This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta of The 19th. Meet Grace and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

PEEKSKILL, New York — Betsy Abrams, a 67-year-old executive assistant, showed up at a political rally held in a park on the banks of the Hudson River wearing a shirt that read, “Sit over there, I don’t need your mansplaining.” She was also holding a stack of yard signs for Cait Conley, the Democratic challenger in New York’s 17th Congressional District.

Abrams didn’t support Conley in the primary, but she’s been impressed with her on the campaign trail. Conley, who’s challenging Rep. Mike Lawler in one of the country’s most competitive races, also won Abrams over in an October 15 debate in a heated back-and-forth over a question about whether there should be a federal standard for consent.

Conley told Lawler: “I do not need you to mansplain to me what sexual assault and domestic violence against women is and the appropriate response. Don’t start. Sit over there.” 

As a survivor of abuse herself, Abrams said, “It hit a chord with me.” 

      

The question was sparked by a bombshell lawsuit filed by a former student at Cornell University, some 200 miles north of the district. The plaintiff, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, is suing the university and seven men she accuses of raping her at a fraternity house in 2024. Lawyers for all seven defendants have denied the allegations. Both the university and the local district attorney, who initially declined to prosecute the men, have come under fire for how they handled the case.

Along with Abrams, Dawn Greenberg, a 63-year-old Conley supporter, and several other women showed up at Saturday’s rally with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in Peekskill with T-shirts and buttons referencing Conley’s line.

“One of the things I love about her is her fire in her belly,” Greenberg said of Conley. “That spoke to me.”   

      

The cost of living, healthcare and the impact of the second Trump administration’s policies have been the biggest issues in the race for New York’s 17th District and around the country. But in a year where multiple men have resigned from Congress amid allegations of misconduct; the Cornell case brought campus sexual assault back to the forefront of the national conversation; and revelations from millions of files connected to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have led the headlines, the exchange struck a chord with many women supporters. 

Mellicent Dyane, a 60-year-old filmmaker and Democratic district leader in Pleasantville also wearing the shirt, is one of many women who were disturbed by those blaming the victim of the alleged assault and what she saw as a lack of accountability for perpetrators.   

“Universities need to stop this bullshit,” she said.

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Conley, who has served multiple tours of duty overseas as a military police officer, said rates of sexual assault and domestic violence are “unacceptable.” 

“I think we do need to relook at how the law enforcement structure around violent crimes on campuses is, and make sure that every victim gets access to quality law enforcement and justice, regardless of ZIP code,” she told The 19th. “America is about freedom, equality, and justice for all, but that’s not what’s happening right now.” 

When asked about their exchange in the debate, Lawler said Conley’s charge of mansplaining was “manufactured” political theater. 

In the debate, Conley and Lawler sparred over their associations with men accused of misconduct. Conley said she was “disappointed” with Lawler’s support of his colleague Rep. Max Miller of Ohio, who has been accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife and mother of his daughter; Miller has denied the allegations. Lawler, in turn, criticized Conley for taking campaign donations from former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who resigned in 2008 after a federal investigation revealed he had hired sex workers; he was not accused of abuse or charged with a crime. 

      

“Fact is, she attacked me, and I pointed out her hypocrisy on the issue of taking support from a sexual predator, Eliot Spitzer, and her response is not to denounce Eliot Spitzer, but to say that I’m mansplaining,” Lawler told The 19th. “That didn’t land as well as you or others may think it did, with her made-up T-shirts that magically were produced right away.” 

Lawler, first elected in 2022, is running on his record of achieving results and working across the aisle. He’s one of just three House Republicans representing a district that voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and has been endorsed by Democratic colleague Rep. Jared Golden of Maine.

“At the end of the day, people know who I am, they know what I stand for. I’ve consistently been rated among the most bipartisan and effective members of Congress, and ultimately, I think people will judge me based on my record and who I am,” Lawler said in a brief interview in Nanuet on Sunday, adding that people in the district “don’t actually know” or care who Jeffries is. 

But defeating Lawler is a top priority for other Democrats, including Assemblymember Didi Barrett, who said she’d seen him be “a real jerk,” in the state assembly. That’s also a goal for  Jeffries, who is poised to be House speaker if Democrats retake the chamber and called Lawler a “MAGA extremist phony” in Peekskill. 

      

The firestorm around the Cornell case has also spurred some Democrats to call for changes to New York’s laws around intoxication and consent — and to elect more women lawmakers.  

