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      A Trump-Biden Rematch Is the Election We Need

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      Joe Biden versus Donald Trump is not the choice America wants. But it is the choice we need to face.Yes, both men are unpopular, remarkably so. Only a third of Americans view President Biden favorably, and two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters want to nominate someone else for the presidency (no one in particular, just someone else, please). Trump is the overwhelming favorite to become the Republican nominee for the third consecutive time, but his overall approval rating is lower than Biden’s. And while 60 percent of voters don’t want to put Trump back in the White House, 65 percent don’t want to hand Biden a second term, either. The one thing on which Americans seem to agree is that we find a Biden-Trump 2024 rematch entirely disagreeable.This disdain may reflect the standard gripes about the candidates. (One is too old, the other too Trump.) But it also may signal an underlying reluctance to acknowledge the meaning of their standoff and the inescapability of our decision. A contest between Biden and Trump would compel Americans to either reaffirm or discard basic democratic and governing principles. More so than any other pairing, Biden versus Trump forces us to decide, or at least to clarify, who we think we are and what we strive to be.Trump is running as an overtly authoritarian candidate — the illusion of pivots, of adults in the room, of a man molded by the office, is long gone. He is dismissive of the law, except when he can harness it for his benefit; of open expression, except when it fawns all over him; and of free elections, except when they produce victories he likes. He has called for the “termination” of the Constitution based on his persistent claims of 2020 electoral fraud, and according to The Washington Post, in a new term he would use the Justice Department as an instrument of vengeance against political opponents. We know who Trump is and what he offers.Biden’s case to the electorate — for 2020, 2022 and 2024 — has been premised on the preservation of American democratic traditions. In the video announcing his 2020 campaign, he asserted that “our very democracy” was at stake in the race against Trump. In a speech two months before the midterm vote last year, he asserted that Trump and his allies “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundation of our Republic.” And the video kicking off his 2024 re-election bid featured multiple scenes of the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “The question we are facing,” Biden said, “is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom.” That is our choice in 2024.Like so many others, I also wish we could avoid that choice or at least defer it. As the journalist Amy Walter has put it, “Swing voters would rather eat a bowl of glass than have to choose between Trump and Biden again.” Well, it may be time to grab a spoon and unroll the gauze. When half the country believes democracy isn’t working well, when calls for political violence have become commonplace, when the speaker of the House is an election denier, it is time to face what we risk becoming and to accept or reject it. We have no choice but to choose.Even if some combination of poor health and legal proceedings somehow pushed Biden and Trump aside — and some blandly likable generic candidates took their places — we could not simply rewind the past eight years and return to our regularly scheduled programming. America would still face the choices and temptations that Biden and Trump have come to represent; the choice would not change, even if the faces did.A recent New York Times/Siena College poll that shows Trump leading Biden in five battleground states also asked registered voters which candidate they trust on key questions. Trump won on the economy, immigration and national security; Biden received higher marks on just two issues. The first was abortion, a core priority among Democratic voters and one that proved powerful in last year’s midterms and the off-year elections and ballot initiatives last Tuesday in states like Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia.The second issue on which Biden commands greater trust? By a slim margin, it is democracy. This advantage is pronounced among Black voters, who trust Biden over Trump by 77 to 16 percent on democracy, and Hispanic voters, who prefer Biden by 53 to 38 percent. (White voters, by contrast, sided with Trump 50 to 44 percent on that issue.) The protection of American democracy offers a potentially resonant message for Biden, precisely among parts of the Democratic coalition that he can ill afford to lose.Oddly, even as the electorate seems to want little to do with either of these two candidates — let alone with both at the same time — Biden and Trump seem to need each other. Biden’s case for saving American democracy loses some urgency if Trump is not in the race; I can’t imagine, say, a Nikki Haley nomination eliciting as much soul-of-America drama from the president. Similarly, Trump’s persecution complex, always robust, is strengthened with Biden as his opponent; the former president can make the case that his indictments and trials represent the efforts of the incumbent administration — and Trump’s political rival — to keep him down. After all, neither Gretchen Whitmer nor Gavin Newsom runs the Department of Justice.Of course, we already faced this choice — and made it — in 2020. Why insist on a do-over? Because a country approaching its 250th birthday does not have the luxury of calling itself an experiment forever; this is the moment to assess the results of that experiment. Because Jan. 6 was not the final offensive by those who would overrun the will of voters. Because a lone Trump victory in 2016 could conceivably be remembered as an aberration if it were followed by two consecutive defeats, but a Trump restoration in 2024 would confirm America’s slide toward authoritarian rule and would render Biden’s lone term an interregnum, a blip in history’s turn. And we must choose again because the fever did not break; instead, it threatens to break us.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Should Joe Manchin Run for President?

