A Platner superfan’s reluctance to support the Democrat now running against Senator Susan Collins reflects the party’s challenges navigating left-wing passions.

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Democrats are targeting G.O.P. strongholds that could set them up for new majorities. But if they don’t win those races now, it could be a long time before they have another chance.

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It’s Oct. 26 — eight days from the midterms. Here’s the state of play.

Democratic candidates are ahead in two, hold a narrow edge in a third and are tied in a fourth, new polling shows. The seats embody the fights playing out nationwide in the midterms.

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Latinos helped fuel President Trump’s return to the White House. But Democrats have won back the trust of many Hispanic voters over the past two years.

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A timely demographic story we’ve never been able to tell before.

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“There is no legal excuse” for the failure of 18 polling sites to open for early voting, a state lawmaker said.

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The Democratic presidential primary race appears to be wide open, while JD Vance and Marco Rubio led among Republican voters, a New York Times/Siena survey found.

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Democrats are increasingly optimistic about the midterms. But they are being outspent by Republicans. And they are trying to compete in states that favored President Trump by large margins.

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Hope, dread and the final stretch to Election Day.

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But about half expressed concerns that Republicans could try to overturn the results, a New York Times/Siena poll found.

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“Everything is fine” is a common refrain in a country used to adapting to a new normal.

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In a year when the wealth of the rich soared while workers lost ground to inflation, class has become political, especially in the Nebraska Senate race.

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In today’s Backstory, the new Holmes film takes issue with our profile, Nikole Hannah-Jones unpacks her viral essay and a professor shares why he thinks we apply “conservative” and “liberal” labels inconsistently.

Trump’s grotesque rerun of the Gilded Age demands a rebuke.

In the new Times/Siena poll, 70 percent of young voters identified as Democrats or leaned that way — a jump from just two years ago.

© The New York Times

A majority of Ukrainians reject handing all of Donbas to Russia in exchange for US and European security guarantees. Some 62% are ready to endure the war for as long as it takes, a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology shows.

Russia has spent the fall hammering Ukrainian cities, and Washington has eased sanctions on Russian diesel and cut Ukraine’s intelligence and Starlink speed, both apparently aimed at wearing Ukrainians down toward a capitulation. Instead, the majority calls the withdrawal of troops from Donbas categorically unacceptable, with 35% willing to accept it and 4% undecided, a position essentially unchanged since late summer.

The pressure campaign tracked the other way. Among those polled on 8-9 October, before the diesel deal and the pressure that followed, 57% were categorically opposed. Among those polled on 10-16 October, the figure rose to 62% afterward, KIIS reports.

In every region, at least half reject the trade. Resistance is firmest in Kyiv, which has borne a relentless campaign of ballistic and jet-drone strikes, where 66% are categorically against, the highest figure of any region. Even in the east, around Kharkiv, where the most are open to a compromise at 45%, 51% still rule it out.

Bracing for a long war, and ready for it

Few Ukrainians expect a quick end. Only 10% think the war will end by the close of 2026 and 13% in the first half of 2027, while 56% expect it to run into the second half of 2027 or beyond, the institute reports.

Who Ukrainians blame for blocking peace

The poll also measured who is seen as the obstacle. Asked to choose, 78% said Russia’s drive to subjugate Ukraine is what blocks peace, against 12% who blamed an inflexible Ukrainian government, and 92% said Russia strikes economic sites to wreck the economy and force capitulation, not in retaliation.

“The enemy, with its vile strikes by ballistic missiles and drones, is unable to break the spirit and will of Ukrainians,” KIIS executive director Anton Hrushetskyi says.

He argues that what Ukraine needs is “packages of interceptors for Patriot systems,” not an election or one-sided concessions dressed up as peace. The survey polled 1,031 adults across government-controlled Ukraine from 8-16 October.