Elections

The group decided to not wait for other potential primary rivals, most notably the state attorney general, Letitia James, to enter next year’s race.Emily’s List, the fund-raising juggernaut dedicated to electing women who back abortion rights, threw its support on Thursday behind Gov. Kathy Hochul’s campaign for a full term as New York governor.The group’s endorsement opens doors to deep-pocketed donors and seasoned campaign strategists across the country. But for Ms. Hochul, the state’s first female governor, it may prove more valuable as an early stamp of approval for female activists, donors and operatives as she attempts to freeze out potential rivals and head off a raucous Democratic primary next year.In its endorsement, Emily’s List cited Ms. Hochul’s management of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, as well as steps she has taken since assuming office in August to clean up a culture of intimidation and harassment that flourished in Albany under her predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo.“Governor Hochul stepped up to lead New York in a moment rife with skepticism and mistrust for Albany,” said Laphonza Butler, the group’s president. “As governor, she has prioritized rebuilding trust between her administration and New Yorkers, and delivering results.”The timing of the endorsement by the group, known for making shrewd calculations about who it thinks can win, was conspicuous. It is likely to make ripples through the large field of high-profile Democrats mulling campaigns, including the state attorney general, Letitia James, who would be the first Black woman elected governor of any state.In backing Ms. Hochul before others decide whether to enter the race, the group appeared to simultaneously signal that it believed she was the candidate best positioned to win and do its part to help keep others out of the race.The endorsement stood in sharp contrast to many of New York’s most influential unions, campaign donors and other elected leaders, who appear to be withholding support until it becomes clearer whether Ms. James and other Democrats — including Mayor Bill de Blasio, Representative Tom Suozzi or Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate — decide to run.The decision may be particularly stinging for Ms. James, who is generally viewed as Ms. Hochul’s most formidable potential opponent and whose investigation into claims of sexual harassment prompted Mr. Cuomo to resign. Emily’s List endorsed Ms. James’s campaign for attorney general in 2018, touting her as a candidate who “always had the back of every New Yorker, especially women.”The group, however, has also endorsed Ms. Hochul in past races for lieutenant governor and for a seat in Congress.In many ways, Ms. Hochul is a natural candidate for Emily’s List to back. She has been a stalwart supporter of abortion rights for decades, and achieved a historic first in a state that has resisted elevating women to some top offices.Ms. Hochul, who is Catholic, has made abortion rights a priority of her young administration. After Texas last month instituted a ban on any abortions after six weeks, the governor declared New York a “safe harbor” for women from the state. She also vowed to implement New York’s 2019 Reproductive Health Act, including drawing up a patient bill of rights.The endorsement is the latest sign that Ms. Hochul, the only Democrat who has formally entered the race for governor, is moving swiftly to amass resources and support in hopes of altering the shape of the primary field.In recent weeks, she has locked down endorsements from the Democratic Governors Association, the chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, and nearly two dozen other leaders of party county committees. She has hired a campaign manager and key consultants. And she has set a blistering fund-raising pace to try to raise $10 million or more by the end of the year from many of the state’s largest political donors.So far, the hard-charging approach, coupled with Ms. Hochul’s performance as governor, appear to be paying dividends with voters.A Marist College poll released on Tuesday showed Ms. Hochul with a considerable head-to-head edge over her potential opponents if the election were to take place today. But that could change should Ms. James or another candidate formally enter the race. More

Mr. Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, is weighing a run for governor of Oregon, the state where he grew up.After 37 years at The New York Times as a reporter, high-level editor and opinion columnist, Nicholas Kristof is leaving the newspaper as he considers running for governor of Oregon, a top Times editor said in a note to the staff on Thursday.Mr. Kristof, 62, has been on leave from The Times since June, when he told company executives that he was weighing a run for governor in the state where he grew up. On Tuesday, he filed to organize a candidate committee with Oregon’s secretary of state, signaling that his interest was serious.In the email to the staff announcing his departure, Kathleen Kingsbury, The Times’s opinion editor, wrote that Mr. Kristof had redefined the role of opinion columnist and credited him with “elevating the journalistic form to a new height of public service with a mix of incisive reporting, profound empathy and a determination to bear witness to those struggling and suffering across the globe.”Mr. Kristof, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, joined The Times in 1984 as a reporter and later became an associate managing editor, responsible for the Sunday editions. He started his column in 2001.