Elections

The former president threw his weight behind the celebrity doctor, who is running for the Republican nomination for senator in a key state.Wading into a tight Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania, former President Donald J. Trump endorsed Mehmet Oz on Saturday, throwing his weight behind the former star of “The Dr. Oz Show,” who has been attacked by rivals as a closet liberal. Dr. Oz’s celebrity appears to have been a deciding factor for the former president, whose own political career was grounded in reality television.“I have known Dr. Oz for many years, as have many others, even if only through his very successful television show,” Mr. Trump said in an announcement, upstaging a rally he was holding at the same time in North Carolina, where his endorsement of Representative Ted Budd in a tight Republican Senate race is also considered crucial.“He has lived with us through the screen and has always been popular, respected and smart,” Mr. Trump added. He cited an appearance he had made on Dr. Oz’s daytime television show in the thick of the 2016 presidential race, when Mr. Trump showed partial results of a physical. “He even said that I was in extraordinary health,” Mr. Trump said, “which made me like him even more (although he also said I should lose a couple of pounds!).”The former president also emphasized Dr. Oz’s electability, citing his appeal to women because of his daytime TV show. Women “are drawn to Dr. Oz for his advice and counsel,” Mr. Trump said, adding: “I have seen this many times over the years. They know him, believe in him and trust him.” Mr. Trump predicted that Dr. Oz would do “very well” in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, which are Democratic strongholds.A wealthy first-time candidate, Dr. Oz is in a bitter, high-priced battle with another superwealthy rival for the G.O.P. nomination, David McCormick, a former chief executive of the world’s largest hedge fund. Both candidates have ardently sought Mr. Trump’s endorsement, both personally and through surrogates, as they have awkwardly remade themselves from middle-of-the-road, establishment Republicans to appeal to Mr. Trump’s hard-right base. Dr. Oz welcomed the endorsement in a statement that said, “President Trump wisely endorsed me because I’m a conservative who will stand up to Joe Biden and the woke left.”A poll last week by Emerson College and The Hill found a virtual tie between the two candidates among very likely primary voters, with Mr. McCormick at 18 percent, Dr. Oz at 17 percent and 33 percent undecided.In North Carolina, Mr. Trump repeated his endorsement of Dr. Oz, likening his long television run as proof of political viability. “When you’re in television for 18 years, that’s like a poll.’‘ Mr. Trump said of Dr. Oz, whose show ended a 12-year run in January. “That means people like you.”The Pennsylvania race, to fill the seat of the retiring Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, is widely seen as one of the most crucial in both parties’ efforts to win control of the Senate in this year’s midterm elections. Democrats have a hard-fought primary of their own, featuring most prominently Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Representative Conor Lamb.After Mr. Trump’s endorsement, Mr. McCormick’s top strategist, Jeff Roe, tweeted that Mr. McCormick “is going to be the next Senator” from Pennsylvania. Jacob Flannick contributed reporting. More

In 2017, Emmanuel Macron was “a meteor born under a lucky star.” A former banker without experience in elective office, he benefited during his first presidential campaign from President François Hollande choosing not to seek re-election, while the conservative candidate and front-runner, François Fillon, faced an embezzlement charge.In 2022, the planets appeared to align once more, this time on account of international circumstances rather than national dynamics. As president of the European Union since January, Mr. Macron has enhanced his status as a legitimate interlocutor with Vladimir Putin, even if his attempts to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine have been unsuccessful. All opinion polls have shown Mr. Macron leading in Sunday’s first round of the presidential election, but his lead has been swiftly declining.In his first campaign, Mr. Macron claimed to be “neither left nor right,” a slogan that had seduced many who are weary of the old political divisions. Once elected, however, he quickly revealed what that meant in practice. Cutting taxes for the wealthy, shrinking the welfare state and hollowing out democracy, Mr. Macron drifted rightward, to the point of shocking some members of La République En Marche!, his party.Far from changing course, Mr. Macron appears to be doubling down. In recent months, his appeal to the right-wing electorate has become ever more explicit, orienting his platform around two of the right’s traditional themes — control of immigration and stiffening of secularism. It may deliver him another victory. But Mr. Macron is playing a dangerous game. By absorbing his opponents’ views into his own platform, he risks bringing about a political landscape hazardously skewed to the right.Among Mr. Macron’s first decisions in office was the abolition of the wealth tax and a flat tax on capital income, which benefited the rich. At the same time he pursued a reduction in the housing allowance for the poor and a reduction inpensions for retirees. Halfway through his first year in power, he had become the “president of the rich.” The image stuck, burnished by his reform of labor law, which limited workers’ rights and weakened representative organizations, curtailment of unemployment benefits and diminution of employers’ social security contributions.During the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr. Macron did show a different face. Having ordered a lockdown of the population, he decided that the state would generously bail out companies, which salvaged many of them and avoided massive layoffs of workers. The act, though broadly in line with governments across Europe, was undoubtedly helpful. All the same, Mr. Macron’s first term tended unmistakably to widen inequalities, as shown in surveys.In parallel, there has been a disquieting democratic decline. During 46 of the past 78 months, France has been under a state of emergency, a record in Europe. It was declared by Mr. Hollande after