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AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyInside the Lincoln Project’s Secrets, Side Deals and ScandalsA civil war broke out in the group as it antagonized Donald Trump, with leaders splintering over financial arrangements and revelations of online harassment by a top official.Credit…Mark HarrisDanny Hakim, Maggie Astor and March 8, 2021, 12:32 p.m. ETA few days before the presidential election, the leadership of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project gathered at the Utah home of Steve Schmidt, one of the group’s co-founders, and listened as he plotted out the organization’s future.None of the dissident Republican consultants who created the Lincoln Project a year earlier had imagined how wildly successful it would be, pulling in more than $87 million in donations and producing scores of viral videos that doubled as a psy-ops campaign intended to drive President Donald J. Trump to distraction. Confident that a Biden administration was on the horizon, Mr. Schmidt, a swaggering former political adviser to John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger, pitched the other attendees on his post-Trump vision for the project over a breakfast of bagels and muffins. And it was ambitious.“Five years from now, there will be a dozen billion-dollar media companies that don’t exist today,” he told the group, according to two people who attended. “I would like to build one, and would invite all of you to be part of that.”In fact, Mr. Schmidt and the three other men who started the Lincoln Project — John Weaver, Reed Galen and Rick Wilson — had already quietly moved to set themselves up in the new enterprise, drafting and filing papers to create TLP Media in September and October, records show. Its aim was to transform the original project, a super PAC, into a far more lucrative venture under their control.This was not the only private financial arrangement among the four men. Shortly after they created the group in late 2019, they had agreed to pay themselves millions of dollars in management fees, three people with knowledge of the deal said. One of the people said a contract was drawn up among the four men but not signed. A spokeswoman for the Lincoln Project was broadly dismissive and said, “No such agreement exists and nothing like it was ever adopted.”The behind-the-scenes moves by the four original founders showed that whatever their political goals, they were also privately taking steps to make money from the earliest stages, and wanted to limit the number of people who would share in the spoils. Over time, the Lincoln Project directed about $27 million — nearly a third of its total fund-raising — to Mr. Galen’s consulting firm, from which the four men were paid, according to people familiar with the arrangement.Conceived as a full-time attack machine against Mr. Trump, the Lincoln Project’s public profile soared last year as its founders built a reputation as a creative yet ruthless band of veteran operators. They recruited like-minded colleagues, and their scathing videos brought adulation from the left and an aura of mischievous idealism for what they claimed was their mission: nothing less than to save democracy.They also hit upon a geyser of cash, discovering that biting attacks on a uniquely polarizing president could be as profitable in the loosely regulated world of political fund-raising as Mr. Trump’s populist bravado was for his own campaign.Then it all began to unravel. By the time of the Utah meeting, the leaders of the Lincoln Project — who had spent their careers making money from campaigns — recognized the value of their enterprise and had begun to maneuver for financial gain. But other leaders had learned of the financial arrangement among the original founders, and they were privately fuming.Another major problem was festering: the behavior of Mr. Weaver, who for years had been harassing young men with sexually provocative messages.Allegations about Mr. Weaver’s conduct began appearing in published reports in The American Conservative and Forensic News this winter. In late January, The New York Times reported on allegations going back several years. The Times has spoken to more than 25 people who received harassing messages, including one person who was 14 when Mr. Weaver first contacted him.Fresh reporting by The Times found that Mr. Weaver’s inappropriate behavior was brought to the organization’s attention multiple times last year, beginning in January 2020, according to four people with direct knowledge of the complaints, though none of the warnings involved a minor. The Lincoln Project’s spokeswoman, Ryan Wiggins, said it would not comment on issues related to Mr. Weaver while an outside legal review of Mr. Weaver’s actions was ongoing. The group has hired the law firm Paul Hastings to conduct the review.Steve Schmidt, a former political adviser to John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger, is one of the co-founders of the Lincoln Project.Credit…Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty ImagesLast June, an employee for a company hired by the Lincoln Project warned in an email that Mr. Weaver’s conduct was “potentially fatal” to the organization’s image. The email, sent to a board member and circulated to other leaders, described multiple instances of harassment. It said Mr. Weaver’s behavior was already damaging relationships with vendors and offered to put leaders in contact with some of the men involved.Over the last month, The Times reviewed documents and conducted interviews with the founders and with scores of current and former contractors, executives, interns and men who were harassed by Mr. Weaver. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations, and others because they feared retaliation from Lincoln Project leaders.The crisis surrounding Mr. Weaver, and the splintering of the group’s leadership, have cast the future of the Lincoln Project into doubt. Within weeks of the meeting in Utah, a battle erupted over who would control the group’s board. There would be threats to sue, to start rival groups and to back different board slates, as millions of dollars were moved in and out of the organization.Even people once associated with the group, including George T. Conway III, have called for its dissolution. But Mr. Schmidt’s faction intends to continue it as a modern media campaign against global forces of authoritarianism, while also monetizing the movement.Save for Mr. Weaver, the project’s top leadership — Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Galen and Mr. Wilson — has not changed. They are hoping that enough of its more than 500,000 donors will remain to keep its coffers filled.Mr. Schmidt, in a recent interview conducted shortly before he took a leave of absence, said this was no time to quit.“I want the Lincoln Project to be one of the premier pro-democracy organizations,” he said. “We believe there is a real autocratic movement that is a threat to democracy and has a floor of 40 percent in the next election. And the pro-democracy side cannot be the gentle side of the debate.”An unexpectedly fast riseIt was not initially clear that the Lincoln Project would be so wildly successful. Then, last May, it released its “Mourning in America” video, a play on a Reagan-era commercial that laid the failures of the country’s pandemic response squarely at Mr. Trump’s feet.The commercial prompted a late-night Twitter barrage from Mr. Trump to his tens of millions of followers. He derided the project as “a group of RINO Republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again 8 years ago, and then got BADLY beaten by me,” adding, “They’re all LOSERS.”Mr. Trump’s outburst gave the Lincoln Project a flood of attention it could have only hoped for. Fund-raising surged. In June, the billionaire investor Stephen Mandel donated $1 million, while Joshua Bekenstein, a co-chairman of Bain Capital, and David Geffen each donated $100,000; Mr. Geffen has since given $500,000 in total. (David Dishman, the executive director of the David Geffen Foundation, said that Mr. Geffen’s donations were “specific to their work around the 2020 election cycle.”)It was the start of a wave of contributions, not all from financial powerhouses like Mr. Geffen. The Lincoln Project raised more than $30 million from people who gave less than $200.A hiring spree began, and the organization spread its wings, creating a communications shop, a political division, podcasts and political shows for its website. It went from “eight or 10 people on the first of May, to like 60-plus by late or early July,” Mr. Galen said. “We scaled up enormously quickly.”Initially, the project operated much like a pirate ship. Typical workplace management practices were lacking. The organization has no chief executive. Two of its largest contractors, who were billing the Lincoln Project, were given seats on the three-member board of directors, a breach of normal governance practices.The executive structure was malleable: The two contractors on the board, for instance, Ron Steslow and Mike Madrid, who were each involved in reaching voters through digital advertising and data targeting, were also referred to as co-founders. So were Mr. Conway and Jennifer Horn, a former head of the Republican Party in New Hampshire who joined early on and played a leading role in outreach to independents and Republicans.“This thing was literally a pop-up stand,” said Mr. Conway, an unpaid adviser who had no real operational role before stepping away from the organization last summer. “It was an organization that got big really fast, and more money came in than anyone could have imagined. It was just catch as catch can.”Amid the rapid growth, it was the core group of original founders, led by Mr. Schmidt, who wielded operational control. “I had zero decision-making power,” Sarah Lenti, a Republican political consultant who at one point served as the group’s executive director, said in an interview.Ms. Lenti, who has worked on four G.O.P. presidential campaigns in a variety of roles, added that she “was never privy to what founders were making.”If liberals viewed the Lincoln Project’s mission as noble, the four Republicans who started it had long been practitioners of bare-knuckled political brawling.Mr. Wilson was a longtime G.O.P. strategist known for producing jagged attack ads, like one in 2002 that claimed former Senator Max Cleland, a Georgia Democrat who had lost both legs and his right hand in Vietnam, lacked the courage to defend America against terrorists.The other three were alumni of Mr. McCain’s presidential campaigns. Mr. Weaver is a brooding and mercurial Texan whom Mr. McCain nicknamed Sunny. Mr. Schmidt, played by Woody Harrelson in the movie “Game Change,” championed Sarah Palin as Mr. McCain’s vice-presidential nominee in 2008, a decision he later called a mistake. He and Mr. Weaver are not remembered fondly by the McCain family, judging by a recent tweet from Meghan McCain, the former senator’s daughter, who said that in recent years, “no McCain would have spit on them if they were on fire.”Mr. Galen, once a Schmidt lieutenant and now an equal partner, said of presidential campaigns, “It’s not Montessori school.”Rick Wilson is a longtime Republican strategist known for producing jagged attack ads against Democrats.Credit…Brad Barket/Getty ImagesAs money poured in, robust cost controls were lacking, with founders reaping management fees. And while big payments are common in politics, other Lincoln Project officials and employees were shocked at the scale when federal records revealed that nearly $27 million had been paid to Mr. Galen’s consulting firm, Summit Strategic Communications. It is not known how much of that each of the four received. Their private arrangement shielded even from other senior officials the size of the individual payments.The Lincoln Project directed nearly $27 million to Reed Galen’s consulting firm, from which the four original founders were paid.Credit…Robin Marchant/Getty Images“Based on public reports, I clearly was not compensated anywhere near as lavishly as others seemingly were, earning a small fraction of what some of my male counterparts did,” Ms. Horn said in a recent statement.Obscuring payments via intermediary firms can violate campaign finance laws, but it is unclear whether the Lincoln Project crossed that line.Ms. Wiggins, the spokeswoman, said Summit was one of the prime contractors that managed and performed work for the Lincoln Project, citing voter outreach efforts and placing advertisements. “All prime contractors and subcontractors were paid in accordance with industry standards,” she said.Mr. Galen was also earning commissions on nearly $13.3 million directed to another contractor, Ashton Media, which placed the group’s television ads, a former Lincoln Project official said. The project declined to discuss the commissions but said in a statement that it was “standard practice” to use “either a percentage, fixed-fee or hybrid model for media buying.”Jan Baran, a longtime Republican campaign finance lawyer, said that it was “customary and customarily controversial” for campaign consultants to steer business to their own firms, but that, typically, candidates and PACs negotiate those fees down. What makes the Lincoln Project different, he said, is that “the consultants are their own client, so I’m guessing the negotiations wouldn’t have been as rigorous.”The Lincoln Project’s advertisements ceaselessly needled and called out President Donald J. Trump.