Elections

Jair Bolsonaro has questioned the integrity of Sunday’s election and trails in polls to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist and former president, who was imprisoned amid a corruption scandal.Brazilians are heading to the polls Sunday in a polarizing national vote poised to usher in a new president, who will be forced to grapple with an economic crisis, surging Amazon deforestation and lingering questions over the health of Latin America’s largest democracy.The election comes at a crucial moment for Brazil, where surging food and fuel prices, coupled with a painful economic slowdown, have made life harder for many Brazilians. Some 33 million people in the country of 217 million people are experiencing hunger and extreme poverty has surged, reversing decades of social and economic advances.Environmental and climate worries also loom large. Deforestation in the Amazon has hit 15-year highs under the far-right incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, who believes the rainforest should be opened up to mining, ranching and agriculture and who has weakened environmental protections. The Amazon’ destruction — and its effects on the efforts to avert a climate crisis — have turned Brazil into a global pariah.Who are the candidates?The election is a duel between Mr. Bolsonaro and a former leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who served from 2003 until 2010. Voters are seeking answers on how the two leading candidates plan to tackle a variety of challenges and put Brazil back on the path to growth.Another nine candidates, including a former governor, Ciro Gomes, and a senator, Simone Tebet, are also in the presidential race, but all are drawing support in the single digits. Brazilians will also elect new governors, senators and representatives in the federal and state legislatures on Sunday.What does Mr. Bolsonaro propose?Mr. Bolsonaro has promised to hand out cash payments of about $113 a month to needy families, extending a temporary policy originally created to ease the pandemic’s painful blow.Continuing the program, which rebranded and replaced a similar but less generous program introduced under Mr. da Silva, is meant to “reduce poverty and contribute to sustainable economic growth,” according to Mr. Bolsonaro’s official policy plan.The far-right incumbent also vows to create jobs by eliminating bureaucratic red tape, slashing taxes and investing in technology. In a further nod to investors, who backed him en masse in 2018, Mr. Bolsonaro vows to maintain a free market approach, keeping public debt in check. Mr. Bolsonaro has spent heavily on welfare and fuel aid ahead of elections, after pushing to temporarily lift limits on public spending.President Jair Bolsonaro during a rally last week in São Paulo.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesEchoing the hard-line rhetoric that won him support from ultra conservative and evangelical voters four years ago, Mr. Bolsonaro also promises to defend “the family,” opposing legal abortion and transgender education in schools.A longtime proponent of privatization, he plans to reduce “the state’s role in the economy,” selling state-owned companies like Petrobras, an energy company.But Mr. Bolsonaro also defends large-scale expansion of mining and agriculture, although he says growth must bear in mind “economic, social and environmental sustainability.”He vows to more aggressively fight environmental crimes, but casts doubt on data showing a steep rise in deforestation during his presidency and maintains that Brazil has a right to the “sustainable use of its natural resources.”Mr. Bolsonaro also promises to expand tough-on-crime policies, pledging to further expand access to firearms, a policy he credits for a drop in violent crime across Brazil. “Legitimate defense is a fundamental right,” the candidate says.What is Mr. da Silva’s platform?Mr. da Silva oversaw a golden era of growth during his two terms in office, when a commodity-fueled boom turned Brazil into a global success story. He promises to return the country to those glory days.The leftist candidate vows to raise taxes on the rich and boost public spending, “putting the people in the budget.” His plans include a slew of social programs, such as a $113 monthly cash voucher rivaling the one proposed by Mr. Bolsonaro. Poor families with children will also receive another $28 per month for each child under 6.Mr. da Silva has also promised to adjust Brazil’s minimum wage in step with inflation and revive a housing plan for the poor, while guaranteeing food security for people facing hunger.The former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leads Mr. Bolsonaro in the polls.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesA former trade unionist, Mr. da Silva plans to kick start growth and “create work and employment opportunities” by spending on infrastructure, a nod to his past strategy. But he also plans to invest in a “green economy,” warning that Brazil must shift to more sustainable energy and food systems.In response to Mr. Bolsonaro’s unfounded claims of voting machine fraud, Mr. da Silva says he will “defend democracy” and Brazil’s electoral system.On the Amazon, the leftist candidate has signaled that he will crack down on environmental crimes by militias, land grabbers, loggers and others. “Our commitment is to the relentless fight against illegal deforestation and the promotion of zero net deforestation,” he has said.How does the electoral system work?Brazilians will cast their ballots through electronic voting machines, a system that has been in place for over two decades and that has been the focus of Mr. Bolsonaro’s claims about the risk of election rigging.In July, he called foreign diplomats to the presidential palace to lay out his evidence, which turned out to be years-old news about a hack that did not threaten the voting machines. He has also enlisted Brazil’s military in his fight with election officials, raising fears that the armed forces could support any effort to hold onto power.And late Wednesday, Mr. Bolsonaro’s political party issued a document that claimed, without evidence, that a group of government employees and contractors had the “absolute power to manipulate election results without leaving a trace.”Electoral Court inspectors carry out final tests on electronic voting machines in São Paulo.