Elections

Among the races to watch are governors’ contests in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi and mayoral elections in Chicago and Philadelphia.It might be tempting to focus on the 2024 presidential election now that the midterms are in the rearview mirror, but don’t sleep on 2023: key races for governor, mayor and other offices will be decided.Their outcomes will be closely watched for signs of whether Democrats or Republicans have momentum going into next year’s presidential election and congressional races — and for what they signal about the influence of former President Donald J. Trump.Virginia and New Jersey have noteworthy state house elections, and in Wisconsin, a state Supreme Court race will determine the balance of power in a body whose conservative majority routinely sides with Republicans. Here’s what to watch:Kentucky governorOf the three governors’ races this year, only Kentucky features an incumbent Democrat seeking re-election in a state that Mr. Trump won in 2020. The race also appears packed with the most intrigue.Gov. Andy Beshear won by less than 6,000 votes in 2019, ousting Matt Bevin, the Trump-backed Republican incumbent in the cherry-red state that is home to Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate G.O.P. leader.A growing field of Republicans has ambitions of settling the score in 2023, including Daniel Cameron, who in 2019 became the first Black person to be elected as Kentucky’s attorney general, an office previously held by Mr. Beshear. Mr. Cameron, who is seen as a possible successor to Mr. McConnell, drew attention in 2020 when he announced that a grand jury did not indict two Louisville officers who shot Breonna Taylor. Last June, Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Cameron for governor, but there will be competition for the G.O.P. nomination.Attorney General Daniel Cameron, signing the papers for his candidacy last week, is among Republicans seeking to challenge Gov. Andy Beshear this year.Timothy D. Easley/Associated PressKelly Craft, a former ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, is also running. So are Mike Harmon, the state auditor of public accounts, and Ryan Quarles, the state’s agricultural commissioner, and several other Republicans. The primary will be on May 16.Louisiana governorGov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who narrowly won a second term in 2019, is not eligible to run again because of term limits. The open-seat race has tantalized some prominent Republicans, including Jeff Landry, the state’s attorney general, who has declared his candidacy.Two other Republicans weighing entering the race are John Schroder, the state treasurer who has told supporters he will run, and Representative Garret Graves.Shawn Wilson, the state’s transportation secretary under Mr. Edwards, is one of the few Democrats who have indicated interest in running in deep-red Louisiana.Electing a New Speaker of the HouseRepresentative Kevin McCarthy won the speakership after a revolt within the Republican Party set off a long stretch of unsuccessful votes.Inside the Speaker Fight: Mr. McCarthy’s speaker bid turned into a rolling disaster. “The Daily” has the inside story of how it went so wrong and what he was forced to give up.A Tenuous Grip: By making concessions to far-right representatives, Mr. McCarthy has effectively given them carte blanche to disrupt the workings of the House — and to hold him hostage to their demands.Looming Consequences: Congressional gridlock brought on by far-right Republicans now seems more likely to lead to government shutdowns or, worse, a default on debt obligations.Roots of the Chaos: How did Mr. McCarthy’s bid become a four-day debacle? The story begins with the zero-sum politics of Newt Gingrich.Mississippi governorGov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, is running for a second term. But the advantage of incumbency and a substantial campaign fund may not be enough to stop a primary challenge, especially with his job approval numbers among the lowest of the nation’s governors.Philip Gunn, Mississippi’s House speaker, has been coy about possible plans to enter the race after announcing in November that he would not seek re-election to the Legislature. Among the other Republicans whose names have been bandied about is Michael Watson, the secretary of state. But Mr. Reeves is the only Republican to have filed so far; the deadline is Feb. 1.A Democrat hasn’t been elected governor of Mississippi in two decades, since a contest was decided by the Legislature because the winning candidate did not receive a majority of votes. Not surprisingly, few Democrats have stepped forward to run. One name to watch is Brandon Presley, a public service commissioner. Mr. Presley is a relative of Elvis Presley, who was from Tupelo, Miss., according to Mississippi Today, a nonprofit news website.U.S. House (Virginia’s Fourth District)The death in late November of Representative A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat from Virginia, prompted Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, to schedule a special election for Feb. 21.In December, Democrats resoundingly nominated Jennifer McClellan, a state senator, to represent the party in the contest for Virginia’s Fourth District, which includes Richmond and leans heavily Democratic. She could become the first Black woman elected to Congress in Virginia, where she would complete the two-year term that Mr. McEachin won by 30 percentage points just weeks before his death.Republicans tapped Leon Benjamin, a Navy veteran and pastor who lost to Mr. McEachin in November and in 2020.Chicago mayorMayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, a Democrat who in 2019 became the first Black woman and first openly gay person to lead the nation’s third-most populous city, faces a gantlet of challengers in her quest for re-election.That test will arrive somewhat early in the year, with the mayoral election set for Feb. 28. If no candidate finishes with a majority of the votes, a runoff will be held on April 4.Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago faces several challengers in her re-election bid.Jim Vondruska/ReutersThe crowded field includes Representative Jesús G. García, a Democrat who is known as Chuy and who was overwhelmingly re-elected to a third term in his Cook County district in November and previously ran unsuccessfully for mayor. In the current race, Ms. Lightfoot has attacked Mr. García over receiving money for his House campaign from Sam Bankman-Fried, the criminally charged founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.Ms. Lightfoot’s other opponents include Kam Buckner, a state legislator; Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner; Sophia King and Roderick T. Sawyer, who both serve on the City Council; Paul Vallas, a former chief executive of Chicago public schools; and Ja’Mal Green, a prominent activist in the city.Philadelphia mayorAn open-seat race for mayor in Pennsylvania’s foremost Democratic bastion has attracted an expansive field of candidates. The office is held by Jim Kenney, a Democrat who is not eligible to run again because of term limits.Five members of the City Council have resigned to enter the race, which city rules require. They are Allan Domb, Derek Green, Helen Gym, Cherelle Parker and Maria Quiñones Sánchez.The field also includes Rebecca Rhynhart, the city’s controller, who has likewise resigned in order to run; Amen Brown, a state legislator; Jeff Brown, a supermarket chain founder; and James DeLeon; a retired judge.Wisconsin Supreme CourtConservatives are clinging to a one-seat majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, but a retirement within the court’s conservative ranks could shift the balance of power this year. The court’s justices have increasingly been called on to settle landmark lawsuits involving elections, gerrymandering, abortion and other contentious issues.Two conservative and two liberal candidates have entered what is technically a nonpartisan election to succeed Judge Patience D. Roggensack on the seven-member court.Daniel Kelly, a conservative former justice on the state Supreme Court who lost his seat in the 2020 election, is seeking a comeback. Running against him in the conservative lane is Jennifer Dorow, a circuit court judge in Waukesha County who drew widespread attention when she presided over the trial of Darrell E. Brooks, the man convicted in the killing of six people he struck with his car during a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wis., in 2021.Janet Protasiewicz and Everett Mitchell, judges from Milwaukee County and Dane County, which includes Madison, the capital, are seeking to give liberals a majority on the court.The two candidates who receive the most votes in the nonpartisan primary on Feb. 21 — regardless of their leanings — will face each other in the general election on April 4.Legislature (Virginia and New Jersey)Virginia is emerging as a potential tempest in 2023, with its divided legislature up for re-election and elected officials squarely focused on the issue of abortion — not to mention a Republican governor who is flirting with a run for president.Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, emboldened by the Supreme Court’s repeal last summer of Roe v. Wade, the 50-year-old constitutional right to an abortion.His proposal is expected to resonate with Republican lawmakers, who narrowly control the House of Delegates. But it is likely to run into fierce opposition in the Senate, where Democrats are clinging to a slender majority. All seats in both chambers are up for election.Another Mid-Atlantic state to watch is New Jersey, where Republicans made inroads in 2021 despite being in the minority and are seeking to build on those gains. More

The Florida governor easily won re-election despite little engagement with mainstream news outlets, another sign of partisan division ahead of the 2024 presidential race.Assigned to cover the re-election campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Miles Cohen, a young ABC News reporter, found himself stymied. The governor would not grant him an interview. Aides barred him from some campaign events and interrupted his conversations with supporters.When Mr. Cohen was finally able to ask a question about the governor’s handling of Hurricane Ian, Mr. DeSantis shouted him down — “Stop, stop, stop” — and scolded the media for “trying to cast aspersions.” The DeSantis campaign then taunted Mr. Cohen on Twitter, prompting a torrent of online vitriol.So on election night, Mr. Cohen decamped to a friendlier environment for the news media: Mar-a-Lago, where former President Donald J. Trump greeted reporters by name. “He came up to us, asked how the sandwiches were and took 20 questions,” Mr. Cohen recalled.Mr. Trump, who heckled the “fake news” in his speech that evening, elevated media-bashing into a high art for Republicans. But ahead of the next presidential race, potential candidates like Mr. DeSantis are taking a more radical approach: not just attacking nonpartisan news outlets, but ignoring them altogether.Although he courted right-wing podcasters and conservative Fox News hosts, Mr. DeSantis did not grant an extensive interview to a national nonpartisan news organization during his 2022 re-election bid — and he coasted to victory, with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire now promoting him as a 2024 contender.Assigned to cover the re-election campaign of Mr. DeSantis, Miles Cohen, a young ABC News reporter, found himself stymied.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesHis success is an ominous sign for the usual rules of engagement between politicians and the press as another nationwide election looms. Presidential candidates typically endure media scrutiny in exchange for the megaphone and influence of mainstream outlets. But in an intensely partisan, choose-your-own-news era, the traditional calculus may have shifted.“The old way of looking at it is: ‘I have to do every media hit that I possibly can, from as broad a political spectrum as I can, to reach as many people as possible,’” said Nick Iarossi, a longtime DeSantis supporter and a lobbyist in Tallahassee. “The new way of looking at it is: ‘I really don’t need to do that anymore. I can control how I want to message to voters through the mediums I choose.’”In 2022, Mr. DeSantis was not alone. Doug Mastriano, the Republican who ran for governor in Pennsylvania, engaged almost entirely with conservative media outlets. (Unlike Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Mastriano lost badly.) In Maryland and Wisconsin, reporters covering the Republican candidates for governor were often given no notice for some events, resorting to Eventbrite pages and social media to find a candidate’s whereabouts. On a national level, the Republican Party announced last year that it was boycotting the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonpartisan group that has organized general election debates since 1988.“We fully expect candidates will be rewriting the traditional rules of access and how they interact with journalists,” said Rick Klein, who is preparing to cover the 2024 race as political director at ABC News.Gov. Ron DeSantis and His AdministrationReshaping Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has turned the swing state into a right-wing laboratory by leaning into cultural battles.2024 Speculation: Mr. DeSantis opened his second term as Florida’s governor with a speech that subtly signaled his long-rumored ambitions for the White House.Latino Evangelicals: The governor has courted Hispanic evangelical Christians assiduously as his national profile has risen. They could be a decisive constituency in a possible showdown with former President Donald J. Trump in 2024.A Democrat’s View: Jared Moskowitz worked closely with Mr. DeSantis as his emergency management czar. Now, he’s joining Congress positioning himself as a centrist.Could a presidential candidate realistically avoid the mainstream media entirely? “I don’t think it’s been done before,” Mr. Klein said. “But I think the last couple of years in politics has taught us there’s lots of rules that get broken.”Mr. DeSantis’s strategy would face its biggest test if he pursued a presidential bid, a decision he has so far demurred on.In Florida, Mr. DeSantis occasionally spoke with local TV affiliates and entertained shouted-out questions from the state’s press corps. But a national contest would require him to introduce himself to a broader audience, and while a primary race would focus on Republican voters, it is often independents and centrists who decide the fine margins of the Electoral College. Although partisan podcasts and niche news sites are increasingly popular, few outlets can match the reach of traditional broadcast and cable networks.