Elections

The holdouts who refuse to back the No. 2 Republican, the party’s nominee, reflect the many competing groups inside the divided G.O.P. conference.Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican, may have narrowly won his party’s nomination for speaker on Wednesday, but he is still facing an uphill battle to secure the 217 votes he needs to win the leadership post.Mr. Scalise postponed a vote on the House floor Wednesday afternoon in an effort to win over some of the remaining holdouts who have said they are either undecided on whether to support him, or will refuse to. He has a difficult path ahead of him, in part because the fractious Republican conference includes so many different factions — some overlapping and some not — that make it difficult for any one person to corral.In fact, resistance against Mr. Scalise’s speakership appeared to have grown, with lawmakers newly declaring on Wednesday evening that they were irrevocably opposed to voting for him.Many of the holdouts against Mr. Scalise do not fall neatly into any specific category. Others may prove impossible to win over altogether.The eight lawmakers who voted to oust Representative Kevin McCarthy of California from the speakership have largely lined up behind Mr. Scalise’s candidacy. But Mr. Scalise’s nomination has unlocked a new group of dissidents. If all Democrats are present and voting during the vote for speaker, Mr. Scalise can lose only four Republican votes.Here’s a broad overview of the factions not yet sold on Mr. Scalise.The McCarthy LoyalistsThese are mainstream conservative lawmakers who are close to Mr. McCarthy and are still furious that he was ousted, including Representatives Carlos Gimenez of Florida, Mike Lawler of New York and Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania. Mr. Gimenez suggested to reporters that he intends to vote for Mr. McCarthy on the House floor, and Mr. Lawler told CNN in an interview that he had not yet decided who he would vote for.Mainstream conservative lawmakers who are close to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy are still furious that he was ousted, and some are reluctant to back Mr. Scalise.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesHours after the vote, Mr. Smucker wrote on X that the Republican conference was “broken,” and it did not make sense to oust Mr. McCarthy and then turn around and promote those immediately underneath him in leadership. He urged his colleagues to chart a different path forward, adding, “In the meantime, I plan to vote for Jim Jordan on the floor.”Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Scalise have an icy relationship, making the prospect of switching their allegiance even more unpalatable to the former speaker’s closest allies.The UltraconservativesA number of members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus who backed Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a co-founder of the group, have said that they will either continue to vote for Mr. Jordan on the House floor, or at least continue to oppose Mr. Scalise.Many of them have said that they are concerned that Mr. Scalise could try to force through another short-term spending bill to avert a shutdown in mid-November. Bringing up such a measure was Mr. McCarthy’s final move as speaker, and right-wing Republicans called it the final straw for his ouster.“I let Scalise know in person that he doesn’t have my vote on the floor, because he has not articulated a viable plan for avoiding an omnibus,” Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky wrote on X, using the term for a single bill that funds the entire government.These holdouts include Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Bob Good of Virginia.Still other conservatives who have long demanded fundamental changes in the way the House operates complained that Mr. Scalise appeared unwilling to accept a new way of doing business.Representative Chip Roy pledged not to vote for Mr. Scalise.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesRepresentative Chip Roy of Texas, an influential conservative who led the bloc of lawmakers who opposed Mr. McCarthy’s speakership bid in January, said he was “not happy” with how Mr. Scalise quickly shot down his bid on Wednesday to change the party’s internal rules for nominating a speaker. And Representative Michael Cloud of Texas said Mr. Scalise had tried to rush his election on the floor, calling it “underhanded.”Mr. Scalise appeared on Wednesday evening to have won over one hard-right holdout, Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida. She emerged from a meeting with the Louisiana Republican saying she would vote for him after being assured that he would prioritize issues like impeaching President Biden and defunding the office of the special counsel investigating former President Donald J. Trump.But in a reflection of the difficulty of the task ahead of Mr. Scalise, Ms. Luna tempered her endorsement hours later, and on Thursday afternoon, after Mr. Trump weighed in against Mr. Scalise, she said on X that she would not vote for him after all.“There is no consensus candidate for speaker,” she wrote. “We need to stay in Washington till we figure this out.”The Wild CardsThen there are the Republicans with their own, singular grievances. One of them is Representative Ken Buck of Colorado, a former prosecutor who has said he wants the next speaker to clearly state that the 2020 presidential election was not stolen from Mr. Trump and a commitment that the next speaker will secure deep cuts in federal spending.During closed-door discussions in the run-up to the nomination vote on Wednesday, Mr. Buck directly asked both Mr. Scalise and Mr. Jordan who won the 2020 election, and neither would flatly state that it was Mr. Biden.Representative George Santos of New York, who had originally supported Mr. Jordan for speaker, announced on X around 10 p.m. Wednesday that he had “yet to hear from the Speaker-Designate” and had “come to the conclusion that my VOTE doesn’t matter to him.”