The Eighth Ward’s City Council seat has been vacant since February, when Councilmember Trayon White was expelled after his arrest on federal corruption charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Now, voters in southeast Washington will choose between four Democrats vying to represent them—including Mr. White himself. More
The Democratic primary to fill the seat vacated by the death of Representative Raúl M. Grijalva in Arizona’s deep blue Seventh Congressional District in Tucson will be a contest between legacy and change. Mr. Grijalva’s daughter Adelita is the favorite and has the backing of progressive groups, as well as institutional Democrats. But her opponents […] More
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee in the race for mayor of New York City, moved to distance himself from comments that sparked outrage during the primary.Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, told an influential group of business leaders on Tuesday that he would not use the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been seen as a call to violence against Jews, and would “discourage” others from doing so, according to three people familiar with his comments.The phrase has been a rallying cry among opponents of the war in Gaza, and Mr. Mamdani, an ardent critic of Israel’s military operations, had refused to condemn its use during the Democratic primary race that he won in June.His comments came in a closed-door meeting with roughly 150 business executives at the offices of Tishman Speyer in Rockefeller Center. It was hosted by the Partnership for New York City, a consortium of members representing banks, law firms and corporations.Mr. Mamdani told the group that while many people used the term to express solidarity with Palestinians, some New Yorkers viewed it as a reference to violence against Israel, according to one of the people who were familiar with his comments.Just two weeks ago, shortly after his primary victory, Mr. Mamdani said in an interview on “Meet the Press” that the term was “not language that I use” but that “I don’t believe that the role of the mayor is to police speech.”Mr. Mamdani’s shifting language comes as his campaign moves from his stunning victory in the June primary to the general election in November, when he faces a fractured field of competitors including Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who are running as independents, and the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
Two groups must be especially thrilled by the prospect of Zohran Mamdani becoming New York’s next mayor.The first: young, progressive-leaning voters who gave the charismatic 33-year-old State Assembly member his come-out-of-nowhere victory in last month’s Democratic primary. They want what he wants: rent freezes, free public buses, city-owned grocery stores, tax hikes for corporations and millionaires, curbs on the police, a near doubling of the minimum wage to $30 an hour and the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu.The second: Republicans who want to make sure that Democrats remain the perfect opposition party — far-left, incompetent, divided, distrusted and, on a national level, unelectable. Remember when Ronald Reagan ran against the “San Francisco Democrats” in 1984 and carried 49 states? Get ready for the G.O.P. to run against “Mamdani Democrats” for several election cycles to come.That’s a thought that ought to give moderate Democrats pause before they accept Mamdani’s mayoralty as a political fait accompli, or even think of getting behind him. Among the reasons the Democratic Party’s brand has become toxic in recent years is progressive misgovernance in places like Los Angeles; San Francisco; Oakland, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Chicago. If Mamdani governs on the promises on which he’s campaigned, he’ll bring the same toxicity to America’s biggest city.How so?Some of Mamdani’s proposals, like the city-owned groceries, are almost too foolish to mention: Public grocery stores struggle to stock their shelves, can’t compete with private groceries, lack economies of scale and have a recent record of failure in the United States. Other ideas, like free buses, would merely exacerbate the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s shaky finances, which is one reason Kathy Hochul, New York’s Democratic governor, didn’t renew a free bus ride pilot program last year.Turns out, socialism works no better in Brooklyn than it does in Havana.But those ideas won’t be as destructive as Mamdani’s other brainstorms. “Freeze the rent,” his popular campaign slogan, applies only to rent-stabilized apartments, which account for about half of the city’s rental units. But a rent freeze would have precisely the same effects in New York as it has everywhere else: Particularly in a time of inflation, it would lead landlords to cut costs on maintenance, jack up prices on non-stabilized units, convert rental buildings to condos or co-ops and stop new developments that would require affordable housing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
Mr. Cuomo, the former governor of New York, has vowed to run a more energetic campaign than he did in the mayoral primary, and aimed to demonstrate that on Tuesday.There were stops at a pizzeria in Queens, a coffee shop in Harlem and a few places in the Bronx. The childhood home got a visit. Hands were shaken; smiles were exchanged.Tuesday was Day 1 of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s reimagined and reinvigorated campaign to become mayor of New York City, a corrective bid to what even his allies conceded had been a lackluster effort to win over voters.The appearances reflected the first faint signs of a different sort of Cuomo campaign taking shape — one that seemed inspired in part by the go-anywhere, talk-to-anyone strategy successfully deployed by Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and state assemblyman who captured the Democratic primary.But in Mr. Cuomo’s hands, the shift in approach served a very particular mission: portray Mr. Mamdani as a socialist enemy of New York City, and convey Mr. Cuomo’s regret for neither effectively nor energetically delivering that message during the campaign.Sitting across from his daughter Mariah at Gaby’s Pizza in Queens, Mr. Cuomo took responsibility for his lackluster primary campaign, saying, “I did not communicate my vision effectively.”