Elections

In a new book, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren suggests part of the reason for her failure in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination lay in the party’s reluctance to nominate another woman.“I had to run against the shadows of Martha and Hillary,” Warren writes in Persist, which will be published on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported.Hillary Clinton, a former New York senator and secretary of state, lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump.Martha Coakley, an attorney general of Massachusetts, lost a 2010 election for a US Senate seat long held by Ted Kennedy, to Scott Brown, and a 2014 gubernatorial election to Charlie Baker.Both women started as favourites but suffered losses which dealt crushing blows to Democrats on the national stage.Warren led the 2020 Democratic primary early on. In her book, the Post said, she repeats a conversation with her husband, Bruce Mann, who said: “Babe, you could actually do this. You could be president.” Warren also writes about she imagined her inauguration.But she did not win any states and withdrew on 5 March. With most of the rest of the field, she endorsed Joe Biden against the progressive standard bearer, Bernie Sanders. Biden went on to beat Trump convincingly but Warren was passed over for vice-president and a cabinet post.On the page, Warren attributes some of the blame for her defeat to a failure to explain how she would pay for her ambitious progressive proposals, particularly on expanding healthcare.She also reportedly “offers a heavy dose of praise for allies and competitors and little score-settling or tale-telling”, calling Biden a “steady, decent man” and Sanders “fearless and determined”.The Post said Warren’s book “glosses over” a clash with Sanders over whether he told her a woman could not beat Trump. Warren says he did. Sanders says he did not.Warren considers a debate in Nevada in which she assailed the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg over his behaviour towards women and compared him to Trump. Warren, the Post said, writes that she was surprised Bloomberg did not immediately respond.“Like so many women in so many settings, I found myself wondering if he had even heard me,” she writes.Warren’s book, her third, also considers a previously disclosed incident at the University of Houston when she says a male colleague tried to grope her, and its effect on her academic career.The book’s title comes from a famous clash with Mitch McConnell in 2017. Attempting to silence Warren during debate, the then Republican majority leader said: “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”The Post said text on the back of Warren’s book says it is about “the fight that lies ahead”.“Warren offers few hints on whether she might run again for president,” the paper said. “At 71, she is younger than Biden and could plausibly launch another campaign in 2024, particularly if he does not seek a second term.” More

Mitt Romney was loudly booed at the Utah Republican party convention on Saturday, and called a ‘traitor’ and a ‘communist’ as he tried to speak. ‘Aren’t you embarrassed?’ the Utah senator asked the crowd of 2,100 delegates at the Maverik Center in West Valley City. ‘I’m a man who says what he means, and you know I was not a fan of our last president’s character issues.’

Mitt Romney booed and called ‘traitor’ at Utah Republican convention More

La idea de una supuesta batalla final entre la izquierda y la derecha, ¿realmente ayuda a los peruanos a discernir y a decidir mejor por quién votarán el próximo 6 de junio?El escenario político del Perú, de cara a la segunda vuelta electoral, parece un libreto tan perfecto como aterrador. Si a un avezado guionista de televisión le hubieran encargado el diseño de un drama sin salidas posibles, tal vez no hubiera imaginado un relato tan desolador. La realidad no supera a la ficción: la sustituye. Después de la profunda crisis política que ha vivido el país —con cuatro presidentes en los últimos cinco años—, tener ahora que elegir entre Pedro Castillo y Keiko Fujimori parece una pesadilla inimaginable, el peor remake de la industria de la polarización latinoamericana.¿Acaso tiene sentido seguir tratando de analizar lo que ocurre en la región como si fuera, tan solo, parte de un único y casi mecánico enfrentamiento entre el capitalismo y el comunismo? Esta propuesta esquemática —donde convergen algunos escritores reconocidos y analistas internacionales— parece cada vez más inútil. No logra explicar la realidad. Tampoco ha logrado modificarla.Pensar que ahora, nuevamente, en el Perú, se produce un choque entre las fuerzas universales de la izquierda y la derecha; insistir en la idea de que nuestra historia reciente solo puede entenderse como una sucesión de conspiraciones entre supuestos socialistas y supuestos liberales, ya no aporta nada y, por el contrario, obvia o elude la complejidad de nuestras sociedades y del proceso que está viviendo el continente. Parecen simples fórmulas de postergación. Tras los múltiples incendios de la polarización, la tragedia de las grandes mayorías sigue igual, intacta.