“You can’t just talk to the friendly press and run TV ads and expect to win a nomination,” said Alex Conant, a partner at the consulting firm Firehouse Strategies who served as communications director to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.“If you’re going to get elected president, you have to talk to people who have never watched Fox News,” said Mr. Conant, who believes the Republican Party’s underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterms was partly due to an overreliance on speaking only to its base.Representatives of Mr. DeSantis did not return a request for comment.Mr. Trump pioneered some of these aggressive tactics, barring journalists from a number of publications, including BuzzFeed News and The Washington Post, from attending some rallies in his 2016 campaign, and pulling out of a planned general-election debate in October 2020. His administration revoked a CNN reporter’s press pass and barred disfavored journalists from some public events; his former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, declared the media as “the opposition party.”Still, Mr. Trump remained an enthusiastic participant in the “boys on the bus” tradition of campaign reporting that dates back decades, where political journalists crisscross the country in proximity to the candidates they cover.These so-called embed reporters often became the experts on America’s future leaders, granting readers and viewers a front-row seat. Arguably, candidates benefited, too: Although they had to cope with a dedicated press corps, the scrutiny offered preparation for the slings and arrows of holding national office, not to mention free advertising to constituents.A White House staff member reached for the microphone of CNN’s Jim Acosta as he questioned President Donald J. Trump at a news conference in November 2018.Jonathan Ernst/ReutersMr. DeSantis, a Yale and Harvard graduate who often assails what he calls the “Acela media,” has spent years working to upend those assumptions.Florida reporters have complained about a lack of access to Mr. DeSantis since he was elected governor in 2018, a victory fueled in part by dozens of appearances on Fox News. His anti-media hostility intensified during the pandemic, when he faced criticism for reopening Florida early; in March 2020, a staff writer for The Miami Herald was barred from a news conference about the virus.In 2021, he held a lengthy news conference in April denying a claim by “60 Minutes” that he improperly rewarded a campaign donor; the “60 Minutes” segment received some pushback from press critics. The next month, the governor blocked every outlet except Fox News from attending a signing ceremony for a state law, prompting one local TV reporter to complain that Floridians “had their eyes and ears in that room cut off.”By the summer, many news outlets were prohibited from attending a gathering of Florida Republicans, while conservative writers and podcasters were granted access. “We in the state of Florida are not going to allow legacy media outlets to be involved in our primaries,” Mr. DeSantis told a cheering crowd. His communications director, Lindsey Curnutte, later mocked reporters in a Twitter post aimed at “fake news journalists,” asking, “How’s the view from outside security?”Mr. DeSantis has integrated this messaging into his campaign materials. In one recent ad, he donned aviator sunglasses and a flight uniform to pose as the “Top Gov,” intent on “dogfighting” the “corporate media.”A top DeSantis communications aide, Christina Pushaw, has articulated the governor’s view of the news media in harsh terms. “They hate you, they hate us, they hate everything that we stand for, and I believe they hate this country,” she said in a speech in September, referring to the media.Mr. DeSantis in a promotional video where he talks about “taking on the corporate media.”Ron DeSantisIn 2021, Ms. Pushaw’s Twitter account was suspended after she criticized a report by The Associated Press and urged her followers to “drag them.” Ms. Pushaw, then serving as the governor’s press secretary, wrote that she would put the A.P. reporter “on blast” if he did not modify the story; the reporter later received online threats.The A.P. complained about “a direct effort to activate an online mob to attack a journalist for doing his job.” Ms. Pushaw responded that “drag them” was a slang term and did not amount to inciting a violent threat.The incident prompted an outcry. “As someone who believes in the role of press in an open society, I found it unbelievable, not only what she was allowed to do, but encouraged to do,” said Barbara Petersen, a longtime First Amendment advocate who runs the Florida Center for Government Accountability. “I find it very disturbing, frankly, that this man, who is our governor, won’t talk to the people whose job it is to keep us informed.”In December, the news outlet Semafor reported on Mr. DeSantis’s preference for local right-wing news outlets. The governor’s team pushed back, comparing reporters to “Democrat activists,” and high-profile conservatives offered encouragement.“In an environment where corporate media are just straight up anti-G.O.P. propagandists — and extremely proud of it — why is Ron DeSantis the only person taking it seriously?” wrote Mollie Hemingway, editor of The Federalist.Whether Mr. DeSantis can keep up his approach to media remains unclear. Mr. Trump may have mastered Twitter, but it was his ubiquity on big outlets like CNN and MSNBC that solidified his electoral appeal.Even an anti-media message, it turns out, may need the media’s help.“Going back to 2016, Trump was at his most effective when he was anti-media but would nevertheless talk to anybody,” said Mr. Conant, the former Rubio aide. “He was getting his message out on CNN and MSNBC every day, even though part of his message was that the media is terrible.”Patricia Mazzei More

