Politics

PHOENIX (AP) — Phoenix police have made an arrest in connection with a burglary at the campaign headquarters for Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor.

Police did not release the person’s name or say whether they believe the crime was politically motivated. Sgt. Phil Krynsky said more information would be released later Thursday.

Hobbs’ campaign manager, Nicole DeMont, has said items were taken during the burglary early Tuesday, but the campaign has declined to say what is missing.

Hobbs is in a tight race against Republican Kari Lake, a former television news anchor. Hobbs has received death threats stemming from falsehoods over the 2020 election in Arizona, which she oversaw as secretary of state.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.

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NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Post fired an employee on Thursday for putting false and racist content targeting politicians on the newspaper’s website and Twitter feed.

The tweets and fake news stories included calls for the assassinations of President Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both Democrats. False tweets had New York’s Republican candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin, making violent statements about Gov. Kathy Hochul and hurling racist slurs at New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Another false tweet had Texas Gov. Greg Abbott saying he would “order Border Patrol to start slaughtering illegals.”

The Post, in a statement, said its investigation concluded the acts were committed by an employee, who was fired. No details were released on who the employee was or how one person had the ability to hijack the accounts.

“This morning, we immediately removed the vile and reprehensible content from our website and social media accounts,” the Post said.

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The Georgia prosecutor investigating possible illegal election interference in the 2020 election said Thursday that the Supreme Court should not stand in the way of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s testimony to a grand jury.

In a filing with the high court, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said the justices should reject Graham’s plea that they block his testimony while he continues to appeal the order to appear before a special grand jury.

The panel is investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in the state.

Justice Clarence Thomas issued a temporary stay of the testimony while the court more fully considers the issue. Thomas acted on his own as the justice who handles emergency appeals from Georgia. But the entire court is expected to weigh in.

Graham has argued he is shielded from the questioning by a constitutional provision, the speech and debate clause.

Willis said lower courts already have modified the subpoena issued to Graham to foreclose questioning about protected legislative activity, including questioning on any topics related to individual investigation by the Senator into election wrongdoing in Georgia, while allowing questioning only on topics outside the boundaries of legislative activity.

Graham’s testimony, originally sought for late August, has been rescheduled to Nov. 17, according to a new subpoena that was attached to his Supreme Court filing.

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JESUP, Ga. (AP) — Georgia’s top candidates fanned out Thursday to parts of the state that already embrace them, trying to dig up every bit of support they can amid a big turnout in early voting.

For Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, that meant a trip to parts of rural southeastern Georgia that have become among the most GOP-dominated areas of the state. His Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, meanwhile, headed to Milledgeville and Augusta, showing how she visits both cities and small towns, but almost always places with significant numbers of the Black voters who are the backbone of Georgia Democratic politics.

In narrowly divided Georgia, both sides are trying to pry votes out of every cranny, knowing that even as more than 4 million people are likely to vote by Nov. 8, the outcome could be decided by mere thousands of ballots. President Joe Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, while Kemp defeated Abrams by fewer than 55,000 in 2018.

The focus on energizing each party’s base comes amid heavy early turnout in Georgia, where more than 1.25 million voters had already cast ballots as of Thursday and still nine days of early in-person voting to go in some counties. Mail-in ballots, although diminished from the torrent of 2020, are also arriving at county election offices.

Kemp stumped Thursday at a restaurant in rural Jesup, about 65 miles (100 kilometers) southwest of Savannah, where he spoke to roughly 80 people eating fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. Kemp worked the room before and after his speech, shaking hands and taking selfies.

Only 30,000 people live in Jesup and surrounding Wayne County. But it’s a deeply conservative area that Kemp carried with 80% of the vote in 2018.

“We’ve got to do it again this year,” Kemp implored the lunchtime crowd at Altamaha Steak and Seafood. “Because we’re in a fight for the soul of our state.”

Hitting the biggest applause line in his stump speech, Kemp asked the crowd to help him “make sure that Stacey Abrams is not going to be your governor or your next president.”

