Elections

El anuncio de su candidatura llega en un momento crítico: los colombianos están hartos de la clase política y el futuro del acuerdo de paz está en riesgo.BOGOTÁ — Ingrid Betancourt, excongresista y quien fue mantenida como rehén por la guerrilla y llegó a simbolizar tanto la brutalidad del largo conflicto en Colombia como de los esfuerzos de reconciliación del país, se postulará a la presidencia, dijo el martes.Betancourt entra en una campaña presidencial muy abierta en un momento en el que Colombia está en una determinante encrucijada política y social.Cuando fue secuestrada hace 20 años, Betancourt estaba haciendo campaña para el mismo cargo. Ahora, dijo, el país se enfrenta al mismo “sistema corrupto” y “maquinarias politiqueras” que ella combatió entonces.“Hoy estoy aquí para terminar lo que empecé”, dijo en un estrado en un hotel del centro de Bogotá, la capital del país, acompañada por sus aliados.Betancourt, quien fue capturada en 2002 y retenida durante más de seis años por la mayor fuerza guerrillera del país, las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, anunció su candidatura a las elecciones de mayo mientras el país enfrenta enormes desafíos.Tras más de 50 años de guerra, el gobierno y el grupo rebelde, conocido como las Farc, firmaron un acuerdo de paz en 2016. Pero, desde entonces, una oleada de otros grupos armados ha irrumpido en el vacío y seguido combatiendo.La violencia ha aumentado en algunas zonas rurales y los críticos han culpado al gobierno por no invertir lo suficiente para abordar la desigualdad y la pobreza que han contribuido a impusar la guerra, como se había comprometido a hacer en el acuerdo de paz.Muchos colombianos están hartos del statu quo político, un sentimiento que estalló en la esfera pública en mayo del año pasado, cuando miles de personas salieron a las calles durante más de un mes para protestar por las penurias que solo empeoraron con la pandemia.Tras sus años de cautiverio —en los que a veces estuvo encadenada— Betancourt ha apoyado el proceso de paz y también ha criticado a las Farc, convirtiéndose en un símbolo de los intentos nacionales de reconocer los costos de la guerra, pero también de superarla.Sergio Guzmán, un analista de Bogotá, llamó a Betancourt la “candidata de la reconciliación” del país.En una entrevista con el Times el año pasado, Betancourt calificó el acuerdo de paz como “una ventana, una oportunidad generacional, de salir de la locura violenta en la cual hemos vivido toda nuestra vida”.La cuestión, dijo Guzmán, es si eso es lo que quieren los colombianos.“Todas nuestras elecciones han sido miedo, esperanza y odio”, continuó. “Ninguna elección se ha disputado sobre la base de la compasión y la reconciliación”.Hay un descontento generalizado con el actual presidente, Iván Duque, quien es un producto del poder político tradicional de derecha del país, mientras que un populista de izquierda, Gustavo Petro, lidera las encuestas en medio de una ola izquierdista y opuesta a quienes están en el poder que se extiende por América Latina.“¿Puede Ingrid convertirse en un bálsamo para esas emociones negativas predominantes que estamos sintiendo en este momento?”, dijo Guzmán. “No lo sé. Esa es una de las cosas que nos va a decir su candidatura”.Pero para ganar impulso entre los votantes, dijo, “tiene que vender la idea de que la reconciliación es mejor que el populismo”.Aunque Betancourt es ampliamente conocida en todo el país, una victoria en mayo no es ni mucho menos segura.Para llegar a las elecciones de mayo, Betancourt tendría que ganar las primarias de marzo, en las que competiría con otros candidatos de centroNathalia Angarita para The New York TimesEn este momento hay más de 20 aspirantes a la presidencia, y la mayoría de los más conocidos se agrupan en tres coaliciones: una de izquierda, encabezada por Petro; una de centro, a la que se une Betancourt; y una de derecha, cuyos miembros se consideran los abanderados del gobierno actual.Para llegar a las elecciones de mayo, Betancourt tendría que ganar las primarias de marzo, en las que competiría con otros candidatos de centro, como Alejandro Gaviria, exministro de Salud y hasta hace poco rector de una prestigiosa universidad.Guzmán señaló que Betancourt se incorporó a la campaña tarde en el calendario electoral y calificó su candidatura como “una medida desesperada”.Colombia nunca ha tenido una mujer en la presidencia, y Betancourt es una de las cuatro candidatas de las tres principales coaliciones.La candidata más destacada hasta el momento ha sido Francia Márquez, una joven política afrocolombiana y activista medioambiental que también es víctima de la guerra.Márquez, quien se ha unido a la coalición de la izquierda, se ha distinguido no solo por su identidad —la política colombiana ha estado dominada por hombres blancos y ricos—, sino por su franca adhesión a la política feminista y su disposición a criticar a Petro.Betancourt es hija de una política y de un político y diplomático colombianos, y posteriormente obtuvo la nacionalidad francesa a través de su primer marido.En 2002, tras su paso por el Congreso, Betancourt se lanzó a la campaña presidencial como integrante del Partido Verde Oxígeno, un movimiento político joven de filosofía pacifista, ecologista y anticorrupción. El 23 de febrero de 2002, cuando se dirigía a un acto de campaña en la ciudad de San Vicente del Caguán, fue detenida en un control de carretera y tomada como rehén por las Farc.Durante sus años de cautiverio en la selva, fue tratada brutalmente e intentó escapar en repetidas ocasiones, experiencias que relató en su libro No hay silencio que no termine.Fue rescatada por el gobierno colombiano y, con los años, se ha convertido en la víctima más conocida del país. Pero también ha sido objeto de críticas: de quienes dicen que ha restado atención a víctimas más pobres y menos conocidas, y de otros que la han criticado por pedir una indemnización al gobierno colombiano tras su cautiverio y rescate.Betancourt vive desde hace años en Francia y regresó a Colombia hace apenas unos meses. En su discurso de campaña, se refirió directamente a las críticas de que el traslado estaba diseñado para obtener un beneficio político personal.“He vuelto en busca del mayor beneficio político”, dijo, “que todos tengamos una verdadera democracia”.El anuncio de su campaña no dice mucho sobre sus propuestas políticas, más allá de las repetidas promesas de luchar contra la corrupción y de abordar el impacto de la violencia en el país.“Mi historia es la historia de todos los colombianos”, dijo.En un país de más de 50 millones de habitantes, nueve millones están registrados en el gobierno como víctimas del conflicto.“Mientras las Farc nos esclavizaba a mí y a mis compañeros, los cárteles de la droga, los violentos y los políticos corruptos han estado esclavizando a cada uno de ustedes”, continuó.“Vamos a salir de esta cultura mafiosa, mentirosa, violenta y vamos a aprender de nuevo a ser ciudadanos libres”.Sofía Villamil More

