Elections

Black political leaders support the governor, but there are signs of a lack of fervor and lingering support for Andrew Cuomo among Black voters.From the moment she took office, Gov. Kathy Hochul set out to shore up her standing with an important constituency.She named Brian A. Benjamin, a Black Democratic state senator from Harlem, as her lieutenant governor, and held a celebratory news conference on 125th Street in Harlem to announce it. She spoke from the pulpits of Black churches around the city, including Abyssinian Baptist Church.The strategy seemed to work: Ms. Hochul, a white moderate from Buffalo, picked up early support from a wide range of Black leaders.Yet nearly seven months into her tenure, some New York Democrats are concerned that she has not been able to use those endorsements to generate much enthusiasm among Black voters, a key voting bloc.Ms. Hochul could win the primary even with a muted showing from Black voters, but if they don’t turn out in November to support her, the race for governor could be tighter, and problems could emerge for other Democrats down the ballot.A Siena College poll released Monday found that if Ms. Hochul’s predecessor, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, entered the primary race, he would lead her among Black voters by 50 percent to 23 percent, although she leads him overall among registered Democrats by eight points, the poll found.But the poll found that if Mr. Cuomo stayed out, Ms. Hochul led a Black candidate, Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate, among Black voters by a margin of 39 percent to 17 percent — a reversal from a February Siena poll in which she trailed Mr. Williams.Jefrey Pollock, Ms. Hochul’s pollster, said the governor was still getting familiar with voters in the city, a hurdle faced by all statewide candidates not from New York City.“What you can see from data is that the governor wasn’t known before, and she’s just getting known to voters now,” Mr. Pollock said. Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate, is running to Ms. Hochul’s left in the Democratic primary.Seth Wenig/Associated PressBut Mr. Williams predicted that the governor would not draw out the Black vote. “I think the Hochul campaign and administration are really trying to do the basics and wait everyone out,” Mr. Williams said. “That’s not going to excite the base.”Indeed, Kirsten John Foy, president of the activism group Arc of Justice, said that in recent trips to Western New York and Long Island, he has seen “no Democratic enthusiasm anywhere,” particularly from Black voters.Mr. Foy, who is Black, said that the common perception was that Ms. Hochul had “yet to articulate an agenda for the Black community.”To add to the governor’s difficulties, her lieutenant governor choice, Mr. Benjamin, is now the focus of an investigation by federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. into whether he played a role in an effort to funnel fraudulent campaign contributions to his unsuccessful 2021 campaign for New York City comptroller. He has not been accused of wrongdoing.Jerrel Harvey, a campaign spokesman for Ms. Hochul, said that as New Yorkers “meet her and experience her leadership, the governor’s support grows rapidly, especially in the Black community.“The governor won’t take any community for granted, and will continue meeting voters where they are, to share her vision for New York to have safer streets, stronger schools and to be more affordable for everyone,” he said.Democrats across the country are worried about an “enthusiasm gap” and low turnout in the midterm elections, with no Donald J. Trump on the ballot and public safety emerging as a major issue.Hazel N. Dukes, the president of the New York State chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., said she was particularly concerned that the 2022 elections in New York might be an extension of last year’s results in Nassau County, where Republicans were able to flip three major seats in the Long Island suburbs, in part by using changes to the state’s bail laws as a wedge issue. Two Long Island hopefuls for governor, Representative Thomas Suozzi, a Democrat, and Representative Lee Zeldin, the leading Republican nominee, have focused on Democratic-supported bail reform as the cause of an uptick in violent crime, though there is no statistical evidence to support their contention.“I’m worried about the general election,” Ms. Dukes said. “If Republicans use false narratives about criminal justice, and we don’t turn out like we’re supposed to, that’s how they win.”Ms. Hochul recently proposed changes to the bail law that would give judges more discretion to account for criminal history and potential dangerousness in deciding bail.Speaking to reporters in Albany last week, Ms. Hochul defended her proposals, which she called “a balanced, reasonable approach that continues to respect the rights of the accused.”But participants in a rally in Harlem on Friday criticized the governor for her proposal to change the Raise the Age statute to make it easier for teenagers to be prosecuted in adult criminal court for gun possession. They noted that young Black people would likely be most affected by the shift.State Senator Cordell Cleare of Harlem said her constituents had thought issues like bail reform and Raise the Age were settled.“I want my governor to stand up for my community that has long been marginalized, victimized, overpoliced and unfairly punished,” Ms. Cleare said in an interview. “We don’t want to be political ping-pongs on either side of the net.”A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 5A crowded field. More