“I’m now declaring I’m an ANYONE but Scalise and come hell or high water I won’t change my mind,” wrote Mr. Santos, who has been indicted on a litany of charges including money laundering, wire fraud, and stealing the identities and credit card details of donors to his campaign.Representative Nancy Mace criticized Mr. Scalise on national television over a meeting he attended decades ago with white nationalists.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesThe group also includes Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Mr. McCarthy. She showed up to a private meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday night wearing a tank top emblazoned with a scarlet letter “A,” to represent how she said she was being marginalized for her vote.Another holdout is Representative Victoria Spartz of Indiana, who has previously floated resigning from Congress. In a statement earlier this month, she called Washington a “circus” for which she would not sacrifice her time away from her children, adding that “I cannot save this republic alone.”Ms. Spartz said she voted “present” during the closed-door G.O.P. nominating contest and did not know how she would vote on the House floor. More

Ruben Gallego, a Democratic congressman vying for one of the most competitive Senate seats in the country, is pitching himself to Native American voters.State Highway 86 stretches west from Tucson, Ariz., past saguaros and desert peaks into Tohono O’odham Nation, the second largest reservation in the state. It is a road that tribal members say no Senate candidate in recent memory has ventured down.But on a sweltering afternoon, Representative Ruben Gallego, a progressive Democrat from Phoenix, spent several hours with Tohono O’odham leaders and community members, fielding questions in a series of small round table meetings, touring an affordable housing project and making the pitch for his 2024 Senate run.“The reason why we’re here is because a lot of times the only time you see a politician come down is the last week of the elections,” Mr. Gallego told a handful of attendees during an evening meet-and-greet in Sells, Ariz., the tribal capital, on Friday.The stop was part of Mr. Gallego’s push to visit all of the 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona before Election Day next year. It is a feat, he says, that few, if any, contenders in a statewide race have ever attempted — and one he believes will help pave his path to victory in what is likely to be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country.Native Americans make up more than 5 percent of the Arizona population, and have emerged in recent years as powerful swing voters. In 2020, an analysis by The Associated Press found that parts of the state’s tribal land saw huge surges in turnout in the presidential election that year, which helped tilt the outcome in favor of Joseph R. Biden Jr. Though no official count of the electorate exists, the National Congress of American Indians, a tribal rights organization, estimates that the state has more than 315,000 Native Americans who are old enough to vote, one of the largest Native populations of voting age in the country.“The Native Americans in Arizona — we are the coveted vote because we make or break elections,” said April Hiosik Ignacio, who is a tribal citizen of Tohono O’odham (pronounced Toh-HO-noh AW-tham) and a vice chairwoman of the Arizona Democratic Party.Mr. Gallego’s ambitious plan for Native American outreach is part of his efforts to crisscross the state with pledges to restore faith in government, and a campaign strategy that he describes as “go everywhere and talk to everyone.” But Mr. Gallego, 43, a U.S. Marine combat veteran and former state lawmaker who represents a deep-blue district, will have a difficult needle to thread in Arizona, a battleground state. He is trying to hew closer to the center on some issues, like immigration, without alienating his base of progressives.Mr. Gallego at breakfast with Peter Yucupicio, chairman of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. The large population of voting-age Native Americans in Arizona has made the constituency influential in recent elections.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesIn Native American communities, as in the Latino neighborhoods where he has been aggressively pursuing voters, Mr. Gallego could also come up against feelings of apathy with electoral politics and disillusionment with the Democratic Party.Already, the stakes in the 2024 Senate race are tightening. Kyrsten Sinema, 47, the Democrat-turned-independent who holds the seat, has not said whether she will run for re-election. But a two-page pitch to donors obtained by NBC last month revealed that she could be preparing to launch an ambitious bid heavily relying on independents and focused on shaving away support from both Democrats and Republicans.The contest for her seat intensified when Kari Lake, 54, an ally of former President Donald J. Trump and onetime local news anchor who lost and refused to concede the Arizona governor’s race last year, filed paperwork to run this month. Ms. Lake has already sparred with Mr. Gallego over border politics, though her first major opponent would be Mark Lamb, 51, a right-wing sheriff and fellow Trump ally, in the Republican primary.Mr. Gallego, who announced his bid in January, has had a head start to pitch donors and hone a message centered on protecting democracy and helping working- and middle-class families. He is also leaning on his humble origins in Chicago and his experiences as a Marine and former construction worker to help bring new and disaffected slices of the electorate back into the Democratic fold, including rural white voters, Latinos and Native Americans.His first campaign swing included stops in Navajo Nation, the largest tribe in Arizona, and the Fort Apache reservation, home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe. He has since visited more than half a dozen tribes.In an interview in Sells, Mr. Gallego said his early outreach to Native American voters wasn’t “just smart politics, it is also personal.”Some of his