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesUnaddressed complaintsIn the midst of the Lincoln Project’s overnight success last summer, a troubling email arrived.“I’m writing regarding a pattern of concerning behavior by Weaver that has been brought to my attention by multiple people,” it began. “In addition to being morally and potentially legally wrong, I believe what I’m going to outline poses an immediate threat to the reputation of the organization, and is potentially fatal to our public image.”The email was sent to Mr. Steslow, the Lincoln Project contractor and board member, by an employee at his company, Tusk, which handled the project’s digital advertising. It described a wide array of allegations dating from 2014 to 2020, including what it called a “bait-and-switch situation” around 2015 in which Mr. Weaver offered to discuss a political job with a young man, then tried to bring him to his hotel room instead. It also said that Mr. Weaver had continued to harass people after the Lincoln Project was founded in late 2019, and that he had “mixed suggestive commentary with official T.L.P. marketing work.”The Times obtained a portion of the message, and multiple people who have read it provided detailed descriptions of the rest. It included an offer to provide more information if Lincoln Project leaders requested it.This was not the first time that allegations of harassment by Mr. Weaver had been reported to project leaders. In January, five months before the email was sent, another person working for Tusk had raised concerns with Mr. Steslow.Ms. Lenti said she was told last March, when she was executive director, that Mr. Weaver “had a history of flirting with gentlemen over Twitter in an inappropriate fashion.”Mr. Steslow pressed unsuccessfully for some time to have Mr. Weaver pushed out, five people with knowledge of the matter said. While he informed other Lincoln Project officials as early as February 2020 of his concerns, three of the people said, there are conflicting accounts of who learned about Mr. Weaver, what they learned and when.Mr. Schmidt has been adamant that he had “no awareness or insinuations of any type of inappropriate behavior,” only rumors that Mr. Weaver was gay, even as concerns about harassment were percolating within the organization he was helping run. Mr. Galen was made aware of the June email, the five people with knowledge of the matter said; he declined to comment on the issue, citing the outside legal review the Lincoln Project has commissioned.John Weaver, accused of harassing young men, took a medical leave from the Lincoln Project in August.Credit…Open Mind/CUNY-TV, via YouTubeThe Lincoln Project did not begin an internal review into Mr. Weaver’s conduct until after the email from the Tusk employee arrived in June. It was led by the group’s general counsel, Matt Sanderson, but was limited in scope, according to Ms. Lenti and others. Ms. Lenti said that to her knowledge, only two people who had complained about Mr. Weaver’s messages were contacted. The June email contained many more allegations that were never followed up on.“I was not made privy to any written report, if there was ever one, and to my knowledge only the two gentlemen were interviewed,” Ms. Lenti said, adding that Mr. Weaver himself had not been interviewed.Mr. Sanderson declined to comment, citing the legal inquiry.By the time the Lincoln Project was founded, Mr. Weaver had been harassing young men online for years. In the most aggressive messages reviewed by The Times, he explicitly offered professional help or mentorship in exchange for sex. Other times, he asked young men about their height, weight and other measurements, and suggested they get drinks or travel together.Mr. Weaver took a medical leave in August, quieting internal dissent. But soon afterward, he was included as an equal partner in Mr. Schmidt’s proposed private media venture. Axios reported in late October that the Lincoln Project was “weighing offers from different television studios, podcast networks and book publishers.”That was news to Mr. Steslow, Mr. Madrid and Ms. Horn, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. It exacerbated tensions that had been simmering since the summer, when the trio had resisted a brief effort by the original founders to strip them of their titles as co-founders, the people said.By Oct. 30, Mr. Steslow, Mr. Madrid and Ms. Horn were already on edge as they gathered at Mr. Schmidt’s Utah house, listening as he outlined his vision for a media company. And it was soon made clear to them that they would not be equal partners. Though Mr. Schmidt had already brought Mr. Weaver in on the media deal, he referred to him indirectly as a “black box” that needed to be resolved, but didn’t give details.Mike Madrid was installed as a board member but was often referred to as a co-founder.Credit…Max WhittakerWhat Mr. Schmidt didn’t say was that the four original principals had already signed a 27-page agreement for TLP Media that named Mr. Schmidt as manager and required each to chip in $100,000 for an equal share, according to a copy reviewed by The Times.Asked about those documents, Ms. Wiggins, the spokeswoman, said: “This is an inactive company — it only ever existed on paper, never conducted any business, and was never capitalized by its due date, making it null. There are no plans to use this business in the future.”Game changeNot long after the election, with relationships fraying over the group’s finances, Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Wilson sought to formalize their control of the project by pushing to join the board of directors, multiple people with knowledge of the effort said. Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid were sent a resolution to sign that would add Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Wilson to the board. Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid instead requested a meeting to discuss the proposal. They were rebuffed.A bitter standoff began. With Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid still in control of the board, Mr. Galen, aligned with Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Wilson, set up a new entity of their own called Lincoln Project 2024. In December, they moved millions of dollars from the existing Lincoln Project into companies they controlled, which would have left behind a hollowed-out shell, several people with knowledge of the dispute said. (Mr. Galen said, “Anything regarding this, I can’t speak to.”)Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid, threatened with litigation by the original founders, asked to review the organization’s books, as well as information related to Mr. Galen’s consulting firm.Mr. Conway tried to mediate. “I told them all these threats and counter-threats are going to blow up the organization and destroy something that had done so much good,” he said.It was only during the course of that mediation, Mr. Conway added, that he first learned something about Mr. Weaver’s behavior. Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid told him they were concerned that Mr. Weaver might still be getting paid despite having sent inappropriate messages to young political consultants, Mr. Conway said, though he added that he wasn’t given details or told that it involved people who worked with the project.In the end, the transferred funds were returned to the Lincoln Project, Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Wilson joined the board, and a settlement was reached with Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid, who departed in December.Both declined to comment, citing a confidentiality agreement. While the organization has publicly offered to waive such agreements, several people with knowledge of the matter said the offers were limited.Jennifer Horn, a former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, left the Lincoln Project in January.Credit…Matt Rourke/Associated PressThe infighting remained largely invisible until January, when reports surfaced about Mr. Weaver’s conduct. Ms. Horn soon departed, assailing fellow leaders’ handling of the situation and saying she had only recently become aware of it. “When I spoke to one of the founders to raise my objections and concerns, I was yelled at, demeaned and lied to,” she said.Recriminations were swift. Ms. Horn’s private Twitter messages were posted to the project’s official Twitter account, then quickly taken down, a highly unusual breach of privacy; her lawyers have given notice of a potential lawsuit.Mr. Schmidt retreated, leaving the board he had only recently joined. He also apologized to Ms. Horn for letting “my anger turn a business dispute into a public war” and called her “an important and valuable member of our team.”Those comments were part of a lengthy statement in which Mr. Schmidt said the Weaver episode had reawakened his anger at sexual abuse he had experienced as a boy, as he sought to explain the group’s widely criticized response.“I am incandescently angry about it,” he said of Mr. Weaver’s actions. “I know the journey that lies ahead for every young man that trusted, feared and was abused by John Weaver.”Rehabilitation projectAs the Lincoln Project tries to reboot, in some ways little has changed. The project is still controlled by three of the four men who started it. Cognizant of a lack of diversity in the organization — all four original founders are white — they have asked Tara Setmayer, a Black senior adviser and former House Republican communications director, to lead a transition advisory committee.Ms. Setmayer called the project a movement of people “who decided to get involved to help rehabilitate our democracy.” But from the start, it has blended money with mission. For some, like Mr. Conway, there was no money involved. For others, it was incredibly lucrative.Few have been more omnipresent than Mr. Schmidt, who has gleefully brawled with the Trumps. Remarking on images of the family’s last Jan. 20 photo op, he tweeted, “Uday and Qusay looking sad,” conflating Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump with the sons of Saddam Hussein. “Crying Ivanka. Glorious indeed.”George T. Conway III, an unpaid adviser who had no real operational role, has called for the Lincoln Project’s dissolution.Credit…Joshua Roberts/ReutersStuart Stevens, a longtime media consultant who has taken an increasingly prominent role in the project, cried during an interview while talking about his commitment to the cause.“I helped create this monster that is the current Republican Party,” Mr. Stevens wrote in a follow-up email. He called the recent tumult at the Lincoln Project “a rough couple of weeks,” adding: “This isn’t supposed to be easy. We’re human. We make mistakes. There’s stress at the highest level. All you can do is acknowledge, take responsibility and move on.”Whether donors will keep the spigot open, especially with Mr. Trump both outside the White House and off Twitter, remains to be seen.“I’ve been talking to a lot of donors,” Mr. Stevens said. “The support is tremendous. Most of them have been involved in business and had a few rough times. They were drawn to Lincoln Project not because we were H.R. geniuses but because we knew how to fight and were willing to take on our own party. That hasn’t changed.”But the Weaver problem will linger.