Elections

The clear and present danger to our democracy now is that former President Donald Trump and his political allies appear prepared to exploit the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the law governing the counting of votes for president and vice president, to seize the presidency in 2024 if Mr. Trump or his anointed candidate is not elected by the American people.The convoluted language in the law gives Congress the power to determine the presidency if it concludes that Electoral College slates representing the winning candidate were not “lawfully certified” or “regularly given” — vague and undefined terms — regardless of whether there is proof of illegal vote tampering. After the 2020 election, Republican senators like Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri tried to capitalize on those ambiguities in the law to do Mr. Trump’s bidding, mounting a case for overturning the results in some Biden-won states on little more than a wish. Looking ahead to the next presidential election, Mr. Trump is once again counting on a sympathetic and malleable Congress and willing states to use the Electoral Count Act to his advantage.He confirmed as much in a twisted admission of both his past and future intent earlier this month, claiming that congressional efforts to reform the Electoral Count Act actually prove that Mike Pence had the power to overturn the 2020 presidential election because of the alleged “irregularities.” The former vice president pushed back forcefully, calling Mr. Trump “wrong.”The back-and-forth repudiations by Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence lay bare two very different visions for the Republican Party. Mr. Trump and his allies insist that the 2020 election was “stolen,” a product of fraudulent voting and certifications of electors who were not properly selected. Over a year after the election, they continue to cling to these disproved allegations, claiming that these “irregularities” were all the evidence Mr. Pence needed to overturn the results, and demanding that the rest of the G.O.P. embrace their lies. The balance of the Republican Party, mystifyingly stymied by Mr. Trump, rejects these lies, but, as if they have fallen through the rabbit hole into Alice’s Wonderland, they are confused as to exactly how to move on from the 2020 election when their putative leader remains bewilderingly intent on driving the wedge between the believers in his lies and the disbelievers.This political fissure in the Republican Party was bound to intensify sooner or later, and now it has, presenting an existential threat to the party in 2024. If these festering divisions cost the Republicans in the midterm elections and jeopardize their chances of reclaiming the presidency in 2024, which they well could, the believers and disbelievers alike will suffer.While the Republicans are transfixed by their own political predicaments, and the Democrats by theirs, the right course is for both parties to set aside their partisan interests and reform the Electoral Count Act, which ought not be a partisan undertaking.Democrats, for their part, should regard reform of the Electoral Count Act as a victory — essential to shore up our faltering democracy and to prevent another attack like the one at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. These are actually the worthiest of objectives.Republicans should want to reform the law for these same reasons, and more. Of course, some may never support reform of the Electoral Count Act simply because the former president has voiced his opposition to the efforts to revise it. But there are consequential reasons of constitutional and political principle for the large remainder of Republicans to favor reform in spite of the former president’s opposition.Republicans are proponents of limited federal government. They oppose aggregation of power in Washington and want it dispersed to the states. It should be anathema to them that Congress has the power to overturn the will of the American people in an election that, by constitutional prescription, is administered by the states, not Washington. If the Democrats are willing to divest themselves of the power to decide the presidency that the 49th Congress wrongly assumed 135 years ago, then it would be the height of political hypocrisy for the Republicans to refuse to divest theirs.Constitutional conservatives, especially, should want Electoral Count Act reform, because they should be the first to understand that the law is plainly unconstitutional. Nothing in the Constitution empowers Congress to decide the validity of the electoral slates submitted by the states. In fact, the Constitution gives Congress no role whatsoever in choosing the president, save in the circumstance where no presidential candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes cast.Trump acolytes like Mr. Cruz and Mr. Hawley should appreciate the need to reform this unconstitutional law. They are also politically smart enough to understand that however likely it is that the Republican presidential candidate will lose in 2024, it is just as likely that he or she will win. Attempts to time reform based on handicapping the quadrennial presidential election are futile, and no Republican should want to be an accessory to any successful attempt to overturn the next election — including an effort by Democrats to exploit the law.If the Republicans want to prevent the Electoral Count Act from being exploited in 2024, several fundamental reforms are needed. First, Congress should formally give the federal courts, up to and including the Supreme Court, the power to resolve disputes over state electors and to ensure compliance with the established procedures for selecting presidential electors — and require the judiciary’s expeditious resolution of these disputes. Congress should then require itself to count the votes of electors that the federal courts have determined to be properly certified under state law.Congress should also increase the number of members required both to voice an objection and to sustain one to as high a number as politically palatable. At the moment, only one member of each chamber is necessary to send an objection to the Senate and House for debate and resolution — an exceedingly low threshold that proved a deadly disservice to the country and the American people during the last election.Currently, Congress has the power under Article II and the Necessary and Proper Clause to prevent states from changing the manner by which their electors are appointed after the election, but it has not clearly exercised that authority to prevent such postelection changes. It should do so.Finally, the vice president’s important, but largely ministerial, role in the joint session where the electoral votes are counted should once and for all be clarified.It is hardly overstatement to say that the future of our democracy depends on reform of the Electoral Count Act. Republicans and Democrats need to put aside their partisan differences long enough to fix this law before it enables the political equivalent of a civil war three years hence. The law is offensive to Republicans in constitutional and political principle, officiously aggrandizing unto Congress the constitutional prerogatives of the states. It is offensive to Democrats because it legislatively epitomizes a profound threat in waiting to America’s democracy. The needed changes, which would meet the political objections of both parties, should command broad bipartisan support in any responsible Congress. For Republicans in particular, these changes are idiomatic sleeves off their vests.Come to think of it, the only members in Congress who might not want to reform this menacing law are those planning its imminent exploitation to overturn the next presidential election.J. Michael Luttig (@judgeluttig) was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006.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

