Elections

Adrienne Hurst and Dan Powell and Dan Farrell and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherIn March 2017, an engineer at G.E. Aviation in Cincinnati received a request on LinkedIn. The engineer, Hua, is in his 40s, tall and athletic, with a boyish face that makes him look a decade younger. He moved to the United States from China in 2003 for graduate studies in structural engineering.The LinkedIn request came from Chen Feng, a school official at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, in eastern China. Days later, Chen sent him an email inviting him to the university to give a research presentation. Hua arranged to arrive in May, so he could attend a nephew’s wedding and his college reunion at Harbin Institute of Technology. There was one problem, though: Hua knew that G.E. would deny permission to give the talk if he asked, which he was supposed to do. He went to Nanjing, and flew back to the United States after the presentation. He thought that would be the end of the matter.Many scientists and engineers of Chinese origin in the United States are invited to China to give presentations about their fields. Hua couldn’t have known that his trip to Nanjing would prove to be the start of a series of events that would end up giving the U.S. government an unprecedented look inside China’s widespread and tireless campaign of economic espionage targeting the United States, culminating in the first-ever conviction of a Chinese intelligence official on American soil.There are a lot of ways to listen to ‘The Daily.’ Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at [email protected]. Follow Michael Barbaro on Twitter: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at [email protected] production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Emma Kehlbeck, Parin Behrooz, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Jack D’Isidoro, Elena Hecht, Desiree Ibekwe, Tanya Pérez, Marion Lozano, Naomi Noury, Krish Seenivasan, Corey Schreppel, Kate Winslett and Tiana Young. Special thanks to Mike Benoist, Sam Dolnick, Laura Kim, Julia Simon, Lisa Tobin, Blake Wilson and Ryan Wegner. More

A jury in Delaware will be asked to weigh the limits of the First Amendment. Another question in the case is whether the network will pay a financial penalty for disseminating election lies.WILMINGTON, Del. — On Monday, a judge in Delaware Superior Court is expected to swear in the jury in a defamation trial that has little precedent in American law. Fox News, one of the most powerful and profitable media companies, will defend itself against extensive evidence suggesting it told its audience a story of conspiracy and fraud in the 2020 election it knew wasn’t true.The jury will be asked to weigh lofty questions about the limits of the First Amendment and to consider imposing a huge financial penalty against Fox. Some of the most influential names in conservative media — Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson — are expected to be called to testify. But there is another fundamental question the case raises: Will there be a price to pay for profiting from the spread of misinformation?Few people have been held legally accountable for their roles in trying to delegitimize President Biden’s victory. Sidney Powell, a lawyer who was one of the biggest purveyors of conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems, the company suing Fox for $1.6 billion, avoided disbarment in Texas after a judge dismissed a complaint against her in February.Jenna Ellis, an attorney who worked with Ms. Powell and the Trump campaign, received a reprimand last month instead of losing her license with the Colorado bar. Donald J. Trump, whose false insistence that he was cheated of victory incited a violent mob on Jan. 6, 2021, is running for president a third time and remains the clear front-runner for the Republican nomination.Political misinformation has become so pervasive in part because, there is little the government can do to stop it.“Lying to American voters is not actually actionable,” said Andrew Weissmann, the former general counsel of the F.B.I. who was a senior member of the special counsel team under Robert S. Mueller that looked into Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.It’s a quirk of American law that most lies — even ones that destabilize the nation, told by people with enormous power and reach — can’t be prosecuted. Charges can be brought only in limited circumstances, such as if a business executive lies to shareholders or an individual lies to the F.B.I. Politicians can be charged if they lie about a campaign contribution, which is the essence of the criminal case against Mr. Trump by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.In the Fox News case, the trial is going forward because the law allows companies like Dominion, and people, to seek damages if they can prove their reputations were harmed by lies.The legal bar that a company like Dominion must meet to prove defamation is known as actual malice. And it is extremely difficult to prove because of the Supreme Court’s 1964 decision in New York Times Company v. Sullivan, which held that public officials can claim defamation only if they can prove that the defendants either knew that they were making a false statement or were reckless in deciding to publish the defamatory statement.“There are all sorts of times you can lie with impunity, but here there’s an actual victim,” Mr. Weissmann added. “It’s only because of the serendipity that they actually attacked a company.”Usually, there is great deference among media lawyers and First Amendment scholars toward the defendants in a libel case. They argue that the law is supposed to provide the media with breathing room to make mistakes, even serious ones, as long as they are not intentional.But many legal scholars have said that they believed there was ample evidence to support Dominion’s case, in which they argue they were intentionally harmed by the lies broadcast by Fox, and that they would not only be surprised but disappointed if a jury didn’t find Fox liable for defamation.“If this case goes the wrong way,” said John Culhane, professor of law at Delaware Law School at Widener University, “it’s clear from my perspective that would be a terrible mistake because this is about as strong as a case you’re going to get on defamation.” Mr. Culhane added that a Fox victory would only make it harder to rein in the kind of misinformation that’s rampant in pro-Trump media.“I think it would embolden them even further,” he said.This case has proved to be extraordinary on many levels, not only for its potential to deliver the kind of judgment that has so far eluded prosecutors like Mr. Weissmann, who have spent years pursuing Mr. Trump and his supporters who they believe bent the American democratic system to a breaking point.“Even if this didn’t involve Donald Trump and Fox and the insurrection, this is a unique libel trial, full stop,” said David Logan, a professor of law at Roger Williams School of Law and an expert on defamation. “There’s never been one like this before.”It is extremely rare for defamation cases to reach a jury. Mr. Logan said his research shows a steady decline over the years, with an average of 27 per year in the 1980s but only three in 2017.Some experts like Mr. Logan believe the case’s significance could grow beyond its relevance to the current disinformation-plagued political climate. They see an opportunity for the Supreme Court to eventually take the case as a vehicle to revisit libel law and the “actual malice” standard. The justices have not done that since a 1989 case involving a losing candidate for municipal office in Ohio who successfully sued a newspaper after it published a false story about him a week before the election. The court said that a public figure cannot recover damages unless there was “clear and convincing proof” of actual malice..The actual malice standard has been vital for individual journalists and media outlets who make mistakes — as long as they are honest mistakes. But some scholars like Mr. Logan — as well as two conservative Supreme Court justices, Neil M. Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas — have argued that “actual malice” should be reconsidered as too high a standard. Justice Thomas specifically cited as a reason “the proliferation of falsehoods.”“The nature of this privilege goes to the heart of our democracy, particularly in this case,” said Mr. Logan, whose paper arguing that the courts have made it too difficult for victims of libel to win relief was cited in a dissent by Justice Gorsuch in 2021.Fox lawyers are already preparing for an appeal — a sign they are under no illusion that beating Dominion’s case will be easy. At several recent hearings in front of Judge Eric M. Davis, Fox has been represented by Erin Murphy, an appellate lawyer with experience arguing cases before the Supreme Court.Dominion also apparently considers the possibility of an appeal quite realistic. It had an appellate attorney of its own, Rodney A. Smolla, arguing on its behalf when questions of Fox’s First Amendment defense arose last month — the kind of constitutional questions that federal appellate courts will entertain.The belief that the Supreme Court could eventually hear the Fox-Dominion case is shared by the general counsel of Fox Corporation, Viet Dinh. Mr. Dinh, who is likely to be called as a witness by Dominion during the trial, has told colleagues privately that he believes Fox’s odds at the Supreme Court would be good, — certainly better than in front of a Delaware jury, according to people who know his thinking. The evidence against Fox includes copious amounts of text messages and emails showing that producers, hosts and executives belittled the claims being made on air of hacked voting machines and conspiracy, details that Dominion has said prove the network defamed it.But Fox lawyers and its public relations department have been making the case that its broadcasts were protected under the First Amendment because they encompassed the kind of coverage and commentary that media outlets have a right to do on official events of intense public interest.“A free-flowing, robust American discourse depends on First Amendment protections for the press’ news gathering and reporting,” a network spokeswoman said in a written statement. The statement added that Fox viewers expected the kind of commentary that aired on the network after the election “just as they expect hyperbole, speculation and opinion from a newspaper’s op-ed section.”Judge Davis has overruled Fox on some of its First Amendment claims, limiting its ability to argue certain points at trial, such as its contention that it did not endorse any false statements by the president and his allies but merely repeated them as it would any newsworthy statement.A spokeswoman for Dominion expressed confidence, saying: “In the coming weeks, we will prove Fox spread lies causing enormous damage to Dominion. We look forward to trial.”Inside Fox, from the corporate offices in Los Angeles to the news channel’s Manhattan headquarters, there is little optimism about the case. Several current and former employees said privately that few people at the company would be surprised to see a jury return a judgment against Fox. Judge Davis has expressed considerable skepticism toward Fox in the courtroom. He issued a sanction against Fox last week when Dominion disclosed that the company had not revealed details about Mr. Murdoch’s involvement in Fox News’s affairs, ruling that Dominion had a right to conduct further depositions at Fox’s expense.But he does not have the final say. Twelve men and women from Delaware will ultimately decide the case. And defamation suits so rarely prevail, it’s also reasonable to consider the possibility that Fox does win — and what a 2024 election looks like with an emboldened pro-Trump media. More

When the Supreme Court declared a constitutional right to same-sex marriage nearly eight years ago, social conservatives were set adrift.The ruling stripped them of an issue they had used to galvanize rank-and-file supporters and big donors. And it left them searching for a cause that — like opposing gay marriage — would rally the base and raise the movement’s profile on the national stage.“We knew we needed to find an issue that the candidates were comfortable talking about,” said Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project, a social conservative advocacy group. “And we threw everything at the wall.”What has stuck, somewhat unexpectedly, is the issue of transgender identity, particularly among young people. Today, the effort to restrict transgender rights has supplanted same-sex marriage as an animating issue for social conservatives at a pace that has stunned political leaders across the spectrum. It has reinvigorated a network of conservative groups, increased fund-raising and set the agenda in school boards and state legislatures.The campaign has been both organic and deliberate, and has even gained speed since Donald J. Trump, an ideological ally, left the White House. Since then, at least 20 states, all controlled by Republicans, have enacted laws that reach well beyond the initial debates over access to bathrooms and into medical treatments, participation in sports and policies on discussing gender in schools.“We knew we needed to find an issue that the candidates were comfortable talking about,” said Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project, a social conservative advocacy group. “And we threw everything at the wall.”Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesAbout 1.3 million adults and 300,000 children in the United States identify as transgender. These efforts have thrust them, at a moment of increased visibility and vulnerability, into the center of the nation’s latest battle over cultural issues.“It’s a strange world to live in,” said Ari Drennen, the L.G.B.T.Q. program director for Media Matters, a liberal media monitoring group that tracks the legislation. As a transgender woman, she said, she feels unwelcome in whole swaths of the country where states have attacked her right “just to exist in public.”The effort started with a smattering of Republican lawmakers advancing legislation focused on transgender girls’ participation in school sports. And it was accelerated by a few influential Republican governors who seized on the issue early.But it was also the result of careful planning by national conservative organizations to harness the emotion around gender politics. With gender norms shifting and a sharp rise in the number of young people identifying as transgender, conservative groups spotted an opening in a debate that was gaining attention.“It’s a sense of urgency,” said Matt Sharp, the senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that has provided strategic and legal counsel to state lawmakers as they push through legislation on transgender rights. The issue, he argued, is “what can we do to protect the children?”Mr. Schilling said the issue had driven in thousands of new donors to the American Principles Project, most of them making small contributions.The appeal played on the same resentments and cultural schisms that have animated Mr. Trump’s political movement: invocations against so-called “wokeness,” skepticism about science, parental discontent with public schools after the Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns and anti-elitism.Nadine Smith, the executive director of Equality Florida, a group that fights discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q. people, said there was a direct line from the right’s focus on transgender children to other issues it has seized on in the name of “parents’ rights” — such as banning books and curriculums that teach about racism.