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesIt was among the most significant attacks yet against Brazil’s election system. The party said that it reached its conclusion based on an audit of the election system it commissioned in July, and that it was releasing the information now because election officials had not sufficiently responded.Brazil’s electoral authority immediately responded on Wednesday. The document’s conclusions “are false and dishonest, with no backing in reality” and are “a clear attempt to hinder and disrupt the natural course of the electoral process,” the agency said in a statement. The Supreme Court said it was now investigating the president’s party for releasing the document.Voting in Brazil is compulsory and, in 2018, turnout for the first round of elections was close to 80 percent.On Sunday, the electoral authority starts releasing results when polls close at 4 p.m. E.S.T. and the final tally is announced a few hours later.If no candidate succeeds in drawing at least 50 percent of the vote on Sunday, a runoff election between the top two candidates will be held on Oct. 30. Once elected, the new president will be sworn in on Jan. 1. More

A Times analysis finds that the House of Representative has its fairest map in 40 years, despite recent gerrymandering.If you asked Americans to describe the ways that political power has become disconnected from public opinion, many would put the gerrymandering of congressional districts near the top of the list. State lawmakers from both parties have drawn the lines of House districts in ways meant to maximize the number that their own party will win, and Republicans in some states have been especially aggressive, going so far as to ignore court orders.Yet House gerrymandering turns out to give Republicans a smaller advantage today than is commonly assumed. The current map is only slightly tilted toward Republicans, and both parties have a legitimate chance to win House control in the coming midterm elections.My colleague Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, explains this situation in the latest version of his newsletter. “In reality, Republicans do have a structural edge in the House, but it isn’t anything near insurmountable for the Democrats,” Nate writes. “By some measures, this is the fairest House map of the last 40 years.”Republican advantage in how districts lean More

Yes, the G.O.P. has a structural edge in the House, but it isn’t anything near insurmountable for Democrats.There is no shortage of reasons Republicans are expected to retake the House this year, including President Biden’s low approval ratings and the long history of struggles for the president’s party in midterm elections.But there’s another issue that looms over the race for the House, one that doesn’t have anything to do with the candidates or the voters at all: the fairness of the newly redrawn congressional maps.You might assume that the House map is heavily gerrymandered toward Republicans, especially after Republicans enacted aggressive gerrymanders in critical states like Texas and Florida. Many of you might even presume that this gerrymandering means that the House isn’t merely likely to go to the Republicans, but that it’s also out of reach for Democrats under any realistic circumstances.In reality, Republicans do have a structural edge in the House, but it isn’t anything near insurmountable for the Democrats. By some measures, this is the fairest House map of the last 40 years. More

In a closed-door interview with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, Ms. Thomas reiterated her false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump.WASHINGTON — Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas and a conservative activist who pushed to overturn the 2020 election, told the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that she never discussed those efforts with her husband, during a closed-door interview in which she continued to perpetuate the false claim that the election was stolen.Leaving the interview, which took place at an office building near the Capitol and lasted about four hours, Ms. Thomas smiled in response to reporters’ questions, but declined to answer any publicly.She did, however, answer questions behind closed doors, said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, who added that her testimony could be included in an upcoming hearing.“If there’s something of merit, it will be,” he said.During her interview, Ms. Thomas, who goes by Ginni, repeated her assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Thompson said, a belief she insisted upon in late 2020 as she pressured state legislators and the White House chief of staff to do more to try to invalidate the results.In a statement she read at the beginning of her testimony, Ms. Thomas denied having discussed her postelection activities with her husband.In her statement, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, Ms. Thomas called it “an ironclad rule” that she and Justice Thomas never speak about cases pending before the Supreme Court. “It is laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence — the man is independent and stubborn, with strong character traits of independence and integrity,” she added.The interview ended months of negotiations between the committee and Ms. Thomas over her testimony. The committee’s investigators had grown particularly interested in her communications with John Eastman, the conservative lawyer who was in close contact with Mr. Trump and wrote a memo that Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans have likened to a blueprint for a coup.