Ingrid Betancourt’s candidacy comes at a critical time, when Colombians are fed up with the political establishment and the future of the peace agreement is at stake.BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Ingrid Betancourt, a former congresswoman and one-time guerrilla hostage who has come to symbolize both the brutality of Colombia’s long war and the country’s efforts at reconciliation, will run for president, she said Tuesday.Ms. Betancourt enters a wide open race at a time when Colombia is at a critical political and social crossroads.When she was kidnapped 20 years ago, Ms. Betancourt was campaigning for the same office. Now, she said, the country is facing the same “corrupt system” and “political machinery” that she had fought back then.“Today I am here to finish what I started,” she said, standing on a stage at a hotel in downtown Bogotá, the country’s capital, flanked by allies. Ms. Betancourt, who was captured in 2002 and held by the country’s largest guerrilla force, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, for more than six years, announced her bid for the May election with the country facing enormous challenges.Following more than 50 years of war, the government and the rebel group, known as the FARC, signed a peace deal in 2016. But since then, a swell of other armed groups have swept into the vacuum and continued to fight.Violence has surged in parts of the countryside — and critics have faulted the government for not investing enough to address the inequality and poverty that had helped fuel the war, as it had committed to doing in the peace deal.Many in Colombia are fed up with the political status quo, a sentiment that burst into the public sphere last May, when thousands took to the streets for more than a month to protest hardship that was only made worse by the pandemic.Following her years in captivity — when she was sometimes held in chains — Ms. Betancourt has both supported the peace process and criticized the FARC, emerging as a symbol of national attempts to acknowledge the costs of the war, but also to move beyond it.Sergio Guzmán, an analyst in Bogotá, called Ms. Betancourt the country’s “reconciliation candidate.”In an interview with The Times last year, Ms. Betancourt called the peace deal “a window — a generational opportunity — to leave behind the insane violence we have lived in all our lives.”The question, Mr. Guzmán said, is whether that’s what Colombians want.“All our elections have been fear and hope and hate,” he went on. “No election has really been fought on compassion and reconciliation.”There is widespread discontent with the current president, Iván Duque, who is a product of the country’s right-wing political establishment, while a left-wing populist, Gustavo Petro, is leading in the polls amid a leftist, anti-incumbent wave that is sweeping Latin America.“Can Ingrid become a balm to those prevailing negative emotions that we’re feeling right now?” Mr. Guzmán said. “I don’t know. That’s one of the things that her candidacy is going to tell us.”But to make any headway among voters, he said, “she needs to sell the idea that reconciliation is better than populism.”While Ms. Betancourt is widely known throughout the country, a win in May is far from certain.To even get to the May election, Ms. Betancourt would first have to win the March primary, in which she will compete against other centrists.Nathalia Angarita for The New York TimesToday, there are more than 20 candidates for the presidency, with most of the best-known candidates grouped into three coalitions: a coalition on the left, headed by Mr. Petro; a coalition in the center, which Ms. Betancourt is joining; and a coalition on the right, whose members are seen as the torchbearers for the current government.To even get to the May election, Ms. Betancourt would first have to win the March primary, in which she will compete against others in the center, including Alejandro Gaviria, a former health minister and recent head of a prestigious university.Mr. Guzmán pointed out that Ms. Betancourt joined the race late in the electoral calendar and called her bid “a Hail Mary.”Colombia has never had a woman president, and Ms. Betancourt is one of just four women candidates in the three leading coalitions.The most prominent female candidate to this point has been Francia Márquez, a young, Afro-Colombian politician and environmental activist who is also a victim of the war.Ms. Márquez, who has joined the coalition on the left, has distinguished herself not only because of her identity — Colombian politics has been dominated by wealthy white men — but because of her outspoken embrace of feminist politics and willingness to criticize Mr. Petro.Ms. Betancourt is the daughter of a Colombian politician and a Colombian diplomat, and later became a French citizen through her first husband.In 2002, following time in Congress, Ms. Betancourt launched a campaign for presidency as a member of the Partido Verde Oxígeno, a young political movement with a pacificist, environmental, anti-corruption philosophy. On Feb. 23, 2002, she was traveling to a campaign event in the city of San Vicente del Caguán, when she was stopped at a roadblock and taken hostage by the FARC.During her years in captivity in the jungle, she was treated brutally and tried to escape repeatedly, experiences she recounted in her book “Even Silence Has An End.”She was eventually rescued by the Colombian government, and over the years she has emerged as the country’s best-known victim. But she has also been the subject of criticism — from those who say she has taken attention away from poorer, lesser known victims, and from others who have criticized her for seeking compensation from the Colombian government following her captivity and rescue.Ms. Betancourt has lived in France for years and returned to Colombia just months ago. In her campaign speech, she directly addressed criticism that the move was designed for personal political benefit.“I have returned in search of the highest political benefit,” she said, “that all of us can have a true democracy.”Her campaign announcement said little about policy proposals beyond repeated vows to fight corruption — and to address the impact of violence on the country.“My story is the story of all Colombians,” she said.In a country of more than 50 million people, nine million are registered with the government as conflict victims.“While the FARC enslaved me and my companions, the drug cartels, violent groups and corrupt politicians enslaved each of you,” she went on.“We are going to leave behind this culture of mafias, violence and lies, and we are going to learn again to be free citizens.”Sofía Villamil More