“In many ways, the trans sports ban was the test balloon in terms of how they can frame these things,” she said. “Once they opened that parents’ rights frame, they began to use it everywhere.”For now, the legislation has advanced almost exclusively in Republican-controlled states: Those same policies have drawn strong opposition from Democrats who have applauded the increased visibility of transgender people — in government, corporations and Hollywood — and policies protecting transgender youths.The 2024 presidential election appears poised to provide a national test of the reach of this issue. The two leading Republican presidential contenders, Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has not officially declared a bid, have aggressively supported measures curtailing transgender rights.“The trans sports ban was the test balloon in terms of how they can frame these things,” Nadine Smith, the executive director of Equality Florida, said. “Once they opened that parents’ rights frame, they began to use it everywhere.” Octavio Jones for The New York TimesIt may prove easier for Republicans like Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis to talk about transgender issues than about abortion, an issue that has been a mainstay of the conservative movement. The Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion created a backlash among Democrats and independents that has left many Republicans unsure of how — or whether — to address the issue.Polling suggests that the public is less likely to support transgender rights than same-sex marriage and abortion rights. In a poll conducted in 2022, the Public Policy Research Institute, a nonpartisan research group, found that 68 percent of respondents favored allowing same-sex couples to marry, including 49 percent of Republicans.By contrast, a poll by the Pew Research Center found that 58 percent of Americans supported requiring that transgender athletes compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth; 85 percent of Republicans held that view.“For many religious and political conservatives, the same-sex marriage issue has been largely decided — and for the American public, absolutely,” said Kelsy Burke, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln. “That’s not true when it comes to these transgender issues. Americans are much more divided, and this is an issue that can gain a lot more traction.”The singer Anita Bryant championed the “Save Our Children” campaign in 1977 to repeal a local ordinance in Dade-Miami County that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation, a historic setback for the modern gay rights movements.Bettmann/Getty ImagesThe focus on perceived threats to impressionable children has a long history in American sexual politics. It has its roots in the “Save Our Children” campaign championed in 1977 by Anita Bryant, the singer known for her orange juice commercials, to repeal a local ordinance in Dade-Miami County that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation, a historic setback for the modern gay rights movements.The initial efforts by the conservative movement to deploy transgender issues did not go well. In 2016, North Carolina legislators voted to bar transgender people from using the bathroom of their preference. It created a backlash so harsh — from corporations, sports teams and even Bruce Springsteen — that lawmakers eventually rescinded the bill.As a result, conservatives went looking for a new approach to the issue. Mr. Schilling’s organization, for instance, conducted polling to determine whether curbing transgender rights had resonance with voters — and, if they did, the best way for candidates to talk about it. In 2019, the group’s research found that voters were significantly more likely to support a Republican candidate who favored a ban on transgender girls participating in school sports — particularly when framed as a question of whether “to allow men and boys to compete against women and girls” — than a candidate pushing for a ban on transgender people using a bathroom of their choosing.With that evidence in hand, and transgender athletes gaining attention, particularly in right-wing media, conservatives decided to focus on two main fronts: legislation that addressed participation in sports and laws curtailing the access of minors to medical transition treatments.In March 2020, Idaho became the first state to bar transgender girls from participating in girls’ and women’s sports, with a bill supporters in the Republican-controlled legislature called the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.”A burst of state legislation began the next year after Democrats took control of Congress and the White House, ending four years in which social conservatives successfully pushed the Trump administration to enact restrictions through executive orders.In the spring of 2021, the Republican-controlled legislature in Arkansas overrode a veto by Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, to enact legislation that made it illegal for minors to receive transition medication or surgery.It was the first such ban in the country — and it was quickly embraced by national groups and circulated to lawmakers in other statehouses as a road map for their own legislation. The effort capitalized on an existing disagreement in the medical profession over when to offer medical transition care to minors. Despite that debate, leading medical groups in the United States, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, say the care should be available to minors and oppose legislative bans.Later that spring, Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, traveled to a private Christian school in Jacksonville to sign a bill barring transgender girls from playing K-12 sports. With his approval, Florida became the largest state to date to enact such restrictions, and Mr. DeSantis signaled how important this issue was to his political aspirations.“In Florida, girls are going to play girls’ sports and boys are going to play boys’ sports,” he said, winning applause from conservatives he would need to defeat Mr. Trump.To some extent, this surge of legislation was spontaneous. Ms. Drennen, of Media Matters, said state lawmakers appeared to be acting out of a “general animus” toward transgender people, as well as a fear of political reprisals. “They are worried about this coming up in a primary,” she said.But for several years, conservative Christian legal groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Liberty Counsel have been shifting their resources.For now, the legislation has advanced almost exclusively in Republican-controlled states: Those same policies have drawn strong opposition from Democrats.Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe 2024 presidential election appears poised to provide a national test of Americans’ support for transgender rights.Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn 2018, Kristen Waggoner, then the general counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, was the lead counsel in the Supreme Court defending a Colorado baker who, citing religious beliefs, refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The court ruled narrowly in favor of the baker.The next year, the Alliance took on a case involving a group of high school girls in Connecticut who challenged the state and five school boards for permitting transgender students to participate in women’s sports. Their lawsuit was rejected by a federal appeals court.Mathew D. Staver, the founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, which was a major force behind a 2008 voter initiative in California that banned same-sex marriage, said the group is now fighting gender policies in the courts. It has challenged laws, often enacted in states controlled by Democrats, that restrict counseling services designed to change a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation, often referred to as conversion therapy.“Those counseling bans violate first-amendment speech, because they only allow one point of view on the subject of sexuality,” he said.In March 2021, Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota declined to sign a bill that would have banned transgender girls from sports teams. She later reversed course. Cooper Neill for The New York TimesThough some on the left are still uncertain about how to best navigate the fraught politics of transgender issues, there’s an emerging consensus on the right. The case of what happened to Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a rising star in the Republican Party, is instructive.In March 2021, Ms. Noem declined to sign a bill passed by her state’s Republican-controlled legislature that would have banned transgender girls from sports teams from kindergarten through college. Conservative groups accused her of bowing to “socially left-wing factions.” Tucker Carlson of Fox News, in a tense interview with Ms. Noem, implied she was bowing to “big business” in refusing to sign the bill.“There’s a real political effort now that will extract a punishment from you if you betray the social conservatives,” said Frank Cannon, a founder of the American Principles Project. He said the episode with Ms. Noem “sent a signal to every other governor in the country.”Eleven months later, the governor appeared to have received the message, signing a similar version of the bill in the interest, she said that day, of “fairness.” More

Ahead of next month’s elections, Kemal Kilicdaroglu has pledged to undo President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s legacy with a focus on tackling inflation and strengthening democracy.ISTANBUL — The main opposition candidate aiming to unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in elections next month has pledged to undo the legacy of the longtime Turkish leader and focus on strengthening democracy, easing a cost of living crisis and battling corruption.The candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is aiming to attract voters who may have tired of the president’s bombastic rhetoric and tough-guy persona, campaigning not just as an anti-Erdogan, but also as his polar opposite: a calm everyman who says he plans to retire after a single five-year term.While Mr. Erdogan, 69, thrives in settings that showcase his power and put him among other world leaders, Mr. Kilicdaroglu, 74, addresses voters from his modest kitchen with a glass of tea at his elbow and dish towels hanging from the oven behind him.“Our democracy, economy, judicial system and freedoms are under heavy threat from Erdogan,” the former civil servant said in a recent kitchen campaign video. “I will put the state on its feet again and heal the wounds, and I will give back the joy of life to the people.”The presidential and parliamentary elections set for May 14 could drastically reshape Turkey, one of the world’s 20 largest economies and a NATO ally of the United States, not least because opinion polls suggest Mr. Erdogan is more vulnerable at the ballot box than at any other time in his 20 years as Turkey’s predominate politician.Chronic inflation that many economists attribute to his financial management stands at 50 percent and has eroded family budgets, angering voters. Devastating earthquakes in February, which killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey, sparked anger at the slow response and raised questions about whether the government’s failure to curb lax building practices increased the death toll.Rescue workers carried the body of a resident from a collapsed building in Antakya in February. Earthquakes that struck on Feb. 6 killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey.Emin Ozmen for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan’s years at the helm have made him the face of Turkish foreign policy, with supporters saying he has boosted Turkey’s global stature and critics accusing him of over-personalizing foreign relations, weakening the diplomatic corps. He has maintained ties with Ukraine while meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, despite the war between them. He has used Turkey’s veto to snarl the expansion of NATO, making allies question his loyalties.Mr. Kilicdaroglu has promised to to run the country differently, and is betting that many Turks are ready for a change.But first, he must face Mr. Erdogan, a deft campaigner who has tightened his control of the state and can marshal its resources for his campaign.“Kilicdaroglu is the antithesis of Erdogan,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a Turkey scholar at the Brookings Institution. “To Erdogan’s virile political aggression, he is a soft-spoken gentleman. In terms of his platform, he is not just a democrat, but is promising to be a uniter.”Recent opinion polls suggest a slight lead for Mr. Kilicdaroglu. Two other candidates are also running. One is not expected to get many votes. The other is a former member of Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s party who could siphon away opposition votes, denying Mr. Kilicdaroglu a majority in the first round and forcing a runoff with Mr. Erdogan on May 28, according to some projections.Mr. Erdogan is seeking his third five-year term. Mr. Kilicdaroglu has promised to retire after a single term so he can spend time with his grandchildren.Since 2010, Mr. Kilicdaroglu has been the leader of the Republican People’s Party, or C.H.P., the largest opposition party, which has been regularly trounced at the ballot box by Mr. Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party.A meeting of the Republican People’s Party, or C.H.P., in December, with a banner with images of Mr. Kilicdaroglu, right, and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state.Erdem Sahin/EPA, via ShutterstockIn 2009, Mr. Kilicdaroglu lost the race for mayor of Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city and economic engine. His party’s candidates also lost in Istanbul in 2014 and in presidential races against Mr. Erdogan in 2014 and 2018.The C.H.P. has failed to significantly increase its seats in Parliament in four elections since 2011 and twice failed to block referendums that expanded Mr. Erdogan’s powers.Mr. Erdogan took aim at Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s record before nationwide municipal elections in 2019.