Elections

A highly charged ideological transition reflecting a “massive four-decade-long shift in political values and attitudes among more educated people — a shift from concern with traditional materialist issues like redistribution to a concern for public goods like the environment and diversity” is a driving force in the battle between left and right, according to Richard Florida, an urbanologist at the University of Toronto.This ideological transition has been accompanied by the concentration of liberal elites in urban centers, Florida continued in an email,brought on by the dramatic shift to a knowledge economy, which expresses itself on the left as “wokeness” and on the right as populism. I worry that the middle is dropping out of American politics. This is not just an economic or cultural or political phenomenon, it is inextricably geographic or spatial as different groups pack and cluster into different kinds of communities.Recent decades have witnessed what Dennis Chong, a political scientist at the University of Southern California, describes in an email as “a demographic realignment of political tolerance in the U.S. that first became evident in the late 1980s-early 1990s.”Before that, Chong pointed out, “the college educated, and younger generations, were among the most tolerant groups in the society of all forms of social and political nonconformity.” Since the 1990s, “these groups have become significantly less tolerant of hate speech pertaining to race, gender and social identities.”Chong argued that “the expansion of equal rights for racial and ethnic minorities, women, L.G.B.T.Q. and other groups that have suffered discrimination has caused a re-evaluation of the harms of slurs and other derogatory expressions in professional and social life.”The result?“In a striking reversal,” Chong wrote, “liberals are now consistently less tolerant than conservatives of a wide range of controversial speech about racial, gender and religious identities.”Pippa Norris, a lecturer in comparative politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School — together with Ronald Inglehart, a political scientist at the University of Michigan who died in May — has explored this extraordinary shift from materialist to postmaterialist values in advanced countries, the movement from a focus on survival to a focus on self-expression, which reflects profound changes in a society’s existential conditions, including in the United States.In an Aug. 21 paper, “Cancel Culture: Myth or Reality?” Norris writes, “In postindustrial societies characterized by predominately liberal social cultures, like the U.S., Sweden, and U.K., right-wing scholars were most likely to perceive that they faced an increasingly chilly climate.”Using data from a global survey, World of Political Science, 2019, Norris created a “Cancel Culture Index” based on political scientists’ responses to three questions asking whether “aspects of academic life had got better, no change, or got worse, using the 5-point scale: 1. Respect for open debate from diverse perspectives, 2. Pressures to be ‘politically correct’ and 3. Academic freedom to teach and research.”Using this measure, Norris found that “American scholars on the moderate right and far right report experiencing worsening pressures to be politically correct, limits on academic freedom and a lack of respect for open debate,” compared with the views of moderate and more left-wing scholars:The proportion of those holding traditionally socially conservative values has gradually experienced a tipping point in recent decades, as this group shifts from hegemonic to minority status on college campuses and in society, heightening ideological and partisan polarization. In this regard, the reported experience of a chilly climate in academia among right-wing scholars seems likely to reflect their reactions to broader cultural and structural shifts in postindustrial societies.Inglehart, in his 2018 book, “The Rise of Postmaterialist Values in the West and the World,” described how increasing affluence and economic security, especially for educated elites, have beentransforming the politics and cultural norms of advanced industrial societies. A shift from materialist to postmaterialist value priorities has brought new political issues to the center of the stage and provided much of the impetus for new political movements. It has split existing political parties and given rise to new ones and it is changing the criteria by which people evaluate their subjective sense of well-being.Eric Kaufmann, a political scientist at the University of London and the author of “Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities,” argued in a series of emails that the views of white liberals are shaped by their distinctive set of priorities. In contrast to white conservatives, Kaufmann wrote, “white liberals have low attachment to traditional collective identities (race, nation, religion) but as high attachment to moral values and political beliefs as conservatives. This makes the latter most salient for them.” According to Kaufmann, white liberals “have invested heavily in universalist ethical values.”Matthias Jung/laif, via ReduxIn Kaufmann’s view, a new, assertive ideology has emerged on the left, and the strength of this wing is reflected in its ability to influence the decision making of university administrators:In universities, only 10 percent of social science and humanities faculty support cancellation (firing, suspension or other severe punishments) of those with controversial views on race and gender, with about half opposed and 40 percent neither supporting nor opposed. And yet, this does not appear to cut through to the administrations, who often discipline staff.On Sept. 4, The Economist published a cover story, “The Illiberal Left: How Did American ‘Wokeness’ Jump From Elite Schools to Everyday Life?” that argues that there is:a loose constellation of ideas that is changing the way that mostly white, educated, left-leaning Americans view the world. This credo still lacks a definitive name: it is variously known as left-liberal identity politics, social-justice activism or, simply, wokeness.From another angle, Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at Harvard and a former Obama administration official, asks in “The Power of the Normal,” a 2018 paper:Why do we come to see political or other conduct as acceptable, when we had formerly seen it as unacceptable, immoral, or even horrific? Why do shifts occur in the opposite direction? What accounts for the power of “the new normal”?Sunstein is especially concerned with how new norms expand in scope:Once conduct comes to be seen as part of an unacceptable category — abusiveness, racism, lack of patriotism, microaggression, sexual harassment — real or apparent exemplars that are not so egregious, or perhaps not objectionable at all, might be taken as egregious, because they take on the stigma now associated with the category.Sunstein is careful to note, “It is important to say that on strictly normative grounds, the less horrific cases might also be horrific.”A key player in this process is what Sunstein calls “the opprobrium entrepreneur.” The motivations of opprobrium entrepreneurs:may well be altruistic. They might think that certain forms of mistreatment are as bad as, or nearly as bad as, what are taken to the prototypical cases, and they argue that the underlying concept (abuse, bullying, prejudice), properly conceived, picks up their cases as well. Their goal is to create some kind of cascade, informational or reputational, by which the concept moves in their preferred direction. In the context of abuse, bullying, prejudice, and sexual harassment, both informational and reputational cascades have indeed occurred.Sunstein cites “microaggressions” as an area that “has exploded,” writing:At one point, the University of California at Berkeley signaled its willingness to consider disciplining people for making one of a large number of statements,” including “America is a melting pot,” “Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough,” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”Opprobrium entrepreneurs can be found on both sides of the aisle.Jeffrey Adam Sachs, a political scientist at Acadia University, has written about a flood tide of Republican-sponsored bills in state legislatures designed to prohibit teaching of “everything