“This has been my dream job, even with malaria, a plane crash in Congo and periodic arrests abroad for committing journalism,” Mr. Kristof said in a statement included in the note announcing his departure. “Yet here I am, resigning — very reluctantly.”In July, Mr. Kristof, who grew up on a sheep and cherry farm in Yamhill, Ore., said in a statement that friends were recruiting him to succeed Kate Brown, a Democrat, who has been Oregon’s governor since 2015 and is prevented from running again by the state law.“Nick is one of the finest journalists of his generation,” A.G. Sulzberger, The Times’s publisher, said in a statement. “As a reporter and columnist he has long embodied the best values of our profession. He is as empathetic as he is fearless. He is as open-minded as he is principled. He didn’t just bear witness, he forced attention to issues and people that others were all too comfortable ignoring.”As part of the announcement, Ms. Kingsbury noted that Mr. Kristof had been on leave from his column in accordance with Times guidelines, which forbid participation in many aspects of public life. “Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics,” the handbook states.Mr. Kristof, a former Beijing bureau chief, won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1990, for international reporting, an award he shared with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, a former reporter, for their coverage of the protests at Tiananmen Square and the crackdown by China’s military. The second, in 2006, recognized his columns on the Darfur conflict in Sudan, which the International Criminal Court has classified as a genocide.Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn have written several books together. The most recent, “Tightrope,” published last year, examines the lives of people in Yamhill, a once-prosperous blue-collar town that went into decline when jobs disappeared and poverty, drug addiction and suicides were on the rise.“I’ve gotten to know presidents and tyrants, Nobel laureates and warlords, while visiting 160 countries,” Mr. Kristof said in his statement on Thursday. “And precisely because I have a great job, outstanding editors and the best readers, I may be an idiot to leave. But you all know how much I love Oregon, and how much I’ve been seared by the suffering of old friends there. So I’ve reluctantly concluded that I should try not only to expose problems but also see if I can fix them directly.” More

Mr. Shapiro, the state’s attorney general and a Democratic candidate for governor, has been on the forefront of legal efforts to defend the 2020 election.Thirty seconds into his official campaign for governor in Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro wanted to talk about voting rights.The newly minted Democratic candidate announced his expected candidacy for governor in a two-minute video that quickly turned to the issue. It’s a topic he knows well: As the attorney general in Pennsylvania, Mr. Shapiro has been defending against a torrent of lawsuits filed by Donald J. Trump and his allies after the former president’s 2020 election loss.The 2022 races for governor in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have been viewed by Democrats as a sea wall against a rising Republican tide of voting restrictions and far-reaching election laws. All three states have Republican-controlled legislatures that attempted to pass new voting laws but were blocked by the threat of a veto, and feature Republican candidates who have advocated for new voting laws.Pennsylvania is the only state with an open race, as current Gov. Tom Wolf is term limited from running again. Mr. Wolf threw his support behind Mr. Shapiro years before he announced, helping to clear the Democratic field.We spoke to Mr. Shapiro Wednesday as he traveled to his homecoming rally in Montgomery County.This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.Your announcement video focuses first and foremost on threats to democracy. How do you run on that as a candidate?JOSH SHAPIRO: Voting rights will be a central issue in this election. And it certainly will be a central focus of my campaign. There’s a clear contrast between me and my dozen or so Republican opponents. They’re out peddling the big lie, and kind of pass these far-right litmus tests with their audits. And they’re doing real destruction to our democracy. I believe that a central focus of this campaign will be on the preservation of our democracy, and the protection of voting rights.Do you worry about overhyping threats to democracy, especially as national Democrats in Congress remain in a stalemate and aren’t taking drastic steps to address it?I think our democracy is truly being threatened. The only reason Pennsylvania has not suffered the way Texas and Georgia have with rollbacks of voting rights is because of the veto pen of our governor. We need to protect voting rights. And I’d like to work with people of both parties to expand voting rights.What do you think Democratic candidates and you should be focusing on, specifically when talking about these threats to voting rights around the country?I don’t think I can speak for any other candidate, I can only speak for me. I’m a proud Pennsylvania Democrat, and here in