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      DeSantis Sheds Staff Amid Heavy Spending

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      The dismissals come as his campaign for the Republican nomination for president struggles to gain traction against former President Donald J. Trump, who is leading in polls.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has started cutting campaign staff just months into his presidential bid, as he has struggled to gain traction in the Republican primary and lost ground in some public polls to former President Donald J. Trump.The exact number of people let go by the DeSantis team was unclear, but one campaign aide said it was fewer than 10. The development was earlier reported by Politico.The dismissals are an ominous sign for the campaign and also underscore the challenges that Mr. DeSantis faces with both his fund-raising and his spending, at a time when a number of major donors who had expressed interest in him have grown concerned about his performance.An aide, Andrew Romeo, described the campaign’s circumstances in an upbeat tone.“Americans are rallying behind Ron DeSantis and his plan to reverse Joe Biden’s failures and restore sanity to our nation, and his momentum will only continue as voters see more of him in person, especially in Iowa,” he said in a statement. “Defeating Joe Biden and the $72 million behind him will require a nimble and candidate-driven campaign, and we are building a movement to go the distance.”The race is still in its early days, and past campaigns have reshuffled in the months before voting begins. Former Senator John McCain blew up his campaign in the summer of 2007 before winning the Republican nomination. Mr. Trump’s went through three iterations in his successful bid, although none came during the primary races. Several top DeSantis fund-raisers have said the Florida governor is in it for the long haul, with a focus on the upcoming debates and contests that begin in January.But Mr. DeSantis’s moves are coming unusually early. And the fund-raising numbers — filed Saturday — show a campaign that will need to make several adjustments, including to travel schedule and to staff size, if it plans to make up lost momentum that began to fade months before Mr. DeSantis formally entered the race.The DeSantis campaign is also expected to make further changes, according to aides. Policy speeches are planned, along with interviews with the kind of news outlets he has broadly derided, as soon as this week, according to two people familiar with the strategy.Mr. DeSantis’s struggles appear to be not just about the numbers, but also with the campaign’s message. Late last week, two top DeSantis advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, were announced to be leaving to join an outside group supporting Mr. DeSantis.Mr. DeSantis’s campaign finance disclosure with the Federal Election Commission shows he raised roughly $20 million but spent almost $8 million, a so-called burn rate that leaves him with just $12 million in cash on hand. Only about $9 million of that cash can be spent in the primary, with the rest counting toward the general election if he is the nominee. The filing indicated a surprisingly large staff for a campaign so early in a candidacy, particularly for one with a super PAC that has made a show of how much of the load it is prepared to handle. More than $1 million in expenditures were listed as “payroll” and payroll processing.Mr. DeSantis’s top expenditures included $1.3 million earmarked for travel, including private jet rental services. The campaign also spent more than $800,000 apiece on digital fund-raising consulting, media placement and postage. The campaign also paid nearly $1 million to WinRed, the online donation-processing company.Recent Republican primary races have been littered with examples of candidates with early sizzle followed by significant struggles. Scott Walker, who was the governor of Wisconsin, quit the presidential race in September 2015 as he was amassing debt. Jeb Bush, one of Mr. DeSantis’s predecessors as Florida governor and perhaps the biggest donor draw in the 2016 campaign, began shedding payroll amid struggles as well, though much later in the race.Still, Mr. DeSantis’s allies note that he is further ahead in polls in Iowa than Mr. Bush was in the fall of 2015 and that he has a more natural constituency in Iowa than other challengers. The caucuses will be held on Jan. 15, 2024, and it’s the state where candidates seeking to blunt Mr. Trump must fare well.Rachel Shorey contributed reporting. More

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      Warning Signs for DeSantis and Poor Showing by Pence in 2024 Campaign Filings

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      Warning signs for Ron DeSantis were among the biggest developments of the latest campaign filings, which created a fuller financial picture of the 2024 field.As a fuller financial picture of the 2024 presidential race emerged with Saturday’s campaign filing deadline, trouble appeared to lurk below the surface for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Despite a strong overall fund-raising total of $20 million, Mr. DeSantis is spending hand over fist, and his dependence on large donors suggests a lack of grass-roots support. Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign recorded $17.7 million in fund-raising, nearly all of which was transferred from another committee that will not report its donors until later this month.In the meantime, President Biden and the Democratic National Committee raised almost as much money as all of the Republican candidates for president combined.Some of the more modest Republican earners — such as Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador — appear to have solid support and lean campaign operations built for the long haul. About a third of the $1.6 million haul by former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey came from smaller donors, which is high for Republicans and could speak to relatively broad appeal. Warning signs emerged for Republicans beyond Mr. DeSantis. Former Vice President Mike Pence brought in a paltry $1.2 million in contributions, raising questions about whether he can draw meaningful backing among Republicans.Then there are the self-funded candidates, whose campaigns will last as long as they are willing to spend their own fortunes — and for now at least, they are certainly spending a lot.Here are some initial takeaways from the filings, which detail fund-raising and spending from April 1 to June 30.DeSantis is reliant on big money … and he’s spending it fast.In the six weeks between his entry into the race and the end of the quarter, Mr. DeSantis raised $19.7 million for his campaign, $16.9 million of which came from contributions over $200, a sign of his dependence on big-dollar contributions.He is also spending that money — quickly.His filings Saturday showed that his campaign spent nearly $7.9 million in those six weeks. Top expenditures included $1.3 million earmarked for travel (several vendors appear to be private jet rental services); more than $1 million for payroll; and more than $800,000 apiece for digital fund-raising consulting, media placement and postage.It is a “burn rate” of about 40 percent, which is on the high end compared with the other Republican candidates. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina reported raising nearly $5.9 million in the second quarter, and spent $6.7 million. But he had more of a cushion: He carried $22 million from his Senate campaign into his presidential run.Mr. DeSantis reported $12.2 million in cash on hand at the end of June; Mr. Scott had $21 million.A full picture of Trump’s war chest is not yet clear.Mr. Trump is the runaway leader in polls of Republican candidates, and he has ample financial resources and fund-raising ability. But his exact cash situation is complicated.This month, the Trump campaign said the former president had raised more than $35 million in the second quarter through his joint fund-raising committee, which then transfers the money to his campaign and to a political action committee.His campaign’s filing on Saturday reported a total of $17.7 million in receipts — which includes contributions, transfers and refunds — almost all of which came in transfers from the joint fund-raising committee.Where is the rest of the reported $35 million? The joint fund-raising committee is not required to file its report until the end of the month. The New York Times reported last month that Mr. Trump has in recent months steered more of the money from the joint committee into the PAC, which he has used to pay his legal bills.Pence joins the stragglers.Bringing up the rear of the Republican pack are former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who raised about $500,000 in the second quarter, and Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman, who raised just $270,000.While these long-shot candidates were not expected to raise tons of money, observers might have expected more from former Vice President Mike Pence, who reported just $1.2 million in contributions.Mr. Pence has also spent very little — just $74,000, his filing shows. His campaign has not said whether he has reached the threshold of 40,000 unique donors, one of the requirements to appear on the Republican debate stage on Aug. 23.Self-funding candidates are also burning through cash.On Friday, the campaign of Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a wealthy former software engineer, filed its quarterly report, showing that he had raised $1.5 million in contributions and that he had lent $10 million to his campaign.Mr. Burgum’s campaign spent more than $8.1 million last quarter, including an eye-popping $6 million in advertising, the filings show. He had $3.6 million in cash on hand at the end of the month.Another Republican candidate, the wealthy entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, reported $2.3 million in contributions last quarter, as well as $5 million in loans from himself. Mr. Ramaswamy has lent his campaign $15.25 million since he entered the race in February; he has said he will spend $100 million of his own money on his bid.He may need to if he keeps up the spending. He spent more than $8 million from April through June, including $1.5 million on media placement and hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel. More