During his 20-minute speech, Kemp slammed Abrams for supporting prolonged pandemic shutdowns and being insufficiently supportive of police. He also noted that Abrams had been considered a potential vice presidential running mate for Biden, whom Kemp blames for inflation.

“These are the policies that are crushing hard-working Georgians right now,” Kemp said. “Those are the things that policy has done to us. What we’re doing is helping you fight through that.”

At the same time, Abrams was imploring a majority-Black crowd at a plaza in downtown Milledgeville to back her policy-heavy agenda.

“If you want more money in your pocket, say more!,” Abrams shouted, hoarse from campaigning. “If you want more opportunity in your community, say more! If you want more freedom in your lives, say more! If you want more for the future of our children, say more!”

Milledgeville is the largest town in Baldwin County, which is home to a state university, a lakeside retiree community and a substantial Black population. It’s one of a handful of politically competitive rural Georgia counties, with Abrams narrowly losing in 2018 before Biden narrowly won in 2020. And though Abrams must have a big turnout in cities, she’s also trying to mobilize rural Black voters. “I know that Georgia is more than 285,” Abrams told the Milledgeville crowd, referring to the traffic-clotted Interstate 285 loop around Atlanta.

Kemp wasn’t done in Jesup, going on to the crossroads of Nahunta. It’s a place that might draw blank stares among Atlanta Democrats, but it’s the county seat of Brantley County, the most Republican county in Georgia in recent years. Kemp won 91% of the vote there in 2018.

Georgia’s Republican Party grew to dominance combining strong performances in the Atlanta suburbs and rural areas. But the suburban arm of that coalition has faltered with the rise of Donald Trump, with some suburban voters rejecting Trump’s brand of Republican politics. Those defections, along with a growing nonwhite population, have turned a onetime Republican stronghold into the South’s premier swing state. It also means Republicans in Georgia, as they do nationwide, look to rural areas as their most reliable strongholds. Such ultra-Republican areas, including a larger swath of GOP bastions in the mountains north of Atlanta, are typically much whiter than the state as a whole.

Kemp’s host for the Wayne County stop was David Keith, an insurance salesman and former Jesup mayor.

“Hopefully we’re not sitting on our laurels thinking, `Don’t worry, we carried him last time,’” Keith said of Kemp. “He will carry Wayne County, but you’ve got to have a large majority to overtake some of the other areas that aren’t going to be so successful” in turning out Republicans.

That reality has also been reflected in Republican Senate challenger Herschel Walker’s schedule this week. After the first week of early voting took Walker to Democratic-dominated cities like Macon and Athens, Walker has headed into the mountains this week, sometimes dipping into Atlanta exurbs where Republicans still thrive.

Incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s travels show less of a partisan lean, reflecting a campaign that’s trying to run toward the middle of the electorate. The average county where he’s campaigning in the first two weeks of early voting is only 50% Democratic. But even Warnock is headed back to the heavily Democratic Atlanta suburb of College Park to rally with Abrams and Democratic former President Barack Obama on Friday.

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Amy reported from Milledgeville, Ga.

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For more AP coverage of the midterm elections: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

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SEATTLE (AP) — The Republican mayor of Wenatchee, a small city in central Washington’s orchard country, didn’t support Democrat Kim Schrier when she was first elected to Congress in 2018. Since then, though, he’s been impressed.

Schrier helped Wenatchee score major federal money for a new bridge. When the city was initially left out of additional transportation spending by Democrats in the state Legislature, Schrier stepped in again, helping secure tens of millions more. She also helped land money for body cameras for the police department.

And now as the GOP targets Schrier’s seat in hopes of retaking the House, Mayor Frank Kuntz has given the incumbent a full-throated endorsement, appearing in a campaign ad for her, and undercutting challenger Matt Larkin’s efforts to paint her as an extreme liberal.

“This is a results business, and she delivered the results,” Kuntz said in an interview.

Washington’s 8th Congressional District stretches across the Cascade Mountains, encompassing wealthy Seattle exurbs populated by tech workers and central Washington farmland. It’s one of two competitive seats in the state, along with southwest Washington’s 3rd District, that will help determine which party controls Congress come January.