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      In the emotional life of the liberal mediasphere, there was so little space between the release of the New York Times/Siena poll showing President Biden losing to Donald Trump handily across a range of swing states (doom! doom!) and the Democratic overperformance in Tuesday’s elections (sweet relief!) that one of the striking features of the polling passed with relatively little comment.This was the remarkably strong showing for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent candidacy. When added to the swing-state polls, Kennedy claimed 24 percent of registered voters against 35 percent for Trump and 33 percent for Biden.That number is notable along two dimensions. First, for showing Kennedy drawing close to equally from both likely nominees rather than obviously spoiling the race for one or the other. Second, for its sheer Ross Perotian magnitude, its striking-distance closeness to the major party candidates.Yet I don’t see a lot of people entertaining the “Kennedy wins!” scenario just yet, and for good reasons: Most notable third-party candidates eventually diminish, he may be artificially inflated by his famous name, and his crankishness is so overt (whereas Perot’s was gradually revealed) that many voters currently supporting him in protest of a Biden-Trump rematch may well abandon him after a light Googling.The world being strange, we shouldn’t take this conventional wisdom as gospel. But if we assume that Kennedy’s 24 percent is mostly about people seeking a third option rather than explicitly supporting his worldview, the immediate question is whether someone else should try to fill that space.Someone like, say, Joe Manchin, the West Virginia senator who spiced up his announcement bowing out of a re-election bid with some talk about “traveling the country” for a movement to “mobilize the middle.”There is already a potential vehicle for a Manchin candidacy in the No Labels movement, along with an effort to draft Manchin and Mitt Romney to run together, with Romney at the top of the ticket.But the ideal ticket would probably lead with Manchin. For an independent run, his branding as a moderate with strong ideological differences with the left seems stronger than Romney’s branding as a conservative with strong moral differences with Trump.When elites pine for a third-party candidate, they usually imagine someone like Michael Bloomberg, a fiscal conservative and social liberal. But the sweet spot for a third-party candidate has always been slightly left of center on economics and moderate to conservative on cultural issues — and that describes Manchin better than it does most American politicians. (It arguably described Biden once but not as he’s evolved in the past decade.)The West Virginian could run, authentically, as an unwoke supporter of universal health care, fiscal restraint and a middle ground on guns and abortion. That’s a better basis for a run than Bloombergism or Kennedy’s courtship of the fringes, with a chance of claiming votes from Never Trumpers and the center left.But is it worth the effort? Stipulate that Kennedy will remain in the race and hold on to some share of the vote that might otherwise be available to a third-party moderate. Then the question becomes whether both Trump and Biden could fall below their 35 and 33 percent levels in the Times/Siena poll, giving Manchin a plurality of the popular vote and a chance at an Electoral College win (because merely deadlocking the Electoral College would just send the race to the House, where — pending the results in 2024 — Trump would probably prevail).In a polarized landscape, that kind of mutual G.O.P. and Democratic collapse seems unlikely. But if you were drawing up a scenario for it to happen, it might resemble the one we’re facing — in which one candidate seems manifestly too old for the job and the other might be tried and convicted before the general election. Such a landscape seems as if it should summon forth a responsible alternative. Confronting the American people with a Trump-Biden-Kennedy choice would be a remarkable dereliction by our political elites.But comes the response from anxious liberals: Isn’t an even greater dereliction for a Democrat — however ornery and moderate — to embark on a run that could help re-elevate Trump to the White House?Let’s allow that it might be, but then let’s also allow that, if current polling holds, it’s not running an alternative to Biden that seems most likely to put Trump back in the presidency.That Trump-friendly polling may change. But it’s entirely possible to begin an independent candidacy and then suspend it (just ask Perot) if the situation looks entirely unpropitious. Which is what I’d advise Manchin to consider, if the donors and infrastructure are there: a patriotic attempt, to be abandoned if it’s going nowhere, but to be seen through if enough of the country desires a different choice.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

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      For Both Trudeau and Biden, Polls Suggest an Uphill Political Path

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      The economy, and particularly inflation, has soured voters on both leaders, polls indicate, though well in advance of upcoming votes.When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Biden next meet, they will have something to commiserate over: their dismal standings in polls.President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have seen their poll ratings slump.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesFor months now, Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party has been rapidly sinking in public opinion surveys, while more recent polls suggest that the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre would win any election held now.Similarly, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found that Mr. Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states.[Read: Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds][The detailed Times/Siena Poll data]Comparing the political situations in Canada and the United States is a fraught business because of a variety of differences between the countries and their political systems. And, of course, Americans don’t vote for another year, and Canada’s next federal election is likely to be two years off.But disaffected voters in both countries share a major concern: inflation, and the economy in general.“There’s ample evidence that inflation is destructive to an incumbent government’s performance and how people feel about it,” David Coletto, the chairman and chief executive of Abacus Data, told me.Mr. Coletto’s latest poll found that 39 percent of committed voters would vote for the Conservatives and 26 percent would vote Liberal, while the New Democrats were backed by 18 percent of those voters. (In Quebec, the Bloc Québécois was supported by 34 percent of committed voters.)That is a long way down for Mr. Trudeau from his early days as prime minister, when his leadership approval ratings hit an eye-watering 73 percent in one poll. The current Abacus poll found that 53 percent of respondents had a negative view of Mr. Trudeau, with just 29 percent holding a favorable view.Many factors, Mr. Coletto said, contribute to that dissatisfaction, but inflation, higher interest rates, housing costs and a general feeling of ennui about the economy are at the top.Voters polled in the Times/Siena survey, by a 59 percent to 37 percent margin — the largest gap relating to any issue in the survey — said they had more trust in Mr. Trump than Mr. Biden on the economy.Some of the criticism of Mr. Trudeau’s economic record, Mr. Coletto said, is based on perceptions that don’t match reality. In an earlier Abacus survey, Mr. Coletto found that most Canadians incorrectly believed that inflation was higher in Canada than in other countries. International Monetary Fund statistics for October show that Canada’s 3.6 percent rate is well below Germany’s 6.3 percent or France’s 5.6. Similarly, Mr. Biden gets little or no credit for the significant job creation under his watch.“But it doesn’t calm nerves to say, ‘Folks, things are good here relatively speaking,’ when relative to where they were five years ago, things are not better,” Mr. Coletto said. “And that’s how people evaluate their situation because people don’t live in those other countries where inflation still remains very high.”High housing prices, inflation and interest rates are all weighing down Mr. Trudeau’s poll numbers.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressThe other big factor for Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Coletto said, is simply that many voters are tiring of a leader like him, who has been around since 2015 and led his party through three successful elections. Mr. Biden may only be in his first term as president, but he has been a national political figure since first being elected to the Senate 50 years ago.Mr. Biden’s age, 80, is also an issue. In the Times/Siena survey, 71 percent of respondents said he was “too old” to be effective as president. Only 39 percent thought that of Mr. Trump, who is 77.“Inflation kills governments plus time kills governments,” Mr. Coletto said.While the standing of Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal government has never before dipped this low in the polls, there have been other periods when his popularity has ebbed, only to recover. And relatively few Liberals have publicly suggested it might be time for the prime minister to step aside despite his repeated vow to fight the next election. Similarly, calls for Mr. Biden to retire from prominent Democrats remain limited.“Is the prime minister going to stay, or go?” Mr. Coletto said. “I have no idea. But where his leadership is today is a very different place than it was five months ago.”Trans CanadaNew Zealand’s curling team is living in the Chartwell Colonel Belcher Retirement Residence while it trains in Canada.Todd Korol for The New York TimesThe latest, and youngest, residents of the Chartwell Colonel Belcher Retirement Residence in Calgary are the members of New Zealand’s curling team, who have come to Canada to hone their skills.The trial of David DePape, who the police say broke into Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and bludgeoned her husband in 2022, when she was still speaker of the House, is underway. Mr. DePape, a Canadian, was living illegally in the United States at the time. His lawyer is not contesting prosecutors’ evidence.Following its bankruptcy filing, WeWork closed four Canadian locations. A Canadian real estate investor told The New York Times that the bankruptcy signified the end of projections that flexible office space would one day account for a significant portion of commercial office rentals.Marcel Dzama, the Winnipeg-born artist, spoke with Julia Halperin about his collection of 250 handmade masks.Kathleen Mansfield, a Toronto pharmacist, is among a group of people who told The Times Magazine about why they wanted space to be their final resting place.A first-class dinner menu from the Titanic dated April 11, 1912, which was found in a photo album from the 1960s that once belonged to a community historian in Dominion, Nova Scotia, is expected to sell for upward of $86,000 at auction.A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.How are we doing?We’re eager to have your thoughts about this newsletter and events in Canada in general. Please send them to nytcanada@nytimes.com.Like this email?Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up here. More

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      ¿Biden ha cumplido con las promesas que hizo en su campaña de 2020?

