Elections

US Capitol attackLawyer John Eastman and Michael Flynn among six subpoenaed by Capitol attack panelPanel seeks documents and testimony from legal scholar said to have outlined scenarios for overturning election Hugo Lowell in WashingtonMon 8 Nov 2021 18.31 ESTFirst published on Mon 8 Nov 2021 17.58 ESTThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack has issued subpoenas to six of Donald Trump’s associates involved in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election from a “command center” at the Willard Hotel in Washington DC.The subpoenas demanding documents and testimony open a new line of inquiry into the coordinated strategy by the White House and the Trump campaign to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, and whether it was connected to the 6 January insurrection.House investigators on Monday targeted six Trump officials connected to the Willard: the legal scholar John Eastman, Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien, Trump’s adviser Jason Miller, the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump’s campaign aide Angela McCallum, and the former New York police department commissioner Bernard Kerik.The select committee chairman, Bennie Thompson, said in a statement that the panel was pursuing the Trump officials in order to uncover “every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress”.House 6 January panel to issue new round of subpoenas for Trump alliesRead moreThe six Trump officials compelled to cooperate with the select committee may have some of the most intimate knowledge of how the different elements of the former president’s effort to stop the certification – fit together.The subpoenas for Eastman and other Trump associates – first reported by the Guardian – show the select committee’s resolve to uncover the “centers of gravity” from which Trump and his advisers schemed to overturn the election, according to a source familiar with the matter.House investigators are taking a special interest in Eastman after it emerged that he outlined scenarios for overturning the election in a memo for a 4 January White House meeting that included Trump, the former vice-president Mike Pence and Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows.At the meeting, according to a source close to Trump, Eastman ran through the memo that detailed how Pence might refuse to certify electoral slates for Biden on 6 January and thereby unilaterally hand Trump a second term.The former president seized on Eastman’s memo, reviewed by the Guardian, and relentlessly pressured Pence in the days that followed to use it to in effect commandeer the ceremonial electoral certification process, the source said.Trump was not successful in co-opting Pence and Congress certified Biden as president. But House investigators are examining whether the memo was part of a broader conspiracy connected to the Capitol attack – and whether Trump had advance knowledge of the insurrection.The pro-Trump legal scholar also pressured nearly 300 state legislators to challenge the legitimacy of Biden’s win, reportedly participated at a “war room” meeting at the Willard on 5 January and spoke at a rally before the Capitol attack, the select committee said.House investigators also subpoenaed Stepien, the manager of the Trump 2020 campaign, after he urged state and Republican party officials to delay or deny the certification of electoral votes ahead of the joint session of Congress on 6 January.The select committee said it had subpoenaed Miller since he was in close and repeated contact with top Trump associates at the Willard and he too participated in the “war room” meeting that took place the day before the Capitol attack.At that meeting, the select committee said, Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani discussed how to subvert the election by having Pence follow Eastman’s memo and not certify the election for Biden.The select committee issued further subpoenas to Bernard Kerik, an aide to Giuliani based at the Willard, as well as Angela McCallum, who also pressured state legislators to challenge Biden’s win.House investigators sent a sixth subpoena to Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser fired in 2017 for lying to the FBI, after he attended an 18 December Oval Office meeting about whether Trump could invoke emergency powers based on lies about election fraud.The select committee was expected to send further subpoenas to Trump officials connected to activities at the Willard, the source said, noting that Thompson had told reporters last week that he had signed about 20 subpoenas that were ready to be issued.In the letters accompanying the six subpoenas, Thompson said Eastman was compelled to produce documents by 22 November and appear for a deposition on 8 December. The other Trump officials have until 23 November to produce documents and have deposition dates later in December.But it was not immediately clear whether the subpoenaed aides would comply with the orders. Other Trump administration aides subpoenaed by the select committee have slow-walked their cooperation, while Bannon ignored his subpoena in its entirety.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesMichael FlynnnewsReuse this content More

Gov. Phil Murphy’s Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, was trailing by about 65,500 votes. He is waiting for 70,000 provisional ballots to be counted.Hours after polls closed in the unexpectedly tight race for New Jersey governor, the Democratic incumbent, Philip D. Murphy, and his Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, took the stages at their campaign parties and said it would take more time for the results to be finalized.A new system of voting, which utilized electronic poll books and did not permit the more than half-million mail-in ballots to be tallied until Election Day, had bogged down the count.Six days later, Mr. Ciattarelli, who trails Mr. Murphy by about 65,500 votes, or about 2.6 percentage points, according to The Associated Press, has yet to concede — even though The A.P. has declared Mr. Murphy the winner.Mr. Ciattarelli’s campaign stressed that there was no evidence of fraud, and he has warned his Republican supporters against “falling victim to wild conspiracy theories or online rumors.” Officials with Mr. Ciattarelli’s campaign said on Monday that they were waiting until all mail and provisional ballots were counted, a process they expected to be completed within two days.Still, that has not stopped Mr. Murphy’s campaign from criticizing Mr. Ciattarelli.“Assemblyman Ciattarelli is mathematically eliminated, and he must accept the results and concede the race,” Mr. Murphy’s campaign manager, Mollie Binotto, said Monday in a statement. “His continuing failure to do so is an assault on the integrity of our elections.”An election lawyer for the Ciattarelli campaign, Mark Sheridan, acknowledged that it was unlikely for Mr. Ciattarelli to pull ahead in the vote count. But he said it was possible Mr. Ciattarelli could come within 1 point of Mr. Murphy — the threshold at which he said it would be prudent to ask a judge for permission to conduct a recount.At the same time, Mr. Sheridan sought to distance Mr. Ciattarelli from former President Donald J. Trump’s postelection “stop the steal” strategy that made disproved claims of voting fraud and led to the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.