Elections

The president’s aides quickly jumped on a statement by Donald Trump that he was “seriously looking at alternatives” to the health law.Very few events bring aides on President Biden’s re-election campaign more joy than when former President Donald J. Trump threatens to repeal popular Democratic policies.So when Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, wrote on social media over the holiday weekend that he was “seriously looking at alternatives” to the 13-year-old Affordable Care Act, and that his fellow Republicans should “never give up” seeking its repeal, Mr. Biden’s campaign was happy to cede its programming decisions to Mr. Trump.The president’s campaign altered its previous plans and instead will spend much of this week amplifying Mr. Trump’s threat, which was less a substantive policy proposal he had considered thoughtfully than it was a reaction to an editorial he had read in The Wall Street Journal.Still, Mr. Biden’s aides intend to once again push to make Mr. Trump and his proposals the news. That strategy has become a key cog for the campaign, as Mr. Biden struggles with low approval ratings and increasingly focuses on foreign policy rather than his re-election bid. The campaign will air TV ads this week in Las Vegas and on national cable that contrast legislation passed by Mr. Biden that lowered prices on some prescription drugs with Mr. Trump’s proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act, said Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director.The president himself weighed in on Monday.“My predecessor once again called for cuts that could rip away health insurance for tens of millions of Americans,” Mr. Biden said. “They just don’t give up.”Mr. Biden’s campaign is in the process of arranging surrogates for the 2024 race — particularly in North Carolina, a presidential battleground that on Friday will become the 40th state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, a Democrat, is expected to be a key Biden surrogate promoting the health care law, which is widely known as Obamacare. Mr. Cooper signed his state’s Medicaid expansion bill in March after it was passed by the Republican-controlled legislature. Mr. Cooper and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the former House speaker, are scheduled to hold a press call for the Biden campaign on Tuesday.“Donald Trump and G.O.P. extremists continue to try and rip away health care from millions of Americans without any serious alternative,” Mr. Cooper said on Monday. “If this country lets Donald Trump anywhere near decision making on health care, it would be a disaster for millions of people.”Mr. Trump’s social media post surprised even his own aides, who have not developed a plan to alter the country’s health care law, according to a person close to him.A spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.Republicans successfully ran against the health law in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections, and Mr. Trump used his call for “a full repeal” as an applause line at campaign rallies in 2016, even though he also said “everybody’s got to be covered” by health insurance. But Republicans have not made a serious effort at rescinding the health care law since Senator John McCain of Arizona cast the deciding vote against G.O.P. legislation to repeal the law in July 2017.In his social media post, Mr. Trump called that moment “a low point for the Republican Party.”Mr. Tyler said, “We’ve got Donald Trump every single day providing the American people a window into how harmful he would be if he were able to regain power.” He added, “He is making this easy for us.”The Biden campaign referred reporters to surveys illustrating the popularity of key elements of the health care law. Polling from KFF, the health care policy organization, found that as of May, 59 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of Obamacare, up from 43 percent at the end of President Barack Obama’s term in office. Democrats in 2018 won sweeping victories by campaigning against Republican efforts to upend the health care law.Republicans remain broadly opposed to the law. KFF’s polling found that 73 percent held an unfavorable view of it in May.The Biden administration said in January that 16.3 million Americans had enrolled in health insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces during the open enrollment period, more than had ever signed up before.Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services said that 4.6 million people had selected an Affordable Care Act plan in the first three weeks of the new open enrollment period, which began Nov. 1 and runs through January.Ruth Igielnik More

The former president’s chief rivals are running low on time to make a statement in Iowa’s caucuses, which could determine whether the Republicans’ nominating contest is seriously contested at all.Negative mailers are overstuffing Iowa mailboxes. Attack ads are cluttering the airwaves. And door knockers are fanning out from Des Moines to Dubuque and everywhere in between.The Iowa caucuses, the first contest in the Republican nominating calendar, are poised to play an especially consequential role in 2024. But with only 49 days to go, Donald J. Trump’s top rivals are running out of time to catch him as Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley thrash each other in the final sprint to the starting line.Far ahead in national polls, Mr. Trump is aiming for an emphatic victory on Jan. 15 in Iowa that could serve as an early knockout punch. He leads in public surveys in the state by a margin twice as large as the most competitive contest in the last 50 years.Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, is betting on Iowa to pierce Mr. Trump’s growing aura of inevitability — and to reassert himself as the main rival to short-circuit Mr. Trump’s third run for president. Mr. DeSantis, who won the backing of the state’s popular Republican governor, has been barnstorming across all of Iowa’s 99 counties, bolstered by an army of door knockers paid for by his related super PAC.On Saturday, Mr. DeSantis will visit his final county with an event in Newton held at the Thunderdome, a venue whose name appropriately captures the increasing acrimony and intensity of the race in the state. Mr. Trump will be in Cedar Rapids that same day.For much of the year, the DeSantis team had insisted the 2024 primary was a two-man race. But Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, has ridden the momentum of her debate performances to transform it into a two-man-plus-one-woman contest.“The more people see of Nikki Haley the more they like her,” said Betsy Ankney, Ms. Haley’s campaign manager. “The more they see Ron DeSantis, the less they like him.”Now Ms. Haley, who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Underestimate me — that’ll be fun” to the Iowa State Fair, is seeking to snuff out Mr. DeSantis at the very start. If she can best Mr. DeSantis in Iowa, his strongest early state, her team believes Ms. Haley would be positioned to emerge as the singular Trump alternative when the calendar turns to two friendlier terrains — New Hampshire, where she has polled in second place, and her home state, South Carolina, where she served as governor.Revealingly, Ms. Haley’s allied super PAC has spent $3.5 million on ads and other expenditures attacking Mr. DeSantis in the last two months in Iowa and New Hampshire, according to federal records, but not a dollar explicitly opposing Mr. Trump despite his dominant overall lead.“Nikki Haley and her donors are greedily wasting millions of dollars targeting Ron DeSantis in Iowa,” said David Polyansky, deputy campaign manager for Mr. DeSantis, who called that spending a political gift to Mr. Trump because the likeliest second choice of DeSantis supporters is not Ms. Haley but the former president.Nikki Haley has ridden the momentum of her debate performances to transform the primary contest.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Trump’s team has gleefully greeted the battling. James Blair, national field director for Mr. Trump, said Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis were “trying to bludgeon themselves for the title of first loser.”