Elections

Only 47 percent of Democrats want to see Joe Biden on the ballot in 2024, according to the latest Associated Press poll. That’s not because they think he’s done a bad job in office. Democrats tend to like President Biden and continue to give him good marks on handling the economy and foreign policy.But many Democrats, particularly younger ones, are worried that he will simply be too old to be effective in a second term, which would end when he is 86. “My problem with him running in 2024 is that he’s just so old,” one Democrat told pollsters.That may be deeply unfair — people age at different rates — and in Mr. Biden’s case, it’s impossible to deny that politics and conspiracy theories, rather than facts, fuel at least some of the concern. But candidates shouldn’t pretend, as Mr. Biden often does, that advanced age isn’t an issue. Mr. Biden is 80 now, the oldest American to serve as president, and even supporters, including the political strategist David Axelrod, have expressed deep worries that his age will be both a political liability in 2024 and a barrier to a successful second term. If Mr. Biden runs again, as he recently said he intends to, questions will persist about his age until he does more to assure voters that he is up to the job.Mr. Biden’s age makes him an outlier even in an era when the nation’s political leadership is getting older. The current Senate, where the average age is 63.9 years, is the second oldest since 1789. The House, where the average age is 57.5 years, is the third oldest. By comparison, the average age in the United States is 38.8 years.Concerns about age — both in terms of fitness for office and being out of touch with the moment — are legitimate, as Mr. Biden acknowledged in an interview in February with ABC News. His standard line, repeated in that interview, is: “The only thing I can say is, ‘Watch me.’”But Mr. Biden has given voters very few chances to do just that — to watch him — and his refusal to engage with the public regularly raises questions about his age and health.The usual White House method of demonstrating a president’s mastery is to take tough questions in front of cameras, but Mr. Biden has not taken advantage of that opportunity, as The Times reported on Friday. He has held fewer news conferences and media interviews than most of his modern predecessors. Since 1923, only Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan took fewer questions per month from reporters, and neither represents a model of presidential openness that Mr. Biden should want to emulate. His reticence has created an opening for critics and skeptics.The president also needs to talk about his health openly and without embarrassment, and to end the pretense that it doesn’t matter. Those who are watching him with an open mind have seen a strong performance this year. His State of the Union address on Feb. 7 shattered the Republican attempts to portray him as doddering. With a passion rarely seen at one of these speeches — let alone in his political history — Mr. Biden presented a remarkably effective defense of his presidency and gave a preview of what is likely to be an imminent re-election campaign.The Times reported last summer that Mr. Biden’s overall energy level has declined, and he continues to stumble over words in his public appearances. But those flaws alone don’t signal a politician who is too old to run again. His first term, in fact, is already full of accomplishment: The economy has added 12.6 million jobs since he took office, inflation is cooling, and he has signed significant legislation to fight climate change, improve access to health care, and make investments in manufacturing and infrastructure. He has stood up to Russia’s destructive campaign in Ukraine, and rallied the West to Ukraine’s side.Nonetheless, as Mr. Biden nears his actuarial life expectancy, concerns about his ability to handle the demands of campaigning and a potential second term are unlikely to disappear. Only a combination of performance and complete candor will change the minds of skeptical voters. Old age remains a sensitive topic, and many people, particularly men, are reluctant to discuss personal infirmities for fear of demonstrating weakness or being pushed aside by impatient younger generations. There is good reason for the federal government’s prohibition of age discrimination in employment — a protection that begins at age 40. Ageism is real.That law, however, doesn’t apply to people who are running for office. Voters have every right to ask questions about the medical condition of a candidate who wants their support. In 2016 both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton gave the public very few details about their health. (Mr. Trump released a particularly preposterous doctor’s letter claiming he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”)Mr. Biden acknowledged during the lead-up to the 2020 campaign that he was “chronologically” old but said it was up to voters to decide whether that was important. In that election, against an opponent who was only four years younger, the answer was clearly no. In November 2021, he released a medical report that said he was a “healthy, vigorous 78-year-old” and noted nothing more serious than a stiffened gait due to spinal changes and some acid reflux that caused him to cough.His most recent health summary, released on Feb. 16, said much the same thing, describing him as a “healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” But his cognitive abilities went unmentioned. That’s something he should discuss publicly and also demonstrate to the voters, who expect the president to reflect the nation’s strength.If he runs again, Mr. Biden will need to provide explicit reassurance to voters; many of them have seen family members decline rapidly in their 80s. Americans are watching what Mr. Biden says and does, just as he has asked them to do.Source photograph by Azure-Dragon, 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

Republican voters seem to be grading Donald Trump on a curve in his third presidential campaign, while Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida faces a more traditional form of scrutiny.When former President Donald J. Trump called Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, “smart” in the days after Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the remark caused a brief media stir and nothing more — another off-the-cuff, provocative statement from someone who is famous for such comments.But when Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida painted the fight in far less extreme terms, as a “territorial dispute,” the reaction from Republicans in Washington and a range of donors was alarm and anger.When the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion ruling was undone by the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Trump — who appointed three of the justices responsible for overturning it after promising to do so during his 2016 campaign — acted like a bystander, telling allies it could be bad for Republicans electorally and blaming anti-abortion forces for losses in the 2022 midterm campaigns.Since then, he has refused to say where he stands on federal action curtailing abortion, an issue on which he has changed his position over the years. Yet Mr. DeSantis faced extensive backlash from voters whose support he might need in a general election when he moved to the right of Mr. Trump and signed a law banning abortions in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy.Mr. Trump, a rich businessman and celebrity who served four years as president and is now running his third campaign, is something of a known unknown commodity. For the last eight years, a defining characteristic of Mr. Trump as a political figure has been that he is graded on something of a curve, his more outrageous comments striking some voters as musings rather than as deeper views on policy.