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      Letitia James Doesn’t Need to Run for Governor to Grab the Spotlight

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      Ms. James, the New York attorney general, highlighted her work on matters related to former President Donald J. Trump as she accepted a nomination for re-election.Letitia James took the convention stage just before lunch, hours before the Democratic State Convention’s main attractions were to appear, to accept a nomination for re-election as New York attorney general.She delivered an impassioned speech on Thursday, focusing on her broad efforts to pursue justice on behalf of New Yorkers, especially in her investigations revolving around former President Donald J. Trump and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.She scarcely mentioned Mr. Trump or Mr. Cuomo by name. Nor did she discuss her brief, abandoned bid for governor, a decision that she said was based on her desire to continue her unfinished work as attorney general, which includes her office’s inquiry into Mr. Trump and his family.The impact of that choice was hammered home just hours after Ms. James spoke on Thursday, as a judge ruled that her office would be allowed to interview Mr. Trump and two of his children in her civil investigation into the family’s business practices.“When I was elected attorney general, I vowed to act without fear or favor to hold the powerful accountable, whether Republican or Democrat, in the public or private sector,” Ms. James said. “To be unbought, to be unbossed and unrelenting in the pursuit of justice and to stand up and speak up for the interests of everyday New Yorkers.”Ms. James, a Democrat from Brooklyn, jumped into the race for governor in late October following Mr. Cuomo’s resignation. She was initially seen as the most formidable challenger against Gov. Kathy Hochul, who had been unexpectedly elevated from lieutenant governor.Ms. James’s campaign hoped to garner national support by highlighting the potential for her to make history as the first Black woman to become governor in the country. But she dropped out in December, crowded out from the race by Ms. Hochul, who consistently led in early public polls and amassed an overwhelming fund-raising edge.Ms. James has not officially endorsed Ms. Hochul in the governor’s race, and mentioned her only in passing in her speech on Thursday.Ms. Hochul, for her part, praised Ms. James as “a national leader in fighting for justice, in fighting against Donald Trump-ism every place it rears its ugly head.” She added, “She’s been out there for us and I’m so proud of her.”The race for attorney general was once expected to be a highly contested one, with as many as five candidates mounting campaigns after Ms. James announced her candidacy for governor. But they all dropped out in swift succession as soon as Ms. James abandoned that bid, clearing the field for her re-election.Even with no major opponent, Ms. James gained a torrent of not-so-surprising endorsements over the past few weeks, from organized labor, from lawmakers on Long Island and from most of the state’s Democratic congressional delegation.At the same time, rumors began to swirl that Mr. Cuomo was entertaining thoughts of running for attorney general against Ms. James, who he has incessantly blamed for his downfall.Ms. James’s office oversaw an investigation that found that a slew of sexual harassment allegations against Mr. Cuomo were credible; he has denied the accusations. Their feud briefly spilled over onto the convention floor on Thursday, with the crowd applauding after Ms. James offered a passionate defense of the investigation.“It has become clear the former governor will never accept any version of these events other than his own,” Ms. James said during an 18-minute speech in a Midtown Manhattan hotel. “And to achieve that he is now claiming the mantle of victim, disgracefully attacking anyone in his path, pushing others down in order to prop himself up, but I will not bow. I will not break.”She sought to directly link Mr. Cuomo to the former president, whom Ms. James has repeatedly challenged in court as attorney general: “I will not be bullied by him or Donald Trump.”Indeed, the convention was replete with reminders of the dramatic upheaval that the New York political landscape has undergone in less than a year.Ms. James accepted this year’s nomination in the same hotel ballroom in Manhattan where Mr. Cuomo celebrated his election victory in 2018. Mr. Cuomo was not invited to the convention on Thursday, and his spokesman recently denied that Mr. Cuomo was interested in running for attorney general.The Cuomo-free convention made for a rare sight.His father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, who served three terms, dominated conventions in the 1980s and 1990s. Andrew Cuomo later cast a shadow over the 2002 convention, when he famously withdrew his candidacy for governor on the eve of the event, acknowledging he did not have a path to victory against the party’s favored pick, Carl McCall. In 2006, he won the party’s endorsement for attorney general as he mounted a political comeback before being elected governor in 2010.Most of the party’s establishment, however, appears to have turned the page on Mr. Cuomo, who governed through ruthless tactics that left him with few, if any, political allies when he decided to resign or risk impeachment.“I haven’t heard anyone say his name and I think people are looking forward,” Pat Ryan, a Democrat and the executive of Ulster County, said shortly before Ms. James’s speech. “People don’t want us dwelling in the past.”Mr. Cuomo’s absence would have gone largely unacknowledged at the convention on Thursday had it not been for Ms. James’s speech, in which she also accused the Cuomo administration of lying to obfuscate the true extent of pandemic-related deaths in nursing homes.Her comments appeared to be the culmination of pent-up resentment following weeks of escalating attacks from the Cuomo camp, which has repeatedly denounced the investigation — which he authorized — as unfair and politically motivated just as Mr. Cuomo weighs how to re-enter public life.Indeed, after Ms. James’s speech, Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, released a statement that accused her of being “a serial liar who continues to dodge answering a single substantive question about her sham report.” Mr. Cuomo’s lawyer said last week that he intended to file a professional misconduct complaint against Ms. James.On Thursday, Ms. James described herself as “the people’s lawyer,” thanking the delegates “for giving me the opportunity to carry your flag and to be your candidate to continue this work.” More

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      Hochul Is the Star as Democrats Gather for a Cuomo-Free Convention

