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      Japan’s Long-Dominant Party Suffers Election Defeat as Voters Swing Right

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      The loss on Sunday left the Liberal Democrats a minority party in both houses of Parliament, while two new nationalist parties surged.Japan’s long-governing Liberal Democratic Party suffered a defeat in parliamentary elections on Sunday that saw new right-wing populist groups make gains, heralding what could be a tectonic shift in what has been one of the world’s most stable democracies.Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba vowed to stay on after his Liberal Democrats and their coalition partner lost 19 of their 66 seats that were up for re-election, depriving them of control of the less powerful Upper House. But he is facing calls to step down after the setback left the Liberal Democrats, who have led Japan for all but five of the last 70 years, a minority party in both chambers of the Diet, the country’s Parliament.Mr. Ishiba and his party failed to convince enough voters that they could resolve a host of challenges that included rising prices of staples like rice, tariff talks with the United States and the growing burden that supporting Japan’s aging population has placed on working-age people.The election results exposed a growing generational fissure that is altering the nation’s politics. While two-thirds of the 124 seats up for grabs on Sunday went to opposition parties, the biggest gains were made not by the traditional liberal opposition, but by a gaggle of new parties that drew younger voters with stridently nationalist messages. Among them was Sanseito, a populist party led by a politician inspired by President Trump.“With the L.D.P. in decline, Japan’s political landscape is diversifying,” said Romeo Marcantuoni, a Ph.D. candidate at Waseda University in Tokyo who has written about Sanseito. “For the first time, we’re seeing far-right populism similar to what we’ve seen in Europe.”Before all the votes had even been counted, powerful members of the governing party were calling on Mr. Ishiba to step down, to take responsibility for what exit polls suggested would be a poor showing. Taro Aso, a former deputy prime minister, said he “couldn’t accept” Mr. Ishiba staying on as prime minister, TV Asahi reported.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mamdani Travels to Uganda in Break From Mayoral Campaign

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      Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York, said that he and his wife were going to the African country where he was born to celebrate their recent marriage.Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, said on Sunday that he was visiting Uganda, where he was born, in a break from campaigning for the general election in November.In a video posted on X and Bluesky, Mr. Mamdani said he was making the trip to Africa with his wife, Rama Duwaji, whom he married in February, to celebrate their marriage with family and friends.He left the city during the traditional summer lull in the weeks after the June primary, while, at the same time, his most formidable opponent, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, was seeking to strengthen his own run on an independent ballot line with appearances across New York in the aftermath of his surprise defeat by Mr. Mamdani.In a statement, Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who is running for re-election as an independent, criticized his opponent for taking a vacation. (Mr. Adams has taken numerous trips abroad before and after becoming mayor, including a weeklong “spiritual journey” to Ghana shortly after his election in 2021.)“At a time when public safety, housing, and education remain top concerns for working New Yorkers, the mayor is here — managing the responsibilities of running the largest city in America,” Mr. Adams said in a prepared statement. “This election is about who’s prepared to lead, not who can rack up the most passport stamps or press headlines. Eric Adams is working. Others are sightseeing.”A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mr. Mamdani’s spokesman, Jeffrey Lerner, said in a statement that the candidate would return to New York before the end of the month “and looks forward to resuming public events and continuing his campaign to make the most expensive city in America affordable.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mamdani Won Over N.Y.C. Democratic Voters. Can He Charm Washington?

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      National Democrats are grappling with how much to embrace Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a leftist who has become the party’s standard-bearer in America’s largest city.The head of the local Democratic Party in Queens, where Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani got his political start, has never met him. The party’s longtime state chairman had not spoken to him until the day after a stunning primary night that stamped him as a rising Democratic star.And among the party’s strategists, officials and elected leaders in Washington, he’s almost entirely unknown.Now, as the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Mr. Mamdani, 33, is on a crash course to change that. He is unleashing a full-scale charm offensive of private meetings, phone calls and public promises aimed at wooing top party leaders, donors and activists.On Monday, he met with Jewish elected officials in New York City. The next day, he took pointed questions about his views on Israel and tax policy from a group of 150 business leaders in the city.A day later, he headed to Capitol Hill to offer campaign advice to dozens of Democratic members of Congress at a breakfast hosted by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York before returning to Manhattan for a private meeting with younger technology executives. And on Friday, he met with Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader and a fellow New Yorker who has yet to endorse his bid.Already, some establishment Democrats have been grappling with Mr. Mamdani’s sudden standing as their party’s standard-bearer in America’s most populous city. And they want to quickly get the measure of a man who has spent much of his political life far outside of their big tent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Pro-Trump Community Reckons With Losing a Beloved Immigrant Neighbor

