“Democracy is not working the way it should,” Alex Niemczewski, chief executive of the organization, said on Wednesday. “Voters don’t have a choice.”

The survey covered some 44,650 elective offices across counties with more than 50,000 residents, or about 88 percent of the nation’s population. Both partisan and nonpartisan offices were included. Most single-candidate offices were concentrated in hyperlocal jurisdictions like water-management or conservation boards, and in county governments, the data showed. Competition was more common for city, state and federal offices.

But the findings varied, sometimes wildly, from state to state. A mere 22 percent of elective offices are uncontested this fall in New Hampshire, the lowest total among states (only Connecticut, with 24 percent, came close). Alabama, 90 percent of offices on the November ballot are uncontested was the highest.

In eight jurisdictions, at least 80 percent of offices fielded just one candidate: Arkansas, the District of Columbia, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas.

Uncontested races are an old and much-debated phenomenon in American politics, and even the BallotReady survey does not capture its scope. In a nation where many Republicans and Democrats have sorted themselves into separate geographic islands, many elections are so lopsided that they might as well have gone uncontested.

Ms. Niemczewski said she believed that Americans knew too little about the democratic process to be full participants. “People don’t know what’s going to be on the ballot,” she said. “They don’t know who represents them.”

The survey did not break down the list of uncontested races by party, but Ms. Niemczewski said it appeared that more single-candidate offices were in rural areas, which are predominantly Republican.

That is consistent with a study of about 29,400 partisan offices in the 2022 midterms, which found that Democrats were more than three times as likely as Republicans to not field a candidate for the job.

And he has also done so, albeit more quietly, inside of his adopted home state, wading into local election contests in Texas where his sizable contributions can make an even bigger difference.

In September, Mr. Musk gave $1 million to one of the major power players in Austin, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a group committed to reining in tort lawsuits and the large costs they often impose on businesses. Less than two weeks later, he cut an even larger check, for $2 million, to a political action committee affiliated with the Austin-based group.

That $2 million donation, to Judicial Fairness PAC, has been helping to fund active campaigns to elect Republican judges by arguing that Texas cities are in the grip of a crime wave.

Over the last month, Judicial Fairness PAC has spent nearly $15 million, including more than $6.9 million on advertising and direct mail in support of another political action committee, Stop Houston Murders, according a state filing period that ended Saturday.

“No matter who you support for president,” read one of the mailers sent by Stop Houston Murders, “vote out soft-on-crime Democrat judges.”

Judicial Fairness PAC has also funded similar mailings in Dallas, and is supporting appeals court candidates in the Rio Grande Valley. The effort has received backing from several top Republican donors in Texas.

It was not clear why Mr. Musk decided to lend his support as well. Mr. Musk’s companies are located in several Texas cities, including Austin, Bastrop and Brownsville, but not Houston or Dallas. Among the races targeted by the committee are several seats on an appeals court in South Texas that covers Cameron County, where SpaceX is located.

Neither he nor a spokeswoman for Texans for Lawsuit Reform responded to requests for comment on the contributions.

But since moving from California to Texas, Mr. Musk has surrounded himself with a more conservative social circle, including tech entrepreneurs who are active in Texas state politics.

And he has struck up a friendship with Dick Weekley, a wealthy Houston-based homebuilder who co-founded Texans for Lawsuit Reform in the 1990s.

“If he’s interested in having a conservative state legislature and judiciary, that donation to T.L.R. certainly makes sense,” said Mark McCaig, a conservative activist based in Houston. “Elon is certainly somebody I want on my team.”

Mr. Weekley and two of his top political aides, Ryan Dumais and Denis Calabrese, were part of the initial crew that helped Mr. Musk plan his pro-Trump super PAC, America PAC, meeting with Mr. Musk each Friday for up to an hour.

Now, by pouring millions into Texans for Lawsuit Reform and the campaigns it is backing, Mr. Musk appeared to have injected himself into the middle of a protracted battle between factions of the Republican Party in Texas.