“He has never adhered to the unwritten rules of electoral politics, and he has cemented his MAGA brand by openly flouting them,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist. “In 2016, Trump was exempt from the punitive standards we hold conventional politicians to, and what’s remarkable is that seven years and a presidential term later, that still holds true.”Voters, Mr. Donovan said, see Mr. Trump “differently, and make exceptions, consciously or otherwise, for his statements and his behavior.”That defined Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, when a series of candidates flamed out in the Republican primaries as they were judged by traditional standards against a rival who actively sought to burn down those standards.And if Mr. Trump is succeeds in winning the nomination again, the degree to which he is viewed through a fundamentally different lens from those applied to other politicians will be a significant reason. Support for the primary campaign by Mr. Trump — who last month earned the dubious distinction of being the first former U.S. president to be indicted on criminal charges — has only increased.By contrast, Mr. DeSantis, a former congressman and current governor, is being held to the standards of a typical politician, just as all of those who unsuccessfully tried to stop Mr. Trump in the 2016 primary were. And against those conventional standards, in his first foray onto the national stage, Mr. DeSantis has been struggling.Gov. Ron DeSantis speaking in Doral, Fla., last month.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesHe has made a series of unforced errors that have been the focus of news coverage and have caused public and private alarm among Republican donors who saw him as the antidote to Mr. Trump.Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has gone from decades of being active in New York politics to running as an outsider in 2016, followed by an ascent to party leader as president, and is now racking up endorsements from political elites as the front-runner for the Republican nomination.Mr. Trump has for decades engaged in the kind of glad-handing that benefits candidates — which Mr. DeSantis is said to eschew — such as working phones, sending notes and attending events. He also has the ability to invite people on a private plane or to an opulent members-only club.Mr. Trump also has the advantage of celebrity, and over the course of his presidency, his base became conditioned to dismiss his contradictory policy impulses and statements as just the way Mr. Trump talks.By contrast, Mr. DeSantis’s words and actions harden as soon as they happen, which Mr. Trump plays to his advantage.Recently, Mr. Trump mocked Mr. DeSantis for describing Mr. Putin as “basically a gas station with a bunch of nuclear weapons” in a March interview with the broadcaster Piers Morgan. Mr. Trump put out a campaign video in which he defended Mr. Putin and attacked Mr. DeSantis for offering “exactly the kind of simple-minded thinking that has produced decades of failed diplomacy and ultimately war.”Yet in his own interview with Mr. Morgan last year, Mr. Trump agreed when the interviewer described Mr. Putin as an “evil genocidal monster” amid the devastating scenes in Ukraine.“I do” agree with that assessment, Mr. Trump said in response to Mr. Morgan’s prodding. “And who wouldn’t?”Yet in segments with conservative media outlets, Mr. DeSantis often faces criticism that Mr. Trump does not.Shortly after Mr. DeSantis’s interview with Mr. Morgan on Russia, the influential Fox News host Tucker Carlson took issue with his calling Mr. Putin a “war criminal,” without mentioning that Mr. Trump had described him in even harsher terms.Jason Miller, a top adviser to Mr. Trump, said that the former president has an ability “to bypass the filter of political media and build a personal relationship directly with voters.” He described it as a “sense of familiarity” forged through Mr. Trump’s time in business and entertainment and noted that Mr. Trump had brought millions of nontraditional voters to the table.For the most part, Mr. Trump’s 2024 rivals have avoided taking him on directly by name, or challenging his presidency. The exception is Chris Christie, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, who is traveling in advance of a possible campaign of his own and who laid out a series of policy failures he said Mr. Trump had committed as president.“All of those failings are policy failings, but they’re bigger than that,” Mr. Christie said at a town hall in New Hampshire on Thursday night. “They’re broken promises.”Whether such a line of attack will stick remains to be seen. But it is at odds with how Mr. DeSantis has approached the race so far, some Republican strategists say.“DeSantis’s flawed strategy so far has been to try to beat Trump by out-Trumping Trump without understanding that he’s going to be graded on a conventional curve,” Rob Stutzman, a California-based operative, said, suggesting that Mr. DeSantis, who is expected to formally enter the race in the coming weeks, needed a course correction. “Only Trump rides the Trump curve.” More

WASHINGTON — Back in the more openly sexist days of Hollywood, writers would get notes on their scripts about women characters. The studio suits would ask questions like, “Can they go to a strip club here?” or “Can you chain her to a wall?”The most common note from male executives was, “Make the girl more likable.”No doubt Ron DeSantis’s advisers are getting notes from donors these days with the message, “Make the guy more likable.”As David Axelrod told me, the Florida governor is coming across like “the high school quarterback who throws the geek against the lockers to get a laugh from the cheerleaders — and that’s not a good look.”He said DeSantis is learning a lesson: “The kind of tricks you use to get elected to other offices don’t work in a presidential race because you get scrutinized so closely.”Even in a world made crueler by social media and Donald Trump, DeSantis seems mean, punching out at Mickey Mouse, immigrants, gays and women; pushing through an expansion of his proposal to ban school discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity to include all grades, as well as a draconian ban on abortion after six weeks. He even admonished some