from feminism and racial equity to calls for decolonization.” In an article in February, “The New War On Woke,” Sachs wrote:One of the principal criticisms of today’s left-wing culture is that it suppresses unpopular speech. In response, these bills would make left-wing speech illegal. Conservatives (falsely) call universities ‘brainwashing factories’ and fret about the death of academic freedom. Their solution is to fire professors they don’t like.Sachs’ bottom line: “Once you let government get into the censorship business, no speech is safe.”Zachary Goldberg, a graduate student at Georgia State, has researched “the moral, emotional and technological underpinnings of the ‘Great Awokening’ — the rapid and recent liberalization of racial and immigration attitudes among white liberals and Democrats” for his doctoral thesis.Goldberg has produced data from the 2020 American National Election Studies survey showing that white liberals, in contrast to white moderates and conservatives, rate minorities higher on what political scientists call a thermometer scale than they do whites.One of the less recognized factors underlying efforts by conservatives and liberals to enforce partisan orthodoxy lies in the pressure to maintain party loyalty at a time when the Democrats and Republicans are struggling to manage coalitions composed of voters with an ever-expanding number of diverse commitments — economic, cultural, racial — that often do not cohere.Jonathan Rodden, a Stanford political scientist, elaborated in an email:For issue activists and party leaders in the United States, management of internal party heterogeneity is a central task. In order to get what they want, the core of “true believers” on issue x must develop strategies for managing those with more moderate or even opposing views, who identify with the party primarily because of issue y. One strategy is persuasion on issue x via messaging, from social media to partisan cable television, aimed at wayward co-partisans. Another is to demonize the out-party on issue y in an effort to convince voters that even if they disagree with the in-party on issue x, the costs of allowing the out-party to win are simply too high. A final strategy is to relentlessly enforce norms by shaming and ostracizing nonconformists.I asked William Galston, a senior fellow at Brookings who has written extensively about Democratic Party conflicts, what role he sees white liberal elites playing in the enforcement of progressive orthodoxies. He wrote back:You ask specifically about “white liberal elites.” I wonder whether the dominant sentiment is guilt as opposed to (say) fear and ambition. Many participants in these institutions are terrified of being caught behind a rapidly shifting social curve and of being charged with racism. As a result, they bend over backward to use the most up-to-date terminology and to lend public support to policies they may privately oppose. The fear of losing face within, or being expelled from, the community of their peers drives much of their behavior.For some white liberals, Galston continued:adopting cutting-edge policies on race can serve as a way of enhancing status among their peers and for a few, it is a way of exercising power over others. If you know that people within your institution are afraid to speak out, you can get them to go along with policies that they would have opposed in different circumstances.Instead of guilt, Galston argued, “this behavior is just as likely to reflect leadership that lacks purpose and core convictions and that seeks mainly to keep the ship afloat, wherever it may be headed.”“Amidst this sea of analytical uncertainties, I am increasingly confident of one thing: a backlash is building,” Galston wrote.The policies of elite private schools reported on the front page of The New York Times will not command majority support, even among white liberals. As awareness of such policies spreads, their conservative foes will pounce, and many white liberals who went along with them will be unwilling to defend them. The fate of defunding the police is a harbinger of things to come.Jonathan Haidt, a professor at N.Y.U.’s Stern School of Business, contends that a small constituency on the far left is playing an outsize role:Progressive activists make up 8 percent of the U.S. population, and they are the ones who frequently use terms like “white supremacy culture” and “power structures.” This group is the second whitest of all the groups (after the far right), yet they give the coldest “feeling thermometer” ratings to whites and the warmest to Blacks. In this group there does seem to be some true feelings of guilt and shame about being white.Haidt contends that “the animating emotion” for acquiescence to the demands of this type of progressive activist by those with less extreme views:is fear, not guilt or shame. I have heard from dozens of leaders of universities, companies, and other organizations in the last few years about the pressures they are under to enact D.E.I. (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies that are not supported by research, or to say things that they believe are not true. The vast majority of these people are on the left but are not progressive activists. They generally give in to pressure because the alternative is that they and their organization will be called racist, not just within the organization by their younger employees but on social media.How do things look now?“The First Amendment on Campus 2020 Report: College Students’ Views of Free Expression,” a study produced by the Knight Foundation based on a survey of 3,000 students, found strong support for free speech. The report noted that “68 percent regard citizens’ free speech rights as being ‘extremely important’ to democracy” and “that 81 percent support a campus environment where students are exposed to all types of speech, even if they may find it offensive.”At the same time, however, “Most college students believe efforts at diversity and inclusion ‘frequently’ (27 percent) or ‘occasionally’ (49 percent) come into conflict with free speech rights,” and “63 percent of students agree that the climate on their campus deters students from expressing themselves openly, up from 54 percent in 2016.”Similarly, according to the Knight survey, trends on social media from 2016 to 2020 were all negative:Fewer students now (29 percent) than in 2016 (41 percent) say discussion on social media is usually civil. More students than in the past agree that social media can stifle free speech — both because people block those whose views they disagree with (60 percent, up from 48 percent in 2016) and because people are afraid of being attacked or shamed by those who disagree with them (58 percent, up from 49 percent in 2016).It’s not too much to say that the social and cultural changes of the past four decades have been cataclysmic. The signs of it are everywhere. Donald Trump rode the coattails of these issues into office. Could he — or someone else who has been watching closely — do it again?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

Los votantes hispanos conforman una tercera parte del electorado estatal. El gobernador Gavin Newsom, que enfrenta una votación para retirarlo del cargo, no ha logrado conectar con ellos.LOS ÁNGELES — El poder de los latinos nunca ha sido tan fuerte en California.Son el grupo étnico más numeroso en el estado y constituyen aproximadamente el 30 por ciento de los votantes registrados. Desde hace décadas impulsan las victorias de los demócratas y han ayudado a que el partido obtenga supermayorías en ambas cámaras de la legislatura estatal, donde los senadores y asambleístas latinos ocupan puestos poderosos y han aprobado leyes que se destacan por su apertura hacia la inmigración.Pero ahora que el gobernador Gavin Newsom intenta mantenerse en el poder durante una elección revocatoria que se celebra en apenas unos días, los mismos votantes latinos con los que cuenta parecen indecisos y poco participativos ante la posibilidad de que lo retiren del cargo.En 2018, las encuestas de salida mostraron que Newsom contaba con el apoyo de alrededor de dos terceras partes del total de latinos. Ahora, los sondeos sugieren que los latinos están divididos casi en partes iguales sobre la elección revocatoria. Y hasta el momento, solo el 15 por ciento de todos los latinos registrados para votar han enviado por correo sus papeletas, en