the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015, then under Mr. Macron at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Confronted with similar challenges, Germany never used such extreme measures. Moreover, two days before the end of the first state of emergency, at Mr. Macron’s initiative, various emergency statutes were integrated into the common law by his party-dominated Parliament. Since then, six laws restricting the rights of asylum seekers, protesters, prisoners, labor unions and nongovernmental organizations have been enacted.The prerogatives of the police have also significantly been expanded at the expense of the judiciary, notably for search warrants and stop-and-search. The permission to use guns by the police has increased. During the Yellow Vest movement, 2495 protesters were wounded, 30 lost one eye, five had their hand blown off. Asked about the damage caused by so-called sublethal weapons prohibited in most European countries, the president declared that speaking of repression or police violence was unacceptable under the rule of law.Mr. Macron’s combination of neoliberalism and authoritarianism has deepened inequality, diminished the welfare state, weakened democracy and aggravated the mistrust of politics, resulting in unprecedented abstention rates in regional elections, especially among the youth. Under the Fifth Republic, in place since 1958, it is a unique record.There is one domain in which Mr. Macron had raised more optimistic expectations: climate change. In 2018, Minister of Environment Nicolas Hulot detailed an ambitious plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 in accordance with the 2015 Paris Agreement. A year later, as it became clear that the administration was not complying with its objectives, the popular Mr. Hulot resigned in protest. A year later, Mr. Macron convened The Citizens’ Convention for the Climate to provide proposals to mitigate global warming, which he promised to follow. But his government abandoned some of the most significant ones and watered down others.Yet the most revealing sign of Mr. Macron’s political drift to the right has been his placing the control of immigration, implicitly from the South, and the regulation of religion, tacitly Islam, at the center of his politics.On immigration, Mr. Macron has become ever more hard-line. In the past five years, the unprecedented repression of migrants and refugees at the border with Italy, in informal camps around Paris and above all in the so-called jungles of Calais, from where exiles try to reach Britain, has been denounced by human rights organizations. As incoming president of the European Union, he announced that after the drowning of 27 people in the English Channel in November, border policing by the European agency Frontex should be reinforced, disregarding the higher risk for migrants.Earlier in 2021, Mr. Macron had a bill voted on by his parliamentary majority against the alleged “separatism” of Muslims, who have been deemed a threat to republican values. Criticized by religious groups and advocacy groups as an attack of civil liberties, this law has already allowed the government to dissolve several nongovernmental organizations.The xenophobic and Islamophobic notes in Mr. Macron’s policies may come as a surprise from a candidate whose constituency is mostly composed of middle- and upper-class voters as well as retirees for whom immigration and secularism rank far lower as priorities than purchasing power, the health system and the environment. But with the left candidate of La France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, polling third in the first round, Mr. Macron appears to have assumed that he would win the presidential election on his right, against Républicains’ Valérie Pécresse, Reconquête’s Éric Zemmour, and above all, Rassemblement National’s Marine Le Pen, in second place, with a constituency attuned to her nationalist program.It’s been done before. In 2002, Jacques Chirac adopted a similar approach in a runoff against Jean-Marie Le Pen. Ahead of the vote, Le Pen warned that “voters always prefer the original to the copy.” He was wrong, and lost by about 60 percent. In mid-March, when his daughter Marine was polling between 16 and 22 percent behind Mr. Macron in the second round of the election, it seemed like his prediction would continue to fall short. But now, when the difference between the candidates has plummeted to as little as 2 percent, it looks close to coming true.During his 2017 campaign, Mr. Macron presented himself as a renovator of politics and a rampart against the far right. Today, he appears to be something very different: a traditional politician, offering a bridge to the far right. For a president who promised to remake France in his image, it is a worrying legacy.Didier Fassin, an anthropologist and physician, is the James D. Wolfensohn professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the director of studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He works on moral and political issues and on crisis in contemporary societies. He is recently the author of “The Will to Punish,” “Life. A Critical User’s Manual,” and “Policing the City. An Ethnographic.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

In Dijon, magnificence and malaise sit side by side, in the image of a country divided before the presidential vote on Sunday.DIJON, France — At Le Carillon, a convivial place for a coq au vin as France prepares to vote in a critical election, the heated political debates that always characterized past campaigns have fallen silent, as if the country were anesthetized.In other election seasons, the restaurant would buzz for months with arguments over candidates and issues. This time, said the owner, Martine Worner-Bablon, “Nobody talks politics. I don’t know, people’s heads are elsewhere. No confidence in politicians. If anything, they talk about the war.”In this strange atmosphere, overshadowed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, holds a slight lead over Marine Le Pen, a hard-right nationalist, according to the latest polls. But his comfortable advantage of more than 10 percentage points has evaporated over the past month as his dismissal of debate and failure to engage have irked voters.