Federal prosecutors subpoena Giuliani over Trump campaign paymentsThe order, issued in November, also asks the former New York mayor to provide testimony Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, who helped to amplify Donald Trump’s false claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 election, has been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors seeking documents about payments he received from Trump or his presidential campaign, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday.Grand jury in Georgia’s Trump 2020 election investigation finishes workRead moreThe subpoena, which was issued in November, also asks Giuliani to provide testimony, said the person, who declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.The nature of the inquiry by the US attorney in Washington DC, which began before special counsel Jack Smith was appointed to oversee investigations into Trump, remains largely under wraps.Giuliani, who has served as Trump’s personal attorney, did not respond to requests by Reuters for comment.A spokeswoman for the US attorney for the District of Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The source said the subpoena sought, among other things, copies of any retainer agreements between Trump and Giuliani, or the Trump campaign and Giuliani, and records of payments and who made those payments.In December, a District of Columbia attorney ethics committee said Giuliani violated at least one attorney ethics rule in his work on a failed lawsuit by Trump challenging the 2020 election results.Giuliani’s New York state law license was suspended in June 2021 after a state appeals court found he had made “demonstrably false and misleading” statements that widespread voter fraud undermined the 2020 election won by his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.TopicsRudy GiulianiDonald TrumpWashington DCNew YorkUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More

The subpoena to Rudolph W. Giuliani in November came as prosecutors have been examining the workings of former President Donald J. Trump’s fund-raising vehicle.WASHINGTON — Rudolph W. Giuliani, the lawyer who oversaw former President Donald J. Trump’s legal challenges to the 2020 election, has received a grand jury subpoena for records related to his representation of Mr. Trump, including those that detailed any payments he received, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday.The subpoena, which was sent in November, bore the name of a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. It predated the appointment of Jack Smith, the special counsel chosen to take over the Justice Department’s investigation of the roles that Mr. Trump and several of his aides and lawyers played in seeking to overturn the results of the election. It remained unclear, however, if Mr. Smith and his team have assumed control of the part of the inquiry related to Mr. Giuliani.As part of its investigation, the special counsel’s office has been examining, among other things, the inner workings of Mr. Trump’s fund-raising vehicle, Save America PAC. The records subpoenaed from Mr. Giuliani could include some related to payments made by the PAC, according to the person familiar with the matter.Several subpoenas issued in the past several months have asked for records concerning Save America PAC. The House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol also looked into Mr. Trump’s fund-raising operation during its own separate inquiry, and raised questions about whether it had duped donors through misleading appeals about election fraud.A longtime ally of Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani effectively ran the former president’s attempts to overturn his defeat in the presidential race and has for months been a chief focus of the Justice Department’s broad investigation into the postelection period. His name has appeared on several subpoenas sent to former aides to Mr. Trump and to a host of Republican state officials involved in a plan to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors in states that were actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.Understand the Events on Jan. 6Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.In one of its final acts, the Jan. 6 committee referred Mr. Giuliani and others, including Mr. Trump, for prosecution by the Justice Department. Still, the emergence of the subpoena, which was reported earlier by CNN, was the first time evidence had surfaced suggesting that Mr. Giuliani had become directly embroiled in the inquiry into the part that Mr. Trump played in the events leading up to Jan. 6.Mr. Giuliani’s subpoena was issued about two months after prosecutors blanketed more than 40 other figures from Mr. Trump’s White House with subpoenas. In 2021, the Justice Department seized Mr. Giuliani’s cellphones and computers as part of a separate investigation into his efforts to dig up dirt on Mr. Biden in Ukraine.While acting as Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Mr. Giuliani undertook an array of efforts on his behalf.He promoted a baseless conspiracy theory that a cabal of international actors had hacked into voting machines produced by Dominion Voting Systems and used them to rig the election for Mr. Biden — despite the fact that an internal memo from the Trump campaign had determined earlier that many of the outlandish claims about Dominion were untrue.Mr. Giuliani also made persistent claims that the voting had been marred by widespread cheating and irregularities at a series of informal legislative hearings in key swing states around the country. But when he personally appeared in court in Philadelphia to defend a lawsuit challenging the election, he acknowledged to the judge in the case that the suit had not alleged that fraud had actually occurred.Before his subpoena was issued, Mr. Giuliani had confronted an array of setbacks related to his work for Mr. Trump.He is facing a defamation lawsuit from Dominion, alleging that he carried out “a viral disinformation campaign” about the company made up of “demonstrably false” allegations, in part to enrich himself through legal fees and his podcast.In June 2021, his law license was suspended after a New York court ruled he had made “demonstrably false and misleading statements” while fighting the results of the 2020 election.He is also facing similar disciplinary charges by local bar officials in Washington. More