¿La idea de una supuesta batalla final entre la izquierda y la derecha, realmente ayuda a los peruanos a discernir y a decidir mejor por quién votarán el próximo 6 de junio?La consigna de Pedro Castillo, supuestamente en el extremo a la izquierda, no es nueva: “Solo el pueblo salvará al pueblo”. Forma parte de una retórica ambigua pero eficaz. Recita textos de uno de los intelectuales de la izquierda latinoamericana por antonomasia, Eduardo Galeano, y convoca al país rural, abandonado y muchas veces despreciado. Convierte el melodrama en una acción política. Sin ofrecer demasiadas claridades con respecto a su programa de gobierno, capitaliza las legítimas ansias de cambio de la gente, apelando emocionalmente a la pobreza. Como era de esperarse, y como se ha repetido ya en las elecciones en otros países, el fantasma de Hugo Chávez sobrevuela la contienda. Castillo se ha visto obligado a aclarar que no es comunista, que no es chavista. Hace pocos días, en un programa de radio, le mandó un mensaje directo a Nicolás Maduro, pidiéndole que —antes de opinar sobre el Perú— resolviera sus problemas en internos en Venezuela. Y añadió una frase que revela más bien un pensamiento conservador y xenófobo: “Que venga y se lleve a sus compatriotas que han venido, por ejemplo, acá a delinquir”.La supuesta derecha, con Keiko Fujimori, más que representar el pasado, lo encarna. Literalmente. Ha anunciado que, de ganar las elecciones, indultará a su padre. Ante la desventaja en las encuestas, su estrategia de distribución de miedos se ha incrementado. Tratando de alimentar las sospechas sobre su rival, sostiene que Castillo es “un clon real de Hugo Chávez”. Esta confrontación, que parece un círculo ruidoso donde ambos contrincantes solo se dedican a acusarse mutuamente, podrá verse hoy en un debate público de los dos candidatos.Angela Ponce/ReutersLos candidatos presidenciales del Perú, Pedro Castillo y Keiko FujimoriPaolo Aguilar/EPA vía ShutterstockLa invitación de Mario Vargas Llosa a votar por Keiko, argumentando que representa “el mal menor” para el país, es otro síntoma de las limitaciones de la polarización. A diferencia del Vargas Llosa novelista —capaz de abordar y narrar con complejidad el gobierno y derrocamiento de Jacobo Árbenz, por ejemplo—, el Vargas Llosa opinador parece estar continuamente obligado a entrar en el esquema polarizante, a optar y defender cualquier propuesta que se diga o se proclame liberal, en contra de cualquier propuesta que parezca de izquierda. De esta manera, lo mejor —el mal menor— puede ser el regreso a lo peor. Es una lógica que deja en entredicho el sentido y la utilidad de la democracia: un sistema donde el poder del pueblo consiste en resignarse ante una minoría corrupta y autoritaria.Suponer que Keiko Fujimori simboliza la última oportunidad de libertad y que Castillo significa la llegada intempestiva del comunismo implica, entre otras cosas, reducir la historia y la vida social a un nivel de simplicidad enorme. Casi pareciera que, en los últimos diez años, los peruanos no hubieron visto pasar por la presidencia del país a Ollanta Humala, a Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a Martín Vizcarra, a Manuel Merino, a Francisco Sagasti. Como si no hubieran escuchado y vivido distintas propuestas, ideologías, nexos con la geopolítica regional. La condición apocalíptica de la polarización propone que la actualidad siempre es diferente y definitiva. Somete a los ciudadanos a hacerse responsables —de manera urgente— de las miserias de los actores políticos, así como a vivir postergando de forma permanente las genuinas ansias de cambio de su realidad.En la década de 1950, Williams S. Burroughs realizó un viaje desde Panamá al Perú, buscando tener experiencias con la ayahuasca. Durante el periplo, mantuvo una suerte de diario viajes, en forma de correspondencia con el poeta Allen Ginsberg, cuyo resultado fue un libro extraordinario, titulado Las cartas del Yagé. Al final de su periplo, ya en el Perú, el novelista estadounidense escribe lo siguiente: “Todas las mañanas, se oye el clamor de los chicos que venden Luckies por la calle: ‘A ver, Luckies’. ¿Seguirán gritando ‘A ver, Luckies’ de aquí a cien años? Miedo de pesadilla del estancamiento. Horror de quedarme finalmente clavado en este lugar. Ese miedo me ha perseguido por toda América del Sur. Una sensación horrible y enfermiza de desolación final”.Frente a esta realidad permanente, signada por la desigualdad, la pobreza y la impunidad, la polarización parece un juego pirotécnico, un libreto estridente que se repite sin gracia. El espectáculo que pretende convertir un fracaso conocido en una nueva esperanza.Alberto Barrera Tyszka (@Barreratyszka) es escritor venezolano. Su libro más reciente es la novela Mujeres que matan. More

Texas Special Election Results: Sixth Congressional District – The New York Times

Elections|Texas Special Election Results: Sixth Congressional Districthttps://nyti.ms/3eEWk2U More