contraste con el 29 por ciento de los votantes blancos, según Political Data Inc., un grupo de investigación con sede en Sacramento.Los sentimientos encontrados, para muchos votantes latinos, surgen de la larga batalla contra la pandemia, pues enfrentan desempleo y mayores tasas de contagios y mortalidad. Otros perciben una desconexión profunda con el Partido Demócrata y con el propio Newsom, un multimillonario dueño de una bodega en Napa a quien ven como alguien distante y frío.Entrevistas con votantes latinos, estrategas y activistas estatales revelan que los hispanos sienten una frustración que Newsom jamás ha abordado. La pandemia arraigó la desigualdad en todo el estado y profundizó el descontento en torno a una división de clase generalizada. La riqueza de Newsom resalta esa brecha.Karla Ramirez, una demócrata de 43 años que vive en Downey, un suburbio muy latino al sureste de Los Ángeles, dijo que creía que Newsom había manejado bien la pandemia, en general. Pero Ramirez, que es propietaria junto con su marido de un negocio de limpieza comercial, dijo que no planeaba participar en la contienda y no tenía los medios para prestarle atención a la política estatal mientras el virus seguía arrasando. Su hija de 9 años y su esposo dieron positivo a COVID-19 y están recuperándose de síntomas leves.Todos los votantes registrados han recibido papeletas por correo y tienen la alternativa de enviarlas a través del servicio postal, ir a depositarlas en las urnas o acudir a votar en persona desde ahora hasta el 14 de septiembre, día de la elección. Ramirez ya no tiene la opción de votar por correo.“Me llegó la boleta y la tiré a la basura. Siento que no podría ser justa”, dijo Ramirez. “Estoy ocupada con el regreso de mis hijos a la escuela y con la vacunación”.Karla Ramirez, quien vive en Downey, un suburbio de Los Ángeles, dijo que no votará en las elecciones revocatorias.Jenna Schoenefeld para The New York TimesA solo una semana del cierre de las urnas, las encuestas públicas sugieren que Newsom seguirá en el cargo. Pero muchos ven su dificultad con los votantes hispanos como una preocupante señal para los demócratas, tanto a nivel estatal como nacional, y como un atisbo de las consecuencias del fracaso para conectar con una fuerza política vital cuya lealtad está en juego. Los demócratas se alarmaron luego de la elección presidencial de 2020 cuando muchos votantes hispanos en Florida, Texas y otras zonas del país se inclinaron por el presidente Donald Trump. Pero este problema podría llegar a tener más consecuencias en un estado en el que los latinos representan casi una tercera parte del electorado..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-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;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-w739ur{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-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.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;}“El verdadero tema es que el gobernador Newsom no ha engendrado entusiasmo entre los votantes latinos”, dijo Thomas A. Saenz, presidente del Fondo Educativo y de Defensa Legal Mexicoestadounidense, y quien ha participado en la política californiana desde hace décadas. “En parte, esa es la razón por la que él está en riesgo. No los motivan sus políticas y prácticas y él no ha abordado para nada a la comunidad latina como una comunidad latina ni ha reconocido su importancia para el estado”.Los colaboradores de la campaña de Newsom niegan que haya fallado en llamar la atención o atender a los votantes latinos. Más bien, indican que la expansión del servicio Medi-Cal a los habitantes de más de 50 años, que incluye a inmigrantes indocumentados, así como la moratoria a los desalojos son dos políticas clave que han beneficiado a miles de latinos en California. Su campaña ha alardeado repetidamente por el nombramiento de Alex Padilla al Senado de Estados Unidos, lo que lo convirtió en el primer latino de California en servir en esa cámara.Nathan Click, vocero de la campaña de Newsom, dijo que la estrategia del gobernador para acercarse a los votantes latinos prácticamente no ha cambiado. La campaña, dijo Click, siempre ha visto la dificultad, y la importancia, de llegar a los latinos, y en particular a los latinos jóvenes.“Desde el primer día hemos sabido que los votantes que participan en los años electorales pero no votan en las elecciones de medio término y, en realidad, no votan en las elecciones especiales son el principal objetivo de todos nuestros esfuerzos”, dijo.Hace una generación, la Propuesta 187, una iniciativa electoral que habría prohibido a los inmigrantes indocumentados recibir la mayoría de los servicios públicos, obtuvo un amplio apoyo entre los republicanos de California, incluido el gobernador Pete Wilson. La medida antiinmigrante alejó en gran medida a los votantes latinos del Partido Republicano y los lanzó a los brazos de los demócratas, que han reconocido públicamente que la medida electoral fue fundamental para su ascenso al poder.Pero muchos votantes latinos son demasiado jóvenes como para recordar la Propuesta 187 de principios de los noventa y no sienten ninguna lealtad especial por los demócratas. Por mucho que se hable del potencial político latino en California, ningún gobernador en la historia reciente ha logrado convocar a los latinos para convertirlos en sus acérrimos partidarios.Newsom saludaba a trabajadoras agrícolas retiradas en una clínica, en Fresno, el mes pasado.Eric Paul Zamora/The Fresno Bee, vía Associated Press“No hemos argumentado de forma adecuada y durante el tiempo suficiente que las cosas son distintas y mejores, sobre todo para los latinos jóvenes”, comentó Lorena Gonzalez, una demócrata que representa a una zona de clase trabajadora y latina de San Diego en la Asamblea Estatal. “Es como si no hacerle daño a los latinos fuera suficiente para muchos políticos demócratas”.La revocatoria también sucede mientras muchos siguen sufriendo el impacto de la pandemia. Los latinos en California tenían muchas más probabilidades de contraer el virus y morir que los habitantes blancos del estado. La tasa de desempleo entre los latinos sigue por encima del 10 por ciento y muchos pequeños comerciantes latinos han perdido considerablemente sus ingresos en el último año y medio.Frank Oropeza, de 27 años y barbero en Montebello, al este de Los Ángeles, dijo que votó por el presidente Biden el año pasado y se considera demócrata. Pero comentó que no había pensado mucho en por quién votar en la revocatoria y que se sentía dividido: en redes sociales leía de otros colegas del ramo y peluqueros que dijeron estar a favor de revocar a Newsom, que cerró en dos ocasiones sus negocios y también se enteraba de otros que tenían opiniones distintas.“Soy muy influenciable”, dijo riendo. “Es tipo: ‘Cierra los ojos y tira un dardo’”.Oropeza dijo que entendía que eran necesarias algunas restricciones pandémicas. Pero le frustraba que los peluqueros y barberos hubieran tenido que dejar de trabajar en una segunda ocasión, aunque ya se habían implementado las medidas de precaución, como el uso universal de cubrebocas.Esa es una de las críticas que han aprovechado los oponentes de Newsom para intentar persuadir a más latinos de votar a favor de la revocatoria.“Muchos de esos pequeños negocios que cerraron para siempre eran propiedad de personas de color”, dijo Larry Elder, el presentador de radio conservador que se ha convertido en el favorito de los republicanos entre la multitud de candidatos de la elección revocatoria, la semana pasada.En una rueda de prensa virtual, Elder se presentó junto a Gloria Romero, demócrata y exlegisladora que ahora es una ferviente defensora de las escuelas autónomas o chárter. Protagonizó una publicidad en español que la campaña de Elder envió a los votantes latinos por mensaje de texto.“Se trata de mandar un mensaje sobre cómo el Partido Demócrata ha abandonado en gran medida a los latinos”, dijo Romero. “Nos han dado por sentado”.Los votantes latinos son una fuerza en todos los rincones del estado y representan a un amplio espectro de posiciones políticas. Mientras que los liberales con formación universitaria en los centros urbanos son un elemento crucial de la base demócrata, los moderados de clase trabajadora en los suburbios de Inland Empire y Silicon Valley son esenciales para ganar en todo el estado. Y en el condado de Orange, el Valle Central y los confines al norte del estado, los votantes religiosos y los libertarios han ayudado a llevar a los republicanos al poder en distritos clave para el Congreso.Y hay señales de que los republicanos están teniendo algo de éxito para atraer a los votantes hispanos, entre ellos algunos que participarán por primera vez en unas elecciones.