Pennsylvania, we were the birthplace of our democracy. And we have a special responsibility here to protect it. And I believe that the next governor in Pennsylvania will have profound responsibility to do that work. You know where I stand: expand voting rights, protect our democracy. You reference “working across the aisle” in your speech Wednesday in Pittsburgh. But with a Pennsylvania legislature you’re currently suing over an attempt to gain private voter information, how do you plan to work with them?I sued those Republican Pennsylvania senators because I believe they’re breaking the law by compromising the private information of 9 million Pennsylvania voters. And indeed, today, as attorney general, I’ll be filing a reply brief in that case. But the reason I think I can work with them and others is that I have a long track record throughout my career of bringing sides together, finding common ground and getting things done to benefit Pennsylvanians.But is there any aspect of voting rights where you have seen common ground with Republicans in the state legislature?I’ve talked to Republican commissioners, state lawmakers and election officials who have all said to me, let’s pass a law that allows us to do precanvassing of mail-in ballots the way they do in Florida and North Carolina and Ohio, for example. That’s an example of where we can find common ground.The California recall election showed how quickly allegations of “rigged elections” are cast about. How do you view governing in an era where winners are viewed as illegitimate by some of their constituents?Unfortunately, Republican leaders here in Pennsylvania have been lying to their constituents for the last 10 months, lying to them about the election, lying to them about the results, when the truth is we had a safe and secure, free and fair election in Pennsylvania. So it’s not surprising to me that some people in the public question things when their leaders have been lying to them. Leaders have a responsibility to speak truth. That is what I have tried to do as attorney general. And what I certainly will do as governor. The public deserves nothing less. Democrats around the country found success in 2018 with a focus on health care, drug prices and jobs. Now that focus seems lost amid infrastructure and a reconciliation bill. Are you concerned about running without a national cohesive message for Democrats?I’m running as a Pennsylvania Democrat, with a clear message of taking on the big fights, bringing people together and delivering real results to the people of Pennsylvania. That’s the focus of my campaign.OK, so, would that involve 2018 messages like health care and jobs? Or has it changed to something else?The national issues you’re talking about are not my focus. What is my focus is issues on the ground here in Pennsylvania. I just talked in Pittsburgh, for example, about how we need to rebuild our infrastructure, repair roads and bridges and connect every Pennsylvanian to the internet from Waynesburg in southwestern Pennsylvania to West Philadelphia. Really taking advantage of our universities to be able to become centers of innovation. Making sure we deal with some of the systemic inequities in our education and health care system here in Pennsylvania. Those are the issues that I’m focused on, and those are the issues that I know are important to the good people of Pennsylvania.But I believe, going back to the first question you asked, it makes it harder to get at those issues if we don’t shore up our democracy. And that is why I think democracy and voting rights is such a central theme. And if we can make sure that our democracy is shored up, then we can work through these other critically important issues. More

It’s been nine months since the Capitol attack, and we still don’t have true accountability. Representative Adam Schiff and the rest of the Jan. 6 House select committee are issuing subpoenas to key witnesses, including Steve Bannon, Dan Scavino and two “Stop the Steal” rally organizers. “No one is off the table,” Schiff says.But in a political ecosystem that is defined in part by the spread of misinformation and polarization on platforms like Facebook and the power of right-wing media outlets like Fox News and One America News Network, how much will a congressional investigation actually move the needle on a democracy at risk? Especially when the effort — billed as bipartisan — has only two Republican members?[You can listen to this episode of “Sway” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]In this conversation, Kara Swisher presses Schiff on the Jan. 6 committee’s ability to bring about change and its efforts to subpoena key witnesses. As Swisher points out, “Issuing subpoenas is one thing, but getting people to comply is another” — and that is proving more difficult as Donald Trump advises allies to defy the committee. They also discuss the Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen, how Schiff wishes Mark Zuckerberg would have replied to questions about the platform’s role in amplifying polarization and whether Trump will run in 2024. And Schiff reflects on the former president’s nicknames for him.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThoughts? Email us at [email protected].“Sway” is produced by Nayeema Raza, Blakeney Schick, Matt Kwong, Daphne Chen and Caitlin O’Keefe, and edited by Nayeema Raza; fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Michelle Harris and Kristin Lin; music and sound design by Isaac Jones; mixing by Carole Sabouraud and Sonia Herrero; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Mahima Chablani. More