Democrats could potentially expand the veto-proof majorities they already have in both the Assembly and Senate, further solidifying New York’s leftward shift.ALBANY, N.Y. — When Huge Ma, better known in New York as Vax Daddy, shut down the website he built last year to help city residents make appointments to get a coronavirus vaccine, he realized there were other more established types of public service to pursue.So Mr. Ma, a Democrat, decided to run for State Assembly, building off the folk hero status he achieved during the pandemic, with a campaign centered on policy issues he cared about, including transportation and the climate crisis.But an unexpected twist led Mr. Ma to end his nascent campaign this month just as it was getting underway: When the state’s once-in-a-decade redistricting process was complete, his home was outside the Queens district he hoped to represent.“While I currently feel a great sense of disappointment,” Mr. Ma wrote on Twitter. “I remain open to representing my community in the future.”Mr. Ma’s race was just one of many that were shaken up by the State Legislature, which Democrats control, when it approved new legislative maps that will shape the balance of power in Albany for the next decade at least.The new district lines, which were approved last week, could help fortify Democratic dominance in the statehouse for years to come. They significantly increase the odds that Democrats will protect, and potentially expand, the veto-proof majorities they already command in both the Assembly and Senate, further solidifying New York’s leftward shift.Republicans contend that Democrats effectively engaged in partisan gerrymandering to keep their grip on power. The state legislative lines, along with new congressional maps, have been challenged in court by a group of voters organized by Republicans.Rob Ortt, the Republican leader in the State Senate, said in a statement that Democrats had drawn maps “behind closed doors, without considering input from thousands of communities of interest or holding a single public hearing.”“It is clear they are only concerned with holding onto their political power and cementing the disastrous one-party rule that has made New York less safe, less affordable and less populated,” he said.Robert Ortt, the Republican Senate minority leader, accused Democratic legislative leaders of partisan gerrymandering.Hans Pennink/Associated PressState Senator Michael Gianaris, a Democrat who helped lead redistricting efforts in the legislature, has argued that the maps are fair, legal and, in practice, unraveled the results of previous gerrymandering by Republicans.What to Know About Redistricting and GerrymanderingRedistricting, Explained: 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.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.New York: Democrats’ aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional map is one of the most consequential in the nation.Legal Battles: State supreme courts in North Carolina and Ohio struck down maps drawn by Republicans, while the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily restored Alabama’s map.“You can’t sit here and say we were wrong, but leave the maps as they are right now,” he said on the Senate floor last week. “That just enshrines that bad behavior into the maps forever. If we’re going to fix the things that you did that were wrong, we have to fix them.”The maps will also play a pivotal role in Democratic primaries, with the new district lines benefiting some incumbents that left-wing hopefuls had seen as too moderate or entrenched in the party establishment.That appeared to be the case in Mr. Ma’s district, which is now represented by Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, a high-ranking Democrat who has served for nearly four decades. The new lines for her district carved out parts of the Long Island City waterfront where some of her most likely challengers, including Mr. Ma, reside.Political observers said the new district lines could have benefited her in a primary, even though the revamped district includes portions of neighborhoods that might favor a more progressive candidate.But the race was again upended on Friday when Ms. Nolan, who was diagnosed with cancer last year, announced she would not seek re-election. The seat is now up for grabs, with a number of left-leaning candidates showing interest.“This obviously locks in the supermajorities, and means that the crux of New York State politics — for interest groups, for labor, for everyone — is going to be the ideological fight among Democrats in a primary,” said Matt Rey, a partner at the political consulting firm Red Horse Strategies. “New York is now moving to the California model.”Elsewhere in the 150-seat Assembly, which Democrats have controlled since 1975, some of the redrawn lines appear to offer additional protection for other incumbent party members. Others seemed to ensure that tossup races in key suburban areas — including Long Island’s North Shore, the Capitol Region and near Syracuse — remained competitive.The biggest changes, however, involve the State Senate, where Democrats controlled the redistricting process for the first time in decades after regaining a majority in the chamber in 2018.The new maps appear to improve Democrats’ chances of flipping at least three Republican-held Senate seats. In a reflection of New York City’s population growth and demographic changes, lawmakers shifted two upstate Senate districts to Brooklyn and Queens. Both are expected to be safe seats for Democrats.The new lines also give slight edges to Democratic incumbents in highly competitive districts, including on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, before the November election, when all legislative seats will be on the ballot.Even so, Democrats’ recent gains in Albany are bound to be tested in significant ways this year, with Republicans — helped by President Biden’s flagging approval ratings and concerns about crime and inflation — poised to perform well in the congressional midterm elections and, potentially, in down-ballot races.In justifying the new maps, Mr. Gianaris and other Senate Democrats say the lines merely restore the proper balance of power after decades of Republicans drawing maps that maximize their waning influence in an increasingly Democratic state.The Senate minority leader, Michael Gianaris, left, said the new district lines corrected partisan lines drawn by Republicans.Hans Pennink/Associated PressSenate Democrats insist that their maps more closely follow the spirit of the law, creating districts with more uniform populations after a longstanding practice among Republicans of drawing fewer, highly populous districts downstate for Democrats, and more sparse ones in parts of the state where Republicans could be competitive.Democrats say another main objective was to unify and strengthen the voting power of so-called communities of interest — ethnic, racial or cultural groups with shared concerns — that they said Republicans had divided over decades to dilute Democrats’ power in the State Senate.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