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      Detener la construcción del muro fronterizo, permitir que Medicare negocie el precio de los medicamentos y acabar con la pena de muerte fueron algunos de sus compromisos para llegar a la Casa Blanca.En plena campaña de reelección del presidente Joe Biden, los demócratas han proclamado una serie de logros durante su mandato. En ocasiones, Biden ha recordado que su predecesor, Donald Trump, no cumplió del todo sus promesas.Pero, como todos los políticos, se ha enfrentado a la realidad de que hacer campaña y gobernar son dos cosas muy distintas, sobre todo en un gobierno dividido. Aunque Biden ha cumplido algunas de las promesas que hizo en 2020, no todas se han materializado a tres años de su elección.Por un lado, Biden ratificó el compromiso de Estados Unidos con el Acuerdo de París, un pacto internacional destinado a reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero; revocó el permiso para el oleoducto Keystone XL, que habría transportado petróleo de Canadá a Nebraska, y aumentó los subsidios federales para las personas que compran planes conforme a la Ley de Atención Médica Accesible. Por otra parte, ha sido incapaz de impulsar en el Congreso estadounidense una legislación sobre el derecho al voto o la prohibición de las armas de asalto y su ambicioso plan de condonar la deuda a los estudiantes fue rechazado por completo por la Corte Suprema.A continuación, una muestra de algunos de los compromisos de la campaña presidencial de Biden de 2020 y en qué punto se encuentran.Algunas de las promesas de Biden en 2020:InmigraciónImpuestosAtención médicaEducaciónCambio climáticoJusticia penalPolítica exteriorInmigraciónLO QUE SE DIJO“No se construirá ni un metro más de muro en mi gobierno”.—En una entrevista de 2020 en NPRAl postularse a la presidencia, Biden hizo del muro fronterizo de Trump una parte central de su campaña. En su primer día en el cargo, anunció que ponía fin a la declaración de emergencia nacional que se había utilizado para destinar recursos a la construcción del muro.Pero en las últimas semanas, el gobierno de Biden ha manejado con ligereza una serie de leyes para permitir la construcción de nuevas barreras en Texas, a lo largo de la frontera suroeste. La medida se produce en el contexto de un aumento en el número de migrantes que cruzan la frontera sin autorización, lo que altera de manera drástica las presiones políticas sobre Biden.Biden ha sostenido la postura de que un muro fronterizo es ineficaz. Pero declaró que el financiamiento se consignó para el muro fronterizo en 2019 y que el Congreso no reasignaría esos fondos —a pesar de los pedidos públicos del gobierno para que lo hiciera— lo cual quiere decir que el financiamiento tenía que usarse para ese propósito. Una ley de 1974 obliga al presidente a gastar el dinero según las instrucciones del Congreso, y los funcionarios de la Casa Blanca han dicho que la única manera de evitarlo era presentar una demanda, algo que el gobierno de Biden decidió no hacer.Antes del anuncio reciente, el gobierno autorizó que se completen algunas brechas pequeñas en el muro.LO QUE SE DIJO“Poner fin a las políticas de asilo perjudiciales de Trump”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020.Durante su campaña de 2020, Biden criticó en público la estrategia migratoria del gobierno de Trump y argumentó que había desafiado la tradición estadounidense al tratar de “restringir drásticamente el acceso al asilo en Estados Unidos”. Pero su gobierno también ha intentado limitar el proceso de asilo para disminuir la migración no autorizada.En mayo, el gobierno promulgó una norma que presume que la mayoría de los migrantes que cruzan ilegalmente la frontera desde México entre los puertos de entrada no son elegibles para el asilo. La norma descalifica a la mayoría de los solicitantes si entraron a Estados Unidos sin cita previa en un punto de entrada oficial o no pueden demostrar que buscaron protección legal en otro país por el que cruzaron.Al igual que el gobierno de Trump, Biden ha tratado de limitar el proceso de asilo para desalentar la migración no autorizada.Verónica G. Cárdenas para The New York TimesLa norma tiene sus excepciones: no aplica a los menores no acompañados ni a migrantes que puedan demostrar que su vida estaba en peligro inminente, por ejemplo, pero los críticos dicen que el criterio es similar al de Trump.Respecto a la cuestión de la inmigración en general, los aliados de Biden en el Congreso propusieron un proyecto de ley en 2021 que habría transformado el sistema migratorio, pero en última instancia fracasó. Hasta principios de este año, también se mantuvo en vigor el Título 42, una regla sanitaria de la época de la pandemia que promulgó el gobierno de Trump para expulsar con rapidez a los inmigrantes que cruzaran ilegalmente al país.ImpuestosLO QUE SE DIJO“Les garantizo, palabra de un Biden, que ninguna persona que gane menos de 400.000 dólares pagará un solo centavo de impuestos. Ni un centavo”.—Durante un mitin de campaña en octubre de 2020Biden no les ha aumentado los impuestos a los contribuyentes dentro de ese umbral, como prometió. Pero sí se ha centrado en aumentar los impuestos a las empresas y a quienes ganan más de 400.000 dólares. Por ejemplo, el presupuesto que propuso para el año fiscal 2024, incluye un aumento a la tasa de impuesto para Medicare del 3,8 al 5 por ciento para los ingresos superiores a 400.000 dólares.No obstante, esa “no es la historia completa”, afirmó William McBride, vicepresidente de política fiscal federal de la Tax Foundation, un laboratorio de ideas derechista.McBride señaló que algunos análisis estiman que los aumentos de impuestos a las empresas podrían tener un efecto indirecto en toda la escala de ingresos, ya que la carga suele repercutir, al menos en parte, en los consumidores y los trabajadores, por ejemplo, a través de salarios o valores bursátiles más bajos. Aunque los cálculos difieren, un análisis de la Tax Foundation de 2022 llegó a la conclusión de que, a largo plazo, la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación podría reducir los ingresos después de impuestos en torno a un 0,2 por ciento para la mayoría de los grupos de ingresos, incluidos los que ganan menos de 400.000 dólares.Atención médicaLO QUE SE DIJO“El plan de Biden derogará la legislación existente que le prohíbe de manera explícita a Medicare negociar precios más bajos con las corporaciones farmacéuticas”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020Como presidente, Biden sí promulgó una ley que autorizaba al gobierno federal a negociar precios más bajos de algunos medicamentos para los beneficiarios de Medicare, pero sin derogar la ley vigente, sino añadiendo una excepción.Esa medida formaba parte de la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación aprobada en 2022. La Oficina Presupuestaria del Congreso ha calculado que el programa podría ahorrarle al gobierno unos 100.000 millones de dólares en una década. Los fabricantes de medicamentos han presentado múltiples demandas en un intento por detener el programa de fijación de precios de medicamentos.LO QUE SE DIJO“Lo que voy a hacer es aprobar Obamacare con una opción pública, para convertirla en Bidencare”.—Durante un debate de octubre de 2020Desde que asumió el cargo, Biden no ha tomado medidas formales para hacer realidad esta propuesta. De hecho, desde entonces, ha mencionado muy pocas veces su promesa de una opción pública, lo cual le daría a los estadounidenses la posibilidad de inscribirse a un plan de salud administrado por el gobierno.