Elections

Jonathan Nez, a Democrat, is seeking to become the first Native American to represent the state in the House.Jonathan Nez, a former president of the Navajo Nation, will run as a Democrat for a congressional seat in Arizona — a bid that could make him the first Native American from the state to be elected to the House.The seat, in Arizona’s Second District, is now held by Eli Crane, a freshman lawmaker who was among the small group of Republicans who voted to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this month. Mr. Nez announced his candidacy in a video posted Monday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.“I grew up in a rural, low-income home without electricity or running water,” Mr. Nez said in the video. “I understand the struggles that Second District families are facing right now, from the rising costs of food, gas and child care to increasingly devastating wildfires and health care deserts.”The sprawling district, which is larger than several states, includes 14 of the 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona. But it leans more Republican after redistricting last year.Mr. Nez, 48, who lives in Flagstaff, Ariz., led the Navajo Nation, one of the largest federally recognized tribes in the country, from 2019 to 2023, a period marked by an enrollment surge during the pandemic. But last fall, he lost his bid for re-election as president of the tribe, a group that tilts Democratic.Mr. Crane, 43, a former Navy SEAL and a contender on “Shark Tank,” won a crowded Republican primary last year in the district, aided by an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump.His arrival on Capitol Hill was hardly low key. At the beginning of the year, he was one of the notable holdouts among a group of right-wing Republicans who opposed Mr. McCarthy’s election as speaker, voting against him 14 times until Mr. McCarthy garnered enough votes on the 15th ballot. He voted “present” on the final ballot.That intraparty fight played out again this month, when Mr. Crane cast his vote to oust Mr. McCarthy.At least two other candidates have filed to run in the race: Lindsay Bowe, a Democrat, and David Bies, a Libertarian. More

The fall of a Jim Crow-era election law and a restoration of felons’ voting rights have given Black voters new sway in the state. Democrats’ underdog nominee for governor is looking to capitalize.Just three years ago, Mississippi had an election law on its books from an 1890 constitutional convention that was designed to uphold “white supremacy” in the state. The law created a system for electing statewide officials that was similar to the Electoral College — and that drastically reduced the political power of Black voters.Voters overturned the Jim Crow-era law in 2020. This summer, a federal court threw out another law, also from 1890, that had permanently stripped voting rights from people convicted of a range of felonies.Now Mississippi is holding its first election for governor since those laws fell, the contest is improbably competitive in this deep-red state, and Black voters are poised to play a critical role.Black leaders and civil rights groups in Mississippi see the Nov. 7 election as a chance for a more level playing field and an opportunity for Black voters to exercise their sway: Roughly 40 percent of voters are Black, a greater share than in any other state.“This election is going to be one that is historical,” said Charles V. Taylor Jr., the executive director of the Mississippi state conference of the N.A.A.C.P. “It’d be the first time we don’t have to deal with this Jim Crow-era Electoral College when it comes to the gubernatorial race. And also, we’re at a point in our state where people are fed up and frustrated with what’s currently happening.”Democrats are trying to harness that energy behind Brandon Presley, the party’s nominee for governor. Mr. Presley, who is white, is seeking to ride his brand of moderate politics and his pledges to expand Medicaid to an underdog victory over Gov. Tate Reeves, an unpopular Republican incumbent who has been trailed by a welfare scandal.Black Mississippians lean heavily Democratic: Ninety-four percent voted for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020, according to exit polls. Any path to victory for a Democrat relies on increasing Black turnout and winning over some crossover white voters.“If you want to win in the South, it takes time,” said Charles V. Taylor Jr., the executive director of the Mississippi state conference of the N.A.A.C.P.Emily Kask for The New York TimesMr. Presley, a member of the Mississippi Public Service Commission and a second cousin of Elvis Presley, has made outreach to Black voters central to his campaign, seeking to win them over on Medicaid expansion, addressing a rural hospital shortage and providing funding for historically Black colleges.On a recent October weekend, Mr. Presley navigated the tents and barbecue smokers at the homecoming tailgate for Alcorn State University, one of six historically Black colleges in the state. As he darted from tent to tent, wearing a purple-and-gold polo to support the home team, Mr. Presley introduced himself to unwitting voters and took selfies with his backers, many who flagged him down amid the din of music and aroma of smoking ribs.