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul received the Democratic nomination for governor on Thursday, as she seeks her first full term after succeeding Andrew Cuomo.Six months after Kathy Hochul suddenly became New York’s first female governor, the Democratic State Convention on Thursday showcased just how much the political dynamics of the state had changed since Andrew M. Cuomo’s stunning resignation, as Ms. Hochul easily secured her party’s endorsement in her race for a full term.Ms. Hochul has quickly cemented institutional Democratic Party support, reflecting both the advantages of incumbency and a relentless personal political effort. Those dynamics were on display as lawmakers praised her, party chairs suggested others drop out of the race and “Labor for Kathy” signs dotted the convention hall at a Sheraton hotel in Midtown Manhattan. She was introduced by Hillary Clinton, the first female presidential nominee of a major political party and a former New York senator, marking the most high-profile day of campaigning yet for the governor. Mrs. Clinton used the appearance to both glowingly endorse Ms. Hochul — and to describe the stakes of the upcoming midterm elections in stark terms following the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol and Republican efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.“New York must be not just the home of the Statue of Liberty, we must be the defenders of liberty,” said Mrs. Clinton, who also spoke warmly of Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin.Governor Hochul has racked up numerous endorsements across the state, including from top unions.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesThen it was Ms. Hochul’s turn. She used her speech to embrace her status as the state’s leader of the Democratic Party and to turn attendees’ attention to defeating Republicans, though she must first navigate the Democratic primary in June.“What is the greatest threat to the Republican Party? What is their biggest nightmare? A united Democratic Party!” Ms. Hochul declared — though protesters who interrupted her speech with concerns around evictions illustrated clear tensions at play. Ms. Hochul, a relative moderate from Western New York, suggested that whatever tactical differences there may be, members of the party should “never lose sight of the fact that as New York Democrats, we know where we need to go.”The convention capped an extraordinary year in New York politics, defined in New York City by the election of the city’s second Black mayor, Eric Adams, and in Albany by the ouster of Mr. Cuomo amid ​​allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct.Attorney General Letitia James, who briefly challenged Ms. Hochul but is now seeking re-election, released an investigation into Mr. Cuomo’s conduct that led to his resignation. He has denied touching anyone inappropriately and, emboldened by decisions from top prosecutors to rebuke but not to prosecute him, he has signaled to associates that he hopes to regain relevance in public life.In an enthusiastically received appearance before the convention, Ms. James defended the report and lashed Mr. Cuomo.“It has become clear that the former governor will never accept any version of these events other than his own,” she said. “To achieve that, he is now claiming the mantle of victim and disgracefully attacking anyone in his path. Pushing others down in order to prop himself up. But I will not bow. I will not break.”The crowd began to applaud, a stark reminder of how far Mr. Cuomo has fallen. Four years ago, the Democratic convention was a coronation for him, after a spirited primary challenge from the actress Cynthia Nixon.Now he is a pariah among the party officials over whom he once wielded enormous influence.“I will not be bullied by him,” said Ms. James, whose office is also conducting a civil inquiry into former President Donald J. Trump and his family business. “Or Donald Trump,” she added.But much of the day was focused on the current governor.“The party should be unified,” said Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the chairwoman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, who said she believed Ms. Hochul’s Democratic opponents — the New York City public advocate, Jumaane D. Williams, and Representative Tom Suozzi of Long Island — should drop out of the race. “The vast majority of the people are behind Kathy Hochul,” she said. “So why create fights?”Mr. Williams is running to Ms. Hochul’s left, while Mr. Suozzi is waging a centrist campaign focused heavily on combating crime. Both lag her significantly in fund-raising and in the sparse public polling that is available, and Mr. Suozzi’s name was not even voted on at the convention. (Kim Devlin, a spokeswoman for the congressman, said he did not put his name in contention.)But Mr. Williams and Mr. Suozzi both argued on Thursday that they saw pathways that were not reliant on state party support.“We all know that it’s kind of pageantry in here,” Mr. Williams said.Still, Ms. Hochul is unquestionably the clear front-runner. Other races appeared even less competitive: After years of speculation concerning whether the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, would face a credible left-wing challenge, he was renominated for his seat by acclamation on Thursday. A significant opponent could still emerge, though the window is narrowing ahead of the June primary.Attention on a potential primary challenge had long focused on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic congresswoman from New York, but she confirmed in an interview recently that she was running for re-election. “I love New York,” Mr. Schumer declared. “I love representing New York as Senate majority leader. I’ll love it even more when we pick up two more seats.”But the convention arrived toward the beginning of a midterm campaign season that appears brutally difficult for the Democratic Party nationally, and potentially challenging even in liberal New York. The party sustained major losses on Long Island and even in a few New York City races in November.Hillary Clinton told the convention attendees to not get consumed by social media debates, and instead focus on “solutions that matter to voters.”Todd Heisler/The New York TimesMrs. Clinton warned against getting distracted by “the latest culture war nonsense, or some new right-wing lie on Fox or Facebook.” And she implicitly cautioned her party against being overly responsive to online arguments that appear removed from the daily concerns of many Americans.“Don’t let the extremes of any or either side throw us off course,” she said. “Focus on the solutions that matter to voters, not the slogans that only matter on Twitter.”A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 5A crowded field. More

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      How Kathy Hochul Went From Unexpected Governor to Clear Front-Runner