“Estoy cansado con cómo están las cosas”, dijo Ruben Sanchez, un obrero de la construcción que vive en Simi Valley, un bastión conservador al norte de Los Ángeles. Sánchez, que asiste a una iglesia evangélica, dijo que había votado por primera vez en 2020 y que había favorecido a Trump, sobre todo debido a sus creencias religiosas. Comentó que planeaba votar por Elder en la revocatoria. “Este gobernador y este estado no son para la gente trabajadora, para la gente a la que le importa este país”.El personal de la campaña de Newsom prometió bombardear a los votantes latinos en los días previos a la elección. La semana pasada, la campaña del gobernador lanzó un aviso donde aparecía el senador por Vermont Bernie Sanders, excandidato presidencial que se volvió tan popular entre los latinos de California que recibió el apodo de Tío Bernie.Durante las primarias presidenciales demócratas, la campaña de Sanders centró gran parte de sus esfuerzos en los votantes latinos desde el principio: abrió oficinas de campaña en vecindarios predominantemente latinos y lanzó videos para su difusión en las redes sociales. Los esfuerzos fueron ampliamente reconocidos como una especie de manual para llegar de manera efectiva a los votantes latinos, y algunos demócratas han criticado la campaña de Newsom por no hacer más para replicar ese enfoque.Más allá de estos esfuerzos, Sanders atrajo a muchos votantes latinos en gran parte por su ideología, que pedía Medicare para todos, proponía perdonar los préstamos estudiantiles y presentaba legislación para combatir el cambio climático.“Los latinos todavía tienen algunas frustraciones básicas que Bernie abordaba y no se han resuelto”, dijo Rafael Navar, quien fue el director para California de la campaña de Sanders. “Hemos tenido altas tasas de mortalidad, alto desempleo y una enorme desigualdad”.A pesar del escepticismo que despierta Newsom, muchos votantes hispanos dicen que temen lo que podría suceder si un republicano asumiera el cargo. Sin embargo, aunque les desagrada la política republicana, algunos votantes liberales no se identifican como demócratas entusiastas. La lealtad al partido, dijeron, no es tan importante para ellos como sí lo es apoyar a un candidato que atenderá sus preocupaciones de manera más directa.Ernesto Ruvalcaba, de 27 años y experto en cartografía que vive en Los Ángeles, dijo que aunque había votado en contra de la revocatoria porque Newsom “hacía el trabajo”, seguía insatisfecho.“Las cosas que hizo las pudo hacer mejor”, dijo Ruvalcaba. “Solo que los partidos son muy viejos, los dos. Necesitan una ruptura”.Jennifer Medina es reportera de política estadounidense que cubrió la campaña presidencial de Estados Unidos de 2020. Originaria del sur de California, anteriormente pasó varios años reporteando sobre la región para la sección National. @jennymedinaJill Cowan es la corresponsal de California Today, que sigue la pista de las cosas más importantes que ocurren en su estado natal todos los días. @jillcowan More

A temporary change in California’s election rules aimed at protecting voters during the coronavirus pandemic could be instrumental in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s effort to beat back a proposed recall — and could become permanent if the governor signs a bill that state lawmakers passed last week.Voting by mail has emerged as a critical factor in the Republican-led recall, which political experts say will probably hinge on whether Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, can turn out the state’s enormous base of liberal voters before the polls close on Sept. 14.Because of the coronavirus, lawmakers ensured that ballots would automatically be mailed to every registered, active voter, turning an already popular option into the default through at least the end of this year.As a result, political experts tracking returns in the recall are predicting that at least 50 percent of registered voters will cast ballots, roughly double the turnout that would be expected in a special election. Paul Mitchell, a vice president at Political Data Inc., a Sacramento-based supplier of election data, said more than a quarter of the electorate had already voted.“You cannot overstate how important the mail-in ballot will be in this election,” said David Townsend, a Sacramento-based Democratic political consultant. Because Democrats outnumber Republicans by two to one in California, the electoral math is with Mr. Newsom — but only if his voters cast their ballots. Voting by mail gives even indifferent voters a nudge and an opportunity to cast a ballot without much effort..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-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;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-w739ur{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-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.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;}“Before this, you had to convince a voter to get in a car, drive to a location with no real signage but a flag and go vote on something they might care about or might not,” Mr. Townsend noted. “Now you get a ballot in the mail, make an X by a box, sign it and drop it back in the mailbox. You don’t even have to look for a stamp.”About two-thirds of California voters cast mail-in ballots in 2018, but in many parts of the state the option required that voters meet an application deadline. As the coronavirus surged in 2020, Mr. Newsom and California’s legislators became concerned that going to the polls might endanger voters and poll workers.Assemblyman Marc Berman, a Democrat who represents parts of Silicon Valley, said he was particularly alarmed by Wisconsin’s primary election, where voters were required to come to the polls in person as infections were raging.“There was this footage of people standing for hours risking their health,” Mr. Berman said, “just to exercise their right to vote.”The bipartisan decision to mail ballots to all 22 million or so of the state’s registered and active voters was “wildly successful,” Mr. Berman said. “Elections officials up and down the state said the election went remarkably smoothly.”Californians who had not actively voted in recent years did not get ballots mailed to them, and bar codes helped prevent double voting. Studies conducted afterward found few, if any, sustained complaints of voter fraud.Some 87.5 percent of the electorate used the mail-in ballots to vote in 2020, either mailing them in or dropping them off at drop boxes or polling places. Turnout among registered California voters was nearly 81 percent, said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California.“We had the highest voter turnout since Harry Truman was president,” said State Senator Tom Umberg, an Orange County Democrat who, as chair of his chamber’s committee on elections, sought to extend the system at least through this year.At the time, he said, the extension was to protect voters in two upcoming local special elections; the recall effort against the governor had so few signatures that it was widely regarded as a long shot.As former President Donald J. Trump complained with increasing intensity that his presidency had been stolen, California Republicans became less supportive of mail-in ballots, and the extension in California passed on a party-line vote. A bill to make the system permanent is on the governor’s desk after the State Legislature passed it last week, again over Republican objections.A spokeswoman for the governor said he does not comment on pending legislation. However, lawmakers said the governor was expected to sign the bill.If it is signed, Mr. Berman said, California will become the sixth state to require active registered voters to be mailed a ballot before each election, along with Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Utah.Still, experts say that many California voters from across the political spectrum prefer to hand their ballot to a human rather than drop it in the mail.“Young voters and Latino voters tend to vote in person,” said Luis Sánchez, executive director of Power California, a statewide progressive organizing group focused on young voters. “They want to make sure their vote counts.”As of Tuesday, 15 percent of voters ages 18 to 34 had returned their ballots, compared with 47 percent of those 65 and older, although the former make up the largest age group, according to Political Data Inc.Democratic ballots far outnumbered those from Republicans. More