It’s Thursday. We’ll look at how Eric Adams, the likely next mayor, has been keeping a low profile. And a rockabilly star is getting his distinctive black-and-pink bass back, 39 years after it was stolen.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesWhere in the world is Eric Adams, the Democratic candidate for mayor?My colleague Katie Glueck writes that Adams’s team sometimes leaves reporters guessing about how he spends his time — in contrast to elected officials like Gov. Kathy Hochul. Her aides send out daily schedules listing everything from ribbon-cuttings and parades to news briefings.Such schedules can be an essential tool for the editors and news directors planning coverage as they decide where to send reporters or crews — and thus how to inform readers, listeners or viewers.For elected officials, the announcements capitalize on their incumbency, keeping them in the public eye even when they do not make headlines. For a campaign not to do everything it can to publicize a candidate’s schedule is a departure from the way other politicians engage with the press and the public, not just in New York but also nationally.But as of Tuesday, with Election Day three weeks away, Adams’s campaign had released no more than five public schedules in October. His one planned appearance last weekend was in his capacity as the Brooklyn borough president — a visit to the Federation of Italian-American Organizations of Brooklyn.On Monday, Hochul and Mayor Bill de Blasio both marched in the Columbus Day parade, as their schedules had said they would. But Adams did not, and his whereabouts remain unknown. A spokesman said he was organizing with volunteers. His campaign released no public schedule that day. By contrast, Curtis Sliwa, the long-shot Republican candidate, has issued a public events schedule almost every day this month.Adams recently said in an interview with NY1 that he was participating in 13 events a day and canvassing until 1 a.m. Asked for a snapshot of Adams’s full schedule in recent weeks, a campaign spokesman, Evan Thies, did not provide one, instead offering a list of 21 public events that he said Adams had attended since Labor Day, some as a candidate, some as the borough president.Neither his campaign nor his government office sent word in advance about many of those events. Adams’s campaign said he had also attended events with volunteers and voters that were not on the list.This is not the first time Adams has faced questions about details of his schedule: His team had declined to say where he spent some vacation time this summer (Monaco, according to Politico).While most candidates do not publicize every detail of their days, the scattershot way in which Adams’s team has communicated his activities has made it difficult to gauge the full extent of his engagement with the campaign. Adams, long a highly visible fixture in Brooklyn, has frequently shown up at community and political gatherings in appearances that his campaign did not advertise. But clearly he has not been hitting the trail each day in the final month of the contest.In October 2013, the last month of the last open-seat mayoral race, de Blasio was hardly barnstorming the five boroughs day after day. But he released a near-daily public schedule of events as he rolled out endorsements, marched in parades and delivered speeches.Adams and his team reject any suggestion that his schedule is anything less than full — even if they do not always send it out. “Eric is working hard from early in the morning until very late at night,” Thies said, adding that the candidate is meeting voters and volunteers “and holding events to ensure the working people who support him win on Election Day.”“He is also spending significant time preparing to be mayor should he be successful on Nov. 2, meeting with government, nonprofit and business leaders to ensure he is ready to lead New York,” Thies added.WeatherWe’re having a heat wave — for October — but it’s not a tropical heat wave. The warm air that will push temps into the mid-70s is not coming from that far away. We’ll have another partly cloudy evening in the mid-60s.alternate-side parkingIn effect until Nov. 1 (All Saints Day).The latest New York newsKatrina Brownlee was abused, shot and left for dead. Told she’d never walk again, she went on to have a 20-year career with the N.Y.P.D.Margaret Garnett, the commissioner of the New York City agency responsible for rooting out corruption in local government, will leave her post. She will become the No. 2 official in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan.The $2.1 Billion La Guardia AirTrain project is on hold after Gov. Kathy Hochul called for a review of alternatives. The AirTrain was a favorite of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo.Return to previous owner: A bass stolen in 1982Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesNot quite 40 years later, Smutty Smiff is getting his bass back — the shiny black one with “SMUTTY” printed in pink letters across the bottom.To recap: One night in 1982, a van loaded with all the instruments of the Rockats, the pre-eminent rockabilly band of the downtown New York music scene, was stolen outside a diner near the Holland Tunnel. Among the missing gear was the bass.This