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      Fundraising Deadline for 2024 Presidential Campaigns Arrives: What to Watch

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      Which presidential and Senate candidates are swimming in cash? Which ones are growing desperate? That and more will become clearer on Saturday, when campaigns must file their latest federal reports.The financial landscape of the 2024 presidential race — the contest’s haves and have-nots, their momentum and desperation — will come into sharper focus on Saturday, the deadline for campaigns to file their latest reports to the Federal Election Commission.The filings, which detail fund-raising and spending from April 1 through June, will show which campaigns brought in the most hard dollars, or money raised under federal limits that is used to pay for staff, travel, events and advertising. Senate campaigns must also file by the end of Saturday, which means an early glimpse at incumbents’ fund-raising in potentially vulnerable seats.Crucially, the records will reveal which candidates are struggling to draw donor interest. For example, former Vice President Mike Pence raised just $1.2 million, two aides said on Friday, a strikingly low figure that could signal a difficult road ahead.The reports will also give a sense of small-dollar support, and which donors are maxing out their contributions to which candidates. And they will show how campaigns are spending their money, which ones have plenty of cash on hand and which ones are in danger of running dry.“The F.E.C. reports are the M.R.I. scan of a campaign,” said Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist. “It’s the next-best thing to breaking into the headquarters and checking the files.”But the picture will not be complete. For one thing, super PACs, which can raise unlimited money and play an outsize role in supporting presidential candidates, do not have to file reports on their fund-raising and spending until the end of the month.The total number of donors to each campaign will not be provided in the filings, either. That figure is a vital measure for Republicans, because the party is requiring presidential candidates to have at least 40,000 unique donors to take part in the first primary debate on Aug. 23.Saturday will also be the first detailed look at President Biden’s war chest as he slowly ramps up his re-election campaign. His campaign said on Friday that along with the Democratic National Committee and a joint fund-raising committee, it had raised more than $72 million combined for the second quarter.In the same period in 2019, former President Donald J. Trump and his allies raised a total of $105 million — $54 million for Mr. Trump and his committees, and $51 million for the Republican National Committee. In 2011, former President Barack Obama raised $47 million for his campaign and $38 million for the Democratic National Committee.Saturday will also show the money taken in by candidates in competitive Senate races in West Virginia, Arizona, Montana, Nevada and Ohio, among other places.The filings for presidential candidates are pored over by competitors, who want to “get a sense of how they are applying their resources, which will give them a clue to strategies,” Mr. Murphy said. Candidates might look at how much their rivals are spending on ads and polling, for example.“The most important number is cash on hand, minus debt,” Mr. Murphy said. “You see how much financial firepower they actually have.”Several Republican presidential campaigns have previewed their fund-raising ahead of the release. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida raised $20 million in the second quarter, his campaign said this month. But the filing on Saturday will show what percentage of that amount came from contributions below $200, which is instructive to assessing the strength of his grass-roots support.Mr. Trump raised more than $35 million in the second quarter, his campaign said. That number, however, is hard to compare with Mr. DeSantis’s because Mr. Trump has raised money through a joint fund-raising committee, which allows him to solicit contributions above the $3,300 individual limit and then transfer funds to his campaign and to his leadership political action committee.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida raised $20 million in the second quarter, his campaign said this month. His filing on Saturday will show what share came from contributions below $200, a sign of grass-roots support.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesNikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, is raising money into a joint fund-raising committee, which transfers funds to her campaign and to a leadership PAC.Ms. Haley’s three committees together took in $7.3 million in contributions in the second quarter, according to filings shared with The New York Times, of which the campaign itself accounted for $4.3 million.Mr. Murphy singled out Ms. Haley as a candidate whose total earnings appeared modest, but whose cash on hand had increased from the first quarter of the year — to $9.3 million from $7.9 million across the three committees. “It shows a heartbeat,” he said. Her filings also suggest that her campaign is running a lean operation, with minimal staff, economical travel and no television ads.The Republican National Committee’s donor threshold for the first debate has shifted the calculus of many campaigns and PACs, which must focus not only on raising money but also on attracting a sufficient number of individual donors. So far, the candidates who say they have met that threshold are Mr. Trump, Mr. DeSantis, Ms. Haley, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.Nikki Haley’s three committees together took in $7.3 million in contributions in the second quarter, according to filings shared with The New York Times. Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesOn Wednesday, Mr. Scott’s campaign said he had raised $6.1 million in the second quarter. Mr. Scott entered the race in May with a head start: He had $22 million in hard dollars in his Senate campaign. His presidential campaign said it had $21 million remaining at the end of the quarter.Another Republican candidate, the wealthy entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, has not released a preview of his fund-raising numbers, but he has said he will spend $100 million of his own money on his bid. Mr. Christie, similarly, has not released his numbers.On Friday, the campaign of Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a wealthy former software engineer, filed its quarterly report, showing that he had raised $1.5 million in contributions and that he had lent $10 million to his campaign. He had $3.6 million in cash on hand at the end of the month.The campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer who is challenging Mr. Biden for the Democratic nomination, also filed its report Friday, showing more than $6.3 million in contributions and $4.5 million in cash on hand at the end of June.Terry Sullivan, a Republican strategist who ran Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, said it would be telling which candidates broadcast their total donor numbers.Another thing to watch is the “burn rate” of each campaign, Mr. Sullivan said — what candidates are spending as a share of what they have taken in, and how much they have left in the bank.Campaign accounts are vital to candidates because, unlike PACs, the funds are controlled by the campaign. Also unlike PACs, campaigns are protected by federal law that guarantees political candidates the lowest possible rate for broadcast advertising.Mr. Sullivan said that television advertising was no longer as important as so-called earned media exposure, through events, viral moments and debates. But those often cost money, too: Even on a tight budget, candidates can easily spend a quarter-million dollars a day holding events on the trail, he said.“Nobody stops running for president because they think their ideas are no longer good enough, or they’re not qualified,” Mr. Sullivan said. “People stop running for president for one reason, and one reason only: It’s because they run out of money.”Reid J. Epstein More