Many Republicans vying to replace Newsom as governor want to roll back the state’s ambitious plans to cut planet-warming emissions, a change with nationwide implications.Follow our latest updates on the California Recall Election and Governor Newsom.California has long cast itself as a leader in the fight against global warming, with more solar panels and electric cars than anywhere else in the nation. But the state’s ambitious climate policies now face their biggest reckoning to date.Voters in California are deciding whether to oust Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom ahead of a Sept. 14 recall election. Many of the Republicans vying to replace Mr. Newsom want to roll back the state’s aggressive plans to curb its planet-warming emissions, a move that could have nationwide implications for efforts to tackle climate change given California’s influence as the world’s fifth-largest economy.Under the rules of the election, Mr. Newsom would be removed from office if more than 50 percent of voters choose to recall him. If that happens, the governorship would go to whichever of the 46 replacement candidates on the ballot gets the most votes — even if that person does not win a majority.Democrats have worried that Mr. Newsom could lose, although polling over the past week suggests that voters in the state have started rallying around him.Polls say the leading Republican is Larry Elder, a conservative radio host who said in an interview that “global warming alarmism is a crock” and that he intends “to stop the war on oil and gas.” Another top candidate, Republican businessman John Cox, says California’s climate policies have made the state unaffordable for many. Also running is Kevin Faulconer, a former Republican mayor of San Diego, who oversaw the city’s first climate plan but has taken issue with Mr. Newsom’s approach.“There’s the real potential for a huge shift in direction,” said Richard Frank, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Davis. “California has had substantial influence over the direction of climate policy both nationally and internationally, and that could easily wane.”Under the past three governors — Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown and Mr. Newsom — California has enacted some of the most far-reaching laws and regulations in the country to shift away from fossil fuels.That includes a requirement that utilities get 100 percent of their electricity from clean sources like wind and solar power by 2045, regulations to limit tailpipe pollution from cars and trucks and building codes that encourage developers to shift away from natural gas for home heating. California’s legislature has ordered the state’s powerful air regulator, the Air Resources Board, to slash statewide emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.While California accounts for only a fraction of the nation’s emissions, it often serves as a testing ground for climate policy. Its clean electricity standard has been mirrored by states like New York and Colorado, and Democrats in Congress are now crafting a nationwide version..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-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;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-w739ur{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-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.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;}Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is the only state allowed to set its own vehicle pollution rules. California’s rules have been adopted by 14 other states and have frequently pushed the federal government to ratchet up its own regulations.California has installed more solar power than any other state.Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut California has also struggled with the transition to cleaner energy and the effects of global warming. Last August, a record heat wave triggered rolling blackouts across the state, in part because grid operators had not added enough clean power to compensate for solar panels going offline after sunset. Pacific Gas and Electric, the state’s largest utility, has repeatedly had to switch off electricity to customers to avoid sparking wildfires.As the top elected official in a state reeling from record-breaking drought and raging fires, Mr. Newsom has faced pressure to do more. Last September, he directed the Air Resources Board to develop regulations that ban sales of new gasoline-powered cars statewide by 2035. He has called on agencies to place new restrictions on oil and gas drilling. More recently, the state’s transportation agency finalized a plan to direct more funding to measures that would curb emissions, such as public transit or biking.And in his most recent budget, Mr. Newsom directed more than $12 billion toward a spate of climate programs, including electric vehicle chargers, measures to deal with worsening water shortages and efforts to protect forest communities against wildfires.In his campaign against the recall, Mr. Newsom has attacked his opponents for downplaying the risks of global warming. “With all due respect, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about when it comes to the issue of climate and climate change,” Mr. Newsom said of Mr. Elder in an interview last month with ABC News.“California’s been in the vanguard of climate leadership, and all of that can be undone very quickly,” said Nathan Click, a spokesman for Mr. Newsom’s campaign.Mr. Cox and other Republican rivals say Mr. Newsom has not done enough to manage California’s forests to make them less fire-prone. They argue that the flurry of environmental regulations is driving up costs in a state that already faces a severe housing shortage.“I’m all for cleaning up the world’s pollution, but not on the backs of the middle class and low income people,” said Mr. Cox, who ran unsuccessfully against Mr. Newsom in 2018. “When China’s building a new coal-fired power plant every week, do you really think driving up the cost of energy in our state is going to make an appreciable difference?”If Mr. Newsom is recalled, a new governor would be unlikely to overturn many of California’s key climate laws, not least because the legislature would stay in Democratic hands. But that still leaves room for major changes.Firefighting plane above the Dixie Fire late last week.Christian Monterrosa for The New York TimesA new governor could, for instance, rescind Mr. Newsom’s order to phase out new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 or his push to restrict oil and gas drilling, since those were issued by executive order. A governor could also appoint new officials who were less keen on climate regulation to various agencies, including the Air Resources Board, although doing so could set up a clash with the legislature, which oversees appointments. Any governor would also have broad latitude in shaping how existing climate laws are implemented.Mr. Elder, the talk radio host, said he did not see climate change as a dire threat and would de-emphasize wind and solar power. “Of course, global warming exists,” he said. “The climate is always changing. Has it gotten a degree or two warmer in the last several years? Yes. Is man-made activity a part of that? Yes. But nobody really knows to what degree.”He added: “The idea that the planet is going to be destroyed if we don’t force feed some sort of renewable system, that’s a crock.”Mr. Elder’s view is at odds with the scientific consensus. Last month, a United Nations scientific panel concluded that virtually all of the global warming since the 19th century was driven by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. And it warned that consequences such as heat waves, droughts and wildfires would continue to worsen unless nations slashed their planet-warming emissions by shifting to cleaner sources of energy.Instead of focusing on renewable power, Mr. Cox said he would build a bigger fleet of firefighting planes to combat wildfires. He also argued