american legion essay contest 2020 winners

Americanism Essay Contest provides opportunity for youth across the country

• "ALA Scholarship"
• "Children of Warriors National President's Scholarship"
• Scholarship

ALA Mission Statement

In the spirit of Service, Not Self, the mission of the American Legion Auxiliary is to support The American Legion and to honor the sacrifice of those who serve by enhancing the lives of our veterans, military, and their families, both at home and abroad. For God and Country, we advocate for veterans, educate our citizens, mentor youth, and promote patriotism, good citizenship, peace and security.

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Encourage youth to participate in Americanism Essay Contest

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ALA Mission Statement

In the spirit of Service, Not Self, the mission of the American Legion Auxiliary is to support The American Legion and to honor the sacrifice of those who serve by enhancing the lives of our veterans, military, and their families, both at home and abroad. For God and Country, we advocate for veterans, educate our citizens, mentor youth, and promote patriotism, good citizenship, peace and security.

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• Terms and Conditions

Copyright © 2024 American Legion Auxiliary

DEPARTMENT OF WISCONSIN

aMERICANISM

Diane burkhalter, department chairman email: [email protected].

Job Description ​

Program Engagement Plan

The purpose of the Americanism program is to inspire, recognize, and perpetuate responsible citizenship through education and acts of patriotism, as well as raise awareness and increase appreciation of the price paid for our fundamental freedoms. The program includes increasing flag etiquette awareness in communities, awareness and participation in youth activities that promote proper respect for our flag and loyalty to our country, and promoting Auxiliary participation in The American Legion Americanism programs.

Units should be active in promoting ALA Badger Girls State, the Americanism Essay Contest, Flag Day, Americanism in schools, Veterans in Community Schools, study of the U.S. Constitution, observations of patriotic holidays, scouting, and history of the Pledge of Allegiance. Units are urged to participate and assist with The American Legion programs such as American Legion Baseball, American Legion Softball, Badger Boys State, the Oratorical Contest, Wisconsin American Legion Law Enforcement Career Academy, and Junior Shooting Sports.

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Americanism Essay criteria & rubric ​

How to promote Star-Spangled Kids

Let's be Right on Flag Etiquette

​booklet is available for purchase from American Legion Flag & Emblem (item # 755.200) for $1.00 each or buy 100 for .80¢ each.

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2022-2023 Americanism Essay Contest Winner's List

2021-2022 Americanism Essay Contest Winner's List

2023-2024 District Chairmen:

District 1 - JoAnn DeWart                         District 7 - Diane Weggen

District 2 - Mary Petrie                            District 8 - Vacant

District 3 - Carol & Bill Ridgely              District 9 - TBD

District 4 - Donna Jensen                        District 10 - Teresa Steinke

District 5 - Vacant                                     District 1 1 - TBD

District 6 - Linda Lefky                           District 12 - Vacant

2023-2024 National Americanism Program Awards Deadlines and Submission Requirements

Thank you for taking the time to share a favorite story about the positive impact you or someone you know has had on our mission! Your story may inspire another member into service. It also helps us tell the world who we are, what we do, and why we matter.

Here are the national awards for this committee:

Americanism Essay Contest

All unit entries must be submitted to the department chairman by March 15th . The current essay question and other important information may be found in the Americanism Program Engagement Plan.

Unit Award: Dorothy Pearl Most Outstanding Unit Americanism Program for Central Division

​ All unit entries must be submitted to the department chairman by April 1st using the entry form in the Americanism Program Engagement Plan .

Authorization to Release Personal Information:

Award submissions become property of the American Legion Auxiliary. Through submission of reports and award entries, the submitter grants non-exclusive reproduction and publication rights to the materials submitted and agrees to have their names and submission published for ALA use or commercial use without additional compensation or permission.

Please fill out the information as completely and accurately as possible. Award certificates will be completed using the information provided on the entry form, so please be sure to complete it in its entirety.  Please refer to the webpage for the specific criteria such as photographs, narrative length, submission deadline, and point of contact. All awards will be mailed to the department office after ALA National Convention.

Naperville, IL

Americanism Essay Contest

AMERICANISM AND CITIZENSHIP

About the contest

The American Legion Department of Illinois,

American Legion Auxiliary and Sons of The American Legion are cosponsors of this AMERICANISM ESSAY CONTEST.

It's purpose is to aid the schools of Illinois in the teaching of AMERICANISM and GOOD CITIZENSHIP.

Eligibility

        CLASS I - 7th and 8th grades

        CLASS II - 9th and 10th grades

        CLASS III - 11th and 12th grades  

All contestants must be a lawful permanent resident of the United States of America and a bona fide student in a Junior or Senior High School.  Home schooled will be competing at their own grade level according to age.  

Eligible participants in the contest shall be citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States.

Competition will be at Naperville Post 43 and continue on to the Auxiliary District and Division level. 

Contest Rules

Essay entry must include:

Title page with Essay subject name on it

Students name and home address (including city and state)

Grade in school

Name of school

Name of sponsoring Post (Post 43)

ALL the above information MUST PRECEDE THE ESSAY!

The essay shall be no more than 500 words in length (not counting a, an, and, the).