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      New York’s first female governor, who quickly and quietly assembled a campaign juggernaut, will get the Democratic Party’s backing in her re-election campaign on Thursday.When Kathy Hochul unexpectedly ascended to the governor’s mansion last August, elevated after her predecessor’s sexual harassment scandal, she hardly resembled the kind of political powerhouse New Yorkers were accustomed to — brash, self-aggrandizing, male and from downstate.Many in Gotham’s tight-knit political class immediately assigned an asterisk to her name and predicted that Ms. Hochul, a moderate from Buffalo with a penchant for making friends but not headlines, would struggle in a pitched primary battle to hold onto the job.Six months later, they could scarcely look more wrong.Instead, Ms. Hochul set out on a brisk campaign to corner party leaders and crowd out potential rivals that was as ruthlessly efficient as it was exceedingly congenial. Leveraging the powers of her office as well as her own self-effacing style, she put a new face on a state government mired in scandal and built a campaign juggernaut that had amassed $21 million by January, more than any of her rivals combined.The transformation from accidental governor to unquestioned front-runner will culminate on Thursday when Ms. Hochul, 63, is poised to win the Democratic Party’s endorsement for a full term ahead of its June primary. In a nod to Ms. Hochul’s history-making status as the first woman to lead New York, Hillary Clinton plans to introduce her as the party’s new standard-bearer at a convention in Midtown Manhattan.“The nomination is going to be a coronation for her,” said former Gov. David A. Paterson, who, like Ms. Hochul, took office in the wake of a predecessor’s scandal-fueled resignation. “It’s astonishing how you would almost think she’s been there for five years.”It is all the more remarkable given that just a year ago, Ms. Hochul’s political career appeared headed toward a dead end. Last winter, before Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo became mired in sexual harassment allegations, his aides had curtly informed Ms. Hochul that he planned to boot her from the ticket as his lieutenant governor when he ran for a fourth term in 2022.Governor Hochul assumed office in August, after the resignation of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesSince then, Ms. Hochul has benefited from no shortage of good fortune: Mr. Cuomo’s swift undoing; an influx of federal funds that pushed New York into the black; and the decision by her most serious primary rival, the attorney general Letitia James, to abandon her campaign for governor just as it got off the ground.But the story of Ms. Hochul’s ascent goes beyond chance, and is built just as much on 18-hour days, shrewd political maneuvering, dogged fund-raising, careful preparation and relationships forged over years of quietly trudging across the state as lieutenant governor, according to interviews with close to 30 political operatives, lawmakers, union leaders and campaign advisers who have closely watched her trajectory.She has not won over the political class with a particular ideological agenda or new policy vision, to the chagrin of some of her left-leaning critics, but rather a bet that a state exhausted from years of political scandal and a draining pandemic is not particularly interested in more drama from Albany.“What is it they say about luck? Luck is when preparation meets opportunity,” said James Featherstonhaugh, a fixture of Albany’s lobbying scene. “When she became governor, it’s not like she dropped in from the moon. She understands New York state government probably as thoroughly as anybody.”Ms. Hochul’s seeming aversion to taking clear ideological stances on certain contentious policy disputes, like new caps on rent increases or whether to scale back the state’s recent changes to bail laws, appears motivated, at least in part, by a desire not to alienate the right or left. But it remains unclear whether that consensus-oriented approach can excite the real-world voters she needs to win.Though polls show her with a comfortable lead, Ms. Hochul already faces accusations from her primary opponents — Representative Tom Suozzi and the New York City public advocate, Jumaane D. Williams — that she is obfuscating on issues like crime and housing, or kowtowing to the special interests funding her campaign.And political strategists say there are signs in polls and on the ground that Ms. Hochul is not yet generating the kind of enthusiasm among the Black, Latino and young voters around New York City that she may need to assemble a winning general election coalition.“Enthusiasm means everything,” said Gabby Seay, a labor strategist who served as Ms. James’s campaign manager. “She has to work in order to build that relationship where folks are on fire about her candidacy. The question is, does she have time to do that while she is governing?”Numerous leaders in New York have praised Ms. Hochul for her willingness to listen on contentious issues.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesMs. Hochul, who declined to be interviewed, told reporters on Tuesday that she intended to “run like an underdog until it’s over” and would prioritize informing New Yorkers about her policies.As Mr. Cuomo’s career collapsed in slow motion last spring and summer, Ms. Hochul carefully concealed her aspirations for higher office. But privately, she spent the first half of 2021 diligently preparing to take charge, should the moment come. “She was not naïve,” said Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, chairwoman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party.When the moment arrived, Ms. Hochul moved swiftly.Within weeks, she had overhauled the executive chamber, installing seasoned women in top posts, ousting Cuomo loyalists, and picking Brian A. Benjamin, a Black state senator from Harlem with deep ties throughout the city, as her lieutenant governor.She signed progressive bills Mr. Cuomo had spurned; appeared alongside his longtime enemy, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio; invited labor organizers to private dinners; and impressed business leaders with talk of reopening offices and holding tax rates steady.“You get the sense you are speaking to somebody who is actually listening to you, not just going through the motions,” said Henry Garrido, executive director of the city’s largest public union, District Council 37.In Albany, legislators have been almost giddy. After years of being insulted, humiliated and belittled by Mr. Cuomo, they watched in near disbelief in January as Ms. Hochul proposed a record $216 billionstate budget that not only funded their priorities but set aside $2 billion for pandemic initiatives for lawmakers to help allocate.A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 5A crowded field. More

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      Opposition Research Goes Hyperlocal