“The biggest win in Iowa ever is 12 points so anything above that is setting a record,” Mr. Blair added, arguing that even an upset in Iowa would only prove a blip given the former president’s superior organization across the rest of the states on the calendar.Iowa always plays a critical role in narrowing a presidential primary field but this year it could determine whether there is much of a contest at all. The Trump campaign has told supporters that it has booked its first significant television ads to begin in Iowa on Dec. 1, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur, has pledged to also spend millions in the final weeks even as his standing has slid since the summer.“Almost everybody is pushing the chips into the middle of the table in Iowa,” said David Kochel, a Republican strategist with years of experience in the state. Only Chris Christie is bypassing Iowa, hoping a muddled result could allow him to break through in New Hampshire.As the candidates vie for votes, their strategists and spinmeisters are seeking any possible advantage in the unseen but critical contest of expectations-setting. Those who surprise or surpass where they are expected to finish typically emerge with the most momentum — and money.“If he doesn’t win Iowa, Ron DeSantis has no rationale to move on,” said Ms. Ankney, Ms. Haley’s campaign manager.Mr. DeSantis’s support has mostly collapsed in New Hampshire, where one recent poll showed him in fifth place. The state’s voters are typically more moderate than Iowa’s and the lack of a serious Democratic primary means independents could flood the contest, which could help Ms. Haley or Mr. Christie.The Haley campaign has announced plans to spend $10 million on television, radio and digital ads in Iowa and New Hampshire (about $4.25 million has actually been reserved on television so far). The DeSantis campaign has announced plans to spend $2 million on Iowa television ads.On the trail, Mr. DeSantis has been saying in increasingly blunt terms that Mr. Trump would lose a rematch against President Biden. But the energy behind that argument has diminished both because Mr. Biden has slipped in the polls and because Ms. Haley has tended to fare even better than either Mr. Trump or Mr. DeSantis in such a hypothetical matchup. In some cases, Mr. DeSantis has fared worse than Mr. Trump, too.The DeSantis super PAC has spent 10 times more money criticizing Ms. Haley in ads and other expenditures than against Mr. Trump, records show. But in private, Mr. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, have expressed disapproval of those ads, according to two people familiar with their remarks. Several DeSantis allies recently created a new entity to explore fresh avenues of attack on Ms. Haley but the decision has caused more turmoil on the team, with the chief executive abruptly resigning last week.In Iowa and beyond, Mr. Trump’s team has almost exclusively focused on Mr. DeSantis, whom Mr. Trump has treated as his only serious challenger throughout 2023. Mr. Blair said it was notable how much the DeSantis operation was spending attacking Ms. Haley rather than “trying to grow Ron’s image or hurt the president — because they’ve given up on those things.”“They’re just trying to stop Nikki Haley from coming in second,” Mr. Blair added.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is betting on Iowa to pierce Mr. Trump’s growing aura of inevitability.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesThere are two debates planned before the Iowa caucuses that could still jostle the dynamics. Only the first, on Dec. 6 in Alabama, has been announced; the second is planned for January in Iowa. Mr. Trump has said he won’t participate in any debates and his team has tried to pressure the Republican National Committee to cancel the rest.The other wild card is the much-discussed door-knocking operation of Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC that said it had 26 paid political staff members in the state and thousands of volunteers. The group says it has knocked on almost 677,000 doors to date — including three times on every targeted home.Jeff Roe, the chief strategist for Never Back Down, has told people that he believes the group’s door-knocking push could be worth as much as 10 percentage points on caucus day, according to a person who has heard the pitch.Caucuses, which occur at 7 p.m. on a typically frigid Monday evening, are far more involved than regular elections and tend to benefit the most organized candidates. But some are skeptical that organizing could give such a large lift.“DeSantis seems to have the best groundwork going out here but it’s nothing compared to what people in the past have had,” said Andy Cable, a longtime Republican activist in Hardin County, which is north of Des Moines. “Trump doesn’t need the groundwork. His people will just show up. Nikki has come on late but I’m not sure she has the actual organization on the ground to actually do it.”Trump campaign officials say their operation has already amassed 50,000 signed cards committing to caucus for him, and 1,800 “caucus captains” for the more than 1,600 precincts. The DeSantis campaign said it had more than 30,000 people who had committed to caucus for him. The Haley campaign declined to provide any such data points.For Mr. DeSantis, the endorsement of Kim Reynolds, the state’s Republican governor, has given him a jolt of energy and she plans to campaign heavily for him through the caucuses, including next Saturday in Newton, Iowa.A television ad featuring Ms. Reynolds is already running. “He gets things done,” she says in the spot.Mr. DeSantis has also won the backing of Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in the state who has endorsed the last three Iowa caucus winners in contested races — Ted Cruz in 2016, Rick Santorum in 2012 and Mike Huckabee in 2008, all of whom lost the eventual nomination.White evangelical voters are seen as crucial to any potential DeSantis breakthrough, and the Trump campaign has sought to organize support among church leaders, announcing that their total faith leader endorsements topped 150 on the same afternoon that Mr. Vander Plaats made his announcement.Judging from campaign stops, Mr. DeSantis’s 99-county tour does appear to have created some momentum in Iowa. He regularly draws crowds of 50 to 100 people to small-town events at pizza shops, coffee houses and family farms, taking questions and posing for photos.“I’ve been a Trump man all along, but I liked what DeSantis had to say,” said Ev Cherrington, 86, who heard Mr. DeSantis speak at a barbecue restaurant in Ames, Iowa, this month and said he was now considering backing him, largely because of the laundry list of policy ideas that Mr. DeSantis had recited.But outside of the bubble of Mr. DeSantis’s bus tour, a different reality sets in. As Mr. DeSantis visited his 98th Iowa county a week ago after holding around 10 small public events over three days, Mr. Trump appeared at a rally in a high school gym in Fort Dodge, Iowa. He drew roughly 2,000 people, according to The Associated Press — more than all of Mr. DeSantis’s events combined.Nicholas Nehamas More