“We’re not hearing any credible accounts of fraud or malfeasance,” Mr. Sheridan said.“I’m not looking to be Rudy Giuliani standing in front of a mulch pile,” he added, referring to Mr. Trump’s lawyer, the former mayor of New York, who had his law license temporarily suspended after a court ruled that he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements” while fighting the results of the 2020 election.But Mr. Sheridan did stress that it was important for “every vote to be counted.”Despite the likelihood that Mr. Murphy will win a second term, the narrow margin has been a jolt to Democrats and suggested that they will face a steep climb to try to retain their hold on Congress in next year’s midterm elections.The governor’s race was one of several where candidates were waiting to concede until after the results were finalized.New Jersey’s second most powerful lawmaker, Steve Sweeney, who lost his State Senate seat to a relatively unknown Republican candidate, Edward Durr, had not conceded the race as of Monday afternoon. The Associated Press called the race on Thursday morning, as Mr. Durr maintained a 2,298-vote lead over Mr. Sweeney with all precincts counted, and by the weekend it had become a punchline on “Saturday Night Live” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}On Sunday, Mr. Trump called Mr. Durr and encouraged him to “have fun with it,” according to a clip of the call posted on Facebook.At the heart of the delays were election technology used for the first time in New Jersey, enabling voters to cast ballots early, in person, over nine days.The system used poll books that required an internet connection; in some cases, poll workers were confused by the new process. (At one polling location, for example, workers had not turned on the Wi-Fi router, an election lawyer said.)Boards of election across the state also struggled to hire enough people to oversee Election Day voting, leading the state to offer an extra $100 to entice workers.A spokeswoman for the secretary of state has maintained that the problems were not widespread, but they did lead to long lines at some polling sites, creating frustration that spilled out on Twitter. It also prompted a last-minute effort by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and the state’s League of Women Voters to extend voting hours on Tuesday by 90 minutes. A judge rejected their request.“There’s not been one suggestion of any hint of a fraud problem,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “What’s going on is a really agonizingly slow count.”Takeaways From the 2021 ElectionsCard 1 of 5A G.O.P. pathway in Virginia. More

Gail Collins: Gee, Bret, the Democrats lose a gubernatorial election in Virginia and the next thing you know, the nation has a brand-new $1 trillion public works program. Who says democracy isn’t efficient?Bret Stephens: Defeat has a wonderful way of concentrating the political mind.Gail: You’ve always been a fan of the infrastructure bill, right? Any reservations on that front now that it’s going to be signed into law?Bret: As someone who occasionally drives the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey — gripping the wheel with both hands while idly wondering if a bridge that was built in the Hoover administration will hold for another five minutes or collapse into the Hackensack River — I remain a committed fan of the infrastructure bill.Gail: Bridges of America, rejoice!You wrote a terrific column about the elections last week, Bret. Can’t say I agreed with all your conclusions but it was, as always, very smart. If you were on the phone with Nancy Pelosi today, what would you advise her to do next?Bret: First, madam speaker, please don’t hang up on me.Second, put the social spending bill in the basement ice box and don’t take it out until Democrats have the kind of majorities that can pass it.Third, look for a bipartisan win on immigration reform, starting with a trade on citizenship for Dreamers in exchange for more border security and a firm “Remain in Mexico” policy for migrants.And finally, find ways to separate the Democratic Party brand from Toxic Wokeness.Gail: I’m with President Biden that the next stop is his social spending program. Admittedly it’ll be carved down, but it has to include support for workers who temporarily need to stay home to take care of newborns or aging family members. And of course that universal preschool education.Bret: Maybe you’re right and over time those programs will prove wildly popular and successful. But I’m struggling to see how anything the Democrats are doing these days directly addresses the sorts of issues that average voters worry about day to day. Inflation is at a 30-year high, while personal incomes are down. Gas prices (at least where I live in the far suburbs) are close to $4 a gallon. Illegal crossings at the southern border are the highest they’ve been since at least 1960.Gail: As a person who very seldom attempts to justify her positions by pointing to the stock market I will refrain from noting that the Dow Jones rose on better-than-expected job numbers.Bret: Hehe. We should all enjoy this tulip mania while it lasts.Gail: And I’m with you on some of your immigration points — certainly citizenship for Dreamers. As far as the message of the election goes, I think the biggest lesson for the Democrats after Virginia is not to run against Donald Trump unless Donald Trump is running. And to remember that when voters decide if they like their governor, they don’t necessarily think much about national issues.Bret: Also: Don’t infuriate that itty-bitty voting bloc known as “parents of school-age children.”But I also think Democrats need to take a step back and see the broader message of the election, which is that the party has shifted waaaaaaay too far to the left. How else did the Republican Ann Davison get elected city attorney in Seattle? Or the Republican Jack Ciattarelli nearly win the governor’s race in deep-blue New Jersey?Gail: For me, New Jersey was mainly about people yearning for a fresh face now and then. And in Seattle I guess you have a point — if your message is that the voters shouldn’t have picked a candidate for city attorney who had once praised whoever had apparently set off explosives inside a police precinct. Duh.And local elections are … local. Some of our Seattle readers were quick to point out that their mayor-elect was far from a traditional law-and-order candidate. That’s the guy who promised to “put Seattle on fire with our love.”Bret: True, though he was the least-leftist candidate in the race.Gail: Pretty clear that the future, for local government, lies in candidates who promise to reform the police while also giving them strong budgetary support. Our own incoming mayor Eric Adams comes to mind.Bret: Hope Adams can save the city. He’s got a big job ahead of him. The city hasn’t seemed so dirty in decades. There’s an infestation of giant rats. The other day I watched a drug deal go down on Eighth Avenue in sight of two