“You could not even herd a sheep,” he said, rhetorically addressing Mr. Kilicdaroglu. “You lost nine elections. Now you will lose the 10th.”Opposition supporters counter that the 2019 elections provide a template for victory because the opposition defeated Mr. Erdogan’s candidates in a number of cities, including Turkey’s two largest, Ankara, the capital, and Istanbul, where Mr. Erdogan launched his own political career as mayor in the 1990s.Offering perhaps another glimpse at the future, the government’s electoral commission voided the 2019 results in Istanbul, alleging irregularities and calling for a redo. The opposition won that, too.Mr. Kilicdaroglu rarely attacks Mr. Erdogan by name to avoid galvanizing the president’s loyalists. But after the devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey on Feb. 6, he accused Mr. Erdogan of pursuing policies that left the country vulnerable to such disasters. Construction has played a large role in economic policies during Mr. Erdogan’s tenure, raising questions about whether safety standards were ignored amid a push for economic growth.“There is one person fully responsible for all of this: Erdogan,” Mr. Kilicdaroglu said during a visit to the quake zone. “Whenever Erdogan brings this country down, he makes calls for unity. Spare me.”He often accuses Mr. Erdogan’s government of misusing state funds and has vowed to investigate accusations of sweetheart deals with companies close to the president.The vote on May 14 will determine if Mr. Erdogan, shown in March, who has dominated the country’s politics for 20 years, will remain in power.Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIf he wins, he has said, he will return the country to a parliamentary system, undoing constitutional changes that allowed Mr. Erdogan to expand his powers. He has vowed to restore the independence of the judiciary, the central bank and the foreign ministry, which he and other critics say have fallen under Mr. Erdogan’s control.Mr. Kilicdaroglu represents six opposition parties that have united against Mr. Erdogan, broadening his base. He also has the tacit support of Turkey’s largest Kurdish party, which could give him about an additional 10 percent of the electorate.Both Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Kilicdaroglu grew up poor, the first in a scrappy Istanbul neighborhood, the second in an isolated village in central Turkey.As a child, Mr. Kilicdaroglu wore the same pair of shoes for years, he has said. While studying economics in university in Ankara, he walked everywhere to save money on transport. He often writes his speeches on the backs of used sheets of paper.After university, he worked for nearly 30 years as a civil servant and ran Turkey’s social security administration.Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s conspicuous financial modesty distinguishes him from Mr. Erdogan, who exudes a flashiness and had hundreds of millions of dollars spent on a new presidential palace that is larger than the White House, the Kremlin and Buckingham Palace.After retiring from the civil service, Mr. Kilicdaroglu won a seat in Parliament and caught the nation’s eye by confronting executives and officials with corruption allegations on live TV.In 2010, after a sex tape scandal forced his predecessor to resign, Mr. Kilicdaroglu became the head of the C.H.P., the party of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded Turkey after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago this year.C.H.P. campaign posters in Diyarbakir, Turkey, last month. Recent opinion polls suggest a slight lead for Mr. Kilicdaroglu. Sedat Suna/EPA, via ShutterstockIn 2017, at age 69, he protested the arrest of a fellow parliamentarian on what he dismissed as bogus espionage charges by walking more than 250 miles from Ankara to Istanbul in 23 days holding a sign that read “justice.” The march concluded with a large rally, but the momentum he generated to challenge what he called Mr. Erdogan’s weaponization of the judiciary quickly fizzled.Critics noted that Mr. Kilicdaroglu had voted for the law that had lifted legal immunity for members of Parliament, paving the way for the arrest of his colleague and other political figures.That same year, the results of a referendum that expanded Mr. Erdogan’s powers were marred by claims of fraud, but Mr. Kilicdaroglu did not mount a significant challenge.Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s often-tepid challenges to Mr. Erdogan’s government have raised questions about his ability to stand up to maneuvers he could face from Mr. Erdogan in the election.“We are in the hands of a bureaucrat who is overcautious most of the time,” said Soli Ozel, a lecturer in international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul.But for now, Mr. Kilicdaroglu is the only hope for Turks seeking a change from Mr. Erdogan.“This is not the election to open the gates of heaven,” Mr. Ozel said. “It is the election to close the gates of hell.”Safak Timur More

The all-but-declared 2024 candidate hosted supporters and donors in his home state of South Carolina with a kill-them-with-kindness message. But will it resonate with the Republican base?Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, two days after announcing an exploratory committee for president, brought his message to friendly territory.After greeting supporters on Friday at Alex’s Restaurant, a Charleston-area eatery, the senator made the case for his candidacy to a group of donors at a private retreat that took place over two days at a high-end hotel near the heart of Charleston’s downtown.Among the most pressing questions from his backers at the retreat — both longtime supporters and relative newcomers — was how his message, at this stage a mostly positive and Bible-backed homage to America’s future, might play in what many expect to be a vitriolic Republican presidential primary.Mr. Scott defended his strategy, according to two people who attended the retreat, saying he would take a kill-them-with-kindness approach, and he maintained that positivity is core to his personality and to his potential campaign. But, he added, he would be able to defend himself if he should face negative attacks.The assembled group, a mix of South Carolina-based donors and national funders committed to Mr. Scott, left the two-day event on Saturday afternoon seemingly bought in to his potential presidential candidacy. His challenge now will be getting a broader Republican audience to follow suit.“I haven’t seen him do anything offensive that would annoy anybody,” said Jim Morris, a Charleston-based retiree who attended Mr. Scott’s restaurant visit on Friday. Mr. Morris said he had not decided whom he would support in the Republican primary but criticized the party’s widespread infighting.“The party needs to get back together a little bit,” he said. “We don’t have to be the same, but we don’t have to hate each other.”Should he formally begin a presidential campaign, as is widely expected, Mr. Scott will face an uphill battle to the Republican nomination. Public polling shows that former President Donald J. Trump maintains a hold on a majority of the party’s base, with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida capturing much of the rest. And though Mr. Scott has the advantage of outsize name recognition in this must-win state, he will still have to fight for support from donors and voters with another South Carolina powerhouse, former Gov. Nikki Haley, who has already declared her candidacy.But the senator would enter the presidential primary with a financial advantage: He has roughly $21.8 million in his Senate campaign account. A handful of big-name Republican donors, including the tech magnate Larry Ellison, have given to the super PAC supporting him.Mr. Scott, the son of a single mother and the grandson of a man forced to drop out of elementary school to pick cotton, has made his compelling personal story a feature of his public speeches and interviews. He often mentions his background to highlight a rise he believes would only be possible in America.