“There was this ‘play it safe, make no mistakes’ attitude,” he added, as a fleet of campaign videographers recorded his every move. “That was not who I am. It’s not what New Yorkers expected from a campaign.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, told Texas Democrats on a call on Tuesday that the moment required everyone to take extraordinary actions.National Democratic leaders are encouraging state Democrats in the Texas House to consider walking out of a special legislative session this month to block Republicans from redrawing the state’s congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.At the same time, President Trump held his own call on Tuesday with congressional Republicans in the state, urging them to carve out five new G.O.P. seats from those held by Democrats, according to a person briefed on that call, which was first reported by Punchbowl News.“Just spoke to our Great Congressmen and women of Texas,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. He added, “I keep hearing about Texas ‘going Blue,’ but it is just another Democrat LIE.”The redistricting of House seats is supposed to come at the beginning of each decade, after new census data shifts populations and changes the number of seats granted to each state. Reapportionment in the middle of the decade is rare and almost always contentious, since it is driven by political considerations, not demographic shifts. In this case, Mr. Trump is openly trying to use new maps to stave off midterm Democratic gains that would potentially cost his party control of the narrowly divided House.“It is important that we fight back,” said U.S. Representative Lizzie Fletcher, a Democrat whose Houston district could be affected. “What is happening is absolutely an unacceptable betrayal of Texans.”During the Democratic call on Monday evening, which lasted for more than two hours, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, and the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, spoke with about 40 Democrats in the Texas House.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
Administration officials have already begun the process of transferring certain functions to other agencies.The Trump administration on Tuesday announced plans to shift key functions from the Education Department to other corners of the federal government, moving quickly to implement changes just one day after the Supreme Court cleared the way for mass layoffs.The department’s main purpose has been to distribute money to college students through grants and loans, to send federal money to K-12 schools, particularly for low-income and disabled students, and to enforce anti-discrimination laws. But soon after President Trump’s return to the White House, he signed an executive order aimed at dismantling the Education Department.The order acknowledges that the department cannot be shuttered without approval from Congress. Still, Mr. Trump’s education secretary, Linda McMahon, has been focused on what she has called the department’s “final mission.” So far, at least 1,300 workers have been fired, an effective gutting of the agency, while more than 500 accepted the administration’s offer of early retirement. Ms. McMahon has said that there will be additional job cuts.Ms. McMahon told Fox News in an interview on Tuesday that one of her immediate goals was to “transfer different jobs that are being done at the Department of Education” to other agencies.Here is what we know about the next phase of the Trump administration’s effort to reshape and reduce the federal government’s role in education.Key training programs are outsourced to the Labor Department.Under the changes announced on Tuesday, the Labor Department will assume a larger role in administering adult education, family literacy programs and career and technical education. The Education Department will send $2.6 billion to the Labor Department to cover the cost of the programs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
The New York City Campaign Finance Board rejected Mayor Eric Adams’s request for millions of dollars from the city’s generous matching-funds program.Mayor Eric Adams of New York City was again denied public matching funds for his re-election campaign after a panel said on Tuesday that he had once again failed to provide requested information regarding his campaign’s fund-raising efforts, including interactions with Turkish business interests.The New York City Campaign Finance Board initially denied Mr. Adams’s request for public funds following his indictment on corruption-related charges last year, blocking him from the city’s generous program that gives qualifying candidates an eight-for-one match of small-dollar donations.In May, Mr. Adams sued the board in an effort to overturn the ruling, arguing that the decision to withhold $3.4 million was based on an indictment that had been dropped by the Justice Department. The mayor’s lawsuit was dismissed last week, with a federal judge in Brooklyn, Nicholas G. Garaufis, noting that Mr. Adams had been late to provide information regarding conflicts of interest and that more information was still outstanding.In its denial on Tuesday, the Campaign Finance Board said that the mayor’s team still had not provided the necessary documents, some of which were requested in November. The board’s chairman, Frederick P. Schaffer, said that Mr. Adams’s campaign had requested an extension until Aug. 1.A spokesman for Mr. Adams’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.The board’s denial comes as its investigation into the Adams campaign’s financing practices appears to be expanding, with its lawyers indicating in court filings that the board had requested more information from the campaign to explain potential improper behavior. Some of the requested correspondence is connected to an Uzbek businessman, according to court documents.The board’s decision is yet another blow to the mayor’s effort to defeat the Democratic nominee, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who won a decisive victory in last month’s primary, handily outpacing his closest rival, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, by 12 points.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