The greatest damage Donald Trump did may not be in the actions he took, but in the influence he had.Donald Trump isn’t the brightest bulb. He’s tremendously talented as a room-reader and as a reflector of emotion, but he is no brilliant tactician, no wise sage, no erudite intellectual.He runs on spectacle and fury. There is no grand vision or grand plan. His quest is to win the moment. His focus is too narrow to even consider the larger struggle.But he did something, unleashed something, that is so much bigger than he is now or ever will be: He pushed the limits of acceptability, hostility, aggression and legality beyond where other politicians dared push them. And for the most part, he has not only survived it, but been rewarded for it.Now, the danger is that Republicans won’t only try to imitate Trump but to one-up him.Take Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis.He is often described as a Trump ally, but covetousness is often born of communion. If “The Talented Mr. Ripley” had a political corollary, it might well be The Scheming Mr. DeSantis.Whereas Trump’s rhetoric was poisonous, and he issued some incredibly harmful orders and his administration instituted some corrosive policies, he wasn’t able to codify much of it. Some of Trump’s most high-profile policies — though not all — have been reversed by the Biden administration.DeSantis, along with some other Republican governors, is taking the next step, doing the thing that Trump couldn’t do much of: getting laws to his desk and signing them. They have taken what might once have been stigmas, realized that in the modern Republican Party they confer status, and converted them into statutes.It was on the state level that Jim Crow was erected, and it is on the state level that Donald Crow is being erected.Just take a look at the things that DeSantis has done since the 2020 elections.He has signed a voter suppression law, during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” no less, that included more restrictions on drop boxes and granted new authority to partisan poll watchers.He’s expected to sign the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which does far more damage than just tamping down classroom discussion. As my colleagues Amelia Nierenberg and Dana Goldstein have pointed out, it also has far-reaching implications for how mental health services are delivered to children, even those who may not be L.G.B.T.Q. One clause in the law reads:“Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”As Nierenberg concludes, “The impact is clear enough: Instruction on gender and sexuality would be constrained in all grades.”He has signed an anti-protesting law, which granted some civil protections to people who drove through protesters blocking a road. As The Orlando Sentinel reported in April 2021, when the bill was signed, the law “might have protected the white nationalist who ran over and killed counterprotester Heather Heyer during the Charlottesville tumult in 2017.” A judge blocked the legislation last fall.Earlier this month, the Florida Legislature passed the “Stop WOKE Act,” another so-called anti-critical race theory law. This one invoked the idea that a lesson that may make a person “feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” should be banned.DeSantis, who has been a big proponent of the bill and signed an executive order to this effect, is expected to sign the bill.DeSantis is even going further than his own Republican-controlled Legislature is willing to go on some issues. He threatened to veto a redistricting map drawn up by the Legislature that would most likely increase Republican seats. But it didn’t go far enough for DeSantis. He drew up his own map that would go further, reducing the Black and Hispanic voting power even more.He has also proposed raising his own defense force. As CNN reported in December, he wants to “re-establish a World War II-era civilian military force that he, not the Pentagon, would control,” one that would “not be encumbered by the federal government.”DeSantis has repeatedly claimed that he has no plans to run for president in 2024, but you always have to take politicians demurring in this way with a healthy dose of skepticism.DeSantis is playing to the base that Trump exposed and unleashed, but unlike Trump, he is demonstrating to them what it looks like when their priorities have the durability of enacted law. He is trying to be for them what Trump was not: a competent legislative deal maker.I don’t know whether DeSantis will run for president or if he could win, but he is the first version of what many of us fear: a Trump-like figure with less of the bombast (though DeSantis has plenty) and more of the killer skill to enact policy.DeSantis is Trump 2.0.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. 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Éric Zemmour, a far-right pundit, tried to revive his flagging campaign Sunday in a place that is familiar to hopefuls of his ilk.PARIS — With its immense forecourt opening onto a breathtaking view of the Eiffel Tower, the Trocadéro Plaza in Paris offers an ideal setting to revive a flagging campaign for the French presidency. Twice in the past decade, tens of thousands of people have flocked there, responding to calls from embattled right-wing contenders looking for support.A third attempt came on Sunday, when Éric Zemmour, the far-right pundit turned presidential candidate, held a massive rally at the Trocadéro designed to halt his slide in the polls, exactly two weeks before the first round of voting.“I will fight to reconquer our identity, I will fight to regain our prosperity,” Mr. Zemmour told tens of thousands of supporters who waved a sea of French flags under a blazing sun.Sunday’s rally, one of the biggest of this year’s elections, had all the trappings of a last-ditch attempt to revitalize a campaign that started with a bang and then gradually stalled, as Mr. Zemmour, 63, got bogged down in controversies and struggled to broaden his voter base.He entered the presidential race last fall, putting his prolific career as a polarizing far-right writer and television star behind him and promising to shake up French politics with his hard-line views on immigration, Islam’s place in France and national identity.Many people at Sunday’s rally were drawn by support for Mr. Zemmour’s conservative positions on immigration.  