summer, someone who remembered the Rockats noticed the bass in a Jersey City pawnshop and posted a picture on Facebook. The bass was not for sale — the pawnshop owner, Manny Vidal, a bass player himself at the time, had traded his own electric bass for it not long after the van disappeared, unaware that he was getting stolen goods.The Times published a story about it last week, and on Monday, the pawnshop owner decided to return the bass to Smutty, who lives in Iceland and called our writer Helene Stapinski from the homeless shelter in Reykjavik where he now works. The band’s guitarist, Barry Ryan, offered to pick up the instrument for safekeeping. Smutty decided not to have it shipped to Iceland — even though a GoFundMe page set up after the article appeared raised $3,000 — because the Rockats will be playing in New York next year.The outcome had “kind of restored my belief in humanity and karma,” Smutty said from Reykjavik. He said that he felt bad for Vidal, who became a target of social media posts and angry telephone calls, but had no hard feelings toward him.Ryan, whose Gretsch Country Gentleman guitar was stolen with the bass and rest of the Rockats’ gear in 1982, wants Vidal to keep his eye peeled. “If you see my Gretsch, give me a shout,” he said, “and we’ll start this story all over again.”What we’re readingViolent crime rates were up even as N.Y.P.D. officers logged more overtime hours than any other major city in the country, Bloomberg reports.During a sentencing hearing, the owner of a longtime Manhattan gallery acknowledged that much about his antiquities business was an elaborate scam.There are 274 streets listed in the Department of Transportation’s Open Streets program. Only 126 of them are functional, Gothamist reports.MetROPOLITAN diarySharingDear Diary:I ordered a ride-share car to take me back to the Upper West Side from Queens. When it showed up, to my delight, the first female driver I’d ever had was at the wheel.We soon made another stop to pick up an elegantly dressed woman. When she slipped into the car, the driver and I remarked on how wonderful she looked and asked whether it was a special occasion.“It’s my first date after my divorce,” the woman said, acknowledging that she was nervous.Knowing our role in this moment, the driver and I expressed our confidence. The driver volunteered that she was about to get married again, 35 years after her first wedding. She said she had found someone who adored her.“You have to hold out for love!” she said.The attention then turned to me now.“Me?” I said. “I’m single. No one in my life at the moment.”The driver smiled at me in the rearview mirror:“No one yet,” she said, “but you’re in New York City, honey!”— Annie FoxIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Read more Metropolitan Diary here. Submit Your Metropolitan DiaryYour story must be connected to New York City and no longer than 300 words. An editor will contact you if your submission is being considered for publication.

Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero, Rick Martinez and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected] up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

Young people who are unregistered or do not vote consistently are the focus of an ambitious new push to turn Texas blue, a long-elusive goal for Democrats.HOUSTON — Cristina Tzintzún-Ramirez is convinced she knows the secret to turning Texas blue.Young people.When she applied to lead NextGen America, a liberal group backed by the billionaire and former presidential candidate Tom Steyer, she made two things clear. She was not leaving Austin, and the organization would have to spend time and money in Texas.And she was focused on a magic number: 631,000 votes. That was the margin of victory for Republicans in the state in 2020.Now, NextGen is targeting nearly 2 million voters in Texas: 1.1 million voters between the ages of 18 and 30 who are registered to vote but have not cast ballots consistently in recent elections; another 277,000 young voters who did not vote in 2020; and 565,000 people they have identified as “young progressives” who are unregistered. If just a third of the total turns out to vote — roughly 633,000 people — it would be enough for Democrats to overcome the Republican margin.“We have a huge number of young people who are not yet registered to vote, so we need to make them believe in their own power,” said Ms. Tzintzún-Ramirez, who is now the president of NextGen and who has worked in Texas politics for more than 15 years. “People believed demography is destiny, but we actually have to go out and convince those people to vote.”The organization is planning to spend nearly $16 million in Texas over the next two years to register new voters and get them to the polls in the 2022 midterm elections. The project marks some of the most significant Democratic spending in Texas that targets the young people the party hopes will help it break the Republican grip on the state.But Democrats have a steep hill to climb. The goal of flipping Texas, the country’s largest Republican-controlled state, has long eluded Democrats, after years of their party spending little to nothing, partisan gerrymandering making it more difficult for them to win elections and a statehouse that is effectively leading the Republican right flank.And Republicans enthusiastically keep the money flowing freely in the state: Gov. Greg Abbott raised nearly $19 million during the last 10 days of June alone, more money than NextGen plans to spend in the state in the next two years. Several of those checks to the governor were for $1 million, a regular occurrence for Republicans in Texas, where there are no donation limits in statewide races.