Elections

After an indictment in Manhattan, Donald Trump’s supporters fell in line behind him. A jury’s decision in a sexual abuse and defamation case may yet carry a political price.When Alvin L. Bragg secured the indictment of former President Donald J. Trump, it galvanized Trump supporters. Allies of his Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, mark that indictment as the moment that Mr. Trump sped away from his nearest opponent in the polls.Nobody around Mr. Trump is making a prediction publicly or privately that there will be a similar effect after a jury on Tuesday in the lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.The price that Mr. Trump was ordered by the jury to pay his accuser, Ms. Carroll, was $5 million, in a verdict he has promised to appeal. But whether he pays any political price at all is unclear. Mr. Trump was said to be furious about the verdict, and questioning the various decisions that were made by his team in the defense. Far from letting up on Ms. Carroll, his team plans to aggressively attack her claims and tether her to Democrats.There is no world in which the result of that civil trial was a positive development for the project he is most focused on: the presidential campaign for which he remains the Republican front-runner.Mr. Trump has a decades-long history of crude and misogynistic comments — and he has faced repeated accusations of sexual harassment and assault, so many that they most likely would have sunk any other candidate. But a majority in the Republican Party have largely dismissed the accusations against a celebrity former president as irrelevant to how they cast votes.But comments and even allegations are different from a jury verdict.The first real test of his in-person response will come on Wednesday night on a national stage in front of a live television audience — a town hall hosted by CNN in New Hampshire, in a venue filled with about 400 voters who are Republicans or Republican-leaning independents.“Americans heard with their own ears in 2016 Trump brag on tape about sexual assault and still elected him,” said David Axelrod, a former top adviser to President Barack Obama, referring to the “Access Hollywood” tape. “Will this be different, or will his supporters simply dismiss it as one more example of the politically motivated ‘deep state’ beat-down of which he claims to be the victim?”A handful of allies of Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Trump’s closest rival in the Republican primary race, anticipated that this case could prove different from myriad other scandals Mr. Trump has faced.Senators John Kennedy of Louisiana and John Thune of South Dakota essentially averted their gazes when asked to comment by reporters. Among those who publicly defended him was Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama defended Mr. Trump on Tuesday after the jury’s verdict.Kenny Holston/The New York Times“It makes me want to vote for him twice,” Mr. Tuberville told The Huffington Post. “People are going to see through the lines,” he added, saying that with “a New York jury, he had no chance.”Few of Mr. Trump’s opponents were willing to condemn him either, at least so far. Only one Republican candidate, Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, issued a statement.“Over the course of my over 25 years of experience in the courtroom, I have seen firsthand how a cavalier and arrogant contempt for the rule of law can backfire,” the statement read. “The jury verdict should be treated with seriousness and is another example of the indefensible behavior of Donald Trump.”Former Vice President Mike Pence told NBC News that it was up to the American public to decide whether Mr. Trump is fit to be president again, but added, “I just don’t think it’s where the American people are focused.”For years, Mr. Trump’s approach to his business and his political life has been to portray himself as inevitable, to give off the impression that challengers or critics shouldn’t even bother trying to best him. He has handled the 2024 Republican primary in much the same manner, encouraged by his polling lead and Mr. DeSantis’s stumbles. Still, some of his critics and even some allies concede that the various legal challenges could risk becoming too much freight for him to carry.Mr. Trump’s advisers have recently conducted extensive polling to explore how deeply the various legal cases are resonating with primary voters, according to people briefed on the efforts.Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers were nervously anticipating the verdict before deliberations began. One was candid in private that while they were relieved Mr. Trump had been found not liable of the specific claim of rape, the rest of the jury’s verdict was “not good.”For Mr. Trump and his allies, describing him as the victim of a “deep state” plot by his government opponents and prosecutors could be much harder to accomplish in this case. A federal jury of six men and three women gave legitimacy to an accusation of sexual abuse made by Ms. Carroll, a writer who was photographed with Mr. Trump in New York yet whom he continues to maintain he does not know.One of the most damaging aspects of the trial for Mr. Trump was his videotaped deposition. People close to him acknowledge the comments were a self-inflicted wound, and are aware Democrats in particular may put them in television ads where independent and suburban voters whom Mr. Trump long ago alienated would see them.In his deposition, he burrowed into his remarks on the “Access Hollywood” tape, when asked by Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, if it was true as he said on that recording that stars can grab women by the genitals.“Well, if you look over the last million years, I guess that’s been largely true,” Mr. Trump said. “Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately, or fortunately.” More

A seven-point Trump lead in an ABC/Post survey is an aberration but points to some Biden weaknesses.Is Donald Trump really leading President Biden?Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesThere’s usually a simple rule of thumb for thinking about outlying poll results: Toss it in the average, and don’t think too hard about it. After all, outlying poll results are inevitable, simply by chance. When they occur, it shouldn’t be any surprise.But sometimes, that guidance gets a little hard to follow. The most recent ABC/Washington Post poll is proving to be one of those cases.In a startling finding, the poll found Donald J. Trump and Ron DeSantis each leading President Biden by seven percentage points, with Mr. Biden trailing among young people and struggling badly among nonwhite voters. After a few days of relentless media conversation, even I’ve been forced to abandon the usual rule of thumb.Make no mistake: This survey is an outlier. The Post article reporting the result acknowledged as much. But of all the cases over the last few years when an outlier has dominated the political discourse, this may be one of the more useful ones. For one, it may not be quite as much as an outlier as you might assume. Even if it is, it may nonetheless help readers internalize something that might have been hard to believe without such a stark survey result: Mr. Trump is quite competitive at the outset of the race.To the extent the usual rule of thumb would mean dismissing the poll result and returning to an assumption that Mr. Trump can’t win, the usual guidance might be counterproductive.Before I go on, I should acknowledge that I do have a few gripes with this survey. It reported the results among all adults, not registered or likely voters. The question about the presidential matchup explicitly offered respondents the option to say they’re still undecided, which could tend to disadvantage the candidate with less enthusiastic support. For good measure, the matchup was buried 16th in the questionnaire, following other questions about the debt ceiling, abortion, the presidential primary, the allegations against Mr. Trump and so on.But my various gripes probably don’t “explain” Mr. Trump’s strength. The poll actually did report a result among registered voters and still found Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis ahead by six. And just a few months ago, an entirely different ABC/Post survey asked about the presidential matchup among registered voters in the typical way, without offering undecided as an option. What did they find? Mr. Trump still led by three points among registered voters. Similarly, they found him leading by two last September.Interestingly, the January and September surveys showed all of the same peculiar results by subgroup — Mr. Trump’s lead among young voters (18 to 39), and the staggering Democratic weakness among nonwhite voters. And while this was not included in the most recent poll, Mr. Trump led among voters making less than $50,000 per year, historically a Democratic voting group. No other high-quality survey has consistently shown Mr. Biden performing so poorly, especially among young voters.All of this means that the ABC/Post poll isn’t quite like the usual outlier. This consistent pattern requires more than just statistical noise and random sampling. Something else is at play, whether that’s something about the ABC/Post methodology, the underlying bias in telephone response patterns nowadays, or some combination of the above. It should be noted that the ABC/Post poll is nearly the last of the traditional, live-interview, random-digit-dialing telephone surveys that dominated public polling for much of the last half-century. So it’s easy to understand why it could produce different results, even if it’s not obvious why it produces them.But if no other survey has matched the ABC/Post poll, it would probably be wrong to say that it’s entirely alone in showing a weak Biden. Yes, it’s alone in showing Mr. Trump ahead by seven (counting leaners). But even the last Times/Siena poll, in October, showed Mr. Trump ahead by one point among registered voters. So far this year, the average of all polls has shown an essentially tied race.And virtually all of the polling shows an admittedly more muted version of the same basic demographic story, especially among nonwhite voters. Even excluding ABC/Post polling altogether (in clear violation of the “toss it in the average” rule), Mr. Biden still has a mere 49-37 lead over Mr. Trump among Hispanic voters and just a 70-18 lead among Black voters. In each case, Mr. Biden is far behind usual Democratic benchmarks, and it comes on the heels of a midterm election featuring unusually low Black turnout.If the lesson from the ABC/Post poll is that Mr. Biden is vulnerable and weak among usually reliable Democratic constituencies, then perhaps the takeaway from an outlying poll isn’t necessarily a misleading one. More

Hunker down, America. Here we go again.The presidential election is still a year and a half away. But on Wednesday evening, Donald Trump will elbow his way back into the campaign mainstream. At a town hall event in New Hampshire hosted by CNN, the former president will field questions from audience members and the network anchor Kaitlan Collins.The whole spectacle sounds downright chilling. The event will be live, leaving Mr. Trump more or less free to inject his lies straight into viewers’ veins. He will be coming off the E. Jean Carroll verdict, upping his odds of saying something awful about women or witch hunts and how everyone is always out to get him. And even if he dials down the crazy, his re-emergence on a major prime-time platform raises vexing questions. After everything this antidemocratic, violence-encouraging carnival barker has put America through, are we really going to treat him like a normal candidate this time? How can CNN and other media outlets justify giving him a megaphone from which to dominate and degrade the political landscape? Have we learned nothing from the past eight years?Short answer: We have in fact learned much about Mr. Trump and the threat he poses to American democracy. But trying to shut him out of the public discussion or campaign process would bring its own dangers. Not only would it play into the politics of victimhood that he peddles with such infuriating effectiveness. It risks further undermining public faith in the democratic process — making the system look too weak to deal with one aspiring autocrat — and even the process itself. As with so much about the MAGA king, there are no easy fixes.Nothing that Mr. Trump has done so far legally prevents him from pursuing, or serving, another term in the White House. Yes, many voters consider his double impeachments, his role in the Jan. 6 riot and his glut of legal troubles to be disqualifying. But many others do not. Polls consistently put the former president at the front of the current Republican presidential pack. A recent CBS News-YouGov survey gave him a whopping 36 point advantage over Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida (58 percent to 22 percent) among likely G.O.P. primary voters. No other contender cracked double digits. As for the general election, a new ABC News-Washington Post poll showed him with a six-point edge — seven points with undecided leaners — over President Biden.While early polling has its shortcomings, it does serve as a reminder of Mr. Trump’s enduring appeal for millions of Americans. He is a serious contender for the White House — even, heaven help us, a formidable one. To treat him otherwise would be a breach of duty by the news media, democratic institutions and voters.It’s not as though Mr. Trump can be stuffed in a storage closet like a bunch of classified documents. Today’s mediascape includes a host of conservative players eager to fawn all over him in the hopes of making his fans theirs as well. Just think of the embarrassing tongue bath he received from Tucker Carlson in their April sit-down. Such slobberfests should not be the