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      Voters here in Oregon’s rural Yamhill County have backed Donald Trump for three presidential elections in a row, most recently by a six-point margin. His promises to crack down on immigration resonated in these working-class communities.Then last month ICE detained Moises Sotelo, a beloved but undocumented Mexican immigrant who has lived in the county for 31 years and owns a vineyard management company employing 10 people. Two of his children were born here and are American citizens, and Sotelo was a pillar of his church and won a wine industry award — yet he was detained for five weeks and on Friday was deported to Mexico, his family said.“Moises’s story just really shook our community,” Elise Yarnell Hollamon, the City Council president in Newberg, Sotelo’s hometown, told me. “Everyone knows him, and he has built a reputation within our community over the last few decades.”Christopher Valentine for The New York TimesThe result has been an outpouring of support for Sotelo, even in this conservative county (which is also my home). More than 2,200 people have donated to a GoFundMe for the family, raising more than $150,000 for legal and other expenses, and neighbors have been dropping off meals and offering vehicles and groceries.“Oh, my God, it’s been insane,” said Alondra Sotelo Garcia, his adult daughter, who was born in America. “I knew he was well known, but I didn’t know how big it would blow up to be.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sohei Kamiya Brings Trump-Style Populism to Japan’s Election

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      With his calls to limit foreign workers, fight globalism and put “Japanese First,” Sohei Kamiya has brought a fiery right-wing populism to Japan’s election on Sunday.The crowd of 800 people were younger than those who typically attend political rallies in Japan. But they had gathered in the shadow of a smoking volcano to hear a populist upstart in Sunday’s parliamentary elections whose heated campaign speech would sound familiar to voters in the United States or Europe.They burst into cheers when Sohei Kamiya climbed to the top of a campaign truck decorated in the orange colors of his fledgling political party, Sanseito. Grabbing a microphone, he told them that Japan faced threats from shadowy globalists, lawbreaking foreigners and a corrupt domestic political establishment that was stifling the younger generation with taxes. His solution: a nationalist agenda that he calls “Japanese First.”“Japan must be a society that serves the interests of the Japanese people,” Mr. Kamiya told his applauding audience.The crowds who turn out to hear Mr. Kamiya speak are younger than those who typically attend political rallies in Japan.Ko Sasaki for The New York TimesMr. Kamiya founded the party and is one of its two sitting members in the Upper House. Elected to a six-year term in 2022, he is not on the ballot himself this year. But he has crossed Japan to campaign on behalf of Sanseito’s 54 candidates, a large number that reflects the new party’s big ambitions.Opponents and many domestic media reports have accused him of being xenophobic, saying he is directing public dissatisfaction with high prices and stagnant wages at Japan’s growing population of foreign residents. At campaign stops, small numbers of protesters hold up signs saying “no hate” toward non-Japanese.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Japan Election 2025: What to Know

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      Shigeru Ishiba of the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party could face calls to resign if his party fares poorly in Sunday’s Upper House elections.Polls open on Sunday in Japan, where half of the seats in its Upper House of Parliament will be contested in the first national election since Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba took office last year. The emergence of right-wing populist parties that appeal to younger voters has threatened the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, with polls showing they could lose seats, and perhaps even their majority, in the chamber.Japan faces four big problems: difficult trade talks with Washington, a more assertive China, an aging population and the sharpest price increases in 30 years. Of these, the last has been the single biggest issue with voters, whose incomes have not kept pace. A hot-button issue has been the cost of rice, a vital staple that has doubled in price because of poor harvests and government policies.There is also a growing discontent with the United States, which no longer looks like the reliable partner it once was. Many Japanese have felt betrayed by the Trump administration’s threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on all of their country’s exports to the United States on Aug. 1, unless Tokyo opens up its already troubled rice market and agrees to buy more U.S.-made cars.Immigration has also emerged as an issue, as Japan has taken in an additional million workers over the past three years to fill jobs left vacant by the decline in the working-age population. While foreign residents make up only 3 percent of Japan’s population, populist parties like the Sanseito have won voters with calls to limit immigration.Here is a guide to the election and why it matters.What to Know:What’s happening on Sunday?What are the main issues?Who are the main players?What’s at stake?What’s happening on Sunday?Japan holds Upper House elections every three years; this cycle will decide who holds 124 of 248 seats. Voting takes place from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday, with exit polls released minutes after it ends. Official results will come early Monday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Democrats’ 2024 Autopsy Is Described as Avoiding the Likeliest Cause of Death