The placard reads, “So that France remains France.”Julien De Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAnd shake it up he did. For months, through his active presence on social and news media as well as his frenzied rallies, he shaped the public debate by pushing it further to the right. He popularized the concept of the “great replacement” — a racist conspiracy theory stating that white Christian populations are being replaced by nonwhite immigrants — rewrote some of the worst episodes from France’s past and promoted divisive ideas such as a proposal to force parents to give their children “traditional” French names.His meteoric rise in the polls — he briefly ranked second in mid-February — turned him into an unexpected runoff contender and a serious threat for Marine Le Pen, the longtime leader of the far right, and Valérie Pécresse, the candidate of the mainstream right.But his ratings have gradually slipped for a month, putting him in fourth or fifth place, after the war in Ukraine exposed two of his biggest flaws: his past sympathy for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and his neglect of the issue of economic inequalities.In a 2018 interview, Mr. Zemmour said he “would dream” of a French equivalent of Mr. Putin, praising his attempt to restore the grandeur of “an empire in decline” — words that have haunted him since Russia invaded Ukraine, severely denting his credibility on international affairs. The candidate also provoked an outcry after he first opposed welcoming Ukrainian war refugees, saying it would further “destabilize France, which is already overwhelmed — I do say overwhelmed — by immigration.” Ukrainian evacuees crossing the border into Palanca, Moldova, this month. Mr. Zemmour provoked an outcry after at first opposing an influx of Ukrainian refugees.Mauricio Lima for The New York TimesBut it is his failure to respond to the economic hardship created by the war that has most affected his standing. Mr. Zemmour has long defended liberal positions on the economy, which have done little to allay voters’ fears about rising energy prices. By contrast, his competitors, Ms. Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a far-left candidate, have benefited from this concern, having long campaigned against economic inequality.“He has focused so much on identity, immigration and security,” said Bruno Cautrès, a political scientist at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po university in Paris, “that it has prevented him from embodying anything else in the eyes of the voters.”In the fall, Mr. Zemmour had pinned his hopes on his ability to appeal to “the patriotic bourgeoisie and the working classes.” But attendance at Sunday’s rally suggested that he mainly attracted bourgeois voters.“Sovereignty, grandeur, identity — this guy thinks exactly like me,” said Benoît Bergeron, a 68-year-old Zemmour supporter wearing a tweed jacket, who had crossed the Seine from his upscale Left Bank neighborhood to join the rally.Mr. Bergeron said the last time he had joined a demonstration was to support La Manif Pour Tous, a large movement opposing same-sex marriage that upended France in 2013. Several supporters in the crowd said Mr. Zemmour was the best representative of a conservative generation that emerged after that movement.Mr. Cautrès said Mr. Zemmour had a limited voter base and scored well mainly among segments of the upper middle class, the elderly and conservative Catholics. “It’s not something that propels you to the second round of the presidential election,” he said.Against a backdrop of sinking poll numbers, Mr. Zemmour has tried to refocus the debate around immigration by toughening his already polarizing stance. Warning that France will become “a Muslim country” by 2060 if current migration levels persist, he promised last week to create a “Ministry of Remigration” and deport 100,000 “undesirable foreigners” each year, if elected.Marine Le Pen, the longtime leader of the far right, is now polling at 20 percent in voting intentions, about twice the level of Mr. Zemmour.Johanna Geron/ReutersBut the proposal only caused further controversy and accentuated his image as an extreme politician. “He didn’t run a campaign to bring people together, but he ran one that was more divisive, more provocative every day,” said Robert Ménard, a French radical right-wing mayor and longtime acquaintance of Mr. Zemmour who supports Ms. Le Pen.At the rally, Mr. Zemmour’s speech was filled with populist overtones, with attacks against the news media and the elites, who he said where trying to undermine his candidacy. “Nothing and no one will steal this election from us,” he told the roaring crowd.The candidate’s radical messaging has also had the unexpected effect of sanitizing the image of his direct far-right competitor, Ms. Le Pen, a goal she has long been pursuing. Ms. Le Pen is now polling at 20 percent in voting intentions, about twice the rate for Mr. Zemmour, and appears on track to reach a runoff with the incumbent, President Emmanuel Macron.“He has normalized Marine Le Pen,” Mr. Ménard said.Perhaps the biggest impact of Mr. Zemmour’s campaign will be its lasting effect on French politics, which have increasingly lurched to the right. Polls show that two-thirds of French people today are worried about the “great replacement.” Depending on his performance in the first round of voting, Mr. Zemmour may also force a complete reshuffle of the French right. Several leaders of Ms. Le Pen’s and Ms. Pécresse’s parties have already joined his campaign.Several supporters at the Trocadéro on Sunday said they did not trust the polls. “We’re at a turning point,” said Stéphanie Vitry, a company manager, who was convinced Mr. Zemmour would come out ahead in two weeks. Otherwise, she said, “it’s the end of France.”But some did not hide that they had largely given up hope that the far-right candidate would reach a second round.“I confess that I’m not very optimistic,” said Oxana Herbeth, 23, a former Le Pen voter who had turned to Mr. Zemmour, attracted by his tough line on immigration and security.It did not help that the Trocadéro has also been symbolically associated with the downfall of the French right. The past two presidential candidates of the center-right party Les Républicains held big rallies there — before being defeated on Election Day.“To gather the right at the very place where it has failed,” Mr. Ménard said. “Strange idea.” More