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      The liberal group American Bridge is launching a new project to collect information for campaigns against Republicans running for state and local offices.Some of the loudest Stop the Steal voices on the right are actually far removed from the levers of America’s election machinery. When a member of Congress makes false claims about hacked voting machines or stolen ballots, he or she has little authority to do much about it.Across the United States, however, there are tens of thousands of state, county and local officials who do have that power. They will set and enforce the rules on voting, then go about counting and reporting the votes in the elections to come.To the alarm of independent experts, allies of Donald Trump have been targeting these once-anonymous offices, seeking to fill them with hard-core partisans all the way down to the level of precinct captain.Now, the Democratic organization American Bridge, known primarily for its opposition research into Republicans, has launched what it says is a $10 million campaign to influence the races for election administration in a dozen key states. The local elections project is part of a $100 million paid media campaign that American Bridge announced a year ago.The group has hired 22 researchers to scrub the records and public statements of candidates and officials running for statewide offices involved in election administration, along with the sort of races unlikely to garner attention outside of their communities: county boards of supervisors, boards of canvassers, local judges and state legislators. They plan to dig up dirt on officials and candidates to ruin their chances of getting elected or re-elected.“It’s about how do we take what we’ve already been expert at and expose the behavior of Republican candidates and officeholders and take it down ballot to these secretaries of state races, the attorneys general races, as well as on down the ballot to the county level,” said Jessica Floyd, the American Bridge president.The sheer scale of America’s decentralized election system presents a formidable challenge to anyone seeking to influence it. In Wisconsin alone, there are 1,850 municipal clerks who administer voting, with rules set by a bipartisan six-member state commission, whose members are appointed by state legislators and the governor.Rick Hasen, the author of several books about elections and democracy, said the use of such hardball political tactics in local elections was “probably a necessary evil.” He added: “Efforts to subvert elections can happen in lots of places.”The Democrats are starting from behind in this effort. There is plenty of evidence that Republicans — more than half of whom remain convinced of Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was marred by fraud — are more motivated than Democrats by concerns about the voting system. And there has been a Republican financial advantage.In 2021, the Republican State Leadership Committee, which invests in state legislative and secretary of state races, raised $33 million, a record for a year in which most states didn’t hold state elections. The Democratic counterpart, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, took in $21 million, which it too crowed was the most ever in an off-year, but well behind the Republicans.‘You want to win these elections’Floyd, who worked for a handful of Washington’s major Democratic organizations and was an aide to Representative Gabrielle Giffords, said their tactics will help motivate base Democrats. But she added that the American Bridge researchers are in search of information that they believe voters will use to disqualify Republicans from winning local elections.In some communities, she said, that might be a commissioner who didn’t pay property taxes. Elsewhere, it might mean amplifying an untoward statement from a local radio station that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. For statewide candidates, American Bridge plans to hire “trackers” to follow them with cameras.“We’re not making an assumption that voters are going to be paying attention to how a race impacts the future of American democracy, because that’s not necessarily how people are treating the ballot box,” Floyd said. “You want to win these elections. We’re figuring out what’s the information that we have and how to disseminate that information in order to win as many elections as possible.”Kari Lake, a Republican, campaigning for governor in Florence, Ariz., last month.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesSome of what American Bridge finds will be handed to news organizations, sometimes with and sometimes without the organization’s fingerprints attached. Kari Lake, a Trump-endorsed candidate for Arizona governor, called on school districts to install cameras to monitor teachers in classrooms in a local radio interview. The group took credit for the story being reported in the Arizona Republic and other local outlets.But more and more, American Bridge has been pushing its research on its own. One of its more prolific researchers maintains a Twitter account devoted to monitoring every local radio interview and television appearance by Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Republican Senate candidates.“We should be exposing bad behavior,” Floyd said.What to read Jennifer Medina and Lisa Lerer profile Josh Mandel, a Republican Senate candidate of Ohio, and his political journey to the far right.U.S. officials are using creative methods to try to understand the thinking of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s enigmatic leader, report David E. Sanger, Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt.The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol issued a fresh batch of subpoenas, Luke Broadwater reports, including of two top Trump campaign officials and several state legislators.Charlie Savage explains a mysterious filing by John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel who has been investigating the federal probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.FrameworkJim Lamon, an Arizona Republican, starred in a gunslinging Super Bowl ad.Jim Lamon for U.S. SenatePrimary matchups at the Super BowlIt’s nothing new for politicians to use the Super Bowl to gain exposure. But on Sunday, two ads that went after the president pushed the boundaries of anti-Biden rhetoric. One repeated a phrase that has become code for a slur against President Biden, and the other showed a candidate shooting at him.The two Republicans behind the ads are running for Senate.Dave McCormick, a Pennsylvania Republican, aired an ad that repeated a crowd chanting the “Let’s Go Brandon” anti-Biden phrase for nearly the entire 30-second spot. Jim Lamon, a candidate in Arizona, aired a Wild-West-themed ad in which he shoots at Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Senator Mark Kelly, who is up for re-election this year. In the ad, the three Democrats are armed and prepared to duel, but Lamon shoots down their weapons. In what seems to be an effort at slapstick humor, the trio runs away, unscathed and disarmed. Lamon had previously aired another “Let’s Go Brandon” ad.Robert Robb, a columnist for The Arizona Republic, pointed out what was the dual audience that Lamon was speaking to — Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters and Trump himself. It’s an expensive way, in other words, to get the former president’s attention and his possible endorsement.