“What astonishes me is that the president of the French Republic does not think first about the French,” Ms. Le Pen, whose newfound mild manner masks a harsh anti-immigrant program, said last month. It was a remark that hit home as Mr. Macron spent most of his time pondering how to end a European war.President Emmanuel Macron held a campaign rally last week in Nanterre, near Paris.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesWith the vote spread over two rounds starting on Sunday, many people still undecided and an expected abstention rate of up to 30 percent, the election’s outcome is deeply uncertain. During her last campaign, in 2017, Ms. Le Pen chose to appear at the Kremlin with President Vladimir V. Putin, who said with a smirk that he did not wish “to influence events in any way,” as she vowed to lift sanctions against Russia “quite quickly” if elected.The possibility of France lurching toward an anti-NATO, pro-Russia, xenophobic and nationalistic position in the event of a Le Pen victory constitutes a potential shock as great as the 2016 British vote for Brexit or the election the same year of Donald J. Trump in the United States.At what President Biden has repeatedly called an “inflection point” in the global confrontation between autocracy and democracy, a France under Ms. Le Pen would push the needle in the very direction the United States opposes.All seems tranquil in Dijon, for now. Quiet and immaculate, its center a succession of churches and palaces, the capital of the Burgundy region is as good a symbol as any of “la douce France,” the sweet land of gastronomic delights that finds its way into many people’s hearts. But Dijon, a town of 155,000 inhabitants, has its turbulent underside, in the image of a country where beauty and belligerence and magnificence and malaise are often uneasy bedfellows.The city center of Dijon. Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesAmong regulars at Le Carillon, inquiries as to the whereabouts of nuclear bomb shelters are on the rise. Emmanuel Bichot, a center-right city councilor, does not like the country’s mood. “There’s a lot of frustration, of aggression, of tension,” he said. “People get angry very quickly. This has not been an election about programs. I don’t hear anyone debating them.”Learn More About France’s Presidential ElectionThe run-up to the first round of the election has been dominated by issues such as security, immigration and national identity.On the Scene: A Times reporter attended a rally held by Marine Le Pen, the far-right French presidential candidate. Here is what he saw.Challenges to Re-election: A troubled factory in President Emmanuel Macron’s hometown shows his struggle in winning the confidence of French workers.A Late Surge: After recently rising in voter surveys, Jean-Luc Mélenchon could become the first left-wing candidate since 2012 to reach the second round of the election.A Political Bellwether: Auxerre has backed the winner in the presidential race for 40 years. This time, many residents see little to vote for.He paused to contemplate this puzzle. “It’s come down to Macron’s Machiavellian manipulations against Le Pen’s resilience.” This is the third time that Ms. Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally, formerly the National Front, has run for president. The two leaders in the first round of voting go through to a runoff on April 24.One fundamental development contributed to the fractured, incoherent nature of the election. Mr. Macron’s agile occupation of the political center, destroying first the center-left Socialist Party and then the center-right Republicans, effectively wiped out two pillars of postwar French democracy.What was left was the president against the extremes, whether to the right in the form of Ms. Le Pen or to the left in the form of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Between them, Ms. Le Pen, the far-right upstart Éric Zemmour and Mr. Mélenchon are set to garner some 50 percent of the vote, the latest poll from the Ifop-Fiducial group showed.“There’s a lot of frustration, of aggression, of tension,” said Emmanuel Bichot, a center-right city councilor in Dijon.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times“This is a country that no longer has the political structures that corresponds to what a democracy is,” François Hollande, Mr. Macron’s Socialist predecessor as president, said in an interview last month in Paris. “And I believe, if you look across Europe, it’s only in France that political parties have collapsed to this point.”Contemplating his own allegiance to the center-left, he said, “The left has completely blown up, divided, and the most responsible part of it disappeared.”At the same time, Mr. Macron’s own party, La République en Marche, has proved a largely empty vessel.In this vacuum, the campaign has often descended into candidates shrieking at each other, while a lofty leader takes the view that his presidential stature should be enough to win the day.That attitude, however, underestimates French restiveness. Not for two decades has a French president won a second term. Regicides are a thing of the past, but political decapitations at five-year intervals are not.Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, campaigning in Stiring-Wendel last week.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesAt the same time, immigration, security and a sharply rising cost of living have coalesced into an ugly brew. Many French people feel left out from the economic growth Mr. Macron has delivered to the country and anxious about the violence they see in their neighborhoods.Referring to several Islamist terrorist attacks in France, Irène Fornal, a retired state pension fund director ensconced at Dijon’s Café de l’Industrie, said, “After Charlie Hebdo, after Bataclan, after the murder of Samuel Paty, evil was personified by the immigrant stranger, and the country split.”Dijon, like many towns in France, has its projects, underprivileged areas of nondescript high-rises where immigrants, often Muslims from North Africa, and their descendants predominate, and the drug trade brings violence between rival gangs.“Insecurity pollutes the life of people,” said François Rebsamen, the city’s longtime mayor and a lifetime Socialist who has joined the Macron campaign, given his own party’s collapse. “In these areas, tranquillity is elusive.”“Insecurity pollutes the life of people,” said François Rebsamen, Dijon’s longtime mayor.