“The attacks that are coming on us from Donald Trump Jr. and all these other people, they’re gleeful — they love the gift that John Weaver gave them,” Mr. Wilson said in an emotional monologue on the group’s video program “The Breakdown” last month. “What he’s given them is a weapon in their hands.”Shane Goldmacher More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceWho’s Running?5 TakeawaysCandidates’ N.Y.C. MomentsAn Overview of the RaceAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe A Train and the Macarena: 5 Highlights From the Mayor’s RaceCandidates sparred over their subway smarts and did some virtual dancing, while the former sanitation commissioner got support from influential women.When Andrew Yang wrote on Twitter that he was “Bronx bound” while on the A train, the criticism was immediate.Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersJeffery C. Mays, Dana Rubinstein and March 8, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETWhile Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s troubles dominated the headlines, the bevy of candidates running for New York City mayor trudged onward, dutifully showing up for yet more online forums and occasionally taking swings at their opponents’ foibles.The city’s new ranked-choice voting scheme is supposed to make the mayoral race nicer, since candidates are vying not only for first place, but also for second, third, fourth and fifth place, too. In such a scenario, it doesn’t pay to alienate a competitor’s supporters.That friendliness was on display after the Hotel Trades Council, a powerful union, endorsed Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president.Andrew Yang’s co-campaign managers made a point of saying nice things on Twitter. But the bonhomie didn’t last long.Adams and Yang spar over subwaysWhen Mr. Yang wrote on Twitter that he was “Bronx bound” while on the A train — a line that ends in Upper Manhattan — he gave new life to criticism that he lacked expertise about the city he hopes to govern.“Someone get Andrew Yang a subway map,” the New York Daily News wrote.The ribbing didn’t end there. The next day, Mr. Adams, who has placed second behind Mr. Yang in most polls, posted a photo of himself on Twitter suggesting that he knew how to get to the Bronx by subway.Chris Coffey, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign manager, quickly responded: “Did your car and driver meet you in the Bronx?”Mr. Coffey pointed out that Mr. Yang had switched from the A train to the D train at 125th Street and traveled to 167th Street in the Bronx to tour small businesses with Vanessa L. Gibson, a councilwoman from the borough who is running for borough president.It wasn’t the first time last week that Mr. Adams had targeted Mr. Yang for criticism. The two men are also sparring over universal basic income, Mr. Yang’s signature proposal from his run for the Democratic nomination for president.Mr. Yang introduced a version of the plan for New York City that calls for providing 500,000 of the city’s poorest residents with an average of $2,000 per year, and would cost about $1 billion.Speaking Friday at a virtual event hosted by the Association for a Better New York, Mr. Adams touted his plan to boost the city’s earned-income tax credit to provide 900,000 New Yorkers with up to $4,000 per year.Mr. Adams never mentioned Mr. Yang’s name but his language was caustic: He referred to his opponent’s proposal as “UBLie” and “snake oil,” and said the city did not need “empty promises” from “hollow salesmen.”Mr. Adams’s criticisms are a sign that he’s worried, Mr. Coffey suggested.“Hitting Andrew Yang, who is widely credited with making cash relief mainstream, at the same time as stimulus is starting to go out defies logic,” he said. “It’s almost as silly as trying to mock a lifetime subway rider when you have had a car and driver for seven years.”Truth, dare or dance?The high school students at the Teens Take Charge mayoral forum on Thursday grilled the candidates on tough issues such as summer jobs, funding for the City University of New York and the specialized high school entrance exam. They were ruthless moderators, holding the candidates to the allotted time to answer questions and even cutting them off when necessary.But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have fun at an event that many participants called the best mayoral forum so far.During the first “truth, dare or dance” round of the 2021 mayoral election season, the candidates could choose a truth, a dare or a 15-second dance to a song that the students had randomly chosen.No candidates chose to dance, but as the segment was ending, Shaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary, was apparently dismayed that he had not gotten a chance to bust a move.“Can we dance now?” Mr. Donovan asked. One of the hosts, Carmen Lopez Villamil, offered 15 seconds to allow all the candidates to dance at once.“For real, we’re going to dance?” Dianne Morales, a nonprofit executive, said with a shocked look.As the song “Macarena” began to play, Mr. Yang was the first one out of his seat, followed closely by Mr. Donovan and Maya Wiley, the former legal counsel for Mayor Bill de Blasio.“You’ve got to turn it up a little bit,” said Ms. Wiley.Ms. Morales swayed to the beat with verve and rhythm. Mr. Donovan did a spin. Mr. Yang looked like he was doing a bit of salsa dancing, while Scott Stringer, the New York City comptroller, stuck to a quick two-step while wiggling a bit. Ms. Wiley also looked like she was grooving, but she was too close to the camera for the audience to check out her moves.“I love to dance but hoped for the Black Eyed Peas,” Ms. Wiley told The Times. “The Macarena isn’t my flava.”Unfortunately — or maybe fortunately — no one actually did the Macarena.Mr. Donovan admitted to not knowing how to do the dance but said he saw the opportunity as the “antidote” to hours of Zoom conferences. Adams lands the second big union endorsementThe Hotel Trades Council endorsed Eric Adams last week.Credit…Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesMr. Adams has taken to saying that he will be a “blue-collar mayor.” He talks about how his mother cleaned houses to support their family when he was growing up. Last week, the Hotel Trades Council endorsed Mr. Adams, calling him the “candidate of and for working-class New Yorkers.”The well-connected union has 31,000 workers, 22,000 of whom are registered to vote in the city. That can mean crucial votes in a crowded field, more small-dollar donations and campaign workers on the ground.It was the second big union endorsement in the race after Ms. Wiley was recently endorsed by Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union. It came as the pandemic has shut many city hotels and left workers unemployed. The number of visitors to New York City was down 66 percent in 2020 compared with the year before. Even with vaccination numbers on the rise, NYC & Company projects that tourism may not rebound until 2025. Mr. Adams recently endorsed a plan with another mayoral candidate, Carlos Menchaca, a councilman from Brooklyn, to turn underutilized hotels outside of Manhattan into affordable housing. Many of those hotels are nonunion.Mr. Adams is also in favor of a special citywide hotel permit for hotel construction, a policy Mr. de Blasio is trying to push through before his term is out. The Hotel Trades Council is backing the measure.If the city’s hospitality industry is to rebound, it needs tax relief, public safety, real-time reporting on vaccination rates and a “robust marketing effort,” Mr. Adams said.A biking mayor?There is a good chance that the next mayor will be a regular cyclist.The candidates showed off their cycling bona fides at a forum last week: Raymond J. McGuire showed off a sleek bike perched behind him in his elaborate Zoom setup, and Mr. Adams said he goes for a ride when he is feeling stressed.Mr. Yang said he got a bike when his first son was born and rode it from Hell’s Kitchen to the Financial District to take him to school. “It was a game changer for me,” Mr. Yang said. Many of the candidates said they want to continue to add protected bike lanes. Mr. Stringer plans to double bike ridership, move toward a car-free Manhattan and make sure that bike lanes are clearly separated from traffic so that his sons can ride safely.“We have to use our children as the barometer for whether we think a bike lane is safe,” he said at the forum.Mr. Donovan was perhaps the most serious cyclist: He once biked through the South to retrace the 1961 Freedom Rides.“I’m pretty sure no other candidate in this race has cycled 1,000 miles retracing the route of the Freedom Rides,” he said.Executive women support GarciaKathryn Garcia’s reform of the commercial garbage collection system has drawn admirers.Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersLet one thing be clear: Kathryn S. Wylde, the executive of the Wall Street-backed Partnership for New York City, is not endorsing Kathryn Garcia for mayor. She said she does not endorse because she will have to work with whoever gets elected.But she does think that Ms. Garcia, along with a couple of other candidates, would make for a very good mayor. That’s why she co-hosted a fund-raiser for Ms. Garcia, the former Sanitation Department commissioner, last week.So, too, did another business executive — Alicia Glen, a former deputy mayor in the de Blasio administration and one of the few de Blasio officials to earn plaudits from New York’s business class.Ms. Garcia said she interpreted Ms. Glen’s support as an endorsement, but deferred to Ms. Glen, who didn’t respond to requests for comment.Ms. Wylde said that she encouraged Ms. Garcia to run, much as she encouraged Mr. Donovan and Mr. McGuire, because she thinks Ms. Garcia would run the city well. She was particularly impressed by Ms. Garcia’s reform of the notoriously dangerous and inefficient commercial garbage collection system.“She’s somebody that brings people together to solve problems, and I’d like to see our next mayor be that kind of person,” Ms. Wylde said.Ms. Wylde has been working in politics since the late 1960s, when there were virtually no women in elected government. No woman has ever been mayor of New York. Ms. Wylde deflected when asked if she thought a woman could win this time around.“Historically, in any profession in New York City, women have a tough time getting ahead,” she said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpiniónSupported byContinue reading the main storyComentarioBukele todopoderosoDespués de las elecciones legislativas en El Salvador, el presidente tendrá un dominio casi absoluto de la política. La democracia está en riesgo.El presidente de El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, en febrero de este añoCredit…Jose Cabezas/ReutersEs periodista y editor de El Salvador.8 de marzo de 2021 a las 05:00 ETSAN SALVADOR — La democracia salvadoreña ha parido un autócrata. Lo venía gestando desde hace casi un año, y ya está aquí, en todo su esplendor. Se llama Nayib Bukele y, a partir del 1 de mayo, gobernará este país como le plazca.El domingo 28 de febrero los salvadoreños votaron para elegir a sus 84 diputados y 262 alcaldes. Nuevas Ideas, el partido que se define como el de “la N de Nayib”, se estrenó en unos comicios dando una tunda a sus adversarios. Aún se realiza el conteo final, pero el preliminar dejó clara la tendencia, con más del 90 por ciento escrutado. Los candidatos a alcaldes de Bukele ganaron 13 de las 14 cabeceras departamentales. Sus candidatos a diputados, contando la alianza con otro partido, ganaron 61 de las 84 diputaciones.El adjetivo posesivo del párrafo anterior no es un despiste. Esos candidatos son suyos. Los que tuvieron alguna cobertura mediática o propaganda hicieron campaña con la foto de Bukele y prometieron fidelidad a su líder. Para atraer el voto, el partido llenó el país de enormes espectaculares que solo contenían un fondo celeste y una enorme N blanca al medio. La N del todopoderoso.El Salvador ha cambiado. Ya no existe el país con la correlación de fuerzas políticas que nos gobernaron durante toda la posguerra. Durante 29 años, después de los Acuerdos de Paz, dos partidos dominaron el poder político: Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), a la izquierda, y la Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena), a la derecha. Con estas elecciones se extinguió la polarización que nos carcomió durante décadas: ¿FMLN o Arena? Y se terminó de imponer otra polarización igual de simplista y nociva: ¿Bukelista o no?Con los 61 diputados, Bukele no necesita de ninguna otra bancada legislativa más que de la de su partido aliado que le ha prometido fidelidad absoluta y bajo cuyas siglas llegó a la Presidencia en 2019 cuando aún no había formado a Nuevas Ideas. La oposición ha caído en la irrelevancia. En la legislación salvadoreña, 56 es el número mágico. Es lo que conocemos como mayoría calificada, capaz de conseguir aprobación del presupuesto, reformas legales, la suspensión de garantías constitucionales o el nombramiento de magistrados de la Corte Suprema de Justicia.Los partidos tradicionales quedaron en coma profundo. Sobrevivirán artificialmente, conservando algunas curules, con gente que se sentará en el parlamento como si su presencia pudiera servir de algo. La exguerrilla, por ejemplo, el FMLN, obtuvo cuatro escaños. El menor registro de su historia era de 21 diputados en las elecciones de 1994, cuando la guerra estaba reciente y el fantasma del comunismo todavía era útil para espantar votantes. Arena obtuvo 14 escaños esta vez, lo que significa que tendrá 23 menos de los que ahora mismo tiene.A partir de mayo, a Bukele le bastará levantar el teléfono para ordenar que se apruebe una ley o que se destituya a un fiscal y se elija a otro. La gran mayoría de votantes salvadoreños decidió decir no al contrapeso de poderes, no al debate legislativo, no al consenso necesario, no a la oposición. Y al decir no al pluralismo y el sistema de controles que caracteriza a la democracia ha puesto al país en el camino de la autocracia. Como gustan decir los demagogos de plaza: el pueblo ha hablado, el soberano se ha expresado en las urnas. Una sociedad poco instruida en los principios democráticos ha confirmado a su caudillo. Una sociedad con tan precaria educación pública y tanta desigualdad ha ungido, más por fe que con argumentos, a su nuevo mesías.A El Salvador no se le impuso un autócrata: el país lo eligió.