Health advocates have said that the legislation, which was approved in a referendum, was a significant step toward tightening the country’s loose tobacco regulations.ZURICH — Advertisements glamorizing cigarettes will soon be a thing of the past in Switzerland, after voters on Sunday overwhelmingly approved legislation forbidding tobacco companies from displaying them in public spaces.Health advocates have said that the legislation, which was approved in a referendum, was a significant step toward tightening the country’s loose tobacco regulations.“Many organizations have stepped up to the plate and advocated for a solution that prioritizes youth protection,” said Flavia Wasserfallen, a member of the Swiss National Council and a proponent of the initiative.Across much of the West, tobacco advertisements long ago fell out of favor, but they have lived on in this Alpine nation, with displays for cigarettes and e-cigarettes showing up on billboards, in movie theaters and at events like music festivals.But voters made it clear on Sunday that they were no longer interested in seeing them, and despite strong opposition from the tobacco industry and the government, the tougher regulations were approved by 56.6 percent of voters and received strong support from the country’s French- and Italian-speaking regions, despite having the country’s highest smoking rates.Steps have been taken in recent years to try to introduce tougher regulations on tobacco-related products in Switzerland. In 2015, the Federal Council, the country’s executive branch, proposed a Tobacco Products Act that would ban the sale of tobacco and related goods to minors as well as restrict advertising.Parliament eventually approved a weakened version of the bill, which forbade the sale of tobacco to those under 18 but let advertising continue mostly unimpeded.The most recent initiative was started by a group of more than 40 health organizations that formed in response to the weakening of the tobacco legislation. The revamped Tobacco Products Act, which includes the advertising-related provisions that voters approved on Sunday, is expected to come into effect in 2023.“The majority of our country has decided to correct Parliament’s decision on the Tobacco Products Act,” Hans Stöckli, who serves as the president of the committee behind the initiative, said on Sunday. Mr. Stöckli described the result as “a historic milestone” and as “a necessary step” toward improved tobacco regulation.Opponents of the measure called the tighter restrictions extreme. And while they agreed that tobacco should be age-restricted, they said that the new rules amounted to a de facto ban on a legal product because children could potentially be exposed to advertisements anywhere.Switzerland has long had a close relationship with the tobacco industry. Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International have their international headquarters in the country, and British American Tobacco also has a strong presence.The industry employs about 4,500 people in Switzerland, according to the government, including in the production of high-tar cigarettes that are illegal to produce or sell in the European Union. Cigarettes rank with chocolate and cheese as some of the country’s leading exports.Even after the new rules take effect, Switzerland will continue to have more liberal tobacco regulations than many other countries. And it will also still not fulfill all of the requirements needed to ratify the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, an international response to combating the tobacco epidemic, despite signing it in 2004. The United States has also not ratified the convention.Alain Berset, Switzerland’s vice president, who also serves as the country’s health minister, had opposed the initiative before the vote. But at a news conference on Sunday, he acknowledged that Swiss voters had spoken, and said that the government would move forward with the new regulations.“The Federal Council will now tackle the implementation of the initiative,” Mr. Berset said.The Tobacco Products Act was not the only issue on the ballot on Sunday. In a move that people feared could have cut Switzerland off from global medical progress, voters shot down a proposed ban on all human and animal experiments in the country.Voters also decided against providing Swiss media outlets with increased financial support, by rejecting a government proposal to extend subsidies to online media as well as to regional radio and television stations.A government-approved amendment to the federal stamp duties act that would have made it cheaper for companies to raise new capital was also rejected, with opponents saying it would have mainly benefited large companies. More

Senator Mitch McConnell is working furiously to bring allies to Washington who will buck Donald J. Trump. It’s not going according to plan.PHOENIX — For more than a year, former President Donald Trump has berated Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, savaging him for refusing to overturn the state’s presidential results and vowing to oppose him should he run for the Senate this year.In early December, though, Mr. Ducey received a far friendlier message from another former Republican president. At a golf tournament luncheon, George W. Bush encouraged him to run against Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, suggesting the Republican Party needs more figures like Mr. Ducey to step forward.