“The people running for Senate in Arizona are all trying to win the Trump primary, not necessarily the Republican Party primary,” Robb told us.It cost the Lamon campaign $25,000 to place an ad in Tucson, Ariz., during the Super Bowl, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks television ad spending. McCormick’s campaign spent $70,000 to place the ad in the Pittsburgh media market.Both ads employed rhetoric that appeals to a smaller segment of the electorate, the most fervent Republican primary voters, even though a much more expansive audience actually watched it.There’s a chance that ads like these end up backfiring on the Republican candidates during the general election. Both Lamon and McCormick ran in states that Biden won in 2020. And, in Arizona, the Trump presidency coincided with Republicans losing both U.S. Senate seats and only narrowly preserving their majority in the State Legislature.Trump drove record turnout in Arizona, Robb said, but it wasn’t just his supporters who came out in record numbers. His opponents turned out as well.Lamon tried to show that he’s wealthy enough to afford a Super Bowl ad to “communicate this very narrow reach message,” Robb said. “But it does alienate the majority of the Arizona electorate.”Is 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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      Kathleen Rice Announces Her Retirement From Congress

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      The decision by Representative Kathleen Rice of New York makes the number of Democrats leaving Congress the largest since 1992, as midterm elections loom.WASHINGTON — Representative Kathleen Rice of New York announced on Tuesday that she would not seek re-election, making her the 30th House Democrat to opt for an exit ahead of what is expected to be a difficult midterm election cycle in which the party appears headed for losses.Ms. Rice’s retirement announcement marked a grim milestone for House Democrats: The number planning to leave Congress is now the biggest since 1992, a sign of the party’s lack of confidence that it will be able to hold the majority this fall. Ms. Rice, a moderate, provided no explanation for her unexpected departure. She announced it on her 57th birthday, saying only that she was moving on to the “next chapter” of her life.“As elected officials, we must give all we have and then know when it is time to allow others to serve,” Ms. Rice, a former prosecutor who has represented part of Long Island’s Nassau County since 2015, said in a statement.Of the departing group, 22 House Democrats have said they are retiring, while eight are seeking another office. So far, 13 Republicans have also said they will not seek re-election.“House Democrats know their majority is doomed and have a choice: retire or lose,” said Michael McAdams, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s House campaign arm.A Look Ahead to the 2022 U.S. Midterm ElectionsIn the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are 10 races to watch.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Campaign Financing: With both parties awash in political money, billionaires and big checks are shaping the midterm elections.Key Issues: Democrats and Republicans are preparing for abortion and voting rights to be defining topics.Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, has predicted that more than 30 Democrats will announce their retirement “because they see what the future holds.”Some Democrats shrugged off the news of Ms. Rice’s retirement as the loss of a safe seat, where she will most likely be replaced by another Democrat. Ms. Rice’s district was not affected by the recent redrawing of New York’s political map, and in 2020, she won her race against the G.O.P. candidate, Douglas Tuman, by about 56 percent. President Biden won her district by 12 points in the 2020 presidential election.But optimistic Republicans said that margin put New York’s 4th congressional district within reach in the event of a red wave, noting that a G.O.P. candidate won the governor’s race last fall in Virginia, a state Mr. Biden won by about 10 points.Ms. Rice, who made a lasting, powerful enemy in Speaker Nancy Pelosi after vocally opposing her bid for House Speaker in 2016 and 2018, was viewed as someone who did not enjoy the job.She had become increasingly marginalized in the ranks of House Democrats, where the loudest voices are typically from a new generation of progressives, and where her history with Ms. Pelosi had cost her opportunities. In 2019, for instance, Ms. Pelosi lobbied for other members to gain a seat on the powerful Judiciary Committee over Ms. Rice, according to Politico, despite Ms. Rice’s background as a prosecutor and her seniority.Representative Josh Gottheimer, a centrist Democrat from New Jersey, called Ms. Rice’s retirement “a huge loss for New York, Congress and common-sense, bipartisan governing.”“I imagine the polarization in D.C. has become so poisonous and the dysfunction so deep that more and more members want nothing to do with the absurdity of it all,” said Representative Ritchie Torres, a progressive Democrat of New York.But some liberal Democrats joined Republicans in celebrating the news of her retirement.“Rep. Kathleen Rice retiring to spend more time with her big pharma lobby family,” Leah Greenberg, the co-founder of Indivisible, a grass-roots progressive organization, said in a Twitter post reacting to her announcement.Ms. Rice, who sits on the Energy and Commerce committee as well as the Homeland Security committee, was a registered Republican until 2005, when she became a Democrat to run for district attorney in Nassau County.In Congress, she has been best known as one of the few women arguing that the party needed a fresh perspective at the top and that the lack of an obvious candidate to challenge Ms. Pelosi was a “symptom of stagnant leadership.” In 2016, she was also the first Democrat to publicly support Representative Tim Ryan’s challenge to Ms. Pelosi as House leader. Ms. Rice also voted against Ms. Pelosi in 2018. Both times, Ms. Pelosi was elected despite the efforts to topple her.Ms. Rice supported Ms. Pelosi’s bid for speaker in 2021, but the relationship remained strained.Ms. Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Ms. Rice’s planned departure. More

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      Court Filing Started a Furor in Right-Wing Outlets, but Their Narrative Is Off Track