primary means by which voters assess Mr. Trump. He needs to be put through his paces, like any horse in the race.Just to be clear: No one is daft enough to think that Mr. Trump and CNN are linking arms out of a selfless, high-minded commitment to the public good. They are using each other. Under new leadership, the network is looking to rebuild its reputation, and ratings, as a less crusading, more balanced news source.As for the former president, CNN is just one piece of his grand media strategy. His team has been talking up how their guy wants to push the reset button on his relationship with the fourth estate. Journalists from mainstream outlets are being invited to travel on his campaign plane. And the campaign is negotiating with other top outlets, including NBC, for face time with the candidate.This is the least surprising move ever. Mr. Trump has always been a media creation. Without the “fake news” he so loves to bash, he’d just be another failed real estate scion hawking mediocre steaks and worthless degrees from his “university.”More specifically, Mr. Trump’s people are flogging the idea that his willingness to play with the media is proof of his bravery and manliness. “Going outside the traditional Republican ‘comfort zone’ was a key to President Trump’s success in 2016,” one toady recently told The Hill. “Some other candidates are too afraid to take this step in their quest to defeat Joe Biden and are afraid to do anything other than Fox News.”Take that, “Pudding Fingers” DeSantis.More targeted still: Mr. Trump’s canoodling with CNN twists the knife in the gut of Fox News, which of late has not been obsequious enough for his taste. This isn’t simply an issue of personal spite. Threatening/scaring/cajoling Fox News back into line is important to Mr. Trump’s 2024 fortunes. Whatever the network’s recent drama, there is no other conservative platform like it.It’s hard to know how Mr. Trump’s forays beyond his MAGA bubble will go, especially starting out. The guy was an appalling president, but he has always been a top-notch pitchman with a freaky sort of charisma. And a huge part of running for — and even being — president is compelling salesmanship. That said, he is out of practice interacting with people who aren’t there simply to lick his boots. He has spent the past couple of years largely cocooned in a fantasyland of his own creation, which can be tough to come back from.That makes these early appearances all the more important. CNN has as much on the line on Wednesday as the candidate — maybe more. This is about more than real-time fact-checking the candidate, though it must be established early and firmly that no disinformation will go unrebutted. Mr. Trump cannot be allowed to grandstand or slither away from awkward topics: He needs to face tough and skeptical questioning from the get-go.I do wish that CNN had waited a bit longer before relaunching Mr. Trump. Firing up the prime-time campaign coverage machine this early in the cycle isn’t healthy for the American psyche under normal circumstances, much less with this singularly toxic character in the mix.But now that the Trump Show is back, the media — everyone really — needs to be demanding more from this season than past ones. The former president should be expected to undergo the same vetting rituals as other candidates: debates, town halls, non-softball interviews, candidate cattle calls — the works. He cannot be left to the fuzzy realm of social media and schmoozing with Sean Hannity-style sycophants.Voters deserve the opportunity to take a clear measure of this man’s candidacy, no matter how nauseating some of us may find that process.Source photographs by Sophie Park for The New York Times and ozgurdonmaz, via Getty Images.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

Also, protests in Pakistan after the arrest of Imran Khan.E. Jean Carroll, center, leaving court yesterday.Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesTrump found liable for sexual abuseA Manhattan jury found Donald Trump liable yesterday for the sexual abuse and defamation of the writer E. Jean Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages.The jury determined that Carroll had proven Trump sexually abused her, but they rejected the accusation that she had been raped. The findings were civil, not criminal, meaning Trump has not been convicted of any crime and faces no prison time. Trump said he would appeal the decision.By finding Trump liable, the jury declared that the “preponderance of the evidence” supported Carroll’s accusation that he attacked her in the dressing room of a New York department store in the mid-1990s.Carroll is one of more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the years — allegations he has always denied — but hers is the first to be successfully tested before a jury.Trump did not attend the two-week trial. The unanimous verdicts came after three hours of jury deliberation.Context: Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, faces other legal cases. Here’s where they stand.Analysis: Trump had been thriving politically before the verdict and it is not clear how — or whether — the jury’s determination will affect his momentum. Criminal investigations against him have done little to hurt him with his supporters. It remains to be seen whether the verdict will be a different story.Supporters of Imran Khan clashed with police in Karachi yesterday.Shahzaib Akber/EPA, via ShutterstockProtests in Pakistan after Khan’s arrestParamilitary troops arrested Pakistan’s former prime minister, Imran Khan, yesterday in Islamabad, in connection with one of the dozens of corruption cases against him. Soon after the arrest in the capital, Khan’s supporters took to the streets in several cities, including Lahore and Karachi.His arrest represents a major escalation in a political crisis that has engulfed the country since Khan was removed from power by a no-confidence vote in April last year. Khan has accused the military and government of conspiring against him.The drama surrounding Khan seems only to have buoyed his popularity, analysts said. He has staged a comeback since being ousted, openly challenging the military, which for decades has been the invisible hand wielding power behind the government.Christina Goldbaum, our Afghanistan and Pakistan bureau chief, told us, “For many people in Pakistan, this feels like a turning point, political tensions that have been simmering for months finally boiling over.”