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      Biden Campaign Elevates a New Super PAC to Help 2024 Re-election Bid

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      The president and his advisers are elevating a new super PAC, Future Forward, as their leading outside group to rake in cash from his wealthiest benefactors.President Biden and his advisers are elevating a new outside group as the leading super PAC to help re-elect him in 2024, making it the top destination for large sums of cash from supportive billionaires and multimillionaires.The blessing of the group, Future Forward, is a changing of the guard in the important world of big-money Democratic politics. Since the 2012 election, a different group, Priorities USA, has been the leading super PAC for Democratic presidential candidates.“In 2020, when they really appeared from nowhere and started placing advertising, the Biden campaign was impressed by the effectiveness of the ads and the overall rigorous testing that had clearly gone into the entire project,” Anita Dunn, a senior White House adviser to Mr. Biden, said of Future Forward. The group, she added, had “really earned its place as the pre-eminent super PAC supporting the Biden-Harris agenda and 2024 efforts.”On Friday, Mr. Biden’s campaign also announced a combined fund-raising total of more than $72 million for the second quarter alongside the Democratic National Committee and their joint fund-raising committee, a figure far greater than what Donald J. Trump raised. Future Forward has raised $50 million so far this year, the group said.Federal candidates cannot legally coordinate campaign strategy with super PACs, but officials in both parties have signaled their preferred entities for a decade. Super PACs can accept donations of unlimited size, unlike federal candidates, who must abide by contribution limits.Future Forward, which is led by Chauncey McLean, a former official on Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, has kept a remarkably low profile for a super PAC that, along with an affiliated nonprofit arm, has raised nearly $400 million in the last five years.The group maintains a sparse website. Mr. McLean said that Future Forward had never sent out a news release trumpeting its activity, which has included producing more than 400 advertisements.“We keep a low profile because we’re just not the story, we’re just not important,” Mr. McLean said in a rare interview. “I just don’t see any reason for popping our head up. That’s not going to change.”The super PAC spent more than $130 million on what are known as independent expenditure ads in the 2020 race between Mr. Biden and Donald J. Trump. It was also a major spender in the midterm elections in three crucial battlegrounds: Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Mr. McLean, who is based in Seattle, said that the group planned to run “the largest presidential I.E. in history” and that his fund-raising goal was to collect “as much as humanly possible.”Ms. Dunn served as a consultant for Future Forward after Mr. Biden was inaugurated, according to her personal financial disclosure form. But she said she saw a key role in 2024 for other super PACs, including American Bridge, the party’s clearinghouse for opposition research, which also runs television ads.Ms. Dunn and other White House officials have attended American Bridge donor conferences this year. The shift away from Priorities USA has been telegraphed to donors for months, since before the group’s longtime leader, Guy Cecil, announced in March that he was stepping away. Priorities this spring announced a goal to spent $74 million on digital advertising in 2024.In a statement, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, a White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign manager, said Future Forward had been “critical” in 2020 and would “again play a key role” in 2024.Unlike super PACs supporting Republican presidential candidates that have built on-the-ground organizations in early presidential nominating states, Future Forward will have a narrow focus on “research and advertising,” Mr. McLean said.Mr. Biden is dispatching Katie Petrelius, the finance director on his 2020 campaign and recently a White House aide, to Future Forward to help the group raise money.There are no immediate plans for Mr. Biden to headline any fund-raising events for the super PAC, but Ms. Dunn said such gatherings could occur in the future.Mr. Biden, like many Democrats in the party’s crowded 2020 presidential primary, initially resisted soliciting the support of a super PAC but backtracked in the fall of 2019, when his campaign was short on cash and needed more presence on the airwaves. (“To speak to the middle class, we need to reject the super PAC system,” Mr. Biden had said that April.)Both super PACs and nonprofit groups can accept unlimited donations, but only super PACs must disclose the names of their contributors. Future Forward’s largest disclosed contributor has been Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder, who has given more than $50 million to the group since 2020.The group has also received millions of dollars from Stephen F. Mandel Jr., a Connecticut hedge fund manager; Karla Jurvetson, a California philanthropist; Eric Schmidt, the former Google executive; and Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency exchange founder, who gave $5 million in October 2020.Mr. McLean said Future Forward would be “giving back any money associated with” Mr. Bankman-Fried. The group said it had also received $1.65 million from Mr. Bankman-Fried in its nonprofit arm. More