¿A qué dijeron que sí los votantes salvadoreños? A la acumulación de poder en un hombre de 39 años que ha demostrado ser autoritario, poco transparente y enemigo de la prensa independiente. Pero también a un hombre que los convenció, principalmente con eslóganes y demagogia, de que él no es como “los mismos de siempre”, aunque haya sido alcalde de la capital con el FMLN; que ofreció logros incontestables también, así como inexplicables, como la reducción de homicidios sin precedentes durante su primer año de mandato, que él atribuye a un plan que no ha permitido que nadie vea y analice, y no a sus demostradas negociaciones con la Mara Salvatrucha-13, de las que tanto le incomoda hablar.Bukele viste ropas muy diferentes a las de sus antecesores y es hábil manejando el Twitter en un país donde el anterior presidente no sabía ni cuál era su usuario en esa red. Sin embargo, al margen de los símbolos, comparte muchos rasgos de la clase política que llevó al despeñadero a El Salvador: bajo su mandato han ocurrido diversas denuncias de corrupción y nepotismo, sus ataques a la prensa le han ganado incluso cartas de reclamo de legisladores estadounidenses y su falta de transparencia le ha llevado a desmantelar poco a poco la institución garante de la información pública. Bukele luce diferente, pero en el fondo se parece mucho a los que ha logrado sacar del hemiciclo legislativo.Hasta las próximas elecciones de 2024, Bukele gobernará El Salvador con un poder que nadie ha tenido en la posguerra. Su discurso legitimará cada una de sus acciones respaldándose en una raquítica idea de democracia. El presidente tiene excusa para rato. Pero también tiene un nuevo reto. Se le acabó su enemigo. La idea de una oposición que bloqueaba todas sus iniciativas y no le permitía arreglar este país se terminó también en estas elecciones. Tener todo el poder también significa tener toda la responsabilidad. Ser el único que carga el jarrón implica también ser el único responsable si se rompe.Pero Bukele es fiel a su estilo de entender la política como un conflicto permanente que él debe ir ganando.Sin oposición que le estorbe, podría predecir lo que seguirá: el presidente buscará nuevos enemigos para seguir utilizando su narrativa de bueno y malos. Uno de los enemigos predilectos para llenar ese espacio seremos nosotros, la prensa y los periodistas. El presidente nunca ha entendido el rol de la prensa independiente. Su jugada —exitosa dentro de las fronteras nacionales— ha sido presentar a esa prensa como oposición política. Creo que esa animadversión crecerá hasta ocupar un lugar principal en el altar de los odios presidenciales.Haberle entregado el poder absoluto a Bukele traerá serias consecuencias que perdurarán en el imaginario político como una nueva forma de liderazgo: el desprecio por el Estado de derecho y el diálogo, los ataques a la prensa, la falta de transparencia, la perpetuación del nepotismo y el amiguismo, la deformación de las instituciones públicas hasta convertirlas en peones obedientes a la próxima jugada de su líder. Un Estado al servicio de un hombre.La prensa lleva en la mira de Bukele desde antes de que asumiera la presidencia. Hacer periodismo es cada vez más difícil a causa del acoso y las amenazas de funcionarios del gobierno. A partir de ahora, será aún más difícil. Pero este es el momento en el que El Salvador más necesita periodismo serio y riguroso.A los colegas periodistas les sugiero autorreflexión y templanza. Será necesario comprender el nuevo escenario y reinventar nuestros procedimientos para proteger a nuestras fuentes, cubrir los órganos de Estado o, sencillamente, salir a hacer nuestro trabajo a las calles.A la sociedad civil organizada le esperan necesidades similares: rearmarse para vigilar al poderoso, transformarse para dialogar con el convencido y caminar así, paso a paso, una vez más, ese camino nunca recorrido del todo, en el intento de llegar a una democracia plena y fuerte.Óscar Martínez es jefe de redacción de El Faro, autor de Los migrantes que no importan y Una historia de violencia y coautor de El Niño de Hollywood, sobre la MS-13.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPreparing for Retaliation Against Russia, U.S. Confronts Hacking by ChinaThe proliferation of cyberattacks by rivals is presenting a challenge to the Biden administration as it seeks to deter intrusions on government and corporate systems.Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, last month. He said on Thursday that the White House was “closely tracking” reports that the vulnerabilities exploited in the Microsoft hacking were being used in “potential compromises of U.S. think tanks and defense industrial base entities.”Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesDavid E. Sanger, Julian E. Barnes and March 7, 2021Updated 9:42 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Just as it plans to begin retaliating against Russia for the large-scale hacking of American government agencies and corporations discovered late last year, the Biden administration faces a new cyberattack that raises the question of whether it will have to strike back at another major adversary: China.Taken together, the responses will start to define how President Biden fashions his new administration’s response to escalating cyberconflict and whether he can find a way to impose a steeper penalty on rivals who regularly exploit vulnerabilities in government and corporate defenses to spy, steal information and potentially damage critical components of the nation’s infrastructure.The first major move is expected over the next three weeks, officials said, with a series of clandestine actions across Russian networks that are intended to be evident to President Vladimir V. Putin and his intelligence services and military but not to the wider world.The officials said the actions would be combined with some kind of economic sanctions — though there are few truly effective sanctions left to impose — and an executive order from Mr. Biden to accelerate the hardening of federal government networks after the Russian hacking, which went undetected for months until it was discovered by a private cybersecurity firm.The issue has taken on added urgency at the White House, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies in recent days after the public exposure of a major breach in Microsoft email systems used by small businesses, local governments and, by some accounts, key military contractors.Microsoft identified the intruders as a state-sponsored Chinese group and moved quickly to issue a patch to allow users of its software to close off the vulnerability.But that touched off a race between those responsible for patching the systems and a raft of new attackers — including multiple other Chinese hacking groups, according to Microsoft — who started using the same exploit this week.The United States government has not made public any formal determination of who was responsible for the hacking, but at the White House and on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Wash., the fear is that espionage and theft may be a prelude to far more destructive activity, such as changing data or wiping it out.The White House underscored the seriousness of the situation in a statement on Sunday from the National Security Council.“The White House is undertaking a whole of government response to assess and address the impact” of the Microsoft intrusion, the statement said. It said the response was being led by Anne Neuberger, a former senior National Security Agency official who is the first occupant of a newly created post: deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies.The statement said that national security officials were working throughout the weekend to address the hacking and that “this is an active threat still developing, and we urge network operators to take it very seriously.”Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, said on Twitter on Thursday that the White House was “closely tracking” the reports that the vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange were being used in “potential compromises of U.S. think tanks and defense industrial base entities.”The discovery came as Mr. Biden’s national security team, led by Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Neuberger, has moved to the top of its agenda an effort to deter attacks, whether their intent is theft, altering data or shutting down networks entirely. For the president, who promised that the Russian attack would not “go unanswered,” the administration’s reactions in the coming weeks will be a test of his ability to assert American power in an often unseen but increasingly high-stakes battle among major powers in cyberspace.A mix of public sanctions and private actions is the most likely combination to force a “broad strategic discussion with the Russians,” Mr. Sullivan said in an interview on Thursday, before the scope of the Chinese attack was clear.“I actually believe that a set of measures that are understood by the Russians, but may not be visible to the broader world, are actually likely to be the most effective measures in terms of clarifying what the United States believes are in bounds and out of bounds, and what we are prepared to do in response,” he added.From the first day of the new administration, Mr. Sullivan has been reorganizing the White House to fashion such responses. The same order he issued on Jan. 20, requiring the military to advise the White House before conducting drone strikes outside war zones, contained a paragraph with separate instructions for dealing with major cyberoperations that risk escalating conflict.The order left in place, however, a still secret document signed by President Donald J. Trump in August 2018 giving the United States Cyber Command broader authorities than it had during the Obama administration to conduct day-to-day, short-of-war skirmishes in cyberspace, often without explicit presidential authorization.Under the new order, Cyber Command will have to bring operations of significant size and scope to the White House and allow the National Security Council to review or adjust those operations, according to officials briefed on the memo. The forthcoming operation against Russia, and any potential response to China, is likely to fall in this category.The hacking that Microsoft has attributed to China poses many of the same challenges as the SolarWinds attack by the Russians that was discovered late last year.Credit…Swayne B. Hall/Associated PressAmerican officials continue to try to better understand the scope and damage done by the Chinese attack, but every day since its revelation has suggested that it is bigger, and potentially more harmful, than first thought.“This is a crazy huge hack,” Christopher C. Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, wrote on Twitter on Friday.The initial estimates were that 30,000 or so systems were affected, mostly those operated by businesses or government agencies that use Microsoft software and run their email systems in-house. (Email and others systems run on Microsoft’s cloud were not affected.)But the breadth of the intrusion and the identities of the victims are still unclear. And while the Chinese deployed the attack widely, they might have sought only to take information from a narrow group of targets in which they have the highest interest.There is little doubt that the scope of the attack has American officials considering whether they will have to retaliate against China as well. That would put them in the position of engaging in a potentially escalating conflict with two countries that are also its biggest nuclear-armed adversaries.It has become increasingly clear in recent days that the hacking that Microsoft has attributed to Beijing poses many of the same challenges as the SolarWinds attack conducted by the Russians, although the targets and the methodology are significantly different.Like the Russians, the Chinese attackers initiated their campaign against Microsoft from computer servers — essentially cloud services — that they rented under assumed identities in the United States. Both countries know that American law prohibits intelligence agencies from looking in systems based in the United States, and they are exploiting that legal restriction.“The Chinese actor apparently spent the time to research the legal authorities and recognized that if they could operate from inside the United States, it takes some of the government’s best threat-hunters off the field,” Tom Burt, the Microsoft executive overseeing the investigation, said on Friday.The result was that in both the SolarWinds and the more recent Chinese hacking, American intelligence agencies appeared to have missed the evidence of what was happening until a private company saw it and alerted the authorities.The debate preoccupying the White House is how to respond. Mr. Sullivan served as Mr. Biden’s national security adviser while he was vice president, as the Obama administration struggled to respond to a series of attacks.Those included the Chinese effort that stole 22.5 million security-clearance records from the Office of Personnel Management in 2014 and the Russian attack on the 2016 presidential election.In writings and talks over the past four years, Mr. Sullivan has made clear that he believes traditional sanctions alone do not sufficiently raise the cost to force powers like Russia or China to begin to talk about new rules of the road for cyberspace.But government officials often fear that too strong a response risks escalation.That is a particular concern in the Russian and Chinese attacks, where both countries have clearly planted “back doors” to American systems that could be used for more destructive purposes.American officials say publicly that the current evidence suggests that the Russian intention in the SolarWinds attack was merely data theft. But several senior officials, when speaking not for attribution, said they believed the size, scope and expense of the operation suggested that the Russians might have had much broader motives.“I’m struck by how many of these attacks undercut trust in our systems,” Mr. Burt said, “just as there are efforts to make the country distrust the voting infrastructure, which is a core component of our democracy.”Russia broke into the Democratic National Committee and state voter-registration systems in 2016 largely by guessing or obtaining passwords. But they used a far more sophisticated method in the SolarWinds hacking, inserting code into the company’s software updates, which ushered them deep into about 18,000 systems that used the network management software. Once inside, the Russians had high-level access to the systems, with no passwords required.Similarly, four years ago, a vast majority of Chinese government hacking was conducted via email spear-phishing campaigns. But over the past few years, China’s military hacking divisions have been consolidating into a new strategic support force, similar to the Pentagon’s Cyber Command. Some of the most important hacking operations are run by the stealthier Ministry of State Security, China’s premier intelligence agency, which maintains a satellite network of contractors.Beijing also started hoarding so-called zero-days, flaws in code unknown to software vendors and for which a patch does not exist.In August 2019, security researchers got their first glimpse of how these undisclosed zero-day flaws were being used: Security researchers at Google’s Project Zero and Volexity — the same company in Reston, Va., that discovered the Microsoft attack — found that Chinese hackers were using a software vulnerability to spy on anyone who visited a website read by Uighurs, an ethnic minority group whose persecution has drawn international condemnation.For two years, until the campaign was discovered, anyone who visited the sites unwittingly downloaded Chinese implants onto their smartphones, allowing Beijing to monitor their communications.Kevin Mandia of FireEye, Sudhakar Ramakrishna of SolarWinds and Brad Smith of Microsoft testified last month in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the Russian hacking.Credit…Drew Angerer/Agence France-Presse, via Pool/Afp Via Getty ImagesThe Chinese attack on Microsoft’s servers used four zero-days flaws in the email software. Security experts estimated on Friday that as many as 30,000 organizations were affected by the hacking, a detail first reported by the security writer Brian Krebs. But there is some evidence that the number could be much higher.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeThe Lost HoursThe Oath KeepersJosh Hawley of Missouri was the first senator to announce he would object to the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesJosh Hawley Is ‘Not Going Anywhere.’ How Did He Get Here?The senator’s objection to the election results surprised some supporters. But interviews with dozens of people close to him show his growing comfort with doing what it takes to hold on to power.Josh Hawley of Missouri was the first senator to announce he would object to the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyElaina Plott and March 7, 2021Updated 9:13 p.m. ETMost Republicans who spoke at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., avoided acknowledging the events of Jan. 6. But less than 30 seconds into his speech, Senator Josh Hawley confronted them head on.That day, Mr. Hawley said, had underscored the “great crisis moment” in which Americans currently found themselves. That day, he explained, the mob had come for him.The “woke mob,” that is. In the weeks since, they had “tried to cancel me, censor me, expel me, shut me down.” To “stop me,” Mr. Hawley said, “from representing you.”“And guess what?” he went on, his tempo building, the audience applauding: “I’m here today, I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not backing down.”The appeal from Missouri’s junior senator reflected what has become standard fare in a Republican Party still in thrall to Donald J. Trump. As Mr. Hawley’s audience seemed to agree, his amplification of the former president’s false claims of a stolen election was not incitement for the mob of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan 6; it was a principled stand against the “radical left.”Yet to some of the senator’s earliest supporters, it was precisely for its ordinariness that the speech stood out, the latest reminder of the distance between the Josh Hawley they thought they had voted for and the Josh Hawley who now appeared regularly on Fox News.Against the backdrop of Mr. Trump’s G.O.P., the idea had been that Mr. Hawley was different. Sworn in at 39 years old, he ascended to the Senate in part by selling himself as an intellectual in a movement that increasingly seemed to shun intellect. Whereas Mr. Trump fired off brash tweets littered with random capitalizations and adverbs like “bigly,” Mr. Hawley published essays on subjects like medieval theology.Throughout his life, whether as a student at Stanford or a law professor in Missouri, Mr. Hawley had impressed people as “thoughtful” and “sophisticated,” a person of “depth.” And as a growing number of conservatives saw it, he also had the proper ideas. From the time he was a teenager, he had criticized the free-market allegiance at the center of Republican orthodoxy; when he arrived in Washington, he immediately launched into a crusade against Big Tech. The conservative think-tank class embraced him as someone who had the right vocabulary, the right suits and the right worldview to translate Mr. Trump’s vague populist instincts into a fresh blueprint for his party’s future — someone elite enough, in other words, to be entrusted with the banner of anti-elitism.Which is in part why, when Mr. Hawley became the first senator to announce that he would object to the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president, many of his allies underwent a public mourning of sorts. They’d expected as much from, say, Ted Cruz — as one senior Senate aide put it, the Texas Republican, who had filibustered Obamacare while its namesake was still in office, had always been transparent about his motivations. But Mr. Hawley?To survey Mr. Hawley’s life is indeed to see a consistency in the broad strokes of his political cosmology. Yet interviews with more than 50 people close to Mr. Hawley cast light on what, in the haze of charm and first impressions, his admirers often seemed to miss: an attachment to the steady cadence of ascension, and a growing comfort with doing what might be necessary to maintain it.Mr. Hawley’s Stanford adviser, the historian David Kennedy, struggled to reconcile his memories with the now-infamous image of the senator, fist raised in solidarity with pro-Trump demonstrators shortly before they descended on the Capitol. “The Josh I knew was not an angry young person,” he recalled. “But when I see him now on television, he just always seems angry — really angry.”Dr. Kennedy acknowledged that Mr. Hawley was just one of many Republicans in the Trump era who had steeped their brand in “anger and resentment and grievance.” But for many of those once close to Mr. Hawley, that was the point: How did a man who seemed so special turn out to be just like everyone else?And what, they wondered, did Josh Hawley have to be so angry about?Mr. Hawley, then Missouri’s attorney general and a candidate for the Senate, at a rally with the president in 2018.Credit…Tom Brenner for The New York TimesAn un-misspent youthIn the late 1990s, the Jesuit high school Mr. Hawley attended in Kansas City, Mo., turned to him for damage control.“There was a group of seniors in our class who had a party that got out of hand, and it became a news story,” recalled Ben Capoccia, a classmate. “They had Josh and I go on the news to make it look like we were not all these bad kids.” He added, “I know what he said was much more eloquent than what I said.”Mr. Hawley was an academic star, champion debater and National Merit finalist who won Rockhurst High’s Kloster award, given to “a young man who consistently puts the welfare of his fellow students above his own interests.”A 1998 high school yearbook photo of Mr. Hawley at an awards ceremony.Credit…Rockhurst High SchoolBut in recent weeks, some of Mr. Hawley’s old classmates and teachers have been aghast at his role in undermining confidence in America’s elections.