“Es justo decir que el presidente Biden no ha impulsado con fuerza la idea de una opción pública desde que llegó al cargo”, comentó Larry Levitt, vicepresidente ejecutivo de política sanitaria de KFF, un grupo sin fines de lucro centrado en política sanitaria.La primera propuesta presupuestaria de Biden, para el año fiscal 2022, abordaba su deseo de una opción pública, aunque con pocos detalles. Conseguir que el Congreso apruebe una opción pública sería, como sucede con algunas otras propuestas de campaña, un gran desafío.EducaciónLO QUE SE DIJO“Invertir en nuestras escuelas para eliminar la brecha de financiamiento entre distritos blancos y no blancos, y distritos ricos y pobres”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020Para lograr este objetivo, Biden propuso triplicar la financiación del Título I, que proporciona ayuda a las escuelas locales para beneficiar a los estudiantes de bajos ingresos. Durante la presidencia de Biden, el financiamiento de las subvenciones del Título I ha aumentado, pero de manera más modesta: en torno a un 11 por ciento, aunque sus defensores afirman que el impulso se ha visto atenuado por la inflación y el aumento de las inscripciones. Las propuestas del gobierno de aumentos mucho mayores han fracasado en el Congreso.Dado el tamaño del programa Título I —18.400 millones de dólares en el año fiscal 2023— triplicar el financiamiento en tres años mediante el proceso de asignaciones “no es realista”, dijo Sarah Abernathy, directora ejecutiva de Committee for Education Funding.Mientras que la Casa Blanca ha propuesto un aumento adicional en la financiación del Título I, un plan de los republicanos de la Cámara de Representantes ha pedido recortes severos.Biden propuso triplicar la financiación del Título I, que proporciona ayuda a las escuelas locales para beneficiar a los estudiantes de bajos ingresos.Logan R. Cyrus para The New York TimesEn su promesa de subsanar las diferencias entre los distritos, la campaña de Biden para 2020 citó a un grupo educativo ya desaparecido, que había evaluado las discrepancias en ese momento. Los expertos no conocían ningún análisis actual que ofreciera una comparación directa.Pero la financiación del Título I por sí sola no puede resolver estas carencias, porque los distritos escolares se financian mayoritariamente a nivel estatal y local, según Noelle Ellerson Ng, directora ejecutiva adjunta de defensa y gobernanza de AASA, la Asociación de Superintendentes de Distritos Escolares.LO QUE SE DIJO“Como presidente, Biden tratará de avanzar en este tema con la promulgación de leyes que garanticen que todas las personas trabajadoras, incluidos los que asisten a la escuela medio tiempo y los ‘dreamers’ (los adultos jóvenes que llegaron a Estados Unidos en la infancia), puedan ir a la universidad comunitaria durante un máximo de dos años de manera gratuita”.“Hacer que los colegios y las universidades públicas sean gratuitas para todas las familias cuyos ingresos son inferiores a 125.000 dólares anuales”, sitio web de la campaña de 2020El gobierno de Biden no ha conseguido hacer realidad estas promesas, aunque sí ha propuesto dedicarles fondos.Por ejemplo, en su plan de presupuesto para el año fiscal 2024, el gobierno solicitó 90.000 millones de dólares a lo largo de 10 años para que los dos primeros años de la universidad comunitaria fueran gratuitos.Además, el gobierno pidió dos años de “matrícula subsidiada” para los estudiantes de familias con ingresos inferiores a 125.000 dólares y, en específico, para los estudiantes que asisten a universidades históricamente negras u otras universidades que reciben a estudiantes de minorías.Cambio climáticoLO QUE SE DIJO“Ya no se perforarán las tierras federales, punto”.—Durante febrero de 2020 en un evento municipalContrario al compromiso de Biden en campaña, su gobierno aprobó formalmente en marzo un proyecto de perforación petrolera en Alaska conocido como Willow. El gobierno hizo hincapié en que limitó el proyecto, ya que rechazó dos de los cinco lugares de perforación propuestos e hizo que la empresa que lo promovía devolviera al gobierno unas 27.518 hectáreas de arrendamientos existentes.Desde entonces, Biden anunció una prohibición a la perforación de más de 5 millones de hectáreas de zonas naturales en la Reserva Nacional de Petróleo de Alaska y canceló los arrendamientos de perforación en el Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre del Ártico.En cuanto a otras medidas relacionadas con el cambio climático, la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación supuso una gran inversión en energías limpias, incluso mediante lucrativos incentivos fiscales que, según algunos datos, contribuyeron a estimular la inversión privada. Y el gobierno propuso normativas para limitar la contaminación de gases de efecto invernadero de las centrales eléctricas existentes.LO QUE SE DIJO“Como presidente, Biden trabajará con los gobernadores y alcaldes del país para apoyar el despliegue de más de 500.000 nuevos puntos de recarga públicos para finales de 2030”.—Sitio web de la campaña de 2020Con determinación, Biden ha presionado para ayudar a acelerar el cambio del país al uso de vehículos eléctricos, incluso mediante la propuesta de normas ambientales. También firmó leyes para invertir en estaciones de carga. Las leyes bipartidistas de infraestructura del 2021 incluyeron 7500 millones de dólares para construir esas estaciones.La Casa Blanca ha declarado que Estados Unidos está en vías de alcanzar 500.000 cargadores para 2030, aunque no especificó si esa estimación se refiere al total de cargadores públicos o a nuevos cargadores públicos, como decía el objetivo de la campaña.Con determinación, Biden ha presionado para ayudar a acelerar el cambio del país a los vehículos eléctricos.Gabby Jones para The New York TimesAlgunos expertos afirmaron que incluso alcanzar la meta de 500.000 estaciones de carga públicas será un desafío, aunque no imposible. “Es técnicamente factible alcanzar el objetivo, pero no será fácil”, comentó Kenneth Gillingham, profesor de Economía Medioambiental y Energética de la Universidad de Yale.Sin embargo, según algunas estimaciones, alcanzar los 500.000 cargadores públicos en 2030 no es suficiente. Un informe reciente de Alliance for Automotive Innovation, un grupo comercial, afirma que hoy se necesitan más de 530.000 cargadores, antes de que se produzca el aumento previsto en la adopción de vehículos eléctricos.Justicia penalLO QUE SE DIJO“Como no podemos tener la certeza que decidamos correctamente siempre en estos casos, debemos eliminar la pena de muerte”.—En X, plataforma antes conocida como Twitter, en julio de 2019Biden no ha eliminado la pena de muerte, para lo cual sería necesaria una ley. Su gobierno ha tomado algunas medidas para reducir el uso de la pena capital, pero algunos que se oponen a ella han dicho que Biden no ha actuado con suficiente agresividad.En 2021, el procurador general Merrick Garland impuso una moratoria a las ejecuciones federales después de que el gobierno de Trump reanudó la práctica tras un lapso de casi dos décadas sin ejecuciones. Durante la gestión de Garland, el Departamento de Justicia no ha solicitado la pena de muerte en nuevos casos.Dicho esto, los fiscales federales también se negaron a cambiar de rumbo en un caso iniciado en el gobierno de Trump que buscaba la pena de muerte para un hombre que mató a ocho personas en un ataque con camión en Manhattan en 2017. El sospechoso, Sayfullo Saipov, fue finalmente sentenciado este año a cadena perpetua después de que un jurado no se pusiera de acuerdo sobre si imponer la pena de muerte.El departamento también ha trabajado para mantener las penas de muerte existentes, como la impuesta a Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, condenado a muerte por su participación en los atentados del maratón de Boston de 2013.LO QUE SE DIJO“Usar el poder de clemencia del presidente para asegurar la liberación de individuos que enfrentan sentencias indebidamente largas por ciertos delitos no violentos y de drogas”, sitio web de la campaña de 2020Biden ha cumplido este compromiso, utilizando por primera vez el poder de clemencia en 2022, ya que conmutó las penas de 75 infractores por delitos de drogas y concedió tres indultos. Meses después, indultó a miles de personas condenadas por posesión de marihuana, según la ley federal.Política exteriorLO QUE SE DIJO“Regresaré a los soldados de combate en Afganistán a casa durante mi primer mandato”.