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      Dutch Prime Minister in Line for 4th Term Following Victory for ‘Center-Right’

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      Mark Rutte’s party convincingly won the Dutch elections. But wins by liberal-democrats can force him to compromise on his critical European stances.LEIDEN, the Netherlands — Mark Rutte, one of Europe’s longest-serving leaders, saw his Party for Freedom and Democracy win big in Dutch elections on Wednesday, setting him up for a fourth term as prime minister of the Netherlands.“We have to bring this country back to where it should be, as one of the best performing countries in the world,” Mr. Rutte said in a televised victory speech. “I have enough energy for even 10 more years.”Mr. Rutte, who describes his party as “center-right,” must now form a coalition with other parties to obtain a majority in Parliament. D66, a liberal-democratic party led by the former United Nations diplomat Sigrid Kaag, came in second. Mr. Rutte and Ms. Kaag are set to lead talks over forming a new government.Mr. Rutte’s party gained three seats as compared with similar elections in 2017, according to exit polls published by the public broadcaster NOS on WednesdayMr. Rutte and his cabinet had resigned in January over a scandal involving the tax authorities’ targeting of people, mostly poor, who had made administrative mistakes in their requests for child benefits. Many were ruined financially after being forced to pay back benefits to which they had been entitled.The scandal did not play a significant role during the campaign, however, nor did Mr. Rutte’s wavering polices for dealing with the coronavirus. He and his cabinet stayed on in a caretaker role until the election in order to manage the pandemic response.“This has been a corona election, and most of those in power have been rewarded,” said Tom-Jan Meeus, a political columnist for NRC Handelsblad. He said the dispersed wins by several right-wing parties combined did not go beyond their usual threshold of about 18 percent.“These elections are a victory for parties in the political middle, no change for the radical right and a loss for the left,” he added.Mr. Meeus said that he did not expect big shifts in policy, “but there will be more pressure on Mark Rutte to have more pro-European policies, from the parties he has to govern with.”Ms. Kaag, a career diplomat who speaks multiple languages including Arabic, is a staunch supporter of the European Union, as is her party. She served in the outgoing cabinet as minister of international trade and development.Last May, Mr. Rutte led a group of nations that refused blank-check payments for southern European countries to support their economies during the pandemic. He will now be forced to compromise on such stances if he enters into a coalition with D66.Voters in the Netherlands had cast their ballots in one of the first major European elections to take place during the coronavirus pandemic that has swept across the continent in successive waves.Neighboring Germany is also entering a packed election season, with national and state votes coming in a year that will bring to an end the 16-year chancellorship of Angela Merkel.Geert Wilders, a populist who has opposed immigration from Muslim countries and called for a ban of the Quran, saw his Party for Freedom lose two seats, though it remained the third largest.Another right-wing party, the Forum voor Democratie, led by Thierry Baudet, at the height of its popularity appeared ready to win 26 seats, according to opinion polls taken in 2019, but public infighting led some prominent politicians to leave and start their own party. Mr. Baudet’s party won six new seats for a total of eight, according to exit polls late Wednesday.The elections are among of the first to take place in Europe since the coronavirus broke out last spring, sparking repeated lockdowns across the continent as the death toll grew. Portugal voted in presidential elections in January, re-electing the center-right Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa for a second term in office.The pandemic has changed the usual dynamic of organizing elections in the Netherlands, but did not seem to affect turnout on Wednesday. Long lines of socially distanced voters stood waiting in the early afternoon in the historical center of Leiden, a university town near The Hague. At many polling stations voters were allowed to take home the red pencils they used to cast their ballots, a measure to help prevent the virus from spreading.“There is no way anyone can get corona with all these measures,” said Niels Romijn, a civil servant, as he entered a public library to cast his ballot. “Everybody was super chill,” he said, happily showing off his free red pencil. “Civil duty,” he said with a laugh.Polling stations had been open nationwide since Monday to allow vulnerable voters to avoid crowds. Voters over 70 were encouraged to vote by mail. And campaigning mainly took place on television, making it hard for voters to spontaneously confront politicians as is typical practice in the Netherlands.A temporary polling station in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.Jeroen Jumelet/EPA, via ShutterstockCoronavirus cases are once again surging in the Netherlands, prompting the authorities to warn of a third wave. Last year, it took Mr. Rutte’s government until November to ramp up testing, and now, the vaccination process has been advancing slowly.However, local issues, not the government’s handling of the coronavirus, dominated the election campaign.Broader policies put forward by Mr. Rutte, who has been in power since 2010, were also a focus on the campaign trail, with opponents questioning his government’s repeated cutbacks in health care, policing and other essential services.Mr. Rutte has ruled out any form of cooperation with Mr. Wilders’ Freedom Party, meaning that he will likely have to engage with other parties. Wednesday’s vote brings a record of 17 parties to the 150-seat Dutch parliament. More