The essay may be either typed or written in ink on regular theme paper.

No decorative borders, pictures or other graphics.

Pages must be numbered at the center bottom, starting with the first page of the essay and paper clipped together.  (PLEASE No staples

All essays must be submitted to a local American Legion Post.

"Why am I proud to be an American"

BASIS FOR JUDGING - points

1.  Content

A.  Originality and Presentation  25

B.  Relation to topic  15

C.  Essay must be  factual  10 

2.  Organization of Subject Matter

A.  Unity (avoid irrelevant matter)  10

B.  Emphasis (good  proportion and  arrangement of parts)  10

C.  Coherence  (clearness)    10

3.  Correct Usage

A.  Choice of words  (free from overused  expressions)  10

B.  Effective sentences  (correct grammar,  spelling, punctuation and neatness)  10

TOTAL  100

The essay must reach the local American Legion Post by:

FEBRUARY 1, 2024

All Illinois School students in the 7th and 8th grades and Junior and Senior High School are invited to participate in this contest. 

The contest is divided into the following three classes.

CLASS I - 7th and 8th grades

CLASS II - 9th and 10th grades

CLASS III - 11th and 12th grade

How to Submit

Thank you for your interest in the Americanism Essay Contest .  

The essay must reach the local American Legion Post:

Submit electronically in either Word or pdf format to:

[email protected]

Or by mail to:

American Legion Post 43

Americanism Essay Contest PO Box 4 Naperville, IL 60566

Neal Kemp Chairman

[email protected]

Richland Post 548 INC

Essay program.

Any applications for this program can be found on the  forms page .

As American Legionnaires, we fully believe that education is the cornerstone upon which the future of America is built.  Education becomes the first requisite of good citizenship and the relationship of The American Legion to Pennsylvania citizens is of prime importance as a means of keeping us a free civilization.

Our approach to supporting solid educational principles is direct and positive. We agree with the PA Department of Education’s initiative of “writing across the curriculum” and we reward the efforts of involved students through our annual essay scholarship program beginning at the local Post.

Any student  enrolled in grades 9 through 12 in a public, private, parochial, cyber school or who is home schooled in Pennsylvania is eligible to participate in the  High School Essay Contest .  Students in grades 6, 7, 8 are encouraged to participate in the  Middle School Essay Program  in preparation for the high school program.

Through the annual Department of Pennsylvania American Legion Essay scholarship contest, students are provided an opportunity to showcase their talents and abilities in English by using originality, accuracy and research as evidence, while learning that the responsibilities and duties of good citizenship can be both rewarding and fun

Since the inception of the Department of Pennsylvania State Essay Contest in 1935, The American Legion has awarded well over $500,000 in scholarships, while local American Legion Posts, Counties, Districts and Sections have also offered suitable awards and prizes for their respective best essay winners.

Prizes to Be Awarded

• The Department of Pennsylvania State Essay First Place Winner will be awarded a $3,500 scholarship, a plaque, and a trip to this year’s Pennsylvania American Legion Convention in July to read the winning essay to the assembled delegates.
• The Second Place Winner will receive a $3,000 scholarship and a plaque.
• The Third Place Winner will receive a $2,500 scholarship and a plaque.

Contact Information

• Doylestown Observer
• Fairless Focus

Langhorne Ledger

• Morrisville Times
• Newtown Gazette
• Northampton Herald
• New Hope News
• Lower Southampton Spirit
• Warwick Journal
• Yardley Voice
• Spotlight: Kathleen Layton, BHHS
• Spotlight: Summit Refacing
• Spotlight: American Paving Contractors
• Spotlight: RD’s Total Lawn
• Spotlight: PrimoHoagies in Langhorne
• Spotlight: Eye Associates of
• Spotlight: ECI Comfort
• Spotlight: Langhorne Council for
• A few things your
• SPOTLIGHT: C&C Family Roofing
• SPOTLIGHT: American Paving Contractors
• Eye Associates of Bucks
• ECI Comfort acquires Merit
• Why overpricing your home
• Cataract surgery: The best
• New Life Christian Church
• Keeping PA comfortable year-round:
• Spotlight: C&C Family Roofing
• Spotlight: AOY Art Center
• RD’s Total Lawn: A
• Spotlight: Center for Advanced
• Spotlight: American Chimney
• Best house plants for
• Spotlight: Joe McIlvaine Tree
• Prevent breakdowns with annual
• Spotlight: Penn’s Woods Puppet
• Neshaminy Valley Music Theatre
• Langhorne Council for the
• JC Heating & Cooling:
• Spotlight: State Representative Joe
• Spotlight: Comedy Cabaret
• Clearing the way to
• Miles of mules at
• Spotlight: The Ladies of
• Cataract surgery with a
• Spotlight: Aristaeus Craft Brewing
• Celebrating excellence: Saint Andrew
• Reputation and trust is
• Spotlight: Peppe’s Mexican Grill
• Buckingham bridge dedication honors
• The Innovative Apthera™ IOL:
• RD’s Total Lawn Fall
• Discover Deli Fresh: Fresh
• The time is still
• The Primo Difference
• Family Service awards generous

ALL   THE   ‘GOOD’   NEWS   THAT’S   FIT   TO   PRINT.        . . . PEACE . . .         PROMOTING   PRIDE   &   FELLOWSHIP   IN   THE   COMMUNITIES   WE   SERVE.