Almost all the polling shows the same pattern. Could the coming campaign restore Democrats’ usual advantage?A solid youth vote edge could be in doubt for Democrats in 2024. Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York TimesCould President Biden and Donald J. Trump really be locked in a close race among young voters — a group Democrats typically carry by double digits — as the recent Times/Siena polls suggest?To many of our readers and others, it’s a little hard to believe — so hard to believe that it seems to them the polls are flat-out wrong.Of course, it’s always possible that the polls are wrong. I’ve thought our own polling might be wrong before, and I would be very apprehensive if it were just our poll out on a limb. But this isn’t about one Times/Siena poll: Virtually every poll shows a close race between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump among young voters.When dozens of polls all say the same thing, it’s worth taking the polling seriously. It’s easy to remember that the polling can be wrong, but it can be easy to forget that the polling is usually in the ballpark. It’s a losing game to dismiss all polling simply because it doesn’t comport with expectations.Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with those who question whether the final election results will look like recent polls. Personally, I’m skeptical the final results will look quite like these polls. But even if you think the final results will be very different, it does not mean that the polls are “wrong” today.In fact, the belief that Mr. Biden will ultimately win young voters handily next year does nothing to distinguish two very different explanations for what we see in the polling:The polls are mostly wrong. They’re biased. For whatever reason, they fail to reach the Democratic-leaning young voters who propelled Mr. Biden to victory in 2020.The polls are mostly right. They’re reaching the young voters who backed Mr. Biden. But for now, these voters don’t support him. Over the next year, things could change.When it comes to the Times/Siena poll, we’ve put forward a lot of evidence consistent with the theory that the polling is mostly right, but that things might change.By the measures at our disposal, the voters 18 to 29 in our survey “look” right. They say they backed Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump in the last presidential election by a wide margin, 57-35, right in line with our expectations. They “look” right by other measures of partisanship as well. In the states with party registration, for instance, the Times/Siena young voters were registered Democrats by a 13-point margin, 35 percent to 22 percent. That’s almost exactly in line with their actual 13-point registration advantage, 36 percent to 23 percent.It’s important to emphasize that just because the polls “look” right doesn’t mean they are right. Our polls looked “right” by these kind of indicators in 2020. They were still wrong in important ways (though they were right about plenty as well, including racial and generational depolarization). But these data points nonetheless raise the burden on those who assert that the issue is partisan nonresponse bias, in which young Democrats simply aren’t answering their cellphones (99.8 percent of our young respondents were reached by cellphone).We see no evidence of that. In our polling, the problem for Mr. Biden isn’t too few young Democrats. It’s that many young Democrats don’t like him. Mr. Biden has just a 76-20 lead among young voters either registered as Democrats or who have previously voted in a Democratic primary. It’s just a 69-24 lead among young nonwhite Democrats. The dissent exists among self-identified Democrats, Democratic-leaners, Biden ’20 voters, and so on.This kind of intraparty dissent is rare but not without precedent in our polling. I’ve seen it in our congressional polls of highly educated suburbs full of Romney-Clinton voters. And I’ve seen it once before in a statewide presidential race: our final polls in 2016, when Mr. Trump suddenly surged to obtain 30 percent of white working-class registered Democrats. It was hard to believe, but it was fairly easy to explain and it raised the serious possibility of a Trump win.Similarly, I think it’s fairly straightforward to explain Mr. Biden’s weakness among young voters today, much as it was easy to explain Mrs. Clinton’s among white working-class voters in 2016. Young voters are by far the likeliest to say he’s just too old to be an effective president. Many are upset about his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. And all of this is against the backdrop of Mr. Biden’s longstanding weakness among young voters, who weren’t enthusiastic about him in 2020, and Mr. Trump’s gains among nonwhite voters, who are disproportionately young.But even if you don’t buy these explanations, that’s mostly just a reason to believe the numbers will shift over the next year, not a reason to dismiss the polling.After all, these polls do not depict the usual, stable basis for vote choice that we’ve become accustomed to in our polarized country. This is not an election where almost all voters like their own party’s candidate while disliking the opposing party’s candidate and disagreeing with them on the issues. Instead, we have an unstable arrangement: Millions of voters dislike both candidates, entertain minor-party candidates and when pressed often say they would vote for someone from the other major political party whom they disagree with on many important issues. These are the textbook conditions for volatility, and it’s entirely reasonable to doubt whether the arrangement will last once the campaign gets underway.We tried to illustrate the abstract possibility that “things can change” more concretely through an article in which we called back the Kamala-not-Joe voters — the young voters who back Vice President Kamala Harris over Mr. Trump but not Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump. It’s worth noting that these are the kinds of voters we would expect to find in the data if Mr. Biden really were performing this badly among an otherwise typical sample of young voters — much as the 2016 polling featured plenty of white working-class Trump voters who approved of Barack Obama and who said they voted for him in 2012.There’s one other way the results might end up “normal,” even with today’s polling: a low youth turnout. Almost all of the polls nowadays are among registered voters, not likely voters, and most of Mr. Biden’s weakness is among disengaged voters on the periphery of the electorate. In the latest Times/Siena polling, Mr. Biden leads by 15 points among young voters who turned out in the midterms, while he trails by three points among young voters who didn’t turn out. If these irregular, disaffected voters simply choose not to vote, Mr. Biden will most likely have a healthy lead with young voters.There are countless other reasons the polls today may not ultimately align with the final result. For one, Mr. Trump could be convicted of federal crimes in six months. But just because the polls aren’t necessarily “predictive” of the final outcome does not mean they’re wrong. It doesn’t mean they’re not worth taking seriously, either. For the campaigns, taking the numbers seriously today may wind up being exactly what changes the numbers tomorrow. More

I study government bureaucracies. This is not normally a key political issue. Right now, it is, and everyone should be paying attention.Donald Trump, the former president and current candidate, puts it in apocalyptic terms: “Either the deep state destroys America or we destroy the deep state.” This is not an empty threat. He has a real and plausible plan to utterly transform American government. It will undermine the quality of that government and it will threaten our democracy.A second Trump administration would be very different from the first. Mr. Trump’s blueprint for amassing power has been developed by a constellation of conservative organizations that surround him, led by the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025. This plan would elevate personal fealty to Mr. Trump as the central value in government employment, processes and institutions.It has three major parts.The first is to put Trump loyalists into appointment positions. Mr. Trump believed that “the resistance” to his presidency included his own appointees. Unlike in 2016, he now has a deep bench of loyalists. The Heritage Foundation and dozens of other Trump-aligned organizations are screening candidates to create 20,000 potential MAGA appointees. They will be placed in every agency across government, including the agencies responsible for protecting the environment, regulating workplace safety, collecting taxes, determining immigration policy, maintaining safety net programs, representing American interests overseas and ensuring the impartial rule of law.These are not conservatives reluctantly serving Mr. Trump out of a sense of patriotic duty, but those enthusiastic about helping a twice-impeached president who tried to overturn the results of an election. An influx of appointees like this would come at a cost to the rest of us. Political science research that examines the effects of politicization on federal agencies shows that political appointees, especially inexperienced ones, are associated with lower performance in government and less responsiveness to the public and to Congress.The second part of the Trump plan is to terrify career civil servants into submission. To do so, he would reimpose an executive order that he signed but never implemented at the end of his first administration. The Schedule F order would allow him to convert many of these officials into political appointees.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