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      Election Year in Germany Kicks Off With Voting in Two States

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutGuidelines After VaccinationAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyElection Year in Germany Kicks Off With Voting in Two StatesRegional governments will be chosen in two southwestern states months before a national vote that is considered wide open after 16 years under Chancellor Angela MerkelPosters for the Rhineland-Palatinate state election, including the incumbent governor, Malu Dreyer of the Social Democrats, right, and Christian Baldauf of the Christian Democratic Union, top left, in Frankenthal, Germany, on Wednesday.Credit…Michael Probst/Associated PressMarch 14, 2021, 5:33 a.m. ETBERLIN — Voters in two southwestern German states are kicking off an election year on Sunday that could change the course of Europe’s largest economy after 16 years under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will be stepping down after a new government is sworn in.The elections in the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate are the first in a year that will see voting for new legislators in four more states, and for the country’s Parliament, which will be elected in September.Sunday’s voting is taking place after largely muted election campaigns that were overshadowed by the threat of the coronavirus and by lockdowns. While neither race will serve as a clear bellwether for the fall election, the outcomes could indicate how voters are feeling about the two leading parties, the conservatives and the Greens, and help focus the contest for Ms. Merkel’s replacement.“It is an unbelievably exciting election year,” said Thorsten Faas, a professor of political science at Berlin’s Free University. “A lot is still open, creating the possibility for movement in various directions.”A vaccine rollout stymied by shortages of doses and hampered by bureaucracy is leading many to question the competence of the chancellor’s conservative bloc. Over the past week, revelations have emerged that several conservative lawmakers earned tens of thousands of euros in exchange for arranging the sale of medical-grade masks to municipalities early in the pandemic, when supplies were very tight.Three lawmakers have resigned over the scandal, including a member of the Christian Democratic Union representing a district in Baden-Württemberg. Another lawmaker from the state of Thuringia, as well as a member of the Christian Social Union, the conservative party in the state of Bavaria, also resigned. After the payouts came to light, party leaders required all 240 conservative lawmakers to sign a declaration pledging they hadn’t used their position for financial gain in connection with fighting the pandemic.Even before the scandal broke, the conservatives were struggling in the race in Baden-Württemberg, where a popular incumbent governor for the Greens is seeking a third term in office.For the past five years, Winfried Kretschmann, 72, has led the state through a coalition of his environmental party with the conservative Christian Democrats, and voters are expected to return him to office. Polls in the weeks running up to the vote showed the Greens with the strongest support, between 33 to 35 percent. Mr. Kretschmann campaigned on his personality, under the slogan “You know me,” and promised a continuation of his party’s consensus-seeking policies of the past five years.Winfried Kretschmann, the incumbent governor of Baden-Württemberg state, left, with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in Heidelberg in 2019.Credit…Daniel Roland/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPolls suggest the Christian Democrats in Baden-Württemberg appear poised to take second place, setting the stage for a possible continuation of the current coalition, a combination that many observers consider a possibility for the makeup of the national Parliament.The Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is expected to hold onto the roughly 15 percent support that it won in Baden-Württemberg in 2016. Although the regional party has been plagued by internal divisions and strife among its members, it is expected to retain voters who are attracted to its nationalistic, anti-establishment stance.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      What Happened When Germany’s Far-Right Party Railed Against Lockdowns