• Special Focus

American Legion essay winners

PHOTO CAPS: The students are pictured (from right – left): 1st row: Michael Roybal; 2nd row: Lilly Me, Gianna Roybal, Annabel Lucas, Ireland Curry, and Seamus Conway.  3rd row: Linda Frey, Americanism committee and Sue Sutter, Americanism chairman.

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NY Rep. Jamaal Bowman faces tough challenge in Democratic primary

LIVE RESULTS: New York Primary 2024

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, one of the most liberal members of Congress, will try to fight off a strong Democratic primary challenge Tuesday from moderate county executive George Latimer in a New York race that has put a spotlight on the party’s divides over the Israel-Hamas war.

Latimer got into the race at the urging of Jewish leaders upset with Bowman’s criticism of Israel.

An exorbitant amount of money, mostly tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has flooded into the race to oppose Bowman after he accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, where over 37,000 Palestinians have been killed. Bowman also opposed a symbolic House resolution to support Israel after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

AIPAC’s allied super PAC has spent nearly $15 million on the primary, according to Federal Election Commission records. The cash paid for a torrent of ads attacking Bowman, who has accused the influential pro-Israel lobbying group of trying to buy the race in the mostly suburban district north of New York City.

A Bowman loss would disrupt what has generally been a stable primary season for congressional incumbents. Most current members of Congress have been able to repel challenges from within their party, though GOP Rep. Bob Good is in a tight contest with a rival backed by Donald Trump in a race that is too close to call.

Some major progressive figures have rushed to Bowman’s defense. In the final stretch of the race, he rallied with liberal darlings Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, while Latimer pulled in the endorsement of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The winner of the primary will be the prohibitive favorite to win in the general election. The district, which includes parts of Westchester County and a small piece of the Bronx, is a Democratic stronghold.

The primary fight has emerged as a case study of where Democratic voters might stand on Israel and has exposed the ever-simmering tensions between the party’s liberals and centrists.

Latimer, 70, has been in politics for more than three decades. He was in the state legislature for years before becoming the Westchester County executive in 2018. His campaign has mostly been about his knowledge of the district and the relationships there that would allow him to be an effective member of Congress.

Latimer says he wants to go to the House to extract what he can for the district, not to score political points or get on cable TV. He has portrayed himself as a staunch supporter of Israel and says the country can’t negotiate a cease-fire with Hamas because Hamas is terrorist organization.

Bowman, a former middle school principal, has framed the race as a contest between big-money donors and average voters. He has vigorously defended his position on Israel and calls for a cease-fire in the current conflict, while condemning Hamas for their Oct. 7 attack in Israel.

In an interview before the election, Bowman said he wasn’t paying attention to the noise around the race. Instead, he said he wanted to continue helping working-class people in the district and try to get young people involved in the political process.

Bowman is seeking his third term in a district whose boundaries have shifted since he first won office in 2020, losing most of its sections in the Bronx and adding more of Westchester County’s suburbs.

Today, 21 percent of its voting-age population is Black and 42% is non-Hispanic white, according to Census figures, compared to 30% Black and 34% white in the district as it existed through 2022. Bowman is Black. Latimer is white.

Nationally, Democratic Party leaders have emphasized moving toward centrist candidates who might fare better in suburban races.

New York Democrats will decide other notable primaries Tuesday, including one on the eastern end of Long Island, between former CNN pundit John Avlon and scientist Nancy Goroff.

That seat, which is represented by incumbent Rep. Nick LaLota, is one of a handful of targets for Democrats in New York, as the party tries to flip suburban congressional districts and retake control of the House.

Avlon has secured several endorsements from party officials, including some current members of Congress, who argue he can stand on a moderate platform to take on LaLota in an area that has swung to the right in most recent elections. Goroff ran for the seat in 2020 but lost by about 10 points.

In central New York, two other Democrats are vying to become the party’s nominee to take on U.S. Rep. Brandon Williams, a Republican who represents a recently reconfigured congressional district where President Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 11 points in the 2020 election.

Voters will decide between state Sen. John Mannion and Sarah Klee Hood, a town councilor in the Syracuse suburb of Dewitt.

Also on Tuesday, Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney faces a primary challenge from businessman Mario Fratto in a sprawling, conservative district that includes the state’s Finger Lakes region and rural areas along Lake Ontario. Tenney defeated Fratto by 14 points in a primary in 2022.

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Geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) define a position on the Earth’s surface. Coordinates are angular units. The canonical form of latitude and longitude representation uses degrees (°), minutes (′), and seconds (″). GPS systems widely use coordinates in degrees and decimal minutes, or in decimal degrees.

Latitude varies from −90° to 90°. The latitude of the Equator is 0°; the latitude of the South Pole is −90°; the latitude of the North Pole is 90°. Positive latitude values correspond to the geographic locations north of the Equator (abbrev. N). Negative latitude values correspond to the geographic locations south of the Equator (abbrev. S).