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      Biden and D.N.C. Announce $72 Million in Fund-Raising, a Substantial Haul

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      The figure far surpasses what Donald Trump raised, though it is well short of what Mr. Trump and his allies collected during the same period in the 2020 election cycle.President Biden’s campaign announced on Friday a combined fund-raising haul of more than $72 million from April through June alongside the Democratic National Committee and a joint fund-raising committee, a figure that far surpasses what former President Donald J. Trump and other leading Republican presidential candidates have announced.The campaign said that along with the D.N.C. and the committee, it had a combined $77 million in cash on hand at the end of the reporting period. It did not disclose how that money was divided between the campaign and the committees.“While Republicans are burning through resources in a divisive primary focused on who can take the most extreme MAGA positions, we are significantly outraising every single one of them,” said Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager.While the fund-raising total is well short of the $105 million Mr. Trump and his allies collected during the same period in his 2020 re-election campaign, it is likely to serve as a salve for Democrats who have been privately gloomy about Mr. Biden’s sagging approval ratings. The finance numbers prove that whatever private misgivings Democrats have about Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, the party’s donor class is fully on board.“This is proof positive that this party and its people and the country believe in Joe Biden and the accomplishments of this administration,” said Henry R. Muñoz III, a former Democratic National Committee finance chairman. “This reaffirms Joe Biden’s appeal to the working people and everyday heroes of this country.”At the dawn of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, he and the D.N.C. raised a combined $86 million between April and June 2011.Comparisons to Mr. Obama’s fund-raising efforts for the 2012 campaign are imprecise, however, because a 2014 Supreme Court decision and other legal changes allowed candidates and parties to form joint fund-raising committees that can accept single donations of hundreds of thousands of dollars.And in Mr. Trump’s re-election bid, he had a significant head start over Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump formally announced and began fund-raising for the 2020 race on the day he was inaugurated in 2017, while Mr. Biden, who at the end of March had $1.36 million left over in his campaign account, did not actively solicit money for his campaign until he made his run official in April.Mr. Biden began his 2024 campaign on April 25 — nearly a month after the fund-raising quarter began. His first major fund-raising event was in mid-May in New York, and he did not do any significant fund-raising himself during the heat of negotiations over extending the federal debt ceiling in late May.In June, Mr. Biden traveled to San Francisco and Chicago to meet with major donors before the close of the fund-raising period.Though the Biden campaign did not reveal many relevant details about its finances on Friday, it highlighted more than 394,000 donors and pointed to the success of online advertising programs during notable moments in the Republican primary campaign, like Mr. Trump’s televised town-hall event in May and the campaign announcement of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Half of the merchandise sold at the Biden campaign’s online store, the campaign said, features the “Dark Brandon” theme.Mr. Biden was never a prolific fund-raiser before he became the party’s de facto presidential nominee in the spring of 2020. Three other Democratic candidates raised more money than he did during the third quarter of 2019, well before his resurgence as the primary season unfolded.But once Democrats unified around Mr. Biden and against Mr. Trump while the pandemic gripped the country, Mr. Biden emerged as a magnet for donors large and small.“Just like 2020 was a record year, I imagine 2024 is going to be a record year,” said Alex Lasry, a former Senate candidate and D.N.C. member from Wisconsin who is the co-treasurer for the Democratic Governors Association.The Republicans vying to replace Mr. Biden will not have the benefit of raising money through their national committee until one emerges as the party’s nominee. Mr. Biden and supportive Democrats also have the advantage of not having to spend much money to get through what for the Republicans is expected to be a rough-and-tumble primary campaign.Mr. Trump said his campaign and his joint fund-raising committee had raised $35 million in the second quarter. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida announced he had raised about $20 million. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, raised $4.3 million for her campaign and an additional $3 million for her affiliated committees. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said his campaign had raised $6.1 million.Other Republican presidential candidates, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Vivek Ramaswamy, a businessman, have not released their fund-raising totals for the second quarter.Full reports on all federal candidates’ campaign finances, which will include spending and an indication of how much of their money has come from small donors, are due on Saturday to the Federal Election Commission.Rebecca Davis O’Brien More

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      What Really Happened in the Midterms?