Durante las últimas 10 semanas, los seguidores del expresidente de extrema derecha Jair Bolsonaro habían acampado afuera de la sede del ejército brasileño, exigiendo que los militares revirtieran las elecciones presidenciales de octubre. Y, durante las últimas 10 semanas, los manifestantes encontraron poca oposición por parte del gobierno.Luego, el domingo, muchos de los ocupantes del campamento salieron de sus carpas en Brasilia, la capital del país, condujeron algunos kilómetros y, al unirse cientos de otros manifestantes, invadieron el Congreso, el Supremo Tribunal Federal y las oficinas presidenciales.Para la mañana del lunes, las autoridades estaban barriendo el campamento. Desmantelaron las carpas, retiraron pancartas y detuvieron a 1200 de los manifestantes, llevándoselos en autobuses para interrogarlos.Por qué se había permitido que un campamento que exigía un golpe militar creciera durante más de 70 días era parte de un conjunto más amplio de preguntas que los funcionarios enfrentaban el lunes, entre ellas:¿Por qué se permitió que las protestas se acercaran tanto a las sedes del poder de Brasil? ¿Y por qué las fuerzas de seguridad habían sido superadas de tal manera que multitudes de manifestantes pudieron irrumpir fácilmente en las instalaciones gubernamentales?Más de mil partidarios del expresidente Jair Bolsonaro que supuestamente participaron en los disturbios estaban detenidos en Brasilia.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesEl ministro de Justicia de Brasil, Flávio Dino, indicó que varias agencias de seguridad se habían reunido el viernes para prepararse ante la posibilidad de violencia en las protestas previstas para el domingo. Pero, dijo, la estrategia de seguridad urdida en la reunión, que incluía mantener a los manifestantes alejados de los principales edificios estatales, para el domingo había sido parcialmente abandonada y había muchos menos agentes de la ley de lo previsto.“El contingente policial no fue lo que se había acordado”, dijo, y añadió que no estaba claro por qué se habían cambiado los planes.Algunos en el gobierno federal culpaban al gobernador de Brasilia, Ibaneis Rocha, y sus funcionarios, dando a entender que habían sido negligentes o cómplices en la falta de personal de las fuerzas de seguridad alrededor de las protestas.El domingo por la noche, Alexandre de Moraes, juez del Supremo Tribunal Federal, suspendió a Rocha de su cargo como gobernador durante al menos 90 días, argumentando que el levantamiento “solo podía ocurrir con el consentimiento, e incluso la participación efectiva, de las autoridades de seguridad e inteligencia”.Independientemente de los fallos de seguridad que hayan ocurrido, los disturbios del domingo dejaron al desnudo de forma sorprendente el principal desafío que enfrenta la democracia de Brasil. A diferencia de otros intentos por derrocar gobiernos en la historia de América Latina, los ataques del domingo no fueron ordenados por un solo gobernante autoritario o un ejército decidido a tomar el poder, sino que más bien fueron impulsados por una amenaza más insidiosa y arraigada: un engaño masivo.Agentes de la policía militar desmantelando un campamento utilizado por seguidores de Bolsonaro frente a una sede del ejército en Río de JaneiroDado Galdieri para The New York TimesMillones de brasileños parecen estar convencidos de que las elecciones presidenciales de octubre estuvieron amañadas en detrimento de Bolsonaro, a pesar de que las auditorias y los análisis realizados por expertos no han hallado nada de ese tipo. Dichas creencias en parte son producto de años de teorías conspirativas, afirmaciones engañosas y falsedades explícitas que Bolsonaro y sus aliados propagaron al afirmar que el sistema de votación totalmente electrónico de Brasil estaba plagado de fraude.Los partidarios de Bolsonaro han estado repitiendo las afirmaciones durante meses, y luego las ampliaron con nuevas teorías de conspiración transmitidas en chats grupales de WhatsApp y Telegram, muchos de los cuales se enfocaron en la idea de que el software de las máquinas de votación electrónica fue manipulado para hacer fraude a la elección. El domingo, los manifestantes se pararon en el techo del Congreso con una pancarta que tenía una sola exigencia: “Queremos el código fuente”.La mañana del lunes, Orlando Pinheiro Farias, de 40 años, salía del campamento de manifestantes y dijo que había ingresado a los despachos presidenciales el domingo junto a otros compañeros en busca de documentos relacionados con “las investigaciones del código fuente, que legitiman que Jair Messias Bolsonaro es el presidente de Brasil”.Recitó varias siglas gubernamentales e investigaciones secretas sobre las que había leído en internet, y luego dijo que tenía que volver a su tienda de campaña para recuperar una bandera brasileña que se había robado del edificio.Los delirios sobre las elecciones también se extendían a las explicaciones de muchos manifestantes sobre lo que había sucedido en los disturbios. Las personas que salían del campamento el lunes por la mañana, con colchones de aire enrollados, cables de extensión y taburetes, tenían un mensaje claro: los partidarios de Bolsonaro no habían saqueado los edificios. Más bien, dijeron, los que causaron el daño eran izquierdistas radicales disfrazados, empeñados en difamar a su movimiento.Trabajadores de la oficina presidencial durante la limpieza del lunesVictor Moriyama para The New York Times“¿Escuchaste alguna vez del Caballo de Troya?”, preguntó Nathanael S. Viera, de 51 años, que había viajado más de 1400 kilómetros para participar en las protestas del domingo. “Los infiltrados fueron y armaron todo y la maldita prensa le mostró a la nación brasileña que nosotros los patriotas somos vándalos”.Las escenas del domingo —manifestantes de derecha envueltos en la bandera nacional deambulando por los pasillos del poder— resultaban sorprendentemente similares a las del asalto al Capitolio de los Estados Unidos el 6 de enero, al igual que las creencias confusas que llevaron a los manifestantes en ambos países a invadir edificios federales y a filmarse mientras lo hacían.“A Donald Trump lo sacaron con una elección amañada, sin duda, y en aquel momento lo sacaron y yo dije ‘al presidente Bolsonaro lo van a derrocar’”, dijo Wanderlei Silva, de 59 años, trabajador hotelero retirado que estaba el lunes afuera del campamento.Silva hallaba sus propias similitudes entre los disturbios del domingo y los del 6 de enero de 2021. “Los demócratas armaron eso e invadieron el Capitolio”, dijo. “Igual que aquí lo armaron”.Durante mucho tiempo, Brasil se ha visto a sí mismo como un país similar a Estados Unidos: diverso y vasto, rico en recursos naturales, distribuido en una colección de estados federales y gobernado por un gobierno federal fuerte. Pero su tumultuosa historia política nunca imitó verdaderamente el sistema estadounidense, hasta los últimos años.“Sin Trump no habría Bolsonaro en Brasil. Y sin la invasión al Capitolio no habría la invasión que vimos ayer”, dijo Guga Chacra, comentarista en la mayor cadena de televisión de Brasil, quien vive en Nueva York y monitorea la política en ambos países. “El bolsonarismo intenta copiar al trumpismo y los seguidores de Bolsonaro en Brasil intenta copiar lo que hacen los seguidores de Trump en Estados Unidos”.Incluso una descripción de las elecciones presidenciales de Brasil de 2022 se lee como un resumen de las elecciones estadounidenses de 2020: un mandatario populista de extrema derecha con gusto por los insultos y tuits improvisados contra un contrincante septuagenario de izquierda que se postula con su probada trayectoria política y una promesa de unir a una nación dividida.El lunes, en las afueras del Supremo Tribunal FederalVictor Moriyama para The New York TimesPero lo que pasó después de cada elección fue distinto.Si bien el expresidente Donald Trump luchó para revertir los resultados y llamó a sus seguidores a descender al Capitolio el 6 de enero, Bolsonaro de hecho se había rendido y marchado a Florida para cuando sus votantes entraban a la fuerza a las oficinas que había ocupado alguna vez.Según dijo su esposa en redes sociales, Bolsonaro pasó parte del lunes en un hospital de Florida debido a dolores abdominales derivados de un apuñalamiento que sufrió en 2018. Bolsonaro planea quedarse en Florida durante las próximas semanas o meses, con la esperanza de que se enfríen las investigaciones en Brasil sobre su actividad como presidente, según un amigo.Ned Price, el vocero del Departamento de Estado de EE. UU., no quiso hacer comentarios sobre el estatus de la visa de Bolsonaro, aludiendo a las leyes de privacidad. Pero indicó que se esperaba que cualquier persona que ingresara al país con una visa diplomática y que “ya no esté involucrada en asuntos oficiales en nombre de su gobierno” saliera del país o solicitara otro tipo de visa dentro de 30 días.