Larkin, 41, is a lawyer and former Washington attorney general candidate who works for his family’s company, Romac Industries, which makes parts for water pipes. He topped several other Republicans, including King County Council Member Reagan Dunn, whose mother once held the seat, for the chance to try to stop Schrier from winning a third term.

Unlike some Republican candidates, Larkin acknowledges President Joe Biden was legitimately elected, though he also notes that many people disagree and are frustrated about it. He says both parties need to do a better job “giving a voice to these people who feel very disenfranchised.” Former President Donald Trump continues to lie about the election results.

Larkin has hammered Schrier on inflation, gas prices and crime, saying Democrats’ policies have aggravated all three. As a conservative business owner, he says, he’s better suited to handling the economy. Lowering taxes and ensuring energy independence would be priorities.

His campaign slogan, “Make crime illegal again,” is a play on Trump’s and earned him appearances on conservative cable shows. His focus on crime has also won him the support of four of the five elected sheriffs from counties that fall in the 8th District.

“My family has deep roots here — we homesteaded here over 165 years ago — and I’m passionate about this place,” he said. “I started to see it decline and I thought, if I’m not going to try to fix it, who is? We’ve got a bunch of real problems we’re trying to address and now inflation is choking people out on top of it all.”

He says that Schrier’s voting record, perfectly aligned with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, is far out of touch with the district she represents.

“You can pretend all you want — pretend to be a moderate, pretend to be pragmatic,” Larkin said. “This is a moderate district, and voters did not elect a San Francisco Democrat to represent them.”

As for Schrier’s support from the Republican mayor of Wenatchee? “The reason he’s given is, oh, she brought us a bridge — that’s his price tag,” Larkin said. “That’s fine, but there is not a long list of bipartisan supporters for her.”

Schrier, a pediatrician, is the only Democrat to hold the seat since the district was created in the early 1980s. She won reelection in 2020 against Army veteran Jesse Jensen, who used a playbook similar to the one Larkin has embraced: painting her as a Seattle-style liberal too extreme for the district.

And, as she did against Jensen, Schrier is stressing the results she’s achieved in office. Those include the Wenatchee road money, which will help bring the region’s apples, pears and cherries to market; securing broadband access for 200 homes in rural Entiat; and getting the city of Roslyn, best known as the setting for the TV show “Northern Exposure,” support for projects to reduce the risk of wildfire.

“What these mayors know is that I am meeting, I am listening, I am hearing what their priorities are, and then I am working my tail off to make sure I deliver,” Schrier said.

Schrier is also emphasizing she’s the only pro-choice female doctor in Congress. Given the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, eliminating the right to an abortion under federal law, that’s crucial, she says. Since the ruling, total bans or restrictions on abortion have taken effect in more than a dozen states, and Republicans have introduced federal legislation that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

In Washington, the right to an abortion is enshrined in state law, but any federal ban or restrictions would trump that. Larkin, a Christian conservative, opposes abortion except when the life of the mother is at risk; he makes no exceptions for rape or incest. He declined to say how he might vote on a federal abortion ban if elected, but he said there is no threat to safe and legal abortion in Washington state.

He accused Schrier of exaggerating the issue to drum up enthusiasm among her supporters, while Schrier called his position dangerous.

“Voters should be scared,” she said. “There was a time people said, ‘Oh, Roe will never be overturned.’ Look what happened! States across the country one by one are taking this decision away from women.”

Schrier, with the power of her incumbency, has raised $8 million for her reelection bid. Larkin has raised about $2 million — $772,000 of it his own money.

Schrier lamented that largely due to partisan gerrymandering, only about 30 of the 435 seats in the House are considered swing districts.

“If more districts were like this one, that could swing either way, we would have a whole lot more incentive to move to the center and truly represent where most people in this country are,” Schrier said.

Because Washington is a vote-by-mail state, with ballots due to be postmarked by Election Day, it often takes days to learn final results in close races.

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BARRE, Vt. (AP) — In the race for Vermont’s single seat in the U.S. House, Democrat Becca Balint could be on the verge of being elected as the first woman and first openly gay person to represent the state in Congress.