closest friends, Jonithan McKenzie and John and Cheston Bailon, are Navajo. They served with Mr. Gallego in an infantry unit that saw heavy combat and suffered severe casualties during the Iraq war. They versed him in Navajo traditions that helped him reflect on war and opened his eyes to everyday life on the reservation, where water could be scarce, jobs were hard to come by and groceries and medical services were long drives away, Mr. Gallego said. John Bailon has since introduced him at campaign stops.In Congress, Mr. Gallego has served on a subcommittee on Native American issues, where he has focused on improving access to running water and internet on reservations and making it easier for Native American veterans to receive government benefits.With his visits to Native tribes in the state, Mr. Gallego is trying to distinguish himself in what is shaping up to be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesMr. Gallego, the son of a Colombian mother and Mexican father, would be the first Latino senator from Arizona, if elected. Like Ms. Sinema, he forged his political rise by embracing the progressive and immigrant rights movements that have helped transform a Republican stronghold into a battleground state. But he is following the traditional playbook that Democrats including Ms. Sinema have used to win statewide in Arizona in past election cycles: He is eschewing ideological labels, distancing himself from Democratic leadership and tacking to the middle on the border and immigration.Mike Noble, a state pollster who has conducted some of the few surveys on the race so far, said Mr. Gallego was in the best position in what is shaping up to be a three-way contest. Mr. Gallego is the strongest fund-raiser, he said, and has a positive image. “He just needs to hold his base and not let Sinema peel off too many Democrats,” Mr. Noble said.Still, Mr. Gallego remains less defined for voters than Ms. Sinema and Ms. Lake. And a race against Ms. Sinema could fray the coalitions of frustrated Republicans, Democrats and independents — including many Latino and Native American voters — that have helped power Democrats to the highest positions in the state for the first time in decades. The fracture could improve his chances — or open the way for a Republican like Ms. Lake to retake a seat that has helped Democrats retain their narrow majority in the Senate.Ms. Lake has already begun to paint him as another far-left liberal responsible for high rates of homelessness and what she describes as a border crisis. But if Mr. Gallego shifts too far away from his progressive credentials, he could risk dampening the energy among his base.At Tohono O’odham, which extends along 62 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico, the top worry on Friday was the recent Biden administration decision to build up to 20 miles of border barriers in South Texas, a project that was first authorized during the Trump administration.Mr. Gallego during a round table meeting with tribal leadership at Tohono O’odham Nation on Friday. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesIn the room was Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, who handles voter registration as the Pima County Recorder and is one of less than a dozen Native Americans in Arizona to hold elected office. Ms. Cázares-Kelly, a progressive Democrat, said she was likely to support Mr. Gallego, whom she said she favored for his promises to secure Native American voting rights, for example. But she had been taken aback, she said, when he told her he supported the construction of parts of the border wall to separate the United States from Mexico.Mr. Gallego, a vocal critic of the move under Mr. Trump, said that a wall might make sense in certain areas but that it should never be built on sacred Native American grounds, and that it should not be the only solution.But for Ms. Cázares-Kelly, calls to “build the wall” remained a symbol of Mr. Trump’s most destructive immigration policies, a rallying cry she saw as rooted in xenophobia — and one that had galvanized her tribe to become politically organized. When Mr. Trump first signed his executive order for the wall, many members of her tribe offered to throw their bodies in the way of any construction.“Now having Joe Biden pushing for the expansion of the border wall is so disappointing and frustrating, and then to hear Ruben echoing those sentiments in solidarity with our president is just really disappointing,” she said. 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When he was governor of California, Ronald Reagan popularized what became known as his 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. In a party riven with factions, divided in the 1960s between liberals, moderates and conservatives, the 11th Commandment worked to limit the damage caused by internecine battles.Watching Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as speaker of the House — a historic moment that came a mere nine months after he was chosen as speaker on the 15th ballot — makes Reagan’s commandment seem like a relic of a party that no longer exists. And it doesn’t exist. It hasn’t for a long time.To understand what’s happening now, you first have to understand what happened to the party in the years after Reagan left office. The eat-your-own politics that has come to define the Republican Party began to form almost as soon as Newt Gingrich became speaker in 1995, the first Republican to hold that position in 40 years.As speaker, he quickly ran into trouble with a faction of his party that would brook no compromise. The True Believers, as they were sometimes known, made it their mission to make Mr. Gingrich miserable. In the process, they helped transform the speakership, once a position of great influence, into a career-ender for Republicans. This is the atmosphere that the new speaker of the House, whether it is the current Republican nominee, Steve Scalise, or someone else, will enter.This is hardly what Mr. Gingrich or his successors would have anticipated. The Republican wave of 1994 that brought Mr. Gingrich