“It’s something you have to feel a certain sense of humility about,” the governor said this month of Mr. Bush’s appeal. “You listen respectfully, and that’s what I did.”Mr. Bush and a band of anti-Trump Republicans led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are hoping he does more than listen.As Mr. Trump works to retain his hold on the Republican Party, elevating a slate of friendly candidates in midterm elections, Mr. McConnell and his allies are quietly, desperately maneuvering to try to thwart him. The loose alliance, which was once thought of as the G.O.P. establishment, for months has been engaged in a high-stakes candidate recruitment campaign, full of phone calls, meetings, polling memos and promises of millions of dollars. It’s all aimed at recapturing the Senate majority, but the election also represents what could be Republicans’ last chance to reverse the spread of Trumpism before it fully consumes their party.Mr. McConnell for years pushed Mr. Trump’s agenda and only rarely opposed him in public. But the message that he delivers privately now is unsparing, if debatable: Mr. Trump is losing political altitude and need not be feared in a primary, he has told Mr. Ducey in repeated phone calls, as the Senate leader’s lieutenants share polling data they argue proves it.In conversations with senators and would-be senators, Mr. McConnell is blunt about the damage he believes Mr. Trump has done to the G.O.P., according to those who have spoken to him. Privately, he has declared he won’t let unelectable “goofballs” win Republican primaries.History doesn’t bode well for such behind-the-scene efforts to challenge Mr. Trump, and Mr. McConnell’s hard sell is so far yielding mixed results. The former president has rallied behind fewer far-right candidates than initially feared by the party’s old guard. Yet a handful of formidable contenders have spurned Mr. McConnell’s entreaties, declining to subject themselves to Mr. Trump’s wrath all for the chance to head to a bitterly divided Washington.Last week, Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland announced he would not run for Senate, despite a pressure campaign that involved his wife. Mr. Ducey is expected to make a final decision soon, but he has repeatedly said he has little appetite for a bid.Mr. Trump, however, has also had setbacks. He’s made a handful of endorsements in contentious races, but his choices have not cleared the Republican field, and one has dropped 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.Trump vs. DeSantis: Tensions between the ex-president and Florida governor show the challenge confronting the G.O.P. in 2022.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.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.If Mr. Trump muscles his preferred candidates through primaries and the general election this year, it will leave little doubt of his control of the Republican Party, build momentum for another White House bid and entrench his brand of politics in another generation of Republican leaders.If he loses in a series of races after an attempt to play kingmaker, however, it would deflate Mr. Trump’s standing, luring other ambitious Republicans into the White House contest and providing a path for the party to move on.“No one should be afraid of President Trump, period,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who won in 2020 without endorsing the then-president and has worked with Mr. McConnell to try to woo anti-Trump candidates.While there is some evidence that Mr. Trump’s grip on Republican voters has eased, polls show the former president remains overwhelmingly popular in the party. Among politicians trying to win primaries, no other figure’s support is more ardently sought.“In my state, he’s still looked at as the leader of the party,” Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said.The proxy war isn’t just playing out in Senate races.Mr. Trump is backing primary opponents to incumbent governors in Georgia and Idaho, encouraged an ally to take on the Alabama governor and helped drive Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts into retirement by supporting a rival. The Republican Governors Association, which Mr. Ducey leads, this week began pushing back, airing a television commercial defending the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, against his opponent, former Senator David Perdue. It was the first time in the group’s history they’ve financed ads for an incumbent battling a primary.“Trump has got a lot of chips on the board,” said Bill Haslam, the former Tennessee governor.Mr. McConnell has been careful in picking his moments to push back against the former president. Last week, he denounced a Republican National Committee resolution orchestrated by Mr. Trump’s allies that censured two House Republican Trump critics.As the former president heckles the soon-to-be 80-year-old Kentuckian as an “Old Crow,” Mr. McConnell’s response has been to embrace the moniker: Last week, he sent an invitation for a reception in which donors who hand over $5,000 checks can take home bottles of the Kentucky-made Old Crow brand bourbon signed by the senator.Mr. McConnell has been loath to discuss his recruitment campaign and even less forthcoming about his rivalry with Mr. Trump. In an interview last week, he warded off questions about their conflict, avoiding mentioning Mr. Trump’s name even when it was obvious to whom he was referring.If Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who is an outspoken Trump antagonist running for Senate this fall, wins her primary, it will show that “endorsements from some people didn’t determine the outcome,” he said.Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska at the Capitol last week. Senator Mitch McConnell and Mr. Trump are at odds over her reelection bid.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesMs. Murkowski appears well-positioned at the moment, with over $4 million on hand while her Trump-backed rival, Kelly Tshibaka, has $630,000.“He’s made very clear that you’ve been there for Alaska, you’ve been there for the team and I’m going to be there for you,” Ms. Murkowski said of Mr. McConnell’s message to her.Even more pointedly, Mr. McConnell vowed that if Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Senate Republican, faces the primary that Mr. Trump once promised, Mr. Thune “will crush whoever runs against him.” (The most threatening candidate, Gov. Kristi Noem, has declined.)The Senate Republican leader has been worried that Mr. Trump will tap candidates too weak to win in the general election, the sort of nominees who cost the party control of the Senate in 2010 and 2012.“We changed the business model in 2014, and have not had one of these goofballs nominated since,” he told a group of donors on a private conference call last year, according to a recording obtained by The New York Times.Mr. McConnell has sometimes decided to pick his battles — in Georgia, he acceded to Herschel Walker, a former football star and Trump-backed candidate, after failing to recruit Mr. Perdue to rejoin the Senate. He also came up empty-handed in New Hampshire, where Gov. Chris Sununu passed on a bid after an aggressive campaign that also included lobbying from Mr. Bush.In Maryland, Mr. Hogan was plainly taken with the all-out push to recruit him, although he declined to take on Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat.“Elaine Chao was working over my wife,” Mr. Hogan recalled of a lunch, first reported by The Associated Press, between Ms. Chao, the former cabinet secretary and wife of Mr. McConnell, and Maryland’s first lady, Yumi Hogan. “Her argument was, ‘You can really be a voice.’”Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, left, with Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland in Baltimore. Mr. McConnell has tried to recruit Mr. Hogan as a Senate candidate.Al Drago for The New York TimesMr. McConnell also dispatched Ms. Collins and Senator Mitt Romney of Utah to lobby Mr. Hogan. That campaign culminated last weekend, when Mr. Romney called Mr. Hogan to vent about the R.N.C.’s censure, tell him Senate Republicans needed anti-Trump reinforcements and argue that Mr. Hogan could have more of a platform in his effort to remake the party as a sitting senator rather than an ex-governor.“I’m very interested in changing the party and that was the most effective argument,” said Mr. Hogan, who is believed to be considering a bid for the White House.Mr. Romney lamented Mr. Hogan’s decision and expressed frustration. He claimed most party leaders share their view of the former president, but few will voice it in public.“I don’t see new people standing up and saying, ‘I’m going to do something here which may be politically unpopular’ — in public at least,” Mr. Romney said.At Mar-a-Lago, courtship of the former president’s endorsement has been so intense, and his temptation to pick favorites so alluring, that he regrets getting involved in some races too soon, according to three Republican officials who’ve spoken to him.In Pennsylvania’s open Senate race, Mr. Trump backed Sean Parnell, who withdrew after a bitter custody battle with his estranged wife. And in Alabama, the former president rallied to Representative Mo Brooks to succeed Senator Richard Shelby, who’s retiring. But Mr. Brooks, who attended the rally that preceded the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, is struggling to gain traction.One Republican strategist who has visited with Mr. Trump said the former president was increasingly suspicious of the consultants and donors beseeching him.“He has become more judicious so not everybody who runs down to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend gets endorsed on Monday,” said Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, another Trump ally.Mr. Trump has made clear he wants the Senate candidates he backs to oust Mr. McConnell from his leadership perch, and even considered making a pledge to do so a condition of his endorsement. Few have done so to date, a fact Mr. McConnell considers a victory. “Only two of them have taken me on,” he crowed, alluding to Ms. Tshibaka in Alaska, and Eric Greitens, the former Missouri governor running for an open seat.But Mr. McConnell’s biggest get yet would be Mr. Ducey.Mr. Trump, right, has supported Representative Mo Brooks’s run for a Senate seat in Alabama.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesWith broad popularity and three statewide victories to his name, the term-limited governor and former ice cream chain executive would be a strong candidate against Mr. Kelly, who has nearly $19 million in the bank — more than double the combined sum of the existing Republican field.To some of the state’s Republicans, Mr. Ducey could send a critical message in a swing state. “It would say we’re getting tired of this,” said Rusty Bowers, speaker of the Arizona State House, who encouraged Mr. Ducey to stand up to Mr. Trump’s “bully caucus.”Mr. Ducey also has been lobbied by the G.O.P. strategist Karl Rove, the liaison to Mr. Bush, who sought to reassure the governor that he could win.Mr. Ducey said he believed that this year’s “primaries are going to determine the future of the party.” However, he sounded much like Mr. Hogan and Mr. Sununu when asked about his enthusiasm for jumping into another campaign.“This is the job I’ve wanted,” he said.He noted there was one prominent member of the Trump administration, though, who has been supportive. Former Vice President Mike Pence “encouraged me to stay in the fight,” Mr. Ducey said. More

It is not clear how much assistance he might provide in the investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to hold onto power.Rudolph W. Giuliani, who as former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyer helped lead the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, is in discussions with the House Jan. 6 committee about responding to its questions, according to three people familiar with the matter.The extent of any assistance that Mr. Giuliani might provide remains unclear and the negotiations could easily fall apart, especially as Mr. Trump continues to publicly rail against the investigation.But Mr. Giuliani, through his lawyer, has signaled to the committee that he plans to take a less confrontational stance toward its requests than some other members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle who are fighting the committee’s subpoenas or have otherwise refused to cooperate.Mr. Giuliani’s discussions with committee officials suggest that he may be seeking to avoid a potentially costly legal fight over a subpoena that was issued to him last month. By engaging with the committee, Mr. Giuliani could also make it more difficult for the House to issue a criminal referral of him to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress if he in the end does not comply with the subpoena.Should Mr. Giuliani ultimately provide the committee with substantive cooperation, it would be a major breakthrough for the investigation and a breach in the relationship between Mr. Trump and one of his closest if most problematic advisers. Mr. Giuliani was instrumental not only in the post-Election Day effort to keep Mr. Trump in power but also in the pressure campaign on Ukraine that led to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment.One person familiar with the matter said that Mr. Giuliani was still negotiating over whether to give investigators an informal interview or a formal deposition, and that he had not yet determined how much information he might seek to shield from the committee by invoking executive privilege or attorney-client privilege with Mr. Trump.A committee aide said that the panel would not comment on negotiations with its witnesses. But the aide said that the committee had allowed Mr. Giuliani, who was scheduled to appear for a deposition before the panel last Tuesday, to reschedule it at “his request.” The aide said the committee was pressing Mr. Giuliani to “cooperate fully.”However preliminary, the conversations suggest that Mr. Giuliani is considering taking a vastly different approach than those taken by other close Trump allies.Mr. Trump’s onetime chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal charges after refusing an interview with the committee. Another former aide, Stephen K. Bannon, was indicted in November after refusing to provide information to congressional investigators.As a key figure in some of Mr. Trump’s attempts to stave off electoral defeat, Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, would be in a position to