Balint, 54, president of the Vermont Senate and a former teacher, faces Republican Liam Madden, a 38-year-old Marine Corps veteran and antiwar activist, who describes himself as an independent, and who does not have the backing of the state GOP party. Three independents and one libertarian candidate are also in the race in the largely Democratic state.

Balint wants people who don’t know her to understand that she’s a middle-school teacher at her core.

“When you teach middle school, you have to understand what it is to survive a hellscape. And so I’m ready for Congress,” she joked at a recent campaign rally with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch, who is running for the Senate.

“But you also have to believe in possibility and promise and potential, and you have to believe that things will get better, OK, and I do. I do. That is a value that I hold dear,” she told the crowd.

Balint said she plans to take the deep listening skills she honed as a teacher to Washington to try to find common ground. And she said with democracy at stake and election deniers on the ballot in other states, she is determined to protect voter rights to uphold democracy.

Balint said she is particularly concerned about what she calls a lack of transparency within the U.S. Supreme Court, and that she would like to see term limits introduced for justices on that court, other federal judges, and members of Congress.

The rare opening in Vermont’s three-member congressional delegation occurred after U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, announced last November that he would not seek reelection this year. Welch is running for Leahy’s seat, opening up the state’s lone seat in the U.S. House.

While Vermont is considered to be one of the more liberal states, with a higher-than-average percentage of women serving in the state Legislature, in 2018 it became the only state to have never sent a woman to Congress.

“The really tough contest for her was the primary, where it looked like it was going to be very competitive among a number of very strong candidates, and it wound up being a situation where many of the people who had been identified with the activist left dropped out and their support gravitated to Becca Balint,” said Bert Johnson, a professor of American politics at Middlebury College.

Balint, of Brattleboro, was born in a U.S. Army hospital in Germany, where her father was stationed, and she grew up mostly in upstate New York. She said she is the daughter of an immigrant, her father, and a working class mother, and the granddaughter of a man who died in the Holocaust.

She came to Vermont to be a rock-climbing instructor in 1994 and moved to the Green Mountain State permanently in 1997. She taught history and social studies in the rural communities of Londonderry, Marlboro, Guilford and Washington, as well as at the Community College of Vermont. She has a masters degree in education from Harvard University and a masters in history from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

She said she decided to run for the state Senate after seeing families struggling due to rising poverty in her county, and that her driving mission is to relieve suffering. Balint has served four two-year terms, including as majority leader from 2017 to 2020. Last year, she was elected president of the Vermont Senate, becoming the first woman and first openly gay person in that role.

“With all her passion, with all her wonderful presentations, there’s another thing I want let you in on,” Welch said of Balint at the rally. “In the quiet of the back rooms, this woman knows what she’s doing. She gets it done.”

For voter Pat Rodar, of Woodbury, Balint offers some hope.

“I like the fact that she’s an independent thinker, that she’s a woman, she’s strong, that she’ll make a difference and that she’ll work well in Congress,” said Rodar.

Joanne Virkler, of Waitsfield, said she likes that Balint was involved in public education, is a gay woman and is community oriented. Her husband Lyndon Virkler added that he supports Balint because she “pro-choice and pro-democracy.”

Meanwhile, it’s a difficult race for Republicans. GOP state Sen. Randy Brock said he likely will not cast a vote for any of the candidates. He said he has a good working relationship with Balint in the Senate but that politically they are not compatible.

“Becca is essentially largely a progressive in many ways. I’m concerned about that approach to government generally,” he said.

Brock said he’s also not well aligned with Madden, the Republican running as an independent, and that he does not support the libertarian candidate.

Balint, who has two children with her wife, an attorney, hopes her campaign, if successful, will inspire more people to run for office, “whether they’re LGBTQ young people, people of color, people who come from working class backgrounds who never imagined that they could run for office.”

“I never thought I’d be where I am right now,” she said.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the elections at: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

Check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the 2022 midterm elections.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew at a 2.6% annual rate from July through September, snapping two straight quarters of contraction and overcoming high inflation and interest rates just as voting begins in midterm elections in which the economy’s health has emerged as a paramount issue.