HOW CIVIL WARS STARTAnd How to Stop ThemBy Barbara F. WalterTHE NEXT CIVIL WARDispatches From the American FutureBy Stephen MarcheLast month, three retired generals warned that the U.S. military needs to start preparing for the possibility of internal breakdown over the 2024 election. “In a contested election,” they wrote, “some might follow orders from the rightful commander in chief, while others might follow the Trumpian loser. … Under such a scenario, it is not outlandish to say a military breakdown could lead to civil war.” Two new books suggest their concern is not misplaced.The generals are likely familiar with the Political Instability Task Force (P.I.T.F.), a group of analysts that has been crunching enormous amounts of data in order to predict where conflict might erupt. Barbara F. Walter is a member of the task force who has spent 30 years studying civil wars around the world. Her new book, “How Civil Wars Start,” explains that studies have identified three factors that predict which countries are most likely to descend into civil conflict.The first is whether a country is in transition toward or away from democracy. A data set known as the “polity score” rates every country on a scale from +10 (most democratic) to -10 (most authoritarian). Those countries in the middle — between +5 and -5 and therefore neither full democracies nor full autocracies, or what the experts call “anocracies” — are twice as likely as autocracies to experience political instability or civil war and three times as likely as democracies.The second factor is what the P.I.T.F. calls “factionalism,” which in Walter’s definition arises when a political party is based on ethnicity, religion or race instead of ideology. According to a study of hundreds of countries over 70 years, the presence of anocracy and factionalism was the best predictor of where civil wars were likely to erupt. It’s in this zone, Walter writes, that “politics goes from being a system in which citizens care about the good of the country as a whole, to one in which they care only about members of their group.” These factions tend not to harden on their own. Frequently, what the researchers call an “ethnic entrepreneur” — for example, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia or Omar al-Bashir in Sudan — stirs up fears within one group that they are under threat from another group and must band together.Finally, Walter details a third factor: a dominant group’s loss of status. Called “downgrading,” this predicts which groups are most likely to initiate conflict: those experiencing not just political defeat, but “status reversal.”The power of Walter’s model is that she does not need to reference the United States. One plots our nation automatically as one reads. (The United States currently has a polity score of +5, within the anocracy zone for the first time since 1800.) Her conclusion: “We are a factionalized anocracy that is quickly approaching the open insurgency stage, which means we are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.”Walter’s otherwise harrowing book stumbles when describing how greater violence might erupt, focusing on fringe groups over likelier flash points. According to recent polling, only one-third of Republicans say they’ll trust the results of an election their candidate loses. With a strongman-in-exile who’s already got one violent insurrection under his belt actively stoking those dynamics, Walter’s concentration on extremists like the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division feels like a distraction.“The Next Civil War,” by the Canadian essayist Stephen Marche, provides a more recognizable narrative of what a civil rupture might look like. Marche interviewed military officials, law enforcement, food supply experts, historians and political scientists to make “more than educated guesses” about a potential upheaval.The book alternates between fictional dispatches from a coming social breakdown and digressions that support its predictions with evidence from the present. The effect is twofold: The narrative delivers Cormac McCarthy-worthy drama; while the nonfictional asides imbue that drama with the authority of documentary.Marche’s first “dispatch” starts with a defiant sheriff reopening a bridge the feds have closed as structurally unsafe. The choice of a local law enforcement officer as an instigator is a well-informed one. The Claremont Institute has announced the creation of a “Sheriffs Fellowship” to urge local officials not to be “beholden to the centralized … bureaucracies of federal or state governments.” And the commander of the Oklahoma National Guard recently directed his members to ignore the Pentagon’s vaccine requirements.If there’s a frustration in reading Marche, it’s that his book is negative to the last and therefore fails to capture the full complexity of our moment. After all, we recently did something few countries ever do: turn an autocrat out of office. The reality is that the threat has shifted. At the state level, legislatures are changing election laws to make a future coup more possible. At the federal level, the autocrats are storming government buildings from without rather than commanding them from within.Yet as both books make clear, even the worst-case scenario isn’t civil war in the 1860s sense. Neither envisions armies massing across the Potomac. Instead, they predict a conflict more like the Troubles in Northern Ireland or the guerrilla war in Colombia — a normalization of political violence that endangers basic security.This makes even the use of the term “civil war” a misleading one: first because it can turn the authors into Cassandras; second because (as Fintan O’Toole argued in his review of Marche’s book in The Atlantic) fears of civil war can precipitate one if both sides are encouraged to arm up and pre-empt an attack by the other.What we need instead is that rare convergence of uncanny leadership from above and below that has marked this country’s previous existential moments: the Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, the civil rights movement. We