En caso de que Putin se postule, hay pocas dudas sobre el resultado. Sin embargo, los comicios de marzo tienen una mayor importancia debido a las incertidumbres de la guerra.La semana pasada, cuando le preguntaron qué tipo de líder debería remplazar al presidente ruso Vladimir Putin, su portavoz de mucho tiempo dio una respuesta rápida y sencilla: “El mismo”.“O diferente, pero el mismo”, le respondió el portavoz, Dmitry Peskov, a una red de televisión rusa, a lo que añadió que estaba seguro de que, si Putin se postula, ganará las elecciones “sin duda” y seguirá siendo “nuestro presidente”.Pocos dudan que Putin se postulará para ganar otro periodo presidencial en las elecciones programadas para marzo. La expectativa generalizada es que haga el anuncio oficial de su candidatura el mes próximo.También hay pocas dudas acerca del resultado de esas elecciones; en el autoritario sistema político de Rusia, siempre se han reportado las victorias de Putin como aplastantes. Ha estado al frente de Rusia, bien sea como presidente o primer ministro, desde 1999.Sin embargo, las próximas elecciones presidenciales son más significativas; se trata de las primeras que se celebrarán después de la invasión rusa a gran escala en Ucrania en febrero de 2022, la decisión más relevante de Putin desde que cruzó por primera vez los muros del Kremlin como dirigente del país hace dos décadas.Además, las elecciones influyen de manera directa en la estrategia de guerra de Putin para 2024; en concreto, si ordenará o no una nueva movilización de soldados, lo que podría ser una medida impopular en el país, después de ganar su quinto mandato como líder de Rusia.“La guerra y la movilización son cada vez menos populares”, afirmó Andrei Pertsev, analista de política rusa para Meduza, sitio web de noticias rusas con oficinas en Riga, Letonia. “Hacen que la gente se sienta ansiosa”.Los críticos cuestionan el propósito de unas elecciones presidenciales en un país en guerra donde la mayoría de los líderes de oposición están encarcelados o han sido forzados a huir al exilio, y la maquinaria electoral controlada por el Kremlin determina quién puede postularse y quién no, además, la mayoría de los medios noticiosos populares solo alaban a quien está en el poder.Reclutas en la Catedral Principal de las Fuerzas Armadas Rusas, dedicada a “las hazañas militares del pueblo ruso”.Nanna Heitmann para The New York TimesGrigorii Golosov, profesor de ciencias políticas en la Universidad Europea en San Petersburgo, Rusia, indicó que Putin quiere asegurarse de que nadie pueda poner en duda su legitimidad al mando del Estado ruso, sobre todo distintos grupos dentro de la clase gobernante del país.“Tanto la población en general como la clase gobernante rusa están conscientes de que no ha existido ninguna rivalidad política real en Rusia desde hace muchos años”, explicó. “Pero no hay una gran diferencia entre la legitimidad real y su imitación”.Golosov señaló que incluso la apariencia de legitimidad electoral ayudaría a Putin a superar una crisis nacional, si acaso ocurriera, y citó como posible ejemplo la rebelión fallida en junio de Yevgeny Prigozhin, jefe de un grupo de mercenarios.“Situaciones similares podrían presentarse en el futuro”, aseveró Golosov.Serán las primeras elecciones que se celebren tras la actualización hecha a la Constitución de Rusia que, de hecho, le permite a Putin competir por quinta vez porque puede argumentar que se reinició el conteo para el límite de su mandato.Se espera que muchos otros candidatos participen en la contienda, incluidos representantes de dos partidos políticos (el Partido Comunista y el Partido Liberal-Demócrata de tendencia nacionalista) que han sido rivales estratégicos convenientes durante las campañas previas de Putin. Como ocurrió durante las dos elecciones previas, es posible que el Kremlin también le permita participar a un candidato liberal, aunque algunos expertos opinan que todavía no hay nada seguro porque lo más probable es que un candidato de esa ideología adopte una postura de campaña contra la guerra en Ucrania.Por ejemplo, Boris Nadezhdin, uno de los pocos políticos rusos que ha anunciado su intención de postularse, calificó la guerra —u operación militar especial, como la llamó— un “error fatal” de Putin y declaró que ponerle fin sería su prioridad número 1.Boris Nadezhdin, a la derecha, en Moscú en 2011. Es uno de los pocos políticos rusos que ha anunciado su intención de postularse a las elecciones presidenciales de marzo.Sergey Ponomarev/Associated Press“Putin está arrastrando a Rusia al pasado”, dijo Nadezhdin en una entrevista con Zhivoy Gvozd, un medio de noticias ruso en YouTube, este mes. “El principal problema es que Putin está destruyendo las instituciones clave de un Estado moderno”.Para poder registrarse formalmente como candidato, Nadezhdin necesitaría recolectar 100.000 firmas de todo el país. La Comisión Electoral Central tendría que examinarlos, un proceso que, según los analistas, le permite al Kremlin filtrar a contendientes no deseados.“Creo que la probabilidad de que logre registrarse es prácticamente ínfima”, dijo Golosov, el analista político.En el extremo opuesto del espectro político, Igor Girkin anunció su intención de postularse y unir a todas las fuerzas pro guerra bajo su bandera. Girkin, también conocido bajo su nombre de guerra Strelkov, avivó el nacionalismo ruso como señor de la guerra y bloguero militar en Ucrania, pero también criticó ocasionalmente al Kremlin.Girkin está en prisión acusado de extremismo por criticar la forma en que Putin desplegó la guerra, diciendo que el líder ruso fue “demasiado amable” con sus adversarios.Es poco probable que tanto a Nadezhdin como a Girkin se les permita unirse a la contienda presidencial.Igor Girkin, encarcelado por cargos de extremismo, anunció su intención de postularse y unir bajo su bandera a todas las fuerzas pro guerra.Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated PressNo obstante, las elecciones podrían darle problemas al Kremlin, según algunos expertos. Aunque los resultados son inevitables, las elecciones in Rusia en algunas ocasiones han representado un punto de inflexión significativo cuando el sistema político ha estado más vulnerable que de costumbre. A finales de 2011, por ejemplo, decenas de miles de rusos abarrotaron las plazas centrales de Moscú y otras grandes ciudades rusas en protesta de unas elecciones parlamentarias que consideraron amañadas.Este año, la guerra en Ucrania le suma un nuevo elemento de incertidumbre, en opinión de varios analistas. Si bien Rusia ha podido contener la contraofensiva ucraniana y está organizando sus propios ataques, está sacrificando a decenas de miles de soldados sin conseguir ningún logro significativo ni obligar a Kiev a negociar.Y en tanto se prolongue la guerra, los rusos seguirán ansiosos ante la posibilidad de que sea necesaria otra ronda de movilización de hombres para combatir. El Kremlin ordenó un reclutamiento en el otoño de 2022, pero no ha anunciado ningún otro, pues le preocupa que la respuesta sea negativa a nivel nacional. Esperar hasta que pasen las elecciones eliminaría al menos parte del riesgo político.Una encuesta realizada por la empresa de investigación rusa Field, organización apartidista con oficinas en Moscú, reveló que, por primera vez desde que inició la guerra, más rusos dijeron que apoyan la opción de sostener negociaciones por encima de que continuar el combate armado. Casi dos terceras partes de las personas contactadas por teléfono respondieron que apoyarían un acuerdo de paz en Ucrania si se firmara mañana.La encuesta se realizó con 1611 participantes y 6403 se negaron a tomar parte, lo que subraya la dificultad de realizar encuestas en Rusia.La empresa independiente Levada descubrió cambios similares en su encuesta dada a conocer a finales de octubre, en la que el 55 por ciento de los encuestados indicaron que preferirían conversaciones de paz a que continúe la guerra.Asistentes a una manifestación en Moscú en febrero, dos días antes del aniversario de la invasión rusa a Ucrania.Nanna Heitmann para The New York TimesEl Kremlin está consciente de este cambio en el ánimo, señaló Pertsev de Meduza. Aunque Putin todavía tiene gran interés en la situación militar, Pertsev comentó que el Kremlin ha alejado visiblemente su agenda de la guerra y la ha acercado a problemas mucho más mundanos, como el desarrollo de infraestructura para el país.El lunes, por ejemplo, Putin lideró una ceremonia para la entrega de 570 autobuses a 12 regiones rusas.