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      A segment of swing voters decided to back Democratic candidates in many critical races.Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesMore than eight months later, all the data from the 2022 midterm elections is — finally — final. The two most rigorous reports, from the Pew Research Center and Catalist, are finished.And yet despite all the data, there is a piece of the midterm puzzle that still hasn’t quite been resolved: How exactly did the Democrats manage to nearly sweep every competitive House and Senate race, even though they often fared quite miserably elsewhere?The Catalist report suggested it was the turnout, finding that Democrats won “with electorates in these contests looking more like the 2020 and 2018 electorates than a typical midterm.” Pew also pointed to turnout, but with a different interpretation, writing that Republicans won control of the House “largely on the strength of higher turnout,” and found that disproportionate numbers of Biden voters and Democrats from 2018 stayed home.You might imagine ways to square the two claims, but neither report offers a clear way to reconcile these competing stories. Catalist, a Democratic data firm, doesn’t mention a word on the partisan makeup of the electorate, despite possessing the data to do so. The Pew report, meanwhile, is framed around explaining how Republicans won the House popular vote by three points — an important outcome, but one overshadowed by the Democratic hold in the Senate and the razor-thin Republican House majority.Fortunately, our data at The New York Times can help piece together what remains of the puzzle. Over the last few years via Times/Siena College polls, we’ve interviewed tens of thousands of voters nationwide and in the crucial battleground states and districts. This data can be linked to voter registration files — the backbone of both the Catalist and Pew reports — that show exactly who voted and who did not (though not whom they voted for, of course), including in the states and districts that decided the midterm election.The findings suggest that the turnout was mostly typical of a midterm election and helped Republicans nationwide, but there are good reasons to doubt whether it was as helpful to the party out of power as it had been in previous midterms.It certainly wasn’t enough to overcome what truly distinguished the 2022 midterm election: the critical sliver of voters who were repelled by specific Republican nominees, Donald J. Trump’s “stop the steal” movement and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.At a glance, a typical midterm electorateTo some degree, every midterm leans toward the party out of power, and has an older, whiter electorate. Last November was no exception. Just consider these figures on 2022 voters nationwide:73 percent of registered Republicans (defined by whether someone is registered as a Republican or participated in a recent Republican primary) turned out in 2022, compared with 63 percent of registered Democrats. The 10-point turnout advantage meant Republicans narrowly outnumbered Democrats among 2022 voters given that there are about five percentage points more registered Democrats than registered Republicans by this measure.Just 45 percent of Black and 38 percent of Hispanic voters turned out, compared with 58 percent of non-Hispanic whites, according to data from the Census Bureau. The findings are consistent with data from voter registration files and the actual results, as we reported last fall, along with the Pew and Catalist reports, in showing a weak turnout among Black voters.Voters over 65 represented 33 percent of the electorate, according to the L2 data, compared with just 10 percent for those 18 to 29.All of these patterns are consistent with a typical midterm turnout.The size of the Republican registration advantage is almost exactly in line with the available historical data. It also aligns neatly with our pre-election estimates, which you can see for yourself in our final (and highly accurate) Times/Siena polls.And as we reported in December, this basic story holds up in the battleground states as well. Republicans outvoted Democrats everywhere, including in the very states where Democrats excelled.A hidden Democratic turnout advantage?All of this seems to add up to a stark Republican turnout advantage, powered by an older, whiter and more Republican electorate.But perhaps surprisingly, there are reasons to think the actual turnout advantage for Republican candidates might not have been nearly so large as these figures suggest.Just start with the Pew report, which found that Trump voters were four points likelier to turn out than Biden voters, 71 percent to 67 percent. That’s an important advantage, but it’s less than half the size of the 10-point Republican turnout advantage by registration. The Pew figures actually suggest the 2022 midterm electorate backed Joe Biden in 2020, even though registered Republicans outnumbered Democrats.The Times data suggests something similar. According to our estimates, 69.1 percent of Trump voters turned out compared with 66.7 percent of Biden voters — essentially the same as the Pew figures, though edging even closer to parity.These estimates are based on a statistical model that marries Times/Siena polling data and voter records (including someone’s party registration) to predict how registrants voted in the 2020 election. I’ve forced you through that wonky sentence because it means that these estimates are entirely consistent with and inclusive of all of those various Republican-friendly turnout figures offered earlier: Our estimate is that Republicans outvoted Democrats by 10 points but that Trump voters nonetheless outvoted Biden voters by only two points.Looking at the data more carefully, the source of this disparity is mostly among Democrats. The registered Democrats who stayed home in 2022 were disproportionately likely to be those who sometimes vote Republican. The Democrats who turned out, on the other hand, were especially loyal Democrats who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020. This is partly because of education — midterm voters are more highly educated — but the survey data suggests that this Democratic advantage ran a lot deeper.It’s worth being cautious about this finding. The 10-point G.O.P. turnout advantage cited earlier is essentially a fact. The possibility that the practical turnout advantage for Republican candidates might have been only a third of that or less is an estimate based on fallible survey data. It’s also dependent on accurately surveying a group of people — nonvoters — who are very difficult for pollsters to measure.But the Times and Pew data tell a very similar story, despite very different methodologies, and the accurate topline results of the pre-election surveys add additional harmony. The possibility of some kind of hidden underlying Democratic advantage in motivation is also consistent with other data points on 2022, like Democrats’ astonishing success in ultra-low-turnout special elections.Close to parity in the battlegrounds?The 2022 midterm election was not a simple election decided by a national electorate. It was unusually heterogenous, with Republicans enjoying a “red wave” in states like Florida or New York while other states, like Pennsylvania and Michigan, could be argued to have ridden a “blue wave.”As we’ll see, nowhere near all of the difference between these states can be attributed to turnout. But part of the difference was the disparate turnout, with Republicans enjoying a far larger turnout advantage than they did nationwide in states like Florida, while Democrats did better than they did nationwide in states like Pennsylvania. And since our estimates suggest that the Republican turnout advantage nationwide was fairly modest — more modest than the party registration figures suggest — the estimates also show that neither party enjoyed a significant turnout advantage in many battleground states where Democrats turned in above-average performances.In Northern battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Ohio, Biden and Trump voters turned out at nearly identical rates, according to our estimates.In contrast, Trump voters were likelier to turn out than Biden voters by around 10 percentage points or more in states like Florida and New York. In practice, this meant that the Florida electorate most likely voted for Mr. Trump by double digits, even though he carried the state by just three points in 2020.Most states, including the key Sun Belt battlegrounds like Arizona and Georgia, fell in between the Northern battlegrounds and the red-wave states like New York or Florida.A decisive advantage among swing votersThe resilient Democratic turnout in many key Northern battleground states might seem like a key that unlocks what happened in 2022, but it explains less than you might think.According to our estimates, Biden voters only narrowly outnumbered Trump voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan. But Democratic candidates for Senate and governor won in landslides that greatly exceeded Mr. Biden’s margin of victory. Similarly, Trump voters outnumbered Biden voters in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, where Democrats posted crucial wins that assured control of the Senate.Ultimately, the Democratic performance depended on something that went far beyond turnout: A segment of swing voters decided to back Democratic candidates in many critical races.For all the talk about turnout, this is what distinguished the 2022 midterms from any other in recent memory. Looking back over 15 years, the party out of power has typically won independent voters by an average margin of 14 points, as a crucial segment of voters either has soured on the president or has acted as a check against the excesses of the party in power.This did not happen in 2022. Every major study — the exit polls, the AP/VoteCast study, the Pew study published this week — showed Democrats narrowly won self-identified independent voters, despite an unfavorable national political environment and an older, whiter group of independent voters. A post-election analysis of Times/Siena surveys adjusted to match the final vote count and the validated electorate show the same thing. It took the Democratic resilience among swing voters together with the Democratic resilience in turnout, especially in the Northern battlegrounds, to nearly allow Democrats to hold the U.S. House.In many crucial states, Democratic candidates for Senate and governor often outright excelled among swing voters, plainly winning over a sliver of voters who probably backed Mr. Trump for president in 2020 and certainly supported Republican candidates for U.S. House in 2022. This was most pronounced in the states where Republicans nominated stop-the-steal candidates or where the abortion issue was prominent, like Michigan.Democratic strength among swing voters in key states allowed the party to overcome an important turnout disadvantage in states like Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. That strength turned Pennsylvania and Michigan into landslides. And it ensured that the 2022 midterm election would not go down as an easy Republican victory, despite their takeover of the House, but would instead seem like a setback for conservatives. More