need Republicans in Congress joining with Democrats to oppose the subversion of future elections (and Democrats passing voting protections alone if necessary); business leaders coming off the sidelines to make democracy a core value of their companies; news media telling unflinching stories about the threats facing our form of government; and neighbors talking to neighbors with empathy to bridge divides.The two books have divergent takes on those possibilities. Walter nods to them by invoking Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk as past examples of leadership averting a national implosion. Marche on the other hand views the future as hopeless. His prescription is not reform, but secession and disunion.But solutions are not the point of these books. Marche’s agenda, as he explains, is to do for a second civil war what the 1983 television film “The Day After” did for nuclear war: scare the country into action. (He reminds us that Ronald Reagan credited “The Day After” with inspiring the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia.)Both books provide a sobering vision of where we may be headed, and for that reason they should be required reading for anyone invested in preserving our 246-year experiment in self-government. Because whether we’re heading toward civil war, just instability and strife, or something different altogether, we’ve rarely been this divided as a nation.Consider this observation from a local paper in Augusta, Ga.: “The differences between Red and Blue have been growing more marked for years, and the mutual repulsion more radical, until not a single sympathy is left between the dominant influences in each section.”Except the actual quote didn’t say “Red and Blue.” It said “North and South.” And it was published Nov. 16, 1860 — 10 days after Abraham Lincoln’s election. More

CAMPAIGN OF THE CENTURYKennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960By Irwin F. GellmanFor Richard Nixon, the holiday season of 1960 was a sullen affair. Weeks before, on Nov. 8, he had lost an exceedingly close presidential election to Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Near the end of December, while President-elect Kennedy received national security briefings at his family’s estate in Palm Beach, Nixon hosted a cheerless Christmas party at home in Washington. “We won,” he groused to his guests, “but they stole it from us.”Nixon’s complaint — which, today, has a dismally familiar ring — is the central contention of “Campaign of the Century,” by the historian Irwin F. Gellman. For more than two decades now, Gellman has undertaken a rolling rehabilitation of Richard Nixon. In previous books, he cast a sympathetic glow on Nixon’s years in Congress and reframed Nixon’s relationship with Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom he served loyally but awkwardly as vice president. In this new volume, Gellman seeks to upend our understanding of the 1960 race, not least the matter of which man won it.There is a cycle to the waging and relating of presidential elections: A campaign, typically, begins with a plan, tumbles into chaos and improvisation, and gets neatened up after the fact by participants and journalists who distill it into a few pat postulations. Much of this is mythology, and it can be hard to root out. To that end, Gellman has, arguably, logged more hours and examined more documents in the Nixon archives than any other historian to date. That doggedness, he says, has yielded new information and insights into the events of 1960. There is much ballyhooing in this book of its author’s willingness to follow facts wherever they lead. “It is long past time,” Gellman proclaims, “to tell the story without a partisan thumb on the scale.”This is a wide-ranging dig. It is directed, first, at Theodore H. White. Gellman regards White’s best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning narrative, “The Making of the President 1960,” as the original sin, visited upon succeeding generations. Sixty-one years after its publication, White’s siren song of “a heroic senator defeating an unscrupulous partisan” has lost none of its seductive power, Gellman believes; esteemed historians remain in its thrall and in Kennedy’s camp. Taylor Branch, Robert Dallek, David Greenberg, Jill Lepore, Fredrik Logevall — apologists and idolaters all, in the author’s view. He calls each one out by name, accusing some of carelessness and others of “distorting or falsifying facts” — a serious charge that is in no way substantiated.What is surprising about this buildup — this raising of stakes and throwing down of gauntlets — is that “Campaign of the Century” is largely a conventional, Nixon-friendly take on the race. Books of this kind are fewer, to be sure, than books by Kennedy partisans, but Gellman’s is hardly alone on the shelf. Nixon has always had his defenders (including, not least, Nixon himself) and Kennedy his detractors. White, for that matter, has been picked apart for decades by scholars of all stripes. When Gellman writes that Kennedy’s operation was “far more corrupt and ruthless than has been presented” and Nixon’s “far cleaner,” this is less a revelation than a familiar brand of spin.Indeed, Gellman’s thumb is firmly on the scales — or in Kennedy’s eye. From the book’s first pages, Kennedy is cynical and callow, the unscrupulous son of an unscrupulous father. Gellman is at pains to establish that Kennedy was not a family man but a philanderer, that he was not in fine health but was hobbled by Addison’s disease and back problems, and that the news media — besotted by “Kennedy’s youth, his smile,” his winsome wife and child — eagerly overlooked it all. Of course, Kennedy’s infidelities and health issues have long been common knowledge, as have the mores of the midcentury press; even favorable biographies take them into account. Gellman adds nothing here but fresh outrage. In both tone and content, his caricature of Kennedy is an echo of hit jobs like Victor Lasky’s “John F. Kennedy: What’s Behind the Image?,” which was stapled together on the eve of the election and distributed by the Republican Party.Nixon, by contrast, “had no sexual adventures and no long-term health issues.” And while he was, Gellman concedes, capable of an occasionally vicious attack, he is rendered here as a victim — mainly of a hate-filled press corps that portrayed him unrelentingly “in the worst possible light.” There is some truth to this picture: Nixon did provoke (and return) a particular sort of loathing among liberal reporters, even when he was on his best behavior — as he generally