“La guerra solo empeora todo para la campaña presidencial”, afirmó Pertsev en una entrevista. “Le recuerda a la gente las dificultades”.En vísperas del inicio de la campaña, el Estado ruso organizó una enorme exposición sobre Rossiya en Moscú. Ahí, las personas atraviesan un videotúnel de 150 metros que ilustra los distintos logros del país al mando de Putin, como la construcción de edificios residenciales y carreteras. No se menciona en absoluto la guerra.Pertsev sostiene que la exposición se diseñó para crear un “fondo teatral” para la campaña de Putin. El Kremlin también organizó un concurso en el que las familias pueden ganar certificados de apartamentos nuevos o viajes por Rusia. El periodo del concurso coincide con el de las elecciones.“La estructura vertical de poder de Rusia aprovecha las elecciones para demostrar una vez más que todo va bien y que Occidente no ha acabado con Rusia”, explicó Pertsev. Otro factor importante para realizar las elecciones, en su opinión, es que a Putin “le gusta que su trabajo y el amor de la gente por él se demuestren públicamente”.“Mientras más envejece, más le gusta”, concluyó.Un cartel de reclutamiento militar que ofrece 550.000 rublos en Ovsyanka, Rusia.Nanna Heitmann para The New York TimesIvan Nechepurenko ha sido reportero de la oficina de Moscú desde 2015, donde ha cubierto política, economía, deportes y cultura en Rusia y las exrepúblicas soviéticas. Nació y creció en San Petersburgo, Rusia y en Piatykhatky, Ucrania. Más de Ivan Nechepurenko More

More from our inbox:Mike Johnson’s LamentSkip the Drive-Through, for the Sake of the Environment and Mental HealthThe Threat to New Orleans Drinking Water Jonathan Ernst/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “The Axe Is Sharp,” by Maureen Dowd (column, Nov. 19):While reading Ms. Dowd’s column on whether President Biden should run for a second term, I was struck by a historical parallel. Like Mr. Biden, President Lyndon B. Johnson had served a deeply charismatic president and used his extensive senatorial experience to seal that president’s vision with legislation.But facing health concerns and declining popularity because of the Vietnam War, as well as surprisingly strong opposition by Robert F. Kennedy, Johnson decided that his moment had passed.As David Axelrod has noted, it is time to consider allowing other Democratic leaders to step forward. Mr. Biden has served the nation honorably for longer than most Americans have been alive, guiding the country through dark times and leaving a clear legislative mark.For his swan song, he can try to hold on to power until he is 86. Or he can choose to guide the nation peacefully through the turbulence of the coming electoral storm — not from the campaign trail, but as a steady presence in the Oval Office. I can think of no higher service.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

A commutation for a drug smuggler named Jonathan Braun had broader implications than previously known. It puts new focus on how Donald Trump would use his clemency powers in a second term.Even amid the uproar over President Donald J. Trump’s freewheeling use of his pardon powers at the end of his term, one commutation stood out.Jonathan Braun of New York had served just two and a half years of a decade-long sentence for running a massive marijuana ring, when Mr. Trump, at 12:51 a.m. on his last day in office, announced he would be freed.Mr. Braun was, to say the least, an unusual candidate for clemency.A Staten Islander with a history of violent threats, Mr. Braun had told a rabbi who owed him money: “I am going to make you bleed.” Mr. Braun’s family had told confidants they were willing to spend millions of dollars to get him out of prison.At the time, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department and federal regulators, as well as New York state authorities, were still after him for his role in an entirely separate matter: his work as a predatory lender, making what judges later found were fraudulent and usurious loans to cash-strapped small businesses.Nearly three years later, the consequences of Mr. Braun’s commutation are becoming clearer, raising new questions about how Mr. Trump intervened in criminal justice decisions and what he could do in a second term, when he would have the power to make good on his suggestions that he would free supporters convicted of storming the Capitol and possibly even to pardon himself if convicted of the federal charges he faces.Just months after Mr. Trump freed him, Mr. Braun returned to working as a predatory lender, according to New York State’s attorney general. Two months ago, a New York state judge barred him from working in the industry. Weeks later, a federal judge, acting on a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission, imposed a nationwide ban on him.A New York Times investigation, drawing on documents and interviews with current and former officials, and others familiar with Mr. Braun’s case, found there were even greater ramifications stemming from the commutation than previously known and revealed new details about Mr. Braun’s history and how the commutation came about.The commutation dealt a substantial blow to an ambitious criminal investigation being led by the Justice Department’s U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan aimed at punishing members of the predatory lending industry who hurt small businesses. Mr. Braun and prosecutors were in negotiations over a cooperation deal in which he would be let out of prison in exchange for flipping on industry insiders and potentially even wearing a wire. But the commutation instantly destroyed the government’s leverage on Mr. Braun.The investigation into the industry, and Mr. Braun’s conduct, remains open but hampered by the lack of an insider.At multiple levels, up to the president, the justice system appeared to fail more than once to take full account of Mr. Braun’s activities. After pleading guilty to drug charges in 2011, Mr. Braun agreed to cooperate in a continuing investigation, allowing him to stay out of prison but under supervision for nine years — a period he used to establish himself as a predatory lender, making violent threats to those who owed him money, court filings show.Since returning to predatory lending after being freed, Mr. Braun is still engaging in deceptive business tactics, regulators and customers say.In working to secure his release, Mr. Braun’s family used a connection to Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, to try to get the matter before Mr. Trump. Jared Kushner’s White House office drafted the language used in the news release to announce commutations for Mr. Braun and others.In a telephone interview, Mr. Braun said he did not know how his commutation came about.“I believe God made it happen for me because I’m a good person and I was treated unfairly,” he said, adding that his supporters tried “multiple paths” to get him out of prison but he had no idea which one succeeded.He said the 10-year sentence he received for marijuana trafficking was excessive and made him a victim of the criminal justice system. He denied any wrongdoing as a lender, and insisted that he had never talked to prosecutors about cooperating in the criminal predatory lending investigation.He said he had never met Jared Kushner. And he said a picture from April 2022, showing him and his wife on a golf course with the former president, had nothing to do with the commutation but was a chance three-minute encounter during a visit to a Trump property in Florida for a Passover event.