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesTwo years ago, in the Les Grésilles neighborhood of Dijon, street battles between Chechens and North Africans erupted over five days after a 16-year-old Chechen boy was assaulted by drug dealers from the Maghreb. In another depressed area, called Fontaine d’Ouche, some stores are still boarded up after drive-by shootings late last year.Mathieu Depoil — who heads a social center in Fontaine d’Ouche that tries to improve people’s lives through sports, carpentry, gardening and other activities — said the area’s roughly 7,000 inhabitants, mostly immigrants, formed a “zone of precariousness” with a 25 percent poverty rate, high unemployment and many single-parent families.“People complain to me that if they say where they live, they are told, ‘Oh, you live with savages,’” he added.A mock election he organized recently with a debate on the 12 official presidential candidates drew only a handful of people. “I am not sure people will go vote,” he said. “They are disillusioned, they feel alone and isolated after Covid-19. They have lost any faith in collective solutions.”The Fontaine d’Ouche neighborhood in Dijon. Many French people feel left out from the economic growth Mr. Macron has delivered to the country and anxious about the violence they see in their neighborhoods.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesWe went for a stroll through the neighborhood, visited late last month by Mr. Macron as he finally woke up to the need to get out of Paris and hear the concerns of people struggling to get by. The posters of him that were hurriedly put up are now gone.Instead, the bespectacled face of Mr. Mélenchon, the hard-left candidate, adorns many walls with the slogan, “Another world is possible.”Who Is Running for President of France?Card 1 of 6The campaign begins. More

Pro-Trump activist Ali Alexander to cooperate with Capitol attack inquiryAttorney says organizer of the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement will work with justice department after he was subpoenaed Ali Alexander, the prominent pro-Trump activist, will cooperate with the justice department investigation into the Capitol attack, making him the first high-profile political figure to agree to assist the government’s criminal inquiry into the events of January 6.The move is likely to give initial momentum to the newly expanded justice department investigation running in parallel to the House select committee investigation examining Donald Trump and the Capitol attack.An attorney for Alexander – the organizer of the “Stop the Steal” movement – told the Guardian that he had agreed to cooperate with the justice department since he was left with no choice after being issued a grand jury subpoena, and had been informed by the prosecutor that he was not currently a target of the investigation.The news of his cooperation was earlier reported by the New York Times.In a lengthy statement through his attorney, Alexander denounced the process as “hostile” but indicated he would comply with the grand jury subpoena asking about the “Women for America First” group and the “Save America March” events that immediately preceded the Capitol attack.Capitol attack investigators zero in on far-right Oath Keepers and Proud BoysRead more“I did nothing wrong and I am not in possession of any evidence that anyone else had plans to commit unlawful acts,” Alexander said in the statement. He has also denounced anyone who took part in or planned violence on 6 January 2021.Alexander said he did not think he could provide prosecutors with anything useful for the inquiry, noting he had not financed the equipment used for the Save America rally on the Ellipse near the White House and had not discussed the security for the event with the Trump White House.The statement added that he had not coordinated any movements with the Proud Boys militia group and he had only accepted an offer from the Oath Keepers militia group to act as security for a separate event he had planned near the Capitol, which ultimately did not take place.It was not clear what assistance Alexander might furnish. But he was deeply involved in efforts to invalidate the results of the 2020 election and had contacts with members of Congress and, according to the House select committee, White House officials.That is now of interest to the justice department, which recently expanded the scope of its January 6 inquiry to include Trump’s push to return himself to office, after spending months focused purely on the rioters that stormed the Capitol.A spokesperson for the justice department declined to comment.The subpoena to Alexander from the grand jury empaneled by federal prosecutors suggests the justice department investigation could go beyond that of the select committee, to which he testified voluntarily for about eight hours last December.It also indicates that the criminal inquiry could reach Trump’s inner circle, with the subpoena demanding information about members of the legislative and executive branches who were involved in efforts to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

In a message two days after Election Day 2020, the president’s son conveyed a range of ideas for keeping his father in office.Former President Donald J. Trump’s eldest son sent the White House chief of staff a text message two days after Election Day in 2020 that laid out strategies for declaring his father the winner regardless of the electoral outcome, people familiar with the exchange said on Friday.The text, which was reported earlier by CNN, was sent two days before Joseph R. Biden Jr. was declared the winner of the election. The recipient, Mark Meadows, turned a cache of his text messages over to the House committee investigating the events leading up to the deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as the Electoral College results in Mr. Biden’s favor were being certified.“It’s very simple,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote to Mr. Meadows on Nov. 5, 2020. He wrote at another point, “We have multiple paths We control them all.”The message went on to lay out a variety of options that Mr. Trump or his allies ultimately employed in trying to overturn the results of the election, from legal challenges to promoting alternative slates of electors to focusing efforts on the statutory date of Jan. 6 for certification of the Electoral College results.In a statement, the younger Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Alan Futerfas, confirmed that the text message was sent but suggested it was someone else’s idea that Donald Trump Jr. was passing along.