“Money is not everything, but it’s a lot better than nothing,” said Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and a former presidential candidate. “It’s crucial to getting the numbers up, when you have so many people who are infrequent voters — voter registration drives cost money.”Cristina Tzintzún-Ramirez believes that young people are more motivated by issues than by individual candidates.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesMs. Tzintzún-Ramirez believes that young people are more motivated by issues than by individual candidates, and that the work of the group will supplement any campaign spending. Most campaigns, Ms. Tzintzún-Ramirez said, focus on reliable voters or swing voters, and “mobilizing young people doesn’t fit into that equation and simply isn’t cost effective for most campaigns.”Last year, roughly 50 percent of people under the age of 30 voted in the presidential election, an 11-point increase from 2016, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. Texas is the second-largest state in the country, and its population is also one of the youngest and most diverse, census data shows. People of color accounted for 95 percent of the state’s growth in the last decade, and white Texans now make up less than 40 percent of the state’s population.Flooding the state with money may not be enough at a time when the Democratic Party in Texas faces significant hurdles — flagging voter enthusiasm, shifting political attitudes, tighter voting restrictions and redistricting that favors Republicans. And while demographics have long been seen as a boon to Democrats as the state grows more diverse, a significant number of Hispanic voters near the border swung toward Republicans in the last election.For Republicans who believe the talk of flipping the state is nothing but Democratic hype, those seven-figure donations to their own party reflect the enthusiasm for the G.O.P.“Money certainly makes a difference, but Democrats have over and over again claimed that Texas was on the verge of turning blue only to have their hopes dashed,” said Senator Ted Cruz, who criticized Beto O’Rourke in their 2018 Senate race for attracting so many donations from liberals in other parts of the country.The difficulty for Democrats was on full display during a rally kicking off NextGen’s voter registration efforts at the University of Houston, where one Democratic leader after another took the stage to convince the small crowd of young voters’ power.But by the end, when Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green, two Black members of Congress, took the stage, the limits of that power became clear.The Republicans who drew the draft of a new congressional map merged their two districts into one — raising the possibility that two of the longest-serving members of the state’s Democratic congressional delegation may be forced to run against each other. Ms. Jackson Lee and Mr. Green have objected to the redrawn map, saying it appears to be discriminatory.“We are going to have to fight,” Mr. Green said in an interview. “That will take protest. That will take energy. That will take resources. And we will get them.” Tom Steyer, the billionaire and former presidential candidate, founded NextGen in 2013. Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesTexas — with more than 650,000 millionaires, more than any other state except California — has long been a kind of A.T.M. for candidates from both parties in other parts of the country, often to the detriment of local candidates.Just eight years ago, when Paul Sadler ran for the Senate seat against Mr. Cruz, then a newcomer, national Democrats did next to nothing to support his campaign, he said. Mr. Cruz raised more than $14 million. Mr. Sadler never even reached $1 million.“They played absolutely no role,” Mr. Sadler, a former state legislator, said of national Democratic groups. “They took the map and wrote off Texas completely. I was extraordinarily disappointed. They wouldn’t even try.”Instead, he said, national Democratic leaders treated Texas like a piggy bank, raising money from donors who lived there for campaigns in other states. “Nobody believed Texas could be won, but it is a different place today,” he said.Indeed, the margins for Republicans have shrunk or stayed the same in presidential elections in Texas over the last decade. In 2012, Republican Senator Mitt Romney won Texas with 57 percent of the vote. In 2016, Donald J. Trump earned 52 percent. Last year, Mr. Trump again won 52 percent.Democratic spending has at the same time grown over the last several cycles: While about $75 million went to Democratic candidates in the state in 2016, roughly $213 million went to Democratic candidates in 2020. That 2020 number was still dwarfed by the $388 million spent on Republican candidates, according to Open Secrets, which tracks political spending across the country.Because of Texas’ size, both Democrats and Republicans spend more money there than in nearly any other state in the country. But the percentage spent on Democratic candidates is one of the lowest in the country. Roughly 35 percent of all political spending in Texas goes toward