to power did more than flip control of the House: It signaled the end of the right’s war for control of the Republican Party. Though some moderates remained in the party, the right had won the ideological war that had raged for the previous 30 years. Republican liberals were a thing of the past; Republican moderates were a dying breed. It was time to reap the harvest.Yet the right’s victory did not end the infighting; it accelerated it. As an ideological principle, the big-tent idea of embracing Reagan Democrats foundered. It wasn’t long before it devolved into a far more cramped vision: calling any relatively moderate party member a RINO, a Republican In Name Only. The term, which first appeared in print in 1992, ushered in a new age of purity politics. The RINO charge was particularly popular among the True Believers, a group made up of around 30 or 40 Republican representatives, including newly elected House freshmen like Joe Scarborough and Lindsey Graham.While they had supported Mr. Gingrich for speaker in 1995, they harbored serious concerns about his conservative commitments. He had, after all, worked with Democrats behind the scenes as minority whip to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 and the crime bill in 1994, which included an assault weapons ban. He had also insisted that the Contract with America, the party’s signature platform for the midterms — an agenda meant to nationalize congressional elections and put a new generation of more conservative Republicans in power — exclude some of the True Believers’ top priorities, like abortion and school prayer.So nearly as soon as Mr. Gingrich picked up the speaker’s gavel, the True Believers began to grumble: “They believe that he has sold them out time and time again,” a congressional aide told National Journal early in 1995. Mr. Gingrich learned the hard way that even radical tactics would not appease the Republicans to his right. After initiating a government shutdown that was, at the time, the longest in American history, he got stuck.The shutdown was deeply unpopular, and the public (rightly) blamed Republicans for the impasse. The only way out was to strike a deal with the Democrats. But 15 of the True Believers said no. A nonfunctioning government suited them just fine; after all, wasn’t that the end goal of their antigovernment politics?A furious Mr. Gingrich struck a deal without them, but his capacity for retribution was limited. He snubbed Helen Chenoweth, a holdout running for re-election in Idaho, by canceling a planned appearance at the last minute (admittedly weak tea, though he was a strong fund-raiser and she was in a tight race). That did little to stop Ms. Chenoweth and others from pushing forward with other schemes, including efforts to orchestrate the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1996 and 1997, long before news broke that he had lied about his sexual relationship with a White House intern. Mr. Gingrich begged the True Believers to stop talking about impeachment in the lead-up to the 1996 election, worried that it would only solidify the party’s obstructionist reputation. But in early 1997, they were back at it, eventually dragging Mr. Gingrich and the rest of the conference to their position.In the midst of all this, the True Believers sought to oust Mr. Gingrich from his speakership, convening back-room meetings and brokering covert deals that eventually failed. But a few years later, after voters handed Republicans the biggest midterm defeat for an opposition party since 1934, Mr. Gingrich was out. Not just out of the speaker’s office — out of the House altogether. Discussing his resignation with other Republican leaders, Mr. Gingrich put his finger on the problem: “I’m willing to lead but I’m not willing to preside over people who are cannibals.”For the next several years, the “cannibals” were largely quiet, having sated themselves with Mr. Gingrich’s ouster. Dennis Hastert, the next Republican speaker, would set a record, serving the longest term of any Republican speaker (and then becoming the first former speaker to be convicted, sentenced and serve a term in prison for a criminal case). But as the party continued to radicalize in the Obama era — as the right-wing Republican Study Committee gained further-right-wing competitors in the Tea Party and the House Freedom caucuses — the speakership became a dicier proposition. John Boehner faced repeated coup attempts, and he resigned in disgust in 2015. Paul Ryan, who reluctantly took his place, lasted just over three years before leaving office at 48, an age when most members are just getting started.Despite the sudden departures of Mr. Boehner and Mr. Ryan, the speakership still held appeal in 2023. Mr. McCarthy had been jockeying for the gavel for years, hungry for the power and prestige he could wield. The caucus he sought to lead, however, had changed. Where Mr. Boehner and Mr. Ryan had commanded significant majorities that allowed rebellions to brew without boiling over, Mr. McCarthy came into office with a whisper-thin majority that empowered a small bloc of Republicans to lord their power over him.The holdouts who denied Mr. McCarthy the speakership for days and days (a brutal battle that played out in embarrassing fashion in front of the C-SPAN cameras), as well as those who stripped him of the speakership, also had more diverse sources of power than previous House members. Though Mr. McCarthy had a reputation as a prodigious fund-raiser, the holdouts could leverage their social media and online fund-raising to bypass traditional sources of money and messaging.In an era of weak parties, when both Democratic and Republican politicians can outsource the work parties once did to other institutions, party leaders have fewer tools for disciplining their members. But it is Republican members who have decided that, as they need their party’s infrastructure less and less, they can exert more and more power over its leaders.Mr. McCarthy’s removal from office makes clear why that is. His nine-month tenure as speaker was a period of never-ending humiliation, his