“The protests we saw today at the army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi and the ransacking of the official residence of an army commander in Lahore — direct confrontations with the country’s powerful military by the public — were in many ways unprecedented,” she said.Details: Khan’s arrest was in connection with a case involving the transfer of land for Al-Qadir University, near Islamabad, officials said. Khan is accused of granting favors to a powerful real-estate tycoon, with the university getting land and donations in return.What’s next: Khan will be presented before a court today, officials said. Protests are expected to continue this week, raising the possibility of violent clashes between the police and Khan’s supporters.Who is Khan? A former cricket star turned prime minister.Even as China reopens, security visits spook foreign businesses.Aly Song/ReutersChina raids another firm with foreign tiesFor weeks, little was known about why Chinese authorities were raiding prominent international consulting firms.Now a reason is coming to light after raids on American firms such as the Mintz Group and Bain & Company, and most recently Capvision Partners, a consulting company with headquarters in New York and Shanghai.State media said the raids were in the name of national security and accused Western countries of stealing key intelligence as part of a “strategy of containment and suppression against China.” Beijing has also moved to limit the availability of financial data to foreign customers and expanded a counterespionage law.The big picture: The campaign has sent a chill through the business community and threatens to undercut Beijing’s attempts to persuade foreign businesses to reinvest in China at a time when the Chinese economy is still trying to recover from tough Covid restrictions.Related: LinkedIn said it would pare down its operations in China.Tit-for-tat: China expelled a Canadian diplomat from Shanghai after Canada ejected a Chinese official who was accused of gathering information on a Canadian lawmaker.THE LATEST NEWSAround the WorldA funeral in Gaza City for people killed in the airstrikes.Mohammed Salem/ReutersIsrael launched airstrikes against Islamic Jihad in Gaza, killing three of the group’s leaders and ending an uneasy weeklong cease-fire.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is facing what is shaping up to be the toughest elections of his career. Polls suggest a tight race this weekend, perhaps even a defeat.Wireless carriers in dozens of U.S. states are tearing out Chinese equipment as China and the U.S. jockey for tech primacy.The War in UkraineMuch of the spectacle was missing from this year’s Victory Day parade in Red Square.Pelagiya Tikhonova/Moscow News Agency, via ReutersRussia’s annual Victory Day celebrations were muted, reflecting the uneasy moment that the country faces in the war.President Vladimir Putin kept to his usual talking points during a speech, accusing Kyiv and its Western allies of “pursuing the dissolution and the destruction of our country.”William Burns, the director of the C.I.A. and a key figure in bolstering U.S. support for Ukraine, has amassed influence far beyond most previous agency leaders.Other Big StoriesDavid B. Torch for The New York TimesNorway has embraced electric vehicles. Its air is already cleaner.The detaining of protesters during the coronation of King Charles III is fueling a national debate in Britain about a new anti-protest law.A Morning ReadBudget tour groups from China are returning to Hong Kong, bringing frustration and limited economic benefit.Anthony Kwan for The New York TimesWith China’s borders opened after the lifting of pandemic restrictions, budget tour groups from the mainland have been coming back to Hong Kong in droves. Their return has revived old tensions — and a touch of snobbery — in a city starved for business.“Can we have some good quality tour groups?” a Hong Kong lawmaker asked during a recent legislative session while holding up pictures of tourists overrunning parts of the city.ARTS AND IDEASPhotograph by Esther Choi. Set design by Jocelyn CabralThe language of food textureEnglish has many words for flavor. But when it comes to words for texture, it’s far behind Chinese, which has 144, according to a 2008 report. Japanese has more than 400. For example, English basically has “crunchy” and “crispy.” While in Chinese, there’s a word for food that “offers resistance to the teeth but finally yields, cleanly, with a pleasant snappy feeling.” There’s a phrase for crisp but tender, like young bamboo shoots. For a “dry, fragile, fall-apart crispness,” like deep-fried duck skin. For brittle then soft, like pastry that dissolves at the touch.Some English speakers tend to value a narrower range of textures, too. People in the U.S. seem to mostly crave crunchy or creamy. They shun many textures beloved elsewhere, like the chewiness of tripe or the jellified tendon in pho. Even as the national texture palate slowly expands, the foods on offer may outstrip the language’s powers of description.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDavid Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.Add a buttery orange syrup to these delicate crepes to make Crêpes Suzette.What to WatchThe rom-com “Down With Love” is getting new life 20 years after it flopped at the box office.What to Read“African Studies,” a large-format photo book, captures the toll of industrialization on sub-Saharan Africa.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Catches on fire (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you tomorrow. — Justin and AmeliaP.S. Our colleague, Corina Knoll, won a top award from the Asian American Journalists Association for her profile of an older Chinese woman who was attacked in New York City.“The Daily” is about U.S. immigration.Was this newsletter useful? Send us your feedback at [email protected]. More

The former Republican congresswoman, a leading adversary of Donald J. Trump’s, accused him of “dereliction of duty” on Jan. 6, 2021.The political action committee of former Representative Liz Cheney began broadcasting an attack on Donald J. Trump’s fitness for office on Tuesday in the key state of New Hampshire, using her narration to accuse the former president of the greatest “dereliction of duty” in American presidential history.It is unclear whether the advertisement by Ms. Cheney’s leadership PAC, The Great Task, is another hint that she may run for president or a stand-alone effort to soften Mr. Trump’s support in the state that will hold the first Republican primary in February. Ms. Cheney’s memoir, “Oath and Honor,” will publish in November, and she has said she will hold back any announcements until then.But at this political moment, when Mr. Trump’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 have been reluctant to attack the front-runner, Ms. Cheney has fired an opening salvo, demanding that Republican voters rebuff the former president’s effort to return to power.In the ad, which includes graphic and violent footage of his supporters at the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, Ms. Cheney says Mr. Trump refused to accept his re-election defeat. When all his efforts to cling to power failed, she says, “he mobilized a mob to come to Washington and march on the Capitol.”“Then he watched on television while the mob attacked law enforcement, invaded the Capitol and hunted the vice president,” she said.Ms. Cheney also warned:“Donald Trump is a risk America can never take again.”Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, responded by calling Ms. Cheney “a stone-cold loser who is now trying to grift her way to relevance.”The advertisement is running exclusively on CNN in New Hampshire, Ms. Cheney’s leadership PAC said in a statement. Its debut was timed to precede Mr. Trump’s appearance on the network Wednesday night in a town hall devised to reach beyond the conservative news audience that remains in Mr. Trump’s camp and address the broader electorate he would need to return to the presidency. That town hall will be broadcast from New Hampshire.Mr. Trump teased the appearance on Tuesday with a jab at CNN. “They made me a deal I couldn’t refuse!!!” he wrote on his social media site. “Could be the beginning of a New & Vibrant CNN, with no more Fake News, or it could turn into a disaster for all, including me.”Ms. Cheney hinted that she would return to politics after a crushing primary defeat in August by a pro-Trump Republican challenger, Harriet Hageman, who jettisoned her from the House seat in Wyoming she held for three terms. The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, Ms. Cheney was once considered a potential speaker of the House. But her own party conference banished her from her senior Republican leadership post over her stalwart opposition to Mr. Trump after the Jan. 6 attack. She went on to become one of two Republicans who served on the House committee that investigated the riot at the Capitol.Her party and its core voters remain implacably opposed to her position on Mr. Trump, as evidenced by the former president’s commanding lead in party presidential polling. Those same polls have consistently put the party’s support for her at around 2 percent.But Ms. Cheney has said that her mission for now will be to do everything she can to keep Mr. Trump out of the Oval Office.“We have seen the danger that he continues to provoke with his language,” she told reporters in 2021 as she was leaving Congress. “We have seen his lack of commitment and dedication to the Constitution.” More

The former prime minister, who was ousted last year, was arrested on corruptions charges.Imran Khan, who was arrested on corruption charges on Tuesday, was elected as Pakistan’s prime minister in 2018 when he ran as a nationalist promising to fight corruption, revive the country’s struggling economy and maintain an independent foreign policy that distanced Pakistan from the United States.His arrest significantly escalated a political crisis in the country, raising the prospect of mass unrest by his supporters.What is his background?Born to an affluent family in Lahore and educated at Oxford University, Mr. Khan, 70, first rose to international prominence in the late 1970s on the cricket pitch. In 1995, he married a British heiress, Jemima Goldsmith.A year later, Mr. Khan tried to parlay his popularity from cricket — he had led Pakistan in 1992 to its only World Cup triumph — into a political career, establishing his own party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or the Movement for Justice. As a politician, he portrayed himself as a reformer offering an alternative to Pakistan’s entrenched political dynasties.How did he rise to power?For over a decade, Mr. Khan struggled to make political inroads and was mocked for his ambitions. By 2011, he began to gather political momentum, drawing hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis to his rallies. Many were energized by his populist, anticorruption and anti-American message.By then, Mr. Khan had embraced a pious form of Islam and sought to transform his personal image. In 2018, Mr. Khan got married for a third time, to his spiritual adviser, Bushra Bibi. (His marriage to Ms. Goldsmith had ended in divorce, and he was briefly married in 2015 to a broadcast journalist, Reham Khan.)After winning the backing of military leaders, Mr. Khan became prime minister in 2018. Many of his rivals accused the military of manipulating the election in his favor — an accusation Mr. Khan and the military have both denied. He ushered in a new foreign policy, moving away from the United States and closer to Russia and China.Why was he arrested?Mr. Khan’s relatively stable tenure began to unwind in 2021, as dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy came to a head and a dispute with the military over its leadership appeared to cost him its support. He was removed from office in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April of last year.Tensions further mounted in November, when he was wounded during a political rally after a man opened fire on his convoy. Aides called it an assassination attempt.Since being removed from office, Mr. Khan has faced a series of charges, including for terrorism and corruption, and he has repeatedly faced threats of arrest after failing to appear in court. He has also openly challenged the government and military, accusing them of conspiring against him.Mr. Khan was arrested on corruption charges on Tuesday connected to a case involving the transfer of land for Al-Qadir University, near Islamabad. Mr. Khan has been accused of granting favors to Malik Riaz Hussain, a real estate tycoon, with the university getting land and donations in return. More

Staunch supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan still like his tough-guy rhetoric and critiques of the West and see no viable alternative, though he has been accused of mismanaging the economy.Memis Akbulut, a cellphone salesman, listed the reasons that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could count on his support in elections on Sunday that could drastically change the course of the country: He is charismatic, a world leader who has strengthened Turkey’s defenses and battled terrorism.And thanks to a regulation that Mr. Erdogan pushed in the months leading up to the vote, Mr. Akbulut will soon receive an early pension from the government — at age 46.“Everything is a 10,” he said recently in the central city of Kayseri. “I will vote for the president,” he added. “Is there anyone else?”The presidential and parliamentary elections are shaping up to be Mr. Erdogan’s toughest electoral fight during his two decades as Turkey’s predominate politician. A cost-of-living crisis has angered many voters, and his government stands accused of mismanaging the initial response to catastrophic earthquakes in February. Recent polls suggest a tight race — and, perhaps, even a defeat — for Mr. Erdogan.The political opposition has formed a broad coalition aimed at ousting him. Six parties are backing a joint presidential candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a former civil servant who has vowed to undo Mr. Erdogan’s legacy and restore Turkey’s democracy.Mr. Erdogan’s die-hard supporters, which pollsters estimate to be about one-third of the electorate, see no reason for Turkey to change course. They love the president’s nationalist bombast, religious outlook and vows to stand up for the country against an array of forces they view as threats, including terrorist organizations, gay rights activists, the United States and NATO.