“At this point, we’re glad she came,” Mr. Thompson said.After Ms. Thomas’s appearance on Thursday, her lawyer Mark Paoletta said she had been “happy to cooperate with the committee to clear up the misconceptions about her activities surrounding the 2020 elections.”“She answered all the committee’s questions,” Mr. Paoletta said in a statement. “As she has said from the outset, Mrs. Thomas had significant concerns about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election. And, as she told the committee, her minimal and mainstream activity focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated. Beyond that, she played no role in any events after the 2020 election results. As she wrote in a text to Mark Meadows at the time, she also condemned the violence on Jan. 6, as she abhors violence on any side of the aisle.”A spokesman for the committee declined to comment.Ms. Thomas exchanged text messages with Mr. Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in which she urged him to challenge Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the 2020 election, which she called a “heist,” and indicated that she had reached out to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, about Mr. Trump’s efforts to use the courts to keep himself in power. She even suggested the lawyer who should be put in charge of that effort..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Ms. Thomas also pressed lawmakers in several states to fight the results of the election.But it was Ms. Thomas’s interactions with Mr. Eastman, a conservative lawyer who pushed Vice President Mike Pence to block or delay the certification of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021, that have most interested investigators.“She’s a witness,” Mr. Thompson said Thursday. “We didn’t accuse her of anything.”The panel obtained at least one email between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Eastman after a federal judge ordered Mr. Eastman to turn over documents to the panel from the period after the November 2020 election when he was meeting with conservative groups to discuss fighting the election results.That same judge has said it is “more likely than not” that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman committed two felonies as part of the effort, including conspiracy to defraud the American people.Mr. Paoletta has argued that the communications between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Eastman contain little of value to the panel’s investigation.Ms. Thomas’s cooperation comes as the Jan. 6 committee is entering its final months of work after a summer of high-profile hearings and preparing an extensive report, which is expected to include recommendations for how to confront the threats to democracy highlighted by the riot and Mr. Trump’s drive to overturn the election.The interview came just days after the panel abruptly postponed a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, citing the hurricane bearing down on Florida. The hearing has yet to be rescheduled.Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the committee, said Ms. Thomas’s interview showed that “people continue to cooperate with the committee and understand the importance of our investigation.”The panel has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and has received hundreds of thousands of documents and more than 10,000 submissions to its tip line since June.“There’s a lot more information coming in all the time,” Mr. Raskin said.He said the committee members have viewed thousands of hours’ worth of video images and tape but want to be “disciplined” about how they present them in the next hearing.“There are certain people who are going to denounce whatever we do, no matter what,” he said. “We just want to be able to complete the narrative and then deliver our recommendations about what needs to be done in order to insulate American democracy against coups, insurrection, political violence and electoral sabotage in the future.”Maggie Haberman More

The political tailspin of J.R. Majewski, a Republican House candidate in northern Ohio, appears to be worsening one week after the Air Force said it could not corroborate his repeated claims that he served in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that the Air Force demoted Mr. Majewski in September 2001 for driving drunk at Kadena Air Base in Japan. Mr. Majewski’s campaign had previously told the news organization that involvement in a “brawl” was the reason he could not re-enlist in the Air Force after his initial four years. The A.P. cited military records it had obtained since its initial reporting last week on Mr. Majewski’s inconsistencies about his service, including where he served.A campaign spokeswoman for Mr. Majewski, 42, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday about his demotion. In a statement to The A.P., Mr. Majewski acknowledged that he was punished for drunken driving, though he did not address why his campaign previously said his demotion was the result of a fight.“This mistake is now more than 20 years old,” Mr. Majewski said in the statement. “I’m sure we’ve all done something as young adults that we look back on and wonder, ‘What was I thinking?’ And I’m sure our parents and grandparents share these sentiments.”The drip of revelations has sent Mr. Majewski, who has been heralded by former President Donald J. Trump, into damage-control mode.