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      The latest alarmist claims about spying on Trump appeared to be flawed, but the explanation is byzantine — underlining the challenge for journalists in deciding what merits coverage.WASHINGTON — When John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel investigating the inquiry into Russia’s 2016 election interference, filed a pretrial motion on Friday night, he slipped in a few extra sentences that set off a furor among right-wing outlets about purported spying on former President Donald J. Trump.But the entire narrative appeared to be mostly wrong or old news — the latest example of the challenge created by a barrage of similar conspiracy theories from Mr. Trump and his allies.Upon close inspection, these narratives are often based on a misleading presentation of the facts or outright misinformation. They also tend to involve dense and obscure issues, so dissecting them requires asking readers to expend significant mental energy and time — raising the question of whether news outlets should even cover such claims. Yet Trump allies portray the news media as engaged in a cover-up if they don’t.The latest example began with the motion Mr. Durham filed in a case he has brought against Michael A. Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with links to the Democratic Party. The prosecutor has accused Mr. Sussmann of lying during a September 2016 meeting with an F.B.I. official about Mr. Trump’s possible links to Russia.The filing was ostensibly about potential conflicts of interest. But it also recounted a meeting at which Mr. Sussmann had presented other suspicions to the government. In February 2017, Mr. Sussmann told the C.I.A. about odd internet data suggesting that someone using a Russian-made smartphone may have been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.Mr. Sussmann had obtained that information from a client, a technology executive named Rodney Joffe. Another paragraph in the court filing said that Mr. Joffe’s company, Neustar, had helped maintain internet-related servers for the White House, and that he and his associates “exploited this arrangement” by mining certain records to gather derogatory information about Mr. Trump.Citing this filing, Fox News inaccurately declared that Mr. Durham had said he had evidence that Hillary Clinton’s campaign had paid a technology company to “infiltrate” a White House server. The Washington Examiner claimed that this all meant there had been spying on Mr. Trump’s White House office. And when mainstream publications held back, Mr. Trump and his allies began shaming the news media.“The press refuses to even mention the major crime that took place,” Mr. Trump said in a statement on Monday. “This in itself is a scandal, the fact that a story so big, so powerful and so important for the future of our nation is getting zero coverage from LameStream, is being talked about all over the world.”There were many problems with all this. For one, much of this was not new: The New York Times had reported in October what Mr. Sussmann had told the C.I.A. about data suggesting that Russian-made smartphones, called YotaPhones, had been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.The conservative media also skewed what the filing said. For example, Mr. Durham’s filing never used the word “infiltrate.” And it never claimed that Mr. Joffe’s company was being paid by the Clinton campaign.Most important, contrary to the reporting, the filing never said the White House data that came under scrutiny was from the Trump era. According to lawyers for David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology data scientist who helped develop the Yota analysis, the data — so-called DNS logs, which are records of when computers or smartphones have prepared to communicate with servers over the internet — came from Barack Obama’s presidency.“What Trump and some news outlets are saying is wrong,” said Jody Westby and Mark Rasch, both lawyers for Mr. Dagon. “The cybersecurity researchers were investigating malware in the White House, not spying on the Trump campaign, and to our knowledge all of the data they used was nonprivate DNS data from before Trump took office.”In a statement, a spokesperson for Mr. Joffe said that “contrary to the allegations in this recent filing,” he was apolitical, did not work for any political party, and had lawful access under a contract to work with others to analyze DNS data — including from the White House — for the purpose of hunting for security breaches or threats.After Russians hacked networks for the White House and Democrats in 2015 and 2016, it went on, the cybersecurity researchers were “deeply concerned” to find data suggesting Russian-made YotaPhones were in proximity to the Trump campaign and the White House, so “prepared a report of their findings, which was subsequently shared with the C.I.A.”A spokesman for Mr. Durham declined to comment.Mr. Durham was assigned by the attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, to scour the Russia investigation for wrongdoing in May 2019 as Mr. Trump escalated his claims that he was the victim of a “deep state” conspiracy. But after nearly three years, he has not developed any cases against high-level government officials.Instead, Mr. Durham has developed two cases against people associated with outside efforts to understand Russia’s election interference that put forward unproven, and sometimes thin or subsequently disproved, suspicions about purported links to Mr. Trump or his campaign.Both cases are narrow — accusations of making false statements. One of those cases is against Mr. Sussmann, whom Mr. Durham has accused of lying during a September 2016 meeting with an F.B.I. official about Mr. Trump’s possible links to Russia.(Mr. Durham says Mr. Sussmann falsely said he had no clients, but was there on behalf of both the Clinton campaign and Mr. Joffe. Mr. Sussman denies ever saying that, while maintaining he was only there on behalf of Mr. Joffe — not the campaign.)Both Mr. Sussmann’s September 2016 meeting with the F.B.I. and the February 2017 meeting with the C.I.A. centered upon suspicions developed by cybersecurity researchers who specialize in sifting DNS data in search of hacking, botnets and other threats.A military research organization had asked Georgia Tech researchers to help scrutinize a 2015 Russian malware attack on the White House’s network. After it emerged that Russia had hacked Democrats, they began hunting for signs of other Russian activity targeting people or organizations related to the election, using data provided by Neustar.Mr. Sussmann’s meeting with the F.B.I. involved odd data the researchers said might indicate communications between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked institution. The F.B.I. dismissed suspicions of a secret communications channel as unfounded. In the indictment of Mr. Sussmann, Mr. Durham insinuated that the researchers did not believe what they were saying. But lawyers for the researchers said that was false and that their clients believed their analysis.The meeting with the C.I.A. involved odd data the researchers said indicated there had been communications with Yota servers in Russia coming from networks serving the White House; Trump Tower; Mr. Trump’s Central Park West apartment building; and Spectrum Health, a Michigan hospital company that also played a role in the Alfa Bank matter. The researchers also collaborated on that issue, according to Ms. Westby and Mr. Rasch, and Mr. Dagon had prepared a “white paper” explaining the analysis, which Mr. Sussmann later took to the C.I.A.Mr. Durham’s filing also cast doubt on the researchers’ suggestion that interactions between devices in the United States and Yota servers were inherently suspicious, saying that there were more than three million such DNS logs from 2014 to 2017 — and that such logs from the White House dated back at least that long.But Ms. Westby and Mr. Rasch reiterated that YotaPhones are extremely rare in the United States and portrayed three million DNS logs over three years as “paltry and small relative to the billions and billions” of logs associated with common devices like iPhones.“Yota lookups are extremely concerning if they emanate from sensitive networks that require protection, such as government networks or people running for federal office,” they said. More