weakness constantly on display. His ouster turned out to be both unprecedented and unsurprising — unsurprising precisely because House Republicans have been in a state of endless internal revolution for the past 30 years. That revolution has radicalized the Republican Party, pulling it further and further to the right, while producing novel instruments of destruction. In other words, the eight Republicans who ousted Mr. McCarthy transformed the speakership even further: from a powerful position that Republican leaders willingly walked away from when it became too much of a headache, to a weak, even ignominious role that could be yanked away at any moment.Though only a few Republicans were responsible for toppling Mr. McCarthy, this spirit of rebellion now defines the party. The 11th Commandment is a distant memory. Which means that if Steve Scalise does pick up the gavel as speaker, he will not be ascending to the heights of power; he will be submitting, instead, to an unpredictable, uncontrollable group of rebels that holds his fate in its hands.Dr. Hemmer, the author of “Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s,” is an associate professor of history and the director of the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Center for the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University. More

“Of all the arts, the most important for us is the cinema,” Vladimir Lenin supposedly said. It’s not often that his words feel apt in Poland, a post-Communist country once traumatized by Soviet propaganda. But in recent weeks, as the country has been convulsed by controversy centered on a film, Lenin’s declaration has acquired a surprising resonance.“Green Border,” by the Oscar-nominated director Agnieszka Holland, tells the story of the tragedy of migrants and those helping them at the Polish-Belarusian border. Awarded the special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival, it is refined, thought-provoking and full of nuance — exactly the opposite of politics in Poland today.The ruling Law and Justice party, threatened by Ms. Holland’s humanitarian approach, has gone on the attack. Government officials called the film “anti-Polish” and the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, labeled it “a collection of blatant lies.” The justice minister even went so far as to compare the film to Nazi propaganda.The government is jumpy for a reason: On Sunday, Poland goes to the polls. The stakes are high. After eight years of rule by the Law and Justice party, in which the right-wing government has remade the country’s institutions in its image, the election is perhaps the most important since the democratic breakthrough in 1989.Given the country’s geopolitical significance, much expanded since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the vote will be closely watched across Europe. Yet for Poland itself, mired in nationalist sentiment and populist reason, the outlook is bleak. Even if the opposition coalition triumphs, there will be no easy salvation.First and foremost, the campaign has not been fair. As in Hungary and Turkey, where autocratic governments recently won re-election, the odds have been heavily stacked in favor of the incumbents. There are, in practice, two kinds of populism: one in opposition and another in power. The former participates in the democratic game as one of many players. The latter changes the rules of the game to become the only player in town.In Poland, the process is in full swing. State media has been churning out propaganda, presenting a glowing depiction of the government while spurning the opposition. In the run-up to the election, the administration has treated core voters to increased benefits and gerrymandered the electoral map, through the creation of new districts in government-supporting rural areas. Even the police and the military have appeared in campaign materials. Another victory for the ruling party is the order of the day.The cherry on the cake comes in the form of a referendum, also to be held on Sunday. Composed of four vaguely worded questions — one asks “Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa?,” another whether voters back “the sale of state assets to foreign entities” — the referendum sets the terms of debate, feeding into government talking points. Never mind that nobody is planning to carry out the policies asked about. What matters is cultivating a sense of grievance.Crucially, it also unlocks money. For all Law and Justice’s advantages, there are limits on campaign spending — but not for referendums. By holding one, Law and Justice has vastly expanded its access to funds. By the end of September, the party had already spent about four million Polish zloty, around $940,000, on internet campaigning; the biggest political group in the opposition, the Civic Coalition, had spent only about a quarter of that amount. In this unequal environment, opposition victory will be hard to come by.But the battle is not over. The opposition has run a charged campaign, culminating in a major march in Warsaw, where hundreds of thousands protested against the government. Days before voting, the race is too close to call. Two scenarios are possible.The first would be a government led by Law and Justice. That would mean deepening the systemic dismantling of Polish democracy: strengthening the executive at the cost of the judiciary, attacking independent media, imposing on the school system, and undermining the rights of minorities, especially women and the L.G.B.T.Q. community.But Law and Justice wouldn’t have things all its own way. It would most likely have to share power with the extreme right-wing Konfederacja, which has been spreading anti-vaccination, anti-minority and anti-Ukrainian sentiment. To judge from recent weeks — during which the administration, eyes on the election, threatened to withhold assistance to Ukraine — a government of this stripe would drastically worsen relations with Ukraine and the European Union.A second scenario is still possible, too: victory by the democratic opposition. In this case, Poland would