“Let’s go Brandon!” came a tongue-in-cheek call from one purple-and-gold tent packed with chairs.LaTronda Gayten, a 48-year-old Alcorn State alumna, ran over to flag Mr. Presley down. The candidate eagerly obliged, high-fiving and hugging supporters, proclaiming, “Come Nov. 7, we’re going to beat Tate Reeves!”Ms. Gayten and her friends made sure to get a picture before Mr. Presley ran off to the next tent. “He’s looking out for the people of Mississippi,” she said. “I’m from a rural area and Wilkinson County, and I don’t want our local hospitals to close down.”Many of the state’s rural areas, however, are heavily white, and any Democrat seeking statewide office must cut into Republican margins there. Mr. Presley routinely notes in his stump speech that he is “building a coalition of Democrats, Republicans, independents, folks who might not ever agree on politics.”The race’s limited polling shows Mr. Presley within striking distance but running consistently behind Mr. Reeves. Mr. Presley outpaced the governor in the most recent fund-raising period by $7.9 million to $5.1 million, but Mr. Reeves enters the final stretch with $2.4 million more in cash on hand.Elliott Husbands, the governor’s campaign manager, said in a statement that Mr. Reeves “has been meeting with voters in every single community across the state, including many Black voters, to work to earn their support.” Mr. Reeves’s campaign shared a social media post with pictures of Mr. Reeves meeting with Black leaders, but declined to offer further details.As Mr. Presley tries to bridge Mississippi’s stark racial gap, he has not shied away from that history.“Black Mississippi and white Mississippi have been purposely, strategically and with intent, divided over racial lines,” Mr. Presley told a lunchtime crowd at a soul-food joint in Jackson. “Intentionally divided. For two things: money and power, money and power, money and power.”Mr. Presley has tried to bridge Mississippi’s stark racial gap but has not shied away from the state’s history.Emily Kask for The New York TimesHe added that Mr. Reeves and his allies were “hoping that Black voters do not come vote in November. That’s what they’re banking on.”Mr. Taylor and the local N.A.A.C.P. have begun a new program to reach out to Black voters.Every day, canvassers fan out across a predominantly Black neighborhood of low-propensity voters, seeking to have extended conversations about the issues that are important to them and what would make them more likely to vote.Calling themselves the Front Porch Focus Group, the canvassers — run by Working America, a labor organization, in collaboration with the national and local N.A.A.C.P. — have knocked on nearly 5,000 doors. Voters’ top priorities are clear: economic opportunities, affordable housing and health care.Yet the canvassers’ resulting study found that Black voters “did not identify voting as a mechanism to solve those issues.”“Among the people with whom we spoke, 60 percent shared a version of, ‘Voting does not make a difference,’” the study says. “One voter told us they ‘would rather work that hour and make 18 more dollars than spend an hour being miserable to vote.’ Jahcari, a 34-year-old man in Jackson, said, ‘In the state of Mississippi, I feel like Black people will never be on top, so we don’t really have that much we can do when it comes to voting.’”Mr. Taylor is hoping to change such attitudes, and the new voting landscape is the beginning. Under the old election law, candidates for statewide office had to win both the popular vote and a majority of State House districts, with maps that were often drawn to pack Black voters together and limit their voting power. The state’s law barring those convicted of certain felonies from voting also disproportionately affected Black voters, disenfranchising one in every six Black adults, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.Black Mississippians, Mr. Taylor said, are some of the voters who have been least “invested in”; the state is so deeply red and so gerrymandered that national Democrats rarely spend money there.Three years ago, Mississippi ditched a Jim Crow-era law that had aimed to marginalize Black voters.Emily Kask for The New York TimesThat is why the local N.A.A.C.P. has increased its budget for this election cycle to nearly $1 million, compared with roughly $500,000 in 2019. Mr. Taylor is also overseeing a vast program of traditional door-knocking, direct mail, targeted digital advertising and ads on Black radio. He is focusing in particular on races connected to criminal justice, like those for district attorney.Mr. Presley’s viability, as well as recent victories in Georgia Senate races and friendly rulings by the Supreme Court, could be paving a path for Black voters to build a stronger voice in the South.“I’m so greatly appreciative to all of the folks that did incredible work in Georgia,” Mr. Taylor said in an interview in his local N.A.A.C.P. office. “If you want to win in the South, it takes time.” Next door, original windows from the civil rights era were still scarred by bullet holes. “We have to look at winning over the span of decades, not just one election.”Mr. Presley’s campaign believes that one election may be now. It has made what it calls a multimillion-dollar investment in outreach to Black voters, including an effort to deputize volunteers and supporters to reach out to their personal contacts.Still, he must win over skeptics.As Mr. Presley meandered through the Alcorn tailgate, a D.J. offered him his mic for a quick word.