“It’s a blessing to come from a state like South Carolina, where a kid who grows up in a single-parent household mired in poverty can one day even think about being president of the United States,” he told reporters on Friday. “Only made in America is my story.”Mr. Scott’s history and positive message, however, can sometimes seem at odds with the mood of many in his party. Mr. Trump, long known for crafting insulting descriptors for his competitors, goes after Democrats and Republicans alike. The super PAC supporting Mr. Trump’s campaign has spent nearly $4 million on television ads — most critical of Governor DeSantis — in the last three weeks, according to the advertising tracker AdImpact. Mr. DeSantis’s PAC has returned fire, running an ad suggesting that the former president joined Democrats in supporting gun control.“The ones who are negative are the ones who are loudest,” said Kathy Crawford, 67, an independent voter and lifelong Charleston resident who said she would support Mr. Scott in the Republican primary if he ran. Voters, she said, “want to bring the country back together, and they want a positive message.”And Mr. Scott’s message could resonate with a key audience in the Republican primary: conservative evangelical Christians. Mr. Scott has spent significant time focusing on evangelical voters in his tour of early primary states, often meeting with small groups of religious leaders in between quasi campaign stops. His public remarks are often peppered with quotes from the Bible. And in the video announcing his presidential exploratory committee, he pledges to “defend the Judeo-Christian foundation our nation is built on and protect our religious liberty.”Mr. Scott’s Friday restaurant appearance had all the makings of a campaign stop, as he greeted employees, worked the room around a swarm of reporters and hugged patrons. Outside, supporters held signs that read “Please Run 4 President” and “Cotton to Congress to White House,” alluding to his biography.“It is always good to come home,” Mr. Scott said to applause.But Mr. Scott has already gotten a taste of the added pressure that comes with being a possible presidential contender. At stops in Iowa and New Hampshire this week, the senator did not directly answer reporters’ questions about which abortion restrictions he might support as president, at one point saying he would support a ban on the procedure after 20 weeks and another time offering a vague answer, only claiming that he was anti-abortion.In an interview with NBC News on Friday, he promised to sign “the most conservative, pro-life legislation” that Congress passes if elected president, without throwing his support behind a specific time frame.Mr. Scott will travel to Iowa and New Hampshire again next week and told reporters he also planned to make stops in Nevada in coming weeks. When asked if he was considering a presidential campaign to juice a vice-presidential nod — a belief his advisers widely reject — he disputed the claim with an air of optimism.“If you’re going to go for it, go for it all,” he said. “Period.” More

The resurgence of Donald Trump in the 2024 primary polls, the unsurprising evidence that his supporters will stand by him through a prosecution, and the tentativeness of Ron DeSantis’s pre-campaign have combined to create a buzz that maybe DeSantis shouldn’t run at all. It’s been whispered by nervous donors, shouted by Trump’s supporters and lately raised by pundits of the left and right.Thus the liberal Bill Scher, writing in The Washington Monthly, argues that Trump looks too strong, that there isn’t a clear-enough constituency for DeSantis’s promise of Trumpism without the florid drama, and that if DeSantis runs and fails, he’s more likely to end up “viciously humiliated,” like Trump’s 2016 rivals, than to set himself up as the next in line for 2028.Then from the right, writing for The Spectator, Daniel McCarthy channels Niccolò Machiavelli to argue that while DeSantis probably will run, he would be wiser to choose a more dogged, long-term path instead — emphasizing “virtu” rather than chasing Fortune, to use Machiavelli’s language. In 2024 Trump might poison the prospects of any G.O.P. candidate who beats him, while Joe Biden could be a relatively potent incumbent. But if the Florida governor continues to build a record of conservative accomplishment in his home state, “2028 would offer a well-prepared DeSantis a clear shot.”I think they’re both wrong, and that if DeSantis has presidential ambitions he simply has to run right now, notwithstanding all of the obstacles that they identify. My reasoning depends both on the “Fortune” that McCarthy invokes and on an argument that Scher’s piece nods to while rejecting: the idea that presidential candidates are more likely to miss their moment — as Chris Christie did when he passed on running in 2012, as Mario Cuomo did for his entire career — than they are to run too early and suffer a career-ending rebuke.It’s true that fortune doesn’t always favor the bold. (As McCarthy notes, that phrase originates in Virgil’s “Aeneid,” where it’s uttered by an Italian warlord just before he gets killed.) But the key to the don’t-miss-your-moment argument is that when it comes to something as difficult as gaining the presidency, mostly fortune doesn’t favor anybody. Every would-be president, no matter their virtues as a politician, is inevitably a hostage to events, depending on unusual synchronicities to open a path to the White House.A great many successful political careers never have that path open at all. A minority have it open in the narrowest way, where you can imagine threading needles and rolling lucky sixes all the way to the White House. Only a tiny number are confronted with a situation where they seem to have a strong chance, not just a long-shot possibility, before they even announce their candidacy.That’s where DeSantis sits right now. The political betting site PredictIt places his odds of being president in 2024, expressed as a share price, at 23 cents, slightly below Trump and well below Biden, but far above everybody else. Those odds, representing a roughly 20 percent chance at the White House, sound about right to me. If you look at national polls since Trump’s indictment, DeSantis’s support has dipped only slightly; if you look at polls of early primary states he’s clearly within striking distance, Trump has a floor of support but also a lot of voters who aren’t eager to rally to him (his indictment may have solidified support, but it didn’t make his numbers soar) and DeSantis has not yet even begun to campaign. He’s in a much better position than any of Trump’s rivals ever were in 2016, and you could argue that he starts out closer to the nomination than any Republican candidate did in 2008 or 2012.Not to run now is to throw this proximity away, in the hopes of starting out even closer four years hence. But DeSantis’s current position is itself a creation of unusual political good fortune. Yes, he’s been skillful, but that skill wouldn’t have gotten him here without events beyond anyone’s control — the Covid-19 pandemic, the woke revolution in liberal institutions, the split between Mike Pence and Trump after Jan. 6, the strength of the Florida economy, and more.It’s obviously possible to imagine a future where fortune continues to favor DeSantis and he goes into 2028 as the prohibitive favorite. But time and chance are cruel, and there are many more paths where events conspire against him, and he wakes up in 2027 staring at PredictIt odds of 5 percent instead.If he were at 5 percent odds right now — if Trump were leading him 75-20 in New Hampshire and Iowa rather than roughly 40-30, or if Biden’s approval ratings stood at 70 percent instead of 43 percent — I would buy the argument for waiting.But DeSantis today is a man already graced by Fortune. And even if the goddess doesn’t always favor boldness, she takes a stern view of those to whom favor is extended who then refuse the gift.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