cops who stood around pretending nothing was going on. (For the record, I was not part of the deal.) Addicts are shooting up near our office in broad daylight. All of this brought to you by the Worst-Mayor-Ever-From-The-Rosy-Fingered-Dawn-Till-The-Bitter-End-Of-Time-Bill-expletive deleted-de Blasio.Gail: Hehehehe. That would make a great nickname if de Blasio ever tried, God help us, to run for president again.Bret: Or governor! Also, many Americans don’t take well to being lectured on, say, MSNBC about how Glenn Youngkin’s win in Virginia is a sign of a racist white backlash when Virginians also elected a Republican, Winsome Sears, to become the first Black woman to serve as lieutenant governor.Gail: Well, the results from Virginia’s governor’s race were pretty normal given the state’s history of voting against the party of a new president. Looking at that, I didn’t make the racist backlash argument.However, I would say that given the Republicans’ crazed howling about teaching the history of racism in America, voters were being misled in the way they were being urged to think there was something wrong with the schools.Bret: We agree on teaching the history of racism. I’m less keen on using teachers to propagate the ideological legerdemain that goes by the name of “antiracism.”But leaving aside the policy issues themselves, all of these Democratic fixations are gifts to the populist right. Someone needs to start a “Sanity Democrats” caucus to save the party from the progressive “Justice Democrats.”Gail: Certainly important for prominent Democrats not to sound didactic or obsessive when it comes to race and racism, but I sure as heck don’t want to discourage them from taking it into context when they’re passing legislation.Bret: In the meantime, Gail, have I ever mentioned how relieved I am never to have used Facebook?Gail: This doesn’t count the fact that your column goes up there, right? I’m all for using Facebook to pass along written pieces you like. But I haven’t had time to engage in any conversations there for years.Bret: Does my column really post on Facebook? Didn’t know that.This probably sounds horribly misanthropic, but when Facebook came around I feared it would be a handy way of connecting with people … to whom I didn’t particularly want to be connected. So-and-so from graduate school? Maybe we fell out of touch for a reason. Second cousin, twice removed in Melbourne? Hope they’re having a nice life. It’s hard enough to be a good friend to people in our real lives to waste time on virtual friendships in digital spaces.Now I’ve been reading a multipart investigation in The Wall Street Journal on the perils of the platform, which include less sleep, worse parenting, the abandonment of creative hobbies and so on. Facebook’s own researchers estimate that 1 in 8 people on the platform suffer from some of these symptoms, which amounts to 360 million people worldwide. As someone pointed out, the word “user” applies to people on social media just as much as it does to people on meth.I guess the question is whether the government should regulate it and if so, how?Gail: This takes me back to early America, when most people lived in small towns or on farms and had very little input from the outside world.They were very tight-knit, protective, familial — and very inclined to stick to their clan and isolate, discriminate, persecute and yes, enslave, the folks who weren’t part of the group. You had a lot of good qualities of togetherness and helping the team, but a lot of clannishness and injustice to nonmembers.Bret: Almost sounds like an academic department at a placid New England college. Sorry, go on.Gail: The Postal Service brought newspapers and letters and changed all that. And of course there were also unfortunate effects — a lot of mobilizing to fight against the newly discovered outside world.I think the digital revolution is maybe as important — people are making new friends around the globe, discovering tons and tons of new information, but also ganging up on folks they don’t like. Discriminating not only against minority groups but also the less popular members of their own.Bret: The moral of the story is that there’s no substitute for in-person relationships, whether it’s between colleagues, acquaintances, friends, family members or even two columnists who agree about 40 percent of the time. Which reminds me that there’s this cabernet that we still need to share, so that we can mourn — or celebrate — last week’s news.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

Swing voters in two blue-leaning states just sent a resounding wake-up call to the Biden administration: If Democrats remain on their current course and keep coddling and catering to progressives, they could lose as many as 50 seats and control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections. There is a way forward now for President Biden and the Democratic Party: Friday’s passage of the bipartisan physical infrastructure bill is a first step, but only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022 and to hold on to the presidency in 2024.The history of the 2020 election is undisputed: Joe Biden was nominated for president because he was the moderate alternative to Bernie Sanders and then elected president as the antidote to the division engendered by Donald J. Trump. He got off to a good start, especially meeting the early challenge of Covid-19 vaccine distribution. But polling on key issues show that voters have been turning against the Biden administration, and rejecting its embrace of parts of the Bernie Sanders/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez playbook.According to our October Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, only 35 percent of registered voters approve of the administration’s immigration policies (which a majority view as an open-borders approach); 64 percent oppose eliminating cash bail (a progressive proposal the administration has backed); and most reject even popular expansions of entitlements if they are bundled in a $1.5 to $2 trillion bill based on higher taxes and deficits (the pending Build Back Better initiative). Nearly nine in 10 voters express concern about inflation. And 61 percent of voters blame the Biden administration for the increase in gasoline prices, with most also preferring to maintain energy independence over reducing carbon emissions right now.Progressives might be able to win the arguments for an all-out commitment to climate change and popular entitlements — but they haven’t because they’ve allowed themselves to be drawn into a debate about the size of Build Back Better, not its content. Moderate Democrats have always favored expanded entitlements, but only if they meet the tests of fiscal responsibility — and most voters don’t believe Build Back Better does so, even though the president has promised it would be fully paid for. Putting restraints on these entitlements so that they don’t lead to government that is too big, and to ballooning deficits, is at the core of the moderate pushback on the bill that has caused a schism in the party.Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema are not outliers in the Democratic Party — they are in fact the very heart of the Democratic Party, given that 53 percent of Democrats classify themselves as moderates or conservative. While Democrats support the Build Back Better initiative, 60 percent of Democrats (and 65 percent of the country) support the efforts of these moderates to rein it in. It’s Mr. Sanders from Vermont and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez from New York who represent areas ideologically far from the mainstream of America.The economy and jobs are now the top national issues, and 57 percent see it on the wrong track, up from 42 percent a few months ago, generating new basic kitchen-table worries. After the economy and jobs, the coronavirus, immigration and health care are the next top issues, but Afghanistan, crime, school choice and education are also serious areas of concern for voters.To understand the urgency for future Democratic candidates, it’s important to be cleareyed about those election results. Some progressives and other Democrats argue that the loss in the Virginia governor’s race, where culture war issues were a factor, should not be extrapolated to generalize about the administration. The problem with that argument is that last week’s governor’s race in New Jersey also showed a double-digit percentage point swing toward Republicans — and in that election, taxes mattered far more than cultural issues. The swing is in line with the drop in President Biden’s approval rating and the broader shift in the mood of the country.Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee in Virginia, ran for governor in 2013 and won by offering himself as a relative moderate. This time, he deliberately nationalized his campaign by bringing in President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama, and he closed out the race with the head of the teacher’s union, an icon on the left. He may not have brought in the progressive Squad, but he did hug a range of left-of-center Democratic politicians rather than push off the left and try to win swing voters.It’s hard to imagine Democratic candidates further to the left of Mr. McAuliffe, and of Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, doing any better with swing voters, especially when the math of elections requires two new voters to turn out to equal a single voter who switches from Democrat to Republican. It’s easy to dismiss individual polls that may or may not be accurate — but you can’t dismiss a clear electoral trend: the flight from the Democrats was disproportionately in the suburbs, and the idea that these home-owning, child-rearing, taxpaying voters just want more progressive candidates is not a sustainable one.After the 1994 congressional elections, Bill Clinton reoriented his administration to the center and saved his presidency. Mr. Biden should follow his lead, listen to centrists, push back on the left and reorient his policies to address the mounting economic issues people are facing. As a senator, he was a master at building coalitions; that is the leadership needed now.This would mean meeting the voters head on with stronger borders, a slower transition from fossil fuels, a focus on bread-and-butter economic issues (such as the price of gas and groceries), fixes to the supply chain fiasco that is impacting the cost of goods and the pursuit of more moderate social spending bills. Nearly three in four voters see the border as a crisis that needs immediate attention. Moving to the center does not mean budging from core social issues like abortion rights and L.G.B.T.Q. rights that are at the heart of what the party believes in and are largely in sync with suburban voters. But it does mean connecting to voters’ immediate needs and anxieties. As Democrats found in the late ’90s, the success of the administration begets enthusiasm from the base, and we actually gained seats in the 1998 midterms under the theme of “progress not partisanship.”Mr. Biden’s ratings since the Afghanistan withdrawal have fallen from nearly 60 percent approval to just above 40 percent in most polls. By getting the physical infrastructure bill passed with Republican votes, Mr. Biden has taken a crucial step to the center (79 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans supported it in the Harris Poll). Follow that infrastructure success by digging into the pending congressional budget office analysis of Build Back Better and then look closely at bringing in more of the popular benefits for people (such as expansion of Medicare benefits for dental and vision and family leave) and cutting out some of the interest group giveaways like creating environmental justice warriors.Of course, this may require some Houdini-like leadership to get votes from the Progressive Caucus for a revised Build Back Better bill. But this is the best strategy to protect Democratic candidates in 2022.Yelling “Trump, Trump, Trump” when Mr. Trump is not on the ballot or in office is no longer a viable campaign strategy. Soccer moms, who largely despised Mr. Trump, want a better education for their kids and safer streets; they don’t see the ghost of Trump or Jan. 6 behind Republican candidates like now Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin of Virginia. Remember that only about one quarter of the country classifies itself as liberal, and while that is about half of the Democratic Party, the rest of the electorate nationally is moderate or conservative. While many rural and working-class voters are staying Republican, the message from last Tuesday is that the Democrats have gone too far to the left on key issues for educated suburban voters. Even Bergen County in New Jersey, a socially liberal bedroom community outside New York City, almost swung into the Republican column.While Mr. Youngkin waded directly into racially divisive issues, he also based his campaign on positive messages of striving for excellence in the schools and for re-establishing the American dream as a worthy goal. Those messages tapped into the aspirations of voters in ways that in the past were at the heart of the Democratic message. These are enduring values, as is reaffirming the First Amendment and the power of free speech.Demographics is not destiny. We live in a 40-40-20 country in which 40 percent are hard-wired to either party and 20 percent are swing voters, primarily located in the suburbs. After losing a game-changing slice of Midwestern working-class voters, who had voted for Mr. Obama, over trade, immigration and cultural policies, Democrats were steadily gaining in the suburbs, expanding their leads in places like New Jersey and Virginia. Without voters in these places, the party will be left with only too small of a base of urban voters and coastal elites. Unless it re-centers itself, the risk is that the Democratic Party, like the Labor Party in Britain, will follow its greatest success with an extended period in the desert.Mark Penn served as adviser and pollster to President Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton from 1996 to 2008. Andrew Stein is a former president of the New York City Council.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