that the United States should increase its natural gas production and ship more of the fuel abroad, so that countries like China could rely on it instead of coal. “If we bring down the cost of natural gas and ship it to China, we’ll do wonderful things for the world’s pollution problem,” he said.Mr. Cox also disagreed with Mr. Newsom’s plan to phase out new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. “I drive a Tesla, I’m all for electric cars,” he said. “But we’re already struggling to generate enough electricity for our air-conditioners in August,” he said. “Where are we going to get the electricity for 25 million electric vehicles?”Mr. Faulconer, who is further down in the polls, criticized Mr. Newsom for underfunding the state’s wildfire budget. While he endorsed the state’s push for 100 percent clean electricity, he warned the state risked further blackouts without relying on sources like nuclear power. He also said he would work with the legislature on a policy to boost electric vehicles “that does not rely on a statewide ban” of gasoline-powered cars.All three Republican candidates said they would push to keep open Diablo Canyon, the state’s last remaining nuclear plant, which is set to close by 2025. Critics of the closure have warned it could exacerbate California’s electricity shortage and lead to the burning of more natural gas, which creates emissions.Diablo Canyon, California’s last remaining nuclear plant, is scheduled to close by 2025.Michael Mariant/Associated PressAny new governor would serve only until California’s next election, in 2022, and some experts predicted that political gridlock would largely result. But even short-term gridlock could have a significant effect on climate policy.California is already struggling to meet its target of cutting emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Hitting that goal, analysts said, would likely require all of the state’s agencies to work together, developing additional strategies to curtail fossil-fuel use in power plants, homes and vehicles. It could also require fixing the state’s cap-and-trade program, which caps pollution from large industrial facilities but has attracted criticism for relying on poorly designed carbon offsets.“We don’t have many years left between now and 2030,” said Cara Horowitz, co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at U.C.L.A. Law School. “If we waste a year or more because the Air Resources Board has been told not to prioritize cutting emissions, it’s a lot harder to see how we get there.”That, in turn, could have ripple effects nationwide. President Biden has pledged to halve the nation’s emissions by 2030 and is hoping to persuade other world leaders that the United States has a plan to get there. Without California on board, that task becomes tougher.California also has an outsized influence over clean vehicle standards, in part because it can set its own rules and prod the auto industry to develop cleaner cars. The Biden administration recently proposed to essentially adopt California’s car rules nationwide. Some fear that if California is no longer pushing to ramp up electric vehicles, as Mr. Newsom has envisioned, the federal government will feel less pressure to act.“I can’t think of a single instance where the federal government has moved ahead of California,” said Mary Nichols, the former chair of the Air Resources Board. “California has always had this unique role as a first mover.”Shawn Hubler More

College graduates are now a firmly Democratic bloc, and they are shaping the party’s future. Those without degrees, by contrast, have flocked to Republicans.The front lines of America’s cultural clashes have shifted in recent years. A vigorous wave of progressive activism has helped push the country’s culture to the left, inspiring a conservative backlash against everything from “critical race theory” to the purported cancellation of Dr. Seuss.These skirmishes may be different in substance from those that proceeded them, but in the broadest sense they are only the latest manifestation of a half-century trend: the realignment of American politics along cultural and educational lines, and away from the class and income divisions that defined the two parties for much of the 20th century.As they’ve grown in numbers, college graduates have instilled increasingly liberal cultural norms while gaining the power to nudge the Democratic Party to the left. Partly as a result, large portions of the party’s traditional working-class base have defected to the Republicans.Over the longer run, some Republicans even fantasize that the rise of educational polarization might begin to erode the Democratic advantage among voters of color without a college degree. Perhaps a similar phenomenon may help explain how Donald J. Trump, who mobilized racial animus for political gain, nonetheless fared better among voters of color than previous Republicans did, and fared worse among white voters.President Biden won about 60 percent of college-educated voters in 2020, including an outright majority of white college graduates, helping him run up the score in affluent suburbs and putting him over the top in pivotal states.This was a significant voting bloc: Overall, 41 percent of people who cast ballots last year were four-year college graduates, according to census estimates. By contrast, just 5 percent of voters in 1952 were college graduates, according to that year’s American National Elections Study.Yet even as college graduates have surged in numbers and grown increasingly liberal, Democrats are no stronger than they were 10, 30 or even 50 years ago. Instead, rising Democratic strength among college graduates and voters of color has been counteracted by a nearly equal and opposite reaction among white voters without a degree.When the Harvard-educated John F. Kennedy narrowly won the presidency in 1960, he won white voters without a degree but lost white college graduates by a two-to-one margin. The numbers were almost exactly reversed for Mr. Biden, who lost white voters without a degree by a two-to-one margin while winning white college graduates.About 27 percent of Mr. Biden’s supporters in 2020 were white voters without a college degree, according to Pew Research, down from the nearly 60 percent of Bill Clinton’s supporters who were whites without a degree just 28 years earlier. The changing demographic makeup of the Democrats has become a self-fulfilling dynamic, in which the growing power of liberal college graduates helps alienate working-class voters, leaving college graduates as an even larger share of the party.The Democratic advantage among college graduates may be a new phenomenon, but the relative liberalism of college graduates is not. College graduates have been far likelier than voters without a college degree to self-identify as liberal for decades, even when they were likelier to vote Republican.College graduates attribute racial inequality, crime and poverty to complex structural and systemic problems, while voters without a degree tend to focus on individualist and parochial explanations. It is easier for college graduates, with their higher levels of affluence, to vote on their values, not simply on economic self-interest. They are likelier to have high levels of social trust and to be open to new experiences. They are less likely to believe in God.The rise of cultural liberalism is not simply a product of rising college attendance. In fact, there is only equivocal evidence that college attendance makes people vastly more liberal. Far from the indoctrination that conservatives fear, liberal college professors appear to preach to an already liberal choir.But it is hard to imagine the last half-century of liberal cultural change without the role played by universities and academia, which helped inspire everything from the student movements and New Left of the 1960s to the ideas behind today’s fights over “critical race theory.” The concentration of so many left-leaning students and professors on campus helped foster a new liberal culture with more progressive ideas and norms than would have otherwise existed.