“We’ve got to beat Tate Reeves, and I need you with us, and I need you to go vote,” Mr. Presley thundered. “God bless you.”Mr. Presley’s campaign has made what it calls a multimillion-dollar investment in outreach to Black voters, including an effort to deputize volunteers and supporters to reach out to their personal contacts.Emily Kask for The New York TimesBut the D.J., who declined to give his name, wasn’t letting Mr. Presley off easy.“We need you to be here next year when you win, and that you will continue to come, and guess what, you’re going to support our H.B.C.U.s,” the D.J. said. “Let me hear you say it: You will support all H.B.C.U.s.”He handed the mic back to Mr. Presley, who borrowed a line from his stump speech.“All H.B.C.U.s, and we’re going to get the $250 million back to Alcorn State University that was taken from them,” Mr. Presley said, referring to a letter the Biden administration sent Mr. Reeves last month saying that Mississippi had underfunded the institution by that amount over 30 years.The D.J. gave him an overhand clap before playing the next song, and Mr. Presley walked to the next tent. More

An expected liberal coalition would probably reverse deeply conservative policies at home and diminish Poland’s role abroad as a beacon for right-wing groups.It boiled down to a choice between two different visions of the future: one dominated by nationalism, traditional Catholic norms and the defense of Polish sovereignty; the other by promises to “bring Poland back to Europe” and the liberal democratic values espoused by the European Union.In the end, after a long, vicious election campaign in a highly polarized country, opponents of the nationalist governing party won a clear majority of seats in a pivotal general election held on Sunday, according to final official results Tuesday.That victory opened the way for a potentially drastic shift away from Poland’s deeply conservative policies at home and its role abroad as a beacon for right-wing groups and politicians opposed to liberal values.The prospect of an end to years of testy relations between Warsaw and Brussels delighted Polish liberals and those elsewhere worried by what had, for a time, seemed like a rising tide of right-wing, and sometimes left-wing, populism in Poland and across Europe.The election, cast by both sides of the political divide as Poland’s most consequential vote since voters rejected communism in 1989, offered a multitude of parties from the far right to the progressive left.“These are absolutely historic moments,” Donald Tusk, Civic Coalition’s leader, told euphoric supporters in Warsaw on Tuesday. “The weather has changed,” he added before repeating a line from a popular song often used during the campaign: “It’s time for a happy Poland.”Held just two weeks after voters in neighboring Slovakia handed victory to a Russia-friendly party tainted by corruption, the Polish election was closely watched as a gauge of Europe’s direction.It was also seen as a measure of whether Hungary, increasingly authoritarian under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, would remain an idiosyncratic outlier or become the standard-bearer of a growing cause whose friends extend beyond ideological allies like the TV personality Tucker Carlson, a big fan of Mr. Orban, to include European governments.Hungary and Poland for a time were close partners, leading what they promoted as a European renaissance rooted in Christian values and national sovereignty, but they parted ways over the war in Ukraine. Mr. Orban tilted toward Moscow while Poland offered robust support for Ukraine, though that position wobbled somewhat during the election campaign.Official results confirming exit polls released on Sunday cast gloom over the governing party, Law and Justice, which had fought the election on promises to save Poland from European bureaucrats pushing “L.G.B.T. ideology” and what it denounced as Germany’s hegemonic aspirations.A final tally of votes released on Tuesday by the electoral commission gave Civic Coalition, the main opposition party, and two smaller groups also opposed to the Law and Justice party — Third Way and New Left — 248 seats in the 460-member Sejm, the more powerful lower house of Parliament.Together they won 53.7 percent of the vote after a record turnout of about 74 percent, compared with 35.4 percent of ballots cast for Law and Justice. That tally would most likely reduce Law and Justice’s presence in the Sejm by 33 seats.Arkadiusz Mularczyk, of the Law and Justice party, acknowledged defeat, saying that “we cannot be offended by democracy” and that, “after eight difficult years in government, perhaps it is time for the opposition.”Poland remains deeply divided by generation and geography, with Law and Justice sweeping poorer rural areas in the south and east while Civic Coalition, its main rival, strengthened its grip on urban centers like Warsaw and richer areas in the center and west.But, reversing a trend across Europe toward increased youth disenchantment with electoral politics of all ideological shades, Poles under 29 voted in larger numbers than voters over 60. That was despite the two main rival camps being led by veterans — Jaroslaw Kaczynski, 74, the Law and Justice chairman, and Mr. Tusk, 66, the leader of Civic Coalition, both former prime ministers.The opposition also won a large majority of seats in the 100-member Senate, the upper house, but its victory in both chambers of Poland’s Parliament, though a big symbolic boost for supporters of liberal democracy and European integration, will be crimped by its having to work with a Polish president loyal to Law and Justice.The president, Andrzej Duda, an outspoken critic of Mr. Tusk in the past, will stay in office until elections in 2025 and, until then, can veto legislation passed by his political opponents in Parliament. Mr. Duda is now responsible for asking someone to form a government, a task that will probably fall, at least initially, to a member of Parliament from Law and Justice, which won more votes than any other single party. Without a majority, Law and Justice is unlikely to succeed and Mr. Duda will need to turn to the opposition.Anatol Magdziarz contributed reporting. More