“Erdogan succeeded in building a close relationship with his electorate over the past 20 years,” said Akif Beki, a former adviser to the president who has broken with him and his governing party.Muslims praying in a mosque at the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan in Kayseri last month. Mr. Erdogan has expanded the place for religious people in Turkey’s secular state.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesOthers have benefited in concrete ways, either politically or financially, from links to Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, also known as the A.K.P., Mr. Beki said.“There is a new class that has arisen in his 20 years, and their interests are overlapping with Erdogan’s,” Mr. Beki said. “It is expecting them to act against their interests to expect them to go against the A.K.P. and Mr. Erdogan.”Mr. Erdogan’s critics note that Turkey’s gross domestic product began declining about a decade ago, and annual inflation, which surpassed 80 percent last year, has left many Turks feeling poorer. Most economists say Mr. Erdogan’s unorthodox financial policies have exacerbated the crisis.During his years in power, the president has consolidated his control over much of the state, tilting Turkey toward autocracy, while frustrating the United States and other NATO allies by maintaining a close relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia after his invasion of Ukraine last year.Kayseri, in central Turkey, has long been a stronghold of Mr. Erdogan, voting for him and his party, often overwhelmingly so, in every election since 2002. Recent conversations with more than two dozen voters there showed that many still admire his leadership while others simply can’t imagine anyone else in charge.When Mr. Erdogan appeared on the national scene as a young, dynamic prime minister in 2003, he and his party promised competent governance, reliable services and economic growth.And for many years, they delivered it.Turks’ incomes rose as their cities became cleaner and better organized. Between 2003 and 2013, the national economy grew threefold, new hospitals, airports and highways were built around the country, and voters rewarded Mr. Erdogan at the ballot box, electing him president in 2014 and 2018.Kayseri has voted for Mr. Erdogan and his party in every election since 2002.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesKayseri, an industrial city of 1.4 million people in the shadow of a snow-capped peak, benefited during the Erdogan era, developing into an attractive city, with subway and tram lines, universities and factories that produce everything from shipping containers to furniture — much of it for export.Sevda Ak, an Erdogan supporter, acknowledged that the high inflation had harmed her family’s purchasing power. But she was counting on Mr. Erdogan to fix it.“If we shop for one child, we can’t shop for the other,” said Ms. Ak, 38 and a mother of three. “But it is still Erdogan who can solve it.”Her sister, Ayse Ozer, 32, credited Mr. Erdogan with developing the country but said he should crack down on merchants she accused of price gouging.Extremely high inflation, which surpassed 80 percent last year, has left many Turks feeling poorer.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan’s critics, on the other hand, accuse him of weakening Turkey’s democracy. And many in the West see him as problematic partner, a leader of a NATO country who snarled the alliance’s plans to expand after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Turkey waited many months to accept Finland into the alliance, but has still refused to admit Sweden.Mr. Erdogan’s most loyal followers, however, see those actions as signs of strength.“He doesn’t bow to anyone,” said Mustafa Akel, 48, a laborer in a door factory. “He built ships. He built drones. If he leaves, the one who will replace him is going to work to fill his own pockets.”He acknowledged that Mr. Erdogan had profited, too, during his time in power. But no matter.“I don’t think anyone else can rule this country,” he said.Nor did many voters in Kayseri fault Mr. Erdogan’s government for its initially slow response to the earthquakes on Feb. 6 that killed more than 50,000 people in southern Turkey. The high death toll raised questions about whether his emphasis on new construction ignored regulations designed to make buildings safe.“They did their best and they are still doing it,” said Rukiye Yozgat, 35.Rubble in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, after earthquakes on Feb. 6 killed more than 50,000 people.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMs. Yozgat also praised Mr. Erdogan for granting more rights to religious women like her, recalling that when she had started university in 2009, she had been barred from wearing a head scarf on campus.Although a predominately Muslim country, Turkey was founded in 1923 as a secular republic that sought to keep religion out of public life by, for example, barring women in government jobs from wearing head scarves. Mr. Erdogan has branded himself as the defender of the devout and expanded the role of religion in public life, pushing to expand Islamic education and loosening rules like the head scarf ban, which has won him the support of many religious voters.In the months leading up to the vote, Mr. Erdogan has also tapped the power of his office to appeal to voters and mitigate the effects of inflation by raising the minimum wage, boosting civil servants’ salaries and changing retirement regulations to allow millions of workers to receive early pensions.And in recent weeks, he has invoked national pride in ways that appeal to many Turks.He had a new, Turkish-built warship, the TCG Anadolu, dock in central Istanbul, where voters could walk aboard. He became the first owner of the first Turkish-built electric car. Via video link, he welcomed the first fuel delivery to a Russian-built nuclear power plant near the Mediterranean. He announced the start of production of Turkish natural gas in the Black Sea and promised free shipments to Turkish homes.Few voters in Kayseri seemed impressed with the opposition, and many doubted its six parties could work together effectively.Askin Genc, a parliamentary candidate for the opposition Republican People’s Party, said he expected the economy to give the opposition an opening.“The cost of living will have an effect at the ballot box,” he said.A political rally in central Kayseri last month. About six million young Turks will be able to vote for the first time, and analysts say Mr. Erdogan has struggled to entice them.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesThe opposition was also hoping to attract young voters, he said. About six million young Turks, out of 60.6 million eligible voters, will be able to vote for the first time, and analysts say Mr. Erdogan has struggled to entice them.Many voters expressed frustration with Mr. Erdogan’s stewardship of the economy, but few said they would switch to the opposition because of it.Ali Durdu, who was shopping with his family at an outdoor market, said he had long voted for Mr. Erdogan but was mad about high prices and would sit out this election. His wife, Merve, was also mad at Mr. Erdogan, but would vote for him anyway.“Erdogan has his mistakes,” she said. “But he’s the best of the worst.”An election poster of Mr. Erdogan in Kayseri. He has tapped the power of his office to appeal to voters and mitigate the effects of inflation.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times More