The two main factions are a traditional coalition of business-focused conservatives, including Mr. Weekley, and a more religiously conservative, Trump-aligned faction that has been ascendant in the state. They clashed most prominently last year over the impeachment trial of the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, who had strong support from the Trump-aligned conservatives; the impeachment was rejected in the Senate.

Each side has been eager for Mr. Musk’s support. Those in Mr. Paxton’s corner welcomed the news, earlier this year, that Mr. Musk had brought in a new crop of political operatives to steer his America PAC, and that Mr. Weekley and his aides at Texans for Lawsuit Reform were no longer working with him.

Mr. Musk, these days, frequently posts on social media about the problems he sees with crime and immigration, two issues that are commonly pushed by Republicans of all stripes in Texas.

One of his first political forays into the state came earlier this year, when Mr. Musk contributed to a group that tried unsuccessfully to oust the Democratic district attorney for Travis County, which includes Austin.

In Houston, Republicans have for several cycles now attempted to retake judicial seats that were lost in a Democratic wave in Houston in 2018.

Judicial Fairness PAC has been supporting Stop Houston Murders since it first became active during the 2022 election, after homicides in the city reached record levels in 2021.

But the numbers have since declined, following a national trend in most major cities. So far this year, Houston has seen fewer homicides than it did at the same point in 2020, the year a surge in crime began during the coronavirus pandemic.

On Wednesday, Judge Jeffrey G. Trauger of the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas granted the Trump campaign’s request to extend the mail ballot application deadline. Voters now have until the close of business on Friday to apply in person.

In Pennsylvania, voters can apply for a mail-in ballot. If deemed eligible to vote, they can fill out and deliver the ballots at the county offices on the same day or return to drop them off on another day.

The lawsuit, which was jointly filed by the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and David McCormick, a Republican candidate for Senate, cited voters who were told by county officials as early as 2:40 p.m. on Tuesday that they would not be able to apply for the ballot.

“We will keep fighting,’’ Michael Whatley, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in a post on social media about the ruling. “Go vote! Stay in line!”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is often on the opposite side of Republican groups on legal challenges to voting procedures, applauded the judge’s decision and said it had received similar complaints from voters being turned away from the mail-in ballot lines in Bucks County.

“I am glad they were able to get this order so people who need to apply for a mail-in ballot can do so,” Sara Rose, the A.C.L.U.’s deputy legal director of Pennsylvania, said in an interview.

A spokesman for Kamala Harris’s campaign declined to comment on the Bucks County lawsuit.

In a statement, a spokesman for Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s secretary of state, who oversees voting rules and procedures in the state, said that election officials in all 67 counties were told that they needed to ensure that people who joined the lines before 5 p.m. on Tuesday received a ballot application.

Mr. Schmidt’s office said Pennsylvania election officials have received 120,000 in person requests for mail-in ballot applications, including nearly 20,000 on Tuesday alone.

Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

After exchanging words with a 54-year-old woman and a 71-year-old woman, Mr. Williams brandished a machete at them, according to the Neptune Beach police chief, Michael J. Key Jr. Police officers responded quickly to a 911 call.

A video provided by the chairman of the Duval County Democratic Party shows Mr. Williams and his companions cheering raucously and waving Trump flags. Mr. Williams holds a machete in the video.

“The group arrived to protest and antagonize the opposing political side,” Chief Key said at a news conference on Tuesday, adding that the group had gone to the early-voting site “for no other reason.”

Mr. Williams has been charged with aggravated assault on a person 65 or older and with improper exhibition of a firearm or dangerous weapon. Chief Key said that his companions were 16 and 17 years old and that officers believed their actions “did not cross the criminal threshold,” though he noted that the investigation was still active.

A call to a phone number listed for Mr. Williams’s family was not immediately returned on Wednesday. Records with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office did not list a lawyer for him.

