In closing pitch, G.O.P. election deniers band together in Arizona.

PHOENIX — The welcome signs read: “Lake, Blake, Mark and Abe.”

Throughout the midterm campaign in Arizona, Democrats have said the top four Republicans on the statewide ballot are dangerous election deniers and a threat to democracy. In its final stretch, the four responded — not by moderating the far-right stances that have alienated some in their party, but by fully embracing them, traveling as a tight band of outsiders taking on the media, the left and their own party’s establishment.

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In Arizona, candidates for secretary of state spar over accepting Tuesday’s results.

PHOENIX — Adrian Fontes, the Democratic nominee for secretary of state in Arizona, on Monday promised to accept the results of Tuesday’s election and called on his Republican rival, Mark Finchem, to do the same.

“I’m calling on him to tell the truth,” Mr. Fontes said at a news conference in front of the Arizona State Capitol. The event included several former Arizona Republican legislators who said they were backing Mr. Fontes because they considered Mr. Finchem to be dangerous.

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A drag performer’s criticism of Kari Lake is deeply personal.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The warnings for what’s at stake for democracy in the midterms have come from top Democrats in the typical blitz of campaign rallies and canvassing events leading up to Tuesday’s midterm election.

They also have come at a drag brunch in Arizona.

The popular drag performer Barbra Seville, whose real name is Richard Stevens, urged the crowd at The Hot Chick, a hangout spot and game bar in Scottsdale, to oppose the Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake.

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Jill Biden makes a final push for Senator Kelly in Arizona.

PHOENIX — Jill Biden, the first lady, made a stop in Phoenix on Saturday in a final bid to get Democratic voters to the polls to re-elect Senator Mark Kelly, commending him for working with Republicans and telling the crowd that he had served his state “with kindness and courage and common sense.”

“You, like my husband, Joe, have represented all of Arizona — not just those who supported you — by reaching across the aisle,” she said to the cheers of dozens of campaign workers and volunteers preparing to knock on doors.

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In Arizona, Kari Lake Worked in Local TV News. Now, She Calls Reporters ‘Monsters.’

One longtime former co-worker in the television news business recalled that Kari Lake detested guns and practiced Buddhism. Another former local news anchor, Stephanie Angelo, who did not work with Ms. Lake but later became close friends with her, described Ms. Lake back then as “a free spirit” and “liberal to the core.”

“Her saying that abortion should be illegal — absolutely not,” Ms. Angelo said. “The Kari I knew would never have said that, and she wouldn’t have believed it either.”

But in her run for governor of Arizona, Ms. Lake — a former local Fox anchor — has refashioned herself as a protégé of Donald Trump and a die-hard Christian conservative who wields her media expertise as a weapon and has turned her former industry into a foil. In her closing pitch to voters ahead of the election on Tuesday, Ms. Lake, 53, has been campaigning against the press as much as she has against Katie Hobbs, her Democratic rival, riling up audiences against reporters in attendance, whom she calls the “fake news,” and pledging to become the media’s “worst nightmare” if elected.

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Kari Lake avoids talking about the election lie that has powered her run.

PHOENIX — As top Democratic candidates in Arizona this week have sought to portray their Republican rivals as a danger to democracy, Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor, took the stage at a campaign rally before a boisterous crowd on Thursday.

Ms. Lake, a former news anchor, kept her voice calm and steady.

She did not say the 2020 election was “crooked,” “corrupt” or “stolen,” a lie that she used to launch her campaign and that still animated many, if not most, conservative voters in the audience on Thursday evening. She did not mention it at all.

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Democrats Twist and Turn on Immigration as Republicans Attack in Waves

The language from Republican candidates in ads and speeches is clear and negative, using the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico as a stark partisan dividing line.

President Biden’s policies, they argue, have led to unchecked borders and allowed immigrants, crime and fentanyl to pour into cities, turning every state into a border state.

Democratic candidates have a far murkier message, either avoiding the issue or leaning into tough talk that often addresses immigration on Republican terms. In Ohio, Representative Tim Ryan, the party’s nominee for Senate, said a border wall could be “a piece” of the solution. In Arizona, Senator Mark Kelly has called for more border enforcement officers and “physical barriers where they make sense.”

