| | |  | BY DAVID SIDERS | With help from Lisa Kashinsky
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Recent polls show New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's lead over challenger Rep. Lee Zeldin has narrowed. The Republican has made the issue of crime a centerpiece of his campaign. | Hans Pennink/AP Photo | CRIME AND PUNISHMENT — You know Democrats are in trouble when polls start tightening in New York. And they are, according to two polls out this week that suggest Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic incumbent, may have a closer race than expected. Democrats aren’t truly sweating yet in New York, where Hochul is still the clear favorite. But what is concerning for Democrats nationally is what appears to be one reason the polls are tightening. In a Quinnipiac University poll of the New York contest, 28 percent of likely voters listed crime as the most urgent issue facing the state — more than mentioned inflation or abortion. The crime issue isn’t just resonating in New York. While the overarching narrative of the midterm election has been one of economic concerns versus abortion rights, Democrats are suddenly taking a beating on crime across the map — including in competitive states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada. It was following a barrage of advertising on crime in Wisconsin that Ron Johnson, the Republican U.S. senator from Wisconsin, overtook his Democratic challenger, Mandela Barnes, in public polls . Republican Mehmet Oz has narrowed Democrat John Fetterman’s lead in the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, where Republicans are also hammering Fetterman as soft on crime. It’s the same story in Oregon’s open race for governor, where crime has become a central issue in the campaign — and where Democrats are so worried about losing in the reliably blue state that President Joe Biden campaigned there over the weekend. Nationally, the economy and inflation remain top concerns for voters, according to a POLITICO-Morning Consult poll released today . But nearly two-thirds cite crime as a “major issue,” according to the poll. That’s more than mention abortion, gun policy or immigration. For Democrats, it all adds up to more bad news as the election nears. What looked for much of the summer like a post-Roe v. Wade bump for Democrats appears to be fading somewhat. In part, that may simply be a reflection of the calendar. One reason Democrats appeared to be in better position in many races earlier this year is that some Republicans and independents were still “on the fence” — not wanting to vote Democratic, but not falling in with the hard-line Republicans running in some states, either, said Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster who is president of Impact Research, the firm that was Biden’s lead pollster in the 2020 election. “A lot of those Republicans are coming home,” she said. What recent movement in races like New York suggests is that Republicans’ heavy advertising on crime — which includes spots pounding Democratic candidates over calls to defund the police or bail reform efforts — may be helping to ensure it. “It is the issue,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic strategist based in New York. Crime, he said, “is part of a cluster of issues called ‘chaos and disorder,’” including inflation, the supply chain and broader economic uncertainty. “For the people who are the most alienated from this political system,” he said, “they’re less concerned about abortion than chaos and things being out of control.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at dsiders@politico.com or on Twitter at @davidsiders . ELECTION FORECAST UPDATE — With three weeks left until Election Day, Senior Campaigns and Elections Editor Steven Shepard has tweaked our 2022 Election Forecast once again. POLITICO still rates the House “Likely Republican,” with 10 individual races shifting in favor of Republicans. Here’s what you need to know .
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Former Cranston, R.I., Mayor Allan Fung greets supporters at his campaign kickoff event, Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at the Varnum Memorial Armory in East Greenwich, R.I. | David Goldman/AP Photo | Surprisingly, one of the most competitive House races in the country is taking place in deep-blue Rhode Island, where veteran Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin’s retirement has opened the door for a potential Republican pick-up. POLITICO’s Lisa Kashinsky was in Providence last weekend where she got a glimpse into why. CRACKS IN THE BLUE WALL — New England has become a wasteland for Republican candidates in recent years. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont — there isn’t a single GOP member of the House who hails from the region. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is the lone Republican senator. But all that could change this year. A handful of moderate Republican House candidates are running competitive races across the region, none of them better positioned than Allan Fung. Fung, the former mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, is leading Democratic state treasurer Seth Magaziner in public polls and forcing Democrats to pour money into a race for a seat they’ve held for three decades. In an otherwise deep-blue state, Fung is capitalizing on the name recognition and goodwill he’s engendered during his 12 years as mayor of the state’s second-largest city and two failed runs for governor, not to mention a midterm environment that’s been rough on many Democratic candidates. Fung could hardly walk five feet at an Armenian food festival in Providence’s Federal Hill on a sunny and unseasonably warm Saturday afternoon without stopping to shake hands with potential voters — in between their bites of seasoned rice and chicken kebabs — or being stopped for photos, or a back slap, or a quick word about the issues. Fung spent nearly an hour working the picnic tables and beverage lines in the bustling parking lot of Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church, asking people for their support and lending an ear to their concerns from education to the economy. Even when he tried to step away for an interview, Fung was waylaid by a man who ran up to shake his hand and say: “I’m a lifelong Democrat and you’re getting our vote. A bunch of my friends, we’re all gonna vote for you.” Fung believes those crossover votes will make the difference in what remains a close race. “That last gentleman, lifelong Democrat, a lot of them, our message is resonating with them because it’s talking about their priorities, about this economy,” Fung said. Still, Fung must deal with the problem of the national party brand in a state where former President Donald Trump won just 39 percent of the vote in 2020. Fung has said he would vote for Trump ally and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as speaker of a Republican-led House — and that alone is giving Magaziner plenty of campaign fodder for the election homestretch .
