Good morning. It is Sunday, October the 16th. I'm Ali Belchie. With only 23 days left until election day,

this midterm election cycle has been unlike any other. Historically, the party of the sitting

president tends to lose seats during midterm elections, and that would appear to be bad news

for Democrats

who only have a slim majority in Congress. But there's a lot of factors at play this year,

and that has made the outcome of this election cycle very difficult to predict.

The Supreme Court's regressive decision to overturn Roe v. Wade four months ago created a sudden,

radical, and tangible change to reproductive rights

and health care access, and the unpopularity of that decision has helped Democrats gain a

political advantage. The January 6th Committee and its series of public hearings laying out the

findings of its investigation could also factor into November's elections, and even though

the committee has presented plenty of

documentary evidence and testimony from witnesses about the central role that Donald Trump played

in spreading the big lie and fomenting a coup, it hasn't really affected support for the Republican

Party. That's because election denying Trump loyalists have taken over the GOP and are poised to gain

even more power in November.

According to New York Times analysis of more than 550 Republican candidates vying for a

congressional seat or a top state executive position, more than 370 of them have questioned

or outright denied the results of the 2020 election at some point in the last two years.

And many are continuing to spread those lies.

Quote, far from fading over time, as many Americans had hoped, election lies and misinformation have proved strikingly resilient.

The Times has, for the first time, identified more than 240

...