Democrats, according to Open Secrets. In Wisconsin, a key swing state in every election, 49 percent goes toward Democrats.There have been some high-profile attempts at investing in the state before: Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign spent several million dollars for Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential primary. In 2014, Battleground Texas, an effort led by former Obama aides, spent millions — only to have every Democrat lose in statewide elections.Rafael Anchia, a Democratic state lawmaker from Dallas who is the chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said Mr. O’Rourke’s campaign was the only statewide Democratic effort in recent memory with a large enough budget to reach across the state. Mr. Anchia said that like other Texas Democrats, he has made the case to national funders that the state could be competitive.“No longer is Texas considered this fool’s gold,” he said. “It has demographics similar to California’s but has been a low-turnout, low-voting state.”Claudia Yoli Ferla, executive director of MOVE Texas, rallies the crowd at a NextGen event in Houston.  Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesOne of the most difficult hurdles to overcome may be apathy. At a NextGen organizing meeting in McAllen, along the Mexican border, several students said their biggest challenge would be convincing their peers to vote at all.“People see politics as this uncomfortable conversation, or something that really doesn’t impact them at all,” said Rebecca Rivera, 21, a student at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. “They have lost their faith in government, or didn’t ever really have it to begin with.” More

Mr. Adams, the likely next mayor of New York City, has kept a light public campaign schedule in recent weeks, allowing him to raise funds and plan a new administration.For decades, the Columbus Day Parade in New York City has been a must-stop destination for politicians and aspiring politicians — so much so that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s decision to skip it in 2002 drove headlines for days.This year’s gathering, even factoring in the growing controversy around the holiday, appeared to be no different: Mayor Bill de Blasio showed up and sustained some taunts. Gov. Kathy Hochul and some would-be primary rivals were in attendance. Curtis Sliwa, the long-shot Republican mayoral contender, also made his way along the Manhattan route.But Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City and the Brooklyn borough president, did not attend the parade on Monday. His whereabouts was unclear: Mr. Adams did not release any kind of public schedule that day.Indeed, Mr. Adams, who secured the Democratic mayoral nomination in July and is virtually certain to win next month’s general election, has been a relatively rare presence on the campaign trail in recent weeks. To his allies, Mr. Adams’s scant public schedule suggests an above-the-fray posture that has allowed him to focus on fund-raising, preparing to govern and cementing vital relationships he will need in office. But it also amounts to a cautious approach that lowers the risk of an impolitic remark, and limits media scrutiny of the man on track to assume one of the most powerful positions in the country.As of Tuesday — three weeks from Election Day — Mr. Adams’s campaign had released no more than five public schedules in October, with a few more government-related advisories issued by his borough president’s office. He announced no campaign events over the weekend; the only advertised stop was a visit to the Federation of Italian-American Organizations of Brooklyn, in his government capacity.Curtis Sliwa, the Republican mayoral candidate, has a public events schedule for almost every day in October.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesBy contrast, a review of most of Mr. de Blasio’s public campaign schedules from early October 2013 — during the last open-seat mayoral race in New York — shows that while he was hardly barnstorming the five boroughs each day, he released a near-daily public schedule of events as he rolled out endorsements, marched in parades and gave speeches.“Regardless of the likely outcome, it never hurts to ask voters for their support, run up your numbers and head to City Hall claiming a strong mandate,” said Monica Klein, a political strategist who has worked on many Democratic campaigns, including for Mr. de Blasio. “You don’t want to win by default, even if you’re running against a guy with 16 cats.”Mr. Adams and his team strongly reject any suggestion that he is pursuing anything less than a frenetic schedule — even if they do not always broadcast his events. Indeed, Mr. Adams, long a highly visible fixture in his home borough of Brooklyn, has frequently shown up at community and political gatherings across the city in appearances that his campaign did not advertise.He recently claimed in an interview with NY1 that he is participating in 13 events a day and canvassing until 1 a.m. Asked for an accounting of Mr. Adams’s schedule in recent weeks, a campaign spokesman, Evan Thies, instead offered a list of 21 public events — a mix of government business and campaign activities — that he said Mr. Adams had attended since Labor Day. The list, the campaign said, did not include events Mr. Adams has attended with volunteers and voters, or extensive media interviews. Asked how Mr. Adams spent his day Monday, Mr. Thies said he was organizing with volunteers.