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      How Cindy Axne, One of the Most At-Risk Democrats in Congress, Hangs On

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      Meet Representative Cindy Axne of Iowa, who has some advice for the White House about how to talk to voters.Holding a blue seat in a red-tinged place like Iowa’s Third Congressional District takes discipline. It takes a relentless focus on the folks back home, which is why you won’t see Cindy Axne yukking it up on “Morning Joe” or rubbing elbows with Jake Tapper on CNN. It takes doing who-knows-how-many hits on rural radio stations that might reach just a few hundred people at a time.Axne is a living case study in political survival. Donald Trump carried her district in both of his presidential runs. In 2020, a bad year for House Democrats, she hung on to her seat by fewer than 7,000 votes.This year, Axne has one of the hardest re-election tasks of any member of Congress. She’s the lone Democrat in Iowa’s delegation to Washington, representing a state that has moved sharply rightward. Thanks to redistricting, she just inherited nine additional counties that voted for Trump in 2020. At town hall meetings, she proudly tells constituents that hers is “the No. 1 targeted race in the nation.” Forecasters rate it a “tossup,” but privately, Democratic strategists acknowledge she might be doomed.What’s her strategy for survival? Although Axne doesn’t articulate them explicitly, we culled these unspoken rules from an interview in her office on Capitol Hill. It’s the kind of advice President Biden could use as he tries to reverse drooping poll numbers that threaten to bring down his entire party:Struggling to explain your policies? Visualize the voter you want to reach: “Take these big things and bring it down to that one individual. If that mom’s not sitting in the audience, put that mom in your head.”Dealing with bad news? Level with people: “Even if it’s not the answer everybody wants right now, give them the answer that you know.”Selling your infrastructure bill? Talk about convenience, not how many program dollars you allocated: “That doesn’t resonate. It resonates that I gave you 40 minutes of extra time when this bridge is repaired. That’s huge.”You won’t hear much soaring rhetoric about saving American democracy from Axne, either. The voters are her customers, reflecting her business background. “I’ve been a manager my whole life,” she said. “I’ve run customer service departments and retail.”And the way she figures it, the burden is on her to earn the customer’s approval. “It’s my job to go to them, to show them that they can trust me and that I deserve their vote,” she said.She urges the president to adopt that same retail mentality: Leave the mess in Washington behind, go into local communities and bring politics to a human scale.As she put it, “Come out and say, ‘Folks, here’s where we’re at.’”‘Tired’And where her customers are at right now, Axne said, can be summed up with one word: “Tired.”They’re tired of the pandemic. Tired of the disruptions it has brought to their families. Tired of their packages not being delivered on time. It’s the thread running through all the complaints she hears about, whether the issue is education or jobs or masks.“I’ve never seen anything impact our psyche so much like this, right?” she said. “There’s just a lot that families are coping with. It’s just hard for them to see some of the benefits that Democrats have delivered — because honestly, Democrats have delivered, I’ve delivered — but it’s hard to see when things still aren’t back to normal.”If and when they are, Axne said, “We’ve got to be really loud about it and make people feel comfortable and understand: ‘Go back to normal, folks.’”Axne has had to think a lot about how to explain the major legislative packages she has helped to pass and urges the White House to break them down into relatable pieces.She comes back to her infrastructure example, referring to bridges in Iowa that are so poorly maintained that they can’t bear the weight of a bus full of schoolchildren, leading to lengthy detours. “You know, ask any parent what their mornings are like, and would they like 40 minutes more? Heck, yeah.”Axne spoke at an American Legion post in Winterset, Iowa, in 2019.Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressEarning counties, then losing themAxne was first elected to Congress in 2018, as part of that year’s anti-Trump wave.She was a longtime Iowa state government official, an M.B.A. holder who started a consulting firm before running for Congress. If you ask her what’s on the minds of Iowa farmers, be prepared for an impromptu seminar on the intricacies of soybean processing.In 2019, when flooding devastated communities in her district along the Missouri River, Axne was everywhere: touring busted levees, lobbying for federal aid. It earned her some credit in the suburban areas around Council Bluffs and Indianola, helping her eke out that win in 2020.In a stroke of bad luck for Axne, those areas along the river are no longer her responsibility. After Iowa’s latest round of nonpartisan redistricting, they’ve become part of the district of Representative Randy Feenstra, a Republican.Her first task this year was to visit her new counties, which together voted for Trump by nearly 19,000 votes. She doesn’t have to win them — just keep the margins small enough while pumping up votes in her stronghold of Des Moines, the Iowa capital. But she does have to create some distance from national Democrats, which she tries to accomplish through humor.“I am not Nancy Pelosi,” she joked at a recent town-hall-style meeting in Ottumwa, one of 74 she’s held since her first election. “I’m a foot taller. I’m from a different state. I don’t wear five-inch heels.”Axne would like to see Democrats break the Build Back Better Act, their stalled social policy bill, into “chunks of coordinated policy.” And in the meantime, she wants Biden to get out there and hear from his disaffected customers directly.