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      What Democrats Don’t Understand About Rural America

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      NOBLEBORO, Maine — We say this with love to our fellow Democrats: Over the past decade, you willfully abandoned rural communities. As the party turned its focus to the cities and suburbs, its outreach became out of touch and impersonal. To rural voters, the message was clear: You don’t matter.Now, Republicans control dozens of state legislatures, and Democrats have only tenuous majorities in Congress at a time in history when we simply can’t afford to cede an inch. The party can’t wait to start correcting course. It may be too late to prevent a blowout in the fall, but the future of progressive politics — and indeed our democracy — demands that we revive our relationship with rural communities.As two young progressives raised in the country, we were dismayed as small towns like ours swung to the right. But we believed that Democrats could still win conservative rural districts if they took the time to drive down the long dirt roads where we grew up, have face-to-face conversations with moderate Republican and independent voters and speak a different language, one rooted in values rather than policy.It worked for us. As a 25-year-old climate activist with unabashedly progressive politics, Chloe was an unlikely choice to be competitive — let alone win — in a conservative district that falls mostly within the bounds of a rural Maine county that has the oldest population in the state. But in 2018, she won a State House seat there with almost 53 percent of the vote. Two years later, she ran for State Senate, challenging the highest-ranking Republican in state office, the Senate minority leader. And again, in one of the most rural districts in the state, voters chose the young, first-term Democrat who sponsored one of the first Green New Deal policies to pass a state legislature.To us, it was proof that the dogmas that have long governed American politics could and should be challenged. Over the past decade, many Democrats seem to have stopped trying to persuade people who disagreed with them, counting instead on demographic shifts they believed would carry them to victory — if only they could turn out their core supporters. The choice to prioritize turnout in Democratic strongholds over persuasion of moderate voters has cost the party election after election. But Democrats can run and win in communities that the party has written off — and they need not be Joe Manchin-like conservative Democrats to do so.This isn’t just a story about rural Maine. It’s about a nationwide pattern of neglect that goes back years. After the 2010 midterms, when the Democrats lost 63 House seats, Nancy Pelosi, then the House minority leader, disbanded the House Democratic Rural Working Group. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada later eliminated the Senate’s rural outreach group. By 2016, according to Politico’s Helena Bottemiller Evich, the Clinton campaign had only a single staff person doing rural outreach from its headquarters, in Brooklyn; the staffer had been assigned to the role just weeks before the election. And in 2018, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, told MSNBC, “You can’t door-knock in rural America.”We saw this pattern for ourselves. In 2019, the Maine Senate Democratic Campaign Committee told us that it didn’t believe in talking to Republicans. (The group’s executive director did not respond to a request seeking comment by press time.)That blinkered strategy is holding the party back. When Democrats talk only to their own supporters, they see but a small fraction of the changes roiling this country. Since 2008, residents of small towns have fallen behind cities on many major economic benchmarks, and they watched helplessly as more and more power and wealth were consolidated in cities. We saw up close the loss, hopelessness and frustration that reality has instilled.The current Democratic strategy doesn’t just lead to bad policy but also to bad politics. Our democracy rewards the party that can win support over large geographic areas. Ceding rural America leaves a narrow path to victory even in the best circumstances. When the landscape is more difficult, Democrats set themselves up for catastrophic defeat. But we don’t have to cede these parts of the country. Democrats have to change the way they think about them and relate to the voters who live there.What much of the party establishment doesn’t understand is that rural life is rooted in shared values of independence, common sense, tradition, frugality, community and hard work. Democratic campaigns often seem to revolve around white papers and wonky policy. In our experience, politicians lose rural people when they regurgitate politically triangulated lines and talk about the vagaries of policy. Rural folks vote on what rings true and personal to them: Can this person be trusted? Is he authentic?While these defeats ought to prompt real soul-searching within the party, some political scientists and many mainstream Democrats have taken them as proof not that their own strategies must change, but rather that rural Republicans are too ignorant to vote in their own best interest. It’s a counterproductive, condescending story that serves only to drive the wedge between Democrats and rural communities deeper yet.Chloe has knocked on more than 20,000 doors over the last two cycles, listening to stories of loss and isolation. One man told her she was the first person to listen to him; most campaigns, he said, didn’t even bother to knock on his door — they judged him for what his house looked like. Another voter said she had been undecided between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump until Election Day but ultimately voted for Mr. Trump because, she said, at the Republican convention, he talked about regular American working people, and Ms. Clinton didn’t at her own convention.Something has to change. The Democrats need a profoundly different strategy if they are to restore their reputation as champions of working people, committed to improving their lives, undaunted by wealth and power. In our view, the only way for Democrats to regain traction in rural places is by running strong campaigns in districts that usually back Republicans. This change starts with having face-to-face conversations to rebuild trust and faith not only in Democrats but also in the democratic process. Even though it’s hard work with no guaranteed outcome, it is necessary — even if we don’t win.In our two campaigns, we turned down the party consultants and created our own canvassing universe — the targeted list of voters whom we talk to during the election season. In 2020, this universe was four times larger than what the state party recommended. It included thousands of Republicans and independents who had (literally) never been contacted by a Democratic campaign in their entire time voting.Our campaign signs? Hand-painted or made of scavenged wood pallets by volunteers, with images of loons, canoes and other hallmarks of the Maine countryside. Into the trash went consultant-created mailers. Instead, we designed and carried out our own direct mail program for half the price of what the party consultants wanted to charge while reaching 20 percent more voters.Volunteers wrote more than 5,000 personal postcards, handwritten and addressed to neighbors in their own community. And we defied traditional advice by refusing to say a negative word about our opponents, no matter how badly we wanted to fight back as the campaigns grew more heated.When we first embarked down this road, the path was rocky. Chloe came home from canvassing distraught one day and dictated a voice memo to herself: “I talked to a lot of people I’ve known my whole life, and they wouldn’t commit to vote for me.” They knew she was a good person; the only reason they refused to support her was that she was a Democrat.Another day she met a couple who thought people should be able to snowmobile and hunt and fish and ride ATVs on protected lands. Chloe told them she agreed; while she considers herself extremely progressive, there are some things she thinks the left is too rigid on. Then the conversation turned to immigration, and the couple told her that undocumented immigrants should be separated from their kids. “I literally have no idea what to say to that besides just not getting into it,” Chloe reflected. “But is that being disingenuous? Is that not fighting the fight?”We heard some rough stuff, and we didn’t tolerate hate. But through the simple act of listening, we discovered that we could almost always catch a glimpse of common ground if we focused on values, not party or even policy. If people said they were fed up with politics, we’d say: “Us, too! That’s why we’re here.” If they despised Democrats, we’d tell them how we had deep issues with the party as well, and we were trying to make it better. It was how we differentiated ourselves from the national party and forged