“Si un individuo no tiene bases para estar en Estados Unidos, dicho individuo es sujeto de ser expulsado”, dijo Price.En un discurso grabado en los últimos días de su presidencia, Bolsonaro dijo que había intentado y fracasado en usar la ley para anular las elecciones de 2022, y sugirió que sus seguidores deberían seguir adelante. “Vivimos en una democracia o no”, dijo. “Nadie quiere una aventura”. El domingo, publicó un mensaje en Twitter condenando la violencia.Pero sus años de retórica contra las instituciones democráticas de Brasil, y su estrategia política de infundir miedo a la izquierda entre sus seguidores, ya habían dejado una marca imborrable.Entrevistas con manifestantes realizadas en semanas recientes parecían mostrar que el movimiento de Bolsonaro avanzaba sin él. Ahora es impulsado por creencias profundamente arraigadas entre muchos brasileños de derecha según las cuales las élites políticas amañaron el voto para instalar como presidente a Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a quien consideran un comunista que convertirá a Brasil en un estado autoritario como Venezuela.El presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva en reunión con integrantes del Supremo Tribunal y el Congreso el lunesVictor Moriyama para The New York TimesLula, el nuevo presidente, es un izquierdista pero no un comunista. Y los expertos de seguridad independientes dijeron que no había pruebas de irregularidades en las votaciones de 2022. Un análisis aparte realizado por el ejército de Brasil solo halló una posible vulnerabilidad en el sistema de votación de Brasil, que es completamente digital. Dicha vulnerabilidad requeriría la coordinación de numerosos funcionarios electorales, un escenario que según los expertos en seguridad era extremadamente improbable.Lula, que había hecho campaña para unificar a un país dividido, se enfrenta ahora a la investigación y el enjuiciamiento de muchos de los seguidores de sus oponentes políticos apenas a una semana de haber juramentado. Las autoridades indicaron que, hasta el lunes por la noche, alrededor de 1500 manifestantes habían sido detenidos y que serían retenidos al menos hasta terminar la investigación.El lunes, Lula habló con el presidente Joe Biden, quien le transmitió “el apoyo inquebrantable de Estados Unidos para la democracia de Brasil y la libre voluntad del pueblo brasileño”, según funcionarios de la Casa Blanca. Biden invitó a Lula a la Casa Blanca para principios de febrero. (Con Bolsonaro le tomó más de 18 meses llevar a cabo un encuentro en una cumbre en Los Ángeles).En un discurso televisado la noche del lunes, Lula dijo que su gobierno procesaría a quienquiera que haya atacado la democracia de Brasil el domingo. “Ellos quieren un golpe de Estado y golpe no habrá”, dijo. “Tienen que aprender que la democracia es lo más complicado que podemos hacer, porque nos exige aguantar a los demás, nos exige convivir con los que no nos caen bien”.Él y muchos de los principales funcionarios del gobierno de Brasil luego fueron caminando juntos desde los despachos presidenciales hasta el Supremo Tribunal Federal, cruzando la misma plaza que un día antes estaba atestada de turbas que pedían derrocar a su gobierno.El Supremo Tribunal Federal de Brasil el lunesVictor Moriyama para The New York TimesAna Ionova, More

The authorities say that a man is being held on unrelated charges, and that a gun tied to at least one of the episodes has been recovered.The authorities in Albuquerque announced Monday that a suspect in the recent shootings at the homes or offices of a half-dozen Democratic elected officials was in custody on unrelated charges and that they had recovered a gun used in at least one of the shootings.Officials did not release information on the suspect other than to say that he is a man under 50; nor would they say what the unrelated charges were.“We are still trying to link and see which cases are related and which cases are not related,” Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said at a news conference on Monday afternoon.Officials have ideas about a possible motive, Chief Medina said, but will not release details for fear of compromising the investigation.The authorities have not definitively tied the shootings to politics or ideology.Police officials asked the courts to seal all paperwork related to the case, Chief Medina said. He said that the authorities had numerous search warrants and were waiting for additional evidence.No one was hurt in the shootings, four of which happened in December and two that took place this month. The shootings involved four homes, a workplace and a campaign office associated with two county commissioners, two state senators and New Mexico’s newly elected attorney general.The police had provided details last week on five of the shootings. On Monday, they said that they were also investigating a shooting that occurred in early December and caused damage to the home of Javier Martínez, a New Mexico state representative set to become the State Legislature’s next speaker of the House.Mr. Martínez said he had heard the gunfire in December, and recently discovered the damage after he heard of the attacks related to the other elected officials. He decided to inspect the outside of his home, KOB reported.In addition to the Albuquerque Police Department, the New Mexico State Police and Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office are investigating the shootings.If a federal crime was committed, the Police Department will pursue those charges, Chief Medina said. “The federal system has much stronger teeth than our state system,” he said.The shootings came at a time when public officials have faced a surge in violent threats, extending from members of Congress to a Supreme Court justice.Mayor Tim Keller of Albuquerque said he hoped the fact that a suspect was in custody would provides some comfort to elected officials, who he said should be able to do their jobs without fear.“These are individuals who participate in democracy, whether we agree with them or not,” Mr. Keller said. “And that’s why this act of violence, I think, has been so rattling for so many people.” More