The front-runner was Susan Wright, who was endorsed by Donald J. Trump and is the widow of Representative Ron Wright, who died of Covid-19 in February.AUSTIN, Texas — Susan Wright, the Republican widow of a congressman who died of Covid-19, emerged on Saturday evening as the front-runner in a tight race to replace her husband in Washington.Still, Ms. Wright, whose husband, Ron Wright, died in February, could not avoid a runoff for the state’s Sixth Congressional District, which includes mostly rural areas in three Northern Texas counties and a sliver of the nation’s fourth-largest metropolitan region around Dallas, Fort Worth and Arlington.Ms. Wright, who was assisted by a last-minute endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump, captured about 19 percent of the vote, far below the 50 percent required to avoid a runoff. It appeared she was headed to another contest with Jake Ellzey, a fellow Republican. Jana Lynne Sanchez, a Democrat, followed closely behind in third place.The results disappointed Democrats, who had hoped to tap a reservoir of shifting demographics and Hispanic and African-American growth in a district where Mr. Trump won by only three percentage points in November.Ms. Sanchez, who ran a tight race against Mr. Wright in 2018, held an election gathering at her home in Fort Worth and vowed to keep fighting for progressive values. The Sixth District was once a Democratic stronghold, until Phil Gramm switched party affiliations in 1983, turning the district into a reliable bastion of Republican strength for decades.In February, Mr. Wright, who had lung cancer, died after he contracted the coronavirus. His wife was an early front-runner to replace him, but her chances of outright victory narrowed after the field grew to 23 candidates, including 11 Republicans, 10 Democrats, a Libertarian and an independent.The battle took a bizarre turn in the final days when Ms. Wright’s backers reported receiving anonymous robocalls that accused her of killing her husband. She immediately sought an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the local authorities.Saturday’s results signaled that Mr. Trump continued to have a hold on the Republican Party in Texas months after losing an election he falsely claimed had been stolen from him. Mr. Wright had been a vocal ally of Mr. Trump and a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.This is the second time that the widow of a member of Congress who died from Covid sought to keep her husband’s seat. Last month, Julia Letlow, a Republican from Louisiana, avoided a runoff when she secured the seat of her late husband, Luke Letlow, who died before having the chance to represent the district, which includes much of the central part of the historically red state.In municipal races elsewhere in Texas, the mayor of San Antonio, Ron Nirenberg, easily won a second term. And voters in Austin overwhelmingly favored ending a ban on public camping, a decisive victory for those seeking to keep homeless people from erecting tents in certain spots across the city. Homelessness is a contested issue in the state capital, with critics arguing that the referendum didn’t offer alternatives to people with no place to sleep. More

The right-wing news site said it had found “no evidence” for pro-Trump conspiracy theories about Eric Coomer, who was Dominion’s director of product strategy and security.The conservative news outlet Newsmax formally apologized on Friday for spreading baseless allegations that an employee of Dominion Voting Systems had rigged voting machines in an effort to sink President Donald J. Trump’s bid for re-election last year.In a statement posted on its website, Newsmax acknowledged that it had found “no evidence” for the conspiracy theories advanced by Mr. Trump’s lawyers, supporters and others that the employee, Eric Coomer, had manipulated Dominion voting machines, voting software and the final vote counts in the election.“On behalf of Newsmax, we would like to apologize for any harm that our reporting of the allegations against Dr. Coomer may have caused to Dr. Coomer and his family,” the statement said.Mr. Coomer, director of product strategy and security for Dominion, sued Newsmax and several pro-Trump figures in December, after he had been roundly vilified in the right-wing media sphere. In his lawsuit, which also names the Trump campaign, Rudolph W. Giuliani and the One America News Network, Mr. Coomer claimed that he had suffered harm to his reputation, emotional distress, anxiety and lost earnings as false accusations spread throughout the pro-Trump world that he was plotting to rig the election.Among the accusations was a claim that Mr. Coomer had said on a phone call with antifa activists that he would ensure a victory for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the lawsuit said. In fact, Mr. Coomer did not participate in an “antifa conference call” and did not take any action to subvert the presidential election, the lawsuit said.Nevertheless, hashtags calling for Mr. Coomer to be arrested and exposed trended on social media, the lawsuit said. Mr. Trump’s son Eric posted a photo of Mr. Coomer on Twitter, alongside the false claim that Mr. Coomer had said he would ensure a Biden victory. Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, said at a news conference that Mr. Coomer was a “vicious, vicious man” who was “close to antifa,” the lawsuit said.And Sidney Powell, who was also one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, replied, “Yes, it’s true,” on Newsmax when she was asked if Mr. Coomer had said, “Don’t worry about President Trump, I already made sure that he’s going to lose the election,” according to the lawsuit.As a result, Mr. Coomer received an onslaught of offensive messages, harassment and death threats, according to the lawsuit, which names Ms. Powell as a defendant.“These fabrications and attacks against me have upended my life, forced me to flee my home, and caused my family and loved ones to fear for my safety, and I fear for theirs,” Mr. Coomer wrote in an opinion column published in The Denver Post in December.In its statement on Friday, Newsmax said it wanted to “clarify” its coverage of Mr. Coomer.“There are several facts that our viewers should be aware of,” the statement said. “Newsmax has found no evidence that Dr. Coomer interfered with Dominion voting machines or voting software in any way, nor that Dr. Coomer ever claimed to have done so. Nor has Newsmax found any evidence that Dr. Coomer ever participated in any conversation with members of ‘antifa,’ nor that he was directly involved with any partisan political organization.”Mr. Coomer’s lawyer, Steve Skarnulis, said he could not comment on the statement, “as the terms of settlement are strictly confidential.”Newsmax said it does not comment on litigation.“Our statement on the website is consistent with our previous statements that we have not seen any evidence of software manipulation in the 2020 election,” a Newsmax spokesman said.In December, Newsmax posted a statement renouncing a number of false claims about Dominion and Smartmatic, another election technology company that had become the focus of conspiracy theories. The statement came after Smartmatic said it had sent Newsmax legal notices and letters demanding retractions for publishing “false and defamatory statements.”Newsmax’s statement acknowledged that “no evidence has been offered that Dominion or Smartmatic used software or reprogrammed software that manipulated votes in the 2020 election.”In February, a Newsmax host, Bob Sellers, cut off Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow and a vociferous Trump supporter, when he began attacking Dominion on air. As Mr. Lindell continued to talk, Mr. Sellers read a prepared statement saying the election results had been certified in every state.“Newsmax accepts the results as legal and final,” Mr. Sellers said. “The courts have also supported that view.”Mr. Coomer’s lawsuit, which had been filed in Colorado, is separate from a number of lawsuits that Dominion Voting Systems has filed against Fox News, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Lindell. More

In “Persist,” the Massachusetts senator delves into gender issues and her own shortcomings after her failed bid for the Democratic nomination.The question came at a campaign cattle call in April 2019, just a few months after Elizabeth Warren announced her presidential bid: How would she address “the urge to flee to the safety of a white male candidate?”After a question-and-answer session spent presenting her plans to address maternal mortality, criminal justice, housing, redlining and tribal sovereignty, that remark came as “a big bucket of cold water,” Ms. Warren, the Massachusetts senator, writes in a new memoir about her failed campaign.“We all knew the fear she was talking about,” she writes. “Could we — should we — support a woman?”Her book, “Persist,” addresses Ms. Warren’s effort to grapple with that question. Obtained by The New York Times before its release next week, it offers a peek into Ms. Warren’s personal view of her loss — a defeat she largely blames on a failure to explain how she would pay for her health care plan, the established following of Senator Bernie Sanders, the name recognition of Joseph R. Biden Jr. — and her own shortcomings.“There’s always another possibility, a much more painful one,” she writes. “In this moment, against this president, in this field of candidates, maybe I just wasn’t good enough to reassure the voters, to bring along the doubters, to embolden the hopeful.”Ms. Warren is determined not to wallow in her defeat, focusing most of the book on her policy prescriptions, some of which have been adopted by the new Biden administration. She offers reflections on the racial justice protests that roiled the country after the primary, devoting a significant portion of a chapter on race to her decision to identify as Native American earlier in her career — a “bad mistake,” she says. And she writes a moving tribute to her oldest brother, Don Reed Herring, attributing his death from the coronavirus last year to a failure of government.