“I’ve been very disappointed to see who he has become,” said Kristen Ruehter-Thompson, a close friend growing up who was once Mr. Hawley’s prom date.Even his middle school principal, Barbara Weibling, has weighed in. “I’m not surprised he’s a politician and that he’s shooting for the presidency,” said Ms. Weibling, a vocal supporter of Democrats. “The only thing is, I think he had a strict moral upbringing, and I was really disappointed he would suck the country into the lies that Trump told about the election. I just think that’s wrong.”There was never any question that Mr. Hawley was going places. Born on the last day of the 1970s, he was raised with an eye toward the future and a destiny aimed beyond Lexington, a small town about an hour east of Kansas City, where a Civil War cannonball remains embedded in a column at the courthouse. His views and trajectory were shaped by his parents, Ron and Virginia, who met at Fort Hays State University in Kansas. She was Kansas Junior Miss in 1973 and graduated summa cum laude, majoring in English. Ron was a football player who worked as a probation officer after college, before becoming a prosperous banker.Theirs was a traditional, patriarchal and churchgoing household. After pursuing a career as a teacher, Mrs. Hawley “became a speaker and leader of Christian spiritual renewal conferences and retreats in Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas,” according to an account in a Kansas paper. She also ran prayer groups at the family’s Methodist church.Ms. Ruehter-Thompson said Mr. Hawley’s “dad was more of the influence,” adding, “There were always discussions of Rush Limbaugh.”From early on, Mr. Hawley harbored a deep fascination with politics. At 12, he wrote about the 1992 presidential election for his school paper, breaking down how many moderators there would be at the debates; three years later, in writings recently unearthed by The Kansas City Star, he expressed sympathy for militia movements in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. (“Many of the people populating these movements are not radical, right-wing, pro-assault weapons freaks as they were originally stereotyped,” he wrote.)Later in middle school, he dragged friends to movies like “Nixon.” He also signed their eighth grade yearbooks with variations of “Josh Hawley 2024,” according to Ms. Ruehter-Thompson and another classmate, Andrea Randle, as well as Tim Crosson, the vocal music teacher at the school. (“Sounds like revisionist history,” a Hawley spokeswoman said. “How about they produce a hard copy.”)Mr. Crosson said he and Mr. Hawley would spar about politics. “He would come into my room and announce the number of days left in Bill Clinton’s term, and I would fire back, ‘Four more years,’” Mr. Crosson recalled.Ms. Randle, a Black classmate, was frustrated that Mr. Hawley didn’t do enough to respond to the police killing of George Floyd last May. After initially expressing sympathy, he later accused an alliance of Democrats and the “woke mob” of dividing the country.“We played around after school, and I remember him pulling my hair after history class, that’s what I remember, so it’s so bizarre,” she said. “Me and my friends have talked about it, even over Christmas. Was he always like this and we didn’t know?”At Rockhurst, an all-boys school, a populist ideology began to evolve that didn’t align neatly with either political party. Mr. Hawley seemed most disturbed by the veneration of individual liberty and pluralism in American society. In a “Young Voices” column for The Springfield News-Leader, he called the “rights of the individual vs. the rights of the community” a “fierce debate that so dominates our age.” “The philosophy of radical individualism,” he wrote, was both “cause and symptom of the continuing decline of America’s shared civic life.”The world according to HawleyCollege is often one’s first exposure to knotty questions of identity, politics and faith, but Mr. Hawley moved through Stanford University with unusual conviction. Writing for The News-Leader the summer after his freshman year, in 1999, he invoked a recent speech by his school’s provost, Condoleezza Rice, to argue for a “fresh discussion of first principles and a fundamental rethinking of the role of government and the aims of freedom.” He was 19.At Stanford, Mr. Hawley wrote for the conservative student newspaper as an undergraduate.Credit…Preston Gannaway for The New York TimesOn campus, Mr. Hawley wrote columns for the conservative Stanford Review and was active in student ministry groups. He described his worldview in gauzy phrases like “a proper sense of shared citizenship,” but drew a clearer line on at least one issue. Above his bed he hung a sepia-toned poster of a shirtless male model cradling a newborn; when asked by classmates, he said it reflected his fervent stance against abortion. (The Hawley spokeswoman said the poster is “not something he remembers. But he’s proudly pro-life.”)Political aspirations seemed likely. Classmates recall his careful attention to his image, how he wouldn’t sit for a photo until a stray red Solo cup had been disposed of. Still, he was not viewed as a firebrand; he seemed more animated by the pursuit of an intellectual identity than a partisan affiliation. His first principles were guided by his Christianity.Mr. Hawley sharpened his thinking in conversations with his adviser, Dr. Kennedy. Americans, Mr. Hawley argued, were suffering a crisis of “loneliness,” prisoners of a culture of individualism unmoored from any shared sense of purpose. Hastening this plight, in his view, was the American right’s devotion to the free market.Dr. Kennedy was somewhat surprised to learn years later that his advisee was evangelical; for him, Mr. Hawley’s ideological instincts had called to mind “Rerum Novarum,” the encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 condemning unfettered capitalism and endorsing measures like trade unionism as means of reinforcing the dignity of the working class.“I do think there was something reflexively present in Josh from early on that was aligned with that kind of thinking,” Dr. Kennedy said.After graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 2002 and spending a year as a teaching intern at an all-boys school in London, Mr. Hawley went on to Yale Law School. He seemed torn between politics or a life in the ivory tower he would ultimately spend so much time castigating. Both Dr. Kennedy and a Yale classmate remember him on the “knife’s edge,” as the former put it, of pursuing a doctorate in history.In other words, his first imperative was not — did not appear to be — power.“My impression of Josh back then was he was kind of what we need in our democracy,” recalled Ian Bassin, a Yale classmate turned harsh critic. “I always found him to be curious to hear why I came to conclusions I did, and vice versa. And I always felt what brought him to his conclusions were very honest, very genuine, very principled views.”Several classmates, however, observed a change in Mr. Hawley toward the end of his time at Yale. On a campus where success is often measured in Supreme Court clerkships, ambition is a given. But it was nonetheless striking when Mr. Hawley suddenly seemed more interested in winning prestigious posts than in doing the work once he won them.A former classmate recalled Mr. Hawley’s excitement when both were named editors at the Yale Law Journal. Eventually, however, their friendship frayed. Mr. Hawley was very engaged, this person said, when his role meant collecting the business cards of Federalist Society members as he asked them to contribute articles. But when it came to finalizing footnotes the night before deadline, fellow editors often found that he forgot to check his email.Irina Manta recalls a similar experience. She and Mr. Hawley were rivals at the campus Federalist Society chapter and served together as vice presidents of events. “I tried really hard to work with him,” Ms. Manta said. But as the year went on, she found herself organizing events and debates alone. “When I would send emails, I just wouldn’t hear back from him,” she said. “He wasn’t exactly into working hard if he could help it.” (Ms. Manta wrote an article about her time at Yale with Mr. Hawley for USA Today on Jan. 5.)In joining the Federalist Society, Mr. Hawley had moved into the orbit of an ascendant legal community that, for a conservative on campus, offered the clearest avenue to power. Eventually he defeated Ms. Manta for the Yale chapter’s presidency, a title he embraced proudly. (The Hawley spokeswoman said that Ms. Manta was “bitter” about losing the election, and that Mr. Hawley had an “outstanding record in law school” that “speaks for itself.”)The members he was looking to impress were not necessarily his own chapter’s. In August 2005, when John Roberts was asked during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings about his ties to the Federalist Society, Mr. Hawley had his back. In an op-ed in The Hartford Courant, he chided Democrats for attempting to portray the group as a “secret society of scary people.” “Far from subverting the country’s legal order,” he argued, “Federalists seek to strengthen it.”In 2007, a year after finishing law school, Mr. Hawley moved to Washington to clerk for Chief Justice Roberts.One of his fellow clerks was Erin Morrow. She had been just one year ahead of Mr. Hawley at Yale, but it wasn’t until the two shared an office that they became close.Mr. Hawley would later occasionally adopt the folksy affect of a farm child, but Ms. Morrow was the real thing. She had grown up on a cattle farm in New Mexico and, as a student at Texas A&M, had been a member of the All-American Livestock Judging Team. (One of her professors would recall her as among his most impressive students “in her understanding of what is really important in beef-cattle breeding.”) Yale classmates remembered her as brilliant and unpretentious. She and Mr. Hawley wed in 2010.When Thomas Lambert, who was on the appointments committee at the University of Missouri School of Law, learned that the Hawleys were open to moving to Columbia, he jumped at the chance to hire them. “It’s really quite a feather in your cap to hire law clerks from the Supreme Court,” he said. “And here was an opportunity to get two.” The couple began teaching in the fall of 2011.Much of their first years in Missouri centered on their faith. They led a Bible study at an Evangelical Presbyterian church and mentored Christian law students. Mr. Hawley wrote about faith and politics, arguing in a 2015 Notre Dame Law Review essay for a “return to political theology.” Contending that religion had been “quarantined” and “roped off” from politics and law, he railed against the postwar liberal order and called for putting “the state’s sovereignty in its proper and subordinate place.”Not long after returning to Missouri, Mr. Hawley had begun asking Republican consultants to coffee. One of them suggested a state legislative bid. The consultant recalled Mr. Hawley laughing. He wanted to run for attorney general.In Missouri, 30 counties account for most of the primary vote. The consultant advised Mr. Hawley to contact the local Republican Party chairs and ask to speak at their events. He had a winning pitch. In 2014, he helped represent Hobby Lobby in its successful Supreme Court challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. Conservatives enjoyed hearing him talk about the case.The consultant recalled Mr. Hawley contacting him after traversing the state. “OK,” he asked, “now what?”Becoming a politicianAs successful as these tours were, Mr. Hawley’s growing coterie of advisers realized quickly that their candidate disdained, as one termed it, the “people part” of campaigning — the unannounced visits to local diners, the niche roundtable conversations with voters.Yet when it came to selling himself to kingmakers, he thrived.In a campaign season that coincided with Mr. Trump’s political ascent, Mr. Hawley found an eager audience among Missouri’s donor class and Republican elders. He dazzled them by seeming to be everything Mr. Trump was not: tempered, thoughtful, a reservoir of adjectives like “Burkean.” When asked about their first meetings with Mr. Hawley, powerful people in Missouri recalled being enchanted not so much by his vision for office, but by the fact that he sounded smart.A 2018 campaign stop at G.O.P. headquarters in Jefferson City.Credit…Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times“He can get up and talk about issues and look you straight in the eye the whole time,” said Daniel Mehan, president of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce. He added, “He impresses you as someone who knows what he’s talking about.”Among Mr. Hawley’s first — and most important — enthusiasts was John Danforth, the former senator and elder statesman of Missouri Republicans. His blessing was crucial for an ambitious young man looking to scale the state’s political ranks.The two had met years before, when Mr. Danforth visited Yale for a dinner. They stayed in touch. “He referred me to a couple of books: One was by a British politician and political philosopher named Danny Kruger, and the other by Yuval Levin,” Mr. Danforth recalled. “And I thought, well, this is interesting.” He saw in Mr. Hawley “a real intellectual,” a conservative version of his old friend Daniel Patrick Moynihan.Yet when asked, Mr. Danforth couldn’t recall what it was he thought Mr. Hawley wanted to accomplish, as attorney general or as a senator. “I don’t know that I had an impression of that,” he said after a pause.Mr. Danforth helped Mr. Hawley gain the support of the state’s major Republican contributors. Chief among them was David Humphreys, Mr. Hawley’s largest donor, who has given millions of dollars to his campaigns and political action committee.People close to Mr. Hawley recalled his skill in convincing donors that he saw the world as they did; as one early booster put it, it was as if he held up a mirror as he spoke to them. His rejection of Republican economic orthodoxy was well documented, but he convinced libertarian-minded conservatives like Mr. Humphreys and David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, of his devotion to the free market.The most memorable commercial of the campaign featured the candidate surrounded by ladders being climbed by men in suits. In the ad, he castigated “career politicians just climbing the ladder, using one office to get another.” Yet shortly after he was sworn in as attorney general in January 2017, Republicans including Mr. Danforth and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, began urging him to challenge Missouri’s vulnerable Democratic senator, Claire McCaskill. Mr. Hawley obliged.His actual job appeared to take a back seat.