Voters readily ousted Democrats in Nassau County on Long Island, electing Republicans down the ballot.It wasn’t the high taxes in Nassau County, or the recent changes to New York’s bail laws that drove Lizette Sonsini, a former Democrat, to vote Republican this year.Her reasons were more overarching.“I don’t like the president, and the Democrats are spending too much money on things like infrastructure, when really we need politicians who are going to bring more money back into this country,” said Ms. Sonsini, 56, of Great Neck.“Maybe if Democrats see how we’re voting in these local elections,” she said, “they will see we’re not happy with the way things are going.”Across the country, Democrats witnessed an intense backlash on Election Day, as the party suffered major losses in Virginia and in many suburban communities like Nassau County, where Democratic leaders were swept from office by Republicans — even though registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 100,000.The Democratic county executive, Laura Curran, trailed her Republican opponent, Bruce Blakeman, by more than four percentage points; Mr. Blakeman has declared victory, but Ms. Curran has not conceded.The race for district attorney, a post that has been held by a Democrat since 2006, was won by the Republican Anne Donnelly, a 32-year veteran of the district attorney’s office with little prior political experience. She coasted to a 20-point win over Todd Kaminsky, a Democratic state senator and former federal prosecutor. And the race to replace the outgoing Democratic county comptroller went to a Republican, Elaine Phillips. Off-year elections are often hard for the party of the sitting president, but the results defied candidate expectations and bolstered arguments that President Biden’s unpopularity and the Democratic Party’s internecine battles were undermining its viability in the suburbs.“It’s almost like we’re back temporarily to the ’60s and ’70s,” said Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, referring to a time when Republicans ruled the Nassau County roost. “The real question is how long this will last.”Four years ago, Democratic voters in Nassau County treated the 2017 election as an early referendum on President Donald J. Trump. They staged postcard-writing campaigns and held living-room fund-raisers, and an energized electorate pushed Ms. Curran to become only the third Democrat in 80 years to be county executive in Nassau.This year, the roles were reversed: The county has more than a million registered voters; 264,000 showed up and they voted overwhelmingly Republican, seemingly ousting Ms. Curran after one term.“There was a wave, there’s no doubt about it, even for an unapologetically pro-business, pro-public safety Democrat,” Ms. Curran said in an interview, referring to herself.In conversations with more than a dozen Nassau County voters this week, they cited their overall disapproval of the president, their distaste for vaccine mandates and a fear of funds being diverted from the police as factors in their decision to vote Republican. Concerns over Mr. Biden’s handling of Israel also arose several times.Among those voting Republican was Audrey Alleva, a 64-year-old Garden City resident with family in the military, who cited the president’s performance as a factor in her decision.“I don’t like the way President Biden handled the country leaving Afghanistan,” Ms. Alleva said.Sam Liviem, a 70-year-old Great Neck resident, cited other recent Democratic pushes as reason to cast his ballot for Republicans.“When liberals try to push ‘defund the police,’ when they try to take down statues of people from the past, when they want to wipe out history, you are going back to the law of the jungle,” Mr. Liviem said.Nassau County was recently ranked the safest county in the United States by U.S. News and World Report. But the Nassau Republican Party exploited fears about crime to drive voters to the polls, particularly in the case of Mr. Kaminsky, who supported changes in state bail laws that Republicans blame for the county’s recent rise in shootings, which have increased across the country during the pandemic.In 2019, New York State curtailed bail for many nonviolent defendants, who might otherwise have stayed in pretrial detention because they could not pay. But law enforcement authorities argued the law was overly broad and faulted it for not granting judges more discretion to detain defendants they considered a risk to public safety.Mr. Kaminsky supported the original bail reform bill. And, in a video of the 2019 Senate proceedings widely circulated by the Donnelly campaign, the senate deputy majority leader, Michael Gianaris, explicitly thanks four senators, including Mr. Kaminsky, for their support. That vote came to haunt Mr. Kaminsky during his campaign.Todd Kaminsky, a Democratic state senator, lost his bid for Nassau County district attorney in part because of his support of the state’s changes to bail laws.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesThough Mr. Kaminsky vastly outspent Ms. Donnelly on advertising that tried to portray him as a tough-on-crime former prosecutor — her campaign spent more than $800,000 on television and online ads, according to the state Board of Elections, while his spent about $1.3 million as of mid-October — the Donnelly campaign’s message stuck.In one ad, the Donnelly campaign recruited the mother of a shooting victim from Syracuse. “Senator Todd Kaminsky helped write the law that set my daughter’s killer free,” says the mother, Jennifer Payne, who also appeared in a 2020 ad for Representative John Katko, a Republican from central New York.In another Donnelly ad, viewers were met by ominous music and the mustachioed visage of John Wighaus, the president of the Nassau County Detectives Association, who held Mr. Kaminsky responsible for the release of “killers, rapists and violent thugs.”“I think crime was on everybody’s mind, I think bail reform was on everyone’s mind,” Ms. Donnelly said in an interview. She noted that concerns about crime in New York City, which bolstered the election of Eric Adams as mayor, played a role in Nassau.“It’s a regional issue,” Ms. Donnelly said. “It’s a countrywide issue.” Ms. Donnelly will be the county’s first Republican district attorney originally elected as a Republican since William Cahn in the 1960s, said Joseph Cairo, the county Republican chairman. (Denis Dillon, who served as Nassau County district attorney for three decades, was elected as a Democrat before switching to the Republican Party in the 1980s.)Ms. Curran argued anxiety about criminal justice issues seeped into her race, too.“This bail reform issue was very motivating to voters,” said Ms. Curran, who tried to distance herself from the bail legislation by appearing on “Fox and Friends” to decry the new law as an overreach.Laura Curran, the Democratic county executive, was blamed by her opponent for raising property taxes. Mark Lennihan/Associated PressIf state and national political issues inflamed the debate in Nassau County, local issues proved potent, too.Takeaways From the 2021 ElectionsCard 1 of 5A G.O.P. pathway in Virginia. More

Suppose a state has 25 voters who live in a perfect grid. Sixty percent of them belong to the Blue party, and 40 percent to the Red party.