—En respuesta a un cuestionario de 2020 de The New York TimesBiden cumplió este compromiso, ya que retiró a Estados Unidos de Afganistán en agosto de 2021 y dio por concluida la guerra más larga de la historia estadounidense, aunque el final fue caótico y mortal. La retirada ya se estaba gestando desde el gobierno de Trump.LO QUE SE DIJO“Si Teherán regresa al cumplimiento del acuerdo, el presidente Biden volverá a ratificar el acuerdo y utilizará una diplomacia dura y el apoyo de nuestros aliados para fortalecerlo y ampliarlo, al tiempo que presionaría con mayor eficacia contra las otras actividades desestabilizadoras de Irán”, sitio web de la campaña de 2020Biden se refería al acuerdo nuclear iraní de 2015, un acuerdo destinado a limitar el programa nuclear de Irán a cambio de la reducción de las sanciones. El gobierno de Trump se retiró del acuerdo en 2018. A pesar de más de un año de negociaciones tras la elección de Biden, Estados Unidos e Irán no lograron reincorporarse al acuerdo.Hace poco, el gobierno de Biden anunció nuevas sanciones contra Irán. La decisión se produjo al expirar una medida de las Naciones Unidas asociada al acuerdo nuclear, y también tras el ataque sorpresa del 7 de octubre contra Israel por parte de Hamás, que recibe apoyo de Irán. More

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      Sweeping Raids and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans

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      Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration in a multitude of ways.Mr. Trump wants to revive his first-term border policies, including banning entry by people from certain Muslim-majority nations and reimposing a Covid 19-era policy of refusing asylum claims — though this time he would base that refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis.He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year.To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings. To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, he plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states.To ease the strain on ICE detention facilities, Mr. Trump wants to build huge camps to detain people while their cases are processed and they await deportation flights. And to get around any refusal by Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, Mr. Trump would redirect money in the military budget, as he did in his first term to spend more on a border wall than Congress had authorized.“Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” said Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s former White House aide who was the chief architect of his border control efforts.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesIn a public reference to his plans, Mr. Trump told a crowd in Iowa in September: “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” The reference was to a 1954 campaign to round up and expel Mexican immigrants that was named for an ethnic slur — “Operation Wetback.”The constellation of Mr. Trump’s 2025 plans amounts to an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history. Millions of undocumented immigrants would be barred from the country or uprooted from it years or even decades after settling here.Such a scale of planned removals would raise logistical, financial and diplomatic challenges and would be vigorously challenged in court. But there is no mistaking the breadth and ambition of the shift Mr. Trump is eyeing.In a second Trump presidency, the visas of foreign students who participated in anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian protests would be canceled. U.S. consular officials abroad will be directed to expand ideological screening of visa applicants to block people the Trump administration considers to have undesirable attitudes. People who were granted temporary protected status because they are from certain countries deemed unsafe, allowing them to lawfully live and work in the United States, would have that status revoked.Similarly, numerous people who have been allowed to live in the country temporarily for humanitarian reasons would also lose that status and be kicked out, including tens of thousands of the Afghans who were evacuated amid the 2021 Taliban takeover and allowed to enter the United States. Afghans holding special visas granted to people who helped U.S. forces would be revetted to see if they really did.And Mr. Trump would try to end birthright citizenship for babies born in the United States to undocumented parents — by proclaiming that policy to be the new position of the government and by ordering agencies to cease issuing citizenship-affirming documents like Social Security cards and passports to them. That policy’s legal legitimacy, like nearly all of Mr. Trump’s plans, would be virtually certain to end up before the Supreme Court.In interviews with The New York Times, several Trump advisers gave the most expansive and detailed description yet of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda in a potential second term. In particular, Mr. Trump’s campaign referred questions for this article to Stephen Miller, an architect of Mr. Trump’s first-term immigration policies who remains close to him and is expected to serve in a senior role in a second administration.All of the steps Trump advisers are preparing, Mr. Miller contended in a wide-ranging interview, rely on existing statutes; while the Trump team would likely seek a revamp of immigration laws, the plan was crafted to need no new substantive legislation. And while acknowledging that lawsuits would arise to challenge nearly every one of them, he portrayed the Trump team’s daunting array of tactics as a “blitz” designed to overwhelm immigrant-rights lawyers.“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Mr. Miller said, adding, “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, an immigration and criminal justice advocacy group that repeatedly fought the Trump administration, said the Trump team’s plans relied on “xenophobic demagoguery” that appeals to his hardest-core political base.“Americans should understand these policy proposals are an authoritarian, often illegal, agenda that would rip apart nearly every aspect of American life — tanking the economy, violating the basic civil rights of millions of immigrants and native-born Americans alike,” Mr. Schulte said.‘Poisoning the Blood’Migrants gather outside the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan in August, waiting to be processed.