“From Congress to Cornell, it’s clear we need more women,” Barrett said at a rally and canvass launch for Conley and other down-ballot women candidates later Saturday in East Fishkill, about an hour’s drive north of Peekskill. 

“I think that everybody needs to understand that if women aren’t at the table, things are going to keep happening like that,” she told The 19th.   

To check your voter registration status or to get more information about how to vote and what’s on your ballot, visit vote.org.

The post A Democrat told her opponent not to ‘mansplain.’ It struck a chord appeared first on Salon.com.

This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta of The 19th. Meet Grace and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

LA CROSSE, Wisconsin — September is both campaign season and parade season in Wisconsin, as communities across the state celebrate Oktoberfest and the harvest of fall crops like apples and pumpkins. And many Democrats say a candidate can gauge how the November general election will go by the reaction they get along the parade route. 

Democratic congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke was one of the many elected officials out stumping for votes during a late September weekend. She had a packed schedule: first at Oktoberfest in the city of La Crosse and then at the annual Apple Festival in the small town of Gays Mills, about an hour’s drive away. And this year, the crowds’ responses are pointing in her favor. 

At Oktoberfest, she and staffers wearing forest green T-shirts with “Let Her Cooke” on the back criss-crossed the parade route backward at first, shaking hands and passing out campaign literature to voters, before marching with the local Democratic Party and statewide candidates including gubernatorial nominee David Crowley and his running mate, Sarah Godlewski.   

Two years ago, Democrats said the response to their candidates was more tepid, a harbinger of President Donald Trump’s victory. Four years ago, it was split, reflecting a midterm year in which anger over the Supreme Court’s overturning a federal right to abortion helped blunt the usual trend of the president’s party losing seats in midterms, but Republicans still won back the House of Representatives by flipping seats like Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, represented by Rep. Derrick Van Orden. 

        

But this year, Cooke and fellow Democrats got lots of cheering and whooping on the route — and many politely declined campaign literature, saying Cooke already had their vote. 

“I’ve seen her on TV!” exclaimed one child upon seeing Cooke, reflecting what it’s like to grow up in a swing state.  

“Van Orden should be in jail!” shouted one woman along the Oktoberfest route. 

Cooke is facing Van Orden in a rematch for their critical battleground district. It’s one of many rural, Midwestern seats that once voted reliably Democratic before shifting right and voting for Trump in three straight presidential elections. Democrats are betting on voters’ unhappiness with the economy and high prices to flip the seat and make inroads in rural America. 

“It’s a district where Obama’s message and Trump’s message resonated,” said Anthony Chergosky, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. “I hesitate to make any long-term predictions about the partisanship of this district because we have seen people as different as Obama and Trump do well here.”

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Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL now seeking a third term, has long drawn controversy for his behavior, including an episode in 2021 when he confronted a teenage library worker over a Pride display of LGBTQ+ books in a manner she described as threatening, and a 2023 incident when he unleashed a profane outburst of anger at a group of young Senate pages. He’s also a prolific online poster: the Wisconsin Democratic Party has taken to putting out “Whine Wednesday” news releases rounding up Van Orden’s week of activity on X. 

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Van Orden also has a history of making inflammatory statements about women, including comments appearing to blame single mothers and women being in the workforce for all sorts of social ills. The Wisconsin Muslim Alliance has repeatedly condemned him for remarks he made in September criticizing Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York for wearing a hijab while speaking at a Muslim civic center, when he accused her of “kowtowing to Muslim men because that’s what that culture is all about.” 

Recently, Van Orden has ramped up his use of AI-generated imagery and deepfakes of Cooke, which Cooke and her team have said are misleading and an effort to deceive voters, as the Midwest has become an epicenter for a cross-partisan grassroots backlash against data center construction. 

The district, in western Wisconsin, is a microcosm of many of the dynamics shaping the midterm elections, and Democrats see momentum and enthusiasm on their side, largely due to frustration with the Trump administration’s economic policies. Tariffs have hit farmers and the agriculture industry especially hard. Rising gas and diesel prices, exacerbated by the Trump administration’s war in Iran, are also top of mind for many voters, especially in rural areas.

        

“The unique combination of overall economic anxiety, rising healthcare costs, and gas and diesel prices that are just adding insult to injury in rural Wisconsin,” said Joe Zepecki, a Wisconsin-based Democratic strategist. “All of those ingredients are there for a good year for Democrats in Western Wisconsin.”