a sense of collective purpose.Slowly but surely, we thought we might be able to turn things around. A young mom who opened her door said that she couldn’t afford to take her child to the emergency room. She had never voted for a Democrat, but she committed to vote for us. There was a man with a Trump bumper sticker on his truck who, after talking with Chloe, put a Chloe Maxmin bumper sticker on his tailgate, too. There was a preacher who had never put up a political sign in his life until our campaign.Perhaps the most memorable experience was in 2018 at the end of a winding driveway on a cold fall day. Several men were in the garage, working on their snowmobiles. Chloe stepped out to greet them. “Hi, I’m Chloe, and I’m running for state representative.” The owner immediately responded with a question: Did she support Medicaid expansion? Chloe answered honestly that she did. The man pointed an angry finger toward the road and told her to leave.Taken aback, Chloe asked: “Hold on a second. What just happened? I’m honestly just interested to hear your perspective, even if you don’t vote for me.”This gentleman went on to tell his story, how he grew up on that very property without any electricity or running water; how he had worked hard to build a life for himself and his family, which included paying for his own health care without any help from the government. This was his way of life and what he believed in. It was an honest conversation, and by the end, he said he would vote for Chloe.Gradually, our own volunteers learned from Chloe how to find common ground. Despite the many doors shut in their faces, they largely succeeded.“Talked with a 43-year-old guy who announced that he wasn’t voting, that he was so depressed at the quality of people in office,” an old-timer who was one of our volunteers recounted in an email. By the end of their conversation, he was going to vote just for Chloe. “The fact that an older person is optimistic and working to elect young people is a great thing,” the voter told him.Another volunteer once called these conversations “a connection with each other and with something bigger that each one of us craves.”When Covid hit in March 2020, we tried a new way of fostering these connections, pausing the campaign and pivoting all our resources to supporting seniors struggling with the isolation and upheaval of the pandemic. With some 200 volunteers, we made more than 13,500 calls to seniors in the district — regardless of their political affiliation — and offered them rides, pharmacy pickups, connections to food banks, and a buddy to call them every day or week to check in.A volunteer spoke with an elderly woman who depended on the library for large-print books, but the libraries were closed. We found a bookstore that delivered some. Another volunteer talked with a gentleman who had no internet and therefore no access to the news. She bought him a subscription to The New York Times.The Democratic campaign leadership was eager to replicate our success but also fundamentally unequipped to understand what we were doing. At the height of the pandemic, we told the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee about our approach. Almost immediately the committee’s staff was instructed to tell Democratic candidates to make similar calls, but only to seniors within their “persuasion universe” — people whose votes they thought they could win. Specifically, people over 60 who were likely Democratic voters. We read this in horror and immediately wrote back, imploring the leaders to not limit the scope of the calls. They brushed us off.It was far from the only time party leaders told us they knew better than we did. In the final stretch of the 2018 campaign, they insisted that as part of their turnout effort they would send their people to conservative households that had told us Chloe was the only Democrat they would support. We were terrified that volunteers reciting a generic script, pushing folks to vote for Democrats up and down the ticket, would alienate the disaffected Republican voters whom we had worked so hard to persuade to vote for Chloe.We begged the party officials to reconsider. They refused. It wasn’t until the afternoon of Election Day that they backed down, telling us they were unable to mobilize enough volunteers to send down the back roads to the district. That experience only reinforced our belief that candidates should be able to control the resources that the party puts into districts, so that they can iterate and improve on the one-size-fits-all strategies that the Democrats tend to employ.After both successful campaigns, we asked ourselves: Is our strategy something that can be replicated? We scaled up our approach in 2020 to solidify some of our tactics, such as focusing on canvassing voters whom the party had given up on, eschewing consultants and leaning into values-driven messaging. But, at the same time, we knew that the back roads of Maine were unique; the roads of Georgia, Wisconsin, Washington or Utah might require their own strategy. A state or local campaign is an easier ship to turn than a U.S. Senate campaign and better situated to buck consultants and bring a different politics to folks’ doorsteps. We certainly don’t have all the answers; all we can hope is that our example will help persuade candidates to try, to recommit themselves to rural places, to listen, to learn and to evolve.As Democrats, we feel every day the profound urgency of our times, the existential necessity of racial justice, the impending doom of the climate crisis, the imperative to reform our criminal justice system, and so much more. At the same time, as a party we’ve made some big mistakes as we walk down the road to a better world. Abandoning rural voters could be one of the costliest.But it’s not too late to make amends, to rebuild our relationship with the quiet roads of rural America. We have to hit the ground running, today, this cycle, and recommit ourselves to the kind of politics that reaches every corner of our country.Chloe Maxmin (@chloemaxmin) is a state senator in Maine. Canyon Woodward (@CanyonWoodward) was her campaign manager in 2018 and 2020. Their book, “Dirt Road Revival,” comes out on May 10.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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      Democrats’ Mystery: How to Brighten a Presidency and a National Mood

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      LAKEWOOD, Ohio — At a Whole Foods in one moderate Cleveland suburb, shoppers recently worried about war, inflation, a “scary” political climate — and a Democratic Party some saw as slow to address the nation’s burning problems.At a house party for a left-wing congressional candidate across town, attendees fretted over the high cost of living and exorbitant student loan debt as they weighed their choices in Ohio’s primary elections on Tuesday.And at a campaign event for Representative Shontel Brown here in Lakewood, a liberal city near Cleveland, not everyone seemed impressed by President Biden.“He’s OK,” allowed Yolanda Pace-Owens, 46, who works in security. She said that she had voted for Mr. Biden and still admired him, but that she was alarmed by a pandemic-era rise in violent crime. “We just got to do better,” she said.Nearly six months before the midterm elections, Mr. Biden and the Democrats face staggering challenges and signs of dampened enthusiasm among nearly every constituency that powered their 2020 presidential and 2018 midterm victories, according to polls and more than two dozen interviews with voters, elected officials and party strategists across the country.Yet Democrats are still struggling with how to even discuss the nation’s greatest challenges — much less reach a consensus on how to right the ship.The party’s problems run deep, as Mr. Biden’s lead pollster has privately warned the White House for months. Independent voters backed Mr. Biden in 2020, but his approval rating with independents now hovers in the 30s. He has underperformed with voters of color in some surveys. Warning signs have emerged among suburban voters. And Mr. Biden’s approval rating has deteriorated with young people even though he won them overwhelmingly in 2020.Yolanda Pace-Owens said that she admired Mr. Biden but that “we just got to do better.” Dustin Franz for The New York TimesIn a midterm environment heavily shaped by the president’s approval rating, all of those numbers are gravely worrying for Democratic candidates, who are left with tough questions about how to engage unsettled voters and reinvigorate their base.How much time should they spend trying to show voters they grasp the pain of inflation, compared with efforts to remind them of low unemployment? Should they pursue ambitious policies that show Democrats are fighters, or is it enough to hope for more modest victories while emphasizing all that the party has passed already?A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The 2022 election season is underway. See the full primary calendar and a detailed state-by-state breakdown.