“I didn’t meet him because of what happened, I just happened to be there the same time,” Mr. Braun said.Mr. Braun’s commutation highlights what former administration officials say were major problems at the Trump White House as it considered clemency applications: the lack of rigorous vetting of applications and the sidelining of the Justice Department, which has traditionally screened candidates.Mr. Kushner took a major role in the less structured vetting process that resulted in Mr. Braun’s commutation. The Justice Department investigators from Manhattan involved in the cooperation negotiations with Mr. Braun were never consulted.As other convicts seeking clemency did, Mr. Braun’s family retained Alan Dershowitz, the prominent lawyer and Trump ally who worked with Jewish organizations pushing for pardons, at least one of which had received financial support from the Kushner family.Mr. Dershowitz, who represented Mr. Trump in his first impeachment, had a direct line into Mr. Kushner’s office, and succeeded in helping win clemency from Mr. Trump for a number of other people. Mr. Dershowitz said he did not remember what steps he took to help Mr. Braun but said they were minimal.Jared Kushner declined to comment, and Charles Kushner hung up when called by a reporter, as did Jacob Braun, Mr. Braun’s father. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan did not respond to messages seeking comment.A spokesman for Mr. Trump said all pardon applications “went through a vigorous vetting and review process,” but he did not address specific questions about Mr. Braun’s commutation.William P. Barr, a Trump attorney general who had left by the time of the Braun commutation, said when he took over the Justice Department he discovered that “there were pardons being given without any vetting by the department.”Mr. Barr added that he told Trump aides they should at least send over names of those being considered so the department could thoroughly examine their records. While the White House Counsel’s Office tried to do so, the effort fell apart under the crush of pardon requests that poured in during the final weeks before Mr. Trump left office, according to people with direct knowledge of the process.Mr. Trump boarding Air Force One for the last time on Jan. 20, 2021. He pardoned Mr. Braun in the final hours of his presidency.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMarc Short, the chief of staff to Mr. Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, said when the vice president’s office was approached by Mr. Trump’s aides about clemency applications, it opted not to participate.“The pardon process at the end of the administration was so unseemly it would make the Clintons blush,” Mr. Short said, referring to the final-days pardons issued by President Bill Clinton — including one to the fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose ex-wife donated $450,000 to Mr. Clinton’s presidential library.Threats and a 10-Year SentenceMr. Braun’s path to receiving a last-minute commutation began in 2009, when the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, working with the Drug Enforcement Administration, raided what prosecutors said was a stash house for a marijuana smuggling ring run by Mr. Braun.When Mr. Braun found out about the raid, he rented a car and drove 25 hours straight from Florida to an Indian reservation in upstate New York where, dressed in all black, he was smuggled into Canada, according to court filings. He then fled to Israel.The Justice Department placed him on a special Interpol list that asked Israel to apprehend him. By 2010, he was back in New York, the Justice Department had charged him and he was behind bars.In the days after his arrest, prosecutors asked a federal judge to keep him in jail until he went on trial. The prosecutors said Mr. Braun could not be deterred and was violent or willing to use the specter of violence against those who owed him money or might turn on him. Mr. Braun, the prosecutors said, had access to millions of dollars in untraceable cash, and was willing to do anything to stay out of prison.The judge ordered that Mr. Braun be held pending trial. After nearly a year and a half in custody, Mr. Braun agreed to plead guilty. As part of the plea deal, he began cooperating secretly with the government’s investigations into other drug smugglers, particularly higher profile ones abroad, according to a former law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal workings of an investigation.In exchange, the prosecutors agreed to release Mr. Braun from jail, putting him on house arrest and delaying his sentencing on the drug charges while they pursued new cases with his help. It is unclear what information Mr. Braun provided the authorities or whether it led to convictions.Often, a cooperator can remain free for a few months by providing investigators with useful information. Sometimes, a court will hold off sentencing for a year or two as the cooperation continues. Throughout the process, federal authorities are supposed to monitor cooperators to ensure they do not break the law.For reasons that remain unexplained, Mr. Braun was permitted by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn to live relatively freely for nearly the next decade, and he was able to turn his focus to an enterprise rife with cash and threats: providing loans to struggling small businesses that often had nowhere else to turn.Former prosecutors and defense lawyers said they had never heard of a defendant being allowed to delay sentencing for such a long period or using his freedom to engage in the conduct he did. A spokesman for the Brooklyn federal prosecutor’s office declined to comment on Mr. Braun’s case.The business Mr. Braun entered is known by many names: the merchant cash advance industry, predatory lending or, in the view of some law enforcement officials, loan sharking.Small businesses — like restaurants and contractors — have long faced a problem: They need cash on a daily basis to buy ingredients and supplies, and pay employees so they can operate while awaiting customer payments.Banks often won’t lend to them, especially small firms with troubled credit histories, providing an opening for the merchant cash advance business to offer them financing on strict, sometimes usurious, terms that include high-interest rates and exorbitant fees. (Technically, they provide cash in exchange for a percentage of future revenues, an arrangement that typically gives them access to the borrower’s books and sometimes the borrower’s bank accounts.)An examination of court records by The Times found that between when the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn first let him out of prison in 2011 and when he reported to prison in 2020, Mr. Braun was accused of violently threatening eight people who owed him money. Another man accused Mr. Braun in a lawsuit of shoving him from the deck of a house in Staten Island in 2018.Mr. Braun eventually reported to the federal prison in Otisville, N.Y., in 2020.Mike Segar/ReutersAmong those threatened was a real estate developer, who said Mr. Braun told him: “I will take your daughters from you,” according to court documents.Another borrower said in an affidavit Mr. Braun told him, “Be thankful you’re not in New York, because your family would find you floating in the Hudson.”Over that time, companies connected to Mr. Braun made 1,900 fraudulent and illegal loans, some with interest rates greater than 1,000 percent, according to the New York State attorney general.Even as Mr. Braun was starting to become a threatening presence, the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn actually gave him more freedom. In May 2017, prosecutors and probation officers approved Mr. Braun being removed from house arrest.Five months later, Mr. Braun threatened