was in 1960, a year when he forswore the low road in the pursuit of high office. Unfairness, yes, but the book fails to show that it made a difference in November. In fact the bias, as Gellman notes in passing, ran in both directions: Nixon was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of daily newspapers — among them, the Hearst and Scripps Howard chains — and the publishing empire of Henry Luce.As a political narrative, “Campaign of the Century” is strangely lacking in both politics and narrative. It dutifully records the clashes of candidates but offers little context for their disagreements. The book fails to explain, for example, where the distinction lay between Nixon’s anti-Communism and Kennedy’s, or between their platforms on civil rights. There is, moreover, no analysis of Nixon’s position in the widening breach between Nelson Rockefeller, on the left of the Republican Party, and Barry Goldwater on the right. Gellman places his man in the middle, but gives no sense of whether this moderation was ideological or tactical. All is left a muddle while the author sprints off in pursuit of historians who have overhyped Kennedy’s performance in the televised debates.But the white whale here is proof of a stolen election. This book does not provide it. The case it puts forward is circumstantial — and nothing new. Much is made of “suspicions” in Texas and “irregularities” in Illinois as if such charges are, in themselves, dispositive. In the wake of 2020, we should know better than that. And so should a political historian of the mid-20th century: If fraud was a feature of elections in that era, so were accusations of fraud, wielded as a political cudgel. In 1948, for example, a top Republican official charged three Democratic candidates for Senate with “serious” campaign fraud — more than a week before Election Day. Four years later, pre-emptively again, the Republican National Committee chairman called on federal prosecutors to keep tabs on big-city Democrats — who, he said, would “stop at nothing” to “steal” the election.None of this is to deny that Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago had a history of ballot manipulation or that votes were likely stolen in Texas. But in recent decades, rigorous studies have underscored what judges and review boards concluded in 1960: To the extent that fraud occurred, it was not enough to change the result — least of all in Texas, where Kennedy’s margin exceeded 46,000 votes. The weakness of the case did not stop Nixon’s men from pushing their allegations. But six decades hence — in the absence of new evidence, at a time when false claims of a stolen election pose a mounting threat to our system of self-government — historians ought to think twice before endorsing them. More

The fund-raising haul positions Gov. Kathy Hochul, who leads her rivals in polls, as a prohibitive favorite to win her first full term as governor of New York in November.Five months after ascending to New York’s highest office, Gov. Kathy Hochul plans to submit filings on Tuesday that show her election campaign has already raised nearly $21.6 million, a record-smashing sum that positions her as the prohibitive favorite to win a full term as governor this fall, and likely the most dominant figure in New York State politics.The filings were expected to show that Ms. Hochul, a Democrat from Buffalo who is the first woman to lead the state, took in roughly $140,000 per day, on average, between her swearing-in last August and last week. She has more than $21 million in cash on hand, according to her campaign.Ms. Hochul’s fund-raising strength has already helped drive her most competitive foil, Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, from the race entirely, and likely played a role in the decision by Bill de Blasio, the former New York City mayor, to announce Tuesday morning that he would forgo a run for governor after months of flirting with it.But the source of some of her donations may also prove to be a liability for Ms. Hochul, complicating the image of a governor who took office in the shadow of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s sexual harassment scandal with a pledge to enact ethics reforms and bring about “a new era of transparency” in Albany.Behind the stunning sums are expected to be a cast of New York’s most well-financed special interest groups, in many cases the same multimillionaires, labor unions and business groups whose checks have bankrolled Democratic politicians, including Mr. Cuomo, for decades and pulled some of them into an ethical morass.Albany lobbying firms jockeyed to hold private fund-raisers for the governor within weeks of her taking office, and have steered clients with business before the state to do the same. Many of the state’s largest landlords have cut five-figure checks. So have builders reliant on massive state-funded infrastructure projects.As if to underscore the threat, the campaign finance reports were due the same day that Ms. Hochul plans to reveal her first budget as governor, a plan that is expected to swell to around $200 billion and include proposals sought by politically active hospitals, the state’s largest health care union, and even the trade group representing liquor stores.A poll of the race released by Siena College on Tuesday showed Ms. Hochul with a commanding lead ahead of June’s Democratic primary and relatively strong reviews from voters for her attempts to overhaul the governor’s office, jump-start New York’s lagging economic recovery, and manage a resurgent outbreak of the coronavirus.Forty-six percent of Democrats said that they would support Ms. Hochul in the primary, compared to 11 percent who said they would back Jumaane Williams, the city’s left-leaning public advocate, and just six percent who said they would support Representative Thomas Suozzi, a Long Island moderate. Twelve percent had said they would support Mr. de Blasio, a progressive with eight years’ worth of experience running the nation’s largest city, before he announced that he would not run.Mr. Williams had not yet disclosed his fund-raising figures as of Tuesday morning. But Mr. Suozzi, who is aggressively challenging Ms. Hochul from her right flank, plans to report on Tuesday that he raised more than $3 million since entering the race in November, and transferred another $2 million from his congressional campaign account, according to Kim Devlin, his senior adviser.Though he trails in the polls, the funds indicated that Mr. Suozzi would have the resources he needs to mount a primary challenge in the near term, and