Say the state has five House seats. We need districts roughly the same size. We can draw them to fairly reflect the population: Blue gets three seats, Red gets two seats.

But what if we want to give Blue the advantage? If we draw the districts like this, Blue holds a majority in all five districts.

Now, let’s draw a map that helps the Red party. We’ll need to get creative, since it’s in the minority. But check out what happens if we draw the districts this way. More

Armed drones struck the Iraqi prime minister’s home in what was seen as a warning as Iranian-backed groups dispute the results of parliamentary elections.Iraq’s prime minister survived a drone strike on his home early Sunday, Iraqi officials said, raising fears of wider instability after disputed results in Iraq’s parliamentary elections.“I am fine, praise be to God, among my people, and I call for calm and restraint from everyone, for the sake of Iraq,” the prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi wrote on Twitter after the pre-dawn attack. In a video appealing for peace, he appeared with his wrist wrapped in what seemed to be a white gauze bandage.A senior official in the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Maj. Gen. Saad Maan, said on state television that the prime minister’s house in the fortified Green Zone had been targeted by three armed drones.Mr. al-Kadhimi, right, with President Barham Salih of Iraq after the attack on Sunday. Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIraq’s president, Barham Salih, described the attack as a prelude to a coup, tweeting that “we cannot accept that Iraq will be dragged into chaos and a coup against its constitutional system.”On Friday, tensions over results of the Oct. 10 parliamentary elections came to a head after a clash outside the Green Zone — the site of the executed leader Saddam Hussein’s former palace grounds — where the U.S. Embassy and many other Western diplomatic missions are. Iraqi security forces used tear gas and live ammunition on militia members protesting the election results after the protesters tried to breach the heavily fortified zone’s barriers.A protest on Friday near an entrance to the Green Zone in Baghdad denouncing Mr. al-Kadhimi.Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLeaders of Iranian-backed militias — to which most of the protesters belong — have blamed Mr. al-Kadhimi, Iraq’s former intelligence chief, for the use of force that killed at least one person.Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of the most powerful Iranian-backed militias, identified the person killed as Abdul Latif al-Khuwayldi, one of its brigade deputy commanders. The Iraqi Health Ministry said that more than 120 other people at the demonstration had been wounded, most of them security forces trying to hold back the protesters.Iraq’s election commission has yet to announce final results for the nationwide elections held almost a month ago as it wades through fraud accusations. The Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has emerged as the biggest winner, at the expense of Iranian-backed parties that lost seats. Mr. al-Sadr, whose fighters battled American forces during the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, is viewed as an Iraqi nationalist with an uneasy relationship with Iran.Political analysts believe those gains were mostly because of a more sophisticated strategy by the Sadrist organization, taking advantage of a new electoral system, which has an increased number of electoral districts. The United Nations, which had observers at the polls, praised the process. The political wings of the militia groups that lost seats claim they were defrauded.One of Mr. al-Kadhimi’s main goals has been to rein in Iranian-backed militias. After 2014, when many were created to fight ISIS, some of the biggest militias have been integrated into Iraq’s official security forces. Those militia forces, though, only nominally answer to the Iraqi government and some are blamed for continuing attacks on U.S. interests.No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack on Sunday on the prime minister’s residence.Iraqi security forces on Saturday outside an entrance to the the Green Zone.Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMost analysts saw the attack as a warning to Mr. al-Kadhimi and his allies rather than as an assassination attempt. The prime minister has remained in power by balancing Iraqi relations between Iran and the United States, and he is seeking another term.“What we’ve seen in the past is the use of violence, not necessarily to assassinate, but to warn that, ‘We’re here,’” said Renad Mansour, head of the Iraq Initiative at the think tank Chatham House. “I think this would also be a warning perhaps gone wrong because you can gain a bit more popularity and sympathy as the prime minister who survived an assassination attempt.”The attack, though, significantly complicates efforts to form a government. Such efforts rely on forging alliances among parties, some of them with armed wings, to form the biggest bloc in Parliament.An American State Department spokesman, Ned Price, called the strike on Sunday an “apparent act of terrorism” that was “directed at the heart of the Iraqi state.”Although Mr. al-Kadhimi said that both he and those who work with him were fine, the Iraqi military command said that several guards were being treated for injuries.Photographs released on state media of damage to the house showed cracked concrete steps, doors apparently blown off their hinges and what looked like shrapnel holes in the back of a parked vehicle.A photograph made available by a media office of the Iraqi government showed damage inside the home of Mr. al-Kadhimi after the drone attack on Sunday.Iraqi Prime Minister’s Office, via EPAMr. al-Sadr, whose movement has won the highest number of seats of any political bloc in Parliament, described the attack as an attempt to return the country to the control of “nonstate forces to make Iraq live under riots, violence and terrorism.”Iranian-backed groups that have previously threatened Mr. al-Kadhimi condemned the drone strikes.Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the militia group, which was among those that lost seats in the parliamentary elections, called the strikes an attempt to divert attention from the deadly clash outside the Green Zone on Friday and blamed foreign intelligence agencies.A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, expressed relief that the Iraqi prime minister had not been hurt in the attack. In a statement, Mr. Khatibzadeh blamed the strikes on an unspecified foreign plot.Abu Ali al-Askari, the nom de guerre of one of the leaders of Kitaib Hezbollah, a main Iranian-backed militia, accused Mr. al-Kadhimi of playing the role of a victim and said that no one in Iraq considered the Iraqi leader’s home worth losing a drone over.“If there is anyone who wants to harm this Facebook creature there are many ways that are less costly and more guaranteed to achieve this,” he said in a posting on his Telegram channel.While the attack has raised fears of growing instability amid Iraq’s political turmoil, the country’s citizens seemed to generally shrug it off. Later Sunday morning, the start of the Iraqi workweek, Baghdad streets were full of the normal rush-hour traffic jams.Near one of the entrances to the Green Zone, food vendors placed spatchcocked chickens to cook over charcoal grills on crowded sidewalks. Inside a butcher shop, a green parrot perched on a pole greeted customers by chirping out “meenoo” — “who is that” in the Iraqi dialect of Arabic.“We are used to these incidents,” said Ali al-Hussayni, 50, the shop owner, about the attack on Mr. al-Kadhimi. “I am not saying people are not scared at all, but we have seen far worse than this.”Reporting was contributed by More

El presidente Daniel Ortega acalló a la oposición y sembró el miedo en los votantes, lo cual prácticamente garantiza su victoria en la contienda presidencial del domingo.MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Después de sofocar de una forma muy metódica a la competencia y la disidencia, el presidente Daniel Ortega prácticamente se aseguró la victoria en las elecciones presidenciales del domingo, lo que indica la caída de Nicaragua en un régimen autocrático.Ortega, en su búsqueda de un cuarto mandato consecutivo como presidente del país, arrestó a todos los adversarios con credibilidad que planeaban contender contra él, cerró los partidos de oposición, prohibió los actos de campaña multitudinarios y clausuró todos los centros de votación.La comisión que supervisa las elecciones quedó en manos de sus leales y no ha habido debates públicos entre los cinco candidatos restantes, todos ellos miembros poco conocidos de partidos alineados con el gobierno sandinista de Ortega.“No son elecciones, una farsa es lo que va a haber”, dijo Berta Valle, la esposa de uno de los líderes de la oposición que está en prisión. “Aquí nadie va a elegir. Es que el único candidato es Daniel Ortega”.El control casi absoluto de Ortega sobre Nicaragua, según los analistas, ha dado paso a una nueva era de represión y terror en el país, lo cual marca un giro hacia un modelo abiertamente dictatorial que podrían imitar otros líderes en toda América Latina. Su declaración de victoria supondría otro golpe a la agenda del presidente estadounidense, Joe Biden, en la región, donde el gobierno no ha conseguido frenar la caída antidemocrática ni el éxodo masivo de personas desesperadas hacia Estados Unidos.Miembros del ejército de Nicaragua preparan las boletas de votación para distribuirlas antes de las elecciones del domingo.Oswaldo Rivas/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSe ha interceptado a un número inédito de nicaragüenses al cruzar la frontera suroeste de Estados Unidos este año, ya que miles de personas huyeron del país después de que Ortega comenzó a reprimir a la oposición. Y más de 80.000 nicaragüenses viven como refugiados en la vecina Costa Rica.“Este es un punto de inflexión hacia el autoritarismo en la región”, dijo José Miguel Vivanco, director de la División de las Américas de Human Rights Watch, quien describió la represión de Ortega como “una película de terror en cámara lenta”.“Ni siquiera está tratando de mantener una especie de fachada de gobierno democrático”, dijo Vivanco del líder nicaragüense. “De manera flagrante y abierta, está decidiendo hacer de las elecciones una representación”.En junio, Ortega acusó a la oposición de intentar organizar un golpe de Estado. “No estamos juzgando candidatos”, dijo sobre sus críticos que habían sido arrestados. “Aquí se está juzgando a criminales que han atentado contra el país, contra la seguridad del país”.Ortega llegó al poder por primera vez tras ayudar a liderar la revolución que derrocó la dictadura de Anastasio Somoza en 1979. Más de una década después, fue destituido por los electores nicaragüenses, en la que se consideró la primera elección democrática del país.Esa lección sobre los riesgos del gobierno democrático parece haber marcado el resto de la vida política de Ortega. Regresó a la presidencia en 2007, tras conseguir que un partido rival aceptara una reforma legal que permitía a un candidato ganar las elecciones con solo el 35 por ciento de los votos, y luego pasó años debilitando las instituciones que sostenían la frágil democracia nicaragüense.Dejó claro que no toleraría la disidencia en 2018, cuando envió a la policía a reprimir con violencia las protestas contra su gobierno, lo