“If you live in a community which is more liberal, there’s a self-reinforcing ratcheting effect,” said Pippa Norris, a professor and political scientist at the Harvard Kennedy School who believes that the rise of higher education contributed to the rise of social liberalism throughout the postindustrial world.As college graduates increased their share of the electorate, they gradually began to force the Democrats to accommodate their interests and values. They punched above their electoral weight, since they make up a disproportionate number of the journalists, politicians, activists and poll respondents who most directly influence the political process.At the same time, the party’s old industrial working-class base was in decline, as were the unions and machine bosses who once had the power to connect the party’s politicians to its rank and file. The party had little choice but to broaden its appeal, and it adopted the views of college-educated voters on nearly every issue, slowly if fitfully alienating its old working-class base.Republicans opened their doors to traditionally Democratic conservative-leaning voters who were aggrieved by the actions and perceived excesses of the new, college-educated left. This G.O.P. push began, and continues in some ways today, with the so-called Southern strategy — leveraging racial divisions and “states’ rights” to appeal to white voters.The reasons for white working-class alienation with the Democrats have shifted from decade to decade. At times, nearly every major issue area — race, religion, war, environmentalism, guns, trade, immigration, sexuality, crime, social welfare programs — has been a source of Democratic woes.What the Democratic Party’s positions on these very different issues have had in common is that they reflected the views of college-educated liberals, even when in conflict with the apparent interests of working-class voters — and that they alienated some number of white voters without a degree. Environmentalists demanded regulations on the coal industry; coal miners bolted from the Democrats. Suburban voters supported an assault gun ban; gun owners shifted to the Republicans. Business interests supported free trade agreements; old manufacturing towns broke for Mr. Trump.A similar process may be beginning to unfold among Hispanic voters. The 2020 election was probably the first presidential contest in which the Democratic candidate fared better among voters of color who graduated from college than among those without a degree. Mr. Trump made large gains among voters of color without degrees, especially Latino ones. The causes of his surge are still being debated, but one leading theory is that he was aided by a backlash against the ideas and language of the college-educated left, including activist calls to “defund the police.”For some Republicans, Mr. Trump’s gains have raised the possibility that it may be easier to appeal to working-class voters of color.“It doesn’t seem quite as big of a bridge to cross as saying, ‘Let’s go back and win white suburbanites,’” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster who is writing a book on how the party might build a multiracial coalition.True or not, it’s a view that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if it leads Republicans to adopt strategies aimed at making it a reality.There is no guarantee that the rising liberalism of the Democratic primary electorate or college graduates will continue. The wave of activism in the 1960s gave way to a relatively conservative generation of college graduates in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Perhaps something similar will happen today.What can be guaranteed is that the college-educated share of the population — and the electorate — will continue to increase for the foreseeable future.In 2016, Massachusetts became the first state where four-year college graduates represented the majority of voters in a presidential contest. In 2020, the state was joined by New York, Colorado and Maryland. Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut and others are not far behind. Nationwide, four-year college graduates might represent a majority of midterm voters at some point over the next decade. More

US president Joe Biden has emphasised the danger of the climate crisis after touring Hurricane Ida-impacted neighbourhoods. ‘People are beginning to realise this is much, much bigger than anyone was willing to believe,’ Biden said during a tour of Queens, New York. ‘Even the climate skeptics are seeing that this really does matter.’

Biden surveys Hurricane Ida damage and warns ‘climate change was here’ – live More

The field of would-be Republican candidates remains frozen while the former president decides his next moves.Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.Last week, during a 51-minute interview on “The John Fredericks Show,” a radio program syndicated across Virginia, former President Donald J. Trump dodged a half-dozen opportunities to say whether he is planning to run for president once again in 2024.Mr. Fredericks, who alongside his radio gig also served as a chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaigns in Virginia, began questions with “If you’re inaugurated as president again in 2025,” and “I think you’re going to run and win in 2024.” He asked, “How many seats do the Republicans have to win in 2022 to inspire you to run in 2024?”Hard-hitting journalism this was not.Still, it did cut to the heart of the biggest question in Republican politics: When will Mr. Trump announce his plans for 2024?For months the best working theory had been that he would wait as long as possible, both to freeze the rest of the potential 2024 Republican field and to keep as much attention as possible on himself, his endorsements and political proclamations.In the meantime the former president has not found any new outlet for his political attention. There’s no library in the works or legacy project like President Barack Obama’s nonprofit group Organizing for Action (which itself shuttered in 2018 after fading into obsolescence). Mr. Trump is still very much invested in his own false claims about the 2020 election, pushing local Republican officials to audit their ballots and voting machines while trumpeting the phony idea that any election that Democrats win is a fraud.All of that puts him on the same page as much of today’s Republican electorate.“If Donald Trump runs in ’24, I think he’ll clear the field, be the nominee and I think he wins handily against Biden or Harris,” said Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, who as the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee has hosted almost every potential non-Trump candidate to speak to his group of more than 150 Republican House members this year.Mr. Banks is hardly agnostic on the subject of Mr. Trump. His Capitol Hill office is filled with Trump memorabilia, including a framed front page of The Washington Post from the day after the former president’s first Senate acquittal on impeachment charges, autographed by Mr. Trump himself. In January he voted against accepting the results of election, and in July he was one of two Republicans whom Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat on the commission investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He has on his staff the son of Tucker Carlson, one of the most vocal pro-Trump hosts on Fox News.In our conversation on Monday afternoon, Mr. Banks, who said he was in weekly contact with Mr. Trump, said he hadn’t directly discussed if or when the former president might begin a 2024 campaign. He hadn’t been told by Mr. Trump, as Representative Jim Jordan said last week in an exchange recorded by a hidden camera, that the former president was “about ready” to announce another campaign.All that leaves the field of would-be Republican presidential candidates frozen. Those taking steps that could lead to a 2024 run include Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota; Senators Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio; and the former Trump cabinet members Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley. They each owe varying levels of political allegiance to Mr. Trump; polling shows none of them would be much of a threat to dent Mr. Trump’s hold on the party even if they tried.At the same time, Democrats, fretting about President Biden’s sagging standing in public opinion polls after the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, would generally be thrilled to make what is shaping up to be a challenging midterm election next year a referendum on Mr. Trump. The president’s party almost always loses dozens of seats in the House during the midterms; Democrats picked up 41 seats in 2018 and Republicans flipped 63 in 2010.For the moment, there are signs that Republicans are more energized across the country. They’re inundating school board meetings to talk about how race is taught in classrooms, and in some parts of the country they’re filling candidate training rooms at a pace not seen since 2009.A potential third Trump campaign, started more than three years before the next presidential election and 18 months ahead of the next Iowa caucuses, could refocus all of his party’s energy onto himself and away from the right-wing cultural issues other Republicans see as political winners.