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Cooke first ran for Congress in 2022, losing the Democratic nomination to state Sen. Brad Pfaff. After Cooke won the Democratic nomination in 2024, Van Orden defeated her by less than three percentage points, underperforming Trump’s eight-point victory in the district. The fact that Cooke outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris was a sign, she said, that her campaign’s strategy of going everywhere and having meaningful conversations in rural communities was working. 

Cost of living is the top thing she hears about while out knocking doors, she said, and voters are squarely placing the blame on the war in Iran. 

“I think the thing with this administration is they promised a lot of folks an America First agenda, and then this is the opposite of an America First agenda,” Cooke said in an interview after walking in the La Crosse Oktoberfest parade. 

Voters in the district cited both the high cost of living and Van Orden’s voting record as reasons they supported Cooke in November. 

Peter and Keely, a couple along the parade route in Gays Mills who declined to give their last names, said prices were “way too expensive” and that Trump had “overpromised and underdelivered.” Cooke would be “level-headed”, Keely said, at a time when “we need hope.” 

“Democrats have more to offer,” she added. “The GOP is more extreme.”  

Van Orden is “out of control,” said Sue Doeherty, another voter in Gays Mills, citing his vote for Republicans’ major tax-cut and spending bill, which further restricted eligibility for programs like Medicaid and SNAP. 

“None of us care for him,” she said. “He’s for everything Trump wants.”  

Scott Cardinale, the 52-year-old owner of Dantes Bar and Grill in downtown Gays Mills, said he was supporting Cooke because “Republicans suck.”

“Just look at gas prices, inflation and interest rates,” he said while putting burger patties on the grill outside the bar. “Everything Trump has done,” he said, has had a negative impact on small business owners like himself. 

Cooke, a sixth-generation Wisconsinite who grew up on a family dairy farm in Eau Claire, worked in professional politics before returning home, where she started a small business and then a nonprofit focused on economic development and job creation — while also working part-time as a waitress. She’s running as a candidate with working-class roots, focused on the farmers and rural communities she argues both political parties have neglected. 

        

“I’ve lived failed policies of all sorts of administrations,” she said. 

“It sort of doesn’t matter whoever’s in power, it always feels like people in rural America and farm families, in particular, are very much put last, and so I think that having that sort of lived experience allows me to understand a lot of the issues that people are going through,” she said. “And I also think it helps to earn trust with people that I’m going to go to DC and not just play politics as usual, but work to actually get things done. And because I give a shit, you know?”

Cooke has avoided getting pigeonholed ideologically: she’s among a small group of Democratic candidates dubbed the “Bernie Dogs” for earning endorsements from both ends of the Democratic Party’s ideological spectrum: progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders and the political arm of the moderate Blue Dogs caucus. The Bernie Dogs, she argued, will be “the majority makers” if Democrats win back the House, and their votes will be critical to passing policies in Congress. 

While different factions of Democrats have been hashing out their own ideological differences in races across the country this year, Cooke said the key dividing line in the party isn’t left versus center, but about who can build a “big tent.”

“When I say expand a big tent, I don’t mean a Democratic tent, I mean a getting-Trump-voters-to-vote-for-Democrats big tent,” she said. “And that’s what every Democrat should be focused on.” 

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The district, rated a tossup, has drawn national interest — and outside spending — from both parties, with several members of Trump’s Cabinet stumping for Van Orden in the district in recent months. Van Orden and Republicans have painted Cooke as being in lockstep with the far-left flank of the Democratic Party and have attacked her background as fake and “phony.” 

“The only thing worse than paid political operative Rebecca Cooke’s fake waitress act is her radical far-left agenda that is completely out of touch with western Wisconsin values. Commie Cooke has been rejected by Wisconsinites twice and will be rejected once again this November,” Zach Bannon, a spokesperson for the National Republican Campaign Committee, House Republicans’ campaign arm, said in a statement. 

“This election has increasingly become about authenticity, where the two candidates are talking about the issues in their campaign ads, but they’re also accusing the other of being inauthentic — or certainly, that’s been a theme of the Van Orden campaign,” Chergosky said.  

Cooke and her lawyers have increasingly called out Van Orden for posting AI-generated deepfakes of Cooke on social media. 

Cooke supports a federal moratorium on new data center construction and has run ads hitting Van Orden on the issue. Trump has embraced the emergence of artificial intelligence and said communities who don’t get behind new data centers will be “backwards and poor,” even as downballot Republicans in other competitive races have pivoted to opposing data centers.  