No problem in the American system at this moment is as acute and disruptive as the one posed by the Republican Party.Yes, of course, there are any number of structural problems facing American politics.Our system of elections — first-past-the-post voting, the Electoral College, single-member districts and partisan gerrymandering — feeds into and amplifies our partisan and ideological polarization. Our system of federalism and dual sovereignty between state and national government allows for laboratories of autocracy as much as testing grounds for democracy. Our counter-majoritarian institutions and supermajority rules stymie democratic majorities and turn stability into stasis, putting terrible stress on our entire political system.But it’s hard to deal with any of those, or even just live with them, when one of our two major parties is on a downward spiral of dysfunction, with each version of itself more chaotic and deviant than the last.For years, it has been evident that the Republican Party can’t govern. When Donald Trump was in office, it was revealing to see the extent to which Republican majorities in Congress struggled to write and pass any legislation of consequence. To wit, after an unsuccessful herculean lift trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act and a successful effort to cut taxes (the lowest hanging fruit on the conservative menu), congressional Republicans essentially stopped legislating until they were dislodged from control of the House in the 2018 midterms.What’s become clear of late, in the midst of the chaos that has left the House without a speaker at a particularly fraught moment in foreign and domestic affairs, is that Republicans are as unable to organize themselves as they are incapable of leading the affairs of state.The worst of the problem of the Republican Party, however, is evident in the rise of Jim Jordan and the ascendance of the insurrection wing of the party, with only modest opposition from supposedly more reasonable Republican lawmakers.Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas, for example, has a reputation for being reasonable. He is staunchly conservative, but his feet are mostly planted in reality.Crenshaw has been publicly critical of the most disruptive and intransigent members of the House Republican conference, especially those in the House Freedom Caucus, and even wrote an essay in The Wall Street Journal condemning the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. A small gesture, all things considered, but still more than most of his colleagues could manage.Crenshaw seems like the kind of Republican who would oppose Jordan’s bid to be speaker of the House. Jordan, first elected to the House in 2006, is a far-right ideologue and conspiracy theorist whose most notable accomplishment in office was helping to organize his fellow ideologues and conspiracy theorists into the House Freedom Caucus in 2015. Jordan, who represents the Fourth District of Ohio, was one of Trump’s leading supporters in the months leading up to and following the 2020 presidential election, accusing Democrats, repeatedly, of trying to steal the election.“Jim Jordan was deeply involved in Donald Trump’s antidemocratic efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” Thomas Joscelyn, one of the authors of the final report from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, told CNN last week. “Jordan also helped organize congressional opposition to counting Biden’s certified electoral votes. None of Jordan’s efforts were rooted in legitimate objections. He simply sought to keep Donald Trump in power, contrary to the will of the American people.”Crenshaw’s stated contempt for exactly the kind of rhetoric and behavior exemplified by Jordan has not, however, stopped the Texas Republican from backing his colleague from Ohio for speaker of the House. In an interview on Sunday with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Crenshaw claimed that Jordan had “become part of the solution, not part of the problem” with regard to the chaos among House Republicans and dismissed Jordan’s contempt for the law and attempt to overturn the presidential election as non-issues. “If I held that grudge, I wouldn’t have friends in the conference,” Crenshaw said. “I was on an island there.”Crenshaw isn’t the only supposedly reasonable Republican member of Congress willing to look past the fact that the leading candidate for speaker of the House was an active participant in a scheme to subvert the Constitution and install a defeated president in office for a second term.