the rabbi of a synagogue that had borrowed money from him, according to New York’s attorney general. Mr. Braun told the rabbi he would beat and “publicly embarrass him,” adding: “I am going to make you bleed” and “I will make you suffer for every penny.”Nearly a decade after he was first charged in the drug case, prosecutors scheduled his sentencing. Anonymous letters accusing him of violent threats were then filed on the docket of the judge overseeing his case.Despite his cooperation with the ongoing drug investigations, the judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison. Mr. Braun tried to appeal, but weeks before the pandemic hit in early 2020, he reported to the federal penitentiary in Otisville, N.Y.In prison, Mr. Braun’s legal troubles actually worsened. In June 2020, New York’s attorney general and the Federal Trade Commission, which was run by a Trump appointee at the time, sued him for his role as a predatory lender. The New York attorney general credited reporting by Bloomberg News — which in 2018 first documented Mr. Braun’s business practices and revealed last year that he had returned to predatory lending — as the impetus for the suit.At the same time, a dogged New York Police Department detective named Joseph Nicolosi, who was assigned to work as an investigator for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, was trying to build a wide-ranging criminal case focused on predatory lenders.The inquiry faced a big challenge. Unlike many financial fraud cases, where the government relies on documents to prove charges, federal prosecutors concluded they needed something more in this case: a turncoat to flip on higher-ups, explain the intricacies of lending agreements, say they knew what they were doing was wrong and serve as a narrator on the witness stand.Finding that witness was proving difficult, but investigators believed they had a strong candidate sitting behind bars.So in the fall of 2020, Mr. Nicolosi drove to Otisville to meet with Mr. Braun. Mr. Nicolosi had previously tried to flip Mr. Braun when he was free, but now Mr. Nicolosi — armed with a possible get-out-of-jail card in exchange for cooperation — had leverage over him as he sat marinating in the misery of federal prison.At the meeting, which Mr. Braun’s lawyer attended, both sides discussed what a deal could look like.Mr. Braun made clear he would do anything the government asked of him — including wearing a wire to record calls with his former business partners — if the government would agree not to prosecute him for his role in the lending business, according to a person familiar with the matter.Ties to the KushnersNegotiations between Mr. Braun and prosecutors stretched into the final days of Mr. Trump’s presidency. But what the prosecutors did not know was that Mr. Braun, his family and allies were pursuing an entirely different effort to help him regain his freedom through the White House’s clemency process. And among the channels they were exploiting was a tie to the Kushner family.Mr. Braun had ties to the family of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and a former White House senior adviser.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Braun, The Times found, was in the inaugural class of the Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston, N.J., which was heavily funded by Jared Kushner’s family. Mr. Braun enrolled in its first freshman class, alongside Jared Kushner’s youngest sister, Nicole.In an interview, a merchant cash advance dealer recounted how a cousin of Mr. Braun — whom Mr. Braun put in charge of his business when he went to prison and who took on a major role in trying to get him out — had told him in the wake of the commutation that Mr. Braun’s father, Jacob Braun, had sought help from Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, about getting their pleas for a commutation before Mr. Trump.The cousin, Isaac Wolf, was said to have recounted that Charles Kushner and Jacob Braun had known each other for many years. Mr. Wolf credited the Kushner family with coming through for Mr. Braun, the merchant cash advance dealer said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be publicly associated with Mr. Braun.Others who dealt with Mr. Braun also later relayed to investigators that they had been told that the Braun family helped secure the commutation by relying on their connections to the Kushner family.The Brauns also retained Mr. Dershowitz, a Trump ally who developed such a strong relationship with Jared Kushner that he nominated Mr. Kushner for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on Middle East peace 10 days after Mr. Trump left office.Mr. Dershowitz said Jacob Braun would call him regularly.“Every single Friday by 3 o’clock in the afternoon: ‘Hi this is Jacob Braun, I’m so upset my son is still in prison, what can you do? It’s unfair, he’s a good boy,’” Mr. Dershowitz recounted.Mr. Dershowitz said he handled so many clemency requests that he could not recall what he did for Mr. Braun, whom he might have talked to at the White House about his case or how much he was paid. But he said his involvement was minimal, perhaps just a phone call.In the chaotic final weeks of the Trump presidency, the volume of clemency requests overwhelmed the White House Counsel’s Office. Requests were being fielded by numerous White House officials — and many came in through Mr. Kushner’s office.It is unclear what type of due diligence, if any, the White House did on Mr. Braun. The New York attorney general and the F.T.C. had put out news releases about their civil actions against him in June 2020, and the suits they filed were a matter of public record. An inquiry to the Justice Department could have revealed the plea deal discussions.Jacob Braun, Mr. Braun’s father, made contact with and retained Alan Dershowitz, seen in a 2015 photo, the prominent lawyer and Trump ally who was active in seeking clemency for convicts.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesJust hours before Mr. Trump left office on Jan. 20, 2021, the White House sent out the news release, written by Mr. Kushner’s office, announcing Mr. Braun’s commutation, along with similar summaries for the 143 convicts who received pardons and commutations in the final batch, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Kushner thought it was important to honor each person granted clemency with a personalized write-up, the person said.The release misspelled Mr. Braun’s first name. And it overstated the time he had served in prison.“Upon his release, Mr. Braun will seek employment to support his wife and children,” the release said.The federal investigators in Manhattan learned of the commutation early that morning, immediately calling Mr. Braun’s lawyer to express their fury over how the president had undercut his own department’s investigation by removing all the leverage prosecutors had over Mr. Braun.In the weeks that followed, investigators made another attempt to reach a cooperation deal with Mr. Braun, meeting with him in person. But no longer needing help getting out of prison, Mr. Braun essentially called their bluff, signaling that if they thought they had a case against him they should indict him. Since then, the prosecutors have brought no charges against Mr. Braun or anyone else with ties to him in the industry.Back in BusinessJust a few months after his release, Mr. Braun returned to working in the merchant cash advance business.Amid the ongoing suits against him by state and federal regulators, he remained in a relatively behind-the-scenes role. While he would make major decisions, he would use an email account that did not include his name, his name was left off business documents and his interactions with customers were limited, according to court documents and a former merchant cash advance dealer.But in the experience of at least one borrower who dealt with him, his business practices remained unchanged.Dr. Robert Clinton is a North Carolina physician who during the pandemic turned his urgent care facility into a Covid testing center. He turned to merchant cash advance dealers because it took months for insurance companies and the federal government to reimburse him.Mr. Braun’s companies made arrangements with Dr. Robert Clinton for loans and eventually pushed him to the brink of financial ruin.Kate Medley for The New York TimesRelying on similar tactics to what he was accused of employing before he went to prison, the companies affiliated with Mr. Braun withheld some of the financing they had agreed to provide Dr. Clinton but charged him interest on the full amount, imposed heavy fees with little or no warning and unilaterally withdrew money from Dr. Clinton’s bank accounts, according to court documents.At one point, another merchant cash advance dealer who had lent money to Dr. Clinton called him in a panic to warn about Mr. Braun.