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      An audit being conducted by the D.N.C. is not looking at Joe Biden’s decision to run or key decisions by Kamala Harris’s team, according to six people briefed on the report.The Democratic National Committee’s examination of what went wrong in the 2024 election is expected to mostly steer clear of the decisions made by the Biden-turned-Harris campaign and will focus more heavily instead on actions taken by allied groups, according to interviews with six people briefed on the report’s progress.The audit, which the committee is calling an “after-action review,” is expected to avoid the questions of whether former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. should have run for re-election in the first place, whether he should have exited the race earlier than he did and whether former Vice President Kamala Harris was the right choice to replace him, according to the people briefed on the process so far.Nor is the review expected to revisit key decisions by the Harris campaign — like framing the election as a choice between democracy and fascism, and refraining from hitting back after an ad by Donald J. Trump memorably attacked Ms. Harris on transgender rights by suggesting that she was for “they/them” while Mr. Trump was “for you” — that have roiled Democrats in the months since Mr. Trump took back the White House.Party officials described the draft document as focusing on the 2024 election as a whole, but not on the presidential campaign — which is something like eating at a steakhouse and then reviewing the salad.Producing a tough-minded public review of a national electoral defeat would be a politically delicate exercise under any circumstance, given the need to find fault with the work and judgment of important party leaders and strategists. It is particularly fraught for the new D.N.C. chairman, Ken Martin, who promised a post-election review from his first day on the job but whose first few months in the role have been plagued by infighting and financial strains.“We are not interested in second-guessing campaign tactics or decisions of campaign operatives,” said Jane Kleeb, the Nebraska Democratic chairwoman, who heads the association of Democratic state chairs and is a close ally of Mr. Martin. “We are interested in what voters turned out for Republicans and Democrats, and how we can fix this moving forward.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How a Sequoia Capital Partner’s Mamdani Posts Dragged the Firm Into Politics

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      Sequoia Capital, which backed Nvidia, Google and Apple when they were start-ups, has long stayed above the fray. But one partner’s post about Zohran Mamdani set off a chain reaction.Roelof Botha arrived last week at the annual Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, to meet and mingle with tech and media moguls. A controversy brewing back home followed him to the exclusive retreat.Mr. Botha, the managing partner of Sequoia Capital, a storied Silicon Valley venture capital firm, was repeatedly asked at the event about a colleague, Shaun Maguire, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Mr. Maguire — perhaps Sequoia’s most outspoken partner — had posted on X on July 4 that Zohran Mamdani, the progressive Democrat running for New York City mayor, came from a “culture that lies about everything” and was lying to advance “his Islamist agenda.”Mr. Maguire’s post was immediately condemned across social media as Islamophobic. More than 1,000 technologists signed an open letter calling for him to be disciplined. Investors, founders and technologists have sent messages to the firm’s partners about Mr. Maguire’s behavior. His critics have continued pressuring Sequoia to deal with what they see as hate speech and other invective, while his supporters have said Mr. Maguire has the right to free speech.In Sun Valley, Mr. Botha listened, but remained neutral, the people with knowledge of the matter said.Roelof Botha, the managing partner at Sequoia Capital, arriving at the Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, where people repeatedly asked him about Mr. Maguire. Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersFor half a century, Sequoia has tried to maintain that neutrality, even as rival venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund started taking political stances. But as Mr. Maguire has increasingly made inflammatory comments, including saying that diversity, equity and inclusion “kills people,” Sequoia is now in a place that its leaders never wanted to be: smack in the middle of the culture wars.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More