have a colorful government, led by the Civic Coalition in compact with smaller parties, that would focus on restoring the independence of the judicial system and opening Poland back up to the West. Diplomatic support for Ukraine would be at the forefront, as would engaging with allies over the country’s future and that of Europe. Not everything would change. The country’s harsh migration policies would most likely remain in place and controls at the border with Belarus retained, albeit without pushbacks.But even if the opposition wins and the government quietly cedes power — far from a given — Poland would not simply be returned to political health. A deeply entrenched populist system, a president loyal to the Law and Justice party, a puppet Constitutional Tribunal and Supreme Court — these are just a few of the problems a new government would face. That’s before we get to the opposition itself, whose members, spanning the political spectrum from right to left, are by no means in agreement. Either way, the emotive languages of nationalism and sovereignty won’t be going anywhere. They remain too pervasive and deeply felt throughout Polish society.Such dominance of emotion is curious. In the past three decades, Poland has become immeasurably richer; economic success can be seen across the country. And yet, looking at its febrile politics, the words of Isaac Bashevis Singer come to mind: “Man was a pauper when it came to reason, but a millionaire when it came to emotions.” It will surely come as no surprise to learn that Singer was writing about the youthful years he spent in Poland.Jaroslaw Kuisz is the editor in chief of the Polish weekly Kultura Liberalna and the author of “The New Politics of Poland.” Karolina Wigura (@KarolinaWigura) is a board member of the Kultura Liberalna Foundation in Warsaw and an author of “A Polish Atheist Versus a Polish Catholic.” Both are senior fellows at the Center for Liberal Modernity in Berlin.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

Politicians typically swat away questions about their appearance, but Te Pati Maori has wielded fashion as a political weapon.The outfit is distinctly Victorian. A high, vintage lace collar with ruffles cascades over the lapel of a black tailcoat. But it is not meant to be a throwback.For Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, the co-leader of Te Pati Maori, a New Zealand political party, it is a reclamation of the era when her ancestors first engaged with the British, who began colonizing New Zealand in the early 1800s. She has worn this attire, plus a top hat, in Parliament.“When you want to get a message out fast, fashion is a way to do it,” she said.The message is largely the same since the party had a surprise return to Parliament three years ago: keeping issues of its minority community in the public eye and building political support. Its members are feeling particular urgency now because the future of several pro-Maori policies is on the line. In Saturday’s election, Te Pati Maori is expected to win as many as five of the 120 seats in Parliament. It currently controls two.The party “has been great at getting a disproportionate amount of media attention,” said Lara Greaves, who teaches political science at the Victoria University of Wellington. “They play that as a positive for their voters that they’re really out there representing Maori politics.”Te Pati Maori’s policy proposals have included decoupling New Zealand from the British monarchy and enacting a wealth tax. It has faced criticism from the right that it exhibits too much political showmanship with few concrete results.A recent poll showed a slip in support for Te Pati Maori, which, like other minor parties in New Zealand, often struggles for significance. It is unlikely to be a major political force or kingmaker, because New Zealand’s next government is all but certain to be a conservative coalition led by the National Party, which has promised to defund pro-Maori programs such as a health agency for the community and has ignited racially charged debates.Below Ms. Ngarewa-Packer’s mouth is a traditional tattoo called a moko kauae. Around her neck is a large hei-tiki, carved out of jade, for protection.Ms. Ngarewa-Packer’s accessories, such as earrings and a hei-tiki carved out of jade, are part of her political message for the Maori minority in New Zealand.Ruth McDowall for The New York Times“We’re up against some yucky nastiness,” Ms. Ngarewa-Packer, who gave her age as “50s,” said of the race-baiting that has become more overt with this election.About 17 percent of New Zealand’s population identifies as Maori, and a significant portion of the community has long supported the incumbent center-left Labour Party. Te Pati Maori was formed in 2004 when two Maori politicians left Labour after a dispute.In 2021, the Te Pati Maori co-leader Rawiri Waititi made headlines when he forced a rule change that no longer required male politicians to wear neckties, which he called a “colonial noose.” His choice of parliamentary footwear — Air Jordan sneakers — was widely criticized.But Mr. Waititi has remained defiant, walking the runaway at New Zealand Fashion Week for the Maori designer Kiri Nathan in his signature sneakers and a carved jade necktie.“We must continue to decolonize our spaces down to our shoelaces.” Mr. Waititi, 43, wrote on TikTok after the show.Signs for political parties in Auckland ahead of the election. A recent poll showed a slip in support for Te Pati Maori, which, like other minor parties in New Zealand, often struggles for significance.Ruth McDowall for The New York TimesFar from being trivial, these acts of defiance are probably speaking to Te Pati Maori voters, according to Ms. Greaves.“Maori is an ethnicity, but it is also a culture, and people who feel connected to their cultural side are more likely to support Te Pati Maori,” she said, adding that many Maori voters still have an affinity for the Labour Party.The Te Pati Maori co-leaders heard about the tie rule during an induction into Parliament in 2020. Ms. Ngarewa-Packer wore a tie during the ensuing controversy because female politicians were not subject to the rule.Ms. Ngarewa-Packer’s style has been called “post-colonial.” The high collars, lace and ruffles of the Victorian era coincided with a period of trauma for the Maori that included land confiscation and wars with British colonizers.