“After the election, Don received numerous messages from supporters and others,” Mr. Futerfas said. “Given the date, this message likely originated from someone else and was forwarded.”Still, the text message underscores the extraordinary lengths that Mr. Trump’s allies and official aides were already exploring right after Election Day to keep Mr. Trump in power if the voters throughout the country failed to do so.Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric called on Republicans to keep fighting on their father’s behalf in the immediate aftermath of Election Day, as votes were still being counted in a string of close races in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Arizona.“The total lack of action from virtually all of the ‘2024 GOP hopefuls’ is pretty amazing,” Donald Jr. wrote on Twitter the same day he sent the text to Mr. Meadows. “They have a perfect platform to show that they’re willing & able to fight but they will cower to the media mob instead. Don’t worry @realDonaldTrump will fight & they can watch as usual!”The House committee is investigating what led to the assault on the Capitol and the various efforts to try to thwart Mr. Biden’s victory, all of which failed. Ultimately, a mob of supporters of Mr. Trump stormed the Capitol during the certification. At least seven people died in connection with the riot.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: New DevelopmentsCard 1 of 5The effort to disqualify “insurrectionists.” More

A state appeals court judge approved the use of a special master to draw new congressional districts that could be used if the existing maps are thrown out.A New York appeals court judge on Friday signed off on the appointment of a neutral expert to prepare new congressional district lines that could be used if the state’s highest court upholds a lower-court ruling that struck down maps drawn by Democratic lawmakers.The judge, Justice Stephen K. Lindley of the Fourth Appellate Department, emphasized in his decision that the substitute maps would only be a backup measure meant to preserve a range of possible remedies as the courts consider a broader legal challenge to the maps brought by Republicans.But Justice Lindley’s directive raised the specter that an increasingly tangled fight over New York’s freshly drawn congressional districts could yet veer away from Democrats months after they enacted a map that favors their candidates in 22 of 26 districts, and require the state to delay this year’s primary contests from June until August.The political stakes are high: With the two parties locked in a national battle for control of the House, the swing of just a few seats in New York could theoretically be the difference between a Democratic or Republican majority in Washington next year.So far, only one trial court judge — a Republican from rural Steuben County — has weighed in on the case. The judge, Patrick F. McAllister, struck down all of the state’s legislative districts last week as a violation of a 2014 state constitutional amendment that outlawed partisan gerrymandering. He ordered lawmakers to redraw the lines with bipartisan support or hand the process over to a special master.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Analysis: For years, the congressional map favored Republicans over Democrats. But in 2022, the map is poised to be surprisingly fair.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Democrats appealed the decision and they believe they will prevail at either the Appellate Division or at the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. They argue that the maps’ partisan tilt reflects the makeup of a heavily Democratic state like New York, not an attempt to skew the lines for partisan advantage.Justice Lindley provided for that possibility, too. Even as he gave Justice McAllister approval to appoint a special master to create “standby” maps, Justice Lindley opted to keep in place a stay on most of the lower-court ruling, effectively allowing the election to proceed under the current district maps for now.“The stay will, among other things, allow candidates for Congress, State Senate and Assembly to file designating petitions by the statutory deadline, and allow the boards of elections to accept such petitions,” he wrote.If the courts ultimately find that the maps are consistent with the State Constitution, the primaries would proceed as planned in June. If the maps are struck down, the courts would have to decide whether to delay the primaries and order replacement maps, or allow this year’s contests to go forward as scheduled using the Democratic lines and wait until the next election cycle — or schedule special elections — to fix them.A final decision is expected around the end of April.Allowing a special master to begin working on backup lines now may increase the chances that the courts could lock in place replacement maps before this year’s elections if they rule against Democrats. The Legislature would almost certainly be given an opportunity by the court to correct them first.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

With inflation, war and the pandemic looming larger, Democrats who hope that the browbeating of Ketanji Brown Jackson will rally Black voters behind their candidates may be disappointed.The spectacle created by Republican senators with presidential ambitions as they browbeat the first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court — after which 47 Republicans voted against her on Thursday — might have seemed like glaring evidence that the G.O.P. had written off the Black vote this November.Far from it. In rising inflation, stratospheric gas prices, lingering frustrations over Covid and new anxieties over the war in Ukraine, Republicans see a fresh opening, after the Obama and Trump eras, to peel away some Black voters who polls show are increasingly disenchanted with the Biden administration.Thanks to gerrymandering, Republicans need not win over too many Black voters to affect a handful of races, and dozens of Black Republican House candidates — a record number of them — are reshaping the party’s pitch.If anything, the G.O.P.’s treatment of the Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, was a testimony to the party’s confidence that amid so many more powerful political forces and more consuming objects of public attention, their handling of her confirmation simply didn’t matter much.