tell investigators how much the former president knew about a series of extraordinary measures that were proposed to him last fall and winter in a bid to maintain his grip on power.Among those efforts was a scheme to disrupt the normal workings of the Electoral College by persuading lawmakers in contested swing states to draw up alternate slates of electors showing Mr. Trump was victorious in states that were actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.Mr. Giuliani was also instrumental in vetting a plan to use the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines in order to examine the data housed inside them for supposed evidence of fraud. At Mr. Trump’s direction, Mr. Giuliani asked a top homeland security official if the department could legally take control of the machines — a notion that the official shot down. Mr. Giuliani later opposed an even more explosive proposal to have the military seize the machines.Mr. Giuliani was subpoenaed with other members of a legal team that billed itself as “an elite strike force” and pursued a set of conspiracy-filled lawsuits on behalf of Mr. Trump in which they made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the election. They were initially scheduled to testify this week, but were granted delays through discussions with their lawyers.The subpoena sought all documents that Mr. Giuliani had detailing the pressure campaign that he and other Trump allies initiated targeting state officials; the seizure of voting machines; contact with members of Congress; any evidence to support the bizarre conspiracy theories he pushed; and any arrangements for his fees.On Jan. 6, speaking to a crowd of Trump supporters before the attack on the Capitol, Mr. Giuliani called for “trial by combat.” Later, after the building was under siege, both he and Mr. Trump called lawmakers in an attempt to delay the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory.Key Developments in the Jan. 6 InvestigationCard 1 of 3White House phone records. More

Misinformation has been a key weapon wielded by Canada’s protest movement, and critics of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have returned to one simmering falsehood: that Mr. Trudeau is the love child of the former Cuban leader Fidel Castro.The conspiracy theory that Mr. Trudeau is Mr. Castro’s son has gained momentum on social media in recent days. It previously spread after Mr. Castro’s death in 2016, when Mr. Trudeau hailed him as “a remarkable leader.” He described Mr. Castro, who ruled as a Communist autocrat for almost 50 years, as “Cuba’s longest-serving president.”“I know my father was very proud to call him a friend, and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away,” Mr. Trudeau said at the time. His father, Pierre Trudeau, served as prime minister for over 15 years. Pierre Trudeau was the first leader of a NATO member state to visit communist Cuba, and Mr. Castro served as an honorary pallbearer at his funeral, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.The claim that the Canadian prime minister is Mr. Castro’s “illegitimate son” was also amplified by Tucker Carlson in an opinion piece posted on Fox News’s website on Friday.Some proponents of the falsehood have pointed to a striking resemblance between Mr. Castro and Mr. Trudeau. But the facts don’t add up, and the Canadian government has also previously denied the contention.Mr. Trudeau’s mother, Margaret, famously traveled to Cuba and met Mr. Castro at the beginning of 1976. But the visit was more than four years after Mr. Trudeau was born, on Dec. 25, 1971. Given her high profile, it would have been highly unlikely for Mrs. Trudeau to have slipped into Cuba undetected.Misinformation is just one tactic used by some protesters. While the demonstrations outside Canadian Parliament began as loosely organized truck convoys and supporters, the Ottawa police say the protesters are showing signs of increasingly sophisticated methods to target law enforcement operations. On Wednesday night, the Ottawa police emergency line was “almost jammed” by 911 calls, a significant number of them traced to United States addresses, said Peter Sloly, Ottawa’s police chief.Protesters have also mocked Mr. Trudeau in recent days by showing real images of him in blackface. In 2019, on the eve of federal elections, photos and a video emerged of him dressing up in blackface and brownface in the early 1990s and in 2001.Mr. Trudeau has long cast himself as a global spokesman for liberal causes, supporting women’s and Indigenous rights, welcoming immigrants and fighting climate change and racism. But that carefully calibrated image suffered a blow at the time.“All those pictures you’re seeing of Trudeau in blackface are real (but he’s not Castro’s love child),” The National Post, a Canadian newspaper, told its readers on Friday. More

The French leader recounted his face-off with Vladimir Putin and dismissed Washington’s exchange of letters with Moscow, gambling that his diplomacy could pay off before April elections.PARIS — Around a table much smaller than the 20-foot-long oval slab across which he confronted President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow, President Emmanuel Macron gathered a few journalists this week to confide that the crisis in Ukraine was taking up “more than half my time, the bulk of my time” because the world stands “at a tipping point” of history.The table was some six miles up in the air, on the presidential plane that whisked Mr. Macron to Moscow, Kyiv and Berlin this week, where he warned of “irreversible” damage if Russia invaded Ukraine, and said it was imperative “not to surrender to fate.”Mr. Macron is convinced that the current crisis, marked by Russian revanchism after its perceived humiliation by the West, reflects a failure to rethink Europe’s collective security after the end of the Cold War. On that, at least, he and Mr. Putin seem to agree. The formidable task before the French president is to figure out what could possibly replace it, and convince others, including the United States, of its virtues.By the end of the week, the standoff with Russia, which conducted military exercises all around Ukraine’s borders, looked as menacing as ever. Yet just nine weeks from a presidential election, Mr. Macron has made the risky bet that he can coax Mr. Putin toward dialogue and that French voters will be more taken with his global stature than alienated by his inattention.If he fails, he risks not only losing their votes and their confidence, but also damaging his prestige and that of his country by being seen abroad as an overreaching leader.Wary of that perception, he has taken great pains to coordinate his efforts with other European leaders, some of them skeptical, and with President Biden. A 75-minute conversation on Friday among Western leaders displayed a united front behind attempts to persuade Russia “to de-escalate the crisis and choose the path of dialogue,” the European Commission said.A satellite image showing the deployment of military housing and vehicles in Rechitsa, Belarus.Maxar Technologies, via ReutersMr. Macron was 11 when the Berlin Wall came down. Mr. Biden was 46. Some divergence of view is probably inevitable. Mr. Macron sees no reason that the structure of the alliance that prevailed over the Soviet Union should be eternal.