his campaign said it was prepared to announce a slew of new hires.And Republicans, benefiting from a national backlash against Democrats, believe they have a shot at winning a statewide race — something they have not done in New York since 2002.Representative Lee Zeldin, a Long Island Republican, appears to be his party’s current front-runner and was expected to announce a multimillion fund-raising haul on Tuesday. He is competing against Rob Astorino, a former Westchester County executive, and Andrew Giuliani, the son of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor.The candidates, and any political groups supporting them financially, are required to file a detailed list of their contributions and expenditures with the state’s Board of Elections by the end of Tuesday. Several campaigns, like Ms. Hochul’s, previewed top-line numbers before submitting the paperwork, making it difficult to assess where their money was coming from or how it was being spent.A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 5A crowded field. More

Mr. de Blasio, the former New York City mayor, had signaled for months that he planned to run for governor, but he faced long odds in a crowded Democratic primary.Bill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York City, said on Tuesday that he would not run for governor of New York, as he had been widely expected to do.Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat who served two terms in office, had signaled for months that he was planning a campaign, saying repeatedly that he did not feel ready to leave public service.He made the announcement in a video posted on Twitter, highlighting the accomplishments of his mayoral tenure before announcing that he would not be joining the governor’s race.“No, I am not going to be running for governor in New York State,” Mr. de Blasio said, standing on the street outside his Brooklyn residence. “But I am going to devote every fiber of my being to fight inequality in the state of New York.”Mr. de Blasio then hinted that he would have more to say about his future in the coming days.He declined to enter a crowded Democratic primary field, with the incumbent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, facing challenges from Jumaane D. Williams, the city’s public advocate, and Representative Tom Suozzi of Long Island.A Siena College poll released earlier on Tuesday showed Ms. Hochul with a significant lead over her competitors and potential competitors, including Mr. de Blasio. She earned the support of 46 percent of Democrats polled, while Mr. de Blasio had 12 percent, Mr. Williams had 11 percent and Mr. Suozzi had 6 percent. Across party lines, 45 percent of voters polled said they viewed Ms. Hochul favorably. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Ms. Hochul has also outpaced her competitors in fund-raising, having raised a record-breaking $21.6 million so far.For months, Mr. de Blasio had signaled that he would run. He appeared on MSNBC frequently and promoted a statewide education plan. He was also sounding out trusted former aides about joining a campaign, and he made overtures to labor leaders.Mr. de Blasio had said that he was not deterred by polls that showed him badly trailing his rivals.“I have a long, rich history of being an underdog,” he said.New York City mayors have had a difficult time attaining higher office. The last one to do so was John T. Hoffman, who was elected governor in 1868. Many mayors have run for president, including John V. Lindsay in 1972 and, more recently, Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. de Blasio himself.Mr. de Blasio had planned to focus on his popular universal prekindergarten policy, his handling of the pandemic and his focus on aggressive vaccine mandates. He also used his final weeks in office to argue that he had reduced inequality, which he set out to do when he was elected in 2013 on a message that he would address the imbalance that had led to a “tale of two cities.”In his video on Tuesday, Mr. de Blasio also acknowledged some of his less popular moments as mayor, including accidentally killing a groundhog and driving out of his way to visit his preferred gym in Park Slope.“Now I made my fair share of mistakes,” Mr. de Blasio said. “I was not good with groundhogs at all. I probably shouldn’t have gone to the gym. But you know what, we changed things in this town.” More

The shift toward Donald Trump by Latino voters was one of the more surprising takeaways of the 2020 presidential election. The findings of recent polls and reports — that Latinos may still be sliding toward Republicans — are even more disconcerting for Democrats. Given the political stakes as well as the stakes for Latino families, Democratic leaders must do better.As 2022 begins, the party so far has no visible, convincingly powerful plan to win over the voters many rank and file Democrats believe are key to November’s midterm elections, the 2024 presidential race and perhaps the future of the Democratic Party. But what happens next, when Democratic candidates fan out across the country trying to shore up support from Latinos who may be slipping away?Some believe that doing better means spending more money on messaging, advertising and outreach. But this isn’t the only lesson to be gleaned from what the data is telling us, and it might not even be the right one. Democrats should more aggressively combat Republican messaging with their own, but the real fight should be over which party has the best ideas on education, immigration, jobs and the economy. This is where Democrats take the Latino vote for granted, but they shouldn’t.Daniel Garza, the president of the conservative group The Libre Initiative, for example, believes that the Republican agenda gives his party the upper hand with Latinos. He scoffed at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announcement last November that it planned to win back Latino and other voters of color by spending at least $30 million to hire organizers, pay for targeted advertising campaigns, combat disinformation and support voter protection and education programs.Thirty million is a lot of money, he told me, but it would be “wasted if the message were about nuanced topics like voter suppression, disinformation and diversity.” The problem for Democrats, he added, is that “GOP ideas are better” because they’re “pro-growth, pro-energy, pro-parent (school choice) and pro-advancement.”Mr. Garza makes several assumptions: that voter suppression and disinformation are nuanced topics that don’t resonate with Latinos; that Democrats