“It is something that is incredibly Western and incredibly English, and, at the same time, it is incredibly powerful and incredibly Maori,” Bobby Luke, a designer and university lecturer, said of how Maori artists and designers have reclaimed the look.Takutai Tarsh Kemp, a Te Pati Maori candidate, is a counterbalance to Ms. Ngarewa-Packer’s near-gothic style. She favors bold patterns, bright colors and streetwear like sneakers and tracksuits, which reflect her involvement in New Zealand’s hip-hop dance community.“It is all about being proud to be Maori,” Ms. Kemp, 49, said at a recent campaign event in Auckland with the party’s reggae theme song blasting in the background. She wore a dress from Jeanine Clarkin, another Maori fashion designer. The dress combined a printed cotton sheet with a vintage denim vest.Takutai Tarsh Kemp, a Te Pati Maori candidate, favors bold patterns, bright colors and streetwear. “It is all about being proud to be Maori.”Ruth McDowall for The New York TimesIt is also an example of sustainability common to many Maori designers. Ms. Nathan, the fashion designer who featured Mr. Waititi, uses organic materials like native flax.“The most sustainable processes and practices that you could possibly integrate into your fashion label or way of life is to look at Indigenous practices,” Ms. Nathan said.They also play a part in Te Pati Maori’s election campaign: Its climate policy states that Indigenous knowledge is needed to stabilize global temperatures. It has also proposed increasing the use of traditional Maori seeds for farming.Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, a 21-year-old Te Pati Maori candidate, called Mr. Waititi’s and Ms. Ngarewa-Packer’s fashion moments necessary “housekeeping” to introduce a new era to Te Pati Maori.“I don’t need to wear a tie, because I have a taonga,” said Ms. Maipi-Clarke, using the Maori word for “treasure” to describe the hei-tiki that Mr. Waititi wears instead of a tie. The next term is expected to be a combative one for Maori issues. The National Party has promised to ax the Maori Health Authority, and a likely coalition partner, the libertarian Act Party, wants to raise the retirement age to 67 from 65. That policy would disproportionately impact Maori, whose life expectancy is several years behind non-Maori New Zealanders.The leader of Act, David Seymour, recently said that he fantasized about sending Guy Fawkes to eliminate New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples. Fawkes was hanged in 1606 for attempting to blow up the British House of Lords. Mr. Seymour later said that he was joking.In response, Ms. Maipi-Clarke launched a T-shirt brand called Original Navigator to remind “younger Pacific decedents that we navigated the greatest ocean with our hands, the stars and the moon,” she said.A small trial run of T-shirts sold out in two weeks. More

Voters head to the polls this weekend in an election that is likely to show a rightward and populist shift in the country’s politics.New Zealanders are exhausted. Their pocketbooks are threadbare, the dog years of the pandemic have dragged on, and there is a strong sense that the country has never been further off track.And so, when they head to the polls on Saturday, polls show, most will vote to punish the governing center-left Labour Party, which under Jacinda Ardern won a historic majority just three years ago.“There’s a real vibe around of tiredness, frustration,” said Bernard Hickey, an economic commentator. When New Zealanders last went to the polls, they were celebrating their coronavirus wins. From 2021, he said, “it was all downhill.”The opposition center-right National Party is therefore expected to form the next government with some smaller parties, despite what critics describe as a lack of vision for many of the country’s more vexatious issues.Still, New Zealand’s proportional voting system could deliver last-minute twists, and New Zealand First, a small and populist party known for opposing immigration and supporting retirees, may once again become kingmaker, as it did in 2017.Here’s how the campaign has played out, and what to watch for in Saturday’s results.Who are the main candidates?The incumbent leader is Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, who took over from Ms. Ardern early this year and who has spent the penultimate week of the campaign stuck in a hotel room with Covid. Their Labour Party has been in power since 2017.Ms. Ardern’s legacy hangs heavy over New Zealand, where many now ignore her world-leading pandemic response, Mr. Hickey said.“She was a prime minister, who, however you look at it, managed a crisis fairly well,” he said. “And now she’s one of the most reviled politicians in the country, and she can’t walk down the street without protection.”Ms. Ardern, who is pursuing a fellowship at Harvard University, has mostly stayed out of the race. But the “transformational change” that she campaigned on in 2017 has failed to materialize, and many New Zealanders blame her and her party for the difficulties they face, such as inflation or higher mortgage payments.Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, the incumbent leader, took over from Jacinda Ardern in January. He represents the center-left Labour Party.Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesThe main challenger is the National Party’s Christopher Luxon, a former chief executive of Air New Zealand, the country’s national airline, who was elected to Parliament for the first time in 2020.Though Mr. Luxon leads Mr. Hipkins as potential voters’ preferred prime minister, he has mostly failed to energize voters, who see him as bland or corporate.