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat Happened When Germany’s Far-Right Party Railed Against LockdownsIt didn’t work.Ms. Sauerbrey is a contributing opinion writer who focuses on German politics, society and culture.March 12, 2021A protester against lockdown measures in Berlin last year. Alternative for Germany has sought to improve its electoral standing by embracing anti-lockdown radicalism.Credit…John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBERLIN — In November, as Covid-19 cases began to rise, thousands of people gathered in Berlin to protest against restrictions. In among the conspiracy theorists and extremists were several lawmakers from the country’s main opposition party, the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany.It was striking to see legislators mingle with conspiracists in the streets before heading to the parliament for a debate. Yet it wasn’t too surprising. The party, known as AfD, has sought to improve its electoral standing ahead of the national election in September by associating with the anti-lockdown movement, an amorphous mix of conspiracy theorists, shady organizations and outraged citizens.But it hasn’t worked. In the months since the pandemic, the AfD’s support has slipped. Already struggling to reach new voters, its embrace of anti-lockdown sentiment seems to have further limited its appeal — and sped up its transformation into an extremist organization.When the pandemic reached Germany in March, the AfD’s initial response was cautious. Prominent party legislators warned about the virus, encouraged the government to act swiftly and voted for a package of economic relief. “Closing ranks is our first duty as citizens now,” Alexander Gauland, a co-leader of the party, said.But this attempt to cater to the average voter came at a cost. The party soon found itself deprived of many of its usual supporters, who took a different course, downplaying the danger and castigating the government. On Facebook and social media, the party stuttered. “The AfD,” said Johannes Hillje, a political consultant who analyzed the party’s social media performance during the pandemic, “lost its rage machine.”For a party fueled by indignation, that was a problem. As the first lockdown was tentatively lifted, through April and May, many leading AfD figures performed a 180-degree turn. No longer consensual, they fiercely railed against restrictions of any kind, which they claimed were unconstitutional as well as economically ruinous.In November, to demonstrate its defiance, the party held an in-person convention with hundreds of participants packed into a hall. That same month, an AfD legislator appeared in the parliament, where masks are mandatory, wearing one riddled with holes. And prominent party members not only attended some of the anti-lockdown protests that spread across the country last year but also adopted the protesters’ talking points, for example by calling Germany a “Corona dictatorship.” The AfD became something like the anti-lockdown party.The move made sense. By the time the pandemic arrived, the party “had started to struggle,” Kai Arzheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Mainz, told me. Migration had vanished from the top of voters’ concerns, depriving the party of its momentum. It was unclear how it might make further inroads.What’s more, the party was increasingly seen as extreme and radical. The media uncovered many ties to extremist groups such as the Identitarian Movement, which advocates ethnically homogeneous societies, while a radical internal group gained power. The AfD was considered so dangerous that the domestic intelligence service even put one wing of it under surveillance. “This has harmed the party’s potential to mobilize moderate voters,” Mr. Arzheimer said.Unable to appeal to more moderate voters, and in the midst of a pandemic that shored up support for the major parties, the party entwined itself with anti-lockdown radicalism. By conventional measures, the move has failed. National polls routinely place the party at or under 10 percent approval; two regional elections this Sunday are expected to underline the party’s electoral difficulties. The historic showing of 2017 — when the AfD became the first far-right party to enter Germany’s postwar parliament — is unlikely to be repeated, let alone surpassed.That doesn’t make the party less of a danger, though. In ways reminiscent of former President Donald Trump, the AfD is seeking to scuttle public trust in the political system. An AfD legislator suggested from the floor of the parliament that mail-in ballots were one of many “dark ideas” with which the other parties hoped to rig the vote, while a section of the party has run ads on Facebook warning against the practice.Ahead of an election where many may vote remotely — Germany’s vaccination program probably won’t be complete by fall — this amounts to a calculated strategy of subversion. Though the party’s influence is limited, the fact that 8 percent to 10 percent of the electorate seems unshakable in its support is deeply concerning.In a landmark decision last week, the country’s domestic intelligence agency put the entire AfD under surveillance, branding it an extremist organization. Whether it’s right to do so — and whether the order, which was suspended and is under legal challenge, will be enacted — is hard to know. But the AfD, and the danger it potentially poses to Germany’s democracy, is not going anywhere.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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Covid-19 Relief Bill Fulfills Biden’s Promise to Expand Obamacare, for Two Years