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesSince Mr. Trump left office, the political environment on immigration has moved in his direction. He is also more capable now of exploiting that environment if he is re-elected than he was when he first won election as an outsider.The ebbing of the Covid-19 pandemic and resumption of travel flows have helped stir a global migrant crisis, with millions of Venezuelans and Central Americans fleeing turmoil and Africans arriving in Latin American countries before continuing their journey north. Amid the record numbers of migrants at the southern border and beyond it in cities like New York and Chicago, voters are frustrated and even some Democrats are calling for tougher action against immigrants and pressuring the White House to better manage the crisis.Mr. Trump and his advisers see the opening, and now know better how to seize it. The aides Mr. Trump relied upon in the chaotic early days of his first term were sometimes at odds and lacked experience in how to manipulate the levers of federal power. By the end of his first term, cabinet officials and lawyers who sought to restrain some of his actions — like his Homeland Security secretary and chief of staff, John F. Kelly — had been fired, and those who stuck with him had learned much.In a second term, Mr. Trump plans to install a team that will not restrain him.Since much of Mr. Trump’s first-term immigration crackdown was tied up in the courts, the legal environment has tilted in his favor: His four years of judicial appointments left behind federal appellate courts and a Supreme Court that are far more conservative than the courts that heard challenges to his first-term policies.The fight over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals provides an illustration.DACA is an Obama-era program that shields from deportation and grants work permits to people who were brought unlawfully to the United States as children. Mr. Trump tried to end it, but the Supreme Court blocked him on procedural grounds in June 2020.Mr. Miller said Mr. Trump would try again to end DACA. And the 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court that blocked the last attempt no longer exists: A few months after the DACA ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and Mr. Trump replaced her with a sixth conservative, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.Mr. Trump’s rhetoric has more than kept up with his increasingly extreme agenda on immigration.His stoking of fear and anger toward immigrants — pushing for a border wall and calling Mexicans rapists — fueled his 2016 takeover of the Republican Party. As president, he privately mused about developing a militarized border like Israel’s, asked whether migrants crossing the border could be shot in the legs and wanted a proposed border wall topped with flesh-piercing spikes and painted black to burn migrants’ skin.As he has campaigned for the party’s third straight presidential nomination, his anti-immigrant tone has only grown harsher. In a recent interview with a right-wing website, Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that foreign leaders were deliberately emptying their “insane asylums” to send the patients across America’s southern border as migrants. He said migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” And at a rally on Wednesday in Florida, he compared them to the fictional serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter, saying, “That’s what’s coming into our country right now.”Mr. Trump had similarly vowed to carry out mass deportations when running for office in 2016, but the government only managed several hundred thousand removals per year under his presidency, on par with other recent administrations. If they get another opportunity, Mr. Trump and his team are determined to achieve annual numbers in the millions.Keeping People OutMigrants wait to be escorted by Border Patrol agents to a processing area in September. Mr. Trump’s stoking of fear and anger toward immigrants fueled his 2016 takeover of the Republican Party. Mark Abramson for The New York TimesMr. Trump’s immigration plan is to pick up where he left off and then go much farther. He would not only revive some of the policies that were criticized as draconian during his presidency, many of which the Biden White House ended, but also expand and toughen them.One example centers on expanding first-term policies aimed at keeping people out of the country. Mr. Trump plans to suspend the nation’s refugee program and once again categorically bar visitors from troubled countries, reinstating a version of his ban on travel from several mostly Muslim-majority countries, which President Biden called discriminatory and ended on his first day in office.Mr. Trump would also use coercive diplomacy to induce other nations to help, including by making cooperation a condition of any other bilateral engagement, Mr. Miller said. For example, a second Trump administration would seek to re-establish an agreement with Mexico that asylum seekers remain there while their claims are processed. (It is not clear that Mexico would agree; a Mexican court has said that deal violated human rights.)Mr. Trump would also push to revive “safe third country” agreements with several nations in Central America, and try to expand them to Africa, Asia and South America. Under such deals, countries agree to take would-be asylum seekers from specific other nations and let them apply for asylum there instead.While such arrangements have traditionally only covered migrants who had previously passed through a third country, federal law does not require that limit and a second Trump administration would seek to make those deals without it, in part as a deterrent to migrants making what the Trump team views as illegitimate asylum claims.At the same time, Mr. Miller said, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would invoke the public health emergency powers law known as Title 42 to again refuse to hear any asylum claims by people arriving at the southern border. The Trump administration had internally discussed that idea early in Mr. Trump’s term, but some cabinet secretaries pushed back, arguing that there was no public health emergency that would legally justify it. The administration ultimately implemented it during the coronavirus pandemic.Saying the idea has since gained acceptance in practice — Mr. Biden initially kept the policy — Mr. Miller said Mr. Trump would invoke Title 42, citing “severe strains of the flu, tuberculosis, scabies, other respiratory illnesses like R.S.V. and so on, or just a general issue of mass migration being a public health threat and conveying a variety of communicable diseases.”Mr. Trump and his aides have not yet said whether they would re-enact one of the most contentious deterrents to unauthorized immigration that he pursued as president: separating children from their parents, which led to trauma among migrants and difficulties in reuniting families. When pressed, Mr. Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out reviving the policy. After an outcry over the practice, Mr. Trump ended it in 2018 and a judge later blocked the government from putting it back into effect.Mass DeportationsFederal immigration-enforcement officers gathered for an arrest operation in May in Pompano Beach, Fla.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesSoon after Mr. Trump announced his 2024 campaign for president last November, he met with Tom Homan, who ran ICE for the first year and a half of the Trump administration and was an early proponent of separating families to deter migrants.In an interview, Mr. Homan recalled that in that meeting, he “agreed to come back” in a second term and would “help to organize and run the largest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”Trump advisers’ vision of abrupt mass deportations would be a recipe for social and economic turmoil, disrupting the housing market and major industries including agriculture and the service sector.Mr. Miller cast such disruption in a favorable light.“Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption celebrated by American workers, who will now be offered higher wages with better benefits to fill these jobs,” he said. “Americans will also celebrate the fact that our nation’s laws are now being applied equally, and that one select group is no longer magically exempt.”One planned step to overcome the legal and logistical hurdles would be to significantly expand a form of fast-track deportations known as “expedited removal.” It denies undocumented immigrants the opportunity to seek asylum hearings and file appeals, which can take months or years — especially when people are not in custody — and has led to a large backlog. A 1996 law says people can be subject to expedited removal for up to two years after arriving, but to date the executive branch has used it more cautiously, swiftly expelling people picked up near the border soon after crossing.The Trump administration tried to expand the use of expedited removal, but a court blocked it and then the Biden team canceled the expansion. It remains unclear whether the Supreme Court will rule that it is constitutional to use the law against people who have been living for a significant period in the United States and express fear of persecution if sent home.Mr. Trump has also said he would invoke an archaic law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to expel suspected members of drug cartels and criminal gangs without due process. That law allows for summary deportation of people from countries with which the United States is at war, that have invaded the United States or that have engaged in “predatory incursions.”Tom Homan, who ran ICE for the first year and a half of the Trump administration, said he told Mr. Trump he would “help to organize and run the largest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesThe Supreme Court has upheld past uses of that law in wartime. But its text seems to require a link to the actions of a foreign government, so it is not clear whether the justices will allow a president to stretch it to encompass drug cartel activity.More broadly, Mr. Miller said a new Trump administration would shift from the ICE practice of arresting specific people to carrying out workplace raids and other sweeps in public places aimed at arresting scores of unauthorized immigrants at once. While every administration has used detention facilities, because of the magnitude of deportations being contemplated, the Trump team plans to build “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” for migrants waiting to be flown to other countries, Mr. Miller said. Such an undertaking would be fast-tracked, he said, “by bringing in the right kinds of attorneys and the right kinds of policy thinkers” — taking what is typically a methodical process “and making it radically more quick and efficient.”Mr. Miller said the new camps would likely be built “on open land in Texas near the border.” He said the military would construct them under the authority and control of the Department of Homeland Security. While he cautioned that there were no specific blueprints yet, he said the camps would look professional and similar to other facilities for migrants that have been built near the border.The use of these camps, he said, would likely be focused more on single adults because the government cannot indefinitely hold children under a longstanding court order known as the Flores settlement. So any families brought to the facilities would have to be moved in and out more quickly, Mr. Miller said.The Trump administration tried to overturn the Flores settlement, but the Supreme Court did not resolve the matter before Mr. Trump’s term ended. Mr. Miller said the Trump team would try again.To increase the number of agents available for ICE sweeps, Mr. Miller said, officials from other federal law enforcement agencies would be temporarily reassigned, and state National Guard troops and local police officers, at least from willing Republican-led states, would be deputized for immigration control efforts.While a law known as the Posse Comitatus Act generally forbids the use of the armed forces for law enforcement purposes, another law called the Insurrection Act creates an exception. Mr. Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act at the border, enabling the use of federal troops to apprehend migrants, Mr. Miller said.“Bottom line,” he said, “President Trump will do whatever it takes.”Zolan Kanno-Youngs More

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      How Abortion Could Define the 2024 Presidential Race

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      With two election cycles after the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization under our belts, it cannot be denied: Abortion rights are the dominant issue in American politics. And when supporters of abortion rights — a clear majority of Americans — see a connection between their votes and protecting what was once guaranteed by Roe v. Wade, they are more likely to vote.With a second Trump term possibly hanging in the balance in next November’s election, these are lessons Democrats must seize.Abortion rights won big on Tuesday night. In Ohio, a constitutional amendment enshrining protections for abortion rights was on the ballot, and in Virginia, control of both chambers of the state legislature was considered a tossup, and both parties made abortion rights the central issue of their campaigns. The pro-abortion-rights measure in Ohio passed by a wide margin. In Virginia, the Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, made his proposal for a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy the central argument for electing Republicans in the state legislature. Republicans failed to win back control in the Senate and lost their narrow majority in the House of Delegates as turnout surged to historically high levels in key swing districts.Before this week’s elections, most of the attention of the political class and the public was focused on national polls showing Donald Trump holding a lead over President Biden in the 2024 presidential contest. But it is now clearer than ever that the backlash against the Dobbs decision — and voters’ general distaste for strictly limiting abortion access — could play a crucial role in winning Mr. Biden a second term. Certainly, there will be many other major issues at play in this election, including war and voters’ perceptions of the economy. But abortion could plausibly be the deciding factor next November.Mr. Trump’s narrow lead in recent polls is largely due to Mr. Biden’s underperforming with younger voters and voters of color relative to his support levels in 2020. While there is evidence that these polls overstate the risk to the president’s coalition, perhaps more important, these voters have proved over the course of the past year that they are highly mobilized by abortion rights and will provide strong support to candidates who share their position on the issue. By analyzing the individual-level turnout data from post-Dobbs elections, we know that women and younger voters are most likely to be inspired to vote when they see an opportunity to defend abortion rights and that this coalition is broad and diverse, including a large segment of voters of color.To date, the post-Dobbs political battles have been fought almost exclusively at the state level. Republicans in Congress, with control of the House of Representatives, have shown little appetite for passing a federal ban, saying the issue is best left to the states to decide. The implausible path for such legislation through a Democratic majority in the Senate, not to mention a certain veto from Mr. Biden, has spared the Republican majority in the House from any substantial pressure to advance such legislation. That said, in the immediate aftermath of seeing his state overwhelmingly support abortion rights this week, the Republican senator J.D. Vance of Ohio is urging a national Republican position on abortion in the form of a 15-week ban.The base of the