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.And even when candidates try to tell that story, is anyone listening?“Voters hear us, but I don’t know that we have convinced voters as to how these things will affect them on a personal level,” Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking House Democrat, said in a recent interview. “We’re not connecting with the voters on the level that they can connect with.”As Mr. Biden confronts the lingering pandemic, war in Ukraine and historical headwinds — the president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections — he has acknowledged his party’s messaging challenges, worrying recently that amid crises, “we haven’t sold the American people what we’ve actually done.”The president, a consummate retail politician who some Democrats had hoped would be more visible, is now pursuing a more robust travel schedule to sell his party’s agenda and accomplishments, and he is highlighting some contrasts with Republicans.Consumers across the country are seeing a rise in the price of everyday items, like $8.29 for a gallon of milk at a Whole Foods grocery store in Rocky River, Ohio.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesHao Pham of Cleveland filling his S.U.V. with gas, the price of which has increased.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesAllies and some voters note that polling is partially driven by anger over extraordinary events, including the war’s impact on gas prices, that the White House could not fully control. But Mr. Biden’s advisers say that the president is working to demonstrate that Democrats understand voters’ struggles and are moving to fix them, as the party’s lawmakers make a fresh push for a range of legislative priorities, especially concerning prices. On Thursday, Mr. Biden also said that he was considering wiping out some student loan debt.A new Washington Post-ABC poll also showed some positive signs for Mr. Biden and the Democrats, though Republicans retained significant advantages on issues including inflation, the economy and crime.“While President Biden and Democrats work to lower costs and continue the historic economic recovery made possible by the American Rescue Plan, Republicans have done everything they can to try to stand in the way,” Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.Yet months of national polls show that Americans have a vastly different perception of the party in power. Even in overwhelmingly liberal Los Angeles, private Democratic polling in April found Mr. Biden’s favorability rating at only 58 percent, according to a person with direct knowledge of the data.Democratic tensions over messaging have been on display in Ohio, where candidates in this week’s primaries reflect the full spectrum of competing views.Ms. Brown, who faces a contested primary in a safely Democratic seat and was endorsed by Mr. Biden, is running hard on the bipartisan infrastructure law.She echoed other House Democrats in promoting the message that “Democrats have been delivering.”But Biden advisers have privately indicated that pitch tests poorly as a party slogan. And at another Ohio event in late April, Nina Turner, a former state senator who is challenging Ms. Brown from the left in a rematch, suggested that Democrats had not delivered nearly enough.She urged, among other priorities, universal cancellation of student debt — or, at a minimum, canceling $10,000 in federal student debt per borrower (Ms. Brown also supports some student debt forgiveness measures). Mr. Biden, who endorsed the $10,000 goal in 2020, has postponed payments, and significant student debt has been erased during his tenure, but some have called on him to do much more. He may take further action, and there is still time to make more progress on the Democratic agenda.But for now, many on the left are disappointed that Democrats, despite controlling Washington, have run aground in the divided Senate on priorities like the climate and voting rights.“People can forgive you, even if you can’t get something done,” Ms. Turner said. “What they don’t like is when you’re not fighting. And we need to see more of a fighting spirit among the Democratic Party.”Nina Turner, a progressive House candidate in Ohio, held a gathering with supporters to talk about issues they prioritized.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesOn the other end of the party’s ideological spectrum is Representative Tim Ryan, a moderate Ohio Democrat running for Senate in a state that has veered rightward. He is casting himself as a fighter for the working class and highlighting measures like the infrastructure law, while seeking some cultural and political distance from many others in his party.In an interview, Mr. Ryan cheered a ruling to eliminate mask mandates on airlines and public transportation, which is now being challenged. “Masks suck,” he said. “I think we’re all tired of it.”Asked which national Democratic surrogates he would welcome, he cited Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Senator Jon Tester of Montana and Senator Gary Peters of Michigan — but asked specifically about Mr. Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Ryan said: “This is my race. I’m going to be the face of this.” (Biden advisers noted that the president has recently appeared with Democrats in competitive races.)And as of Friday, Mr. Ryan was one of seven Democratic candidates who have run ads this year that mentioned inflation, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. By contrast, dozens of Republican candidates and allied groups have done the same. In polls, Americans have cited inflation as a top issue.“Burying your head in the sand,” Mr. Ryan said, “is not the way to approach it.” Asked about the biggest challenges facing his party, he replied, “A response to the inflation piece is a big hurdle.”He also cited “a national brand that is not seen as connected to the working-class people, whether they’re white or Black or brown.”Representative Tim Ryan, center right, and Michael S. Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, met in April at a home in Youngstown, Ohio, where lead pipes are set to be replaced thanks to new federal funding.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesLou McMahon, a registered Democrat who said he did not vote in the last two presidential elections because he did not like his choices, sounded open to Mr. Ryan in an interview at Ms. Brown’s event. But asked to assess Democrats in Washington generally, he replied, “Promise, but not delivered,” citing both stalled legislative ambitions and Mr. Biden’s pledge to help heal partisan divisions.“The targets and the aspirations were maybe beyond the reach,” said Mr. McMahon, 58, an environmental lawyer. “The reuniting that was so much of the promise hasn’t played out in reality quite that way.”Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic strategist and a pollster on Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign, said that “there’s nobody in America more deeply disappointed in how divided America is than Joe Biden.”“He does communicate it, but I think it helps a lot when he’s on the road,” she said.Republicans face their own midterm difficulties. Many candidates have adopted former President Donald J. Trump’s relentless focus on the false notion of a stolen 2020 election, a stance that swing voters may dismiss as extreme. In some primaries, the party runs the risk of nominating seriously flawed general-election candidates.Democratic officials hope their prospects will brighten as primary contests are settled and candidates draw sharper direct contrasts with their opponents — and they are already trying to define that choice.On one side, they say, are bomb-throwing Republicans who are caught up in cultural battles, fealty to Trumpism and a controversial tax and social safety net proposal. On the other, Democrats argue, is a party that passed major infrastructure and pandemic relief measures, and spearheaded the confirmation of the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. Mr. Biden has also moved to combat gun violence, confronting Republican efforts to portray Democrats as weak on crime.Many Democratic candidates are also raising vast sums of money, a sign of voter engagement.“Our members have a great record of results, and the other side is offering nothing except anger and fear,” said Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the chair of the House Democratic campaign arm. “My message is: We’re getting good things done. We’re part of the solution. Give us a little more time.”Time indeed remains, and Democrats could reverse their fortunes in an unpredictable environment — but it is also possible that in the fall, the outlook will be largely unchanged.“The problem with midterm elections is, they’re not really a choice,” said David Axelrod, who served as a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama. “They tend to be a referendum on the party that controls the White House.” More