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutGuidelines After VaccinationAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPandemic Relief Bill Fulfills Biden’s Promise to Expand Obamacare, for Two YearsWith its expanded subsidies for health plans under the Affordable Care Act, the coronavirus relief bill makes insurance more affordable, and puts health care on the ballot in 2022.President Biden after delivering remarks on the Affordable Care Act in November. The changes to the health law would cover 1.3 million more Americans.Credit…Amr Alfiky/The New York TimesMarch 8, 2021WASHINGTON — President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill will fulfill one of his central campaign promises, to fill the holes in the Affordable Care Act and make health insurance affordable for more than a million middle-class Americans who could not afford insurance under the original law.The bill, which will most likely go to the House for a final vote on Wednesday, includes a significant, albeit temporary, expansion of subsidies for health insurance purchased under the act. Under the changes, the signature domestic achievement of the Obama administration will reach middle-income families who have been discouraged from buying health plans on the federal marketplace because they come with high premiums and little or no help from the government.The changes will last only for two years. But for some, they will be considerable: The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a 64-year-old earning $58,000 would see monthly payments decline from $1,075 under current law to $412 because the federal government would take up much of the cost. The rescue plan also includes rich new incentives to entice the few holdout states — including Texas, Georgia and Florida — to finally expand Medicaid to those with too much money to qualify for the federal health program for the poor, but too little to afford private coverage.“For people that are eligible but not buying insurance it’s a financial issue, and so upping the subsidies is going to make the price point come down,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy expert and professor at the University of Pennsylvania who advised Mr. Biden during his transition. The bill, he said, would “make a big dent in the number of the uninsured.”But because those provisions last only two years, the relief bill almost guarantees that health care will be front and center in the 2022 midterm elections, when Republicans will attack the measure as a wasteful expansion of a health law they have long hated. Meantime, some liberal Democrats may complain that the changes only prove that a patchwork approach to health care coverage will never work.“Obviously it’s an improvement, but I think that it is inadequate given the health care crisis that we’re in,” said Representative Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California who favors the single-payer, government-run system called Medicare for All that has been embraced by Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and the Democratic left.“We’re in a national health care crisis,” Mr. Khanna said. “Fifteen million people just lost private health insurance. This would be the time for the government to say, at the very least, for those 15 million that we ought to put them on Medicare.”Mr. Biden made clear when he was running for the White House that he did not favor Medicare for All, but instead wanted to strengthen and expand the Affordable Care Act. The bill that is expected to reach his desk in time for a prime-time Oval Office address on Thursday night would do that. The changes to the health law would cover 1.3 million more Americans and cost about $34 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.Representative Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, who helped draft the health law more than a decade ago and leads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has called it “the biggest expansion that we’ve had since the A.C.A. was passed.”But as a candidate, Mr. Biden promised more, a “public option” — a government-run plan that Americans could choose on the health law’s online marketplaces, which now include only private insurance.“Biden promised voters a public option, and it is a promise he has to keep,” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, the liberal group that helped elect Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats. Of the stimulus bill, he said, “I don’t think anyone thinks this is Biden’s health care plan.”Just when Mr. Biden or Democrats would put forth such a plan remains unclear, and passage in an evenly divided Senate would be an uphill struggle. White House officials have said Mr. Biden wants to get past the coronavirus relief bill before laying out a more comprehensive domestic policy agenda.Senators Bill Hagerty and Chris Coons at the Capitol on Saturday during a series of votes on amendments to the relief bill.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesThe Affordable Care Act is near and dear to Mr. Biden, who memorably used an expletive to describe it as a big deal when he was vice president and President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2010. It has expanded coverage to more than 20 million Americans, cutting the uninsured rate to 10.9 percent in 2019 from 17.8 percent in 2010.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Pandemic Relief Bill Fulfills Biden’s Promise to Expand Obamacare, for Two Years