Daniel Henry, the chairman of the Duval County Democratic Party, said in a statement: “Violence and intimidation have no place in our democratic process. The Duval County Democratic Party stands with those who seek to express their views peacefully and without fear of reprisal.”

The county Republican Party released a statement referring to the assassination attempts against Mr. Trump in July and September, criticizing Democrats for describing some Republicans as Nazis and concluding, “We urge calm.” It did not address Mr. Williams’s and his companions’ Trump paraphernalia.

Other episodes of violence, or threats thereof, have occurred across the country in the past few weeks of early and mail voting. Early on Monday, someone set ballot drop boxes on fire in Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, Wash., and a similar arson attack was reported last week on a United States Postal Service mailbox in Phoenix.

Four years ago, after Mr. Trump repeatedly promoted lies that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, poll workers, secretaries of state and other election officials faced a barrage of threats, and his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Officials are bracing for the possibility of similar threats and attacks this year.

Susan Campbell Beachy contributed research.

On the Screen

The ad begins with a white man, Steven, introducing himself as a steelworker in a distinctive Western Pennsylvania accent. In the opening shots, he is wearing work clothes and then a hat from the brand Carhartt, known for its workwear and outdoor clothing — apparel that signals his blue-collar roots. The spot includes a scene of him walking across a farm, where he says he grew up, and a shot of him speaking in front of a wall chockablock with tools, cues that he speaks with authority from rural America.

The ad then cuts to a clip of former President Donald J. Trump speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and shaking hands with Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. Next up are images of Mr. Musk in white tie and Mr. Trump in black tie at fancy events, as “Donald Trump for billionaires” flashes across the screen.

Another image shows Mr. Trump pumping his fists in the air as he stands atop a stairway outside his plane, before the ad shifts to discussing Ms. Harris.

“Kamala Harris for the working class,” reads text displayed over images of the vice president, including one that shows her shaking hands with a man in a construction hat.

“Kamala Harris — make billionaires pay their fair share,” the text continues, over another image of her speaking with workers outside.

After another image of Mr. Musk laughing, Steven closes with a direct-to-camera declaration that he is supporting Ms. Harris, and another picture of him in what appears to be orange work clothes.

“Kamala Harris: for workers, not billionaires,” the text on the screen says as the ad concludes with an image of Ms. Harris with an American flag in the background.

The Script

Narrator

“I’m a steelworker. I grew up right here on a little family farm. Trump was here campaigning with Elon Musk. Now there’s a prime example of who he keeps close.

“Donald Trump cares about his billionaire friends. He’s just going to turn around and give them more tax breaks. But Kamala Harris is fighting for the working class. She’ll make billionaires pay their fair share. That way working people get a fair shot.

“Elon Musk is voting for his money, and I’m voting for mine. And I’m voting for Kamala Harris.”

Accuracy

Mr. Trump supports extending the 2017 tax cuts, which included tax benefits for the ultrarich, though those cuts also benefited middle-class Americans. He has also proposed eliminating taxes on Social Security income and tips.

Ms. Harris does support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. She has also proposed an expanded child tax credit and tax cuts meant to spur home construction, along with a first-time home-buyer credit.

The Takeaway

Polls show that Ms. Harris is struggling with men broadly — and white working-class men have posed a particularly difficult challenge for her party in the Trump era.

Steven, the narrator, appears to fit into all three of those categories. That may give him credibility with some blue-collar voters as he argues that Mr. Trump would undermine their economic interests while enriching wealthy Americans like himself.

Democrats long embraced the idea that they were the party of the working class.

But as education level has emerged as perhaps the central fault line in American politics, with college-educated voters flocking to the Democratic Party amid Mr. Trump’s rise while the party struggles with voters without college degrees, that argument has become harder to make.

This ad, part of a series of economy-focused testimonials from Future Forward, tries to reopen the door to some of those voters.

Linda Qiu contributed reporting.

