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    Obama Won Record Numbers of Nonwhite Voters. This Is How the Democrats Lost Them.

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    <!–> –>It seemed that the multiracialcoalition that elected Barack Obamawould secure a Democratic future for this country for decades.<!–> –>It seemed that themultiracial coalition that elected BarackObama wouldsecure a Democraticfuture for thiscountry for decades.<!–> –>But instead, as America growsmore diverse, it has become moreconservative. Why?<!–> –>But instead, asAmerica growsmore diverse, it hasbecome moreconservative. Why?<!–> [!–> […] More

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      Are the Democrats Dead or Alive?

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      In the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election, polls and focus groups suggested that the Democratic Party had suffered more than an election defeat. It looked as though key blocs of voters had irrevocably turned their backs on Democrats as triumphalist Republicans boasted about becoming the party of the working class.In the six months since President Trump took back the Oval Office, his favorability ratings, including on immigration, have fallen, but his decline has not been accompanied by a revival of support for the Democratic Party. The party continues to suffer severe reputational damage, which may not be reparable until 2028, when the Democratic presidential nominee will have a chance to redefine the party’s image as only a party leader can.Before exploring the dark side for Democrats, let’s first acknowledge three bright spots.One, prospective Democrats who are jockeying for early position and recognition in the party’s presidential nomination contest are moving toward the center. As Adam Wren and Elena Schneider report in “The Great Un-Awokening,” a June 6 piece in Politico, “Searching for a path out of the political wilderness, potential 2028 candidates, especially those hailing from blue states, are attempting to ratchet back a leftward lurch on social issues that some in the party say cost them the November election.”Wren and Schneider cite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s break with progressive orthodoxy when he declared that allowing transgender athletes to participate in female college sports was “unfair.” They also cite Gov. Wes Moore’s veto of “a bill that took steps toward reparations.”Two, there has been a burst of activity, including the formation of groups on the center left seeking a more moderate Democratic agenda, including Searchlight, led by Adam Jentleson, a former aide to Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Harry Reid, a former Senate majority leader. In addition, there is growing interest in Welcome PAC, a centrist Democratic group founded in 2021 that has contributed to moderate House Democrats like Jared Golden, Mary Peltola and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.Three, Democratic voters are far more enthusiastic heading into the 2026 election than Republicans are. A July 10-13 CNN poll found that 74 percent of Democrats described themselves as “extremely motivated” to vote next year, compared with 54 percent of Republicans, as are 75 percent of liberals compared with 52 percent of conservatives.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      There Is Hope for Democrats. Look to Kansas.

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      Two Opinion writers on the Democratic governors who might just save the party.David Leonhardt, an editorial director for Opinion, talks to the Opinion correspondent Michelle Cottle about her recent reporting trip to Kansas. Cottle argues that Democrats should look to moderate governors like Laura Kelly of Kansas for a playbook.There Is Hope for Democrats. Look to Kansas.Two Opinion writers on the Democratic governors who might just save the party.Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.David Leonhardt: Democrats are spending a lot of time these days agonizing about what the future of their party should look like. Today we’re going to talk about one potential answer. The party’s current crop of governors: politicians who have a proven ability to win elections, including some really tough elections, and to govern as well.My colleague Michelle Cottle recently traveled to Kansas to talk with one of the country’s most impressive governors. Laura Kelly is a moderate Democrat in her second term. Kansas is so Republican that it hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1932. It’s so Republican that there is a famous book, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” lamenting the failure of Democrats there. Yet Governor Kelly is now in her second term.Michelle and I are going to talk about what lessons she offers for her party. Thanks for being here.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      When Getting Fired Is Only the Beginning for Federal Workers