Thursday’s better-than-expected estimate from the Commerce Department showed that the nation’s gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of economic output — grew in the third quarter after having shrunk in the first half of 2022. Stronger exports and consumer spending, backed by a healthy job market, helped restore growth to the world’s biggest economy at a time when worries about a possible recession are rising.

Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity, expanded at a 1.4% annual pace in the July-September quarter, down from a 2% rate from April through June. Last quarter’s growth got a major boost from exports, which shot up at an annual pace of 14.4%. Government spending also helped: It rose at a 2.4% annual pace, the first such increase since early last year, with sharply higher defense spending leading the way.

Housing investment, though, plunged at a 26% annual pace, hammered by surging mortgage rates as the Federal Reserve aggressively raises borrowing costs to combat chronic inflation. It was the sixth straight quarterly drop in residential investment.

Overall, the outlook for the overall economy has darkened. The Fed has raised interest rates five times this year and is set to do so again next week and in December. Chair Jerome Powell has warned that the Fed’s hikes will bring “pain” in the form of higher unemployment and possibly a recession.

“Looking ahead, risks are to the downside, to consumption in particular, as households continue to face challenges from high prices and likely slower job growth going forward,’’ Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a research note.

With inflation still near a 40-year high, steady price spikes have been pressuring households across the country. At the same time, rising loan rates have derailed the housing market and are likely to inflict broader damage over time. The outlook for the world economy, too, grows bleaker the longer that Russia’s war against Ukraine drags on.

The latest GDP report comes as Americans, worried about inflation and the risk of a recession, have begun to vote in elections that will determine whether President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party retains control of Congress. Inflation has become a signature issue for Republican attacks on the Democrats’ stewardship of the economy.

Economists noted that the third-quarter gain in GDP can be traced entirely to the surge in exports, which added 2.7 percentage points to the economy’s expansion. Export growth will be difficult to sustain as the global economy weakens and a strong U.S. dollar makes American products pricier in foreign markets.

Thursday’s report offered some encouraging news on inflation. A price index in the GDP data rose at a 4.1% annual rate from July through September, down from 9% in the April-June period — less than economists had expected and the smallest increase since the final three months of 2020. That figure could raise hopes that the Fed might decide it can soon slow its rate hikes.

Last quarter’s U.S. economic growth reversed annual declines of 1.6% from January through March and 0.6% from April through June. Consecutive quarters of declining economic output are one informal definition of a recession. But most economists have said they believe the economy skirted a recession, noting the still-resilient job market and steady spending by consumers. Most of them have expressed concern, though, that a recession is likely next year as the Fed steadily tightens credit.

Preston Caldwell, head of U.S. economics for the financial services firm Morningstar, noted that the economy’s contraction in the first half of the year was caused largely by factors that don’t reflect its underlying health and so “very likely did not constitute a genuine economic slowdown.” He pointed, for example, to a drop in business inventories, a cyclical event that tends to reverse itself over time.

Higher borrowing costs have weakened the home market, in particular. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, just 3.14% a year ago, topped 7% this week for the first time since 2002, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday. Sales of existing homes have fallen for eight straight months. Construction of new homes is down nearly 8% from a year ago.

Still, the economy retains pockets of strength. One is the vitally important job market. Employers have added an average of 420,000 jobs a month this year, putting 2022 on track to be the second-best year for job creation (behind 2021) in Labor Department records going back to 1940. The unemployment rate was 3.5% last month, matching a half-century low.

Hiring has been decelerating, though. In September, the economy added 263,000 jobs — solid but the lowest total since April 2021.

International events are causing further concerns. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted trade and raised prices of energy and food, creating a crisis for poor countries. The International Monetary Fund, citing the war, this month downgraded its outlook for the world economy in 2023.

While the U.S. economy expanded, the European Central Bank predicted weakening growth in the 19 countries that use the euro currency the rest of this year and next, pointing to the uncertainty of Russia’s war in Ukraine that could keep food and energy prices high. While ECB President Christine Lagarde said the likelihood of recession had increased, the central bank on Thursday still announced its second big interest rate hike in a row to target inflation running at 9.9%.