aren’t fighting for policies that will make our lives better; and that Republicans are the only party that supports growth and families.Some Democrats have downplayed the importance of policy compared with style and approach. Chuck Rocha, a political strategist, who is in a way Mr. Garza’s liberal counterpoint, called the re-election campaign announcement by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas at a Hispanic Leadership Summit a “brilliant political move,” but said that the Republican Party’s policies prove that they don’t care about Latinos. Mr. Rocha added that Democrats need to “quit taking a policy book” to a “fistfight.” He might be right that Democrats should be ready to fight, but they should absolutely bring their policy book with them.Indeed, one of the main findings of the post-mortem report on the 2020 election published by Equis Research was that Donald Trump made inroads with Latino voters because he and Republican governors kept the economy open during the pandemic, cut taxes, distributed stimulus checks, secured the border and expedited vaccine development. I would add Mr. Trump’s focus on religious liberty and support for charter schools.The report dispelled theories that Latinos supported Mr. Trump because they opposed the term Latinx and defunding the police, or because they aspire to whiteness. The problem with these assumptions is that they caricatured Latinos as motivated primarily by culture wars instead of sincerely held policy beliefs.Or, rather, the term Latinx, policing and whiteness were issues with underlying policy implications that too often got framed as divisive culture wars, and in ways that minimized the real policy disagreements they highlighted for Latinos: generational divides between Latino Democrats over progressive versus moderate policies; whether the border patrol or police help or harm communities; and whether capitalism, however exploitative, or socialism, however invasive, is the best path toward upward mobility and economic security.The notion that Latinos were swayed by disinformation implies that they could be duped into voting for Mr. Trump, or that they could have voted for him only if they were duped. Sure, calling President Biden a socialist is disinformation because he is not a socialist. But it’s also the same line of attack that Republicans have used to brand their opponents for a long time. We should be outraged with the lies, and we should combat them. But by merely dismissing the attack as disinformation we ignore why it has been so successful.It’s not just that socialism conjures ghosts of Latin America’s leftist leaders. It’s also an argument about religion — since conservatives consider socialism a godless philosophy — the ills of government intervention and dependency on government, and education. In a society that cherishes freedom, parents should have a hand in deciding what their children learn.As much as Democrats would like to dismiss Republican talking points — or misinformation, in some cases — they would be better off understanding how they relate to values that in turn connect with policy preferences. Then they can work to persuade Latinos that their policies are better, even on issues such as religion, the economy and education, on which Republicans claim to occupy more solid ground.Latino voters aren’t empty vessels just waiting to be filled with liberal beliefs. The problem with focusing only, or even primarily, on messaging and outreach is that it once again doesn’t take Latinos seriously as political actors, and instead assumes that they’re out there ready to be mobilized for the Democratic cause. That’s just not true.In the end, even if Democrats focus exclusively on policy, they still won’t sway all Latinos to vote for them. But doing so would help them better understand these voters. They should be asking them whether they are paid enough to provide for their families, if they’re satisfied with the schools their children go to, whether they have access to health care, and what government can do to help them reach their goals.The concrete plans they develop in response, especially for families living paycheck to paycheck and worrying about schools and health care, should respect their work ethic and ambitions. Latinos aren’t looking for “handouts,” but rather, leveling the playing field by, for example, making it easier to get loans to start a business, and increasing access to higher education.I dream of vigorous town hall-style debates where both parties engage in arguments over whose policies are best, instead of hurling talking points in our general direction from a distance. What Democrats learn may be uncomfortable if they have to abandon their assumptions. But dissecting our understanding of these voters, long presumed to represent a bloc, will be necessary if we have any hope of reconstituting “the Latino vote” in a way that’s more reflective of Latinos’ hopes, dreams and political aims.Geraldo L. Cadava (@gerry_cadava) is the author of “The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of an American Political Identity, From Nixon to Trump.”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

Roberta Metsola of Malta will succeed David Sassoli, an Italian politician who died last week, at a critical time for the institution.BRUSSELS — The European Parliament elected a new president on Tuesday, with Roberta Metsola, a 43-year-old Maltese deputy, picked to lead the institution as its seeks to gain a more prominent place in the E.U. power structure.Ms. Metsola’s predecessor, David Sassoli, died at age 65 last week, and she was selected by an overwhelming majority over two other candidates, all women.The European Union of 27 nations, one of the world’s most ambitious political experiments, is home to 450 million people. The Parliament is the bloc’s only directly elected institution, and voters have been electing lawmakers to the body since 1979, when the union was much smaller.Despite the holding of European Parliament elections every five years, the European Union has a complicated structure and is often accused of being a murky bureaucratic machine, detached from its citizens and lacking democratic accountability, even as it grows in power.