que provocó cientos de muertos y acusaciones de grupos de derechos humanos de crímenes contra la humanidad.Mujeres se enfrentan con la policía antidisturbios durante una protesta contra el gobierno de Ortega en Managua, en 2018.Inti Ocon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPero la repentina oleada de detenciones antes de las elecciones, que envió a siete candidatos políticos y a más de 150 personas a la cárcel, transformó el país en lo que muchos activistas describieron como un Estado policial, donde incluso las expresiones leves de disidencia son silenciadas por el miedo.Hace poco, un cronista deportivo fue encarcelado por una serie de publicaciones en Twitter y Facebook que criticaban al gobierno, en virtud de una nueva ley que impone hasta cinco años de cárcel a quien diga algo que “ponga en peligro la estabilidad económica” o el “orden público”.Tras el inicio de las detenciones, Estados Unidos impuso nuevas sanciones a funcionarios nicaragüenses y la Organización de los Estados Americanos condenó al gobierno. Este mes, el Congreso estadounidense aprobó una ley que exige más medidas punitivas para Nicaragua. Pero esa presión no le ha impedido a Ortega eliminar de manera sistemática cualquier obstáculo a su victoria del domingo.Una encuesta reciente mostró que el 78 por ciento de los nicaragüenses considera que la posible reelección de Ortega es ilegítima y solo el 9 por ciento apoya al partido gobernante. Sin embargo, muchos se niegan a cuestionar al gobierno en público, por miedo a ser detenidos o acosados por los representantes del partido sandinista que están apostados en todos los barrios para vigilar las actividades políticas.La lideresa de un grupo de vigilancia electoral, Olga Valle, abandonó el país después de que el gobierno de Ortega comenzó a perseguir a cualquiera que hablara en su contra.“Había mucho temor de dar la cara”, explicó Valle. “Hay una restricción absoluta de las libertades, la ciudadanía está sin ninguna posibilidad de reunirse, de organizarse”.La primera aspirante a la presidencia que fue atacada fue Cristiana Chamorro, la principal opositora nicaragüense e hija de la mujer que desbancó a Ortega en 1990 tras su primera etapa en el poder.La policía puso a Chamorro bajo arresto domiciliario un miércoles de junio, el día después de que Antony Blinken, el secretario de Estado estadounidense, pronunciara un discurso en la vecina Costa Rica sobre la importancia de fortalecer la democracia.Cristiana Chamorro, la líder de la oposición más importante de Nicaragua, fue puesta bajo arresto domiciliario en junio.Inti Ocon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFélix Maradiaga, quien también aspiraba a contender contra Ortega, fue encarcelado días después, y permaneció ahí durante meses antes de que a su hermana se le permitiera una visita de 20 minutos.Su esposa, Berta Valle, exiliada en Estados Unidos desde que recibió amenazas tras las protestas de 2018, dijo que su marido ha perdido 20 kilos y que durante meses el único baño en su celda era un agujero. El político nicaragüense le contó a la familia que se le obliga a permanecer en completo silencio, excepto cuando se le somete a interrogatorios diarios. “Es una tortura psicológica”, dijo su esposa.A Maradiaga se le ha permitido reunirse con su abogado en una sola ocasión, rodeado de guardias fuertemente armados, añadió su esposa. Poco después, el abogado huyó del país.Para el mes de agosto, el único de los partidos de la oposición que quedaba en pie era Ciudadanos por la Libertad, un movimiento de la derecha al que algunos especulaban que se le permitiría contender para dar al menos la impresión de una lucha justa. Pero después la comisión electoral dio una conferencia de prensa en la que anunció la desaparición del partido.“Ni siquiera terminé de verla”, comentó Kitty Monterrey, presidenta del partido. “Cogí mis pasaportes y salí corriendo. No miré atrás”.Se escabulló al caer la noche, a fin de evadir a la policía que se había apostado en la entrada. Para llegar a Costa Rica, Monterrey atravesó ríos a pie y a caballo durante 14 horas. Cumplió 71 años el día de su viaje.“Esto no es un proceso electoral en absoluto”, denunció Monterrey. “Las elecciones se dan cuando se tiene derecho a elegir, pero todos están en el exilio o en la cárcel”.Nicaragüenses en Costa Rica protestan contra el gobierno de Ortega, en San José, Costa Rica, en septiembre.Mayela Lopez/ReutersEn Nicaragua no hay observadores electorales, solo los llamados “acompañantes” electorales, una mezcla de funcionarios traídos de países como España, Argentina y Chile, muchos de los cuales son miembros de sus partidos comunistas locales. Su trabajo, dijo hace poco una integrante de la comisión electoral, no consiste en “intervenir” sino en “ver” y “disfrutar” del proceso electoral.En todo el país hay pocos indicios de que se esté disputando el cargo más alto de la nación.Imágenes gigantescas de Ortega y su esposa, la vicepresidenta del país, se ciernen sobre las calles. Los sitios de vacunación reproducen estribillos revolucionarios con títulos como “el comandante se queda”. En los edificios gubernamentales ondea la bandera del partido sandinista junto a la bandera de Nicaragua.Pero además de un puñado de folletos con logotipos de los partidos de la oposición en Managua, la capital, no hay espectaculares ni carteles de campaña en los que aparezca nadie más.“A Ortega se la cayó la máscara”, dijo Valle, la esposa del líder opositor encarcelado. “Él no va a poder esconderse nunca más”.Berta Valle, quien ha estado exiliada en Estados Unidos desde que enfrentó amenazas del gobierno, habla en un foro en Miami en octubre.Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA vía ShutterstockOscar Lopez colaboró con este reportaje desde Ciudad de México. More