In the final stretch of this year’s midterm elections, the longtime struggle by Democrats to build a cohesive approach to immigration has become newly urgent for the party as it confronts a wave of attacks in Republicans’ closing pitch to the country.

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Obama casts Arizona’s midterm election as a fight to preserve democracy.

Former President Barack Obama used an interruption from a heckler at a campaign rally in Phoenix on Wednesday as a teachable moment, denouncing divisive political rhetoric that he said had spurred a man to attack Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

“Wait, wait, hold up, hold on,” Mr. Obama shouted at a man who started yelling as the former president was stumping for Democrats running for some of the state’s top offices. “You have to be polite and civil when people are talking, and then you get a chance to talk.”

“Set up your own rally. A lot of people worked hard for this,” Mr. Obama continued. As the boos at the heckler grew louder, he implored the crowd to not be distracted before ruminating on the moment.

“This increasing habit of demonizing opponents, of just yelling and thinking not just that, ‘I disagree with someone’ but that they are evil or wrong — that creates a dangerous climate,” he said. “Because if your opponents are demonic, well, then there’s no constraint on what you think you can do to them.”

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As Campaign Norms Erode, Even Debates Are Under Debate

Candidates for senator or governor routinely used to participate in two or three debates. Now some are skipping them altogether. Retail politicking at diners and state fairs is no longer the cliché it was for generations. And town-hall-style meetings, where citizens get to question their elected leaders and those running to replace them, have given way to the online echo chamber.

In midterm campaigns across the country, direct political engagement has been falling away, victim to security concerns, pandemic-era workarounds and Republican hostility to the mainstream media.

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In Tight Arizona Governor’s Race, a Democrat Looks to Abortion to Win

PHOENIX — Here was a debate that Katie Hobbs wanted to have.

For weeks, critics heckled Ms. Hobbs as a “coward” and “chicken” for refusing to share a debate stage with her combative, election-denying Republican rival in the race to become Arizona’s next governor. Some fellow Democrats fretted it was a dodge that risked alienating undecided voters who could tip the razor-thin race.

Then last Friday, a judge upended the campaign by resurrecting an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions across Arizona, a ruling made possible by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And Ms. Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, seized what Democrats in this battleground state hoped would become a galvanizing moment.

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Blake Masters Strains to Win Over Arizona’s Independent Voters

PHOENIX — Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, has brightened the music and tone of his television ads. He has erased from his website some of his most emphatically right-wing stances on immigration, abortion and the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

But on a recent afternoon in Scottsdale, an affluent Phoenix suburb, Kate Feo, a 40-year-old independent voter, was not buying the shift.

“I just don’t think he has an opinion on much until he is pressed for it, and then he kind of just comes up with whatever is popular at the moment,” she said as she strolled through a park with her three young children. She called Mr. Masters “a flip-flopper.”

Skepticism from voters in the political center is emerging as a stubborn problem for Mr. Masters as he tries to win what has become an underdog race against Senator Mark Kelly, a moderate Democrat who leads in the polls of one of the country’s most important midterm contests.

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Majority of Latino Voters Out of G.O.P.’s Reach, New Poll Shows

It has been nearly two years since Donald Trump made surprising gains with Hispanic voters. But Republican dreams of a major realignment of Latino voters drawn to G.O.P. stances on crime and social issues have failed to materialize, according to a new poll by The New York Times and Siena College.

The poll — one of the largest nonpartisan surveys of Latino voters since the 2020 election — found that Democrats had maintained a grip on the majority of Latino voters, driven in part by women and the belief that Democrats remained the party of the working class. Overall, Hispanic voters are more likely to agree with Democrats on many issues — immigration, gun policy, climate. They are also more likely to see Republicans as the party of the elite and as holding extreme views. And a majority of Hispanic voters, 56 percent, plan to vote for Democrats this fall, compared with 32 percent for Republicans.

But the survey also shows worrying signs for the future of the Democratic message.

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What About Electoral Power?

In this continuation of Latino USA’s 2022 midterms coverage, Maria welcomes her In The Thick co-host Julio Ricardo Varela and the following two guests: Sonja Diaz , Founding Director of the Latino Policy & Politics Institute at UCLA, and Jazmine Ulloa , national reporter for The New York Times. Looking ahead to the midterm elections, they discuss the role Latinos and Latinas will play, what they are hearing from voters on the ground, the races that we should be keeping an eye on and the complexity and richness of the Latino community.