The former president held a rally in rural Georgia on Saturday in an attempt to jump-start David Perdue’s campaign to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp.COMMERCE, Ga., — When Donald Trump recruited David Perdue to run for governor of Georgia, Mr. Trump’s allies boasted that his endorsement alone would shoot Mr. Perdue ahead of the incumbent Republican governor, Brian Kemp. Georgia Republicans braced for an epic clash, fueled by the former president’s personal vendetta against Mr. Kemp, that would divide the party.But two months out from the Republican primary election, Mr. Perdue’s campaign has been more underwhelming than epic. In an effort to boost Mr. Perdue and put his own stamp on the race, Mr. Trump came to Georgia on Saturday for a rally for Mr. Perdue and the slate of candidates the former president has endorsed. Thousands of Trump supporters turned out in the small city of Commerce, 70 miles northeast of Atlanta and about 20 miles outside of Mr. Kemp’s hometown, Athens.Early polls have steadily shown Mr. Perdue, a former senator, trailing Mr. Kemp by about 10 percentage points. The governor has the backing of many of the state’s big donors and remains far ahead of Mr. Perdue in fund-raising. After pursuing a deeply conservative legislative agenda, Mr. Kemp has secured support from most of the top state leaders and lawmakers, even those who have, until now, aligned with Mr. Trump.Mr. Perdue’s sputtering start may hint at a deeper flaw in Mr. Trump’s plan to punish the governor for refusing to work to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results: Mr. Trump’s grievances may now largely be his alone. While polls show many G.O.P. voters believe lies about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election, there is little evidence that Republicans remain as fixated on the election as Mr. Trump. The challenge for Mr. Perdue, as well as for other candidates backed by Mr. Trump, is to make a case that goes beyond exacting revenge for 2020.“When you’re running against an incumbent governor, it’s a referendum on the incumbent,” said Eric Tanenblatt, a chief of staff to former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, the former senator’s cousin. “And if the incumbent has a good track record, it’s going to be hard to defeat him.”Mr. Tanenblatt backed David Perdue’s past Senate campaigns, including his losing bid last year. But Mr. Tanenblatt is now among the Republicans worried that Mr. Perdue is merely distracting the party from its top goal: fending off the likely Democratic nominee, Stacey Abrams.“Donald Trump’s not on the ballot. And there has to be a compelling reason why you would vote out an incumbent,” Mr. Tanenblatt said. “I don’t think there is one.”Former President Donald J. Trump listens as David Perdue speaks in Commerce, Ga., on Saturday.Audra Melton for The New York TimesAll seven of Mr. Trump’s endorsed candidates spoke at the rally. Nearly every speaker echoed Mr. Trump’s false election claims, placing the blame on Dominion voting machines and Democratic lawmakers for Republicans’ 2020 losses in Georgia. Mr. Perdue took things further, however, placing the blame for his Senate campaign loss and Mr. Trump’s defeat on Mr. Kemp.“Let me be very clear. Very clear,” Mr. Perdue said to the crowd. “In the state of Georgia, thanks to Brian Kemp, our elections were absolutely stolen. He sold us out.” How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.Mr. Perdue’s allies argue that Governor Kemp’s track record is forever tainted by his refusal to try to overturn the election results or call a special legislative session to review them, even though multiple recounts confirmed Joe Biden’s win.“That’s the wound with the salt in it right now that hasn’t healed,” said Bruce LeVell, a former senior adviser to Mr. Trump based in Georgia. “David Perdue is the only one that can unify the Republican Party in the state of Georgia. Period.”Michelle and Chey Thomas, an Athens couple attending the rally, said they were unsure whether they would support Mr. Perdue in the primary or vote to re-elect Mr. Kemp as they knew little of Mr. Perdue before Saturday. Like many attendees, they were unsure if they could trust the results of the 2020 election. And Mr. Kemp, they believe, did not exercise the full extent of his power in November 2020.“A lot of candidates say they are going to do something and don’t,” Ms. Thomas said. Mr. Kemp, she added, “could’ve done a lot better job.”The candidates endorsed by Mr. Trump include Herschel Walker, a former Heisman Trophy winner running for Senate; U.S. Representative Jody Hice, a candidate for secretary of state; Vernon Jones, a former Democrat now running for Congress; and John Gordon, a conservative lawyer who helped Mr. Trump defend his false election claims in court. Mr. Trump this week endorsed Mr. Gordon’s bid for state attorney general.Mr. Kemp has had years to guard himself against a challenge from the party’s Trump wing. He was one of the first governors to roll back Covid-19 restrictions in early 2020, drawing the support of many on the right who were angry about government-imposed lockdowns. Last year, he signed into law new voting restrictions that were popular with the Republican base. And in January, the governor backed a law allowing people to carry a firearm without a permit and another banning mailed abortion pills.That record, Kemp supporters argue, won over Republican base voters, even those who agree with Mr. Trump that Mr. Kemp did not do enough to fight the election results in Georgia.“I think they’ve turned the page on the election,” said State Senator Clint Dixon, a Republican representing the Atlanta suburbs. “And folks that may have been upset about that, still, they see that Governor Kemp is a proven conservative leader that we need.”Of Mr. Trump’s rally, he added: “I don’t think it does much. And the polls are showing it.”In early March, a Fox News poll of Georgia Republican primary voters showed Mr. Kemp ahead of Mr. Perdue by 11 percentage points.Mr. Kemp has amassed a war chest of more than $12.7 million, compared with the $1.1 million Mr. Perdue has raised since entering the race in December. The Republican Governors Association has also cut more than $1 million in ads supporting Mr. Kemp — the first time the organization has taken sides in a primary race. (Since December, Ms. Abrams has been raising more than both men, bringing in $9.3 million by January.)Mr. Kemp has worked to line up key Republican leaders — or keep them on the sidelines. Earlier this month, he appointed Sonny Perdue chancellor of the state’s university system. The former governor intends to remain neutral in the primary, according to people familiar with his plans.Since losing Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, Mr. Trump has tried to turn the state’s politics into a proxy war over his election grievances. He blamed Mr. Kemp for his loss, saying he did not win Georgia because the governor refused to block certification of the results. Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the results is under criminal investigation.Mr. Trump saw Mr. Kemp’s refusal as disloyal, in part because Mr. Trump endorsed the governor in a 2018 primary, helping to propel him to a decisive win.“It is personal,” said Martha Zoller, a Georgia-based conservative radio host and former aide to both Mr. Kemp and Mr. Perdue. “President Trump believes that he made Brian Kemp.”Gov. Brian Kemp spoke to supporters at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta this month.Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressNow Mr. Perdue’s campaign is looking for the same boost from Mr. Trump. Although Mr. Perdue’s ads, social media pages and campaign website note that he is endorsed by Mr. Trump, Mr. Perdue’s campaign aides believe many voters are not yet paying attention and do not know that he has Mr. Trump’s support. The former corporate executive has been a Trump ally, but he hardly exuded the bombast of his political benefactor during his one term in the Senate.Mr. Perdue is now running to the right of Mr. Kemp. He recently campaigned with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene at a rally in her rural northwest Georgia district, even after the congresswoman appeared at a far-right conference with ties to white supremacy.At the rally, Mr. Perdue lamented the “assault” on Georgia’s elections and reminded the crowd that he “fought for President Trump” in November 2020. At the time, he said, he asked not only for Mr. Kemp to call a special legislative session, but also for the resignation of Georgia’s current secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — remarks received with loud applause.Although Mr. Perdue’s campaign has largely focused on the 2020 election, he and Mr. Kemp have split over other issues. Mr. Perdue opposed construction of a Rivian Automotive electric truck factory in the state, saying that the tax incentives it brings could benefit wealthy liberal donors. Mr. Kemp embraced the deal as a potential economic boon.Mr. Perdue also split with Mr. Kemp when Mr. Perdue gave his support to a group of residents in Atlanta’s wealthy Buckhead neighborhood who are seeking to secede from the city. The idea gained traction among some who were concerned about rising crime rates in Atlanta, but the effort is now stalled in the state legislature.If Mr. Trump was concerned about the campaign, he didn’t show it at the rally. Before bringing Mr. Perdue onstage later in the evening, he promised supporters that the former senator would champion election integrity and defeat Stacey Abrams.“That’s a big crowd of people,” he said. “And they all love David Perdue.” More

In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas was involved in a range of efforts to keep President Donald J. Trump in power.Two days after the 2020 election, Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, texted an old friend, Mark Meadows, the chief of staff to President Donald J. Trump.She sent messages that had been making the rounds on pro-Trump sites, where anger over the election echoed her own raw feelings, including this passage: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.”Then she added of this fanciful, if chilling, set of conspiracy theories: “I hope this is true.”She texted Mr. Meadows again the next day. “Do not concede,” she wrote. “It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.”The messages were among a flurry of text traffic between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Meadows that was revealed this past week, part of a trove of documents previously turned over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. (Ms. Thomas has openly opposed the committee and called for Republicans who serve on it to be expelled from the House Republican conference.)A hard-line conservative activist, Ms. Thomas had long been viewed with suspicion by the Republican establishment. Yet her influence had risen during the Trump administration, especially after Mr. Meadows, who like Ms. Thomas has roots in the Tea Party movement, became chief of staff. Now, an examination of her texts, woven together with recent revelations of the depth of her efforts to overturn the election, shows how firmly she was embedded in the conspiratorial fringe of right-wing politics, even as that fringe was drawing ever closer to the center of Republican power.The disclosures add urgency to questions about how Ms. Thomas may have leveraged her marriage to Justice Thomas, who would be ruling on elections cases throughout the battle over the 2020 vote and beyond. As his wife agitated for Mr. Trump and his aides to turn aside the election results, Justice Thomas was Mr. Trump’s staunchest ally on the Supreme Court and has remained so. This year, in January, he was the only justice who noted a dissent when the court allowed the release of records from the Trump White House related to the Jan. 6 attack.Calls intensified this past week for Justice Thomas to step aside from such cases. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said on Friday that Justice Thomas “needs to recuse himself from any case related to the Jan. 6 investigation, and should Donald Trump run again, any case related to the 2024 election.”The Thomases have been a fiercely close couple for decades. In his memoir, Justice Thomas wrote that they were “one being — an amalgam” and called her his “best friend.” She often uses similar language to describe her husband.In one of his texts to Ms. Thomas, Mr. Meadows called the election a “fight of good versus evil” and added: “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues.”“Thank you!! Needed that!” Ms. Thomas replied. “This plus a conversation with my best friend just now… I will try to keep holding on. America is worth it!”Ms. Thomas’s texts to Mr. Meadows tap into a deep well of debunked conspiracy theories. References to the rounding up of elected officials, reporters and bureaucrats for military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay are drawn from QAnon, which imagines Satan-worshipping leaders running the country and trafficking children.Yet in the days after the election, Ms. Thomas had far more standing to take action than most who embraced such canards. As Mr. Trump courted Justice Thomas during his years in office — curious about his popularity among the Republican base and also about rumors that he might retire, aides said — the justice’s wife won increasing access to the White House.Though some Trump aides came to view her with such suspicion that they assembled opposition research meant to damage her standing with Mr. Trump — among other things, she pressed the president to hire people who could not pass background checks, the aides said — her clout grew with time.The arc of her political career had also led her to a powerful new platform. Ms. Thomas had started out working for establishment