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      One thing is clear from a reporter’s conversations with laid-off federal workers this year: The cuts have been anything but straightforward and efficient.The week after Martin Basch was fired from his federal job in February, he started applying for state unemployment benefits in Ohio, his home state, determined to find a new path.But he soon found himself facing an unexpected snag: He kept receiving paychecks, beyond his official termination date of March 14.This might not seem like a problem. But for Basch, it was a sign of the chaotic and costly limbo in which he and many other federal workers have found themselves as President Trump seeks to streamline the federal government.I’ve been talking to federal workers for months about the mass firings’ impact on them, and one thing has been clear: The cuts have been anything but straightforward and efficient.For many, the layoff was just the beginning. Workers have found themselves locked in a Kafkaesque cycle of getting fired and rehired, and some have struggled to track down the documentation they need to move on.Basic questions, elusive answersTheir terminations came abruptly, and with little explanation. Legal challenges have added more chaos as judges ordered thousands of fired workers to be temporarily reinstated, and higher courts have reversed some of those decisions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Are the Courts Checking Trump — or Enabling Him?

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      A former federal judge weighs in.In this episode of “The Opinions,” the editorial director David Leonhardt talks to a conservative former federal judge, Michael McConnell, about the role of the courts in President Trump’s second term.Are the Courts Checking Trump — or Enabling Him?A former federal judge weighs in.Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.David Leonhardt: I’m David Leonhardt, the director of the New York Times editorial board. Every week I’m having conversations to help shape the board’s opinions.One thing that I find useful right now is talking with President Trump’s conservative critics. They tend to be alarmed by the president’s behavior, but they also tend to be more optimistic than many progressives about whether American democracy is surviving the Trump presidency. And that combination helps me and my colleagues think about where the biggest risks to our country really are.One area I’ve been wrestling with is the federal court system. I want to understand the extent to which the courts are acting as a check on President Trump as he tries to amass more power, or whether the courts are actually helping him amass that power.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Senate Approves First Judge of Trump’s Second Term

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      The pace of judicial confirmations is lagging compared with the president’s first stint in office, but more are in the pipeline.The Senate on Monday confirmed the first federal judge of President Trump’s second term, putting the administration on a much slower pace for filling federal court vacancies than in his first term, when a rush to install conservatives on the courts was an overarching priority.Senators voted 46 to 42 along party lines to confirm Whitney D. Hermandorfer of Tennessee to a seat on the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Her approval came more than six weeks later than the first appellate judge confirmed after Mr. Trump took office in 2017. The Senate had also confirmed a new Supreme Court justice by this point in his last term, placing Neil M. Gorsuch on the court.This time around, Mr. Trump has put more emphasis on other aspects of his administration, aggressively pushing ambassadorial nominations and devoting much of the energy of the Senate to pushing through the sweeping tax and policy legislation enacted this month.In addition, significantly fewer judicial vacancies exist today compared with 2017, when Mr. Trump inherited more than 100 court openings after Senate Republicans stalled President Barack Obama’s judicial selections when they took Senate control in 2014.“We’re not facing the number of judicial vacancies this Congress we did during Trump’s first term,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader. “There are around 50 vacancies on the federal bench. Our job is to fill those vacancies with more judges who understand the proper role of a judge, and that starts with confirming Ms. Hermandorfer.”Ms. Hermandorfer served as director of the strategic litigation unit in the Tennessee attorney general’s office, where she has argued high-profile cases, including defending the state’s abortion ban and challenging a Biden administration prohibition on discrimination against transgender students.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Gender Gap That Ate the Democrats