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65.5 percent The share of gun owners nationwide who are concerned about the increase in gun-related homicides and gun crimes in cities, according to a new survey from 97Percent , a bipartisan group of gun owners and non-gun owners that conducts research on gun safety policies. |
| | | — Trump signed court document that knowingly included false voter fraud stats, judge says: Trump signed legal documents describing evidence of election fraud that he knew were false, a federal judge indicated today. U.S. District Court Judge David Carter wrote in an 18-page opinion that emails from attorney John Eastman, an architect of Trump’s last-ditch effort to subvert the 2020 election, needed to be turned over to the Jan. 6 select committee. Those emails, Carter wrote, “show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public.” The emails are among the files that Eastman had been declining to turn over to the committee, citing attorney-client privilege. — Biden pressures oil companies on gas prices: Biden today urged American oil companies to increase production and refining to bring down the price of gas for consumers . “Invest in America for the American people. Bring down the price you charge at the pump to reflect what you pay for the product,” he said during a speech at the White House. Biden made the plea to the oil industry while also announcing the planned release of 15 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in December, a move aimed at bringing gas prices down. With the price of a barrel of oil having fallen about 30 percent since the spring, Biden said the price of gas at the pump should reflect that drop.
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| — Trump deposed in defamation suit filed by E. Jean Carroll: The former president answered questions under oath today in a lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, a magazine columnist who says Trump raped her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room. The deposition gave Carroll’s lawyers a chance to interrogate Trump about the assault allegations as well as statements he made in 2019 when she told her story publicly for the first time. His legal team worked for years to delay his deposition in the lawsuit, which was filed when he was still president. A federal judge last week rejected Trump’s request for another delay. — Fetterman is well enough to serve, his doctor says: Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman “is recovering well from his stroke and his health has continued to improve,” according to a letter from Fetterman’s primary care doctor released by his campaign today. Fetterman “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office,” Dr. Clifford Chen wrote in the medical report. GOP Senate nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz has repeatedly suggested Fetterman’s recovery leaves him unfit to serve. Fetterman’s health has sparked contentious debate after the candidate suffered a stroke in May, leaving him with lingering auditory processing issues. As a result, Fetterman requested to use a closed-caption monitor in his single debate with Oz on Oct. 25.
| | AN ‘ENTIRE CITY’ DEPORTED — Russian President Vladimir Putin today imposed martial law in the four regions of Ukraine illegally annexed by the Kremlin’s forces, against the backdrop of mass deportations of Ukrainians to Russia and as Moscow lays the ground for further losses of territory, write Wilhelmine Preussen and Zoya Sheftalovich . Kremlin-backed authorities in the Ukrainian city of Kherson are planning to “relocate” about 50,000 to 60,000 people to Russian territory, the Moscow-installed regional governor Vladimir Saldo said in a television interview Tuesday. Ivan Fedorov, the Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia region, called this “a new manifestation of genocide in the occupied territories,” adding that Russia is preparing a “forcible deportation of an entire city” while claiming “to protect people from hostilities” in an attempt to create an outpost of the “Russian world” in the south of Ukraine. Similar mass forced deportations have been reported in the other areas of Ukraine under Russian control, with the Kremlin-installed authorities seemingly focused particularly on displacing Ukrainian children. Under international humanitarian law, forced mass deportation of people during an armed conflict is considered a war crime.
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| | | TOLKIEN TROLLS — A certain type of fan has long complained when people of color are cast in on-screen adaptations and reboots of beloved classics — they can wrap their heads around mermaids, but a Black mermaid is a bridge too far. Now, fanboys have descended on the new Amazon Prime series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” Read Sakeina Syed’s deep dive for The Walrus on how these online attacks have become much more sophisticated in recent years.
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People sit in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter, in Kyiv, Ukraine, today. | Emilio Morenatti/AP Photo | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | |
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