“You gotta get away from him and pay him off — we are all afraid of him — anytime Jon Braun is involved he could seize your assets, block your bank accounts,” the other merchant cash advance dealer told Dr. Clinton, in the doctor’s recounting of the conversation.As Dr. Clinton’s finances deteriorated, he got a call from a man who claimed his name was Mike Wilson and that he was working for one of the Braun-affiliated lenders. The man told Dr. Clinton that he would send a private jet down to pick him up so he could bring expensive watches he had to New York to use as collateral for the money he owed, Dr. Clinton said.In an apparent slip-up during conversations with Dr. Clinton at the time, the man said: Refer to me as Jon.Dr. Clinton rejected the idea and, with help from a lawyer, Shane Heskin, sued the Braun-affiliated companies, saying they had fleeced him for over a million dollars.A major portion of the suit was dismissed because North Carolina usury laws provided no protection for Dr. Clinton. Now, Dr. Clinton — who still owes other merchant cash advance dealers several million dollars — spends his days doing some telemedicine and the rest of his time trying to get money back from insurance companies and the federal government.In a filing this summer, the New York attorney general said Mr. Braun, through his companies, “continues to commit usury.”Mr. Braun continues to portray himself as a victim of an unfair criminal justice system.“What is so bad about me?” he said in the interview with The Times. “I never hurt anybody, never did anything wrong to anybody.”Mr. Braun and his companies put liens on Dr. Clinton’s business, leading to cascading financial problems that Dr. Clinton said cost him $1.6 million.Kate Medley for The New York TimesMatthew Cullen More

Nadia Mohamed, the 27-year-old mayor-elect of St. Louis Park, Minn., says her win is just the first chapter.[This article is also a weekly newsletter. Sign up for Race/Related here.]When Nadia Mohamed arrived as a 10-year-old refugee in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, she remembers, there were no faces that resembled hers. On Nov. 7, as the 27-year-old mayor-elect, she became the new face of the city of 50,000.Mohamed will become the country’s first elected Somali-American mayor on Jan. 2, after she completes her term as a City Council member — a seat she won at 23, becoming the youngest person, the first Muslim and the first Somali-American to serve in that body. Her family migrated to Kenya after the civil war in Somalia, and she lived in the Kakuma refugee camp until she was about 10.Election Day also brought mayoral milestones in Philadelphia, where Cherelle Parker became the first woman and the first Black woman to win the position, and in Wichita, Kan., where Lily Wu became the first Asian American elected to that office.In St. Louis Park, whose population is 80 percent white, Ms. Mohamed centered her campaign on increasing homeownership and community policing. I recently spoke with her, and our conversation below has been condensed and lightly edited.Was there a moment when you had a political awakening? Or did the need to become the change you wanted to see happen gradually?2016. I was going to college, and I grew up with Michelle Obama and Barack Obama. I had only known a Black president, and one that ran on unity.And then in 2016, here came this candidate who attacked the Somali community in Minnesota. Oh my gosh, is this politics in America?It was my first time being able to vote in a presidential election. I remember feeling like I was not at ease. Is my face the kind that America wants?So I started reaching out to my neighbors, organizations and our Police Department. I connected people and had those dialogues. Not only did it add to my sense of belonging, but other people felt like they belonged here, regardless of what was happening outside St. Louis Park. I was then asked to run for office. It opened up a possibility of political life and how I could make an impact.The experience of that election was an awakening. I think a lot of people woke up. You handily won this race. How did you get people interested in civic participation and build a coalition?Mohamed votes on Election Day at Wat Promwachirayan in St. Louis Park, Minn., on Nov. 7.Leila Navidi/Star Tribune, via Associated PressWhat really helped was reminding people that I grew up in St. Louis Park. I lived in many of the neighborhoods that I was door-knocking in during the campaign, and people recognized me and they knew the work that I was doing. What was really inspiring was the college students and high school students going out after their classes and obligations. The older generations would see that and said it was amazing. We need the younger generation to be active in their civic duty and participate. We actually got the biggest turnout in St. Louis Park in at least 30 years.What has been the biggest takeaway from your experience as an elected official?Government is slow, and it should be slow. When we are not being intentional with our policies, we’re not doing our jobs right. Being fast is an easy route to making mistakes.“This is a milestone — this is not the destination,” you said after your election. What do you mean by that?It’s important to note that I’m Black, Somali-American, a woman. We still have so much work to do and often BIPOC elected officials don’t get their stories told beyond their identities.I want people to be proud of the work that we’ve done. It’s a testament of how hard we worked as a community to be inclusive. And it’s just the first chapter.The world doesn’t automatically become more equitable just because we have a person of color at the seat.Black Americans live a complex existence when they live and go to work and go to school in spaces that are largely controlled by white people. Sometimes they can’t be their authentic selves. You appear to have overcome that challenge. If that is right, how do you think you resisted that tension?Resisting that tension isn’t something that I’ve overcome. It’s something I will continue to experience, and I will use the people in my network, whether it’s my neighbors or colleagues, to help me fight that.It’s also important to acknowledge that we have had our fair share of discriminatory policies in Minnesota. For example, we see higher rates of white Americans in St. Louis Park who own their homes versus people of color. How we advocate and implement policies that lead to equitable impact starts with recognizing our history. Now we have a first-generation home buyers program. We have to be aware of who’s being impacted and what barriers remain. I’m in a unique spot where I have lived experience to be able to speak to that.If you can be immodest for a moment, what can others learn from your life story and your successful campaign?Honestly, even being immodest, I didn’t get here by myself. It takes a coalition who truly supports you. A little courage doesn’t hurt. Who are your political role models?I’ve spoken with mayors in the area who’ve offered their support and advice. But I’m more of a Maya Angelou girl. In my heart of hearts, I am a poet. It’s even in my Somali culture — we are a people of poetry and oral languages. She has long commented on the injustices of the world in a beautiful way. I take her with me everywhere I go.Invite your friends.Invite someone to subscribe to the Race/Related newsletter. Or email your thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. More