“Even some of the Republicans who have vowed, publicly and privately, to fight him at every turn are beginning to get weak knees about supporting him, fearing that collective will is dwindling as their numbers decrease,” Politico reports. Jordan’s allies have also expressed their view that the opposition to his bid for speaker will melt away as the actual vote on the floor comes near.Once again, Republicans are confronted with a deeply transgressive figure with open contempt for the institutions of American democracy, flawed as they may be. Once again, Republicans swear they’ll resist his ascent. Once again, Republicans cave, more fearful of losing a primary — or coming in for criticism from conservative media — than they are of virtually anything else.And each time they cave, these more moderate or mainstream Republicans make the situation a little worse, for themselves and for the country. Kevin McCarthy bowed to expediency and pressure when he voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the House of Representatives. He did the same when he empowered the most gleeful insurrectionists in his attempt to gain the speaker’s gavel. Now he’s out, and Jim Jordan is on the rise.If he wins, Jordan may not last in the position. The kind of speaker who must twist arms and make threats using conservative media to win the job is, in the modern House, not the kind of speaker who survives long beyond the next election cycle, even if his party holds its majority.Who will replace Jim Jordan if and when he falls? It could well be someone worse. And it will probably be someone worse, because there is nothing happening inside the Republican Party right now that can keep it from falling even farther into the abyss.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

President Biden’s age is on the minds of American voters as they think about the 2024 election. It’s no wonder: In a poll I did last year, there was broad support (63 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of independents) for establishing an upper age limit of 70 for any person to be sworn in as president. This past July, a Pew Research Center survey found that about half of respondents believed the best age range for a U.S. president was in the 50s — well below Mr. Biden’s 80 and Donald Trump’s 77.As a pollster and strategist who has been involved in four Democratic presidential campaigns, including Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012, I don’t believe that age will determine this election. But it is a formidable reality that Mr. Biden and his team must deal with and transcend, just as Ronald Reagan did at age 73 in his 1984 re-election race. Mr. Reagan passed that test, removing age as a distraction for his campaign and voters and making the contest about “morning in America,” our economic turnaround and our leadership in the world. The 2024 election is going to hinge similarly on core issues and a vision that speaks directly to the lives and hopes of voters.Getting past the age question won’t be easy. It will involve persuading voters in memorable ways and will require a deft touch. But this is a winnable race for the president, even if it sometimes seems his team is shielding him from the public. The fact is, he’s old. A failure to confront the issue risks reinforcing that impression rather than overcoming it. Americans will be watching him closely in big moments, like his trip to Israel this week to deal with one of the most significant crises of his presidency. The Biden team needs to get the president out in front of the public more, finding opportunities for him to talk about age with a directness and confidence that convinces people it isn’t the core issue. Talk about it now so you aren’t talking about it next summer, then use the fall debates in 2024 to deliver a Reaganesque line that puts the topic to bed.If Mr. Trump becomes Mr. Biden’s opponent, this task is simpler. They’re both old, so I think the question of age will become moot for a lot of voters. Winning presidential candidates learn quickly not to launch attacks that can come back and bite them. Take Mitt Romney’s debate-stage effort in 2012 to cast Mr. Obama as unfit to be commander in chief over his handling of a deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Mr. Obama’s stinging response won the president headlines praising his smackdown performance: “While we were still dealing with our diplomats being threatened, Governor Romney put out a press release, trying to make political points, and that’s not how a commander in chief operates,” Mr. Obama said.It’s likely that many independent and swing voters will be less concerned with Mr. Biden’s and Mr. Trump’s ages than about the preponderance of legal issues facing Mr. Trump, which would seem to give Democrats the edge. Despite his dominance in the Republican race, a poll my firm conducted shortly after he was indicted on criminal charges for the fourth time found that 24 percent of his party’s voters said his legal issues made them less likely to vote for him. That’s four times the 6 percent of Republicans who defected from him in 2020. Even worse for Mr. Trump, 61 percent of independent voters said his legal problems made them less likely to vote for him.The RealClearPolitics polling average currently shows Mr. Trump up by less than a point over Mr. Biden, 45.3 percent to 44.5 percent. A year ahead of the election, that’s meaningless information. The party of Hillary Clinton has learned the hard way not to take a slight polling edge for granted. I was Mrs. Clinton’s pollster in 2016, when public polling had her about two percentage points ahead of