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CARMICHAELS, Pa. (AP) — In one of the most closely watched races in one of the most contested of battleground states, both gubernatorial candidates bring up religion. But in starkly different ways.

Republican Doug Mastriano’s campaign has several hallmarks of Christian nationalism, which fuses Christian and political imagery, words and rituals and promotes a belief that America has been and should be a Christian nation.

Democrat Josh Shapiro, meanwhile, talks about his Jewish faith in speeches and ads, saying it inspires him toward public service while he seeks to build a classic Democratic coalition of Black clergy and other progressive religious groups, including Christians and Jews, and the non-religious.

“My faith grounds me and calls me to do public service. I don’t use my faith to make policy decisions or to exclude others the way my opponent does,” Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s current attorney general, said in an interview.

Mastriano, a state senator, has rejected the “Christian nationalist” label, though his political events often carry the feel of a worship service. He was introduced at a church-hosted event near Pittsburgh by a pastor who mixed Christian and political imagery: “Get ready for a great ‘blood of Jesus’ red wave!”

At a campaign event in Pennsylvania’s rural southwestern corner, Mastriano stood at the front of a church, to the backdrop of an oversized campaign sign and a towering cross.

A pastor laid hands on him in a common Pentecostal custom and asked God for protection.

“We pray that you give him this courage and strength for what he’s about to face,” the pastor said at the gathering at Crosspoint Assembly of God. “We pray against the darkness and the enemies that come against him in the spiritual realm.”

Mastriano’s campaign did not respond to emailed requests for an interview. He has consistently ignored requests for comment from The Associated Press and many other media outlets.

At the recent church event, a campaign staffer told a reporter Mastriano would not be taking questions. Mastriano contended that he “watched various media outlets mock our faith” in their coverage of his primary victory rally, which was infused with worship music and Bible quotes. “My campaign has no place for intolerance and bigotry,” he said.

That’s been challenged by Shapiro and others because Mastriano’s campaign paid $5,000 for what it described in a financial disclosure form as “consulting” services to Gab— a social media site popular with white supremacists and antisemites. It was on Gab, authorities say, that a suspect signaled his plans for the 2018 massacre of 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue building in Pittsburgh. It was the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

Mastriano led efforts to overturn Pennsylvania’s vote for Joe Biden in 2020. He chartered buses to bring Pennsylvanians to the outdoor rally preceding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. According to a Senate Judiciary Committee report, he passed through “breached barricades and police lines.”

The two candidates are appealing to the contrasting religious and ethnic demographics that have supported each side in recent campaigns such as the 2020 presidential election, when a majority of white Catholics and a large majority of white evangelical Christians voted Republican while Democrats drew on strong support from Black Christians, Latino Catholics, Jews, Muslims and people of no religion.

Several recent polls have shown Shapiro with a lead over Mastriano.

A September survey by the Franklin & Marshall College suggests Shapiro and Mastriano are running about even among Protestants and Catholics overall, while Shapiro leads among followers of no religion. The poll shows Mastriano leading among self-identified born-again or evangelical Christians.

Mastriano has “made no effort to soften” his hardline stances to a general election electorate, said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and author of “Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump.”

Mastriano takes a “black-and-white, spiritual-warfare view of the world,” Fea said. “Anyone who criticizes him is the devil. I’m not meaning this metaphorically. He really believes they are working for the cause of evil. … That’s what makes him so dangerous.”

Still, some evangelicals “may be disgusted by his (Mastriano’s) Christian nationalism but cannot imagine themselves voting for a prochoice candidate like Shapiro,” Fea said.

He said Shapiro appears to be contrasting his broader view of religious freedom in a diverse population with Mastriano’s narrower one. Shapiro has criticized Mastriano’s statement that “all religions are not equal.”

A Pew Research Center report released Thursday said 45% of American adults surveyed, and 67% of those leaning Republican, believed the U.S. “should be a Christian nation,” though fewer want the federal government to formally declare itself Christian.