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Elektrostal , Moscow Oblast, Russia

What The Economist thought about solar power

A look back through our archives: sometimes prescient, sometimes not.

W HAT APPEARS to have been our first article about solar power, in 1955, mostly dealt with water heaters, cooking stoves and the like. But it also noted, “among the more ingenious low powered devices…the Bell Company’s solar battery”—which is to say the first silicon-based solar cell, unveiled by AT & T ’s Bell Labs the previous year. Indeed we were sufficiently impressed by this “simple-looking apparatus, consisting, in essence, of thin wafers of silicon, specially treated” (and pictured above) that in 1956 we featured it in an encomium to America’s remarkable research record : “Even an account of such diverse achievements as the Salk vaccine, the solar battery, the discovery and synthesis of the “miracle” drugs, the atom-powered submarine and the breeding of Santa Gertrudis cattle, would give only a small hint of work in progress.” (Quite how Santa Gertrudis cattle made it into this hall of fame remains a mystery.)

Following this burst of enthusiasm, The Economist , like almost everyone else not involved in building satellites or installing radio relays in the back of beyond, saw no need to say more on the subject until the oil shocks of the 1970s made alternative sources of energy a hot topic. In 1975 we reported that Vicomte Davignon, the Belgian head of the International Energy Agency, wanted to see industrial countries “encourage the production of more exotic fuels such as shale oil and solar energy”. America’s Energy Research and Development Administration expected solar energy to provide 7% of America’s needs by 2000 and 25% by 2020: “Americans no longer talk of whether, but when, the sun will be a major source of their energy,” we wrote in response. But we feared that the case for solar power in America was “alternately flattered by attention and crushed by indifference”.

When considering Britain’s future energy supplies in 1977, we saw America’s solar enthusiasm, then in the process of being “flattered by attention” as an example to steer clear of. “After the moon programme, it became fashionable to say that, given money, scientists could do anything. It did not work with a cure for cancer, and it may not work with solar energy…it is true that the scientists are making good progress at developing solar cells, but current capital costs are about 25 times the $500 per peak kilowatt hour that is most people’s target.” A reasonable stance, but one undercut by the accompanying contention that fast breeder nuclear reactors and wave power were the way to go.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s our newly minted Science and Technology section kept readers abreast of developments in photovoltaic technologies—including some which now have a distinctly Rube Goldberg feel to them. But the collapse of American funding for alternative energy technologies under Ronald Reagan, and the collapse a few years later of the oil price, dampened our interest.

Enthusiasm for new energy technologies picked up again in the 1990s with the rise of fears about global warming. The Economist was somewhat sceptical about these concerns, tending to argue that carbon prices and adaptation were the path of reason and heavily subsidised new energy technologies a snare and delusion. When we got interested in particular technologies it tended to be fuel cells and hydrogen that took our fancy. But by 2006 we were reporting that solar power was “ripe for breakthroughs” , and the most promising renewable technology, an assessment based in part on the possibility of moving beyond silicon wafers and in part on the mistaken belief that “Wind turbines will, from now until the end of time, be subject to only incremental improvements: they will become a bit more efficient, a bit cheaper to install, and a bit cheaper to build.” The levelised cost of onshore wind has since dropped markedly.

The following year we reported , correctly, that “despite its rapid growth [solar power] will not provide a significant share of the world’s electricity for decades.” But we were unconvinced by the subsidies that were fuelling that rapid growth. In 2008 we explained that such subsidies were “ Green, easy and wrong ”: “Subsidising clean energy requires politicians to decide on the best way of delivering it, and their judgment is likely to be worse than the market’s. We criticised both America’s huge ethanol subsidies and Germany’s generosity to solar. “Both subsidies promoted the wrong technologies; both wasted taxpayers’ money.” A year later we reported research by New Energy Finance (now Bloomberg NEF ) which found that at the time solar cells required a carbon price of $196 a tonne.

We continued—and continue—to criticise subsidies for second-guessing the market and allowing governments to back “winners” which turn out to be losers, such as Solyndra, a solar-power company which went bust despite generous support from the Obama administration. But while finding in 2011 that “ the rush to subsidise solar power over the past decade [has been] massively wasteful and squalidly political ,” we admitted that “by pushing the price of panels down, [they] have created possibilities that were not there before”, both in “some sunny parts of America” and in developing countries.

While allowing that these were worthwhile markets, we still worried about what large-scale solar might do to electricity grids. The big obstacle we foresaw for solar power, in 2013, was that it would destabilise electric grids and drive away investment. “Utilities are not rewarded for offsetting the variable nature of wind and solar power. Instead, they are shifting out of electricity generation,” we reported in a piece on European utilities entitled “ How to lose half a trillion euros ”, going on to point out that “this is happening at a time when renewable energy supplies, on average, 22% of Germany’s electricity demand. No one really knows what will happen when renewables reach 35% of the market, as government policy requires in 2020.

As we reported a decade later, in 2022, these fears proved overblown. On a visit to 50Hertz, a German utility, our reporter noted “screens show 28% of [the energy flowing through the grid] coming from wind farms and 24% from solar panels. A decade ago the custodians of the grids which keep the rich world’s lights on would have told you this was impossible… The grid 50Hertz oversees is quite capable of running a transmission grid with 50-60% wind and solar power.” ■

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Election Updates: As the debate nears, Biden campaign stresses Trump’s role in overturning Roe to mark anniversary.