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      Drug Sentencing Bill Is in Limbo as Midterm Politics Paralyze Congress

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      A broadly supported bipartisan measure to eliminate a racial disparity in drug sentencing faces a difficult road as Republicans seek to weaponize the issue of crime against Democrats.WASHINGTON — The Equal Act would appear to be a slam dunk even in a badly divided Congress.The legislation, which aims to end a longstanding racial disparity in federal prison sentences for drug possession, passed the House overwhelmingly last year, with more than 360 votes. It has been enthusiastically embraced on the left and right and by law enforcement as a long-overdue fix for a biased policy. It has filibuster-proof bipartisan support in the Senate and the endorsement of President Biden and the Justice Department.Yet with control of Congress at stake and Republicans weaponizing a law-and-order message against Democrats in their midterm election campaigns, the fate of the measure is in doubt. Democrats worry that bringing it up would allow Republicans to demand a series of votes that could make them look soft on crime and lax on immigration — risks they are reluctant to take months before they face voters.Even the measure’s Republican backers concede that bringing it to the floor could lead to an array of difficult votes.“I assume the topic opens itself pretty wide,” said Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, who became the 11th member of his party to sign on to the Equal Act this month, giving its supporters more than the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural obstacles.The drug legislation is not the only bipartisan bill caught in a midterm political squeeze. A multibillion-dollar Covid relief package has been languishing for weeks, as Republicans insist that consideration of the measure must include a vote on retaining pandemic-era immigration restrictions that the Biden administration wants to lift.Democrats are increasingly at odds with the administration over its plan to wind down the public-health rule, known as Title 42. A vote would underscore that division and potentially open some of them to a politically difficult vote.Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, became the 11th member of his party to sign on to the legislation this month.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesThe uncertainty surrounding the bipartisan bills is a clear sign that if legislating on Capitol Hill is not already done for the year, that moment is fast approaching.Given the calendar, virtually any legislation that reaches the floor is bound to attract trouble. Even consensus measures are at risk unless enough supporters in both parties agree to band together to reject politically difficult votes that could lend themselves to 30-second attack ads — the kind of deal that grows more difficult to reach each passing day.There are exceptions. A request by Mr. Biden this week to send an additional $33 billion in aid to Ukraine to bolster the war effort is expected to draw broad bipartisan support and little dispute. Democrats are still hopeful they may be able to salvage pieces of a hulking social safety net and climate package under special rules that allow them to move forward without Republican support. But that, too, could require a series of votes orchestrated by the G.O.P. to make Democrats squirm.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The 2022 election season is underway. See the full primary calendar and a detailed state-by-state breakdown.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.“What’s hurting bipartisanship is that even when there’s enough Republican support to pass a bill, the hard-right militants sabotage it to score political points, and gridlock prevails,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader. “But there’s always hope that cooler heads prevail, and occasionally they do.”Backers of the Equal Act and other criminal justice legislation said they hoped that was true for them. They insist that they can still get their bill passed this year, and that opposition will backfire politically.“This is a real opportunity for bipartisan achievement to eliminate one of the worst vestiges of injustice from American drug policy,” said Holly Harris, the president and executive director of the Justice Action Network and a leading proponent of criminal justice changes. “Those who seek to thwart this opportunity for 15 minutes of fame, five minutes of fame — I don’t think that’s going to be rewarded by voters.”The measure has bipartisan support in the Senate and the endorsement of President Biden and the Justice Department.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesIn a letter to Senate leaders this week, Ms. Harris’s group and about 50 law enforcement, progressive and conservative organizations urged them to quickly take up the legislation, saying that “we cannot miss this moment to right this decades-long wrong.”The legislation would eliminate the current 18-to-1 disparity in sentencing for crack cocaine versus powder. The policy that can be traced to the “war on drugs” mind-set of the 1980s, which treated those trafficking in crack cocaine more harshly. It resulted in a disproportionate number of Black Americans facing longer sentences for drug offenses than white Americans, who were usually arrested with the powder version.As a senator, Mr. Biden was one of the champions of the policy; it has since become widely discredited, and he has disavowed it.The United States Sentencing Commission has said that passage of the legislation could reduce the sentences of more than 7,600 federal prisoners. The average 14-year sentence would be cut by about six years, it estimated.Though Mr. Schumer endorsed the legislation in April, he has not laid out a timeline for bringing it to the floor. Democrats say he is giving backers of the bill a chance to build additional support and find a way to advance the measure without causing a floor fight that could take weeks — time that Democrats do not have if they want to continue to win approval of new judges and take care of other business before the end of the year.“Getting the opportunity is the challenge,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and one of the original sponsors of the legislation. “We just don’t move many free-standing bills which involve some controversy.”Its supporters say that they recognize the difficulties but believe that it is the single piece of criminal justice legislation with a chance of reaching the president’s desk in the current political environment.“Of all the criminal justice bills, this is the one that is set up for success right now,” said Inimai Chettiar, the federal director for the Justice Action Network. “It is not going to be easy on the floor, but I think it is doable.”The problem is that the push comes as top Republicans have made clear that they intend to try to capitalize on public concern about increasing crime in the battle for Senate and House control in November.The approach was crystallized in their attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings last month, as they accused her of leniency in sentencing. Given the rise in crime and drug overdoses, some Republicans say they are also having second thoughts about the landmark First Step Act, a sweeping bipartisan law passed in 2018 that freed thousands from prison after their sentences were reduced in a bid to ease mass incarceration.Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, this week reprised his criticism of Judge Jackson and attacked Mr. Biden for having issued his first round of pardons and commutations, including for those convicted of drug crimes.“They never miss an opportunity to send the wrong signal,” he said of Democrats.Senator Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican who led the opposition to the First Step Act, said he was in no mood to let the Equal Act sail through. He has said that if the disparity is to be erased, penalties for powder cocaine should be increased.Demonstrators at a criminal justice reform rally in Washington in 2018.Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images“My opposition to the Equal Act will be as strong as my opposition to the First Step Act,” Mr. Cotton said.The legislation encountered another complication on Thursday, when Senators Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Mike Lee of Utah, two top Republican supporters of the previous criminal justice overhaul, introduced a competing bill that would reduce — but not eliminate — the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. They said that research showed that crack traffickers were more likely to return to crime and carry deadly weapons.“Our legislation will significantly reduce this disparity while ensuring those more likely to reoffend face appropriate penalties,” said Mr. Grassley, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.Sponsors of the Equal Act say they intend to push forward and remain optimistic that they can overcome the difficulties.“We’ve got an amazing bill, and we’ve got 11 Republicans and people want to get this done,” said Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey and the lead sponsor of the legislation. “My hope is that we are going to have a shot to get this done right now.”Ms. Harris said that Democrats must recognize Republicans will attack them as soft on crime regardless of whether they act on the measure.“They are fearing something that is already happening,” she said. “Why not dig in, stay true to your principles, and do what is right for the American people? Maybe, just maybe, the politics will shake out.” More