“President Trump announced a Trump-Vance transition leadership group to initiate the process of preparing for what comes after the election,” Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “But formal discussions of who will serve in a second Trump Administration is premature.”

Mr. Kennedy, who suspended his presidential campaign in August, said in a text message to The New York Times that a video of the call, which circulated on social media Tuesday, was a recording of an internal discussion with campaign workers discussing get-out-the-vote efforts for Mr. Trump.

“I stand ready to help him rid the public health agencies of their pervasive conflicts and corruption and restore their tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science,” Mr. Kennedy said in a statement.

During his discussions with the Trump campaign before his endorsement, Mr. Kennedy made clear that he wanted to have a significant role in public health oversight. Since then, Mr. Kennedy has spoken openly about his plans to reform the federal health care and agriculture systems, which he and his supporters see as corrupt and dangerous.

Mr. Kennedy, 70, an environmental lawyer and a scion of a storied Democratic family, is a leader of the so-called “medical freedom movement,” which broadly opposes vaccine mandates. The movement gained force during the pandemic and now seems closer than ever to the seat of power.

Mr. Kennedy has in recent years promoted unproven theories about the dangers of pharmaceutical treatments, including childhood vaccinations. His potential role in running America’s public health bureaucracy has animated his supporters, but alarmed medical professionals.

“The key that, I think, President Trump has promised me is control of the public health agencies, which are H.H.S. and its subagencies,” Mr. Kennedy said in the clip of the call, meaning the Department of Health and Human Services. He then listed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.

He said he would “reorient” the N.I.H. “so that instead of developing drugs” or “serving as an incubator for pharmaceutical products,” the organization would instead “be figuring out what’s causing these autism rates and autoimmune diseases and neurodevelopmental diseases.”

Mr. Kennedy has recently spoken at length about what he calls an exploding childhood chronic disease epidemic rooted in environmental and food toxins. Public health experts have said such claims are likely overblown.

Mr. Trump has named Mr. Kennedy to his transition team, which would typically entail a central role in picking the administration’s leadership. Mr. Trump has pledged, including on Joe Rogan’s podcast last week, that Mr. Kennedy would be involved in his administration. He has not mentioned a specific role.

At his rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Mr. Trump said of Mr. Kennedy: “I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on medicines.”

In a separate statement on Tuesday, Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said: “When we send President Trump back to the White House, he will work alongside passionate voices like R.F.K. Jr. to Make America Healthy Again by providing families with safe food and ending the chronic disease epidemic plaguing our children.” She added that Mr. Trump would set up a commission to investigate “the decades-long increase in chronic illnesses.”

Three years later, she tangled with George Norcross III, then among the state’s most influential Democratic power brokers, as she led a drumbeat of criticism against corporate tax breaks awarded to companies with close ties to him.

Now Ms. Altman is seeking to unseat Thomas Kean Jr., a first-term Republican congressman who is the scion and namesake of a former governor, in one of a handful of races nationwide that will determine whether Republicans retain control of the House.

The result of Tuesday’s election in New Jersey’s Seventh Congressional District may say a lot about how Mr. Kean, 56, has campaigned in the race, where recent polls have prompted Democrats to mount a last-minute push in hopes of flipping the seat.

But it also may offer insight into the direction of New Jersey and of suburban swing districts like the Seventh, an affluent and well-educated region split nearly evenly between Republicans and Democrats. President Biden beat Donald J. Trump there by four points in 2020, but two years later Mr. Kean beat the Democratic incumbent, Tom Malinowski, by about three points.

Ben Dworkin, director of Rowan University’s Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship, said he saw the election mainly as a referendum on the hold that Mr. Trump has on the moderate wing of the Republican Party.

“If Democrats are able to win in NJ-7,” Professor Dworkin said, “then it will really show the negative impact that Donald Trump had on Republican candidates down ballot.”