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Chris Cameron

The Commission on Presidential Debates, the traditional debate host that was snubbed by the Biden and Trump campaigns this year , officially canceled the originally scheduled debates . A statement from the commission said it had “regrettably” released the debate venues from their contracts because the Biden campaign had declined to participate, adding “we are sorry to come to this decision.”

Nicholas Fandos

Representative Jamaal Bowman got a last-minute boost from a fellow New Yorker, the House Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries, ahead of a daunting primary challenge on Tuesday. Jeffries has not campaigned in the district, but he did record a robocall on Monday calling Bowman “a public servant who fights for economic justice and in defense of historically underrepresented communities.”

Maggie Astor

Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat facing a tough re-election race, said on a campaign call with Gloria Steinem that his Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno, “thinks he knows better” than the majority of Ohioans who voted last year to protect abortion rights in the state. Moreno, who has said he would vote for a 15-week ban, “wants to go to Washington and overrule them,” Brown said.

Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, was asked on a press call whether he was concerned that voters’ energy around abortion rights might have faded since they passed a referendum protecting them in Ohio last year. He says no, and that he’s glad the referendum was last year and not coinciding with his re-election race this year, because it means “Ohio women have rights one year earlier than they otherwise would have.”

Katie Glueck

A coalition of abortion-rights and other progressive groups, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the ACLU, unveiled a $100 million campaign called Abortion Access Now, aiming to advance abortion rights and access and to “help build a long-term federal strategy to codify the right to abortion,” the coalition said in a statement. The plan was first reported by Politico.

In a speech in Maryland on Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris is set to assert that former President Donald J. Trump created a “health care crisis” by installing three Supreme Court justices who later voted to reverse Roe v. Wade, the Biden campaign said. Harris will charge that Trump is “guilty” of taking “reproductive freedom from the women of America,” according to her prepared remarks.

Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat who won a narrow upset victory in 2022 in a Republican-leaning district in Washington State, is running an ad not only distancing herself from the Biden administration but also positioning herself in active opposition to it. “Marie Perez is taking on the Biden administration and working with Republicans to secure the southern border,” the ad says.

A CNN interview with Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for former President Donald J. Trump, was abruptly ended when she denounced the debate moderators. “President Trump is knowingly going into a hostile environment on this very network,” Leavitt said. When she criticized Jake Tapper, the interviewer, Kasie Hunt, said she was “welcome to come back at any point” to discuss Trump, but not to “attack my colleagues.”

President Biden marked the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade with a video emphasizing that former President Donald J. Trump appointed the justices who made it possible. “For MAGA Republicans, Roe is just the beginning,” he said. “They’re going to try to ban the right to choose nationwide. They’re coming for I.V.F. and birth control next. We’re up against extremism.”

The Biden campaign is running a new ad highlighting the experience of Kaitlyn Joshua, a Louisiana woman who was denied treatment for a miscarriage at two emergency rooms. “That was a direct result of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade,” she says in the ad. “He’s now a convicted felon. Trump thinks he should not be held accountable for his own criminal actions, but he will let women and doctors be punished.”

The Dobbs anniversary and the first debate will bookend this week.

This week will be one of the biggest of the 2024 campaign so far, with a forceful push from President Biden around the second anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the first general-election debate between him and former President Donald J. Trump scheduled for Thursday night.

Monday is the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling, which eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion. After days of events leading up to it, the Biden campaign is sending Vice President Kamala Harris to Maryland and Arizona, and her husband, Doug Emhoff, to Michigan.

Mr. Trump, for his part, will be in New Orleans for a fund-raiser with Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana.

That event has been on the calendar for some time, but Louisiana took on new significance last week when its Republican governor, Jeff Landry, signed into law a requirement that all public-school classrooms display the Ten Commandments. That measure, which Mr. Trump praised, is part of a broader effort to inject conservative Christianity into American law.

Then attention will turn to the debate, to be held in a CNN studio in Atlanta with no live audience. It will be the first time Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump have faced off directly since the fall of 2020 — practically a lifetime ago, before coronavirus vaccines, before Jan. 6 and all that has come since.

Though the general-election campaign has been in full force for months, Thursday could be the first time that some less politically engaged voters really tune in. Mr. Biden hopes to use the debate as an opportunity to reset a campaign in which he has mostly trailed in polls, though they have moved in his direction since Mr. Trump’s criminal conviction last month.

Mr. Biden is expected to try to remind voters of why they rejected Mr. Trump four years ago, and of the stakes of the election for democracy and issues like abortion access. Mr. Trump will try to cast Mr. Biden as a failed president who has made Americans less economically and physically secure.

Tuesday will bring primary elections in Colorado, New York and Utah.

Among many other races, Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, is fighting for a chance to stay in Congress after moving to a different district . In New York, Representative Jamaal Bowman has a pro-Israel challenger in his Democratic primary. And in Utah, a Trump-aligned candidate, Trent Staggs, is facing a comparative moderate, Representative John Curtis, in the Republican primary for the Senate seat that Mitt Romney is vacating.