“People are saying that they feel there’s not much difference between the two Chrises,” said Grant Duncan, an independent political scientist and commentator.What are pollsters predicting?With voters scurrying to smaller parties, the National Party was expected to garner 34 percent of the vote, according to a Guardian Essential poll released this week, to Labour’s 30 percent.Mr. Luxon is likely to lead the next government with support from Act, a right-wing libertarian party, and from New Zealand First, which helped catapult Ms. Ardern into the prime minister’s office in 2017.There is a very slim chance of a Labour-led coalition government with Te Pati Maori, the country’s Indigenous rights party, and the Green Party. (Mr. Hipkins has said he will not work with New Zealand First.)What are New Zealanders voting on?Cost-of-living issues, as in many other comparable economies, dominate at the polls.“It may or may not be the government’s fault,” said Ben Thomas, a former press secretary for the National Party, “but it’s the government’s problem.”To battle inflation, New Zealand’s independent central bank has raised rates to a 15-year high of 5.5 percent. That has inflicted considerable pain on homeowners, most of whom are subject to floating mortgage rates. New home loans command rates of at least 7 percent, more than three times what they were in 2020, and many expect rates to go even higher.Inflation remains high, even as it slowed to 6 percent in July compared with 6.7 percent in the same month a year earlier, according to the most recent government data. Food prices jumped 12.3 percent over the same period.New home loans in New Zealand have risen sharply in the past few years, now commanding rates of at least 7 percent.Ruth McDowall for The New York TimesThe proposed solutions from both major parties — like the tax and benefit cuts from the National Party, or the targeted subsidies and financial support from Labour — are unlikely to provide widespread relief, analysts say.“The electoral numbers will fall on what is basically two estranged parents doing a bidding war over pocket money,” Mr. Thomas said.A spate of unusual violent crime and “ram raids” — when a vehicle is driven into the windows of a store so it can be robbed — has haunted voters. The National Party has sought to seize the issue, promising to reintroduce the youth boot camps that the country has previously tried and abandoned.Race has also emerged as an issue. New Zealand has longstanding arrangements with Maori, its Indigenous people, many of which are governed by an 1840 treaty. But some New Zealanders say these go too far. Act, the libertarian party run by David Seymour, has promised a referendum on “co-governance,” the practice of including Maori in policy decisions — a vow that has prompted widespread allegations from the left of racism. Act rejects those claims, saying it just wants equal rights for all citizens.What comes next?New Zealand’s other economic problems — which include an aging population, a crumbling health service, inadequate infrastructure and an economy reliant on dairy and other food exports that is set to be tested by extreme weather events — have defied the efforts of successive governments, said Craig Renney, an economist for the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.“We still have an economy which, structurally, is a commodity-exporting, low-wage economy,” Mr. Renney said, “supported by a giant housing market where we sell houses to each other.”There is a particular antipathy toward public spending to solve those problems, even as the liabilities of not acting continue to climb, he added. “We have a national debt that is the envy of every developed country in the world,” he said, “yet we have this insistence that there is a debt crisis just around the corner.”Despite these challenges, New Zealand’s trajectory was largely positive, said Shamubeel Eaqub, a New Zealand-based economist. “I’m optimistic about New Zealand,” he said. “I’m not optimistic about our politics.”And while New Zealanders may approach Saturday’s vote with a sense of irritability, after an election campaign that has been characterized by mudslinging and small-target campaigning, there have been few allegations of the misinformation or antidemocratic behaviors that have bedeviled elections elsewhere in the world.“In New Zealand, we don’t stop and think, ‘If you look at all of the indicators and league tables around the world, we’re actually one of the best-governed countries on earth,’ ” said Dr. Duncan, the political scientist. “But if you actually tried to say it to most New Zealanders, they’ll ask you, ‘What are you on?’” More

Mary Wilson, Stella Tan and Rachel Quester and Dan Powell and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicRobert F. Kennedy Jr. was once dismissed as a fringe figure in the 2024 presidential race. But this week, as he announces an independent run for the White House, he’s striking fear within both the Democratic and Republican parties.Rebecca Davis O’Brien, who covers campaign finance for The Times, explains why.On today’s episodeRebecca Davis O’Brien, a reporter covering campaign finance and money in U.S. elections for The New York Times.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories, has said he represents “a populist movement that defies left-right division.”Ryan David Brown for The New York TimesBackground readingRobert F. Kennedy Jr. told supporters he would end his campaign as a Democratic candidate and run as an independent, potentially upsetting the dynamics of the 2024 election.From July, five noteworthy falsehoods Mr. Kennedy has promoted.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Rebecca Davis O’Brien More

The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.Flares fired from Israel, seen from southern Lebanon, on Wednesday. There have been continuing skirmishes and artillery fire on the Israel-Lebanon border.Thaier Al-Sudani/ReutersOn Today’s Episode:Why Tensions Are Rising on Israel’s Border With Lebanon as It Fights Hamas in Gaza, with Ben HubbardRepublicans Choose a New Speaker Nominee, Then Quickly Undercut Him“The Wrath of God”: Afghans Mourn Unimaginable Loss From Quake, with Christina GoldbaumEli Cohen More