“This book is not a campaign memoir,” she writes. “It is not a rehash of big public events. It’s a book about the fight that lies ahead.”Yet, frank discussion of her gender — and the obstacles it poses — runs throughout the 304-page book. Though she never attributes sexism directly for her loss, she provides plenty of evidence that it remained a serious factor in the race. Stories of discrimination against women run throughout her book, as she recounts the struggles of her own career trajectory and offers prescriptions for changes like paid leave and affordable child care.Again and again, Ms. Warren suggests that Democratic voters were wary of nominating a second woman, fearing another defeat to Donald J. Trump. She “had to run against the shadows of Martha and Hillary,” she writes, a reference to Martha Coakley, who lost two statewide campaigns in Massachusetts, and Hillary Clinton.While Ms. Warren expected to face some sexism, she details in the book, her plan was simply to outwork those expectations with a strong team, vibrant grass roots organizing and plenty of policy plans.“I would do more,” she says. “I would fill up every space with ideas and energy and optimism. I would hope that my being a woman wouldn’t matter so much.”That idea collided with the reality of the contest fairly quickly. When calling donors early in her campaign, Ms. Warren was taken aback by the number of times potential supporters mentioned Mrs. Clinton’s defeat.Publisher: Metropolitan Books“I wondered whether anyone said to Bernie Sanders when he asked for their support, ‘Gore lost, so how can you win?’ I wondered whether anyone said to Joe Biden, ‘Kerry lost, so clearly America just isn’t ready for a man to be president,’” she recounts thinking as she lay in bed after her first day spent raising money for her presidential bid. “I tried to laugh, but the joke didn’t seem very funny.”After being passed over as vice president and Treasury secretary, Ms. Warren has kept a lower-profile in recent months, preferring to exert her influence through private conversations with the White House. Her top aides have been tapped for powerful posts throughout the administration and Democratic National Committee.She offers praise for Mr. Biden — “a good leader and fundamentally decent man” — and most of her former rivals throughout the book. A dust-up with Mr. Sanders — “fearless and determined” — over whether he told her in a private 2018 meeting that a woman could not defeat Mr. Trump is largely ignored.But one former opponent gets far more withering treatment. Ms. Warren spends several pages detailing her determination to take down Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, in a February 2020 debate, saying she believed his decision to spend nearly a billion dollars of his personal fortune to skip the early primaries “undermined our democracy” by essentially handing the nomination to the richest man.Ms. Warren describes herself as “stunned” when Mr. Bloomberg ignored her early attacks: “Like so many women in so many settings, I found myself wondering if he had even heard me,” she writes.Her debate performance was largely credited with ending Mr. Bloomberg’s bid. But Ms. Warren can’t resist mentioning an “an unexpected kick” in response to her attacks — a comment that she was too “mean and angry.”“And there it was, the same damn remark made about every woman who ever stood up for herself and threw a punch,” she writes. “Repeat after me: fighting hard is ‘not a good look.’” More

Mr. Yang is running for mayor of New York City as a bold thinker and entrepreneur. But his results have been uneven.The idea was as simple as it was ambitious: help struggling American cities by recruiting promising college graduates, finding them jobs at start-ups in those cities and training them to open businesses of their own.That plan formed the backbone of Venture for America, a nonprofit organization founded in 2011 by Andrew Yang, who waged an improbably durable campaign for president last year and now has surged to the front of the pack in this year’s race for New York City mayor.Mr. Yang has undeniable star power, helping to fuel his rise as a political newcomer with big ideas and boundless optimism about the future of the city. Unlike most of his opponents, he has not worked in government or managed any large organization. Indeed, the most extensive leadership experience of his life was at the helm of Venture for America.With the zeal of an evangelist, Mr. Yang raised tens of millions of dollars for the organization with the goal of creating 100,000 jobs in cities where they were most needed, such as Detroit. The aim led the Obama administration to declare Mr. Yang a “Champion of Change” and paved the way for his political career.But a review by The New York Times of Mr. Yang’s tenure at Venture for America found a yawning gap between his bold promises and the results of his efforts.Only a small fraction of the group’s alumni have started companies, and most of those businesses have either closed or moved to traditional