high school kids during the pandemic for wearing masks. On Thursday, DeSantis signed a bill cutting the number of jurors needed to give a defendant the death sentence from 12 to 8.DeSantis seems contrived with Tucker Carlson, weak against Robert Iger, robotic against Trump and inept with potential donors and endorsers. The 76-year-old Trump and the 44-year-old DeSantis can both be nasty, but Trump’s base finds him entertaining, with his “DeSanctimonious” and “DeSanctus” nicknames for the rival he deems “dull.”Trump is so eager to trash DeSantis that he jumped in on the side of woke Disney and later posted an MSNBC headline on his social media site, “Ron DeSantis’ D.C. charm offensive was a massive failure.”On Friday, speaking at a Heritage Foundation event outside D.C., DeSantis took a shot at Trump, saying he could send Florida workers to finish Trump’s wall.But as Axelrod dryly noted, “If they’re going to get into a food fight, Trump always comes with more food.”Trump 2024 put out a slashing attack on DeSantis the same day, describing Florida as tumbling into destruction (even though Trump seems quite happy living there), harkening back to Bush père’s vicious attacks on Massachusetts when he ran against Michael Dukakis.The bitchy Trump has plenty of ammunition when DeSantis wears white boots redolent of Nancy Sinatra, as Jimmy Kimmel said, to tour Southwest Florida after a hurricane; or when a report alleges (denied by the governor) that DeSantis ate chocolate pudding with his fingers. (Trump backers already have an ad up about that beauty.) DeSantis let Fort Lauderdale go underwater, inundated by flash floods, while he gallivanted around testing the waters.The word “likable” became a flashpoint for Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, with some women supporters claiming it was sexist to talk about that with women candidates.But as Jerry Brown once told me: “I think we’re always judged on likability and I think that’s something a lot of politicians don’t want to admit. But I can tell you, when they throw you out, most times they didn’t like you. They got tired of you.”Ken Langone, a Republican megadonor who gave $200 million to the N.Y.U. medical center, told The Washington Post that he was concerned about DeSantis’s rigid manner and his strict abortion ban. Former Representative David Trott, a Michigan Republican, told Politico’s Playbook that in the two years he sat next to DeSantis on the Foreign Affairs Committee, “he never said a single word to me,” even hello. “If you’re going to go into politics, kind of a fundamental skill that you should have is likability,” Trott said, adding, “He’s just a very arrogant guy, very focused on Ron DeSantis.”Representative Greg Steube of Florida also told Playbook that the governor had never reached out to him — or replied to his efforts to get in touch — even when he was in the hospital after falling 25 feet off a ladder in January. Trump was the first to call him, he said. Trump has also wined and dined Florida lawmakers at Mar-a-Lago.On Monday, Steube endorsed Trump (as of Friday, 11 Florida representatives were for Trump and one for DeSantis) and he later tweeted, “Sad to see the Florida House and Senate, two bodies I had the honor to serve in, carrying the water for an unannounced presidential campaign.”DeSantis had declared himself “kind of a hot commodity” to The Times of London. Now the governor is prowling in that uncomfortable place best conjured by Hemingway in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”People are wondering: What is that leopard doing at this altitude?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

In interviews, dozens of left-leaning older Americans wrestled with the prospect of a president in his mid-80s, reflecting on their own abilities and changes to their lives — and even their mortality.Over the last three decades, Americans have chosen presidents who felt their pain and channeled their anger, who shattered historical barriers or seemed like enjoyable beer-drinking companions.But if voters often desire leaders who reflect themselves and their struggles, President Biden’s potential bid for a second term, which he would conclude at the age of 86, is prompting exceptionally complicated feelings among one highly engaged constituency: his generational peers.Three years after older voters helped propel Mr. Biden to the Democratic presidential nomination, embracing his deep experience and perceived general-election appeal, his age is his biggest political liability as he moves toward another presidential run, which he could announce as soon as Tuesday. It is a source of mockery and sometimes misinformation on the right — though the now-indicted Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential poll leader who faces a morass of legal troubles, is just a few years younger — and one of widespread anxiety among Democrats.The issue is particularly personal, however, for older voters who are inclined to like Mr. Biden, but often view his age through the prism of their own experiences.They are aging. He is aging. They are not the president of the United States.Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the sex therapist, encouraged Mr. Biden to run again. But, she said, “one has to know one’s limitations.” Gabby Jones for The New York TimesIn interviews with about three dozen voters, political veterans and prominent Americans between 67 and 98 years old, broaching Mr. Biden’s age prompted not only electoral analysis, but also wide-ranging discussions of their own abilities and adjustments to their lives. Some bluntly wrestled with questions of mortality, and others veered into grandparent mode, admonishing the president to take care of himself.“I’m 72 and I’m a young whippersnapper here in The Villages,” said Diane Foley, the president of The Villages Democratic Club at the Republican-tilted mega-retirement community in Florida, who encouraged Mr. Biden to run again. “There are incredibly energetic, active people well into their 80s, and some 90s.”“One has to know one’s limitations,” advised Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer, 94, the famed sex therapist. She keeps busy these days with a project on the grandparent-grandchild relationship, but prefers to take meetings from home.“I would say the president should run again, but he should also not run up to a podium,” she added. “I don’t want him to fall.”And former Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, who at 92 has a dark sense of humor about his future — “at my age, I don’t buy green bananas” — signaled that he would support a Biden run. But he is eager for a new generation of leaders.“Maybe I’m feeling so strongly because I’m leaving relatively soon and I want to see what’s going to follow,” Mr. Rangel said in an interview. “I truly believe that we should have more candidates, more than two old white men.”Former Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, who is 92, said he wanted to see a younger generation step into political leadership. Johnny Milano for The New York TimesParty leaders overwhelmingly plan to support Mr. Biden if he runs. But recent polling has shown that while many Democratic voters rate him favorably, they also have reservations about another bid. An Associated Press/NORC poll released Friday found that poll respondents were concerned about his age.Other surveys found that older Democratic voters were more likely to favor another Biden run than younger Democrats, even as roughly 30 to 50 percent of Democrats over 60 preferred that he step aside.