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPandemic Relief Bill Fulfills Biden’s Promise to Expand Obamacare, for Two YearsWith its expanded subsidies for health plans under the Affordable Care Act, the coronavirus relief bill makes insurance more affordable, and puts health care on the ballot in 2022.President Biden after delivering remarks on the Affordable Care Actin November. The changes to the health law would cover 1.3 million more Americans.Credit…Amr Alfiky/The New York TimesMarch 8, 2021Updated 8:30 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill will fulfill one of his central campaign promises, to fill the holes in the Affordable Care Act and make health insurance affordable for more than a million middle-class Americans who could not afford insurance under the original law.The bill, which will most likely go to the House for a final vote on Wednesday, includes a significant, albeit temporary, expansion of subsidies for health insurance purchased under the act. Under the changes, the signature domestic achievement of the Obama administration will reach middle-income families who have been discouraged from buying health plans on the federal marketplace because they come with high premiums and little or no help from the government.The changes will last only for two years. But for some, they will be considerable: The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a 64-year-old earning $58,000 would see monthly payments decline from $1,075 under current law to $412 because the federal government would take up much of the cost. The rescue plan also includes rich new incentives to entice the few holdout states — including Texas, Georgia and Florida — to finally expand Medicaid to those with too much money to qualify for the federal health program for the poor, but too little to afford private coverage.“For people that are eligible but not buying insurance it’s a financial issue, and so upping the subsidies is going to make the price point come down,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy expert and professor at the University of Pennsylvania who advised Mr. Biden during his transition. The bill, he said, would “make a big dent in the number of the uninsured.”But because those provisions last only two years, the relief bill almost guarantees that health care will be front and center in the 2022 midterm elections, when Republicans will attack the measure as a wasteful expansion of a health law they have long hated. Meantime, some liberal Democrats may complain that the changes only prove that a patchwork approach to health care coverage will never work.“Obviously it’s an improvement, but I think that it is inadequate given the health care crisis that we’re in,” said Representative Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California who favors the single-payer, government-run system called Medicare for All that has been embraced by Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and the Democratic left.“We’re in a national health care crisis,” Mr. Khanna said. “Fifteen million people just lost private health insurance. This would be the time for the government to say, at the very least, for those 15 million that we ought to put them on Medicare.”Mr. Biden made clear when he was running for the White House that he did not favor Medicare for All, but instead wanted to strengthen and expand the Affordable Care Act. The bill that is expected to reach his desk in time for a prime-time Oval Office address on Thursday night would do that. The changes to the health law would cover 1.3 million more Americans and cost about $34 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.Representative Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, who helped draft the health law more than a decade ago and leads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has called it “the biggest expansion that we’ve had since the A.C.A. was passed.”But as a candidate, Mr. Biden promised more, a “public option” — a government-run plan that Americans could choose on the health law’s online marketplaces, which now include only private insurance.“Biden promised voters a public option, and it is a promise he has to keep,” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, the liberal group that helped elect Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats. Of the stimulus bill, he said, “I don’t think anyone thinks this is Biden’s health care plan.”Just when Mr. Biden or Democrats would put forth such a plan remains unclear, and passage in an evenly divided Senate would be an uphill struggle. White House officials have said Mr. Biden wants to get past the coronavirus relief bill before laying out a more comprehensive domestic policy agenda.Senators Bill Hagerty and Chris Coons at the Capitol on Saturday during a series of votes on amendments to the relief bill.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesThe Affordable Care Act is near and dear to Mr. Biden, who memorably used an expletive to describe it as a big deal when he was vice president and President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2010. It has expanded coverage to more than 20 million Americans, cutting the uninsured rate to 10.9 percent in 2019 from 17.8 percent in 2010.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      DeSantis Is Ascendant and Cuomo Is Faltering