start-up hubs like Silicon Valley. Today, only about 150 people work at companies founded by alumni in the cities that the nonprofit has targeted.A self-described “numbers guy,” Mr. Yang left the group’s budget depleted, tax filings show. In 2017, when he left to run for president, the nonprofit spent $2.6 million more than it raised, ending the year with only about a month’s worth of cash in reserves.The goal of Venture for America was to recruit college graduates to work in struggling American cities and train them to open their own businesses, creating jobs.Gretchen Ertl for The New York TimesMr. Yang also failed to recruit many participants of color, even creating a points system for applicants that ended up hurting graduates of historically Black colleges, records show.This uneven record threatens to undermine Mr. Yang’s main campaign pitch: that he is an enterprising problem-solver who can lead the largest city in the United States into its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.“Andrew comes up with these grand ideas, and he loves to obsess about them and talk about how great they are, but he doesn’t think through all the details,” said Cris Landa, a Venture for America employee between 2016 and last year. She said the nonprofit had an important mission and a talented staff, but Mr. Yang did not lead successfully. “He couldn’t be bothered to actually focus on the details.”For this article, The Times interviewed more than 50 Venture for America alumni and former employees. Many praised the organization for creating opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs. But nearly two dozen said that despite noble intentions, the program was misguided and ineffective.In a statement, a campaign spokeswoman defended Venture for America and also emphasized that Mr. Yang had experience running a company — managing a small but successful test-prep firm he had joined as an instructor.“Andrew was the C.E.O. of a successful private company that became #1 in the country in its category and was acquired by a public company in 2009,” said the spokeswoman, Alyssa Cass. “He then started a nonprofit that helped create jobs around the country and a presidential campaign that grew from nothing to a national movement. He also wrote a New York Times best seller on the impact of technology on the economy.”Venture for America, which is still in operation without Mr. Yang, declined to comment.Mr. Yang has said he would be eager to delegate some of the gritty details of managing City Hall. He told The New York Post editorial board recently that he saw the mayor’s role as one that was, in part, about “team-building, culture-setting.”Questions of managerial competence and the ability to implement a vision are of vital importance in the race. New York City has a $90 billion budget and a convoluted government bureaucracy with about 300,000 employees; a thicket of political interests compete for attention and money. The election is poised to be the most consequential in at least a generation, unfolding against the backdrop of a pandemic, economic uncertainty, gun violence and racial and socioeconomic inequality.Nearly all the leading candidates have more experience navigating city government than Mr. Yang does, including his chief rivals: Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president; Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller; and Maya Wiley, the former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio.Mr. Yang is largely running a personality-driven campaign that emphasizes his background as an entrepreneur, but he has little personal experience in founding companies.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesNo tech, little entrepreneurshipStill, it is Mr. Yang who has led the polls, casting himself as a big-thinking candidate who is willing to experiment with unconventional proposals and build coalitions and relationships, including in the private sector, as he did at Venture for America.Mr. Yang has proposed some specific policies, including a plan to give about $2,000 a year to the poorest New Yorkers, a scaled-down version of the universal basic income he proposed while running for president. But he is largely running a personality-driven campaign that highlights his background as an “entrepreneur” — the first word of the biography on his Twitter profile.The message appears to be resonating. Mr. Yang is perceived by many voters as a successful tech entrepreneur.Despite that widely-held belief, Mr. Yang has little personal experience founding companies or in the tech industry. Ms. Cass noted that Mr. Yang, who is Asian-American, may face stereotypes because of his race.Asked about his most successful entrepreneurial venture, she said, “nothing was more successful than taking an obscure idea of cash relief and turning it into the cornerstone of a presidential campaign that activated millions of Americans,” an idea that, she said, was reflected in federal stimulus payments during the pandemic.Mr. Yang, 46, graduated from Columbia Law School in 1999 and briefly