“I don’t think he had much interest in that office, really,” said J. Andrew Hirth, who served as deputy general counsel under Mr. Hawley’s predecessor, Chris Koster, a Democrat. “From the moment he got there, he was looking toward the Senate.”He was increasingly absent from the office. Sometimes he was meeting with potential backers for his Senate campaign; one local paper reported that he was leaving work midday to exercise at a gym about a half-hour away. A photograph of a casually clothed Mr. Hawley buying wine on a workday afternoon circulated on social media.The attorney general’s office was quickly hollowed out of talent as Mr. Hawley appointed key officials with stronger religious than managerial credentials. The most notable was Michael Quinlan, who was a “mediator and conflict coach” at a Christian marriage counseling group when he was recruited to oversee civil litigation.He was hired despite having been frequently quoted defending a local bishop who was found guilty of a misdemeanor after shielding a priest who took pornographic pictures of girls. Mr. Hawley’s aides said they hadn’t been aware of those comments. Mr. Quinlan later departed after a female employee complained about receiving an unwelcome lecture from him about her sex life; he denied accusations of acting improperly.Experienced lawyers who defended state agencies against lawsuits headed for the exits. Only one litigator who had worked under Mr. Hawley’s predecessor stayed on in the main office, in Jefferson City. As morale continued to sag, eight of Mr. Hawley’s own hires quit too.Amid the turmoil, outside public relations consultants took an unusually prominent role. In 2017, before a raid on massage parlors in Springfield, the consultants told the attorney general’s staff that they were angling for an appearance with the CNN anchor Jake Tapper. They instructed aides that Mr. Hawley, “should be wearing some kind of law enforcement garb — like a police jacket and hat,” according to internal emails.During the raids, Mr. Hawley gathered reporters in a strip-mall parking lot, his expression grim and a large badge hanging around his neck.“Josh was the chief law enforcement officer of the state,” the Hawley spokeswoman said. “He wore a badge.”A ‘champion in the Senate’When Mr. Hawley arrived in Washington in January 2019 as Missouri’s junior senator, he positioned himself as the intellectual heir of Trumpism — the politician who could integrate the president’s populist instincts into a comprehensive ideology for the G.O.P. In his maiden speech, he summoned the lamentation of cultural erosion he’d been refining since high school, arguing that the “great American middle” had been overlooked by a “new, arrogant aristocracy.”Mr. Hawley was sworn in as a senator in January 2019, at age 39.Credit…Sarah Silbiger/The New York TimesFor conservatives who felt Mr. Trump had identified uncomfortable truths about the party despite ultimately governing like a typical Republican, Mr. Hawley’s arrival was timely. That July, conservative writers and policy experts gathered at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington for the inaugural National Conservatism Conference, meant to map a departure from the corporate-class policies that for decades had defined conservatism. Mr. Hawley, who in his keynote speech decried the “cosmopolitan consensus,” was introduced as the fledgling movement’s “champion in the Senate.”He did not discourage whispers about 2024, and some younger Trump campaign aides, who saw him as the “refined” version of their boss, mused privately about working for him should he run. It wasn’t long before Donald Trump Jr. was inviting him to lunch at his father’s Washington hotel.Even so, he baffled his party’s leadership as he tried to derail the confirmation of some of Mr. Trump’s conservative judicial nominees, deeming their records on social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage insufficiently pure.But it was Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept the election results that offered the first real stress test for the brand Mr. Hawley had labored to cultivate — whether it was possible to be both the darling of the conservative intelligentsia and the “fighter” the party’s base craved.He had reason to believe it was. He was comfortable paying “the price of admission,” as one Republican official put it, to a place in Mr. Trump’s G.O.P., in part because nothing in his short political career had suggested there would ever be a cost. Early on, few had blinked when he embraced the president during a visit to Missouri. He had courted far-right figures during his campaign, yet still received plum speaking slots at high-minded conferences.And so on Dec. 30, Josh Hawley became the first Senate Republican to announce his intent to challenge Mr. Biden’s congressional certification.Mr. Hawley’s team was adamant that he had not been motivated by a potential presidential bid in 2024, but among other things had been moved by a December video conference with 30 constituents who said they felt “disenfranchised” by Mr. Biden’s victory.“He knows the state well after two campaigns, and I think he knew that Missourians supported the president,” said James Harris, a longtime political adviser to Mr. Hawley.He tried to thread the needle as he always had, wrapping his objection not in fevered “STOP THE STEAL” tweets but in questions about the constitutionality of mail-in voting in Pennsylvania.And, had there been no violence, perhaps his gambit would have worked. But when Mr. Hawley and others lent their voices to Mr. Trump’s lie of rampant voter fraud, people listened.Mr. Hawley spent much of Jan. 6 hiding with his colleagues in a Senate committee room as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. He sat hunched against the wall, eyes fixed on his phone, as Republicans and Democrats alike blamed him for the madness. Later that evening, when senators safely reconvened to finish certifying the election, Mr. Hawley forged ahead with his objection.The reckoning was swift. Simon & Schuster dropped plans to publish his book, “The Tyranny of Big Tech.” Major donors severed ties. Mr. Danforth called supporting Mr. Hawley “the biggest mistake of my life.” His wife, Erin, was collateral damage: Kirkland & Ellis, the law firm where she had briefly practiced, purged an old biography from its website. She was scheduled to teach a course in constitutional litigation at the University of Missouri, but “after the events of Jan. 6, people were not so happy about that,” said Professor Lambert, who brought the couple to the school; in response, he had stressed that “you cannot hold her responsible for her husband’s views.”Mr. Hawley at the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 to confirm the Electoral College results.Credit…Pool photo by Erin SchaffYet something else happened, too. Mr. Hawley saw a surge in small-dollar donations to his campaign, making January his best fund-raising month since 2018. As Axios first reported, the $969,000 he amassed easily offset defections from corporate political action committees. Added to that was the applause of the Senate Conservatives Fund, which has since bundled more than $300,000 for Mr. Hawley.Mr. Hawley had a choice. He could commit to his burgeoning fighter persona. “My No. 1 piece of advice was: You can’t go back on this now. You go back on this now, and you make absolutely everyone angry,” recalled his adviser Gregg Keller.Or he could try to reclaim the scholarly identity that had long propelled him. Oren Cass, the founder of American Compass, a think tank that aims to advance a more working-class-friendly conservatism, had frequently praised Mr. Hawley for defying Republican dogma. But he called the senator’s objections to the election “obnoxious” and “self-serving.” He urged him to acknowledge his “failure of judgment.”As his advisers saw it, the lessons of the Trump era — that success in today’s G.O.P. means never having to say you’re sorry — were clear. And Josh Hawley was nothing if not a star student.In the weeks since, Mr. Hawley has vowed to sue the “woke mob” at Simon & Schuster for dropping his book. He’s written for The New York Post about “the muzzling of America.” He has appeared on Fox News to discuss said muzzling. And while he said shortly after the riot that he would not run for president in 2024, his advisers have continued to hype him as “one of the favorites” of a potential Republican primary field, as Mr. Keller put it.Mr. Hawley tested his new cri de coeur on a live audience on Feb. 26, at the gathering of the conservative faithful in Orlando. “You know, on Jan. 6, I objected to the Electoral College certification,” he began. “Maybe you heard about it.”The room erupted. “I did,” he went on, “I stood up —” His words were drowned out by cheers.It had not been the mood of his speech. But as he paused to take in the standing ovation, Mr. Hawley seemed happy.Sheelagh McNeill and More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceWho’s Running?11 Candidates’ N.Y.C. MomentsAn Overview of the Race5 TakeawaysAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyFace Time With Eight Mayoral CandidatesHere’s what you need to know.Ms. Gay is a member of the editorial board.March 7, 2021, 11:12 a.m. ETCredit…Illustration by The New York Times; photography by James Estrin/The New York Times, Benjamin Norman for The New York Times, and Bebeto Matthews, via Associated PressRunning for mayor of New York City once involved, well, some running — from shaking hands on the Staten Island Ferry to schmoozing with donors at fund-raisers and awkwardly dancing in parades across the five boroughs. This year, the candidates have spent a lot of their time on Zoom. It’s been weird.But the internet — in this case, Skype — is how I last talked with Kathryn Garcia, a wry, thoughtful former sanitation commissioner and candidate for mayor who deserves more attention than she has so far received in the race.