right-leaning organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But her desire for more radical change had led her to the Tea Party, and increasingly to the party’s fringes. Mr. Meadows, who was appointed chief of staff in March 2020, held similar views and has attended meetings of Groundswell, a group that Ms. Thomas founded in 2013 after consulting with Stephen K. Bannon, who would later become Mr. Trump’s chief strategist.With their brand of conservatism ascendant, Ms. Thomas had been appointed in 2019 to the nine-member board of CNP Action, an offshoot of a secretive but influential conservative group called the Council for National Policy, whose membership includes leaders of the National Rifle Association, the Family Research Council and the Federalist Society.The New York Times Magazine, in a profile of the Thomases published last month, detailed CNP Action’s assertive role in efforts to overturn the presidential election. That included circulating a document to its members in November 2020 urging them to pressure Republican lawmakers in swing states to challenge the results and appoint alternate slates of electors: “Demand that they not abandon their Constitutional responsibilities during a time such as this,” the document said.Text messages between Ms. Thomas and Mark Meadows were part of a trove of documents turned over by Mr. Meadows to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.Al Drago for The New York TimesIn one of her texts, the contents of which were earlier reported by The Washington Post and CBS News, Ms. Thomas sent Mr. Meadows a link to a video featuring Steve Pieczenik, a former State Department official who was claiming that mail-in ballots had been watermarked as part of an elaborate government sting operation to catch voter fraud. Mr. Pieczenik previously appeared on a webcast with the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and claimed that the 2012 school massacre in Newtown, Conn., was a false-flag operation, a notion that has been thoroughly debunked.On Nov. 19, Ms. Thomas promoted the efforts of Sidney Powell, the Trump lawyer who spent much of the postelection period spreading conspiracy theories. “Sidney and her team are getting inundated with evidence of fraud,” Ms. Thomas wrote to Mr. Meadows. “Make a plan. Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.”That same day, Ms. Powell held a news conference with Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington. There, she laid out baseless allegations that a cabal that included Chinese software firms, international shell companies and the financier George Soros had conspired to hack America’s voting machines.At that time, Ms. Powell was in the early stages of preparing four federal lawsuits that would present this purported plot as a reason for judges to overturn the election results. She nicknamed her suits the “Krakens,” referring to a giant octopus-like sea creature.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3Virginia Thomas’ text messages. More

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a skilled orator and veteran politician, hopes to become the first left-wing candidate since 2012 to reach the second round of France’s presidential election.LE HAVRE, France — Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leading left-wing candidate in France’s upcoming presidential election, once likened himself to one of nature’s slowest animals.“Trust a wise and electoral tortoise like me,” he said at a rally in January. “Slow and steady wins the race.” And, he added, mockingly: “I’ve already tired a few hares.”Now, nearly two weeks before the first round of voting on April 10, Mr. Mélenchon — a veteran politician who launched his third presidential bid 17 months ago — is hoping that Aesop’s fable about the tortoise who came from behind proves prescient.For months, Mr. Mélenchon and other candidates jostled in the polls below President Emmanuel Macron, the centrist incumbent, and Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, hoping to disrupt their widely expected rematch.But Mr. Mélenchon, 70, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed movement, has surged recently in voter surveys. He is now comfortably in third place with about 14 percent, largely ahead of his competitors on the left and within a few points of Ms. Le Pen, whose fierce competition with Éric Zemmour, an anti-immigrant pundit, has eaten into her support.A final victory for Mr. Mélenchon still seems remote. But a left-wing candidate reaching the runoff for the first time since 2012 would be stunning, especially in a race that was long-dominated by right-wing talking points on security, immigration and national identity.Supporters of the far-left France Unbowed movement this month in Paris. Mr. Mélenchon has surged recently in voter surveys.Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via Shutterstock“I’m starting to think it might be possible,” said Jérôme Brossard, 68, a retiree who was attending a small Mélenchon rally on a recent evening in Le Havre, a working-class port city on France’s northern coast.About 200 people gathered at a community center for the event, where walls were lined with posters reading “Another World Is Possible.” Some waved France Unbowed flags or wore stickers of the candidate’s face on their chest.Mr. Brossard said friends and family had recently shown interest in Mr. Mélenchon, raising his hopes and, for the first time ever, prompting him to paste campaign posters around town.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 Stage: As the vote approaches, theaters and comedy venues are tackling the campaign with one message: Don’t trust politicians. Behind the Scene: In France, where political finance laws are strict, control over the media has provided an avenue for billionaires to influence 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.Green Concerns: Despite the increasing prominence of environmental themes in France, the Green Party’s campaign has failed to generate excitement among voters.Mr. Mélenchon, a former Trotskyist and longtime member of the Socialist party who left in 2008 after accusing it of veering to the center, is a perennial but divisive figure in France’s notoriously fractious left-wing politics.A fiery, skilled orator with a reputation for irascibility — “I’m the Republic!” he once shouted at a police officer raiding his party’s headquarters in 2018 — Mr. Mélenchon has also staked out positions on contentious issues like secularism, race and France’s colonial history that have put him at odds with those on the left who support a stricter model of a secular, colorblind republic.But now, as the global economy strains to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine pushes up the prices of energy and essential goods, Mr. Mélenchon’s unabashedly left-wing platform, including a promise to impose price controls on some basic necessities, is resonating.Campaign posters in Tain-l’Hermitage, southeastern France, in January. In 2017, Mr. Mélenchon missed the second round of the presidential election by a mere percentage point.Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“That’s his favored terrain,” said Manuel Cervera-Marzal, a sociologist at the University of Liège who has written a book analyzing the France Unbowed movement.“He is doing an old-school, left-wing campaign that puts issues of inequality and purchasing power at its heart,” he said, adding that Mr. Mélenchon had softened his image of a “slightly bad-tempered” and “erratic” politician while preserving his “populist” strategy of pitting the people against the elite.Voters most attracted to Mr. Mélenchon — who skew young, unemployed and working-class — also make up their minds later than most, which helps explain why Mr. Mélenchon’s polling numbers have risen as the finish line approaches, according to Mr. Cervera-Marzal.But that is also the electorate most likely to stay home on election day, he warned.“It’s a crucial issue,” he said. “The lower abstention is, the higher Jean-Luc Mélenchon will go.”Mr. Mélenchon still faces many obstacles. Other left-wing leaders have resisted rallying to his campaign, castigating him for his pro-Russian comments before the invasion of Ukraine and saying his fiery nature made him unfit to govern.“We need to have a useful president, not just a useful vote,” François Hollande, France’s Socialist president from 2012 to 2017, told France Inter radio this month, as he attacked Mr. Mélenchon’s anti-NATO stance and his willingness to opt out of European Union rules.Mr. Mélenchon meeting with residents of a working-class neighborhood in Lyon in November. Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn 2017, Mr. Mélenchon missed the second round of voting by a mere percentage point, a bitter disappointment that his team is eager not to repeat. Mr. Mélenchon’s campaign has held hundreds of small but packed rallies and sent dozens of caravans to tour the country to attract disillusioned voters.“It’s time for the final all-out offensive!” said Adrien Quatennens, a France Unbowed lawmaker, at the rally in Le Havre. “It’s a vote that is worth a thousand strikes, a thousand protests!”Turnout was low in Le Havre for last year’s regional elections, but the city, with its dock workers and powerful trade unions, is still fertile ground for Mr. Mélenchon’s campaign. A third of the city voted for him in 2017.Sitting in the back row at the rally, Catherine Gaucher, 51, said she “had a bit of sympathy for the Greens at the beginning.”Who Is Running for President of France?Card 1 of 6The campaign begins. More

WASHINGTON — A snarling pack of white male Republicans ripping apart a poised, brainy Black woman at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, using sordid innuendos and baseless claims about race and porn to smear her, as her pained family sits behind her.It has been 31 years since I watched this scene, disgusted, when Anita Hill was questioned during confirmation hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas. Now Ketanji Brown Jackson has been cast into the same medieval torture chamber on Capitol Hill, with Democrats once more struggling to shield their witness from being mauled.This time, the male Torquemadas were joined by a female inquisitor, Marsha Blackburn. The Tennessee Republican is all magnolia Southern charm — until she spits venom.“Can you provide a definition for the word woman?” Blackburn asked Judge Jackson, invoking the controversy over a transgender swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania. Blackburn’s question inspired Tucker Carlson to later hold up a graphic of a woman’s reproductive system, along with a silhouette of a woman so shapely that Roger Ailes would have approved.What is a woman? Jackson shows that a woman is someone who stays cool in the face of calumny and is headed for the Supreme Court. And that will be justice for Justice Jackson.A better question might be: What is a senator?Is it a dolt who cares more about boosting unrealistic presidential ambitions with distorted information than making the Senate, for once, look like a dignified body?Feral Republicans took an exemplary record and twisted it to make Jackson look like an enabler of pedophiles. Tom Cotton all but accused her of lying, just as Arlen Specter accused Hill of perjury — based on nothing.Less than a year ago, Lindsey Graham voted to confirm Jackson for the D.C. Court of Appeals, calling her “qualified.” Now he berates her with odd questions and seems to blame her for Brett Kavanaugh’s grilling. If only John McCain could appear to him like Hamlet’s father’s ghost and slap him into shape.Perhaps Joe Biden sees his selection of Judge Jackson as a sort of expiation for his dismal performance as committee chairman for the Hill-Thomas hearings. Biden allowed the Republicans to run wild, and then he shut down the hearings before Hill’s backup witnesses testified. He cleared the path for Clarence Thomas, a liar and sexual harasser, to ascend to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court and impose his far-right views on the country.As Jill Abramson wrote in the Times Opinion section, the court’s 6-3 majority now “seems to be reshaping itself in Justice Thomas’s image.”In a speech at Notre Dame last year, Thomas lamented, “We have lost the capacity, even I think as leaders, to not allow others to manipulate our institutions when we don’t get the outcomes we like.”And yet manipulating institutions is exactly what his wife, Ginni, tried to do. As Bob Woodward and Robert Costa reported in a Washington Post-CBS News bombshell, the conservative activist worked frantically to overturn the results of the 2020 election, calling it an “obvious fraud,” as Donald Trump and his allies were vowing to go to her husband’s court to nullify Biden’s win.Ginni Thomas has had a chip on her shoulder since the Hill-Thomas hearings — she shamelessly left Hill a voice message in 2010 asking