worked as a corporate lawyer in New York. He quit after five months.In 2000, Mr. Yang started a website called Stargiving that sought to use time with celebrities as an incentive for people to donate to charities. That project “failed spectacularly,” as he wrote in his first book.A year later, Mr. Yang started Ignition NYC, which hosted parties for professionals seeking to have fun and make business connections. It flamed out after about a dozen parties, according to a co-founder.Mr. Yang bounced between jobs before landing at the test-prep company, then called Manhattan GMAT, referring to the exam for business school. The founder was a former roommate of one of Mr. Yang’s high school friends, and eventually asked Mr. Yang to run the business.Mr. Yang ran the company for about four years and helped oversee a sale to Kaplan, the test-prep giant, which netted him a little more than $1 million, former employees said.On the campaign trail, Mr. Yang talks often about that experience. But he played a much larger role in founding and leading Venture for America.A new ideaMr. Yang used $121,000 to start Venture for America in 2011, records show. He has said he developed the idea after seeing many students at the test-prep company go into finance or consulting, even as they said they wanted to change the world and nascent companies badly wanted their help.College graduates recruited by Venture for America attended a monthlong boot camp at Mr. Yang’s undergraduate alma mater, Brown University.Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times“There’s a supply and a demand. We just need to connect the two sides,” he wrote in a letter announcing the group, which he said would resemble Teach for America, the nonprofit that recruits graduates to teach in low-income schools.“Our stated goal is to generate 100,000 U.S. jobs by 2025,” he wrote.The idea drew widespread attention from the news media, including The Times, and donations poured in — mostly from big banks, including UBS and Barclays, as well as from Dan Gilbert, the head of Quicken Loans, and Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos, the online shoe retailer.In 2012, Venture for America selected its first class, 31 men and nine women.The group trained them at a monthlong boot camp at Mr. Yang’s undergraduate alma mater, Brown University, and then helped them apply to work for two years as fellows at start-ups in Cincinnati, Detroit, Las Vegas, New Orleans and Providence, R.I.The start-ups paid the fellows up to $38,000 a year, and gave $5,000 to the nonprofit. Many companies jumped at the chance to land top talent at a bargain rate. Venture for America encouraged fellows to come up with their own business ideas, offering to help them find funding.Soon, Venture for America began recruiting much larger classes of fellows and expanding to more cities as Mr. Yang raised more money — and made increasingly large declarations about the success of the program.While leading Venture for America, Mr. Yang ultimately told donors the organization had already created as many as 5,000 jobs. While running for president, when critics questioned the claims of success, he said it had created thousands of jobs.But those numbers were based on an unusual calculation, according to former employees: If the nonprofit sent a fellow to work at a start-up, and that start-up later increased in size, then Mr. Yang claimed those new positions as “jobs created.”Ms. Cass, the spokeswoman for the Yang campaign, acknowledged that method, adding that the group also counted the jobs filled by the fellows themselves.Mr. Yang used $121,000 to start Venture for America in 2011. In the years since he left the company, it has stopped touting its goal of creating thousands of jobs.Guerin Blask for The New York TimesIn the years since Mr. Yang left Venture for America, it has shifted away from declarations about jobs and the 100,000-job goal altogether. Recently, it changed its website to say fellows had started companies that together created almost 450 jobs..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-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.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-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 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:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}For its analysis, The Times obtained a list of all current and past fellows, analyzed their profiles on LinkedIn and contacted everyone who said he or she had founded a company. In cases where founders did not respond, reporters obtained information about companies.The review found that of the nearly 1,000 alumni, about 200 said they had started businesses. But about half of those ventures quickly failed, which is not uncommon among start-ups. Many of the others have no employees other than their founders. And most of those that have survived have moved away from the cities where they began.In the cities Venture for America has targeted, there are only about two dozen businesses still in operation, collectively employing about 150 people. Ms. Cass, the campaign spokeswoman, said Mr. Yang was proud of all jobs created, regardless of where they ended up.A movie starring YangSeveral founders said they actually started their businesses before joining the group, including Yelitsa Jean-Charles, a 2016 fellow who invented Healthy Roots Dolls, a multicultural children’s toy company in Detroit that Venture for America has featured on its website.