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      Democrats, It’s OK to Talk About Hunter Biden

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      If you travel in predominantly Democratic circles and want to have a really trying day, write or publicly say something unflattering but true about President Biden, a lament legible or audible beyond people who can be safely depended on to vote for him. Then brace for the furies.Observe that it’s one thing — a noble, beautiful thing — for him to give steadfast support and unconditional love to his profoundly troubled son, but that it’s another for that son to attend a state dinner days after he had cut a deal with federal prosecutors on tax and gun charges. Many of your liberal acquaintances will shush and shame you: Speak no ill of Joe Biden! That’s an unaffordable luxury. You’re playing into his MAGA adversaries’ hands.Note that Biden seems less physically peppy and verbally precise than in years past and suggest that it might be best, for him and for continued Democratic control of the White House, if he let Democrats choose a different 2024 nominee. You’ll be likened to an anchor for Fox News. You’ll be chided for age discrimination. Never mind that you’re examining his behavior, not the year on his birth certificate. You’re being counterproductive.You’ll be asked: What do Hunter Biden and diminished vim matter next to the menace of Donald Trump and a Republican Party in his lawless, nihilistic thrall? That’s a fair question — to a point. But past that point, it’s dishonest and dangerous.Dishonest because the question is often leveled at essentially Biden-friendly observers who have lavished, oh, 100 times as many words on Trump’s epic moral corruption as on Biden’s blind spots and missteps, creating zero impression of any equivalence.Dangerous because it suggests that Americans can’t be trusted to behold politicians in their full complexity — and reality in all its messiness — and distinguish unideal from unconscionable, scattered flaws from through-and-through fraudulence. I don’t see how that’s consonant with the exaltation and preservation of democracy, in which it exhibits scant trust.It also plays into the portrait of Democrats as elitists who decide what people should and shouldn’t be exposed to — what they can and can’t handle. How’s that a winning look?I believe that a victory by Trump in 2024 would be devastating beyond measure for the United States. I believe that a victory by any Republican who has indulged, parroted or promoted Trump’s fictions and assaults on democratic norms would also be a disaster. His abettors have shown their colors and disqualified themselves. And I’ve said that — and will continue to say that — repeatedly.I also believe that Biden has been a good president at a very difficult time, and that even if he’s not near peak vigor, we’d be much, much better served by the renewal of his White House lease than by a new tenant in the form of Trump or one of his de facto accomplices. Biden’s second term, like his first, would be about more than the man himself. It would be about a whole team, a set of principles, a fundamental decency, a thread of continuity, an investment in important institutions.And I believe that there’s more than ample room in all the above to talk about whether Biden is the strongest of the possible Democratic contenders to take on Trump, Ron DeSantis or whomever — although that particular conversation may soon be moot, given the ever-shrinking amount of time for those contenders to put together campaigns and for Democratic voters to assess them.Likewise, it’s possible — no, necessary — to have nuanced conversations about Biden’s and his administration’s mix of virtues and vices. If a big part of the horror of Trump is his estrangement from and perversion of truth, how is the proper or even strategic response to gild or cloak truth and declare it subservient to a desired political end?The intensity of many House Republicans’ fixation on Hunter Biden is deranged, and journalists would be wrong to chronicle every breathless inch of their descent down that rabbit hole. But we’d also be wrong to ignore Hunter Biden entirely, and Democratic partisans who urge that aren’t being realistic and are doing as much to feed suspicions as to quell them.As Peter Baker wrote in The Times last month, “In modern times, the harsh spotlight of media scrutiny has focused on Donald Nixon’s financial dealings with Howard Hughes, Billy Carter’s work as an agent for Libya, Neil Bush’s service on the board of a failed savings and loan, Roger Clinton’s drug convictions and of course the various financial and security clearance issues involving Mr. Trump’s children and son-in-law.”Baker later added: “Even some of the president’s Democratic allies have privately said there were legitimate questions about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China that seemed to trade on his name.”This is a strange, scary time. The leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is an indicted, twice-impeached former president who cares only for his own eminence and survival and doesn’t let a shred of civic concern, genuine patriotism or recognizable scruple dilute his solipsism. He could well take up residence in the White House again.So the temptation, given the stakes, is to bathe whichever Democrat stands in the way of that in a beatific light, to sing that person’s praises as loudly and unflaggingly as vocal cords permit. That feels like the prudent response. It feels like the ethical one.It’s neither, certainly not for those of us in the news media. It would put us in the business of creating outcomes, not chronicling events, which would be obvious to voters on top of being wrong. It would further erode our credibility, which has suffered plenty of erosion already. It would betray the fundamental purpose and real power of journalism.We do best as a profession — and all of us do best as a democracy and a society — when we hold everyone accountable, regardless of the special circumstances, and when we’re honest across the board. To act otherwise is to send the message that all is gamesmanship and that integrity is for suckers. That’s probably not how we defeat Trump. It’s more likely how he defeats us, long before and long after whatever happens in November 2024.For the Love of SentencesAdele performs in Las Vegas.Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for ADIn recognition of a time of year with much volitional long-haul air travel, David Mack mulled matters baggage-related in The Times: “I’m terrible at packing. Laughably terrible. Concerningly so. On a recent trip to Las Vegas with my boyfriend (I’m gay) and both our mothers (again, we are extremely gay) to see Adele (you get the idea), we both packed so much that you’d be forgiven for thinking we were moving there.” (Thanks to Conrad Macina of Landing, N.J., and Jean Dunn of Southbury, Conn., for spotlighting this.)Also in The Times, Jane Margolies described a growing trend of corporate office buildings trimmed with greenery that requires less maintenance: “As manicured lawns give way to meadows and borders of annuals are replaced by wild and woolly native plants, a looser, some might say messier, aesthetic is taking hold. Call it the horticultural equivalent of bedhead.” (Sally Hinson, Greer, S.C.)And Michael Kimmelman bemoaned the Sisyphean efforts to make Penn Station in Manhattan bearable: “The only thing everyone seems to know for certain is that nothing meaningful ever really happens to improve North America’s busiest and most miserable train hub, despite decades of demands and promises. Hope has long gone to die on the 6:50 to Secaucus.” (Guy Heston, Las Vegas, and David Ballard, Asbury Park, N.J.)In The Globe and Mail of Toronto, Cathal Kelly pondered the cantankerous trajectory of the tennis star Andy Murray: “In his dotage, Murray has become the guy who’s visibly counting what you’ve put down in the ‘eight items or less’ checkout line.” (Hamish Cameron, Toronto)In The Guardian, Stuart Heritage reflected on the end of the Sussexes’ deal with Spotify, for which Meghan Markle hosted “Archetypes,” a short-lived, inspiration-minded podcast on which she interviewed other prominent women: “As an entity, Harry and Meghan are only interesting for as long as they can destabilize the monarchy. Their Oprah interview did that. Their documentary did that. Harry’s book ‘Spare’ did that. ‘Archetypes’ did not do that, and as such was roughly as interesting as listening to changing-room chatter in the world’s most insufferable yoga studio.” (John Donaldson, Carlsbad, Calif.)In The Boston Globe, Scot Lehigh pondered a popular current riddle: “DeSantis must have some political skills. Saddled with qualities that evolution traditionally rewards in porcupines but not politicians, he has still managed to succeed on a state level.” (Kathie Lynch Nutting, Mashpee, Mass.)In The New Yorker, Julian Lucas profiled the trailblazing and visionary science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany, now 81: “With long white hair, heavy brows and a chest-length beard that begins halfway up his lightly melanated cheeks, Delany has the appearance of an Eastern Orthodox monk who left his cloister for a biker gang.” (Max Sinclair, DeKalb, Ill.)And in a letter to the editor in The Washington Post, a reader named Michael D. Schattman poked fun at the oddities of a now-famous plaintiff: “A fair reading of the Supreme Court’s opinion in 303 Creative v. Elenis is that the Colorado anti-discrimination law is in fact constitutional, except when applied to a business that does not wish to provide a product it does not offer to a nonexistent gay couple who are not seeking a website for an imaginary wedding of which the business owner does not approve.” (Lee Hudson, Gilboa, N.Y.)To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence.On a Personal NoteStephen Speranza for The New York TimesNot all seasons are created equal. If you live in a place with a real autumn — with that football-weather nip in the air, those leaves going out in a blaze of glory — you know that it has no match. And if you live in a place with a real spring — with that sudden return of birdsong, those pink and red and purple blossoms — you know that it comes a close second.But how to rank summer and winter? Most of the people I know put winter last, and many of them misguidedly vault summer all the way to the top. For me, summer’s the bottom, and T.S. Eliot’s take on the calendar was all wrong. August is the cruelest month, barely edging out July.In the great outdoors, it’s harder to get cool in the summer than warm in the winter, when layers do the trick. And it’s getting harder all the time. Earth experienced what scientists said was probably its hottest day in modern history a week ago Monday. Then it beat that — twice — in the days just after that.The languid summer air is a soporific. And summer comes wrapped in the oppressive insistence that it’s the season of liberation, of abandon, of fun: no school, less clothing, vacations, the beach, the beach, the infernal beach. Summer is like New Year’s Eve that way. It’s decreed revelry. I like my revelry spontaneous, serendipitous and in soft, long-sleeved, flab-concealing flannel shirts.I like seasons with fewer ticks, fewer mosquitoes, less sunburn. Summer is hazardous. I’m surprised it doesn’t make everyone sign some sort of waiver.Perhaps you disagree? I hope you disagree. Because if you do, I invite you to send me, at this address, anywhere from one to four sentences arguing summer’s case. If I get enough deft, spirited responses, persuasive in their humor or eloquence, I’ll compile and share some of them in a newsletter between now and the end of this over-baked stretch of the calendar.Meantime? Apply your sunscreen. Trim your toenails (all those damned sandals and flip-flops). HAVE FUN! Summer will tolerate nothing less. More