It was just after Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, had fired off a blunt text to the No. 3 House G.O.P. leader — featuring two f-bombs and four demands that needed to be met to gain her vote for the party’s debt limit plan — that she experienced a momentary flash of dread.“Now I’ll look like a flip-flopper,” Ms. Mace worried aloud.Speaker Kevin McCarthy was planning within hours to hold a vote on his proposal to lift the debt ceiling for a year in exchange for spending cuts and policy changes, and Ms. Mace had just published an op-ed declaring herself a hard no. Now the second-term congresswoman from a swing district, who had already established something of a reputation for publicly breaking with her party but ultimately falling in line behind its policies, was privately negotiating her way to yes.Ms. Mace would, in fact, vote for the bill after meeting with Mr. McCarthy and extracting several promises from him, including to hold future votes on two of her top priorities: addressing gun violence and women’s issues related to contraceptives and adoption. She anticipated criticism for the turnabout, but consoled herself with the fact that she had leveraged her vote to force her party to take on issues she cared about.“This is a way I can drive the debate,” she said as she walked back to her office. “It’s a way of using my position to push those issues.”It was a typical day for Ms. Mace, 45, who represents Charleston and the Lowcountry along South Carolina’s coast, and whose political profile — she is a fiscal conservative but leans toward the center on some social issues — puts her at odds with the hard-right Republicans who now dominate the House.Ms. Mace has said Republicans will lose control of the House if they fail to temper their most extreme stances on abortion and guns.Sean Rayford for The New York TimesMs. Mace, who last year beat a Trump-backed candidate in a primary, is constantly pivoting as she figures out how to survive and play a meaningful role as a mainstream Republican in today’s MAGA-heavy House G.O.P., where extreme members of the party have greater power than ever.She often styles herself as a maverick independent in the mold of Senator Joe Manchin III, the West Virginia Democrat whose tendency to buck his party has earned him outsize power in the closely divided chamber — and the political fame that goes with it. But she has built the voting record of a mostly reliable Republican foot soldier, even as she publicly criticizes her own party and racks up television hits and social media clicks. And Ms. Mace — savvy and irreverent — has become fluent in the art of the political troll, finding ways to signal to the MAGA base that she hasn’t forsaken it.She has repeatedly, and baselessly, accused the Biden family of being involved in “prostitution rings.”Above all, Ms. Mace, a high school dropout and former Waffle House waitress who went on to become the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, is hyper-aware of how she is perceived and of her precarious place in her party.Ms. Mace with her father, J. Emory Mace, a retired Army brigadier general. She was the first woman to graduate from the Citadel.Paula Illingworth/Associated PressDuring Mr. McCarthy’s prolonged fight for this job, Ms. Mace and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene — who have publicly feuded — huddled together on the House floor chatting about how to secure his victory. When a male lawmaker noticed them and said their joint effort was something Republicans would like to see more of, Ms. Mace dryly disagreed.“Who do you think you’re kidding?” she said. “The only thing people want to see of me and Marjorie is if we’re wrestling in Jell-O.”Behind all the tacking back and forth, Ms. Mace insisted, a bigger project is at work. She said she was trying to create a model for a “reasonable” and re-electable Republican in a purple district, and demonstrating that there was a path to winning back moderate and independent voters.“I’m trying to show how you can bring conservatives and independents along to be on the same page,” she said. “Americans want us to work together. That’s not what’s happening. There’s very little that we’ve done that’s going to get across the finish line to Biden’s desk to sign.”Ms. Mace has yet to prove that it’s possible.The debt ceiling vote was the third time in four months that Ms. Mace had publicly threatened to break with her party on an issue where her vote was critical, before ultimately falling in line. In January, Ms. Mace had threatened to oppose the House rules package for the new Republican majority, but ended up supporting it. She had said she would oppose removing Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, from the Foreign Affairs Committee, but reversed course.In both instances, she insisted that she had pried promises from Mr. McCarthy in exchange for her support, such as a vow to institute due process for committee removals in the future. She is aware of the danger of becoming the congresswoman who cried wolf.“Every handshake I’ve taken with Kevin has been legit,” she said of the speaker. “I haven’t gotten rolled. If I were to get rolled, I’d go nuclear. I’m just trying to move the ball in the right direction — that’s what matters to me.”Some of her constituents view her tactics in a less flattering light.Ms. Mace, who has two teenage children, says she does not have any hobbies and rarely takes vacations.Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times“You live around Nancy long enough, she will talk about being bipartisan and reaching across the aisle and working together until the cows come home,” said David Rubin, a Democrat and a retiree who moved to the district six years ago and attended a “coffee with your congresswoman” event with Ms. Mace last week in Summerville. “When it comes down to the actual votes, she always sticks with the party.”A Strategy to ‘Shut Up’Ms. Mace voted to certify the 2020 election and vociferously condemned President Donald J. Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but she did not join the small group of Republicans who supported his impeachment. These days, she avoids the subject of Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, at all costs.