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      How N.Y. Democrats Lost a Critical Redistricting Battle

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      When an independent redistricting commission failed to reach consensus, Democratic leaders decided to make their own maps and risk a lawsuit.It was 2020, more than a year before New York began its once-in-a-decade redistricting process, when Carl Heastie, the Assembly speaker, foresaw a problem.New York voters had empowered a bipartisan commission to guide the task of drafting new legislative maps for the House and local state districts. But Mr. Heastie worried that constitutional language behind the new process would give incentive to Republicans to undermine the commission, according to two Democrats familiar with the discussions.If the commission failed to complete its work, Republicans could try to push the mapmaking process directly to the courts, rather than the Democrat-dominated Legislature.With a handful of crucial House and State Senate seats hanging in the balance, that outcome could have been disastrous for Democrats. They drafted a constitutional amendment to head off Republicans, but voters soundly rejected it last November. Lawmakers then tried another workaround, passing a bill authorizing the Legislature to act if the commission failed to complete its work.Mr. Heastie’s fears came to pass in January, when Republican commissioners refused to approve a final recommendation to the Legislature.But rather than defer to the courts, Democratic leaders decided to make a bet: They disregarded the commission’s work, unilaterally approved maps that positioned their party to pick up key House seats, and hoped that their legal change would withstand scrutiny.Carl Heastie, the Assembly speaker, had warned colleagues that a new redistricting commission might intentionally deadlock.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesOn Wednesday, the Democrats’ maneuver imploded.In a sharply worded decision, the New York State Court of Appeals said that the Legislature’s actions violated the State Constitution, accusing Democratic leaders of placing partisan interests above the will of the voters who, in 2014, created the commission and outlawed partisan gerrymandering.A majority of the seven-judge panel — all appointed by Democrats — explicitly found fault with Mr. Heastie’s attempted procedural fix, ruled that the congressional maps had been “drawn with impermissible partisan purpose,” and empowered a court-appointed special master to redraft the congressional and State Senate lines.The ruling threw New York politics into chaos and scrambled the national fight for control of the House of Representatives this fall.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Deepening Divides: As political mapmakers create lopsided new district lines, the already polarized parties are being pulled even farther apart.“Any Democrat in New York today who you get on the phone and tells you anything other than this was an unmitigated disaster, is just not telling you the truth,” said Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who helps lead the Republicans’ national redistricting effort.Democrats had been counting on the new maps in New York to provide as many as three new House seats, offsetting expected Republican gains through redistricting in other states.The final outcome of the 2022 battlefield may still depend on whether Florida courts strike down Republicans’ new map there as a gerrymander. But for now, Republicans appear poised to best the Democrats nationally for the second consecutive redistricting cycle, making it increasingly difficult for Democrats to hold onto their slim House majority.The situation in New York was even more tenuous. Not only will it take a court-appointed special master weeks to draw new lines — significantly scrambling contests that have already been going on for months — but election lawyers said on Thursday that they were not certain how the state could even comply with the order and other election-related requirements.For instance, while it at first appeared that primaries for statewide offices like governor and lieutenant governor had not been affected by the ruling, those contests may be called into question, after all. To qualify for the ballot, the State Board of Elections requires candidates for statewide office to collect petitions from voters in multiple congressional districts. No one could immediately say whether those petitions, filed weeks ago, were now invalid.“Boy, that could really upend the elections much more than I originally thought,” said Jerry H. Goldfeder, a Democratic elections lawyer who wrote a leading textbook on New York election law, as he puzzled through the ruling Thursday morning.Mr. Goldfeder and other Democrats strenuously disagreed with the Court of Appeals’ decision, the first time in half a century that the judges have struck down a map approved by lawmakers. They called it judicial overreach and heaped blame back on Republicans, who they say intentionally sabotaged the commission’s work in hopes of achieving the outcome they ultimately won in court.“It would have been impossible for us to actually meet the threshold laid out by the Court of Appeals because the Republicans refused to come to a meeting to vote,” said David Imamura, the Democratic appointee who chaired the redistricting commission.He called the current system “unworkable” and warned that the Court of Appeals decision, while attempting to vindicate the will of the voters, would actually ensure that one party or the other always has a political incentive to deprive the Legislature of the ability to draw lines.Jack Martins, Mr. Imamura’s Republican counterpart, did not return requests for comment.In reality, both parties entered this year’s redistricting cycle knowing that the commission was legally untested and had serious flaws that made it different from those that have worked in other states.Created out of a compromise between former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Republicans who controlled the Senate at the time, the panel consisted of even numbers of Democratic and Republican appointees. It lacked clear incentives to compromise, and its work could always be overruled by the Legislature if lawmakers rejected two consecutive proposals by the body.But voters, sick of years of political mapmaking in New York, enthusiastically enshrined it in the State Constitution alongside language outlawing partisan gerrymandering.For a time, the commission appeared to be working. That changed late last year, when the members began to draft final congressional, State Senate and Assembly maps. Rather than sending the Legislature one set of maps to consider in January, the commission sent competing partisan maps.When those maps were rejected, the commission simply collapsed without submitting a second proposal required by the State Constitution, eventually laying the groundwork for the Republicans to sue.Democratic lawmakers insist that after the commission failed, they proceeded in good faith, acting on what courts in New York have long recognized as the authority of the representative branch of government to draw maps.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Labor’s Disenchantment in Ohio Puts Even Democratic Veterans at Risk