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Sensing a Shift: As November approaches, there are a few signs that the political winds may have begun to blow in a different direction — one that might help Republicans over the final stretch.Focusing on Crime: Across the country, Republicans are attacking Democrats as soft on crime to rally midterm voters. Pennsylvania’s Senate contest offers an especially pointed example of this strategy.Arizona Senate Race: Blake Masters, a Republican, appears to be struggling to win over independent voters, who make up about a third of the state’s electorate.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.On Sept. 22, not long after Mr. Majewski was accused of misrepresenting himself as a combat veteran, the National Republican Congressional Committee canceled television ads it had booked to support him in the final six weeks of the campaign, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks campaign advertising.The following day, Mr. Majewski insisted that he was staying in his race against longtime Representative Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat. He said that records of his deployment to Afghanistan were “classified” and posted a photo on Twitter of an undated document that he claimed supported this contention, but military experts have pointed out to The A.P. that there are several other steps that Mr. Majewski could take to back up his claims, including having a supervisor or peer vouch for him.According to a record of punishment proceedings obtained by The A.P., Mr. Majewski was demoted from the rank of airman first class to basic airman after being stopped for drunken driving on Sept. 8, 2001, at the gate of the Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. It made no reference to a fight as contributing to Mr. Majewski’s demotion.Mr. Majewski’s disciplinary report was not immediately available on Thursday from the National Archives.Mr. Majewski was deployed for six months in 2002 to Qatar, the Persian Gulf nation that is now home to the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East, according to Air Force records The New York Times examined last week.The A.P. noted that he worked as a “passenger operations specialist” while he was in Qatar, helping to load and unload planes. In addition to Air Force records, the news organization used information that it had obtained through a public records request from the National Archives, which provided Mr. Majewski’s record to The Times on Wednesday. Those records made no mention of Afghanistan.The inconsistencies in Mr. Majewski’s public accounts of his military service brought renewed scrutiny to the candidate, who had already faced questions about his presence at the U.S. Capitol on the day of the Jan. 6 siege and sympathies for the QAnon conspiracy movement.The role detailed in Mr. Majewski’s military records contrasted sharply with his repeated claims on social media and right-wing podcasts that he was in Afghanistan.After the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year, Mr. Majewski chided President Biden over the chaotic exit of forces there, saying in a tweet, “I’d gladly suit up and go back to Afghanistan tonight and give my best to save those Americans who were abandoned.”He also mentioned Afghanistan during a February 2021 appearance on a podcast platform that has drawn scrutiny for promoting conspiracy theories and misinformation.“I lost my grandmother when I was in Afghanistan, and I didn’t get to see her funeral,” he said. More

As a freshman congressman in 2013, Ron DeSantis was unambiguous: A federal bailout for the New York region after Hurricane Sandy was an irresponsible boondoggle, a symbol of the “put it on the credit card mentality” he had come to Washington to oppose.“I sympathize with the victims,” he said. But his answer was no.Nearly a decade later, as his state confronts the devastation and costly destruction wrought by Hurricane Ian, Mr. DeSantis is appealing to the nation’s better angels — and betting on its short memory.“As you say, Tucker, we live in a very politicized time,” Mr. DeSantis, now Florida’s governor, told Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night, outlining his request for full federal reimbursement up front for 60 days and urging the Biden administration to do the right thing. “But you know, when people are fighting for their lives, when their whole livelihood is at stake, when they’ve lost everything — if you can’t put politics aside for that, then you’re just not going to be able to.”The tonal whiplash for Mr. DeSantis reflects a different job and a different moment — a Tea Party-era House Republican now steering a perennially storm-battered state dependent once more on federal assistance to rebuild. Yet even in the context of his term as governor, the hurricane has required Mr. DeSantis to test another gear.Gov. Ron DeSantis discussing Hurricane Ian on Monday in Largo, Fla. Since taking office, he has sought to position himself as a 2024 presidential contender.Chris O’Meara/Associated PressHe has, to date, often used his executive platform to elevate himself to Republican rock-stardom, positioning himself as a possible 2024 presidential contender with a series of policy gambits that can feel precision-engineered to maximize liberal outrage.His most recent stunt — flying undocumented Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard — reinforced that he is more than willing to turn the machinery of state against specific political targets. He has suggested that the next plane of immigrants might land near President Biden’s weekend home in Delaware.More on Hurricane IanOn the Ground: Before Hurricane Ian, Florida’s southwest coast was a place to escape the chaos. Now, the storm has turned the laid-back stretch of suburban shoreline into a strand of destruction.Lack of Insurance: In the Florida counties hit hardest by Hurricane Ian, fewer than 20 percent of homes had flood insurance, new data show. Experts say that will make rebuilding even harder.Ron DeSantis: The Florida governor, who as a congressman opposed aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy, is seeking relief from the Biden administration as Hurricane Ian ravages his own state.Air Travel: Ian’s effects on flying, in Florida and beyond, are likely to continue through the weekend. This is what to do if your plans are disrupted.The present circumstances have inspired a less swaggering posture toward a leader whom Mr. DeSantis has long called “Brandon” as a recurring troll, aimed at the man he might like to succeed. “Dear Mr. President,” the governor’s request for a major disaster declaration and federal assistance began on Wednesday.