For the past 10 weeks, supporters of the ousted far-right President Jair Bolsonaro had camped outside Brazilian Army headquarters, demanding that the military overturn October’s presidential election. And for the past 10 weeks, the protesters faced little resistance from the government.Then, on Sunday, many of the camp’s inhabitants left their tents in Brasília, the nation’s capital, drove a few miles away and, joining hundreds of other protesters, stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential offices.By Monday morning, the authorities were sweeping through the encampment. They dismantled tents, tore down banners and detained 1,200 of the protesters, ferrying them away in buses for questioning.Why an encampment demanding a military coup was allowed to expand for over 70 days was part of a larger set of questions that officials were grappling with on Monday, among them:Why were protests allowed to get so close to Brazil’s halls of power? And why had security forces been so outnumbered, allowing throngs of protesters to easily surge into official government buildings?More than a thousand supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro alleged to have taken part in the unrest were being detained in Brasília.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesBrazil’s justice minister, Flávio Dino, said various security agencies had met on Friday to plan for possible violence in the planned protests on Sunday. But, he said, the security strategy hatched in that meeting, including keeping protesters away from the main government buildings, was at least partly abandoned on Sunday and there were far fewer law enforcement officers than had been anticipated.“The police contingent was not what had been agreed upon,” he said, adding that it was unclear why plans had changed.Some in the federal government blamed the governor of Brasília, Ibaneis Rocha, and his deputies, suggesting that they had been either negligent or complicit in understaffing the security forces around the protests.Late Sunday, Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice, suspended Mr. Rocha from his job as governor for at least 90 days, saying that the upheaval “could only occur with the consent, and even effective participation, of the security and intelligence authorities.”Whatever security lapses may have occurred, Sunday’s riot laid bare in shocking fashion the central challenge facing Brazil’s democracy. Unlike other attempts to topple governments across Latin America’s history, the attacks on Sunday were not ordered by a single strongman ruler or a military bent on seizing power, but rather were fueled by a more insidious, deeply rooted threat: mass delusion.Military police officers dismantling a camp used by Bolsonaro supporters in front of an army facility in Rio de Janeiro.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesMillions of Brazilians appear to be convinced that October’s presidential election was rigged against Mr. Bolsonaro, despite audits and analyses by experts finding nothing of the sort. Those beliefs are in part the product of years of conspiracy theories, misleading statements and explicit falsehoods spread by Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies claiming Brazil’s fully electronic voting systems are rife with fraud.Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters have been repeating the claims for months, and then built on them with new conspiracy theories passed along in group chats on WhatsApp and Telegram, many focused on the idea that the electronic voting machines’ software was manipulated to steal the election. On Sunday, protesters stood on the roof of Congress with a banner that made a single demand: “We want the source code.”Walking out of the protest encampment on Monday morning, Orlando Pinheiro Farias, 40, said he had entered the presidential offices on Sunday with fellow protesters to find documents related to “the investigations into the source code, which legitimize that Jair Messias Bolsonaro is the president of Brazil.”He rattled off several government acronyms and secret investigations that he had read about on the internet, and then said that he had to go back to his tent to retrieve a Brazilian flag he had stolen from the building.Delusions over the election extended to many protesters’ explanations of what had happened in the riots. People filing out of the encampment on Monday morning, carrying rolled-up air mattresses, extension cords and stools, each had a clear message: Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters had not ransacked the buildings. Rather, they said, those causing the damage were radical leftists in disguise, bent on defaming their movement.Employees of the presidential office during the clean-up on Monday.Victor Moriyama for The New York Times“Have you ever heard of the Trojan Horse?” said Nathanael S. Viera, 51, who had driven 900 miles to take part in the protests on Sunday. “The infiltrators went in and set everything up, and the damn press showed the Brazilian nation that we patriots are the hooligans.”The scenes on Sunday of right-wing protesters draped in their national flag roaming through the halls of power were strikingly similar to those from the Jan. 6 storming of the United States Capitol, and so were the confused beliefs that drove protesters in both countries to invade federal buildings and film themselves doing so.“Donald Trump was taken out with a rigged election, no question about it, and at the time he was taken out, I said, ‘President Bolsonaro is going to be taken down,’” said Wanderlei Silva, 59, a retired hotel worker standing outside the encampment on Monday.Mr. Silva saw his own similarities between the riots on Sunday and those on Jan. 6, 2021. “The Democrats staged that and invaded the Capitol,” he said. “The same way they staged it here.”Brazil has long seen itself in the mold of the United States: a sprawling, diverse country rich in natural resources, spread across a collection of independent states and governed by a strong central government. But its tumultuous political history never truly mimicked the American system, until the past several years.“If there was no Trump, there would be no Bolsonaro in Brazil. And if there was no invasion of the Capitol, there wouldn’t have been the invasion we saw yesterday,” said Guga Chacra, a commentator for Brazil’s largest television network, who lives in New York and tracks politics in both countries. “Bolsonarismo tries to copy Trumpism, and Bolsonaro supporters in Brazil try to copy what Trump supporters do in the United States.”Even a description of Brazil’s 2022 presidential election reads like a summary of the 2020 American one: a far-right populist incumbent with a penchant for insults and off-the-cuff tweets against a septuagenarian challenger on the left running on his proven political track record and a promise to unite a divided nation.Outside the Federal Supreme Court on Monday.