“Is it OK if I record this?” I asked. “I’ve never met a reporter who didn’t record me, so I’m fine with it,” she shot back with a smile. (It’s nice to see that at least some things remain unchanged.) What followed was a conversation that had me hoping more New Yorkers will come to know her name — and fearing that the limits of campaigning during a pandemic may be leaving voters ill-informed about the people who are vying to run their city.Ms. Garcia isn’t the only candidate worthy of a closer look. With the pandemic still raging, public attention is focused on schools; masks; and, above all, the hope of a jab in the arm. For weary New Yorkers, the race for mayor can seem like an afterthought.It isn’t only the pandemic that makes this year’s mayor’s race different. This year’s primaries are in June instead of September, as in years past. This will also be the first mayoral election in which New Yorkers use ranked choice voting to cast their ballots. Paying attention now is all the more important since Primary Day is just a few months away, on June 22. Because Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one in the city, the winner of the primary is almost certain to become the city’s next mayor. Time is ticking.The wide open field has been called lackluster. That’s not quite right. What the field lacks in star power it makes up for in formidable résumés and deeply experienced public servants.Some of the top candidates are women. That’s exciting, since New York has never had a female mayor.There’s Maya Wiley, a civil rights lawyer who served as counsel under Mayor Bill de Blasio, then led the city’s police oversight agency. Ms. Wiley, who until recently was a political analyst at MSNBC, is a deep policy thinker.There’s Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit leader and former teacher who is wary of development and speaks passionately about the experiences and needs of working-class New Yorkers.And there’s Ms. Garcia, who earned a reputation as a deft manager at the Sanitation Department and a bringer of accountability to the city’s troubled public housing authority.Another experienced public servant in the race is Scott Stringer, the city’s comptroller, who has offered a series of clear, real plans for how to get New York back on its feet. In a city facing budget cuts and hard decisions, Mr. Stringer’s seasoned understanding of how to use government to help New Yorkers is an asset. He has a plan for nearly every problem and wouldn’t have to learn on the job.Eric Adams, Brooklyn’s sometimes quirky borough president, has also served as a state senator and a captain in the Police Department. Mr. Adams, who is Black and has spoken openly about having experienced abuse at the hands of the police, would undoubtedly bring a potent mix of life experiences to City Hall. “The Police Department is not going to play games with me,” Mr. Adams told me.Shaun Donovan, the housing secretary and then a budget director in the Obama White House who had also served as a housing commissioner in the Bloomberg administration. He has a rich understanding of budgeting and how to build affordable housing, something this city desperately needs.Also in the mix of New Yorkers is Ray McGuire, a former head of investment banking at Citigroup. He has impressive management experience and has promised to use his Wall Street acumen to expand the city’s economy, create 500,000 jobs and build more housing. In candidate forums and interviews, Mr. McGuire displays a sober intensity, the kind it often takes to succeed at the highest levels if you are a Black man in America.Then, of course, there is Andrew Yang, the enigmatic former presidential candidate and tech veteran who once served as chief executive of a test-prep company. Mr. Yang has sucked up an enormous amount of oxygen in the race so far. If he is elected, he would be the city’s first Asian-American mayor.The lack of attention on the race might be one reason early polls have Mr. Yang, who came into the race with high name recognition after his presidential bid, far ahead of his rivals.It isn’t always clear what this front-runner has in store for New York or how well he knows the city — including where the A train begins and ends. But all the candidates have solid ideas that would make the city a better place to live.Ms. Garcia wants to create “green belts,” expanding tree canopies, getting waste-spewing trucks off the road and making sidewalks safer, healthier, more relaxing places to spend time. Mr. Donovan wants to create a city of “15-minute neighborhoods,” in which every resident is within a 15-minute walk of public transit and parks, good schools, fresh food and health care.Ms. Wiley has proposed a $10 billion capital plan she calls “New Deal New York,” with the goal of creating 100,000 new jobs. Mr. Adams wants to overhaul the food the city serves in schools, homeless shelters and jails.Mr. Stringer wants to make child care free for the lowest-income New Yorkers and subsidize it for thousands of others. Mr. Yang’s idea to give cash relief to low-income New Yorkers is attractive, though it isn’t likely the city could afford to give enough to make a significant difference.Ms. Morales’s intense focus on the needs and aspirations of working-class and low-income New Yorkers makes her an important voice in the race. Mr. McGuire’s steady confidence that he can bring hundreds of thousands of jobs back to New York sooner than any of the other candidates is reason enough for voters to give him a close look.For all their good ideas, there are bad ideas, too. A suggestion to build a casino on Governors Island is silly, for instance. An even worse idea floating around is to ease up on enforcement of a group of ultra-Orthodox yeshivas suspected of failing to give students a basic education as required by state law.Serious candidates in this race are laser-focused on how to create good jobs and improve schools, build affordable housing and better transportation, and give New Yorkers cleaner air and safer streets. There’s a lot at stake and a lot to consider, if voters would only take a look.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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBiden to Sign Order Meant to Make Voting EasierThe executive order is relatively limited in scope. It calls upon officials at federal agencies to study and potentially expand access to voter registration materials.President Biden at the White House on Saturday.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMarch 7, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETWASHINGTON — President Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Sunday that directs the government to take steps to make voting easier, marking the 56th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Ala., which swiftly turned voting rights into a national cause.The multipart order is aimed at using the far-flung reach of federal agencies to help people register to vote and to encourage Americans to go to the polls on Election Day. In a prepared speech for the Martin and Coretta King Unity Breakfast on Sunday, Mr. Biden will argue that such actions are still necessary despite the progress of the last half-century.“The legacy of the march in Selma is that while nothing can stop a free people from exercising their most sacred power as citizens, there are those who will do everything they can to take that power away,” Mr. Biden will say, according to the prepared remarks.“Every eligible voter should be able to vote and have it counted,” he plans to say. “If you have the best ideas, you have nothing to hide. Let more people vote.”The president’s actions come in the wake of his predecessor’s monthslong assault on the voting process during the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot that erupted at the U.S. Capitol after that predecessor, Donald J. Trump, repeatedly sought to overturn the election results.The executive order is relatively limited in scope. It calls upon officials at federal agencies to study and potentially expand access to voter registration materials, especially for those with disabilities, incarcerated people and other historically underserved groups.It also orders a modernization of the federally run Vote.gov website to ensure that it provides the most up-to-date information about voting and elections.But the order does not directly address efforts by many Republican-led state legislatures to restrict voting, including measures that would roll back the mail voting that was established in many states during the pandemic.Mr. Biden has said that he supports H.R. 1, a far-reaching voter rights bill that passed the House last week. It would weaken restrictive state voter identification laws, require automatic voter registration, expand mail-in voting and early voting, make it more difficult to eliminate voters from the rolls and restore voting rights to former felons.That legislation faces a difficult challenge in the evenly divided Senate, where Republican opposition appears to make it highly unlikely that it can win the support of the 60 senators required to send it to Mr. Biden’s desk.In the meantime, a senior administration official said Mr. Biden’s executive order was meant to show that the president was doing what he could.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

Mail-in voting did not significantly increase turnout nor did it benefit Democrats in the 2020 election, a new study has found, undermining the talking point, advanced by Donald Trump and others, that mail-in ballots cost him the election.States that required an excuse to vote by mail saw increases in turnout similar to those that did not, the researchers from Stanford found. In Texas, where only voters ages 65 and up can vote by mail without an excuse, Democratic turnout did not “substantially increase” relative to Republican turnout.“Despite the extraordinary circumstances of the 2020 election, vote-by-mail’s effect on turnout and on partisan outcomes is very muted,” the researchers wrote. “Voter interest appears to be far more important in driving turnout.”Those findings challenge the conventional wisdom that has emerged after Joe Biden’s victory in November. Republicans have repeatedly pointed to the decision to expand vote by mail – a choice driven largely by the Covid-19 pandemic – as a major reason Trump lost the election. They have filed a flood of bills in statehouses seeking to restrict voting, several of which take aim at mail-in voting specifically. In Georgia, for example, there are proposals to require voters to provide identification information as well as an excuse when they vote absentee, which would end the no-excuse policy Republicans adopted there in 2005.The Stanford findings also come amid an effort by Democrats in Congress to push nationwide changes that would require states to offer no-excuse balloting nationwide. Republicans staunchly opposed that effort, saying it is part of a broader set of reforms to help Democrats’ political prospects.Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletter“The results of our paper do not offer a clear recommendation for the policy debate around vote-by-mail, but they do suggest that both sides of the debate are relying on flawed logic,” the study says. “Vote-by-mail is an important policy that voters seem to like using, and it may be a particularly important tool during the pandemic.”Overall, states that adopted no-excuse absentee voting in 2020 saw around a 5.6 percentage-point increase in turnout compared to 2016. States that still required an excuse saw a 4.8-point increase. The researchers were unconvinced that the modest difference in turnout represented an even minor bump in turnout because of vote-by-mail, noting there was random variation in turnout between elections.To better understand the effects of mail-in voting, the researchers focused on Texas, where they compared turnout among 65-year-olds able to vote without an excuse under state law to that of 64-year-olds, who still needed an excuse. When they did the comparison, they found “no noticeable increase” in turnout among the 65-year-olds who did not have to provide an excuse to vote by mail.They reached a similar conclusion when they looked at partisanship in Texas. Sixty-five-year-old Democrats embraced absentee voting in 2020 while Republicans continued to vote early in person. Overall, being able to vote easily by mail did not produce “large effects on the partisan composition of overall turnout in 2020”.Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who closely tracks voter turnout, said there were factors not discussed in the study that were important to consider when assessing turnout. Some of the biggest increases in turnout from 2016 to 2020 were in states where voters automatically receive a ballot, he said. Several of the states where there was no-excuse absentee voting also still had a wide range of hurdles – like showing photo ID or getting a notary signature – that could make it harder to cast a ballot.“Mail ballot usage is a better way to examine the effect of laws and policies than simply whether or not a state had a particular policy, since there are often many policies that affect mail ballot usage, such as all-mail ballot elections, ID requirements, dropbox accessibility, return deadlines, etc,” he said.Even if mail-in voting did not ultimately boost Democrats, officials told the Guardian last year that the process made it easier to target, track and encourage voters to cast a ballot. Jay Tucker, the chair of the Democratic committee in Pike county, Pennsylvania, said it was useful for the party to be able to see who had requested a ballot and had yet to return it during the election. Those efforts, he said, helped cut into Trump’s margins in the county.While the researchers found mail-in voting did not have a major effect on turnout in 2020, they noted that it could be more consequential in contests where interest is typically lower, like a midterm.“When voter interest is high, such as in 2020, even low-propensity voters … could base their decision to vote on the convenience of doing so, turn out at the same rate whether or not they can take advantage of no-excuse absentee voting,” they wrote.“When voter interest is low, there is likely to be more room for altering the costs of voting to affect turnout.” More