“I’ll support the nominee — that’s what I say,” she said while talking on the phone in her car between events in her district. “And then I shut up.”That silence is a deliberate contrast to former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, another Republican who tried to move her party — and failed miserably, ultimately losing her seat because she refused to stay quiet about her unrelenting opposition to Mr. Trump and his election lies. In fact, Ms. Mace ultimately joined Republicans in voting to oust Ms. Cheney from her leadership post.Still, as Ms. Cheney did in her final days in Congress, Ms. Mace regularly warns her party that it is at risk of losing its way. She argues that Republicans will lose control of the House if they fail to temper their most extreme stances on abortion and guns.“Signing a six-week ban that puts women who are victims of rape and girls who are victims of incest in a hard spot isn’t the way to change hearts and minds,” Ms. Mace said last month on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” responding to a new six-week abortion ban instituted by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. “It’s not compassionate.”On guns, she supports improved alert systems and stronger background checks.But Ms. Mace has also co-sponsored legislation that would ban transgender women and girls from participating in athletic programs designated for women. On fiscal issues, she is aligned with the hard-right Freedom Caucus.And while she criticized Republicans for choosing an abortion-related bill as one of their first acts in the majority, saying it would hurt the party and alienate many of her constituents, she voted for the legislation, which could subject doctors who perform abortions to criminal penalties.Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, who serves with Ms. Mace on the Oversight Committee, said he found her effective in trying to find common ground while working within the constraints of her party.“She doesn’t do things that would marginalize her and make her completely ineffective in her party,” Mr. Khanna said. “There’s only so much she can do to push the party. If the Republican conference had everyone of Nancy Mace’s temperament and ideology, we’d be in a much better place in our country.”Yet Ms. Mace’s approach comes with political risks.In 2020, she won election to Congress by narrowly defeating a Democrat. Last year, she won by 14 points, after her district was redrawn to make the electorate more conservative. But the seat could shift again in 2024; federal judges ordered South Carolina to redraw its congressional maps after ruling that the lines split Black neighborhoods and diluted their votes in the last election.Ms. Mace represents Charleston and the Lowcountry along South Carolina’s coast.Sean Rayford for The New York TimesConservative voters in her district are increasingly skeptical of Ms. Mace.“Sometimes I think she speaks out, particularly on the abortion thing, she needs to let that go,” said Paula Arrington, a retiree who attended an event with Ms. Mace in her district last week and who is of no relation to Ms. Mace’s former Trump-backed challenger, Katie Arrington. “We’re real conservatives and we support the Republican Party.”‘Nasty,’ ‘Disloyal’ and VictoriousOver a skinny margarita and tacos at a waterside restaurant in Mount Pleasant near her district office, Ms. Mace credited Mr. Trump with fueling her political rise, but unlike other Republicans, it was his wrath — not his backing — that made the difference.She worked for Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, but after she broke sharply with him after the Jan. 6 attack, the former president called her “nasty” and “disloyal.” He supported her opponent in last year’s Republican primary, in which he savaged Ms. Mace for fighting with her own party and said she was “despised by almost everyone.”“He defined me as an independent voice in a way that I couldn’t have,” she said. “I would not have won by 14 points had Donald Trump not come after me, and had I not been outspoken when Roe v. Wade was overturned.”Ms. Mace, who sold commercial real estate before being elected to the statehouse and then to Congress, is obsessed with her work and has huge ambitions.Ms. Mace often styles herself as a maverick independent.Sean Rayford for The New York TimesShe only halfheartedly denies that she’s thinking about a run for Senate at some point — “La la la la la,” she said, putting her fingers in her ears, when asked about running for a statewide office — while her aides half-jokingly pass along an article that floats her as a potential presidential running mate to former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.In a party shaped by extremists who view the middle ground with disdain, the day-to-day can be pretty “lonely,” she said, noting that she has few friends on Capitol Hill. She got a dog during the pandemic, a Havanese named Liberty, and started carrying a gun at all times when threats against her increased after she voted to certify the election. She said that only “emboldens me,” as does the fact that she’s not the popular girl at the lunch table. She calls herself “a caucus of one.”Her hardened exterior is in part the result of personal trauma. She was molested at a swimming pool when she was 14 and said that for years she blamed herself, because she had been wearing a two-piece bathing suit. She was raped when she was 16, leading her to drop out of high school.“I was in a really bad situation for a long time,” she said. She was on Prozac and then self-medicated with marijuana, which she credits with reducing her anxiety and saving her life.“You carry it for a lifetime,” she said. “When I want to punch a bully in the face, it’s all still there. I’ll bring a gun to a knife fight, and that’s overkill. It’s still there.”Yet Ms. Mace is anything but aloof. As she took meetings across her district on a recent Wednesday, she shared personal details, joking with a reporter about doing the “walk of shame” home from her fiancé’s house and talking openly about her struggle with long Covid.“I overshare because I do want to connect with people on a personal level,” she said, explaining why she had told several groups throughout the day that she had gained the “freshman 15” during her first term in Congress and subsequently cut out bread. “Everyone struggles with their weight.”Ms. Mace visiting the office of Representative Kevin McCarthy, now the House speaker, in 2021.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMs. Mace, who has two teenage children, said she does not read books or have any hobbies. She rarely takes vacations. She is divorced and engaged to be married to an entrepreneur, but has set no wedding date.The grind is worth it, she said, if she can shift her party even a touch.“The message matters,” Ms. Mace said. “I’m trying to move the national narrative.” More