“I think the Black people that this would turn off weren’t voting for Republicans anyway, no matter what,” said Wesley Hunt, a Black Army veteran and a Republican newcomer to politics who is running for a deep-red Texas House seat.Senate Republican leaders had warned colleagues before the confirmation fight to keep the proceedings civil and cordial, clearly worried that the sight of a phalanx of white Republican inquisitors would turn voters off in an election year. But if Democrats still believe that Judge Jackson’s rough treatment will energize Black voters to come out this November and vote Democratic in big numbers, it appears likely that they will be disappointed.For frustrated voters of all colors who are struggling to pay their bills and fill their tanks, November’s vote may simply be a chance to vote against the party in power.“We are not a monolith,” said Jennifer-Ruth Green, a Black Air Force veteran who is running for Congress in Northwestern Indiana as a Republican. “We see inflation and gas prices. Voters are not stupid.”In Gary, Ind., Roshaun Knowles, 42, a cosmetologist taking a break at the Billco Barber Shop, summed up how the confirmation hearings would play as she considered her vote this fall. She said she had felt despair as an accomplished Black woman was interrogated by white senators who, she believed, lacked Judge Jackson’s intellect and poise.Roshaun Knowles said she had felt despair at the grilling of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson by Republican senators but was unhappy with President Biden. “He hasn’t been doing anything,” she said. “What has he done?Carlos Javier Ortiz for The New York Times“To be in a room full of white people asking her questions about where she learned what she learned and what she is capable of — you know, it didn’t sit well with me,” Ms. Knowles said. “She should have been treated as a white man would have been treated,” she added.But, she said, vaccine mandates cost her a job as a property manager for a housing authority after she refused to get the shot. Stimulus checks kept too many people out of the work force. And President Biden? “He hasn’t been doing anything,” she said. “What has he done?”Ms. Knowles said she was leaning toward voting Republican this fall, as she did in 2020, when she voted for Donald J. Trump, after voting for Hillary Clinton four years before and for Barack Obama twice.Republicans on the campaign trail and over the airwaves are pressing the image of a faltering Democratic leadership that has no clue how to handle economic uncertainty, the persistent pandemic and rising crime. When Republican officials are asked about the party’s strategy toward Black voters, they invariably call on the few Black Republican elected officials and candidates to make the pitch. But tellingly, Black Republican candidates such as Ms. Green and John James, who is running for a Michigan House seat, are not advertising their party affiliations, just their biographies — a sign that the G.O.P. brand remains toxic in some corners.And Republican outreach efforts amount to little more than seizing on Black disaffection with Democrats.Paris Dennard, director of Black media affairs for the Republican National Committee, said the party had opened eight community centers nationwide to engage Black voters. Candidates like Mr. Hunt are proof that the party’s message is inspiring Black Republicans to run, he said.But a message focused on Democrats’ shortcomings deprives Black voters of hearing about policies they actually want, said Leah Wright Rigueur, author of “The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power.”“It’s an incredibly effective strategy, but it’s also insidious,” said Dr. Rigueur, an associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins University. “It only works when there’s that dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party.”It does work, however, even with Black voters who during the Obama and Trump years were remarkably united behind the Democratic Party.“I don’t think Biden’s really even in office,” Robert Sanders scoffed as he cut hair in Gary, echoing criticism from the political right about the 79-year-old president. “I think he’s being escorted through office.”The softening of Mr. Biden’s approval among Black voters is a clear warning to Democrats. Approval of the president among Black registered voters slid to 62 percent in March from 83 percent last summer in an NBC News poll and was not affected by the Supreme Court fight, said Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm that conducted the survey with the Democratic firm Hart Research.The percentage of Black voters in the poll who said they strongly approved of the president’s performance fell to 28 percent last month, from 46 percent between April and August of last year. And intensity of support predicts turnout in elections.Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster who is Black, said polls were picking up a reversion to the days before Mr. Obama energized Black voters positively and Mr. Trump then energized them negatively. Before 2008, he noted, it was normal for 12 percent to 14 percent of the Black electorate to vote Republican.“What is more problematic is the lack of energy levels among younger voters, particularly younger African Americans,” Mr. Belcher said, noting that young voters of color in 2018 had delivered Democrats the House. “It’s a not-excited, disenchanted, frustrated, younger electorate right now, more like the electorate of 2014 and 2010 than 2018 — and that’s disastrous.”Democratic officials say they are responding with Black voter mobilization projects that have started earlier than in previous midterm cycles. Last spring, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hired organizers in five battleground states to focus on key Democratic constituencies. On Thursday, the committee announced a new round of ad purchases with Black news outlets.Chris Taylor, a committee spokesman, said efforts by Republicans to court Black voters were disingenuous given the voting records among those in the party on pandemic relief, criminal justice reform and clean air and water legislation.