“The question is not NATO, but how do we create an area of security,” he said. “How do we live in peace in this region?” Part of his goal in Moscow, he suggested, had been to prod Mr. Putin away from a NATO obsession — that Ukraine should never join the alliance — toward another “framework.” He said he had told the Russian leader “the framework you propose is false.”To turn up at the Kremlin, facing the man who has put a gun to the head of the West with 130,000 troops massed on the Ukrainian border, was necessary, Mr. Macron argued. Opening another diplomatic avenue, more flexible than the exchange of letters between Russia and the United States that Mr. Macron repeatedly dismissed as useless, gained time by locking in meetings in the coming weeks. The two leaders are expected to speak again on Saturday.Understand Russia’s Relationship With the WestThe tension between the regions is growing and Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly willing to take geopolitical risks and assert his demands.Competing for Influence: For months, the threat of confrontation has been growing in a stretch of Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Threat of Invasion: As the Russian military builds its presence near Ukraine, Western nations are seeking to avert a worsening of the situation.Energy Politics: Europe is a huge customer of Russia’s fossil fuels. The rising tensions in Ukraine are driving fears of a midwinter cutoff.Migrant Crisis: As people gathered on the eastern border of the European Union, Russia’s uneasy alliance with Belarus triggered additional friction.Militarizing Society: With a “youth army” and initiatives promoting patriotism, the Russian government is pushing the idea that a fight might be coming.Over more than five hours on Monday, the two leaders confronted each other. Mr. Macron said he hammered on “the guarantees he could give me on the situation at the border” to such a degree that Mr. Putin at one point said he was being “tortured.”Mr. Putin, with equal insistence, attacked NATO’s expansion east since 1997 and the aggression this constituted.Ukrainian marines on Wednesday in the eastern Donetsk region.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesAsked about the much mocked long table, Mr. Macron said, “Well, it was hardly intimate.”The Kremlin has disputed that Mr. Macron won any concessions, but said there were “seeds of reason” in his approach, in contrast to attempted British diplomacy, which was dismissed by the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, as a conversation between “the mute and the deaf.”What Mr. Macron’s new framework might be for Ukraine’s security and Europe’s is unclear. But it appears that it would somehow offer Ukraine ironclad guarantees of its sovereignty and independence in ways that left NATO membership as a mirage, as it simultaneously satisfied Russia that Ukrainian security had not been strengthened at the expense of Moscow’s.In effect, Mr. Macron believes that some sleight of hand is conceivable that would at once leave Ukrainians free and secure to look West for their future, and Mr. Putin free to continue thinking the two countries form one “historical and spiritual space,” as the Russian leader put it in a 5,000-word disquisition on “the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” published last summer.This is a hybrid concept, but not atypical of its proponent. Over the years, Mr. Macron has become known as the “at the same time” president for his constant juggling of different sides of questions — first in favor of reducing France’s reliance on nuclear power, now in favor of increasing it — and for his intricate dissection of issues that sometimes leaves observers wondering what he really believes.That he believes passionately in the European Union, and the development of Europe as a more independent power, is unquestionable. It is one issue on which he has never wavered, and now he seems to think the hour of reckoning for that conviction has come.If nothing else, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany meeting with Mr. Putin in Moscow next week, Mr. Macron has made Europe count in this crisis, alongside the United States. That is more than can be said for Britain.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday during a meeting with President Emmanuel Macron of France in Moscow.Pool photo by Thibault Camus“Through its major states, Europe has returned to a stage from which it seemed to have been marginalized,” Michel Duclos, a former French ambassador, commented in a paper published this week by the Institut Montaigne.Mr. Macron has had to work hard to keep doubtful European states, particularly those that once lived under the Soviet yoke, aligned with his diplomatic efforts. With France currently holding the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, he has tried to reach out to everyone — one reason his days are consumed by Ukraine.His schedule will have to shift somewhat in the coming weeks. Mr. Macron has not yet declared his candidacy for re-election as president, but will almost certainly need to do so in the next couple of weeks. The deadline is March 4, and the first round of voting April 10.For now, Mr. Macron leads in polls, which give him about 25 percent of the vote, with three right-wing candidates trailing him and splintered left-wing parties far behind. Among the rivals to his right there is significant support for Mr. Putin’s strongman image and his denunciation of Western “decadence,” so engagement with the Russian leader also serves Mr. Macron politically.Although he is the favorite to win, the likelihood of a high abstention rate among French people disillusioned with politics and the strong appeal of the far right make Mr. Macron’s re-election anything but certain. If Mr. Putin ignores his diplomacy and does invade Ukraine, all bets will be off.Supporters of the far-right presidential candidate Éric Zemmour last week in Lille, France.Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via ShutterstockÉric Zemmour, the far-right insurgent in this election, said last month that Mr. Putin “needs to be respected,” adding that “Putin’s claims and demands are completely legitimate.” He also said, “I think NATO is an organization that should have disappeared in 1990.”Marine Le Pen, the perennial nationalist and anti-immigrant candidate, said last year that “Ukraine belongs to Russia’s sphere of influence.”“By trying to violate this sphere of influence,” she added, “tensions and fears are created, and the situation we are witnessing today is reached.” Ms. Le Pen refused to sign a statement issued last month by far-right parties gathered in Madrid because it was critical of Mr. Putin.Their stances demonstrate the gulf that separates far-right French admiration of Mr. Putin from Mr. Macron’s engagement. The French president’s conviction that Russia needs to be part of a new European security architecture is combined with resolve that Ukraine maintain its sovereignty.If Mr. Macron has caused unease through his criticism of NATO, he has held the line on not ceding to the Russian leader’s demands.Asked when he would turn his attention to declaring his candidacy, Mr. Macron said: “I am going to have to think about it at some point. You can’t do over hasty things. You need the right moment.”If he does not find that sweet spot, Mr. Macron’s diplomacy, and his ideas of reinvented European security, may come to nothing. What may be doable in a second five-year term leading France will certainly not be doable by April 24, the date of the second round of the election. More