“I can’t go on television and say, ‘Let’s not talk about this, let’s pivot to the real issues,’ because people think age is a real issue,” James Carville, 78, the Democratic strategist, said last month.It was top of mind for several people who milled around a community center recently as a canasta game ended in Plantation, Fla.Doreen W., 78, a Democrat who declined to share her last name on the record, citing fear of causing problems for her husband at work, said she hoped Mr. Biden would run again. But she worried about whether he was up to it.“I know how tiring it is for me, and I’m not doing anything but retire,” she said. “I’m aware of his age and I’m concerned about that.”Informed that Mr. Biden was not 78, as she had thought, but 80, she groaned, “Oh, God.”“If I could just keep him at age 80 and active the way he is, I’d be more than happy,” she said.Nursing a canasta defeat nearby, Jacque Deuser, 67, said the way Mr. Biden sometimes walked reminded her of her late husband, who had dementia.“It kind of looks like he’s going to fall down,” said Ms. Deuser, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016, backed Mr. Biden in 2020 and is inclined to support him again if Mr. Trump or Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida win the Republican nomination.Mr. Biden’s doctor recently reported that he was a “healthy, vigorous 80-year-old” fit to serve, while acknowledging that Mr. Biden had a “stiffened gait,” citing factors including arthritis. But the doctor said there were no findings “consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder.”Mr. Biden works out at least five days a week and does not drink or smoke, and his recent travel, including a covert trip to Ukraine, impressed some of his peers.Mr. Biden made a long trip to Ukraine in February, meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times“I don’t know if I could have been on my feet going to Ukraine and taking a 10-hour train ride,” said Peggy Grove, 80, the vice chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. But his public appearances have been uneven. While Mr. Biden has long been gaffe-prone, he has made several striking misstatements as president, and he can sound halting. Moments like a stumble on a stairway or a fall off a bike have attracted attention.“I enjoyed working with him. I watch him from a distance now and I get concerned,” said former Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, a 76-year-old self-described “not a Trumpian” Republican. “He’s lost a little of his sharpness.”The White House did not directly respond to Mr. Gregg.Several voters said Mr. Biden’s running mate would be important — and many Democrats have privately expressed concerns about Vice President Kamala Harris.But while health is unpredictable, some aging experts have said there are signs Mr. Biden could be a “super-ager.”Dr. John W. Rowe, a former president of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics and a professor of health policy and aging at Columbia, said “super-agers” tend to live more of their lives without functional impairment. Dr. Rowe also said age could bring unexpected benefits.Older people, he said, are often better at resolving disputes, and “are less likely to do something imprudent.”“If you have, on the one hand, a super-ager, with no obvious evidence of something bad happening right now, and they bring along these other characteristics, I would feel pretty comfortable for the next four years,” he said, adding that he did not know Mr. Biden.Dr. Rowe, 78, a former head of Aetna, said he, too, had encountered occasional questions about retirement.“I do not feel that I’m functioning any less well than I was a couple years ago,” he said.He stressed that unlike 30-year-olds, older people vary greatly in their abilities.Some Democrats pointed to the differences in aging between Presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.Mr. Reagan, who announced in 1994 that he had Alzheimer’s disease and died a decade later at 93, long faced questions about his cognitive functioning. Mr. Carter — now in hospice care at 98 — remained active until recently.“I just try to always look at the individual, factor in age as one of many considerations,” said Gloria Steinem, the women’s rights activist, 89. “For myself, retrieval time is longer, but the choice of what to retrieve is richer.”As for Mr. Biden, she said, “I feel fine about re-electing President Biden, depending on both the alternatives and his health.”Mr. Biden and his allies stress his legislative accomplishments, including on issues affecting older Americans.Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Biden had inherited and helped the country overcome “the worst crises in decades,” and was “now bringing manufacturing back from overseas, rebuilding our infrastructure, empowering Medicare to lower drug prices and standing up for the rights and dignity of every American.” He emphasized Mr. Biden’s experience, judgment and values in office.A recent gathering of the Broward Democratic Senior Caucus at a pub in Plantation, Fla. Many attendees said they were unworried about Mr. Biden’s age.Melanie Metz for The New York TimesAt a recent gathering of the Broward Democratic Senior Caucus at a pub in Plantation, attendees dismissed concerns about Mr. Biden’s age.“If his head is working, he’s fine,” Muriel Kirschner, 94, pointedly told a reporter. “My head is still working, honey.”Patti Lynn, who will turn 80 this year, retired after having a heart attack, deciding it was “time to have some fun.” But Ms. Lynn, whose phone background was a picture of herself with Mr. Biden, did not think he should do the same just yet.“Does he stumble and forget and have to get his words? I understand that perfectly,” she laughed. “Been there, done that. Oh well, I’m having a senior moment. But he’s respected worldwide, he is stable.”“How do you put him down — because he is old?” she added. “He worked hard to get that old. Me too. I worked hard to get this old.” More