Mr. Trump. She won 48 percent of the vote to his 45.9 percent but, of course, lost the Electoral College by losing three battleground states that are crucial for Democrats in presidential campaigns. The campaign’s leadership had ordered a stop to most in-depth polls in those battlegrounds during October, which left us blind to the state of play.Our country has split down the middle in its politics for decades now. When I was on Bill Clinton’s polling team for his 1996 re-election campaign, he won with 49.2 percent of the vote. When I was the lead pollster on Mr. Obama’s team in 2008, he won with 52.9 percent of the vote; in 2012 he won with 51.1 percent of the vote, making him only the fourth president in over a century to be elected and re-elected with more than 50 percent.So what will it take for Mr. Biden to win? From both wins and losses, I’ve learned that there are three things every candidate needs to remember: Campaigns are about big things, not small things. Campaigns are about the future, not the past. And campaigns are about the voters’ lives, not the candidate’s.For Mr. Biden, following that mantra means making this election a forward-looking choice built on a contrast of economic vision and values. More important, it means leaning into his greatest asset: his long record of working across the aisle.He built his career on doing the hard work of compromising with the other side to get things done for the American people. Since he took office in 2021, he won passage of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law to repair the nation’s roads, bridges and railways; bring high-speed internet to rural communities; and more, an achievement made possible by 32 Republicans who crossed the aisle (13 in the House and 19 in the Senate). He signed the most significant gun-safety legislation to pass Congress in nearly 30 years, with 29 votes from Republicans (14 in the House and 15 in the Senate).Those numbers may not sound like much, but in a country exhausted by political division and with him most likely up against a Republican opponent whose only game is to divide, it’s a critical advantage. By focusing on bipartisanship and doing less name calling about MAGA and the right, he would not just recite his accomplishments; he would bring focus to what government can do for the American people when both sides work together.Mr. Biden should also lean on his gifts of public empathy. Joe from Scranton is someone who understands that we can’t keep telling people that what they see and feel isn’t real. Month after month, the economic numbers of his presidency have provided evidence that our economy is recovering and our society is stable.But public opinion polling shows many Americans experiencing a sense of corrosive instability — worry that our rapidly changing economy and technological world may leave them behind, coupled with fears about crime and immigration. Connecting with those voters is about providing them with the tangible evidence that you’ve heard them, that you’re invested in improving their lives and that you have a vision for governing that addresses their fears and will create a better future for them and their families.During Mr. Obama’s 2012 campaign, we faced a similar disconnect. The country was still in the throes of an economic crisis that began before he took office in 2009. We knew we couldn’t overstate claims about the improving economy because people weren’t feeling it yet. The campaign needed to focus on the future and lift up working- and middle-class Americans in a way that Mr. Romney, with his private-equity background, could not effectively rebut.From our research, we developed key principles for the campaign: Talk about a country facing a make-or-break moment for the middle class and those striving to get there. Talk about the importance of building an economy from the middle out, not the top down. Talk about an economy in which hard work pays, responsibility is rewarded and everyone gets a fair shot and a fair shake.One thing Mr. Biden should stop talking about: Mr. Trump. It’s tempting. It’s the red meat his base wants. But it’s not the job. The months of Republican debates and headlines about court cases against the former president will inflict damage without Mr. Biden having to say a word.Come August — when most Americans start paying attention to a November presidential election — if Mr. Trump is indeed the G.O.P. candidate, he can be depended on to continue his campaign of doom, destruction and despair.But despite the aberration of the 2016 election, I believe Americans want to hear about the values and beliefs that bring us together, not the things that drive us apart. Mr. Biden is uniquely able to communicate a credible message of hope that we might again be a country that works together rather than a nation that is mired in perpetual division. He is a man I know to be an optimist by nature, and he believes unity trumps division. So do I.Joel Benenson is a veteran Democratic adviser who was the pollster on Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns and chief strategist and pollster on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