Republican Party clearly expects its candidates to prioritize abortion bans. To ignore these calls is to risk a demoralized base on Election Day next year, making the path to victory that much narrower for a party that has won the national popular vote for the presidency only once in the past 35 years. Yet at the same time, the 2022 and 2023 elections have proved that standing firm in support of abortion bans energizes progressive voters and swings independents toward Democratic candidates. Given that Mr. Trump faces the challenge of expanding his coalition beyond that of his 2020 shortfall, such a development could doom his hopes of returning to the White House.Mr. Biden and his team have no doubt grasped this dynamic and will presumably force Mr. Trump to pick one of the two daunting paths before him. Before the Virginia elections, national Republicans clearly hoped that Mr. Youngkin had found the consensus choice, with what they emphasized as limits on abortion, not bans. These hopes were dashed in polling places across Virginia on Tuesday, something that surely did not go unnoticed in the White House.Abortion rights have had the biggest impact on elections over the past year and a half where voters believe abortion rights to be threatened and when they plausibly see their votes as a means to protect or reinstate abortion rights, it is good news for Democrats and for expanding or protecting abortion access. States with abortion on the ballot in the form of ballot measures have seen the biggest effect, but similar effects have been felt in states like Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona, where the issue was at the forefront of campaign messaging.While Republicans find themselves boxed into a corner on the issue of abortion, in many ways Mr. Biden is the ideal messenger to connect the dots for moderates on this issue. His personal journey on abortion rights has been well documented and mirrors that of many Americans. This year Mr. Biden said: “I’m a practicing Catholic. I’m not big on abortion. But guess what? Roe v. Wade got it right.” Polling shows a sizable portion of moderates and even conservatives more or less agree with him: They may not consider themselves activists on the issue of abortion rights, but at the same time, they are deeply uncomfortable with the Dobbs decision and how it stripped so many Americans of individual freedoms.This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for Mr. Biden in 2024: Republicans are on the defensive when it comes to abortion rights, and are losing ground every day. Mr. Trump, in calling bans on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake,” has shown he is aware of the liability the issue represents for his presidential campaign. Yet he is left without a solution that will mollify his supporters while not alienating moderates or mobilizing progressives.Democrats exceeded expectations and precedent in key races in 2022 and 2023 by putting abortion rights and Republican extremism front and center. In 2024 all voters must understand that their votes will decide the future of abortion rights, everywhere.Tom Bonier is a Democratic political strategist and the senior adviser to TargetSmart, a data and polling firm.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      I’m a Pollster. Democrats Need Young Voters to Win in 2024.

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      Well before the latest Times/Siena poll raised concerns about Joe Biden’s re-election prospects, John Della Volpe was sounding alarms. The Harvard Kennedy School pollster — who worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign — first noticed a change in the way young voters were thinking about politics last spring. For months he has heard dissatisfaction with the two parties and increasing attraction to third party options from young voters in his town halls.With the next presidential election less than a year away, Della Volpe offers his advice for re-energizing young voters’ interest in the Democratic Party and its candidate.Illustration by Akshita Chandra/The New York Times; Photograph by flySnow/Getty ImagesThe 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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.This Opinion short was produced by Phoebe Lett. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin and Annie-Rose Strasser. Mixing by Efim Shapiro. Original music by Sonia Herrero, Isaac Jones and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. More

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      Kamala Harris Is Set to Visit South Carolina for Campaign Kickoff

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      The vice president is said to be planning a surprise Friday trip to file paperwork for the state’s primary, which will be the first party-approved voting of 2024.Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Columbia, S.C., on Friday to formally file President Biden’s paperwork to appear on the Democratic primary ballot in the state, according to two people familiar with her plans.Ms. Harris’s trip will punctuate the end of a tumultuous week for her and Mr. Biden. Democrats began the week in a panic over polls that showed Mr. Biden trailing his likely Republican challenger, former President Donald J. Trump, in five of six expected battleground states. Then they found their spirits lifted when Democrats performed well in Tuesday’s elections in Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, where a ballot measure enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution passed.The Biden campaign had said its South Carolina paperwork would be filed by Representative James Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat who helped resuscitate Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign by endorsing him three days before his state’s primary. Mr. Biden repaid the favor by pushing the Democratic National Committee to put South Carolina at the front of the party’s presidential nominating calendar.Ms. Harris and Mr. Clyburn will meet to file the primary paperwork at the South Carolina Democratic Party headquarters, said the people familiar with the plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the trip was supposed to be a surprise.After The New York Times asked about the trip on Thursday evening, Ms. Harris made a sly suggestion on social media that she may appear with Mr. Clyburn.The White House had intended to keep Ms. Harris’s trip secret until she arrived in South Carolina. Her official White House schedule for Friday reads: “The vice president is in Washington, D.C., and has no public events scheduled.”A Biden campaign spokesman and Ms. Harris’s White House spokeswoman declined to comment on the trip.Mr. Biden, at a fund-raising event Thursday night in Chicago, dismissed polls from The Times and CNN released this week that each showed him trailing Mr. Trump.“The press has been talking about two polls,” Mr. Biden said. “There are 10 other polls we’re winning.” Mr. Biden then told the assembled donors that their money was not wasted on him but joked that he could “screw up” during his re-election bid.Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota and Marianne Williamson, the self-help author who ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, have already filed paperwork to appear on South Carolina’s Democratic primary ballot.Nevada, the second state on the party’s calendar, had its deadline to file for the primary last month. Mr. Biden, Ms. Williamson and 11 other candidates filed to run in Nevada’s Democratic primary.Mr. Biden did not file for the primary in New Hampshire after officials there refused the D.N.C.’s request to move its primary after South Carolina’s. More