Nearly a year after the Supreme Court turned abortion into a dominant issue of the 2022 midterms, the battle over abortion rights has catapulted to the center of the emerging 2024 election season, igniting Democrats, dividing Republicans and turbocharging sensitive debates over health care.From North Carolina to Nevada, Democrats running at every level of government are vowing to make support for abortion rights a pillar of their campaigns, and to paint their opponents as extremists on the issue.And as races intensify, Republicans are caught between the demands of their socially conservative base and a broader American public that generally supports abortion rights, exposing one of the party’s biggest political liabilities as it tries to win back the White House, recapture the Senate and expand its narrow House majority.This month, a Wisconsin judge won a crucial State Supreme Court race after running on her support for abortion rights.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesAll of those dynamics have crystallized over the last month. First, a liberal Wisconsin judge won a crucial State Supreme Court race by a commanding margin after running assertively on her support for abortion rights. A few days later, a conservative judge in Texas took the extraordinary step of moving to invalidate the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. The Supreme Court on Friday said the pill would remain widely available for now, halting two separate rulings, including the Texas ruling, while an appeal moves forward.Democrats cast the Supreme Court’s order as a close call, and warned that many Republicans still want as many abortion restrictions as possible, including a national ban. At the same time, Republican presidential hopefuls — whose teams generally did not respond to requests for comment on the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday night — are straining to find their footing on the issue.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida recently signed a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, when many women do not know they are pregnant, staking out a position that conservatives applauded, but one that could hurt him in a general election with moderate voters. Others, like Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, have struggled to articulate firm positions. And former President Donald J. Trump, whose choices for the Supreme Court helped overturn Roe v. Wade, recently angered anti-abortion leaders by emphasizing state power over the issue rather than a national ban.“I’m worried that we let the Democrats use the issue to define us, because we aren’t very good at our own messaging,” said the Republican governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, who signed a measure that banned abortions after 24 weeks, with some exceptions. Mr. Sununu, who calls himself “pro-choice,” was the rare possible Republican presidential candidate to offer a comment on the court’s ruling on Friday: “Good call by the Supreme Court.”Representative Suzan DelBene, a Washington Democrat who leads the House Democratic campaign arm, said Republicans had moved in an increasingly “extreme” direction on abortion. She pointed, for instance, to an Idaho law criminalizing those who help a minor get an out-of-state abortion without parental permission, and to threats more broadly to abortion medication.“It’s dangerous, and people are angry,” she said. “We’re going to see that in 2024 in elections across the country.”Anti-abortion demonstrators gathered in front of the Supreme Court as part of the 50th March for Life in Washington in January. Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesAs President Biden moves toward announcing a re-election bid as soon as Tuesday, one of his advisers predicted that the issue of abortion rights would be more significant in 2024 than it was last year, as Americans experience the far-reaching results of overturning Roe.Democrats are carefully monitoring — and eagerly broadcasting — the positions on abortion taken by Republicans in the nascent stages of primary season. And they are pressing their own succinct message.“We support women making decisions regarding their health care,” said Senator Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat who leads the Democratic Senate campaign arm. “Not politicians, not judges.”Republicans are far more divided on what their pitch should be — and party officials acknowledge this poses a steep challenge.“We support women making decisions regarding their health care,” said Senator Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat. “Not politicians, not judges.”Julia Nikhinson for The New York TimesConflict always emerges between the demands of primary voters and the preferences of general-election swing voters. But the overturning of Roe has drastically complicated this calculus for Republican candidates. They now face detailed questions about whether to support national bans; how soon into a pregnancy abortion bans should apply; what exceptions, if any, to permit; and how they view medication used in instances of abortions and miscarriages.“We wrap ourselves around the axle trying to nuance our position as a candidate or a party through the primary, knowing that we’re going to have to reexplain ourselves in the general,” Mr. Sununu said. “It comes off as disingenuous, convoluted, and at the end of the day, it really chases away voters.”The fault lines in the party were illuminated again this past week. After a spokesman for Mr. Trump indicated to The Washington Post that the former president believed abortion should be decided at the state level, the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America issued a stern rebuke.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signing a 15-week abortion ban into law in April 2022. This month, he signed a more restrictive six-week ban.Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images, via Sipa USA“We will oppose any presidential candidate who refuses to embrace at a minimum a 15-week national standard to stop painful late-term abortions while allowing states to enact further protections,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the organization, said in a statement.In a separate statement, Mr. Trump’s campaign said he “believes it is in the states where the greatest advances can now take place to protect the unborn,” while declaring him the “most pro-life president in American history.”There will be no shortage of opportunities for Republican candidates to highlight their anti-abortion credentials and to navigate the fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision, starting as soon as Saturday, at a gathering of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. On Tuesday, Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, is also expected to give a speech on abortion.Bob Vander Plaats, a socially conservative leader in Iowa whose organization is expected to host a gathering with presidential candidates this summer, said, “There’s a lot of ways to determine a person’s bona fides when it comes to the sanctity of human life, but I guarantee you the Texas ruling will be discussed.”The issue of abortion, he said, “will be a cornerstone issue in the Iowa caucuses. It will be a cornerstone issue in the Republican primary.”On Thursday, Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, tried to help her candidates navigate the subject, suggesting that opposing abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy was a strong position politically, somewhat mirroring polling she has been showing to members of her party.