Ms. Winfrey wanted to form the independent ticket to stop Donald J. Trump, according to a forthcoming book. Mr. Romney listened to the pitch but passed on the idea, the biography says.Concerned that the Democratic field wasn’t up to the task of stopping President Donald J. Trump in 2020, Oprah Winfrey pitched Mitt Romney on the idea of running for president as an independent, with her as his running mate, according to a forthcoming biography of the Republican senator from Utah.Ms. Winfrey floated the unusual ticket in a phone call she placed to Mr. Romney’s wife, Ann Romney, in November 2019, according to an excerpt from the book, “Romney: A Reckoning,” that was shared with The New York Times.Mr. Romney at least listened to the idea. (It was Oprah calling, after all.) He “heard the pitch, and told her he was flattered, but that he’d have to pass,” the author, McKay Coppins of The Atlantic, writes.Liz Johnson, an aide to Mr. Romney, declined to comment on Monday. A spokeswoman for Ms. Winfrey said in a statement that she had urged Mr. Romney to run, but not with her.“In November 2019, Ms. Winfrey called Senator Romney to encourage him to run on an independent ticket,” the statement said. “She was not calling to be part of the ticket and was never considering running herself.”Mr. Coppins’s book was based on hours of interviews with Mr. Romney, as well as emails, texts and journals that the senator had been saving to potentially write a memoir. Realizing he could not be objective about himself, Mr. Romney has said he chose to have a journalist write about him instead.Ms. Winfrey’s interest in forming an independent ticket with Mr. Romney, which was reported on Monday by Axios, is among several dishy items from the book, which is to be released on Oct. 24.She has known the Romneys since 2012, when she interviewed them at their lakeside home in New Hampshire as Mr. Romney was running for president. Ms. Winfrey had also seen Ms. Romney at various social events, and was “especially fond” of her, according to the book.On the phone with Ms. Romney, Ms. Winfrey explained that Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, was preparing to enter the race and had approached her about joining his ticket. Before she decided, she wanted to gauge Mr. Romney’s interest.She doubted that Joseph R. Biden Jr. or Pete Buttigieg could beat Mr. Trump and was “certain” that Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts could not, according to the book.Ms. Romney responded that her husband would not run for president in 2020, either as a Republican or as an independent, Mr. Coppins writes. Mr. Romney also politely batted down the idea, according to the book.An aide to Mr. Bloomberg declined to comment.Ms. Winfrey has at times been mentioned as a potential presidential candidate herself.In 2018, after she delivered a rousing speech at the Golden Globes, some were clamoring for her to run. But she told “60 Minutes Overtime” that she would not become a candidate in 2020 even though “I had a lot of wealthy men calling, telling me that they would run my campaign and raise $1 billion for me.”“I am actually humbled by the fact that people think that I could be a leader of the free world, but it’s just not in my spirit,” she said. “It’s not in my DNA.”Mr. Romney, 76, recently announced that he would not seek re-election in 2024, saying he wanted to make way for a “new generation of leaders.” He strongly suggested that Mr. Trump and President Biden should also bow out, arguing that neither was effectively leading his party to confront the “critical challenges” the nation faces. More

Mr. Trump, in an Iowa speech, further retreated from his criticism of Israel and did not repeat his comments about Hezbollah that prompted condemnation from political rivals.Former President Donald J. Trump, in remarks that invoked the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel to stoke fears of terrorism at home, said on Monday that he would expand a freeze on refugees that he enacted during his presidency to cover people from the Palestinian territory of Gaza.In an extension of the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments he channeled during his 2016 presidential run and made a cornerstone of his administration, Mr. Trump offered a litany of proposals that in many ways adapted his previous policies to reflect current events. He promised again to bar people from certain parts of the world, particularly where Islam is most commonly practiced, while curbing immigration and the overall number of refugees the United States would take in.“We aren’t bringing in anyone from Gaza,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Clive, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines.Referring to recent demonstrations protesting Israel’s retaliatory bombardment of Gaza and supporting civilians in the region caught up in conflict, Mr. Trump promised to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to what he called “pro-jihadist” rallies. He also proposed that immigrants be denied entry to the United States if they adhered to a laundry list of ideologies.“If you empathize with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists, you’re disqualified,” Mr. Trump said. “If you want to abolish the state of Israel, you’re disqualified.”So, too, would be people who supported Hamas “or any ideology that’s having to do with that,” he said, and anyone who was a “communist, Marxist or fascist.”Mr. Trump did not explain how the country would carry out or enforce such a screening, an idea he proposed in a slightly different form during his 2016 campaign. Nor did he elaborate on a separate proposal that included deporting “resident aliens” — which includes legal U.S. residents — with “jihadist sympathies.”