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOn Politics With Lisa LererDeSantis Is Ascendant and Cuomo Is FalteringFor both men, their political fortunes and the tests imposed by their parties seem disconnected from the central question of this moment: How did they govern through a challenging year?March 6, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETSign up here to get On Politics in your inbox every weekday.Credit…Joe Raedle/Getty Images; Hans Pennink, via Associated PressGov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is a darling of the right-wing media, a staunch Trump conservative trying to position himself as the heir to the former president’s political brand. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York is a descendant of a liberal political dynasty, a Trump antagonist with his own, long-simmering presidential ambitions.Both have been on the front lines of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. But recent twists in their political fortunes underscore how differently both parties are keeping score in this volatile moment. Democrats and Republicans aren’t just on different teams in this pandemic, they’re playing by different rules altogether.Less than a year ago, Mr. Cuomo was a Democratic darling, heralded for his handling of the virus in a state that was hit hard by the pandemic. Celebrities declared themselves “Cuomosexuals,” his daily briefings became must-see TV and political wags murmured about a presidential bid. The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences awarded him an Emmy for his 111 “masterful” coronavirus briefings. He published a memoir about his leadership, taking a victory lap with the race far from over.There were no such accolades for Mr. DeSantis. Referred to as “DeathSantis” and mocked for allowing “Florida Morons” to pack state beaches, Mr. DeSantis faced national scorn for his resistance to shutdowns. Last fall, he lifted all restrictions, keeping schools open for in-person learning and forbidding local officials from shutting down businesses or fining people for not wearing masks.“I see, in many parts of our country, a sad state of affairs: schools closed, businesses shuttered and lives destroyed,” Mr. DeSantis said, offering a rousing defense of his pandemic response at the opening of Florida’s legislative session this week. “While so many other states kept locking people down, Florida lifted people up.”The same could be said about Mr. DeSantis’s political ambitions.For Republicans, loyalty to the former president and his pet issues has become the ultimate litmus test. Mr. DeSantis checked all the boxes: fighting with the media, questioning scientific experts, embracing baseless claims of election fraud and railing against liberals.Conservatives rewarded the governor for his fealty. His approval rating rose above water in recent weeks, with some polling of Republicans showing Mr. DeSantis with higher ratings than Mr. Trump. He finished first in a straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend covering a field of potential presidential candidates that did not include Mr. Trump, fueling chatter about a 2024 bid.The Democratic Party has embraced a very different kind of political standard, one based not on allegiance to President Biden but ideological and cultural purity. Throughout the Trump era, Democrats equated politics with morality as a way to attack a Republican president who trafficked in racist and sexist attacks. They cast themselves as the party of #MeToo accountability, pressuring those in their ranks accused of sexual misconduct to step down.That’s left Democrats facing charges of hypocrisy when it comes to Mr. Cuomo, who is now accused of sexually harassing several younger women. While Mr. Cuomo has few defenders, many powerful New York Democrats, including Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, are pushing for an independent investigation rather than an immediate resignation. The allegations have left his party divided between those who believe he must leave office and others who worry that the party is eating its own by cleaving to a standard Republicans largely ignore.It doesn’t help that before this current scandal, Mr. Cuomo was already under investigation for allegedly manipulating statistics on deaths of nursing home residents during the pandemic — chipping away at his image as a masterful manager of the virus and the Democratic brand of good governance. Once sailing toward a fourth term as governor, Mr. Cuomo is now fighting for his political career. His approval ratings have fallen nearly 30 points from last May.Yet, for both men, their political fortunes and the tests imposed by their parties seem disconnected from the central question of this moment: Did they effectively govern their states through an extraordinarily challenging year?The data is fairly inconclusive. When adjusted for population, Florida has a lower rate of deaths than New York, including at long-term care facilities like nursing homes, but a higher rate of cases over all, and it leads the country in the number of cases of the more contagious and deadlier U.K. variant of the virus. Slightly more Floridians — 8.7 percent of the population — than New Yorkers have received two doses of a Covid vaccine, but nearly the same percentage of the population in both states has received the first dose.Of course, numbers don’t tell the whole story. New York was the epicenter of the country’s first wave, before doctors had the equipment, experience and medications to fight a new