“In the next years, people across Europe will look to our institution for leadership and direction, while others will continue to test the limits of our democratic values and European principles,” Ms. Metsola told lawmakers after being elected. “We must fight back against the anti-E.U. narrative that takes hold so easily and so quickly.”Ms. Metsola, a member of the conservative European People’s Party, the Parliament’s largest political group, has a daunting task in leading the most fragmented chamber in decades as it tackles issues such as curbing carbon emissions, upholding the rule of law and setting out rules for major technology companies.European Parliament in 2020. It is the bloc’s only directly elected institution.Sebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesShe will also have to navigate the Parliament’s relationship with the two other institutions governing the bloc: the European Commission, its executive bureaucracy; and the European Council, which pools together the heads of government of the 27 member states. The three branches often compete with one another for influence, with the Parliament struggling for relevance and usually coming out the weakest.The dance between the E.U. institutions has been unfolding against the backdrop of a larger conundrum: Can the bloc, which has positioned itself as a defender of democracy and which governs many aspects of the lives of Europeans, become more democratic while maintaining its current structure?“The European Union is an unfinished political system,” said Sophie Pornschlegel, a senior policy analyst at the European Policy Center, a Brussels-based think tank. “It’s a question of perspective,” she noted. “If you look at it like an international organization, it is one of the most democratic ones. Obviously, if you compare it to national democracies, it has a democratic deficit.”But according to Ms. Pornschlegel, that comparison would not be fair. “So far, we don’t have the United States of Europe,” she said, referring to a more deeply integrated federal power structure. “It’s much more complicated than that.”The European Parliament can veto legislation, set up budgets, ratify international agreements and has a supervisory role over various institutions. It also has the final say in approving the president of the European Commission.But in December 2019, when the current head of the commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was appointed, national leaders reneged on their promise to nominate a president from candidates proposed by the Parliament’s lawmakers, which was seen as a major blow to the institution’s standing. Lawmakers also cannot dismiss individual commissioners, but can only disband the commission as a whole.The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, second left, was appointed in 2019.Pool photo by Aris OikonomouAnd in an important divergence from national legislatures, the European Parliament does not have the power to initiate laws, which many see as a huge hindrance. “It puts you in a reactive mode,” said Marietje Schaake, a former member of the European Parliament who now teaches at Stanford University. “It is a major flaw in the design of the union.”Alberto Alemanno, a professor of European Union law at the business school HEC Paris, put it more bluntly. “The European Parliament is neither a parliament, because it has no legislative initiative, nor is it European, because its members are elected at the national and not at the European level,” he said.But analysts say that in recent years the Parliament has gained prominence, expressed both through an increased turnout in the 2019 elections and through a series of unusually bold moves.Under Mr. Sassoli, an Italian, the Parliament took the European Commission to court for not using existing rules to cut funding for member countries breaching rule-of-law standards. And in May, lawmakers blocked a high-profile investment agreement between the bloc and China, citing human rights violations and sanctions against Europeans critical of Beijing, including some lawmakers.As the position of the Parliament has evolved, so has the role of its president. “It is no longer the role of a ceremonial figure, like the president of the German republic,” Professor Alemanno said. “The president is somebody who can allow the European Parliament to advance their political goals and defend its prerogatives. But it will depend on their personality, and their political affiliation.”In many ways, Ms. Metsola, a former lawyer, brings novelty to the role. Nearly 60 percent of the legislators are men, and the average age is about 50. And Ms. Metsola is the first president to come from Malta, the bloc’s smallest member nation.But in other ways, Ms. Metsola is a mainstream choice. She belongs to the Parliament’s dominant group, which is also home to the party of Ms. von der Leyen. Critics say that the political affinity could be an obstacle to Ms. Metsola’s standing up to the commission.Ms. Metsola belongs to the Parliament’s dominant group, which is also home to the party of Ms. von der Leyen.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersIn an interview with The Times before her selection as president, Ms. Metsola said, “We have the task to hold the commission to account, and we will keep doing that unapologetically.”“But we will keep in mind the bigger picture of E.U. unity,” she added. “I don’t want the Parliament to get stuck in inter-institutional debates.”Ms. Metsola has been outspoken against corruption and the erosion of the rule of law, especially in her native Malta. But she has faced criticism over her socially conservative views, in particular her stance against abortion. She said that once elected, she would push forward “the position of the house” on reproductive rights.Referring to Ms. Metsola’s vote against a resolution condemning Poland’s anti-abortion laws, Alice Kuhnke, a Green candidate for president, said, “All women in the E.U. should rely on the president of the Parliament to fight for us when needed.”“I find it hard to see how she would manage to do that with credibility and strength,” Ms. Kuhnke added, in an interview before Ms. Metsola was confirmed as president.The institution of the Parliament has often been chided for not upholding the principles it preaches. Transparency International, an anticorruption watchdog, said in a recent report that the Parliament’s internal rules were not sufficient to guarantee accountability of lawmakers. Despite the systemic flaws, there are reasons for the Parliament to be optimistic, analysts say. In a recent poll, 63 percent of Europeans said that they would like the body to play a more important role. One proposal would see some lawmakers elected from Pan-European rather than national lists, aiming to bolster the connection with voters across the bloc. But in typical E.U. fashion, it is unclear whether such a change would be ready before the next election, planned for 2024. More