“We have to. Or we’re going to have a country that’s going to be blown to shreds. Because bad things are happening. Millions and millions of people have come into our country, and nobody has any idea where they’re from. Some from countries that nobody’s ever heard of,” Mr. Trump said.Mr. Trump also said his administration would revoke the visas of “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners” like those involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, saying that foreign nationals at colleges and universities were “teaching your children hate.”Two other Republican contenders, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, both said in interviews on Monday that they favored deporting foreign students who appeared to support Hamas.Mr. DeSantis, on Fox News Radio’s “Guy Benson Show,” also said he did not think refugees from Gaza should come to the United States. “The Arab countries should take them,” he said.Mr. Trump’s remarks, building on his vow this month to reinstate a travel ban he enacted while president, represent an attempt to further retreat from comments he made at a rally in Florida last week about Israel that prompted widespread criticism from political rivals.The Trump rally in Clive, Iowa, his second event in the state on Monday.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesAfter lashing out at Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Trump suggested the Israeli military, which is now on the brink of invading the Gaza Strip, needed to “straighten it out.” He also called Hezbollah, the Iran-backed, anti-Israel militant group in Lebanon, “very smart.”Mr. Trump’s Republican opponents, who are eager for any edge that could help them close the yawning gap separating them from the former president in the polls, seized on his comments, condemning him for criticizing a country still reeling from a deadly terrorist attack.In the days since, Mr. Trump has repeatedly sought to clarify that he stands with the nation and Mr. Netanyahu.In a statement, Jaime Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, accused Mr. Trump of using language that could incite violence like the murder of a 6-year-old boy in Illinois that the authorities are calling an anti-Muslim hate crime.“Donald Trump is following up last week’s erratic behavior — criticizing Israel and praising their terrorist enemies — by now exploiting fear and anxiety in a shameless attempt to revive his widely rejected, extreme Muslim ban,” Mr. Harrison said.Mr. Trump did not speak at length about the conflict in Israel in his first campaign appearance on Monday, in Adel, Iowa, where he focused more on domestic issues, including his own.Speaking shortly after a judge imposed a limited gag order restricting some public statements that Mr. Trump can make related to the federal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, he said he and his lawyers planned to fight the ruling.“They put a gag order on me, and I’m not supposed to be talking about things that bad people do, and so we’ll be appealing very quickly,” Mr. Trump said, in front of a pyramid of hay bales at the Dallas County Fairgrounds.He added, “I’ll be the only politician in history where I won’t be allowed to criticize people.” More

The Biden campaign is in search of any edge with voters who could be persuaded to his side.Officials with President Biden’s re-election campaign have long pledged to meet voters where they are. On Monday the campaign began a project to meet former President Donald J. Trump’s voters where they are — on his social media platform.“Let’s see how this goes,” the campaign’s account wrote on Monday in its first post on Truth Social. “Converts welcome!”The Biden campaign painted its debut on Mr. Trump’s outlet as a cheeky opportunity to troll the president’s likely general election opponent. Mr. Trump launched Truth Social in April 2022 in response to being blocked from mainstream social media platforms a day after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Their actions came after he published inaccurate and inflammatory messages during that day of violence.“There’s very little ‘truth’ happening on Truth Social, but at least now it’ll be a little fun,” Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesman, said.On X, formerly known as Twitter, the Biden campaign said it had joined the platform “mostly because we thought it would be very funny.” The decision marks a shift from the campaign’s previously stated position that it would not join the Trump platform, as reported by Axios in May.Mr. Biden, who won the 2020 presidential election by narrow margins in just a handful of battleground states, is in search of any edge he can get with voters who could be persuaded to vote for him.Voters who consume conservative media have long been considered a rich target for Democratic candidates. During the 2020 campaign, Democrats were split on engaging with Fox News, which party officials at the time said had more persuadable voters among its viewers than any other cable network had.Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called Fox News a “hate for profit” operation and refused its invitations for a town hall, while Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent, and Pete Buttigieg, then a former mayor of South Bend, Ind., accepted. Mr. Buttigieg, now Mr. Biden’s transportation secretary, is often dispatched to explain the administration’s positions on Fox News. More