On Wednesday, the first lady, Jill Biden, will host a Pride Month celebration at the White House.

And on Friday, as the dust settles after the debate, both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump will head back on the road: Mr. Biden for a fund-raiser in New York, and Mr. Trump for a rally in Chesapeake, Va.

Maya C. Miller

Reporting from Washington

With Virginia primary undecided, Representative Bob Good seeks funds for a recount.

The Republican primary between Representative Bob Good of Virginia, the chairman of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, and his Trump-backed challenger was still undecided on Monday almost a week after the balloting, as the two election deniers settled in for a lengthy and ugly fight over who was the true winner.

John J. McGuire, a state senator and former Navy SEAL who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally outside the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, held a lead of just under 375 votes out of the nearly 63,000 votes cast, according to The Associated Press. He declared victory last Tuesday night before all the votes were counted, and on Monday, former President Donald J. Trump, who endorsed him, declared Mr. McGuire the winner in a social media post.

But The A.P. said on Monday that the contest was too close to call, noting that while it would be unusual for a recount to shift the outcome of such a race, it would not be impossible. And Mr. Good has already made it clear he will seek a recount, an option under Virginia law, which allows such a request if the winner of a race is less than one percentage point ahead of his opponent.

“While not unprecedented, it is rare for a race of this nature to shift by a few hundred votes during a recount,” The A.P. said in explaining its finding that the race was “too close to call.” “However, A.P. research has found that Virginia has a history of making small vote corrections after Election Day and that some past statewide races have shifted by hundreds of votes during a recount.”

Mr. Good would have to pay for the recount himself because he trails Mr. McGuire by 0.6 of a percentage point, just above the 0.5 percentage point difference below which the state would finance it.

He appeared on Monday on “War Room,” the podcast hosted by the former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, to appeal for financial backing for the fight, which he said would include challenging the certification of the results reported by Lynchburg, the largest city in the district.

“I hate to be crass about it, Steve, but we depleted resources trying to win this primary,” Mr. Good said. “We believe we did win the primary even though we were vastly outspent. I need help funding the recount challenge.”

The race in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains has largely revolved around Mr. Trump, with the two candidates competing to pitch themselves as the true loyalist and champion of the former president’s hard-right agenda. It has splintered the MAGA movement and the G.O.P. itself and highlighted the shifting alliances, personal feuds and chaotic maneuvering that have come to define the party as much as any ideological or policy position.

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy also played a role, seeking to defeat Mr. Good after the Virginia congressman was one of eight Republicans to vote last year to oust him from his post.

Annie Karni contributed reporting.

Katie Glueck and Lisa Lerer

Democrats lean on an abortion-rights message for the anniversary of the end of Roe.

Two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade , unleashing a cascade of state-level abortion bans and prompting an angry political backlash , Democrats are marking the anniversary by highlighting the role former President Donald J. Trump played in ending the constitutional right to an abortion.

Through advertising, campaign events and news conferences, Democrats at every level of the party are fanning out across the country, working to remind voters that it was justices nominated by Mr. Trump who helped overturn Roe v. Wade.

“Donald Trump is the sole person responsible for this nightmare,” President Biden said in a statement on Monday, also filming a video for social media. “My message to Americans is this: Kamala and I are fighting like hell to get your freedom back.”

The messaging push is unfolding during a tight presidential race, as Mr. Biden confronts weak approval ratings and the coalition that propelled his 2020 victory shows signs of fraying .

As they seek to reinvigorate their voters, Democrats are embracing variations of arguments that have fueled other victories in the past two years: that the Republican Party is ever more extreme and infringing, to an extraordinary degree , on some of the most personal health care decisions Americans can make.

“Donald Trump hand-picked three members of the United States Supreme Court because he intended for them to overturn Roe v. Wade — and as he intended, they did,” Vice President Kamala Harris said at a campaign event on Monday in College Park, Md. “In the case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of America, Donald Trump is guilty.”

She was also expected to speak in Phoenix to “remind voters that Donald Trump is responsible for overturning Roe and the chaos that has followed,” and to “highlight the threat a second Trump presidency would pose to reproductive freedom nationwide,” according to the Biden campaign.

Her husband, Doug Emhoff, was headed to Flint and Clawson, Mich., with a similar message, and top Biden surrogates around the nation seized on the issue as they seek to frame the contrast in the election.

“It’ll be a binary choice on who’s going to restrict your rights,” Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, who is the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said in an interview on Sunday. “This will just be a narrative of their extremism, but this one is baked in because it’s real. It’s not theoretical.”

Mr. Trump has said he is “proudly the person responsible” for overturning Roe v. Wade — a line Democrats are eager to highlight — and has suggested that, if elected, he would allow states to prosecute women who violate abortion restrictions. He has also said he believes abortion policy should be left to the states, disappointing some on the right.

“Some states will be more conservative and some will be more liberal,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement, but Mr. Trump “supports the rights of individuals to determine their laws.”

“President Trump also strongly supports ensuring women have access to the care they need to create healthy families, including widespread access to IVF, birth control, and contraception, and he always will,” she added.