Mastriano spends much of his stump speeches denouncing a rise in crime, the incumbent Democratic administration’s COVID-19 restrictions and the participation of transgender athletes in girls’ sports. He has called banning abortion without exception a top priority.

Shapiro has said “my office is dedicated to protecting legal access to abortion in our Commonwealth,” where it is permitted through the 23rd week of pregnancy.

Each candidate draws supporters with a shared understanding of religion’s role.

At the Carmichaels church, Mastriano addressed a small but enthusiastic crowd on a September morning.

“I like the fact that he’s emboldened to (express) our religious values and our freedoms in the Bill of Rights,” said Steven Grugin of Dunkard Township. Speaking in a church “tells people that he’s very much for freedom of speech, freedom of religion,” he said.

The Rev. Marshall Mitchell, senior pastor of Salem Baptist Church of Abington, Pa., who has known Shapiro for years, said Shapiro “is as comfortable in a Black Baptist church as he is in a Conservative shul or a temple or a mosque,” Mitchell said. “He sees the common humanity, which he believes originates in God.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is zeroing in on a largely economic-focused message amid raging inflation and recession risks Thursday as he takes his closing argument for the November midterm elections to a top congressional battleground and tries to reassure restive voters around the country.

Biden’s travels to Syracuse, New York, on Thursday and to Philadelphia on Friday are part of a strategic two-step crafted for a persistently unpopular president: Promote his administration’s accomplishments at official White House events while saving the overt campaigning for states where his political power can directly bolster Democratic candidates.

The White House of late has paid outsize attention to Pennsylvania, where Democrats are aggressively contesting a Republican-held Senate seat to help offset potential losses in other marquee Senate races.

Publicly, the White House and senior Democratic leaders express optimism that they’ll defy traditional midterm headwinds and retain control of Congress. But in private, there is angst that the House will be lost to Republicans and that control of the Senate is a coin flip.

It’s a position that Democrats point out is far more favorable than earlier in the election cycle — particularly before the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade ended constitutional protections for abortion and upended the political landscape — yet many in the party are nonetheless bracing for the loss of at least one chamber.

Biden got a boost on Thursday on the news that the U.S. economy grew at a better-than-expected 2.6% annual rate from July through September, overcoming inflation and interest rates and snapping two straight quarters of economic contraction.

“For months, doomsayers have been arguing that the U.S. economy is in a recession and congressional Republicans have been rooting for a downturn,” Biden said in a statement. “But today we got further evidence that our economic recovery is continuing to power forward. This is a testament to the resilience of the American people.”

The president has had a steady uptick in travel in recent weeks, although he has avoided states such as Nevada and Arizona in which Democratic candidates prefer not to be tagged with the national party brand. He has appeared with a smattering of vulnerable House Democrats at official White House events in California and New York and raised campaign cash for candidates in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Oregon, as well as millions of dollars for the Democratic National Committee at fundraisers in Washington and elsewhere. He held a trio of virtual fundraisers Wednesday night for congressional candidates in Iowa, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

A reception scheduled for Friday in Philadelphia with the state Democratic Party, which Vice President Kamala Harris will also attend, will mark Biden’s 15th visit to Pennsylvania during his presidency. Plans for a joint appearance in the state with former President Barack Obama are in the works for next week.

Also next week, Biden is scheduled to headline a political rally Tuesday in Florida. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist has been publicly encouraging the president to campaign with him in a state that has increasingly trended toward Republicans in recent election cycles.

In Syracuse on Thursday afternoon, Biden will showcase a significant investment by the U.S.-based company Micron, one of the largest microchip manufacturers in the world. The company has credited a new law boosting domestic production of semiconductors for its new, so-called megafab in the area that will create 50,000 new jobs, which will pay an average of $100,000 a year.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., privately encouraged the White House to deploy Biden to Syracuse for a Micron-specific event, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Democrats believe that will help voters to draw a direct connection to the party’s achievements and job growth. The person insisted on anonymity to detail private conversations.

White House officials said Biden would use the Micron event to hammer home a closing message aimed at framing the contrast between the two parties’ economic agendas — an argument that the president began sketching out at a Democratic National Committee event earlier this week.