Republican PACs have poured millions of dollars into the race. Voters in some parts of the North Jersey district, which stretches from the state’s border with Pennsylvania through quaint towns filled with horse farms to the eastern cities of Rahway and Linden, say their mailboxes fill regularly with Kean campaign literature.

According to polls, Mr. Kean is ahead by about two points against Ms. Altman, a former teacher and professional basketball player who until last year ran the Working Families alliance, a left-leaning political organizing group.

The campaign arm of House Democrats committed to spending about $4 million just last week — its first financial commitment in the race — after surveys showed that the contest was narrowing. Democratic Party luminaries like Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a leader of the congressional progressive PAC, and Bill Bradley, a former U.S. senator and New York Knicks star, have joined Ms. Altman, 42, on the campaign trail.

At a candidate forum last week, the race’s high stakes and the potency of abortion rights as a political issue were on display.

Mr. Kean described Ms. Altman’s support for abortion access as “abortion on demand,” the same terminology he used two years ago in his successful campaign against Mr. Malinowski.

Ms. Altman supports abortion access and a New Jersey law that codified the right to the procedure throughout a pregnancy.

Mr. Kean, who has endorsed Mr. Trump, describes himself as “pro-choice” and said he would oppose a national ban on abortion. But he has also said that abortion policy was “best handled at the state level” when asked about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which ended a constitutional right to abortion.

During the forum, Mr. Kean, who opposed funding for Planned Parenthood while in the State Legislature, twice referred to doctors who “commit abortion.” When asked about the phrasing, which could be interpreted as condemning doctors who perform abortions, he said he had misspoken.

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in New Jersey by 917,000 voters.

But that is not the case in the Seventh Congressional District, where the G.O.P. has more support and people who are not registered with either major party represent the largest bloc of voters. The district is filled with fiscally conservative residents who also support moderate social policies and who helped to propel Republicans like Mr. Christie; Mr. Kean’s father, Gov. Thomas Kean Sr.; and Christine Todd Whitman to the state’s highest office.

A Monmouth University poll that put Mr. Kean ahead by two percentage points also found that more voters trusted him to handle issues related to the economy and crime. That edge was dwarfed, however, by Ms. Altman’s advantage when voters were asked about abortion and reproductive health policy.

Mr. Kean and his campaign have emphasized the brand of liberal politics that Ms. Altman stood for while leading Working Families, one of the state’s most progressive organizations. He has also highlighted a comment she made in 2020 on social media that referred to “those of us working on #DefundThePolice in Jersey.”

She has apologized for that sentiment and disavowed it, saying she has since gained a better understanding of policing from officers and family members who worked for police agencies.

But it is an issue that has resonated. At a town-hall meeting Ms. Altman held in Phillipsburg, on the state’s western flank, a member of the audience, Vinny Panico, challenged her position on policing.

“We have people breaking into houses, rummaging through people’s personal belongings to find their car keys to steal their cars,” Mr. Panico, 33, a Republican, said in a subsequent interview, referring to a yearslong uptick in car thefts. “Our police departments, and our men and women in blue, and our justice system, need support.”

Like Mr. Kean, Ms. Altman has worked to appeal to centrist voters, or, as she describes them, “moderate people who are witnessing their beloved Republican Party dwindling down to this extremist morass.”

She grew up in the district, regularly mentions that her parents are Republicans, and in stump speeches stresses her background as an “anti-corruption advocate” with a record of opposing Democratic as well as Republican leaders.

Both candidates are highly educated and each has raised more than $5 million in campaign contributions. Ms. Altman has two master’s degrees from Oxford; Mr. Kean has a master’s from Tufts and completed his doctoral studies there.

But the comparisons end there.

Mr. Kean is an awkward public speaker, holds few events open broadly to the public and avoids most media requests for interviews.

Ms. Altman’s energy and candor are among the first things people note after listening to her speak.

“To me, she’s like a breath of fresh air,” Melissa Lipman, 78, a Democrat, said after an event last week.