“Eric is working hard from early in the morning until very late at night,” Mr. Thies said, meeting voters and volunteers “and holding events to ensure the working people who support him win on Election Day.”“He is also spending significant time preparing to be mayor should he be successful on Nov. 2, meeting with government, nonprofit and business leaders to ensure he is ready to lead New York,” Mr. Thies added. But while public officials and candidates seeking office typically distribute their daily schedules in media advisories, Mr. Adams’s campaign or government office did not widely publicize a notable number of the events Mr. Thies referenced.The opaque nature of how Mr. Adams spends his time makes it difficult to gauge the full extent of his engagement with the mayoral race — but he does not appear to have been hitting the trail each day in the final month of the contest.It also raises the question of how transparent Mr. Adams will be about his activities if he becomes mayor. (Mr. Adams has already faced other questions about details of his schedule: His team declined to say where he was vacationing this summer, and he has confronted significant scrutiny over his residency.)Mr. Thies did not directly respond to a question about the kinds of commitments Mr. Adams was prepared to make regarding the public schedules he will release should he win.“We do not always advise campaign events and appearances because hosts and participants would prefer we do not, and often campaign strategy is discussed,” Mr. Thies said of the current race. “But Eric believes it is very important that members of the media have regular access to him to ask questions on behalf of the public, which is why he holds frequent press conferences and daily interviews with individual reporters.”A day after skipping the Columbus Day Parade, Mr. Adams appeared in Brooklyn to promote a plan to increase access to nutritious food.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesMr. Adams was on the campaign trail Tuesday, visiting an urban farm to discuss how to provide underserved New Yorkers with better access to nutritious food and preventive health care. He has also highlighted policy proposals around issues including public safety, boosting the economy and housing, and his team and other allies stress that he is deeply focused on the transition.“I know for a fact he is working to form his administration, putting all the pieces together to hit the ground running,” said State Senator John C. Liu, who attended a rally for Mr. Adams last week.There are signs that Mr. Adams is beginning to accelerate his public schedule, announcing appearances on both Tuesday and Wednesday. He is also using his significant war chest to start broadcasting campaign advertisements.The heavily Democratic tilt of New York City — it is even more Democratic now than when Mr. de Blasio first ran for mayor — means that virtually no political expert in the city sees the race as competitive, and many Democrats are sanguine about Mr. Adams’s apparent public campaign style.In part, that is because many see Mr. Sliwa as a far less credible opponent than Joseph J. Lhota, Mr. de Blasio’s 2013 Republican rival who had chaired the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and Mr. de Blasio still won that race by nearly 50 percentage points.“Curtis Sliwa isn’t a serious human,” said Bill Hyers, who was Mr. de Blasio’s campaign manager in 2013. “It’s not really a race anymore. It’s all about getting ready to transition to governance.”Fernando Ferrer, the 2005 Democratic nominee, added of Mr. Adams, “He’s doing exactly what he should be doing right now: He is tying his coalition together and solidifying it, he’s finished raising money, he’s keeping support in place. Focus on a campaign with Curtis Sliwa of all people? Excuse me.”There will be opportunities for Mr. Adams to do so: Two general election debates are scheduled, the first set for Oct. 20, three days before the start of early voting. Certainly, there have already been the occasional clashes between the candidates: Mr. Adams has called Mr. Sliwa, who has admitted to fabricating incidents of fighting crime, a “racist” who is engaged in “antics”; Mr. Sliwa hectors Mr. Adams often.In a brief phone call, Mr. Sliwa, who has issued a public events schedule almost every day this month, described Mr. Adams as “M.I.A., he’s invisible.”“It’s a major difference from when he was out during the primaries,” he added.Mr. Sliwa also defended his own electoral prospects.“Normally they think Republicans are like, ‘Oh, they’re going to cater to Wall Street, Fortune 500, hedge fund monsters,’” Mr. Sliwa said, suggesting he was a different kind of Republican. “It’s going to be a surprise to all of them, because I have support in places where generally Republicans don’t have support.”In some ways, Mr. Adams’s approach is not so different from the campaign conducted by President Biden in the last weeks of the presidential contest as the pandemic raged last fall.“It’s like the Rose Garden strategy the president would have, it’s the same approach,” said Mr. Lhota, who is now a Democrat. “Somebody that has a substantial lead doesn’t need to do as many events, doesn’t need to get their name out as frequently.”Michael M. Grynbaum, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Dana Rubinstein and Tracey Tully contributed reporting. More