The backlash to Van Orden’s posts reached a fever pitch last week, when a lawyer for Cooke’s campaign sent Van Orden a cease-and-desist letter last week over the AI-generated deepfake videos he’s posted of her throughout the campaign. 

        

Van Orden’s campaign called the cease-and-desist a “stunt” and accused Cooke of running ads he said made “blatantly false” claims about his record on tax credits for data centers and on banning members of Congress from trading stocks.

“She is not to be trusted and has proven over the last six years that she will say whatever it takes to get elected to Congress,” Van Orden said in a statement. 

He then responded by doubling down with more AI slop. In two videos Van Orden posted to X and “Made with Grok Imagine,” X’s proprietary AI tool, depict Cooke as an indignant red duck. In one, a cartoon duck wears a blue shirt reading “DSA,” a reference to Democratic Socialists of America (of which Cooke is not a member), and another more realistic-looking duck (apart from its bright red feathers) wears a shirt saying: “I demand DVO cease and desist from telling the truth about me.”

The post In rural Wisconsin, politics is still about meeting voters. Online, it’s getting weird appeared first on Salon.com.

This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta of The 19th. Meet Grace and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

BATH, Maine — Election after election, Republican Sen. Susan Collins has defied national political winds to return to office, representing a state that has backed Democrats in every presidential contest since 1992. But her Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, is betting that her eight-year-old vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court’s subsequent overturning of federal abortion rights will persuade voters to sweep her out of office. 

Collins, seeking a sixth term, became the last Republican standing in a blue state by cultivating a moderate image, including supporting abortion rights, and leveraging her expertise and seniority to bring federal dollars back to Maine.

“To be effective in the Senate, you need knowledge, experience, seniority and relationships,” she said Tuesday in her first debate against Jackson, the former Maine Senate president. “That combination has allowed me to pass bipartisan legislation.”

But Collins, 73, now faces her toughest race yet, thanks to President Donald Trump’s poor approval ratings and the impact of his administration’s policies on the state. Though even with the impact of tariffs raising prices and the unpopularity of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda, Maine doesn’t seem to be an easy target for Democrats. Polls show a razor-thin margin between Collins and Jackson, who, according to some surveys, is running a closer race than Democratic Senate candidates in redder states like Texas, Ohio and Alaska. For Jackson to win, the Democratic women who have split tickets to vote for Collins before need to stick with their party — and Democrats think her vote for Kavanaugh might help sway them in the other direction.

A dozen Maine Democratic voters told The 19th they’re hopeful about Jackson’s chances, but they’re not counting Collins out in a state with a strong independent streak and parochial political culture where local issues take precedence over the hyper-polarized national climate.  

“I’m nervous,” said Faith Woodland, a voter who attended a town hall event focused on abortion that Jackson’s campaign held in the seaside town of Bath. “We’re all hoping Troy wins,” she added, but she fears that Collins “may be another Teflon candidate.” 

Concerns over the cost of living and voter discontent with Trump’s second term are the top issues in the race. Jackson, a former logger with deep ties to the labor movement, is running as a champion for working people  — at campaign events, staffers wear T-shirts with phrases like “Solidarity” and “Kicking Ass for the Working Class.” 

Jackson is also making abortion central to his case against Collins, casting her 2018 vote to confirm Kavanaugh, who sided with the majority to overturn Roe, as a major error in judgment that undercuts her image as a measured decision-maker. He argues that it shows Mainers can’t trust her to protect their rights, even though the procedure remains protected in Maine. 

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“She said that she doesn’t regret that vote. Well, most everyone I know does,” Jackson, wearing a bright pink T-shirt that read “I Stand With Planned Parenthood” over his button-down, said at the event on Monday alongside Nicole Clegg, a vice president at Planned Parenthood New England. 

“I mean, she thinks we’re stupid, that’s really what it comes down to,” he said later. “She thinks that we don’t understand the process, that she didn’t know what he was going to do. I mean, everyone in the country knew exactly what he was going to do. It’s not us that’s stupid, it’s her.” 

(At the end of the event, he clarified that he meant that Collins “would have been stupid” if she thought people didn’t know what would happen with Kavanaugh, not that she is stupid.)  

And their first debate on Tuesday fell on the eight-year anniversary of Collins’ vote, which she took after she said Kavanaugh assured her he believed Roe v. Wade was settled law. When the candidates were given the opportunity to question each other, Jackson asked her: “What will it take for you to admit you’re ever wrong?” 