“Nearly every Republican in Congress opposed our priorities,” said Mr. Taylor, who is Black.Because of gerrymandered district lines, most Republican candidates for the House do not need many — if any — Black voters. But in districts like Indiana’s First, with its narrow Democratic lean and a Republican target on its back, a Republican challenger will need to make inroads with Black voters, or at least hope for soft turnout for Democrats.Mr. Cruz talking with Senator Josh Hawley and Senator Marsha Blackburn during a break in the confirmation hearing for Judge Jackson last month.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesJudge Jackson’s rough reception does not appear to be a threat to that hope. Even Black voters who watched the hearings attentively were surprisingly forgiving of her Republican inquisitors.“I don’t think she was treated fairly,” said Greg Fleming, 72, a financial adviser in Gary. “But that’s the way things are in this country. In today’s climate, unfortunately, it’s to be expected.”Like Indiana’s First, Georgia’s Second District still leans Democratic, but if a candidate can chip into its rural Black vote, he has a strong chance. For Jeremy Hunt, an Army veteran and Black candidate running in the Republican primary to challenge Representative Sanford Bishop, a long-serving Democrat who is also Black, the Supreme Court is not part of his calculus.“We can talk about Republicans versus Democrats, but ultimately, that’s not what voters want to hear from us as leaders,” Mr. Hunt said. “There is a huge temptation to get into national-level stuff and make it about what’s going on, you know, on different levels, but a big part of our campaign is keeping it local.”Still, when he talks about what is afflicting local farmers and truckers, Mr. Hunt said, he invariably comes back around to the economy, gas prices and inflation.Black voters were the most likely to say they were personally falling behind because of inflation, according to the NBC News poll. And that is producing anxieties that Republicans are eager to exploit.Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, one of two Black Republicans in the House, said Republicans had nothing to apologize for in the Jackson confirmation process.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesRepresentative Byron Donalds of Florida, one of two Black Republicans in the House, said: “We’ve got rich Black people. We’ve got rich white people. We have poor Black people. We have poor white people. If you’re poor in the United States, you’re feeling the effects of $4.30 gasoline. You’re feeling the effects of home heating oil prices that have gone up 60 percent. You’re feeling the impacts of meat and bread and milk, all going up dramatically.”Mr. Donalds said he had watched most of Judge Jackson’s hearings and had seen nothing that Republicans needed to apologize for.“Never once did they go into her personal life,” he said. “Never once did they go into her personal background. Never once were their accusations about her character.”With Democrats disappointing and Republicans offering a weak alternative, some Black voters said they didn’t know where to turn politically.In Gary, Mr. Fleming said he worried about the rising power of the Democratic left wing. But until more Republicans drop their “conspiracy theories” and extreme comments, he said, they weren’t much of an option.“I mean, they thought everything that happened on Jan. 6 was AOK? That’s crazy,” Mr. Fleming said. “If a Mitt Romney-type Republican ran, I could go for that. But Republicans, they’re on another planet right now. I can’t even call them far right. They’re defying gravity.” More

La votación tiene el potencial de cambiar el sistema político del país. Pero hay quienes temen que no sea más que un instrumento de propaganda.CIUDAD DE MÉXICO — Al pasear por la capital de México en estos días, sería fácil asumir que el presidente del país está en riesgo inminente de perder su trabajo.Las calles de la ciudad están llenas de carteles, volantes y vallas publicitarias que instan a los mexicanos a votar para saber si deben sacar del poder al presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador en una elección revocatoria este domingo.Solo que no es la oposición la que le dice a la gente que vaya a las urnas. Son los leales al presidente.“Apoya al presidente López Obrador,” dice un volante. “Si NO participas, los corrupto$ nos quitarán las becas, los apoyos y las pensiones que hoy recibimos”.Durante la mayor parte de un siglo, los presidentes mexicanos han cumplido sus mandatos de seis años sin falta, hayan sido o no elegidos limpiamente, o hayan llegado a ser despreciados por gran parte de la población. La elección revocatoria, propuesta por López Obrador y la primera de este tipo en México, tiene el potencial de cambiar el sistema político del país, al dar a los ciudadanos una herramienta nueva y poderosa para hacer que sus líderes rindan cuentas.El domingo se pedirá a los votantes que digan si quieren que a López Obrador “se le revoque el mandato por pérdida de la confianza” o “siga en la presidencia de la república hasta que termine su periodo”. Para que sea vinculante, debe participar el 40 por ciento del electorado.Lo llamativo es que el promotor más entusiasta de la votación —y la persona más interesada en poner a prueba la consolidada popularidad del mandatario— ha sido el propio presidente. Los líderes de la oposición han pedido a sus seguidores que boicoteen el ejercicio, y los analistas creen que la participación podría ser demasiado baja para que los resultados cuenten.Un simpatizante del presidente en Ciudad de México da información sobre dónde y cuándo votar en el referendo revocatorio.Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesAsí que, aunque López Obrador ha calificado la revocatoria de mandato como “un ensayo democrático del primer orden”, muchos temen que se convierta en algo mucho menos significativo: una herramienta publicitaria destinada principalmente a reforzar la afirmación de poder del presidente.“Se supone que es un mecanismo de control cívico del poder, pero se ha convertido en un instrumento de propaganda política”, dijo Carlos Bravo Regidor, analista político y crítico del gobierno. El partido en el poder, dijo Bravo Regidor, “quiere que esto sea una demostración de fuerza, de músculo y capacidad para sacar a la gente a las calles y hacer explícito su apoyo a López Obrador”.En un cálido lunes en Ciudad de México, los voluntarios de la campaña del presidente se desplegaron por un barrio residencial armados con volantes y amplias sonrisas, anunciando alegremente los centros de votación cercanos y diciendo a cualquiera dispuesto a escuchar que fuera a votar en la revocación de mandato.Allan Pozos, uno de los líderes del grupo, dijo que esperaba que el ejercicio sentara “un precedente” para que los futuros líderes pudieran ser expulsados si fuera necesario. Esta vez, sin embargo, solo quiere que el presidente sepa que se le quiere.