“Everybody wants to make it a referendum, but it’s a choice between two vastly different visions for America,” Biden said of the midterms. “Democrats are building a better America for everyone with an economy that grows from the bottom up and the middle out, where everyone does well. Republicans are doubling down on their mega MAGA trickle-down economics that benefits the very wealthy.”

He continued: “It failed their country before and will fail it again if they win.”

In recent weeks, Biden has used the presidential bully pulpit considerably to promote Democratic accomplishments, from boasting about his infrastructure law while standing next to a rebuilt bridge in Pittsburgh to reassuring seniors in Portland, Oregon, that they will soon see the costs of prescription drugs capped.

Still, there’s some concern among Democrats that voters are not connecting economic growth in their communities often enough to what a Democratic-controlled government has completed during the first two years of Biden’s presidency.

“I think we have to be far more aggressive,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. “We’re actually bringing jobs back, but we’re not going out enough and acknowledging people’s anger and fear and say, ‘Here’s what we’re doing.’”

The Syracuse area is home to a House race for a seat being vacated by moderate Republican Rep. John Katko, a critical pickup opportunity for Democrats in a district that Biden won by more than 7 percentage points in 2020. Biden’s visit could also give a boost to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, whose reelection contest against Republican Lee Zeldin has tightened in recent weeks. Schumer, Hochul, Katko and Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand will all be at the event, according to a White House official.

Cabinet officials are fanning out nationwide to promote the administration’s economic message. For instance, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to Cleveland on Thursday to talk about Biden’s manufacturing agenda with Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. The retirement of his Republican colleague, Sen. Rob Portman, has led to another critical Senate race, this one between Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Ryan.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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FRANKLIN, Tenn. (AP) — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday lambasted Democrats’ leadership on inflation, crime and foreign policy as he urged Tennessee voters to send Republican Andy Ogles to Congress.

Cruz is on 17-state bus tour, stumping for various Senate and House candidates ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections, where control of both chambers is at stake. He joined Ogles in Franklin, Tennessee — an affluent city just south of Nashville — as the former rural county mayor vies to win a newly redrawn congressional seat that cuts into left-leaning Nashville.

“Revival is coming and I believe that with all my heart,” Cruz said, as he warned that the U.S. is in a crisis that would continue if Democrats maintain control. “In two weeks, we’re not just going to see a red wave, we’re going to see a red tsunami.”

Ogles is running against Democrat Heidi Campbell, who outraised and outspent him last quarter. Her campaign issued a statement ahead of Ogles’ rally, accusing both Ogles and Cruz of being willing to use their power to cut benefits and give “giant corporations and billionaires another tax break.”

Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District has drawn national attention this year after Republicans carved up Nashville during redistricting in the hopes of gaining an additional GOP seat in Congress. The move caused longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper to announce he would retire because there was no path for him to win, creating a rare open congressional race in Tennessee.

Since then, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hasn’t added any of the three seats that divide Nashville to the list of seats it plans to spend on this election as the House Democratic majority remains on the line.

Ogles has led a relatively low-profile campaign after emerging from a crowded and bruising primary race, where he declared, “Liberals, we’re coming for you.” in his victory speech. He’s declined multiple invitations to debate Campbell, largely avoided media interviews and only recently put up a television ad.

However, on Wednesday, Ogles stated that the country was at a “crossroads,” calling President Joe Biden’s administration a “criminal enterprise” and repeated calls to impeach both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. He also criticized the acceptance of transgender Americans, particularly transgender athletes participating in female sports — prompting loud applause from the crowd.

“Sometimes you’ve got to bring salt and pour it on the wound and remind people where we’ve gone astray,” Ogles said. “When we win the House and when we win the Senate, we’re going to bring truth, we’re bringing light and we’re bringing a truck load of salt to run them out of town.”

After the event, Ogles declined to answer direct questions about whether he supported a national abortion ban and instead praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to revoke the constitutional right to the procedure. Cruz also voiced his support of states now having the power to put their own limits on abortion.

Other speakers at the event included Tennessee U.S. Rep. Mark Green and Outkick founder Clay Travis.

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