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      Much of the analysis of the 2024 election focused on Democratic losses among working-class minorities, especially Hispanic and Black voters. But the dominant theme of the contest was, in fact, the broader shift of men of all races and ethnicities to the Republican Party.If men had supported Kamala Harris at the same level as women did, Harris would have won the popular vote and possibly the Electoral College. Donald Trump beat her by 2.28 million votes, in an election that saw the male vote for the Democratic presidential nominee fall by 3.54 million from 2020 to 2024 and the female vote fall by just over 844,000.The Democratic Party lost ground in the 2024 election among almost all demographic groups — white people, Black people, Latinos, the young, rural and exurban voters — but all the defections had one thing in common: Democratic losses were significantly greater among men than among women.These developments are well documented in two extensive election analyses by organizations that offer some of the best demographic studies of voting patterns: “What Happened in 2024” by Catalist, a liberal voter-study firm, and “Behind Trump’s 2024 Victory, a More Racially and Ethnically Diverse Voter Coalition” by Pew Research.Catalist found that in 2024 Harris, the second woman to run for president as the Democratic nominee, received just 1 percent less support than Joe Biden did in 2020 from white women, while Harris’s backing from white men fell by four percentage points. Among Black voters, Harris saw a one-point drop among women and an eight-point decline among Black men; among Latinos, Harris lost seven points among women, 12 points among men.Catalist summarized its findings on the differences between the partisan shifts of men and women:The partisan gender gap remains high and grew in 2024. Women have long been more likely to support Democrats than men do. The gender gap in partisan preferences increased in 2024: women continued to support Harris (55 percent support) at roughly the same levels that they supported Biden in 2020 (56 percent). But men moved toward Trump in 2024, from 48 percent support for Biden in 2020 to 42 percent support for Harris in 2024.The most severe declines in Democratic voting, according to Catalist, “were concentrated among the younger cohorts of voters, particularly young men. For instance, support for Democrats from 2020 to 2024 among young Black men dropped from 85 percent to 75 percent and support among young Latino men dropped from 63 percent to 47 percent.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Justice Dept. Explores Using Criminal Charges Against Election Officials

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      Such a path could drastically raise the stakes for federal investigations of state or county officials, bringing the department and the threat of criminalization into the election system.Senior Justice Department officials are exploring whether they can bring criminal charges against state or local election officials if the Trump administration determines they have not sufficiently safeguarded their computer systems, according to people familiar with the discussions.The department’s effort, which is still in its early stages, is not based on new evidence, data or legal authority, according to the people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. Instead, it is driven by the unsubstantiated argument made by many in the Trump administration that American elections are easy prey to voter fraud and foreign manipulation, these people said.Such a path could significantly raise the stakes for federal investigations of state or county officials, thrusting the Justice Department and the threat of criminalization into the election system in a way that has never been done before.Federal voting laws place some mandates on how elections are conducted and ballots counted. But that work has historically been managed by state and local officials, with limited involvement or oversight from Washington.In recent days, senior officials have directed Justice Department lawyers to examine the ways in which a hypothetical failure by state or local officials to follow security standards for electronic voting could be charged as a crime, appearing to assume a kind of criminally negligent mismanagement of election systems. Already, the department has started to contact election officials across the country, asking for information on voting in the state.Ballots from the 2024 general election locked in a secure warehouse area of the Ada County Elections Office in Boise, Idaho, last November.Natalie Behring for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Faces the Biggest Test Yet of His Second-Term Political Power

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      If President Trump gets his domestic policy bill over the finish line, it will be a vivid demonstration of his continuing hold over the Republican Party.President Trump has gotten almost everything he has wanted from the Republican-controlled Congress since he took office in January.G.O.P. lawmakers approved his nominees, sometimes despite their doubts. They ceded their power over how federal dollars are distributed, impinging on constitutional authority. And they have cheered his overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, even as he has bypassed the legislative body’s oversight of federal agencies.But now, Mr. Trump is pressuring Republicans to fall in line behind his sprawling domestic policy bill, even though it has elements that could put their party’s hold on Congress in greater peril in next year’s midterm elections. Fiscal hawks are appalled by estimates that the bill would add at least $3.3 trillion to the country’s ballooning debt, while moderate Republicans are concerned about the steep cuts to the safety net.Yet Mr. Trump is still getting his way — at least so far. The Senate narrowly passed the bill Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie. The bill now heads back to the House, where the president can only lose three votes, and where anger among both moderates and conservatives about changes made by the Senate is running high.Getting the bill through the House may be the biggest test yet of Mr. Trump’s second-term political power. If he gets the bill over the finish line, it will be another legislative victory and a vivid demonstration of his continuing hold over the party.The process of driving the legislation forward has exposed deep divisions among congressional Republicans, as well as concern about the huge political risks of supporting the bill. In the end, fear of crossing Mr. Trump kept defections in the Senate to a barely manageable level.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More