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The Democrat Who Could Become the First Alaska Native in Congress

For 50 years, Alaska’s lone House seat was held by the same larger-than-life Republican — a sharp-edged congressman with a history of incendiary remarks.

The woman leading the race to replace Representative Don Young after Tuesday’s electoral contests is in many ways his opposite: a Democrat with a reputation for kindness, even to the Republicans she is trying to beat.

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Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin Survive Primary Battles, and a Democrat Breaks Through

ANCHORAGE — Two of the most prominent women in Alaskan Republican politics — Senator Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin — appeared to be on divergent paths early Wednesday following the state’s special election and primary.

Ms. Murkowski, 65, spurned by former President Donald J. Trump, advanced to the general election in November in the Senate race, according to The Associated Press. Ms. Palin, 58, who had Mr. Trump’s backing, also advanced in the fall for an open House seat but was trailing her Democratic opponent.

Both races captured the fierce division among Republicans across the country and gave a glimpse into the independent and libertarian streak unique to Alaskan politics. They also underscored the surprising sway of Democrats in what has been a reliably red state, as well as the power of Native voters, a sizable electorate that does not predictably break for either party.

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In Alaska, Nick Begich’s family legacy offers benefits and drawbacks.

WASILLA, Alaska — A day before Alaska’s primary, Nick Begich III, a Republican contender for the state’s lone congressional seat, sought to define himself as a young and idealistic fiscal conservative, despite sharing a last name with the best-known Democratic family in the state.

He pledged to tackle debt, oppose liberal Democratic policies and open up Alaska’s mineral resources. He did not hesitate to take a few jabs at his famous opponent, former Gov. Sarah Palin, as he stood before more than two dozen supporters in the neatly trimmed yard of the home of her former in-laws, in her hometown, Wasilla.

“Where has Sarah been? Minneapolis, Dallas — I don’t know if she knows she is running for a seat in Alaska,” Mr. Begich said to laughs from the crowd, listing his multiple campaign stops in the past week across the state.

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In Alaska, Sarah Palin’s Political Comeback Stirs Debate Among Voters

WASILLA, Alaska — At one of her hometown churches in a mountainous valley of south-central Alaska, Sarah Palin’s star has dimmed lately.

In the small city of Wasilla on Sunday, some of the congregants who had helped fuel her political rise years ago were weighing whether to back her bid for Alaska’s lone congressional seat in the state’s special election and primary on Tuesday.

“Sarah is conservative, but she seems to have been drawn more into the politics of politics, rather than the values,” said Scott Johannes, 59, a retired contractor attending Wasilla Bible Church. He said he was undecided. “I think her influences are from outside of the state now,” he said.

But nearby, at another Wasilla church Ms. Palin has attended, Joelle Sanchez, 38, said she still believed Ms. Palin stood with Alaskans, even though she does not always agree with the candidate’s sharp-edged persona. Ms. Sanchez’s relatives and friends have been torn over whether to support Ms. Palin’s run for Congress, she said.

“I feel like they are looking at her through a dirty lens,” said Ms. Sanchez, a pastor at Church on The Rock who was leaning toward backing Ms. Palin. “I will not vote until I’ve spent time doing a little more research,” she added.

In churches and coffee shops, on conservative airwaves and right-wing social media, Alaskan voters have debated Ms. Palin’s motives in staging a political comeback — whether she’s interested in public service or in seeking more fame.

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Mandela Barnes Is Already Looking Past Wisconsin’s Democratic Primary

Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes of Wisconsin is entering Tuesday’s Democratic primary for a Senate seat as the clear favorite to take on Senator Ron Johnson and is already sharpening his attacks against the Republican incumbent.

In ads and speeches, Mr. Barnes has started hitting Mr. Johnson on what he calls a pattern of hurting the state’s manufacturing industry and failing workers. As he aims to make the race a referendum on Mr. Johnson, Mr. Barnes has his own vulnerabilities, and Republicans are certain to try to portray him as too left wing for Wisconsin.

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