disease. States like Florida learned from New York. Yet, for all Mr. Cuomo’s efforts to use his platform to stop the spread of the disease, he resisted early calls for lockdowns — a delay that undeniably played a role in the high death toll.About a year into the pandemic, Mr. Cuomo has fallen from his perch as a liberal icon. Mr. DeSantis has ascended to conservative stardom. And New Yorkers and Floridians are still mourning, masking and waiting for brighter days.Drop us a line!Over the past year, life has changed in ways big and small. We’re curious how the virus affected your political views. Maybe you went from MAGA-head to Bernie bro? Found a new love of big government after decades of worrying about the debt? Or even a new set of QAnon friends?The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      How 8 Mayoral Hopefuls Plan to Fix the Economy

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      How 8 Mayoral Candidates Plan to Fix New York’s EconomyNew York is facing a financial crisis, mainly because of the pandemic. The next mayor will have to guide the city out of a $5 billion budget gap while helping people and businesses recover from the devastation of Covid-19.Here’s how eight mayoral candidates say they would fund their priorities → More

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      Why Trump Holds a Grip on the G.O.P.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy Trump Holds a Grip on the G.O.P.Republicans still embrace the power of the ex-president’s agenda to galvanize voters and drive turnout.Mr. McCarthy has been a political editor and commentator for 18 years and has written extensively about conservatism, populism and the Trump presidency.March 1, 2021, 11:17 a.m. ETCredit…Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York TimesThe Donald Trump era isn’t over for the Republican Party. He is the party’s kingmaker, and two impeachments and a re-election defeat have not quelled Republican voters’ enthusiasm for him. As no less a critic of the ex-president than Senator Mitt Romney has acknowledged, he will be the party’s presumptive front-runner if he chooses to run for president again.If there is a Republican “civil war,” Mr. Trump is winning — and so easily that it can hardly be called a real fight.At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, Mr. Trump topped the presidential straw poll with 55 percent. The only other politician to break double digits, with 21 percent, was Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has positioned himself as Mr. Trump’s political heir.(If 55 percent seems like a less than resounding victory, recall that Mr. Trump came in only third in CPAC’s 2016 straw poll. Yet in that year’s primary contests he proved to be more popular with rank-and-file Republicans than he was with ideological conservatives like those who attend CPAC and tended to favor Ted Cruz in party caucuses.)Paradoxically, Mr. Trump may be all the stronger within the party because he served only one term. Many Republicans feel there is unfinished business to be settled after the Trump years. Many want a rematch to expunge the memory of defeat. The Republican right in particular feels that the battles Mr. Trump began over immigration, foreign policy, trade with China and the power of Big Tech in politics have yet to be played out.These are some of the themes that the party’s potential 2024 aspirants — Governor DeSantis, Senators Josh Hawley and Cruz, Nikki Haley (Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations) and others — continue to underscore, as do a legion of conservative commentators. With only one term to enact its agenda, the Trump administration is forgiven for not having achieved everything it set out to do, and its setbacks can be chalked up to Mr. Trump’s inexperience on entering office, the hostility of his media critics and the bad luck that the Covid-19 crisis struck in a re-election year. Two of these three conditions will not apply in 2024.What will apply, for better or worse, is the power of Mr. Trump and his agenda to galvanize voters and drive turnout — for both parties. In 2020 Mr. Trump received more votes — 74 million — than any other Republican nominee in history. That was over 11 million more votes than Mr. Trump won four years earlier. After everything that had happened in those years, and even amid the historic hardships of Covid, the Trump brand had actually grown its base of support.Credit…Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York TimesThis singular fact is seared into the minds of Republicans who look to the future, much as, after the 1964 election, forward-looking analysts like Kevin Phillips and the direct-mail innovator Richard Viguerie were more impressed by what Barry Goldwater had achieved in building a conservative movement of millions than by the fact of his loss. And Mr. Trump’s achievement was greater than Mr. Goldwater’s. Yet he lost, too; and many of the 81 million voters who elected President Biden seemed to be driven by antipathy to Mr. Trump and his politics, as indicated by the fact that many Biden voters did not vote for House Democrats.The lesson Republicans take from this is that Mr. Trump has discovered a potentially winning formula — if that formula’s power to attract voters to the Republican brand can be separated from the formula’s propensity to repel even larger numbers of voters who turn out to elect Democrats. More