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      TOLEDO, Ohio — Representative Marcy Kaptur, the blue-collar daughter of this blue-collar city, is on the cusp of a milestone: If elected in November to her 21st term, she will become the longest-serving female member of Congress, breaking Barbara Mikulski’s combined House and Senate record.But for Ms. Kaptur, 75, a famously pro-union, old-school appropriator, the political ground has washed away beneath her feet. A new Republican-drawn district has robbed her of reliable Democratic votes on the outskirts of Cleveland. The national Democratic Party has saddled her with an agenda of phasing out internal combustion engines and the fossil fuels that power them that sits poorly in the region that put the first Jeeps into mass production.And Donald J. Trump rattled the underpinnings of Democratic appeal to labor, with his trade protectionism, thundering denunciations of China and professed belief in job creation at all cost.As Republican voters go to the polls on Tuesday to select Ms. Kaptur’s opponent for the fall election, some of her oldest, firmest allies in the union world are having their doubts — about Ms. Kaptur’s future, and more broadly, the future of the Democratic Party in the industrial heartland.“Listen, Marcy is a friend,” said Shaun Enright, executive secretary and business manager of the 17,000-strong Northwest Ohio Building Trades Council. “But I have to go to membership, whatever the election cycle is, and say, ‘This is the most important election of your life. You have to vote.’ And I’m tired of doing it. Members are tired of hearing it.”Ms. Kaptur’s longevity was supposed to underscore a truism that union families knew their friends and would not abandon them. Democratic senators like Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia have banked on it. Representative Tim Ryan is testing it with his run for an Ohio Senate seat that so far has revolved around blue-collar appeals.Mr. Trump would have won Ms. Kaptur’s newly drawn district by three percentage points, but in the parts that overlapped the old map, Ms. Kaptur outperformed Joseph R. Biden Jr. by six percentage points, giving some hope — at least numerically — that her name recognition, long record and general popularity could still deliver that 41st year in Congress.“My service has now afforded me the ability to make a difference,” she said in an interview, boasting of her seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee and her chairmanship of the subcommittee that doles out energy and water funding.Ms. Kaptur with President Biden last year. The national Democrats’ policy goals, especially on energy, are harder to sell in her district.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut her struggle to reach that historical mark attests to what Republicans and some union leaders here have been saying since the rise of Trumpism: Labor politics have changed forever. There are fewer union voters, and the ones who remain are less Democratic, said Jeff Broxmeyer, a political scientist at the University of Toledo. Since 1990, the percentage of Ohio workers represented by unions has slipped from 23.2 percent to 13 percent.“The organizational capacity of the Democratic Party in northwest Ohio is the organizational capacity of organized labor, and organized labor is much diminished,” he said. “Now we’re at the endgame.”The State of Jobs in the United StatesJob openings and the number of workers voluntarily leaving their positions in the United States remained near record levels in March.March Jobs Report: U.S. employers added 431,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent ​​in the third month of 2022.Job Market and Stocks: This year’s decline in stock prices follows a historical pattern: Hot labor markets and stocks often don’t mix well.New Career Paths: For some, the Covid-19 crisis presented an opportunity to change course. Here is how these six people pivoted professionally.Return to the Office: Many companies are loosening Covid safety rules, leaving people to navigate social distancing on their own. Some workers are concerned.The state legislature lopped off the tail of Ms. Kaptur’s oddly drawn district along Lake Erie — nicknamed the Snake on the Lake — then extended it west through rural Ohio to the Indiana border. That, Professor Broxmeyer said, signaled that Republicans “are coming for the last Democrat.”It was not that long ago, 2012, that Barack Obama won Ohio’s union families, 61 percent to Mitt Romney’s 37 percent. But Mr. Trump took 54 percent of those same voters in 2016, then 55 percent in 2020. While on the coasts, prognosticators fret over the former president’s continued hold on the Republican Party, in northwest Ohio, the party’s embrace of Trump-era protectionism, immigration exclusion and anti-environmentalism is cheered heartily.“A lot of those union workers, they’re not happy with their unions right now,” said Craig Riedel, a state representative running in the Republican primary to challenge Ms. Kaptur. “They realize that a lot of those union bosses, they’re part of the Democratic machine, and oftentimes, they’re looking at a political outlook of their unions that is in disalignment with their own.”Union leaders agree that it is becoming much more difficult to paper over disagreements between local Democrats and their national party when Trump-aligned Republican candidates are using the same anti-China, anti-trade rhetoric that Ohio Democrats use. Erika White, president of the Communications Workers of America local in northwest Ohio, said Mr. Trump had given voice to the anger of white workers, even if he did not deliver on his promises.Ms. White, who is Black, said she spends much of her time listening to the frustrations of the white men who make up about half of her union.“I personally cannot stand the guy, but you think of his persona,” she said of Mr. Trump. “Where people are, I don’t know if they’re afraid of accountability or where we’re headed, but instead of personal responsibility, they say, ‘I’d rather blame you for all my problems, and then not only am I going to blame you, I’m going to be mean and aggressive with it.’”Erika White, president of a union local, said Mr. Trump had given voice to the anger of white workers, even if he did not deliver on his promises.Cydni Elledge for The New York TimesMs. Kaptur sees it too, and sees Mr. Trump’s appeal, despite his failure to deliver tangible benefits.“Our party, for the most part, is very coastally oriented,” she said, adding, “Our part of the country just doesn’t have much voice, and so partly what he reflects is that vacuum of people feeling left out, and I can understand that.”In Toledo, a burning issue is a natural gas and crude oil pipeline called Line Five that runs on the floor of the Great Lakes from Canada to Ohio, supplying a refinery here that employs 1,200 union workers.The Democratic administration of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan has labeled it a “ticking time bomb” that needs to be shut down, and allies in the environmental movement say workers need to face reality: As the auto industry shifts to electric vehicles, oil pipelines and refineries will no longer be needed.But what national Democrats see as a planetary imperative, union leaders like Mr. Enright see as an immediate mortal threat, and they fully expect the politicians they back to fight for their jobs. That means keeping Line Five open and the shift to electric vehicles in the lowest possible gear.“Democrats say they’re the ones working on behalf of people’s pocketbooks, but how do I tell my members that’s the guy working to help your pocketbook when that’s the guy who is shutting down the pipeline to your refinery?” Mr. Enright asked.An issue like Line Five is easy for the Republicans in the race. It unites unions and business, without alienating any other constituency.Theresa Gavarone, a state senator, is a leading Republican in the campaign to run against Ms. Kaptur in the fall.Cydni Elledge for The New York Times“I mean, it’s 1,200 direct jobs, and thousands of indirect jobs, which include union workers in good paying jobs, and Marcy Kaptur has been silent,” said State Senator Theresa Gavarone, a leading Republican in the race, as she shook hands at Archbold High School in the rural west of the newly drawn district.Ms. Gavarone has used the Line Five issue to make allies in the building trades unions, and used those allies to separate herself from Mr. Riedel, who is openly anti-union.Ms. Kaptur responded defensively, but she also showed the crosscurrents she faces. As chairwoman of the Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee, she said she had done what she could to protect and move to strengthen the pipeline. But she also leads the Great Lakes Caucus in the House, and protecting the largest body of freshwater on Earth, she said, also has to be a priority.That Mr. Trump never seemed bothered by such conflicts frustrates her, and she does not seem clear on how to overcome his appeal in a region drained by globalization and left behind, first by free trade, then by the changing priorities of environmental protection and an information and technology economy.But she is perfectly clear about her constituents’ point of view.“He was able to prick the despair that results from economic opportunity being jerked out from under you like a rug, and he was able to do it even though he didn’t do anything for them,” Ms. Kaptur fumed. “These are people who’ve worked hard all their lives, and then an earthquake happened. That’s not their fault, and largely Washington never saw it.” More

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      Democrats Lose Control of N.Y. Election Maps, as Top Court Rejects Appeal