The longtime civic leader fits the profile of successful power brokers in the city’s past. Will that kind of résumé succeed in the present?Rick J. Caruso, a billionaire real estate developer and longtime civic figure, jumped into the race for mayor of Los Angeles on Friday, shaking up a crowded field for the top job in the nation’s second-largest city after more than a decade of flirting with a run.Mr. Caruso, 63, whose candidacy had for the past year been a subject of intense speculation, filed a declaration that he would run with the city clerk hours before the deadline and is expected to make a formal announcement next week. “It’s a very meaningful day for me and my family,” he told a small group of reporters standing in the breezeway of a city building in an industrial section of downtown. “I love Los Angeles, I love the diversity of Los Angeles. I’m eager to be a part of this.”His brief statement was initially drowned out by a protester who shouted profanity-laced criticism, and that Angelenos “don’t want a billionaire mayor.”Mr. Caruso is known for signature outdoor shopping centers designed with Disney-esque nostalgia and attention to detail, as well as for his roles in steering a lengthy list of civic institutions.His fortune has been viewed as a powerful asset in a market where mounting a credible campaign can be enormously expensive, and his résumé, which includes serving as head of the city’s Police Commission and chairman of the board of trustees of the University of Southern California, evokes an older generation of Los Angeles power brokers.Those figures include Eli Broad, the businessman and philanthropist who died last year after putting his stamp on Los Angeles’s cultural and civic life, and Richard Riordan, an investment banker who was elected mayor in the tumultuous aftermath of the 1992 riots. Mr. Caruso’s experience and wealth give him the potential to serve as a more conservative alternative in a field that leans left.But Mr. Caruso’s candidacy for the officially nonpartisan post of mayor will face a political dynamic that has undergone substantial change over the past generation. Many people say the appetite for that style of leadership has waned in Los Angeles, a vast, racially diverse metropolis where the symptoms of gaping economic inequality — from the heavy toll of the pandemic on poorer Black and Latino residents to the city’s monumental housing crisis — have become consuming challenges.And political observers say that two factors are likely to significantly amplify voter turnout among underrepresented groups like renters, young adults, Latinos and Asians: the timing of the election, coinciding with the national midterms, and a revamped system that will mail ballots to every active, registered voter.“The electorate in 1993 is completely dissimilar to the electorate in 2022,” said Sonja Diaz, the director of the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative at the University of California, Los Angeles. “We’re talking about two different Los Angeleses.”Homelessness — along with the constellation of thorny issues it touches, including crime, public health, transit, the cost of living and the environment — is likely to be a dominant concern.The contest is already stacked with big-name contenders, all Democrats, seeking to succeed Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is awaiting Senate confirmation to become U.S. ambassador to India and cannot run again after serving the maximum two terms.Representative Karen Bass, the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus who was on President Biden’s short list for vice president, has perhaps the broadest base of support in the city, where she started as a community organizer in the 1990s. She has backing both from progressive activists and from members of the political establishment.Kevin de León, a councilman and former State Senate leader, is another well-known progressive in the race; he has touted his background as a son of Guatemalan immigrants in a city that is 49 percent Latino.Joe Buscaino, a city councilman and a former police officer, has tried to position himself as a moderate, in the vein of New York’s new mayor, Eric Adams.Mr. Buscaino and Mr. Caruso could find themselves fighting for many of the same voters, in a race that is likely to require a runoff after a June 7 primary. But at least one of the announced candidates, the local business leader Jessica Lall, will not be on the ballot; as speculation mounted that Mr. Caruso was about to enter the race, she announced on Tuesday that she was dropping out.The general election will be held Nov. 8.A former Republican in a city that is now overwhelmingly Democratic, Mr. Caruso announced in late January that he would register as a Democrat, and no longer be listed in the rolls without a party preference.“I won’t be a typical Democrat, that’s for sure,” he wrote in the statement. “I will be a pro-centrist, pro-jobs, pro-public safety Democrat.”He has enlisted help from some of the state’s top Democratic political strategists, including the consultants who led Gov. Gavin Newsom’s successful campaign to keep his job last year in a contentious recall election.The grandson of Italian immigrants who grew up in Beverly Hills, Mr. Caruso has become known for properties — including the Grove in Los Angeles and the Americana at Brand in neighboring Glendale — that present a vision of Southern California that is clean, polished and tightly controlled. Streetcars trundle jauntily past fountains, sidewalk cafes and luxury stores where security guards stand sentry.In television interviews late last year, Mr. Caruso said a flash mob robbery at The Grove was the fault of efforts to “defund the cops,” drawing condemnation from activists who said developers have an incentive to protect their property rather than address the root causes of crime.Raphael Sonenshein, the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, said the mayoral election could turn less on policy ideas than on perceptions of leadership.“The voters aren’t necessarily looking for somebody who has the best solution,” he said. “They want somebody who can take whatever solution and make it work.” More