Collins noted she voted to confirm more liberal Supreme Court justices who voted against overturning Roe v. Wade. When pressed by the moderator as to whether she thought Kavanaugh lied to her, she said that she didn’t — but that he “should not have said it was settled law.”  

Outside groups like Planned Parenthood Votes are spending and running ads focused on abortion in Maine, which is home to a considerable number of older women who remember life before Roe v. Wade. Kristin Malin, who lives in Georgetown and attended the event Monday, said she recalled the time before unmarried women could access even contraception. For them, defeating Republicans is an imperative. 

“I’m not in love with Troy Jackson,” former state Sen. Margaret Craven, who served in the legislature for over 20 years, told The 19th while participating in a small anti-Trump demonstration in downtown Lewiston on Tuesday. But Collins, she said, “has let women down” and has been “a total failure.” 

Eileen Coyne, a Jackson supporter who was also out protesting, agreed.  “Young women don’t realize what they’re losing,” she said. 

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Jackson, who placed third in the Democratic primary for governor this year, didn’t plan on running for Senate. But he became the nominee this summer in a fast-tracked party-run process to replace previous nominee Graham Platner, who galvanized a grassroots movement around his campaign but dropped out of the race after being accused of sexual assault. He denied the allegation. 

The switch from Platner to Jackson caused some consternation among the party’s grassroots base.

Lisa Sabatine, 67, was involved with Platner’s campaign from the outset as a volunteer coordinator and is now organizing and canvassing with another group, People Power Maine. She said Monday that she supports Jackson but has been “struggling” with national Democrats and outside consultants’ involvement in his campaign. When Jackson replaced Platner, she said “I thought we just handed Susan Collins a win.”

Both Jackson and Collins have reputations not as expert orators chasing the political spotlight, but as workhorses focused on getting results. While some have expressed concerns about Jackson’s skill as a retail politician, others argue his down-to-earth approach and authenticity are assets. 

“Maine is a really independent-minded state, and Mainers don’t like being told what to do,” Devon Murphy-Anderson, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, said Tuesday. “Troy speaks like a Mainer, and he has Maine values, and he fights like a Mainer because he is a Mainer. He is not polished like Washington because he has not spent his career in Washington.”

With decades-long careers in public office, both Jackson and Collins are striking a balance between defending their records and acknowledging that voters think the status quo is broken. Each argues that they’re best positioned to fix it.

“Under Troy Jackson’s failed leadership, Maine is less affordable and education scores have plummeted,” Samantha Cantrell, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement Tuesday night. “Mainers already rejected Troy once this year, and they will do it again in November.”

“It’s a very tense time,” said Chris Holden, who said she was “grateful” for Collins’ service in her first two terms in office (Collins initially said she would only serve two terms when she first ran for the Senate in 1996), but believes it’s time for her to move on. She lamented the influence of outside spending in the race, saying, “money talks.” 

Debora Houdek, who lives in Auburn and has been out canvassing and volunteering for Jackson, was also concerned about Democrats’ ground game. 

“I’m starting to get worried,” she said. “We need more people in the streets.”   

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All those factors raised the stakes for Jackson’s first debate against Collins, which Democrats agreed he resoundingly won by landing several sharp attacks on Collins and accusing her of not doing enough to stop the most unpopular elements of Trump’s second-term agenda. When Collins noted that she worked to get road salt, essential for Maine winters, removed from the list of Canadian goods subject to tariffs, Jackson quipped back: “We can’t eat road salt.”    

Collins highlighted the legislation she’s gotten passed and the federal funding she secured for projects in Maine from her powerful position leading the Senate Appropriations Committee. 

“It was clear from the beginning that Senator Collins is running to serve Maine, and Troy Jackson thinks he’s running against Donald Trump,” Blake Kernen, a spokesperson for Collins, said in a statement following the debate. 

But Collins spent much of her speaking time on the defensive, disputing the methodology behind statistics Jackson cited, including an analysis concluding that she votes with Trump 96 percent of the time, and untangling the intricacies of Senate procedure to defend her record in the body. 

Maine Senate President Mattie Daughtry, who attended a watch party state Democrats held in downtown Portland, said after Jackson “definitely dominated” and won the debate. “He had Senator Collins on her back foot,” she added. 

“Statistics don’t fill your fuel tank. Statistics don’t make your grocery bill not $200,” Daughtry said. “She’s wrong with her votes 96 percent of the time, and she’s arguing about parliamentary procedure.”

The post As Susan Collins goes for a sixth term, Maine Democrats worry she’s a ‘Teflon candidate’ appeared first on Salon.com.