“I benefited from the training that I received from Venture for America, but I absolutely would be where I am regardless,” she said. “V.F.A. was not a determining factor in my success.”Other founders defended the nonprofit.“Did V.F.A. on paper live up to exactly what it said it was going to do? You already know the answer to that,” said Marino Orlandi, a 2015 fellow who founded Aiva, a tech company in New York. “But I don’t see that personally as an indictment. I see that as what happens when you try to be ambitious and solve hard problems.”In interviews, many alumni said Venture for America had succeeded in more intangible ways, teaching about entrepreneurship, fostering long-lasting connections and sending committed people into economically disadvantaged cities. Some said they still lived in the cities and remained friends with other fellows.“It’s a network of other highly ambitious and, in my mind, talented human beings,” said Jack Feldman, a 2016 fellow. “You have a very good network of people who are capable of helping you do out-of-the-box things.”In the early years, Mr. Yang personally recruited fellows. Several alumni praised him as accessible and genuine and said they viewed him as a mentor.But others said they did not enjoy the same support. Some women said Mr. Yang seemed to prefer playing basketball with male fellows to spending time with them. And some fellows who are Black or Latino said they never felt welcome, partially because there were so few of them.Under Mr. Yang, Venture for America focused on recruiting from Ivy League Universities.Gretchen Ertl for The New York TimesVenture for America sent its fellows into cities populated largely by people of color, but its first classes were more than 80 percent white, and nearly 80 percent male, records show.Under Mr. Yang, the organization focused on recruiting at Ivy League colleges, former employees said. As part of the selection process, applicants received a score based on their alma mater. Internal records show the rubric ended up classifying virtually all the country’s historically Black colleges in the lowest tier.So all other things being equal, graduates of the prestigious Howard University, for example, would have had a harder time getting into Venture for America than students who attended other schools — including many that fell far lower in the college rankings released each year by U.S. News and World Report.Vanessa Paige, a Black woman in the 2015 cohort, said that at a start-up where she worked as a fellow, she heard an executive use a racist slur in a meeting. She reported the incident to Venture for America and transferred to a different company, but Mr. Yang and the nonprofit continued to work with the start-up for another four years, emails show.“I believe that he had behaviors and practices at V.F.A. that were anti-Black, and that led to negative experiences for fellows of color, specifically Black women,” Ms. Paige said.Ms. Cass said Venture for America did the right thing by relocating the fellow and eventually cutting ties with the start-up. She also acknowledged that the application process was deeply flawed and said that any bias was unintentional.Others cited additional problems. During Mr. Yang’s tenure, some noted, the organization stopped sending fellows to several cities, in part because it struggled to raise money and find start-ups willing to accept fellows.After Mr. Yang left in 2017, Venture for America eliminated the metric that disadvantaged historically Black colleges, increased its diversity and expanded support for fellows, former employees said.Many people at Venture for America were surprised when Mr. Yang announced he was planning to run for president.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesAlthough Mr. Yang does not emphasize his time at Venture for America on the campaign trail, his tenure is memorialized in a 2016 film about the program, starring him. The movie, Generation Startup, was directed by an Oscar winner and marketed as an independent feature documentary, available on Netflix.The nonprofit raised the money to fund the documentary’s $1.5 million budget, internal records show.The film follows six fellows in Detroit and ends triumphantly, suggesting that the nonprofit had changed their lives and led four of them to start businesses. (Ms. Cass said the filmmakers chose the subjects.)But none of the fellows live in Detroit today. Only one founded a business that got off the ground: Banza, a chickpea pasta manufacturer that is Venture for America’s biggest success story. It produces its pasta in California.Susan C. Beachy contributed research. More