“Ironically,” said David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida, “there’s nobody in America that Ron DeSantis needs more than Joe Biden.”More than that, Mr. Jolly said, a governor who self-identifies as unswerving in his principles now finds himself with little choice but to push for storm relief actions “antithetical to his professed ideology.”“He held those convictions strong in the House,” said Mr. Jolly, who has been sharply critical of the party in the Trump years. “I doubt he will hold them as strongly in the governor’s mansion.”In 2013, Mr. DeSantis and Representative Ted Yoho, another hard-line conservative, were the only House members from Florida to oppose the Sandy package. For Mr. DeSantis, who represented a coastal district in eastern Florida, the vote at once established him as an eager combatant from the party’s ascendant right wing — he was a founding member of the Freedom Caucus — while at times placing him on the defensive back home.In a local interview that year, Mr. DeSantis said the bill contained “extraneous stuff” that could not be classified as emergency spending. “I never made the point of saying we shouldn’t do anything,” he said, adding that he could have supported a leaner package focused on immediate relief. Asked then if he would vote against a relief package that affected his own district, Mr. DeSantis was noncommittal, suggesting he would support a responsible plan.Through the years, critics in both parties have accused Mr. DeSantis of applying this standard selectively. In 2017, as he was poised to run for governor, Mr. DeSantis supported an aid package after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria as places like Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico strained to recover.His 2018 primary opponent, Adam Putnam, made an issue of Mr. DeSantis’s voting record during the campaign. Storm-weary voters, a Putnam spokeswoman warned then, should protect themselves against “further destruction at the hands of Hurricane Ron.” Mr. DeSantis’s congressional office denied any inconsistency at the time, rejecting a comparison between the two disaster packages and saying he had supported emergency spending “when immediate and necessary.”Asked about the governor’s past positions on Thursday, a DeSantis spokesman said the administration was “completely focused on hurricane response.” “As the governor said earlier,” the spokesman, Jeremy T. Redfern, said, “we have no time for politics or pettiness.”Some Northeastern lawmakers, including Republicans, have not forgotten how Mr. DeSantis and some of his peers responded when the New York area was under duress. “Year after year, we had given them billions of dollars,” said Peter King, a former Republican congressman from Long Island, alluding to aid packages for Southern states and calling the resistance to Sandy relief his angriest moment in office. “Every one of them comes to New York to raise money. They either go to the Hamptons or they go to Manhattan. And both areas were devastated by Sandy.”This week, Mr. DeSantis said he was “thankful” for the Biden administration’s efforts so far, moving to place himself in the tradition of above-the-fray leadership from past Florida governors who negotiated catastrophic weather events on their watch.President Biden on Thursday at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington. He has emphasized that he and Mr. DeSantis are working together.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesThe president and the governor have each made a point of saying publicly that they and their teams are in touch. “He complimented me. He thanked me for the immediate response we had,” Mr. Biden said on Thursday, suggesting that any political conflicts with Mr. DeSantis were irrelevant in these times. “This is about saving people’s lives, homes and businesses.” (In February, Mr. DeSantis baselessly said Mr. Biden “stiffs” storm victims for political reasons, insisting that the president “hates Florida.”)Haley Barbour, a Republican former governor of Mississippi who presided over the state’s response to Hurricane Katrina, said there was nothing inherently inconsistent about a conservative governor seeking federal storm money. “People think this is a role for the federal government — that some disasters are too big for the community to bear the cost to get back to where you need to be,” he said.Besides, he suggested, Mr. DeSantis and the White House suddenly had something in common. “Biden likes to say, ‘Build back better,’” Mr. Barbour said. “Well, that’s what Florida wants to do.” More