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      Biden Pledges Long-Term Backing for Ukraine, but a U.S. Election Looms

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      Citing American politics, some NATO leaders expressed concern that Washington could waver in its support if there were a shift in power.Moments after President Biden assured Volodymyr Zelensky that he could count on United States support for as long as it took, the Ukrainian leader used the opportunity to speak not only to NATO allies but also to an audience thousands of miles away.“I understand that it’s all your money,” Mr. Zelensky said, addressing Americans directly. “You spend this money for our lives.”Despite Mr. Biden’s repeated promises of staying by Ukraine’s side in its war against Russia, questions about the shelf life of support among American people and lawmakers hung over the summit of Western allies. Even as the U.S. president was giving a long-term commitment, a group of far-right Republican lawmakers in Washington was pushing legislation that would scale back aid to Ukraine, exposing fractures in the Republican Party and raising doubts about its commitment should it capture the White House next year.The two G.O.P. candidates leading in polls, Donald J. Trump and Ron DeSantis, have also expressed reservations about maintaining the war as a priority for the United States, fueling concern among some Western allies and injecting the American electoral cycle as a major element in Ukraine’s prospects for victory.At the NATO summit, Mr. Biden was intent on addressing those doubts, vowing to continue to rally the alliance in support of Ukraine and speaking to his domestic audience back home, preparing Americans for a prolonged standoff with Russia. During a speech from Vilnius University, in the Lithuanian capital, he compared the plight of Ukraine to the Cold War struggle for freedom in Europe, a fight that had the overwhelming support of both the Democratic and Republican Parties.“We will not waver,” Mr. Biden said, a message echoed by most NATO leaders. “I mean that. Our commitment to Ukraine will not weaken.”Still, some leaders openly questioned just how long Kyiv could count on robust U.S. support.Ukraine needed to make military progress more or less “by the end of this year” because of the coming elections in the United States, President Petr Pavel of the Czech Republic warned on the first day of the summit. By next year, he suggested, there could also be “another decline of willingness to massively support Ukraine with more weapons.”The president of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, at the NATO summit on Tuesday. Ukraine needed to make military progress more or less “by the end of this year,” he said.Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesBen Wallace, Britain’s defense minister, went so far as “providing a slight word of caution” that Ukraine should express more appreciation to allies for sending tens of billions of dollars in aid to Kyiv.“Sometimes you’ve got to persuade lawmakers on the Hill in America,” Mr. Wallace said. “You’ve got to persuade doubting politicians in other countries that, you know, that it’s worthwhile.”(In a stern reply to Mr. Wallace, Mr. Zelensky later told reporters, “He can write to me about how he wants to be thanked.”)Even as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey expressed optimism about collaborating with the United States at future NATO summits, he joked about the uncertainty of future U.S. leadership. “With the forthcoming elections, I would also like to take this opportunity to wish you the best of luck,” Mr. Erdogan told Mr. Biden, prompting the American president to laugh and reassure him that he would be meeting him again in the years ahead.But the concerns expressed by those leaders appeared to have some grounding, given Republican skepticism.“I’m of course concerned about the leadership,” said William Taylor, a former ambassador to Ukraine in the Bush and Obama administrations. “American leadership on this issue is going to be key, and it will have to continue to be bipartisan.”Mr. Biden’s aides say they believe his ability to build support for Ukraine both domestically and overseas will be one of the lasting achievements of his presidency. He has sold himself as someone who can repair the divisions deepened by his rivals, and on the campaign trail he is expected to emphasize his consensus-building in the halls of Congress and on the global stage during what he has described as an inflection point for the world.Turkey’s decision to end a block on Sweden’s entrance to NATO and Mr. Zelensky’s declaration that the summit had given Ukraine a “significant security victory” will probably help Mr. Biden’s case. But many American voters remain unconvinced, particularly about his economic record, fueling his low approval numbers.Over the past year, Mr. Biden has attempted to frame the economic hardship that comes with aiding Ukraine as a cost of defending democracy.But some support among the public has wavered at times as Americans faced soaring consumer prices and Europeans grappled with an energy crisis after cutting their reliance on Russian gas.The Consumer Price Index reported on Wednesday that U.S. inflation had cooled slightly in June, providing an assist to Mr. Biden’s pitch. Federal Reserve officials are still assessing, however, just how long the trend will last. Consumer price rises remain above the rate of increase from before the pandemic.A recent Reuters-Ipsos survey found a sharp rise in support among the American public for helping Ukraine’s effort to defend itself against Russia. The survey found that 81 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of independents favored supplying U.S. weapons to Ukraine. The poll also found that a large majority of Americans were more likely to support a presidential candidate who would continue to provide military aid to Kyiv.“This is a good debate to have,” Mr. Taylor, the former ambassador, said. “The American people deserve to participate in the debate about the support for Ukraine and the opposition to Russia’s invasion.”Mr. Taylor said he remained optimistic about Ukraine funding, since both the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress have expressed support and because the proposals by the far-right flank are almost certain not to pass the House.Throughout the week, Mr. Biden and other American officials have been intent on just ensuring unity in backing for Ukraine — at the NATO summit and back home. When a Ukrainian activist pressed Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, over the U.S. administration’s reluctance to invite Ukraine to join the alliance immediately, Mr. Sullivan reminded her that the Biden administration had provided “an enormous amount of capacity” to Kyiv.He then invoked those within U.S. borders. “The American people have sought — in watching and wanting to stand in solidarity with the brave and courageous people of Ukraine — to step up and deliver, and I think the American people do deserve a degree of gratitude from us,” he said.And in describing the war as a choice between democracy and autocratic governments — a message he has leaned on since the start of his presidency — Mr. Biden sought to convince voters that they should care about a battle on the other side of the globe.“A choice between a world defined by coercion and exploitation, where might makes right,” Mr. Biden said, “or a world where we recognize that our own success is bound to the success of others.” More