a combination of factors, many related to COVID-19 restrictions that started in 2020, led to the rise in crime last year.

“We’re social people. We’re not meant to be locked in … They were sick and tired of being sick and tired, and they [went] a little stir crazy,” Kral said in an interview in his office in downtown Toledo.

Add on top of that the social unrest after the murder of George Floyd and the economic depression in parts of his city — and Kral called it all “a perfect storm.”

“We had relatives shooting each other at, at cookouts. We had a sister who shot her brother over a PlayStation game. There’s just no regard for human life anymore,” he said.

The pandemic regulations also created a backlog in the courts that Kral said had serious implications for Toledo. He said criminals were very aware that jails were not holding them as long in pre-trail confinement.

“They told our people, ‘Go ahead, take my gun. I’ll be out in three hours, and I’ll have another gun in five hours.’ There are some prolific offenders here who have been arrested month after month after month after month for the same things,” Kral said. He credited local courts who have recently worked overtime to try to make up for the backlog. But still, he said he worried it could take more than a year still for courts to get caught up.

Kral said the attention on crime in ads and in the political conversation did not help: “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You hear something or say something for a long enough time, you start believing it to be true.”

Toledo activists in the Black Lives Matter movement agreed that the pandemic put extra stressors on locals and contributed to the spikes in crime.

“Our communities were already faced with trauma due to lack of everything. And then the pandemic did anything but exacerbate that lack,” Avis Files with the Brothers and Sisters United Program told ABC News during a small group discussion in the residential Roosevelt neighborhood.

She and her colleagues disagreed that simply adding more cops to the beat was the answer.

“While there is crime, I am literally more afraid of the police and what they might do to me or what they might mistakenly do to a young man,” Files said.

David Bush, a city commissioner who works closely with Files, said that too often he hears that “Black people don’t want cops.”

“That’s not true. What we don’t want is bad — I don’t want bad food, bad teachers, bad cops, bad anything. Right? But if somebody breaks in my house, who do you think I’m calling? Calling the cops,” he said.

Files and Bush said they felt that too often minority communities were scapegoated in the buzzy campaign conversations around crime and that too few politicians were willing to do the long, often slow work of engaging with communities to provide better education, economic opportunities and development to address the root issues in the long term.

“We want what’s good for the community,” Bush said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker on Wednesday denied an unnamed woman’s new claim that in Dallas in 1993 he paid for and strongly encouraged her to have an abortion that she did not want.

The woman, only identified as Jane Doe, made her accusation at a video news conference hosted from Los Angeles by her attorney, Gloria Allred. The woman was not shown on camera and said that she feared reprisal if she revealed her true name or her face.

In a statement issued later Wednesday, Walker said, “I’m done with this foolishness. This is all a lie, and I will not entertain any of it.”

“I also did not kill JFK. This is pitiful,” he added. “The media should not be so foolish as to think I will spend any time talking about these lies.”

That statement echoed one he gave earlier Wednesday, shortly before the woman’s news conference. A reporter asked him then if he wanted to “unequivocally deny” paying any women for abortions, but he did not answer.

Walker previously denied an ex-girlfriend’s claim to various news outlets that he paid for her to have an abortion in 2009. That woman told The Daily Beast that she had documents supporting her allegation: a receipt from an abortion clinic, a bank deposit receipt with an image of a $700 check that she said was signed by Walker sent within a week of the abortion and also a “get well” card that she said was signed by Walker.

ABC News has not independently confirmed either woman’s claim.

Walker is running against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock as staunchly anti-abortion rights.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has been campaigning with Walker, also issued a statement on Wednesday supporting him and labeling Allred, the woman’s attorney, an “activist” and a Democrat.

Graham and Walker suggested the new allegation was a coordinated political attack to upend a race that has also focused on public safety and the economy as well as abortion rights.

Leading Republicans including former President Donald Trump have rallied around Walker, citing his denials.

“Democrats will say and do anything to hang on to power. Well, I’m Herschel Walker, and they picked the wrong Georgian to mess with. I’m not backing down the stakes are too high,” Walker said in his statement.

The new woman’s allegations

The unnamed woman who spoke at the video news conference with Allred said that in April 1993, she became pregnant after having been intimate with Walker.

“After discussing the pregnancy with Herschel several times, he encouraged me to have an abortion and gave me the money to do so,” the woman claimed.

She said she then went for the procedure in Dallas but did not go through with it. She said Walker allegedly pressured her, though, and ultimately drove her back to the abortion clinic the next day and waited outside until it was done, then drove her to a pharmacy for medication.

The woman did not provide any documentation in support of her alleged abortion.

Warnock’s response to Walker abortion claim

In a statement on Wednesday, Warnock’s deputy campaign manager, Rachel Petri, said that “we know Herschel Walker has a problem with the truth, a problem answering questions, and a problem taking responsibility for his actions.”

“Today’s new report is just the latest example of a troubling pattern we have seen play out again and again and again. Herschel Walker shouldn’t be representing Georgians in the U.S. Senate,” Petri said.

Earlier this month, Warnock commented on the first woman’s abortion claim against Walker.

He said then, at a campaign event, that “what we’re hearing about my opponent is disturbing. I think the people of Georgia have a real choice about who they think is ready to represent them in the United States Senate.”

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