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesBut the election’s aftermath was different.While former President Donald J. Trump fought to overturn the results and urged his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Mr. Bolsonaro had effectively given up and decamped for Florida by the time his voters were forcing their way into the offices he once occupied.Mr. Bolsonaro spent part of Monday in the hospital in Florida, dealing with abdominal pains stemming from a stabbing he suffered in 2018, his wife said on social media. Mr. Bolsonaro is planning to stay in Florida for the next several weeks or months, hoping investigations in Brazil into his activity as president will cool off, according to a friend. Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, would not comment specifically on Mr. Bolsonaro’s visa status, citing privacy laws. But he said that any person who came to the United States under a diplomatic visa and who “is no longer engaged in official business on behalf of their government” was expected either to depart the country or request a different type of visa within 30 days.“If an individual has no basis on which to be in the United States, an individual is subject to removal,” Mr. Price said.In a recorded address in the final days of his presidency, Mr. Bolsonaro said that he had tried and failed to use the law to overturn the 2022 election, and suggested that his supporters should now move on. “We live in a democracy or we don’t,” he said. “No one wants an adventure.” On Sunday, he posted a message on Twitter, criticizing the violence.But his years of rhetoric against Brazil’s democratic institutions — and his political strategy of instilling fear of the left in his supporters — had already left an indelible mark.Interviews with protesters in recent weeks appeared to show that Mr. Bolsonaro’s movement was moving beyond him. It is now driven by deeply held beliefs among many right-wing Brazilians that political elites rigged the vote to install as president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whom they regard as a communist who will turn Brazil into an authoritarian state like Venezuela.President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva meeting with members of the Supreme Court and the National Congress on Monday.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesMr. Lula, the new president, is a leftist but is not a communist. And independent security experts said there was no evidence of irregularities in the 2022 vote. A separate analysis by Brazil’s military found just one potential vulnerability in Brazil’s fully digital voting system, which would require the coordination of multiple election officials to exploit, a scenario that security experts said was extremely unlikely.Mr. Lula, who had campaigned on unifying the divided nation, is now faced with investigating and prosecuting many of his political opponents’ supporters just a week into his presidency. The authorities said that roughly 1,500 protesters had been detained by Monday evening, and that they would be held until at least the investigation was finished.On Monday, Mr. Lula spoke with President Biden, who conveyed “the unwavering support of the United States for Brazil’s democracy and for the free will of the Brazilian people,” White House officials said. Mr. Biden invited Mr. Lula to the White House in early February. (It took more than 18 months for him to meet with Mr. Bolsonaro at a summit in Los Angeles.)In a televised speech on Monday night, Mr. Lula said that his government would prosecute anyone who had attacked Brazil’s democracy on Sunday. “What they want is a coup, and they won’t have one,” he said. “They have to learn that democracy is the most complicated thing we do.”He and many of Brazil’s top government officials then walked together from the presidential offices to the Supreme Court, crossing the same plaza that a day before was thronged with mobs calling for the overthrow of his government.Brazil’s Supreme Court on Monday.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesReporting was contributed by Ana Ionova, More

On TikTok and YouTube, videos claiming voter fraud in Brazil’s recent elections have been recirculating for days.On the WhatsApp and Telegram messaging services, an image of a poster announcing the date, time and location of the protests against the government was copied and shared over the weekend.And on Facebook and Twitter, hashtags designed to evade detection by the authorities were used by organizers as they descended onto government buildings in the capital, Brasília, on Sunday.One day after the thousands of people broke into government buildings to protest what they falsely claim was a stolen election, misinformation researchers are studying how the internet was used to stoke anger and to organize far-right groups ahead of the riots. Many are drawing a comparison to the Jan. 6 protests two years ago in the United States, where thousands broke into the Capitol building in Washington. In both cases, they say, a playbook was used in which online groups, chats and social media sites played a central role.“Digital platforms were fundamental not only in the extreme right-wing domestic terrorism on Sunday, but also in the entire long process of online radicalization over the last 10 years in Brazil,” said Michele Prado, an independent researcher who studies digital movements and the Brazilian far right.She said that calls for violence have been “increasing exponentially from the last week of December.”She and other misinformation researchers have singled out Twitter and Telegram as playing a central role in organizing protests. In posts on Brazilian Telegram channels viewed by The New York Times, there were open calls for violence against the left-wing Brazilian politicians and their families. There were also addresses of government offices for protesters to attack.In one image, which The Times found on more than a dozen Telegram channels, there was a call for “patriots” to gather in Brasília on Sunday to “mark a new day” of independence. Underneath many of the posters were details of gathering times for protesters.The hashtag “Festa da Selma” was also widely spread on Twitter, including by far-right extremists who had previously been banned from the platform, Ms. Prado said.A military police officer at a camp of Bolsonaro supporters in front of an Army facility on Monday.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesIn the months since Elon Musk took over Twitter, far-right figures from around the world have had their accounts reinstated as a general amnesty unless they violated rules again. Ms. Prado said that misinformation researchers in Brazil have been reporting the accounts to Twitter in hopes that the company takes action.Twitter and Telegram did not respond to requests for comment.Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said that the attacks Sunday were a “violating event” and that the company was removing content on its platforms that supported or praised the attacks on government buildings in Brazil.The protesters in Brazil and those in the United States were inspired by the same extremist ideas and conspiracy theories and were both radicalized online, Ms. Prado said. In both cases, she added, social media played a crucial role in organizing violent attacks. More