Democrats successfully deployed messaging around abortion rights in critical races during the 2022 midterm elections a few months after Roe was overturned and in a number of special elections since .

This year, campaigns including Mr. Biden’s are highlighting women’s personal experiences with abortion bans championed by Republicans.

On Monday, the Biden campaign released a television ad highlighting the experience of Kaitlyn Joshua, who said in the spot that when she had a miscarriage early in pregnancy, she was turned away from two Louisiana emergency rooms, “a direct result of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade.”

An advocacy group started by Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois also announced a digital ad effort aimed at swing and independent women in Arizona, Florida and Nevada, highlighting the health risks facing pregnant women in the post-Roe era. The House Democratic campaign arm is running mobile billboards in five competitive districts, blaring positive comments that Republican incumbents made about the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision overturning Roe.

And major abortion rights groups are also mobilizing.

Planned Parenthood advocacy and political organizations said they planned to spend $40 million this election cycle. Planned Parenthood Federation of America also joined a coalition of other abortion rights and progressive groups, which plan to raise and spend $100 million to devise a federal strategy aimed at clawing back abortion rights.

In the two years since Roe fell, abortion rights organizations have focused on combating state-level restrictions in court and promoting ballot initiatives to enshrine abortion rights at the state level, along with engaging in key campaigns.

Democrats are also arguing that a second Trump administration would go further in restricting abortion rights and access by imposing sweeping new federal restrictions on the procedure.

Last week, Senator Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota, introduced legislation that would repeal the Comstock Act, a Civil War-era statue that abortion rights supporters worry could be used to ban abortion medication — even in states where it remains legal.

Ms. Smith, a former Planned Parenthood executive, said the law offered a powerful argument for Democrats, underscoring the contrast between a second term for Mr. Biden or one for Mr. Trump.

“It’s such a clear choice on the issue of abortion rights,” she said. “Understanding how a future Trump administration could use the Comstock Act makes this a salient issue in our state too, where people might they think they are safe.”

Representative Pat Ryan, a Democrat running in a swing district in New York, said his party should explain Comstock as a “hidden ticking time bomb” for Mr. Trump. Mr. Ryan, who won his seat with an aggressive embrace of abortion rights, is encouraging his fellow Democrats to lean into Comstock and the future threats it may pose to abortion access.

But in this election, Americans are weighing a broad range of other considerations, too, and polls show that on a number of key issues — though not abortion policy — voters say that Mr. Trump would do a better job than Mr. Biden.

“Polling has consistently shown Biden and the Democrats already have an issue advantage on abortion, and yet Trump continues to lead in the battleground states,” Robert Blizzard, a Republican pollster, said. “They will certainly lean in on abortion, but unless Democrats find a way to puncture Trump’s legacy on the economy, they will continue to struggle.”

Voters are also assessing the personal characteristics of Mr. Biden, 81, the oldest American president in history , and Mr. Trump, 78, who is the first American president convicted of a crime .

Many of these issues are likely to come up at their debate on Thursday, the first of the general-election campaign.

Nick Corasaniti

A group supporting President Biden is seeking to focus voters’ attention on the makeup of the Supreme Court.

A Democratic-leaning group announced on Monday the beginning of a seven-figure campaign to focus voter attention on the importance of the Supreme Court in the presidential election, with a heavy emphasis on the high court’s role in issues like abortion, gun safety and voting rights.

The group, Stand Up America, is kicking off the $1 million campaign on the second anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which overturned the right to an abortion and convulsed the country’s politics in its aftermath.

For years, Republicans have made the courts — especially the Supreme Court — a central issue in federal elections. The vacancy on the Supreme Court during the 2016 election was a central force behind Donald J. Trump’s victory. Among voters who said the Supreme Court was the “most important factor” in their decision, 56 percent cast a ballot for Mr. Trump, according to exit polls .

This year, Democrats are trying to harness that same energy: Though there is no current vacancy on the court, there is potential for a president to make appointments in the next administration.

With help from the actress Barbra Streisand and the TV host Andy Cohen, as well as social media influencers, doctors, lawyers, voters and politicians, the effort will include a website and a targeted digital ad campaign in presidential battleground states.

The goal, according to the group, is to raise awareness about the impact the election could have on the Supreme Court: Four of the nine justices, the group notes, will be in their 70s by 2025, giving the next president an opportunity to further shape a court that has become significantly more conservative since 2016.

“You already know that our fundamental freedoms are on the line this November, but did you know the stakes are even higher regarding the Supreme Court?” Mr. Cohen asks in one of the ads for Stand Up America. “We need a vote this fall to prevent Trump from picking more MAGA justices who will threaten our fundamental freedoms for decades to come.”

The Stand Up America campaign comes as President Biden has been increasingly vocal about the role of the Supreme Court in recent campaign stops. At a fund-raiser in Los Angeles this month, Mr. Biden said that “the next president is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees” and that Mr. Trump had nominated justices who targeted the rights of Americans.

“I think it is one of the scariest parts,” Mr. Biden said during the event.

Mr. Trump has been less direct in his statements about the Supreme Court, commenting on the judicial branch mostly in relation to his criminal trials. But he has boasted of nominating the three justices who were crucial to overturning Roe v. Wade, as he did at a rally in Wildwood, N.J., in May, recalling the battles he faced to get them confirmed.