“He brings excitement among the Republican Party base that is unmatched by anybody else,” Mr. Banks said.Yet Mr. Banks had no public advice for Mr. Trump about when, or if, to begin another campaign. Mr. Trump would help Republicans in the midterms equally as a candidate or a noncandidate, Mr. Banks said, before adding that Republicans’ odds of winning back the White House would not be diminished whether Mr. Trump, or anyone else, was the nominee.“He’s savvy enough to know the right timing better than I do,” Mr. Banks said of a potential Trump campaign launch. “I’m watching all the same news and watching all the rallies that you are. I’m speculating that he’s moving in that direction.”The state of the California recallCalifornia is down to the final week of voting before the Sept. 14 recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom. You’ll surely see a lot of California political news between now and next Tuesday: President Biden is planning a campaign stop for Mr. Newsom, a fellow Democrat, White House officials said, part of a party-wide rush to encourage Californians to return the ballots every registered voter in the state has received in the mail.In a state Mr. Biden carried by 29 percentage points last year, even a narrow victory for Mr. Newsom would send shock waves through Democratic politics. If Mr. Newsom is recalled and replaced with a Republican, expect an unending rending of garments and blame-casting among liberals comparable in recent memory only to the reaction to Mr. Trump’s victory of 2016.Should a Republican take control of the governor’s office in America’s largest state — home to its largest population of Democratic voters — that person would still face Democratic supermajorities in the State Legislature but would be in a position to appoint state judges, control the bully pulpit and potentially name a replacement for a United States senator, potentially shifting control of the 50-50 chamber.Whatever happens for Republicans, the California recall is the equivalent of found money. They either win a stunning upset, come close and spook Democrats into a period of soul searching, or lose by a comfortable margin, in which case they will still have forced Mr. Newsom into running for his political life a year before an expected re-election campaign in 2022.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. More

Germany’s chancellor pleaded with voters to support her party, which has flagging poll numbers and a candidate who has failed to capture imaginations.BERLIN — Angela Merkel has said she wanted to stay out of the election campaign for her replacement as Germany’s chancellor. But with her party polling at record lows, Ms. Merkel used a speech to Germany’s Parliament on Tuesday to plead with Germans to keep the Christian Democrats in power.Since late July, the conservative Christian Democrats and their Bavaria-only partners, the Christian Social Union, have been dropping steadily in the polls, while their candidate to replace Ms. Merkel, Armin Laschet, has struggled to overcome a series of gaffes that sent his own popularity plunging.The situation has become alarming enough that Ms. Merkel has dropped the pretense of being a bystander, and in recent weeks she has been using her voice and platform to try to drum up support for Mr. Laschet and distance herself from his main rival, Olaf Scholz.Mr. Scholz, Germany’s finance minister and Ms. Merkel’s vice chancellor, has been seeing his popularity rise, along with that of his center-left Social Democratic Party — often by positioning himself as the true successor to the chancellor under whom he has governed since 2017.In an effort to claw back support, Mr. Laschet has taken to warning that a government led by Mr. Scholz could shift the country away from its current centrist course, especially if he includes the Left Party in any governing coalition. The Left Party has repeatedly rejected Germany’s participation in NATO missions and questioned whether the alliance should exist.Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party has positioned himself as the true successor to Ms. Merkel.Pool photo by Jens SchlueterMs. Merkel, who is not seeking another term in office, echoed that warning on Tuesday in what was likely her last speech before Parliament as chancellor, urging voters to throw their support behind Mr. Laschet when they go to the polls on Sept. 26 to elect a new government. It is the first time since modern Germany was founded in 1949 that the incumbent chancellor is willingly ceding power.“In a few days, our citizens have to make a choice: either between a government with the Social Democrats and the Greens, that accepts support from the Left Party, or at least does not exclude it,” Ms. Merkel said, “or a German government led by the Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union, with Armin Laschet as chancellor.”Despite Ms. Merkel’s intentions to stay out of the campaign, Tuesday’s remarks were not the first time she has stepped up to help her party’s flagging fortunes. On Aug. 20, when Mr. Laschet sought to relaunch his election campaign heading into the final weeks, Ms. Merkel praised, among other things, his Christianity as his guiding moral compass. Still, his fortunes failed to turn around.Last week, Mr. Laschet presented a team of expert advisers he hoped would shore up his numbers, but that appears to have had little impact.Polls released this week have shown Mr. Laschet’s party struggling to retain 20 percent support — a previously unthinkable position for a party that has governed Germany for all but two of the past seven decades.Armin Laschet, the candidate of the conservative Christian Democrats, has struggled to move past a series of gaffes.Daniel Roland/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMs. Merkel also went on the attack against Mr. Scholz, who during a campaign speech last week described the 50 million Germans who had been vaccinated against Covid-19 as “guinea pigs” who had proven the safety of the vaccines.“We were the guinea pigs for those who have waited,” Mr. Scholz told a radio station in North Rhine-Westphalia. “As one of the 50 million, I can say, it went well! Please join us!”In her speech on Tuesday, Ms. Merkel shot back: “Of course no one of us who has been vaccinated is in any way a guinea pig,” she said, adding that all vaccines had undergone the necessary testing to be granted approval.Mr. Scholz defended his comment as a lighthearted attempt to convince more people to get their inoculation against Covid-19. “If some people don’t want to laugh, but get upset, maybe it has something to do with their ratings in the polls that aren’t very funny,” he said.Long the traditional rivals of the center-right conservatives, the Social Democrats spent 12 of Ms. Merkel’s nearly 16 years in government as the junior coalition partner in her government, influencing many of the policies passed, like a national minimum wage and billions in Covid relief.Mr. Scholz, who was initially dismissed as a viable candidate for chancellor, has surprised the conservatives with his strong showing. Headed into the race, the Christian Democrats thought their biggest challenge would be the Green Party and its 40-year-old candidate, Annalena Baerbock, who has campaigned on a promise to usher in an era of change.Mr. Scholz, 63, has understood that after four terms of prosperity and relative stability under Ms. Merkel, Germans still value a feeling of security. He has focused his campaign on pledging to ensure jobs and working to shore up social stability by fighting child poverty and keeping housing prices in check.“A new beginning is needed,” Mr. Scholz told Parliament on Tuesday. “I hope, and I am sure, that it will succeed.”Christopher F. Schuetze More