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      The Court of Appeals said Democrats violated the State Constitution and ignored the will of the voters. The judges ordered a court-appointed expert to draw replacements.New York’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that Democratic leaders had violated the State Constitution when they took it upon themselves to draw new congressional and State Senate districts, and ordered that a court-appointed special master draft replacement lines for this year’s critical midterm elections.In a sweeping 32-page ruling, a divided New York State Court of Appeals chided Democrats for ignoring a constitutional amendment adopted by voters in 2014 to curb political influence in the redistricting process. The amendment also created a new outside commission to guide the process.The judges additionally found that the congressional districts designed by Democrats violated an explicit state ban on partisan gerrymandering, undercutting the party’s national campaign to brand itself as the champion of voting rights.Writing for the four-judge majority, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said that Democratic lawmakers created congressional and State Senate maps in a way that was “procedurally unconstitutional,” and that the congressional map in particular was “drawn with impermissible partisan purpose.”The ruling, which is not subject to appeal, was expected to delay the June 28 party primaries for the congressional and State Senate districts until August, to allow time for new maps to be drawn and for candidates to collect petitions to qualify for the ballot.The verdict delivered a stinging defeat to Democrats in Albany and in Washington and cast this year’s election cycle into deep uncertainty.Party leaders had been hopeful that the Court of Appeals, with all seven judges appointed by Democratic governors, would overturn earlier decisions by a Republican judge in Steuben County and a bipartisan appeals court in Rochester.Instead, the high court issued an even more damning verdict that denied the Democrat-dominated State Legislature a chance to redraw the maps itself. That task, the judges said, should be handled by a politically neutral special master, who would be overseen by a trial court.National Democrats had been counting on the New York congressional maps adopted in February to deliver as many as three new seats this fall and offset redistricting gains by Republicans across the country. Now, with Democratic gains likely to be erased or minimized in New York, Republicans are on track to make modest gains nationally, easing their path to retaking control of the House of Representatives this fall.Democrats were likewise expecting the State Senate maps they adopted in February to help safeguard the party’s supermajority in Albany.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Deepening Divides: As political mapmakers create lopsided new district lines, the already polarized parties are being pulled even farther apart.Wednesday’s decision was a milestone in New York jurisprudence, the first time since the 1960s that the Court of Appeals has struck down district lines approved by lawmakers in their once-in-a-decade redistricting process.But the ruling is part of a growing trend across the nation in which state courts have taken up more active stances against partisan gerrymandering as federal courts have been removed from these battles by the Supreme Court.This year alone, state courts in Ohio, North Carolina, Kansas and Maryland have scrapped plans put in place by lawmakers because they ran afoul of state constitutional language outlawing partisan mapmaking, like that adopted by New York voters in 2014. The courts are widely expected to scrutinize new lines in Florida that overwhelmingly favor Republicans, as well.“States can be the laboratories of redistricting reforms,” said Samuel Wang, the director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. “And this just goes to show that if a state court is willing to look carefully to its constitution and laws, it will find principals that can restrict the most extreme partisan acts.”Unlike New York, though, some of those courts have indicated they will allow 2022 elections to take place on tainted maps, potentially putting Democrats at a greater disadvantage nationally.The judges in New York were silent on whether to reschedule primary elections for other contested seats — including for governor, lieutenant governor and the State Assembly — leaving it to a trial court judge, Patrick F. McAllister, and the State Board of Elections to work out the details with “all due haste.” The board said Wednesday evening that it did “not foresee” moving those contests.But the judges appeared to bless the idea of separating them, pointing out that New York has a history of holding bifurcated primaries. They were more explicit in rejecting Democrats’ plea to allow this year’s elections to proceed on tainted lines and fix them later.“We reject this invitation to subject the people of this state to an election conducted pursuant to an unconstitutional reapportionment,” Judge DiFiore wrote in the majority opinion.Justice McAllister has already appointed Jonathan Cervas, a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, as special master to draw the congressional and State Senate lines by late May.Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said Wednesday afternoon that she was reviewing the decision. Michael Murphy, a spokesman for Senate Democrats, said they still “believe in the constitutionality” of their maps and plan to argue their case to the special master.Republicans and several nonpartisan public interest groups lauded the decision.“The will of the people prevailed over the Corrupt Albany Machine in a tremendous victory for democracy, fair elections & the Constitution!” Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a New York City Republican, wrote on Twitter.Ms. Malliotakis’s Staten Island-based district was among several that the Democrats’ congressional map would have made more challenging for Republicans, in her case by adding liberal voters from Park Slope in Brooklyn. The map also created new Democratic pickup opportunities on the eastern end of Long Island and in Central New York, and shored up Democrat-held swing seats in the Hudson Valley, by cramming conservative voters into just a handful of districts.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Democrats Ask if They Should Hit Back Harder Against the G.O.P.

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      Many of the party’s voters are hungry for their candidates to go on offense against Republican cultural attacks, even if it puts them on less comfortable political terrain.If Democrats could bottle Mallory McMorrow, the Michigan state senator who gave a widely viewed speech condemning Republicans’ push to limit discussions about gender and sexuality in schools, they would do it.McMorrow’s big moment, which we wrote about on Monday, made her an instant political celebrity on the left. Her Twitter following has rocketed past 220,000. Democrats raising money for state legislative races have already found her to be a fund-raising powerhouse.McMorrow’s five minutes of fury was so effective, Democrats said, in part because it was so rare.It tapped into a frustration many Democrats feel about their party leaders’ hesitation to engage in these cultural firestorms, said Wendy Davis, a former Texas lawmaker whose filibuster of an abortion bill in 2013 made her a national political figure.‘What we’re fighting for’“There comes a point when you simply need to stand up and fight back,” Davis said.“The strategy of not meeting the right wing where they are can only take you so far,” she added. “I think people have been really hungry to see Democrats pushing back and pushing back strongly, like Mallory did.”Other Democrats are urging candidates to defend their beliefs more aggressively, rather than ignoring or deflecting Republicans’ cultural attacks by changing the subject to pocketbook issues.“Democrats are afraid to talk about why we’re fighting about what we’re fighting for,” said Tré Easton, a progressive strategist. “It was exactly the kind of values-focused rebuttal that I want every Democrat to sound like.”Finding the messageAnother lesson of McMorrow’s speech, said Rebecca Katz, a senior adviser to Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, is that voters are searching for authenticity and passion rather than lock-step ideological agreement.“Voters want candidates who talk like actual people instead of slick, poll-tested performers,” Katz said. “They like candidates who are unfiltered, not calculated and scripted. And even if they don’t always agree with you, if a candidate is direct and honest, voters tend to respect that.”Fetterman, who is leading polls ahead of the May 17 primary, is a progressive aligned with the Bernie Sanders wing of the party. His main opponent is Representative Conor Lamb, a centrist from a suburban district outside Pittsburgh. Fetterman has worked to reassure Democratic Party leaders in and outside the state that he is not too far left to win a seat that is crucial to their hopes of retaining their Senate majority.But the fault lines within the party are about how to communicate with the public just as much as they are about traditional arguments between progressives and moderates.Party strategists in Washington, led by centrist lawmakers facing tough re-election bids, have settled on a heavily poll-tested midterm message that emphasizes the major legislation Democrats have passed in Congress: the $1.9 trillion economic relief package known as the American Rescue Plan and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law.It’s an approach that leaves some Democrats wanting a little more Mallory McMorrow.