for an apology — and no doubt she thought if she could help claw back the presidency from Biden, that would be sweet revenge.In a cascade of text messages, she urged Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to get Trump back into the Oval. “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” she pleaded, adding, “The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.” Ginni — who attended the Jan. 6 rally before the raid on the Capitol started — urged Meadows to “Release the Kraken.”The Republicans badgering Judge Jackson aren’t asking a single question about the explosive revelations regarding Ginni Thomas — and nor are the rest of their party. Did the justice know what his wife was doing? Was he OK with it? Does he accept that he must recuse himself from cases dealing with Jan. 6 and the election?Apparently not. “Justice Thomas has already participated in two cases related to the 2020 election and its aftermath, despite his wife’s direct involvement in the so-called Stop the Steal efforts,” Jane Mayer reported in The New Yorker.When the court rejected Trump’s request to prevent the Jan. 6 committee from getting his records relating to the attempt to overturn the election results, Thomas was the sole dissenter. Do the records implicate Ginni?Stephen Gillers, a judicial ethicist, told Mayer that it was Clarence Thomas’s duty to know about Ginni’s crusade: “‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is not an acceptable strategy for the Thomases’ marriage.”Thomas should never have been on the court. Now that we know his wife was plotting the overthrow of the government, he should get off or be thrown off. You can’t administer justice when your spouse is running around strategizing for a coup.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

House January 6 panel members weigh seeking cooperation from Ginni ThomasWife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas sent texts to Trump’s chief of staff urging overturning of 2020 election result Members of the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack are weighing whether to demand that Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, cooperate with the inquiry, according to two sources familiar with the matter.A move to request cooperation from Ginni Thomas, who was revealed to have pushed in text messages to Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows to overturn the results of the 2020 election, would mark one of the most aggressive steps taken by the panel.Ginni Thomas texts spark ethical storm about husband’s supreme court roleRead moreThe select committee did not formally decide on whether to summon Thomas after a series of private deliberations on Friday, the sources said, even as the members discussed whether to request her voluntary cooperation or compel documents and testimony with a subpoena.But the renewed discussions – the panel weighed the matter for weeks after it first obtained the text messages – are likely to continue in huddles and on the House floor on Monday before the select committee moves to hold two Trump aides in contempt of Congress, the sources said.The hesitation to date about demanding that Thomas cooperate with the inquiry appears to have centered in part from concerns that she likely has scant interest in assisting the panel and could seek to create a political spectacle to distract from the investigation.Thomas, for instance, remains a close friend of prominent rightwing political operatives including Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon, who last year openly defied a subpoena as he sought to undermine the legitimacy of the select committee.The other principal concern among some members on the panel is whether it would be worth it to pursue testimony from Thomas at potential political cost if she appears for questioning but then stonewalls the inquiry, one of the sources said, for instance by asserting the fifth amendment.At least one member on the select committee also appeared to only just learn about the content of the text messages after reading them in news reports on Thursday, one of the sources said.Justice Thomas remains an icon among the Republican base and some members have warned that a move against his wife would almost certainly be perceived as a partisan attack by Democrats trying to tarnish his reputation, the sources said.The worries about political backlash has increasingly become a point of contention for the select committee in recent months. The Guardian first reported in January the panel had similar reservations about issuing subpoenas to House Republicans.The select committee could yet demand cooperation from Thomas, seeking information on whether Thomas knew about the scheme to have then vice-president Mike Pence stop the certification of Joe Biden’s win or plans for Trump supporters to descend on the Capitol January 6.Other lines of inquiry might include whether she connected lawyer John Eastman, who drew up the Pence scheme and clerked for Justice Thomas, to Trump, and whether she communicated with Meadows during a gap of unexplained correspondence between 24 November and 10 January.The select committee would then find itself in the bizarre position of having John Wood, also a former clerk for Justice Thomas who now leads the “gold team” examining Trump’s role in the Capitol attack, questioning the senior justice’s wife.A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment.Thomas is facing heightened scrutiny for working as a Republican activist while her husband sits on the supreme court after the Washington Post and CBS reported that she pushed Trump’s most senior White House aide to overturn the 2020 election results.In one of 29 text messages from Ginni Thomas that Meadows turned over to the select committee, Thomas also pressured the former White House chief of staff to have Trump appoint the conspiracy theorist and lawyer Sidney Powell to lead his post-election legal team.The communications are significant as they represent the first evidence that she was advising the White House on how to return Trump to office by any means, while her husband ruled on cases attempting to change the outcome of the election.But Meadows did not turn over any text messages between 24 November and 10 January, the Washington Post and CBS reported – a gap in communications that overlaps with the Capitol attack and would almost certainly be an area of interest to the panel.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More