“I faced down vile attacks from the radical left to confirm three great Supreme Court justices,” Mr. Trump said at a speech to the National Rifle Association in February. “They’re great justices.”

Internal polling conducted by Stand Up America found that nearly 75 percent of voters said that whom a presidential candidate would appoint to the Supreme Court would play a role in their selection in November.

The group also plans to launch a get-out-the-vote operation with a heavy rotation of digital ads and celebrity videos asking voters to sign a pledge to be a “Supreme Court voter.”

“Cases related to abortion, marriage equality, gun safety, voting rights, the climate crisis, anything you could think of, we think that’s not given enough focus,” said Christina Harvey, the executive director of Stand Up America. She added: “It’s pretty scary right now. I have a 12-year-old daughter who is in school every day, and frankly the decision last week eliminating the bump stock ban was pretty frightening.”

The New York Times

behind the journalism

The debate is Thursday. We’ll be streaming it with real-time analysis and insights from our reporters.

How do you cover a historic presidential debate that includes a candidate convicted of 34 felonies in what he has called, without evidence, a “rigged trial,” and that will air on TV absent an audience? With a few dozen reporters and fact-checkers .

President Biden and Donald J. Trump will take the stage at CNN’s Atlanta studios Thursday at 9 p.m. Eastern time to debate the economy and inflation, immigration and the border, abortion and contraception, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and Jan. 6, 2021, alongside other pressing topics.

The New York Times will livestream the debate, and 60 Times journalists will be on hand Thursday night to offer context, insight, photos, reactions and fact-checking as part of our live coverage beginning around 8 p.m.

Our Reporting Team

These Times reporters, photographers and videographers will be in the studio to cover the debate:

Shane Goldmacher , a national political correspondent who covers Republicans and Democrats running for the House, Senate and presidency, including how they are campaigning and how they would govern if elected.

Michael Gold , who reports on Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. He has also covered Capitol Hill and mayoral, governor and congressional elections in New York.

Katie Rogers , a White House correspondent who covers Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign, his administration and his family.

Maya King , who is based in Atlanta and writes about campaigns, elections and movements in the American South.

Ruth Fremson , a photojournalist for more than 34 years who has covered the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Al Gore.

Kenny Holston , a photojournalist in Washington who covers Congress, the military and the White House.

Claire Hogan , who produces videos for The Times’s website and social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and X.

Gabriel Blanco , who works with reporters to create videos for The Times’s website and its other platforms.

They will be joined by three dozen Times reporters and editors in New York, in Washington and across the country to provide deeper insight on the issues. This includes a team of 29 Times reporters to check the facts live, led by Linda Qiu , a reporter who fact-checks statements from politicians.

Susanna Timmons

Behind The Journalism

Here’s how The New York Times fact-checks political candidates.

True or false is fine for pop quizzes and trivia games, but in politics, things are rarely that clear-cut.

“Murky” is how Linda Qiu , a fact-checker for nearly a decade, describes many of the claims she vets. Qiu is the point person for The New York Times during political debates, conventions, rallies and State of the Union addresses. Her job: Sifting through campaign rhetoric — and outright lies — to reveal the truth.

Here are answers to questions about how our fact-checking works.

Thousands of New York voters received texts with misinformation about polling sites.

Thousands of New Yorkers received text messages in recent days with inaccurate information about polling sites for the state’s primary election on Tuesday, according to the group that sent the messages.

The New York State Board of Elections issued a warning on Monday about the text messages, which were sent by a progressive group called VoteFTW . The group, which says that its goal is to help citizens across the United States participate in the democratic process, acknowledged the error. The group said it had sent follow-up messages to voters alerting them to the mistake and urging them to check their polling site on the Board of Elections’s website.

VoteFTW said that it learned of the error on Monday, and that New Yorkers started receiving the false information on Friday. The group estimated that 40,000 to 80,000 people around the state received text messages with inaccurate information.

“We take full responsibility for this mistake,” Virgie Madrigal, a spokeswoman for VoteFTW, said in a statement. “Upon discovering the error, we promptly issued a correction text directing voters again to their official poll lookup tool.”

Most of the voters who received the inaccurate texts messages were enrolled Democrats, Ms. Madrigal said in an email. David Laska, a spokesman for the state’s Republican Party, said he was not familiar with the issue.

A suite of primary races for local, state and federal offices are to be decided on Tuesday, though some municipalities will not hold any elections.

Dustin M. Czarny, the Democratic elections commissioner in Onondaga County, which includes Syracuse, said he had received reports that the inaccurate messages had reached voters in his county, as well as those on Long Island and in Westchester County, where Representative Jamaal Bowman has been trying to fend off a challenge from the county executive, George Latimer, in an acrimonious primary race .

Voters in the Albany area also received the messages, said Jay Jacobs, the state Democratic Party chairman.

The Board of Elections encouraged voters to contact elections officials with any questions about polling sites.

“Voting is a fundamental right, and we do not want any confusion for voters tomorrow at the polls,” Raymond J. Riley III, a co-executive director of the Board of Elections, said in a statement.

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