“In 2022, a lot of Republican candidates took their D.C. consultants’ bad advice to ignore the subject,” she said in a speech. Noting the onslaught of Democratic ads on the subject, she said, “most Republicans had no response.”She urged Republicans to cast Democrats as “extreme” on the issue, a message echoed by some working on House and Senate races who say Democrats should be pressed on what limitations they support.Nicole McCleskey, a Republican pollster who worked for the successful re-election campaign of Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa last year, pointed to Ms. Reynolds, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio and Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia as examples of leaders who embraced tight abortion restrictions but were not defined by that issue alone. All three swept to comfortable victories in states that often lean right, but are not the nation’s most conservative states.“This last election saw some candidates who were unclear or changed their position, lacked conviction and were unprepared to talk about this issue,” she said. “If you have those things — if you have conviction, if you have empathy, if you are prepared and you know how to define yourself and your opposition,” she added, “we can successfully navigate this issue.”But some candidates have shown little interest in managing a rhetorical balancing act.The issue is likely to come to a head in North Carolina, home to what may be the most consequential governor’s race of 2024, with Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, term-limited.“I’m worried that we let the Democrats use the issue to define us, because we aren’t very good at our own messaging,” said Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, a Republican. Sophie Park for The New York TimesMark Robinson, the state’s often incendiary lieutenant governor and a Republican, is expected to announce a run for governor as soon as Saturday. Mr. Robinson, who has said that he and his now-wife aborted a pregnancy decades ago, has since made clear that he wants greater restrictions on abortion rights in North Carolina, where Republicans now have supermajorities in the state legislature. The procedure is currently legal up to 20 weeks of pregnancy in the state.Josh Stein, the state’s Democratic attorney general who is running for governor, said in an interview that there was “no question” that he saw abortion rights as being directly on the ballot. That message was effective for Democrats in governor’s races in several critical states last year.“The only reason North Carolina doesn’t have a ban on abortion now is because we have a Democratic governor,” Mr. Stein said.A spokesman for Mr. Robinson declined to comment for this article.For Democrats elsewhere, it can be more challenging to argue that their races will decide the fate of abortion rights in their state, especially in places where abortion protections are codified. And it is far too soon to know what mix of issues will ultimately determine 2024 campaigns.Still, Democrats noted that if the Supreme Court had let the Texas ruling stand, that would have had major nationwide implications — and many stress the possibility of national abortion bans, depending on the makeup of the White House and Congress.“Even though we may have current protections for this in Nevada, if a nationwide abortion ban is imposed, Nevadans will suffer, and women will die,” Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada, a Democrat who recently announced her re-election bid, said in an interview.In a statement, Ms. Rosen called the Supreme Court order “a temporary relief.” But in the interview, she said the Texas ruling underscored how one conservative judge could threaten the power of a major government agency.“It’s pretty frightening,” she said. More

Vindication. Shame. Triumph. Tragedy. Surrender. These are a few of the characterizations I’ve heard following our recent settlement with Fox News in our historic defamation case against the network for its lies about Dominion Voting Systems and the 2020 election.The public has complicated feelings about our decision to end this trial before it ever began, and that’s OK. It’s bittersweet for us, too.We’ve seen the havoc that lies create for societies, democracies, businesses and families. Over the past two and a half years, I’ve watched it firsthand. My customers, employees, family and friends face harassment, discrimination and threats to this day.But for us at Dominion, when we reflect on the case and its outcome, we think about our first and foremost goal: accountability.On Tuesday, when we proudly walked into the Delaware Superior Court, we were going to trial. We knew our case was incredibly strong, and I still believe that at the end of the six-week trial, the jury most likely would have agreed.We had reviewed more than a million internal Fox documents and deposed dozens of people, and Fox’s legal team had reviewed more than a million of ours. Then, in a summary judgment ruling on March 31, the court allowed the case to proceed and dismantled many of Fox’s legal defenses, ruling its claims about Dominion were clearly false and it could not seek refuge in arguments about the lies’ newsworthiness.At trial, we weren’t expecting any more shocking revelations — we frankly didn’t need any more. From the earliest days of discovery, we knew our employees, our customers and the American public needed to see what we had found, and that is exactly what we presented in our pretrial filings and exhibits.With that goal now met, we were focused on our obligations to our people — many of whom were set to testify, when they would recount trauma caused by the threats, violence and hate surfaced by lies about Dominion. I’d already seen some of them suffer emotionally during their depositions, and I worried deeply that a trial and associated media attention would cause only more lasting pain.The settlement we negotiated accomplished two critical goals: allowing our employees and customers to move forward, and hitting Fox where it hurt most — its bank account.What was missing was an apology, so I myself drafted one for it that I thought would be appropriate to include. When I read it to my business partner, he asked what I thought about mandating Fox issue an apology that would be forced, insincere and limited. At that moment, I threw my draft in the garbage.An hour later, when the Fox board approved the wire payment for $787.5 million — one of the largest known defamation settlements in history — Fox acknowledged what we needed it to acknowledge: spreading false claims comes with a huge price tag.Even so, nothing can ever fully compensate for what happened. The stain on my company’s reputation and our employees’ and customers’ emotional scars can only fade. They won’t ever vanish.If we could, we would trade it all in a heartbeat to go back in time to get our reputation back. But I take solace in the fact that the public has seen the enormous mountain of evidence proving what Fox did, and Fox paid dearly for it.Our settlement with Fox is just one win on a long road. We have six more defamation cases pending: against Mike Lindell and his company, MyPillow; Rudy Giuliani; Sidney Powell; Patrick Byrne; One America News Network; and Newsmax. We will not stop until we hold all parties to full account.By the way, it’s never too late for an apology. And if one day it comes of Fox’s own volition, we will know it was real.Mr. Poulos is a co-founder and the chief executive of Dominion Voting Systems.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