“Es para demostrar que Andrés Manuel tiene el fuerte apoyo del pueblo”, dijo Pozos. “Andrés muchas veces se siente solo, porque tiene que ir contra todo un sistema y no tiene apoyo”.Allan Pozos, uno de los líderes de los voluntarios que hacen campaña por el presidente en Ciudad de México.Alejandro Cegarra para The New York TimesTal muestra de apoyo no podría llegar en un mejor momento para el presidente, que ha completado la mitad de su mandato mientras enfrenta dificultades para cumplir con las promesas clave de la campaña que lo llevó al cargo en una victoria arrolladora en 2018. Prometió una “transformación” del país que iba a reducir la pobreza, poner en marcha la economía y atajar la violencia endémica de raíz.Pero después de una pandemia y una recesión mundial, las tasas de pobreza siguen siendo persistentemente altas, el crecimiento económico es anémico y los homicidios siguen rondando niveles récord.Sin embargo, López Obrador sigue siendo muy popular, ya que más de la mitad de los mexicanos aprueban su gestión, según las encuestas. Su gobierno ha tratado de mejorar la situación de los pobres, al aumentar el salario mínimo cuatro veces e incrementar el gasto en bienestar social.López Obrador también ha ganado puntos con gestos simbólicos, como convertir la residencia presidencial en un museo abierto al público, y volar en avión comercial, incluso al visitar Estados Unidos.Un cartel de apoyo a López Obrador en un autobús.Alejandro Cegarra para The New York TimesSu alta estima entre los votantes es también un tributo, según coinciden partidarios y críticos, a su implacable difusión de una narrativa oficial en la que se presenta como un guerrero solitario del pueblo, que se enfrenta a los grupos corruptos del poder tradicional.“Los resultados han estado por debajo de las expectativas del propio gobierno”, dijo Jorge Zepeda Patterson, un destacado columnista mexicano que ha apoyado al presidente, refiriéndose a los logros de López Obrador durante su mandato.“La polarización es muy rentable políticamente, sobre todo si no tienes resultados”, dijo Zepeda Patterson, y agregó: “Al menos puedes construir la narrativa de que estás luchando”.El principal riesgo de la revocatoria para el presidente es la posibilidad de que grandes sectores del país simplemente ignoren el ejercicio por completo, especialmente porque tiene lugar el Domingo de Ramos. Por ley, para que el voto se convierta en vinculante, al menos 37 millones de mexicanos necesitan participar, significativamente más que el número de personas que votaron por López Obrador en las elecciones de 2018 y que lo llevaron a la presidencia en una victoria contundente.Una manifestación en apoyo a López Obrador, en la capital mexicana el miércolesAlejandro Cegarra para The New York TimesPero López Obrador ya ha identificado un chivo expiatorio en caso de baja participación: el organismo de control electoral del país.Durante meses, el presidente ha atacado al Instituto Nacional Electoral porque considera que ha fracasado al no dedicar suficientes recursos a la publicidad y la gestión del proceso.“Desde el principio debieron promover la consulta, no actuar de manera tramposa, guardando silencio, no difundiendo la consulta para que la gente no se enterara, instalando casillas en lo más apartado”, dijo el presidente en una reciente conferencia de prensa, refiriéndose al instituto electoral. “Pura trampa y luego abiertamente en contra de nosotros, en contra mía”.El instituto pidió al gobierno federal más dinero para supervisar la contienda, con pocos resultados. Con solo aproximadamente la mitad del presupuesto que dijo necesitar, el organismo electoral instaló aproximadamente un tercio de las mesas que colocaría en una elección normal.Partidarios de López Obrador en la manifestación el miércolesAlejandro Cegarra para The New York TimesLorenzo Córdova, el presidente del instituto electoral, conocido por su acrónimo INE, dice que le están tendiendo una trampa para que fracase.“No es solo el presidente”, señaló Córdova, “hay una campaña sistemática y bien organizada para descalificar al INE”. El objetivo, dijo, es “lesionar al árbitro y eventualmente propiciar su captura política”.La Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación ha dicho que los partidos políticos no pueden hacer publicidad de la revocatoria, y, sin embargo, el rostro de López Obrador ha aparecido en carteles en todo el país.Córdova dice que el instituto electoral no ha determinado quién paga por todos los anuncios, pero dijo que hay al menos el doble de ellos en los estados donde el partido del presidente competirá en las elecciones para gobernador en junio.“Hay que sospechar que hay una intencionalidad política”, detrás de la campaña de mercadotecnia, dijo Córdova.La Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación dijo que los partidos políticos no pueden anunciar la revocación y, sin embargo, el rostro de López Obrador ha aparecido en carteles en todo el país.Alejandro Cegarra para The New York TimesHay, por supuesto, beneficios estratégicos que podrían provenir de pedir al país que opine sobre si les gusta o no el presidente en este momento particular. López Obrador fundó su partido político y tiene un interés obvio en hacer todo lo posible para asegurar la victoria en las elecciones generales para reemplazarlo en 2024.Los patrones de votación en la revocatoria de mandato le indicarán al presidente dónde están los puntos débiles de su lado, y cuál de los posibles candidatos a la presidencia es capaz de lograr que la gente acuda a las urnas.“Es una especie de experimento, un ensayo”, dijo Blanca Heredia, profesora del CIDE, un centro de investigación de Ciudad de México. “De cara al 24, para ir midiendo qué capacidad tienen sus operadores para movilizar el voto”.Pase lo que pase el domingo, para muchos en México es difícil ver cómo la primera revocatoria presidencial de la historia del país perjudicará seriamente a este presidente.“Andrés Manuel tiene esa cosa de que hasta cuando pierde, gana”, dijo Heredia. “Siempre tiene una manera de volver la derrota un triunfo”.Oscar Lopez More