“I agree that we should be making sure every single day to tell the American people what we’re doing to benefit them and their families,” Davis said, measuring her words carefully. “But we also need to fight fire with fire.”What to readNew York’s highest court ruled that Democratic leaders had violated the State Constitution when drawing new congressional and State Senate districts, ordering a court-appointed expert to draw replacements for this year’s critical midterm elections.Democratic lawmakers released a report alleging that in 2020, top Trump administration officials had awarded a $700 million pandemic relief loan to a struggling trucking company over the objections of Defense Department officials.The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner is returning in person on Saturday after a two-year pandemic absence. It has some in Washington calculating the risks involved. President Biden will be there. Anthony Fauci is skipping it.pulseSeventy-three percent of college-educated women have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, while 59 percent have a very unfavorable view of him.Sergio Flores/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIt’s the gender gap, stupidIt might be the most important rift in American politics: the gender gap between the two major parties. And it’s growing larger.New public opinion research by the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank in Washington, explores just how far apart Democrats and Republicans now are on a bevy of issues, including their contrasting approaches to sex and sexuality and their spiritual practices.Driving the split, in large part, is the steady migration of college-educated women to the Democratic Party. In 1998, the study’s authors note, only 12 percent of Democrats were women with a college degree. That figure is now 28 percent — making them a dominant bloc in the party. For comparison, men without college degrees now make up 22 percent of the Republican Party, up from 17 percent in 1998.That gender gap is a quiet driver of political polarization, said Daniel Cox, the director and founder of A.E.I.’s Survey Center on American Life.He was struck by the stark differences of opinion between women with college degrees and men without them on two issues in particular: climate change and abortion.Sixty-five percent of college-educated women favor protecting the environment over faster economic growth, A.E.I. found, versus only 45 percent of men without college degrees. Seventy-two percent of college-educated women say abortion ought to be legal in most cases, while just 43 percent of men without a college education agree.The gender gap was growing well before Donald Trump, Cox said. But his election “supercharged” the political activism of millennial women in particular, he said.It was primarily college-educated women who rallied on the National Mall in 2017 to express their opposition to Trump, a Republican president swept into office by — as he put it — “the poorly educated.”College-educated women rallied to Joe Biden during the 2020 election, repelled by Trump’s brash and aggressive political style.Those feelings have only intensified. Seventy-three percent of college-educated women have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, A.E.I. found, while 59 percent have a very unfavorable view of him. By contrast, 48 percent of men without college degrees view Trump unfavorably.— BlakeIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      French Lessons for the Biden Administration

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      You probably breathed a deep sigh of relief when you heard that Emmanuel Macron trounced Marine Le Pen by a 17-point margin in Sunday’s French presidential election. A Le Pen victory would have been a boon to Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban and Steve Bannon and a disaster for NATO, Europe and France.The center held, thank God — because Macron governed from the center. He was hated by the far left and the far right and never entirely pleased those closer to the center. But he also became the first president to be re-elected in France in 20 years.There’s a lesson in that for the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress, especially when it comes to immigration.It has become an article of progressive faith in recent years that efforts to control immigration are presumptively racist.A border wall is “a monument to white supremacy,” according to a piece published in Bloomberg. The “remain in Mexico” policy is “racist, cruel and inhumane,” according to the Justice Action Center. An essay published by the Brookings Institution calls U.S. immigration policy “a classic, unappreciated example of structural racism.”It wasn’t long ago that Bernie Sanders was an avowed restrictionist on the view that immigration depresses working-class wages. Did that position make him a racist? The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, where I once worked, used to make the case for open borders with Mexico. Were we left-wing progressives? People of good will should be able to take different and nuanced views on immigration — and change their minds about it — without being tagged as morally deficient.But that’s no longer how it works in progressive circles. The results are policy choices that are bad for the country and worse for Democrats and are an unbidden gift to the far right.The issue is now acute with the Biden administration simultaneously seeking to end the Trump administration’s “remain in Mexico” policy in a case before the Supreme Court while accepting a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to let the use of Title 42, which allowed border authorities to expel illegal immigrants as a public health measure, expire on May 23.There’s not much doubt as to what will happen if the administration gets its way: An already straining southern border will burst. In fiscal year 2020 there were 646,822 “enforcement actions” at the border. In 2021 the number was a little shy of two million. Without the authority of Title 42, under which 62 percent of expulsions took place in 2021, the number of migrants being released in the United States will increase drastically. You don’t have to be opposed to immigration as a general matter to have serious doubts about the administration’s course.Is there a practical and available legal alternative to regulating immigration through Title 42 enforcement? Where is the logic of ending Title 42 even as the administration seeks to extend mask mandates because the pandemic is far from over? Given housing shortages, how much capacity is there to absorb the next wave of migrants? Even if an overwhelming majority of migrants are merely seeking a better life, what system is there to find those with less honorable intentions?More to the point: What does the administration’s utter failure at effective control of the border say about its commitment to enforcing the rule of law?To raise such questions should be an invitation to propose balanced and practical immigration legislation and try to win over moderate Republicans. Instead it tends to invite cheap accusations of racism, along with policy paralysis in the White House. As Politico reported last week, some think the administration’s secret policy is to call for an end to Title 42 to satisfy progressives while crossing fingers that the courts continue it — which a federal judge did on Monday, at least temporarily.Leading from behind Trump-appointed judges is probably not what Americans elected Joe Biden to do.Which brings us back to the example of France. When Jean-Marie Le Pen made his first presidential bid on an anti-immigration platform in 1974, he took 0.75 percent of the ballot in the first round — fewer than 200,000 votes. When his daughter Marine ran on a similar platform this year, she took 41.5 percent in the second round, or more than 13 million. The Le Pens are thoroughgoing bigots.But decades of pretending that only bigots had worries about immigration only made their brand of politics stronger.As president, Macron tacked right on immigration — not to weaken France’s historic position as an open society, friendly to newcomers, but rather to save it. He has cracked down on some asylum seekers, demanded that immigrants learn French and get jobs and taken a hard line against Islamic separatism. But he’s also tried to make France a more welcoming place for legal immigration. The left thinks of him as Le Pen lite, the right as a feckless impostor. Maybe he’s both. Then again, he also saved France for the free world.Democrats could stand to brush up on their French.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