In a letter to federal officials, a liberal-leaning group highlighted testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee that described then-President Trump attending a meeting about the plan in December 2020.ATLANTA — Former President Donald J. Trump took part in a discussion about plans to access voting system software in Michigan and Georgia as part of the effort to challenge his 2020 election loss, according to testimony from former Trump advisers. The testimony, delivered to the House Jan. 6 committee, was highlighted on Friday in a letter to federal officials from a liberal-leaning legal advocacy group.Allies of Mr. Trump ultimately succeeded in copying the elections software in those two states, and the breach of voting data in Georgia is being examined by prosecutors as part of a broader criminal investigation into whether Mr. Trump and his allies interfered in the presidential election there. The former president’s participation in the discussion of the Georgia plan could increase his risk of possible legal exposure there.A number of Trump aides and allies have recounted a lengthy and acrimonious meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, which one member of the House Jan. 6 committee would later call “the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency.” During the meeting, then-President Trump presided as his advisers argued about whether they should seek to have federal agents seize voting machines to analyze them for fraud.Testimony to the Jan. 6 committee from one aide who attended the meeting, Derek Lyons, a former White House staff secretary and counselor, was highlighted on Friday in a letter to the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation from Free Speech for People, a liberal nonprofit legal advocacy group. Mr. Lyons recounted that during the meeting, Rudolph W. Giuliani, then Mr. Trump’s personal attorney, opposed seizing voting machines and spoke of how the Trump campaign was instead “going to be able to secure access to voting machines in Georgia through means other than seizure,” and that the access would be “voluntary.”Other attendees offered similar testimony to the committee, which released its final report on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in late December. Among those involved in the Oval Office discussion were two prominent pro-Trump conspiracy theorists: Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, and Sidney Powell, a lawyer who spread numerous falsehoods after the 2020 election and who also discussed Mr. Giuliani’s comments in her testimony.Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., is trying to clarify Mr. Trump’s role in a number of efforts to overturn his November 2020 election loss in Georgia — including the plan to gain access to voting machine data and software — and determine whether to recommend indictments for Mr. Trump or any of his allies for violating state laws.A spokesman for Ms. Willis’s office declined to comment Friday on Mr. Lyons’s testimony. Marissa Goldberg, an Atlanta-area lawyer representing Mr. Trump in Georgia, did not respond to a request for comment.In its letter, Free Speech for People argued that the testimony and other details that have been made public prove that Mr. Trump “was, at a minimum, aware” of an “unlawful, multistate plot” to access and copy voting system software. The group urged the Justice Department and the F.B.I. to conduct “a vigorous and swift investigation.”On Jan. 7, 2021, a small group working on behalf of Mr. Trump traveled to rural Coffee County, Ga., some 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, and gained access to sensitive election data; subsequent visits by pro-Trump figures were captured on video surveillance cameras.The group’s first visit to Coffee County occurred on the same day that Congress certified President Biden’s victory; the certification had been delayed by the storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. The visitors to Coffee County apparently saw it as an ideal place to gather intelligence on what they viewed as voting irregularities: At one point, video footage shows the then-chair of the Coffee County Republican Party, Cathy Latham, appearing to welcome into the building the members of a forensics company hired by Ms. Powell.Ms. Latham was also one of the 16 pro-Trump fake electors whom Georgia Republicans had assembled in an effort to reverse the election results there.Text messages from that period indicate that some Trump allies seeking evidence of election fraud had considered other uses for the Coffee County election data and their analyses of it. One cybersecurity consultant aiding in the effort even raised the possibility, in a text message to other Trump allies in mid-January 2021, of using a report on Coffee County election data “to try to decertify” a highly consequential United States Senate runoff election that Democrats had just won in Georgia. CNN reported on the existence of that text message on Friday.The Trump allies who traveled to Coffee County copied elections software used across the state and uploaded it on the internet, creating the potential for future election manipulation, according to David Cross, a lawyer involved in civil litigation over election security in Georgia filed by the Coalition for Good Governance. The Coffee County data was also used earlier this year in a presentation to conservative activists that included unfounded allegations of electoral fraud, The Los Angeles Times has reported.Some of those involved with the Coffee County effort came to regret it. A law firm hired by SullivanStrickler, the consulting firm hired by Ms. Powell to help gain access to the county’s voting machines, would later release a statement saying that, “With the benefit of hindsight, and knowing everything they know now, they would not take on any further work of this kind.” More

Speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation, the Florida governor doubled down on his 2024 pitch, ignoring headlines about worried donors and Republican consolidation behind Donald Trump.After a week in which little seemed to go his way, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida got back into his comfort zone: talking up his lengthy list of policy achievements in front of a receptive conservative audience outside Washington.“We’ve really become the beating heart of the conservative movement in these United States,” Mr. DeSantis said of his state on Friday morning as he addressed the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank celebrating its 50th anniversary. “Florida is the state where our shared ideas and values actually become political reality.”But outside that packed Maryland ballroom — where the foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, suggested Republicans were “craving a bold and visionary leader” like the Florida governor — the conservative movement has signaled some hesitation about Mr. DeSantis as he prepares for a likely 2024 presidential bid. Prominent donors have expressed concern, and Florida Republicans in Congress have so far shown little inclination to back him.Underscoring Mr. DeSantis’s biggest challenge is his continued avoidance of mentioning former President Donald J. Trump, who is well ahead in polls and has kept up a whirlwind of attacks on his potential rival. Even as Mr. DeSantis spoke, Mr. Trump shared several critical posts about him on Truth Social, the former president’s social media website.Mr. Trump’s posts focused on days of negative headlines challenging Mr. DeSantis’s political acumen and his handling of the fallout from a huge rainstorm in South Florida. The storm, which hit last week, flooded the Fort Lauderdale area and set off a severe gas shortage in the state’s most populous region.Both of Florida’s Republican senators, in implicit swipes at Mr. DeSantis, have complained about the lack of fuel.“They’ve got to get this thing fixed, this is crazy,” Senator Marco Rubio said in a video on Twitter, without naming the governor. Senator Rick Scott wrote that “Florida families shouldn’t have uncertainty about their next tank of gas.”Jeremy Redfern, the governor’s deputy press secretary, defended the way the state had handled the gas shortage.“At the direction of Governor DeSantis, the state emergency response apparatus has been at work since the flooding occurred and continues in full swing, responding to the needs of the localities as they are communicated to us,” he said in an email.At the Heritage event, which was attended by a mix of policy professionals, conservative activists and think-tank donors, the crowd greeted Mr. DeSantis with a standing ovation. Organizers estimated that roughly 1,000 people had shown up to hear him.In his remarks, Mr. DeSantis leaned into his pitch that he would be the most electable Republican in 2024: He won the governor’s office in a tight 2018 race, governed aggressively as a conservative and then earned a landslide re-election that included flipping liberal Miami-Dade County to the Republican column.“We reject the culture of losing that has infected the Republican Party in recent years,” he said before cycling through conservative highlights of his record, including his decision to reopen Florida’s economy early in the coronavirus pandemic, his handling of Hurricane Ian and his signing of a new law prohibiting abortion in the state after six weeks of pregnancy.Despite his electoral success, Mr. DeSantis has at times faced criticism for lacking a personal touch on the campaign trail. On Friday, he spent a few minutes shaking hands with attendees after his speech, at one point affably helping a woman navigate the camera on her phone for a selfie.Ross Schumann, an attendee from Midland, Texas, who said he worked in the oil and gas industry and who ran for Congress in 2020, managed to get a brief handshake with the governor as his security detail ushered him toward the exit. He said Mr. DeSantis had hit all the right notes in his speech. But Mr. Schumann did not think the time was right for Mr. DeSantis to run for president.“He’s been very strong on getting policy wins, but this primary is Trump’s to lose,” he said.Mr. DeSantis is learning just how tightly the party is wedded to the former president.On Tuesday, he traveled to Washington seeking to court Republican members of Congress. But so far, the effort has resulted in little success. Several representatives, including some from Florida, have instead endorsed Mr. Trump. One of those lawmakers, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, tweeted a photo from a celebratory dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Palm Beach residence, where the former president hosted members of Florida’s congressional delegation on Thursday night.Other vulnerabilities have emerged as well. Potential rivals for the White House are slamming Mr. DeSantis over his fight with Disney, one of Florida’s economic engines.All of it is having an effect on the race for dollars. A prominent conservative donor, Thomas Peterffy, told The Financial Times last week that he was putting his donations to Mr. DeSantis “on hold,” citing the governor’s far-right stance on social issues.Even little things seem to be going awry. Early Thursday morning, the state mistakenly sent a noisy emergency alert message to cellphones across Florida — waking up startled residents and leading Mr. DeSantis to promise “swift accountability” on Twitter. (The state soon announced that it had terminated its contract with the software firm responsible.)Soon after the governor ended his speech at the Heritage event, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said in an email that Mr. DeSantis had “spent more time playing public relations games instead of actually doing the hard work needed to improve the lives of the people he represents.”Still, Mr. DeSantis’s allies have dismissed recent skepticism of his prospects as Beltway hand-wringing that will not matter when voting begins in the early primary states next year.“If you ask an Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada voter if he had a bad week, they won’t see it that way,” said Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, who is leading Never Back Down, the main super PAC backing the governor’s expected presidential bid.Mr. Cuccinelli, who served in the Trump administration, said conservative voters were responding to Mr. DeSantis’s record as governor and his biography as a veteran, husband and father.“When we tell that story, people get very excited,” he said. “They see the fighter. They see the winner.”Although polls show the governor lagging well behind Mr. Trump, he is often pegged as voters’ second choice — suggesting he could coalesce support should the former president falter. Mr. DeSantis will next seek to elevate his foreign policy credentials on a state trade mission to Japan, South Korea, Israel and Britain that will start Monday.And he retains the backing of the political donor Robert Bigelow, a Las Vegas real estate and aerospace mogul. Mr. Bigelow donated $20 million to Never Back Down — roughly two-thirds of its recent fund-raising — according to a person familiar with the super PAC’s activities.“I will give him more money and go without food,” Mr. Bigelow told Time magazine.While the Heritage event focused on the conservative policies that the group hopes the next Republican administration will embrace — the think tank is working to build a database that could help staff the next G.O.P.-led White House and federal agencies — it also demonstrated how conspiracy theories continue to course through parts of the party’s base.Before Mr. DeSantis arrived, an audience member raised a question during a panel discussion on the Justice Department, falsely telling the speakers that the Sept. 11 attacks had been an inside job.The panel’s moderator, the conservative writer Mollie Hemingway, interrupted to ask for the next question. More