Glenn Youngkin was seen as a promising candidate after he was elected governor of Virginia, a Democratic-leaning state. But he appears to be putting national aspirations on hold.Virginia’s governor is putting the presidential hoopla on ice.Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican whose surprising election in a blue-trending state set off instant talk of a presidential run, has tapped the brakes on 2024, telling advisers and donors that his sole focus is on Virginia’s legislative elections in the fall.Mr. Youngkin hopes to flip the state legislature to a Republican majority. That could earn him a closer look from rank-and-file Republicans across the country, who so far have been indifferent to the presidential chatter surrounding him in the news media, and among heavyweight donors he would need to keep pace alongside more prominent candidates. He has yet to crack 1 percent in polls about the potential Republican field.Backing away for now is also a bow to political reality. Mr. Youngkin has a shortage of clean conservative victories in the divided Virginia legislature, compared with, say, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who stole much of Mr. Youngkin’s thunder on “parents’ rights” issues in education.An effort by Mr. Youngkin last year to raise his profile by campaigning for Republicans around the country fizzled when most proved too extreme for voters and lost their races.Tellingly, Mr. Youngkin’s two top political advisers, who guided his gubernatorial victory and were mapping out a 2024 strategy, both took jobs this month with a super PAC that supports the presidential candidacy of Mr. DeSantis.Asked about his presidential decision timeline this week, Mr. Youngkin said, “Listen, I didn’t write a book, and I’m not in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina.” Instead, he said, he is putting his full focus on November’s statewide Virginia election, when all 140 seats in both chambers of the General Assembly are on the ballot. A decision to enter the 2024 campaign in November would be historically late, well past the first Republican debate in August.“I am wholly focused on the Commonwealth of Virginia, and I’m looking forward to these elections,’’ Mr. Youngkin said during an appearance to promote Virginia’s agricultural exports. Standing outdoors at a terminal for barges near Richmond — dressed in a blue suit and tie rather than the red fleece vest he wore while seeking office, a symbol of his suburban dad-ness — the governor, 56, said that gaining majorities in the legislature “is what this year is all about.”His political fund-raising committees announced last week that they had collected $2.75 million in the first three months of the year, surpassing the best quarterly results of any prior Virginia governor and providing a war chest that could help Republicans in local races.Success, however, is far from assured. Virginia Democrats plan to campaign heavily on Mr. Youngkin’s unsuccessful push for a 15-week abortion ban, an issue that has mobilized voters in state after state since the reversal of Roe v. Wade.Mr. Youngkin in January at a rally for Kevin Adams, a Senate candidate, in Virginia Beach.Kristen Zeis for The New York Times“There is no amount of money that is going to overcome the regressive policies that Glenn Younkin and the MAGA Republicans have been trying to impose on Virginia,” said Susan Swecker, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Virginia.She predicted that suburban voters who favored Mr. Youngkin in 2021 would broadly reject Republicans, after the Supreme Court ended the national right to abortion last year and as conservatives press for national restrictions, most recently through a federal judge in Texas who revoked the 23-year-old approval of a common abortion pill.“We’re going to remind voters of this every single day: Don’t treat women like second-class citizens,” Ms. Swecker said.Republicans are counting on Mr. Younkgin’s strong job approval rating, 57 percent in a poll last month from Roanoke College, and his fund-raising prowess as a wealthy former financial executive who can connect with the G.O.P. donor class well beyond his state.Francis Rooney, a former Republican congressman from Florida whose family owns construction, real estate and insurance businesses, donated $100,000 to Mr. Youngkin in November.“We need to be doing things as Republicans to get back to a broader majority,’’ said Mr. Rooney, praising the governor’s appeal to independents and some Democratic voters. But when asked what Mr. Youngkin had told donors about his presidential ambitions, he said, “I don’t think anybody knows other than him.”Recently, Mr. Youngkin’s top political strategist, Jeff Roe, who continued to advise him after guiding the 2021 race, signed on as a consultant to a super PAC preparing the ground for a DeSantis presidential run.Another top Youngkin strategist, Kristin Davison, joined the same DeSantis group, Never Back Down. (Mr. Roe and Ms. Davison also continue to consult for Mr. Youngkin.)The day after Mr. Roe’s new job was reported, Mr. Youngkin named a new adviser to run his political action committee, Spirit of Virginia. That strategist, Dave Rexrode, has a long history in local Virginia elections.“If you look at where House and Senate districts are in play, the governor has a high job approval in all these districts,” Mr. Rexrode said. “They like what he’s doing in Richmond, and they want to send allies to work with the governor.”In his first year in office, Mr. Youngkin signed a bill giving parents a veto over schoolbooks with “sexually explicit content,’’ a measure rooted in one mother’s objection to Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” in the curriculum. Elizabeth Frantz/ReutersVirginia’s legislative races will be contested based on new maps that were drawn without regard for incumbents, deeply scrambled familiar political geographies and led to a wave of retirements. Both parties consider the House of Delegates, where Republicans hold a slight majority, and the State Senate, which Democrats narrowly control, to be in play.In his first year in office with the divided legislature, Mr. Youngkin won $4 billion in tax cuts while giving teachers a 10 percent raise in a budget deal with Democrats. He also signed a bill giving parents a veto over schoolbooks with “sexually explicit content,” a measure rooted in one mother’s objection to Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” in the curriculum.This year, Democrats stopped Mr. Youngkin’s proposed 15-week abortion ban. But on his own, he has rolled back the policies of earlier governors of both parties that automatically restored voting rights to people leaving prison. He has used executive orders to try to rescind environmental mandates from previous administrations, including on power-plant emissions and gas-powered vehicles.On Monday, Mr. Youngkin was asked about the ruling by the Texas judge last week invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. If upheld, it would reduce access to abortions for Virginia women, even though abortion is legal in the state.Mr. Youngkin said he didn’t “have much of an opinion” on the case, which is making its way through appeals courts. “And we’ll just have to wait to see how that gets finalized,” he said.If Mr. Youngkin does wait until after November’s elections to enter the presidential primary, he not only will miss the first Republican debate in August, but he will also start considerably behind his potential rivals in fund-raising and voter attention. He would be bucking recent history, when very few presidential hopefuls waited past summer and none went on to win their party nomination.But the 2024 cycle could be different, with former President Donald J. Trump directing fire and fury at early challengers who pick up steam, notably Mr. DeSantis, who has fallen back in polls.Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said missing the first debate could be a blessing. “The people who are in it are going to get banged up” by Mr. Trump, he said.If Virginia Republicans win control of both chambers of the legislature, Mr. Youngkin would emerge as “the fresh face, the new conqueror” of a state that, through 2020, was under full Democratic control, Mr. Sabato said.Given the electoral losses Republicans have repeatedly suffered in the Trump era, Mr. Youngkin “can step in and promise to put the party together,” he added. At least, he said, “that’s their theory.” More