One of former President Donald J. Trump’s most prominent lawyers, Mr. Epshteyn was involved in efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power despite his loss in 2020. Boris Epshteyn, one of former President Donald J. Trump’s most prominent lawyers, testified on Thursday before a special grand jury in Atlanta that has been convened as part of a criminal investigation into election interference by Mr. Trump and his allies.Mr. Epshteyn played a central role in efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power despite his loss in the 2020 election. He now serves as an in-house counsel for the former president, helping coordinate the Trump team’s various legal defense efforts; a separate federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s mishandling of classified documents is underway, along with the inquiry by the Congressional committee investigating the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.The grand jury appearance was the latest legal complication for Mr. Epshteyn — one of a number of Trump lawyers who have themselves faced an onslaught of criminal and civil exposure. Earlier this month, federal investigators seized Mr. Epshteyn’s cellphone as part of yet another federal investigation, this one into the attempts to overturn the election results and the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. His lawyer did not return calls for comment.The investigation is being conducted by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta. Ms. Willis is weighing potential conspiracy and racketeering charges in the investigation, among others, documents have shown. Her office is known to have already identified nearly 20 targets who could face criminal charges, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer. It is not clear whether Mr. Epshteyn also faces potential legal jeopardy in the case or is appearing solely as a witness.As part of her investigation, Ms. Willis has examined the phone call that Mr. Trump made on Jan. 2, 2021, to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, imploring him to find nearly 12,000 votes, or enough to reverse the outcome in his favor. She is also seeking to question Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina about earlier calls he made to Mr. Raffensperger.The investigation is being conducted by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County.Audra Melton for The New York TimesAnd she is examining Republicans who assembled a bogus slate of electors in an effort to thwart the outcome of the popular vote in Georgia. Mr. Epshteyn played a leading role in that effort. In filings earlier this year that sought to compel his testimony, Ms. Willis’s office said that Mr. Epshteyn “possesses unique knowledge concerning the logistics, planning, and execution of efforts by the Trump Campaign to submit false certificates of vote to former Vice President Michael Pence and others.”Her office highlighted an interview that Mr. Epshteyn did with MSNBC in January, when he said he was “part of the process, to make sure there were alternate electors for when, as we hoped, the challenges to the seated electors would be heard and would be successful.”Mr. Epshteyn was also subpoenaed this year by the Jan. 6 committee, which noted that he had “participated in attempts to disrupt or delay the certification of the election results” and “participated in a call with former President Trump on the morning of January 6, during which options were discussed to delay the certification of election results in light of Vice President Pence’s unwillingness to deny or delay certification.” More

Michigan and some Illinois residents can start casting ballots on Thursday for the Nov. 8 midterm election as both states open early, in-person voting.Voting is also underway in some form in six other states: South Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota, Virginia, New Jersey and Vermont.In Michigan, three Republicans endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump will take on three incumbent Democrats holding statewide offices. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is facing Tudor Dixon, a conservative media personality; Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is facing Kristina Karamo; and Attorney General Dana Nessel is being challenged by Matt DePerno. Both Ms. Karamo and Mr. DePerno have been outspoken champions of Mr. Trump’s election lies.Michigan voters will also decide on a ballot initiative that would add legal protections for abortion to the state’s constitution.Thursday is also when Michigan and many Illinois counties will begin sending absentee and mail ballots to registered voters who have requested them.Michigan lawmakers on Wednesday passed a bill that will let local elections officials start processing mail and absentee ballots two days before Election Day. While they will not be able to start counting ballots until Nov. 8, the extra processing time is intended to help ease the burden on officials on Election Day, potentially speeding up the release of results. The change was part of a series of election laws approved just before early voting got underway, and after a deal was reached with the governor’s office, the Detroit Free Press reported.In Illinois, where county officials can choose when to open early voting locations, Chicago residents will have to wait: Cook County, which encompasses the city, will not open early voting until Oct. 7. Most other Illinois counties opened early voting at clerks’ offices on Thursday.South Dakota, Wyoming and Minnesota opened early, in-person voting on Sept. 23 and have mailed out ballots. In those states, residents can opt to vote by mail without providing an excuse or reason they can’t make it to the polls.On Sept. 24, Virginia and New Jersey both started accepting some ballots. In Virginia, that is when voters could start casting ballots in person at county registrar offices. In New Jersey, early, in-person voting will not start until Oct. 29, but early mail voting began on Sept. 24.Election officials in Vermont are sending ballots to the state’s approximately 440,000 active voters, where a Senate seat and the state’s lone House seat are open. All ballots should be mailed by Friday and received by Oct. 10. Voters who would prefer to vote in person may do so at their town offices during normal business hours. More