4 weeks to go

It was an ugly weekend for political rhetoric. During a rally on Saturday night in Minden, Nevada, Sen. Tommy Tuberville made this comment: “[Democrats] are not soft on crime. They're pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.” At a rally in Mesa, Arizona, the next day, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed, “Joe Biden's 5 million illegal aliens are on the verge of replacing you, replacing your jobs and replacing your kids in school, and, coming from all over the world, they're also replacing your culture.” To top it all off, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, fresh back to Twitter, tweeted that he would soon go "death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” What Ye says, unfortunately, matters, because he has hinted at running a 2024 presidential campaign (Lord help us), and just two days earlier, the official House Judiciary GOP account (read: Rep. Jim Jordan) tweeted simply, “Kanye. Elon. Trump.” Anti-Semitism. Racism. Hate. Forget about not trying to hide it; they’re outright celebrating it. —Melissa Amour, Managing Editor

• Sirens sound across Ukraine as Russia strikes cities again; Kyiv asks allies for air defense weapons —CNBC

• Biden thinks U.S. needs to 're-evaluate' relationship with Saudi Arabia: White House —Yahoo! News

• Supreme Court rejects challenge to death sentence over racially prejudiced jurors —NBC News

• U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs fetal personhood appeal —Reuters

• Six takeaways from the Vance-Ryan debate for Senate in Ohio —The New York Times

The ‘a**kicker’ vs. the election denier

Political debates are back in primetime, which can mean only one thing: Election Day is close. In a heated debate in Ohio last night, the two candidates vying for the seat of retiring Sen. Rob Portman—Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan and his Republican opponent J.D. Vance—took turns accusing each other of being “out of touch.” In a state that Donald Trump easily won in 2020, the race is surprisingly close, despite a coveted endorsement of Vance by Trump. Vance’s election denialism, a key ingredient to earning said endorsement, became a topic of the debate, when Ryan called it the biggest threat to democracy, along with Vance’s support for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. —The New York Times

• The states are where it’s at. To be sure, having election deniers at any level of government is a problem. First and foremost, it reduces faith in the electoral system as a whole. Further, Republicans in Congress objecting to the certification of the 2020 presidential election results was a big part of the plan to overturn that election. But let’s face it: it was a last-ditch effort. The first-line strategy was to influence state and local election officials to meddle with the results within their own states.

• Maybe not so lucky next time. We all know by now that the upcoming election is critical to preventing another 2020 because avowed election deniers are running for those very positions—governor, secretary of state, attorney general, county elections board members. But that’s not the only threat. The Supreme Court is expected to decide whether to grant nearly unfettered authority over such elections to state legislatures—a legal argument known as the independent state legislature theory. 

• A “doomsday scenario” in 2024? That could give state legislatures a pathway to overrule the popular vote by refusing to certify the results and instead sending their own slates of electors. If that seems like a long shot, consider this: 44% of Republicans in crucial swing-state legislatures used the power of their office to discredit or try to overturn the results in 2020. Republicans have complete control over legislatures in states that have a total of 307 electoral votes—37 more than needed to win a presidential election. —The New York Times

MORE: Democracy on the ballot—How many election deniers are on the ballot in November and what is their likelihood of success? —Brookings Institute

Evensen: We should take pride, not sides 

“The Brennan Center has published links to a slew of credible studies that found few irregularities in modern U.S. elections, with incidents of actual fraud happening at a rate of between 0.0003% and 0.0025%. That’s an impressive record, especially for something as difficult to pin down as a major nationwide election. As a nation, we ought to be proud. But it won’t be enough to stamp out all the conspiratorial wildfires, or the battle cries that fomented a riot in the Capitol.” —Jay Evensen in Deseret News

Jay Evensen is Deseret News’ senior editorial columnist. 

MORE: With just 4 weeks to go until Election Day, campaigning is in full swing —NPR

Abutaleb, DeYoung & Sonne: Biden and the ‘A’ word

“[President] Biden suggested that the threat [of Russia using nuclear weapons] was reminiscent of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when the United States and Soviet Union came close to nuclear confrontation during the Cold War. …. While Biden’s mention of ‘Armageddon’ was his most vivid warning yet, the president has been raising the alarm for weeks about Putin’s actions in Ukraine, including his staging of sham referendums in four Ukrainian territories and then annexing them.” —Yasmeen Abutaleb, Karen DeYoung & Paul Sonne in The Washington Post

Yasmeen Abutaleb is a White House reporter at The Washington Post. Karen DeYoung is an associate editor and senior national security correspondent at The Washington Post. Paul Sonne covers national security for The Washington Post, focusing on Russia and Europe.

MORE: Lavrov says Russia open to talks with West, awaiting serious proposal — Reuters

DOJ to SCOTUS: Stay out of it

The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court today to reject Donald Trump's request that it intervene in the dispute over the stolen classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago in August. Calling the records "extraordinarily sensitive," the DOJ said the Supreme Court should let stand a federal appeals court order that blocked the special master's access over the records while legal challenges play out. On Friday, Christina Bobb, the Trump lawyer who signed a letter stating that a “diligent search” for classified records had been conducted and that all such documents had been returned to the government, was interviewed by the FBI. Stay tuned. —CNN

MORE: National Archives rejects Trump claim on former presidents' records —Yahoo! News

Nordlinger: Have we no shame?

“[W]ill Republicans blink over [Georgia Senate candidate] Herschel Walker? I doubt it. The wagons circled immediately. All over GOP Land, people ‘doubled down.’ Senators Tom Cotton and Rick Scott will be in Georgia tomorrow to campaign for Walker. I’m not sure the revelations about the candidate will affect a single vote.” —Jay Nordlinger in National Review

Jay Nordlinger is a senior editor at National Review and a book fellow of the National Review Institute. 

MORE: GOP surrogates to rally for Georgia’s Herschel Walker in show of unyielding national party support —CNN

Center Street: It’s not Reagan’s party anymore 

“Instead of [former President Ronald] Reagan’s optimism, we see a GOP that stokes fear of people of color, of different ethnicities and religious beliefs. It’s a party that would rather cast stones and close borders than align themselves with the proponent of a stronger, more united United States of America. We see a party that calls its political opponents active murderers, who tout outrageous conspiracy theories, and some who even refuse to acknowledge the will of the people.” —Center Street Blog

MORE: Ingrid Jacques: Trump vs. conservatives: Can Republicans hold the party together? —USA Today

As a young woman voter in Pennsylvania, I am terrified at the prospect of Doug Mastriano being elected as governor. His stance on issues such as abortion, LGBTQIA+ rights, climate change, and religious freedom are too extreme and have no place in this country. He is a direct threat to democracy, endangers the livelihood of marginalized groups, and his views do not advance the future of this country in a positive direction. I will be voting for Josh Shapiro for governor in PA, and I've spread the word to others to do the same. —Lauren A., Pennsylvania

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Renew America Foundation.