American democracy didn’t crumble in one fell swoop under the administration of a president with disregard for rule of law or under the weight of a mob storming the Capitol or under a wave of candidates who claimed the 2020 election was rigged. Though some election deniers did win critical midterm races, the most prominent — Republicans like Kari Lake and Mark Finchem in Arizona and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania — lost their 2022 campaigns.As a result, some voters might have concluded that the movement died beyond Donald Trump’s continued claims. That would be a serious mistake, because though it has receded from the headlines, election denialism has not died. It has just gone down ballot.In some state and local offices across the country, election denialism is still recasting how elections are conducted, in ways big and small.With far less effort than it would take on a national level, Republican officials are gumming up the mechanics of local election administration, making it harder to cast a vote, harder to tally votes and harder to get results in a timely fashion. Officials are policing elections, establishing task forces and election police units that are supposedly there to root out fraud but could have the effect of intimidating voters from exercising their civic right.Every little bit of friction that’s added to the election process makes it that much harder for it to function. Through the typical channels of government bureaucracy and under the pretense of merely asking questions, these conspiracy-theory-influenced Republicans are often creating this friction for their own voters. Their actions might seem like inconsequential outliers, but it’s there at this grass-roots level that our voting system is most vulnerable. Which means these obscure election boards aren’t where denialism goes to die; it’s where it takes root and starts to grow.Just last month, North Carolina state election officials voted to remove two local election officials. In November the pair initially refused to certify election results (though one ultimately did), as well as in a redo election this year after a bizarre circumstance in which a poll worker was accused of telling voters at one precinct that a candidate had died. The officials questioned state election practices and a 2018 federal court decision striking down strict voter ID requirements North Carolina had in place at the time. “We feel that the election was held according to the law that we have but that the law is not right,” one said.The incident is just the latest in a string of examples of the ways that election deniers’ conspiratorial distrust of elections continues to affect state and local elections. These kinds of disputes and claims cropped up again and again in local jurisdictions last year. Whether it was initially refusing to certify elections, as officials in Cochise County, Ariz., threatened or hand-counting ballots, as they moved to do in Nye County, Nev., or voting to outright get rid of voting machines and sue the secretary of state, as happened in Otero County, N.M., the long tail of the Big Lie has created disorder in local election administration.Perhaps the widest-reaching example of structural interference in elections is the growing list of states that have pulled out of the bipartisan nonprofit data consortium known as the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC.ERIC was created to help states maintain accurate voter rolls through information sharing. It helps guard against fraud by allowing states to crosscheck for inaccurate or outdated voting records and helps identify potential new voters who haven’t yet registered. Since its founding in the 2010s, ERIC existed in relative obscurity. Over the past year, however, ERIC has become the subject of conspiracy theories and attacks, including by Mr. Trump, who has said it “pumps the rolls” for Democrats.Louisiana was the first state to announce it would pull out, in late 2022, followed by Alabama, whose incoming secretary of state did so on his first day in office this year. Since then, the Republican secretaries of state in Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio and West Virginia have announced their intention to leave.The latest wave of departures came after some Republican members tried but failed to make changes to ERIC’s leadership to guard against what they consider to be partisanship, as well as changes to the program, including a removal of the requirement that member states reach out to residents who are eligible to vote but unregistered. Some of these requested changes are debatable matters of policy, but those meetings also came after the flurry of conspiratorial attacks on ERIC over the past year.The irony, however, is that leaving ERIC could very well make their elections less secure. Just this past January, Florida’s new Office of Election Crimes and Security used ERIC data to identify more than 1,000 voters who appeared to have voted in more than one state. In February, the month before he decided to withdraw, the Iowa secretary of state told NPR that ERIC was a “godsend.” Without this crosschecking tool at their disposal in the future, it’s possible for these instances to slip through the cracks, but it’s difficult to know just what the full effect of a weakened ERIC will be.It’s also notable that the institutions being targeted by election denier conspiracy theories are often some of the most mundane — making it hard to predict what will be targeted next. After the 2020 elections, Republican legislators’ attacks on ballot drop boxes, early voting windows and other measures intended to make voting easier were somewhat to be expected. But the moves by election administrators to go after a bipartisan organization like ERIC only add to the chaos that has become election denialism’s calling card.The antidemocratic legacy that once denied the franchise to Black Americans and women is a part of the American story. Today, threats to democracy can be as varied as the states, counties and municipalities where they’re happening, thanks to the confusing patchwork of election laws and powers that change from state to state. But to the extent that they infringe on the voting rights of any part of the electorate, these moves matter to all of us, because they threaten the entire project of American democracy.Camille Squires is an editor at Bolts, a digital publication focused on voting rights and criminal justice in state and local governments.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