“It’s not that he doesn’t understand it,” she said. “It’s just that there’s so much happening at this high level that sometimes it’s really hard to just bring it down to that very micro level. But that micro level is what’s adding up across the country.”What to read Ryan Mac and Lisa Lerer profiled Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley investor who is seeking to become the right’s would-be kingmaker.Trump’s longtime accounting firm has cut ties with his family business amid an investigation into the Trump Organization’s financial practices, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum report.Ukraine’s president hinted at a major concession on Monday and Russia’s foreign minister said talks would continue, suggesting room for a peaceful resolution of the crisis. For more, go here for the latest updates on the diplomatic efforts to avert a Russian invasion.In Opinion, J. Michael Luttig, a retired judge, called on his fellow conservatives to embrace reform of the Electoral Count Act, the 1887 law that governs how Congress counts the votes of the Electoral College.Paul Singer, the New York hedge fund billionaire, in 2014.Andrew Renneisen for The New York TimesMcCarthy and Pompeo to court megadonorsAs Republicans gear up for midterm elections that they hope will give them control of both chambers of Congress, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the man who hopes to become their House speaker, is set to speak in Palm Beach, Fla. this week to some of the megadonors expected to finance the party’s efforts this fall and in 2024.The occasion is the semiannual gathering of the American Opportunity Alliance, a coalition of major donors spearheaded by the New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer that has worked mostly behind the scenes to shape the Republican Party.Also expected to speak is Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state under President Donald Trump and is said to be considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, which could pit him against Trump.Other prospective 2024 Republican candidates attended a meeting of the alliance last year in Colorado, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, former Vice President Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador. Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who heads the Republican Party’s Senate campaign arm, also spoke to the alliance’s donors last year.The Palm Beach gathering is expected to draw candidates vying for Republican congressional nominations, including Herschel Walker (who is running for Senate in Georgia), Katie Britt (Senate in Alabama), Jane Timken (Senate in Ohio) and Morgan Ortagus (House in Tennessee).The donors in the alliance are likely to be assiduously courted by Republican candidates for a range of offices and to be solicited for donations to super PACs and party committees.Their giving and associations will be closely watched as the party and its donor class grapple with whether — and how — to move on from Trump.Singer was among the most aggressive Republican donors in seeking to block Trump from winning the Republican nomination in 2016. A conservative website he financed paid for early research into Trump’s ties to Russia. But Singer later donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund and visited the Trump White House on multiple occasions.Other donors who have been involved in the American Opportunity Alliance include the brokerage titan Charles Schwab, the hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin and Todd Ricketts, who served as finance chairman for the Republican National Committee under Trump.Among the donors expected in Palm Beach are the former Trump cabinet officials Wilbur Ross, who served as commerce secretary, and Linda McMahon, who was administrator of the Small Business Administration.Is 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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      How New York’s Redistricting Hurt the G.O.P. and Vax Daddy

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      Democrats could potentially expand the veto-proof majorities they already have in both the Assembly and Senate, further solidifying New York’s leftward shift.ALBANY, N.Y. — When Huge Ma, better known in New York as Vax Daddy, shut down the website he built last year to help city residents make appointments to get a coronavirus vaccine, he realized there were other more established types of public service to pursue.So Mr. Ma, a Democrat, decided to run for State Assembly, building off the folk hero status he achieved during the pandemic, with a campaign centered on policy issues he cared about, including transportation and the climate crisis.But an unexpected twist led Mr. Ma to end his nascent campaign this month just as it was getting underway: When the state’s once-in-a-decade redistricting process was complete, his home was outside the Queens district he hoped to represent.“While I currently feel a great sense of disappointment,” Mr. Ma wrote on Twitter. “I remain open to representing my community in the future.”Mr. Ma’s race was just one of many that were shaken up by the State Legislature, which Democrats control, when it approved new legislative maps that will shape the balance of power in Albany for the next decade at least.The new district lines, which were approved last week, could help fortify Democratic dominance in the statehouse for years to come. They significantly increase the odds that Democrats will protect, and potentially expand, the veto-proof majorities they already command in both the Assembly and Senate, further solidifying New York’s leftward shift.Republicans contend that Democrats effectively engaged in partisan gerrymandering to keep their grip on power. The state legislative lines, along with new congressional maps, have been challenged in court by a group of voters organized by Republicans.Rob Ortt, the Republican leader in the State Senate, said in a statement that Democrats had drawn maps “behind closed doors, without considering input from thousands of communities of interest or holding a single public hearing.”“It is clear they are only concerned with holding onto their political power and cementing the disastrous one-party rule that has made New York less safe, less affordable and less populated,” he said.Robert Ortt, the Republican Senate minority leader, accused Democratic legislative leaders of partisan gerrymandering.Hans Pennink/Associated PressState Senator Michael Gianaris, a Democrat who helped lead redistricting efforts in the legislature, has argued that the maps are fair, legal and, in practice, unraveled the results of previous gerrymandering by Republicans.What to Know About Redistricting and GerrymanderingRedistricting, Explained: 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.New York: Democrats’ aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional map is one of the most consequential in the nation.Legal Battles: State supreme courts in North Carolina and Ohio struck down maps drawn by Republicans, while the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily restored Alabama’s map.“You can’t sit here and say we were wrong, but leave the maps as they are right now,” he said on the Senate floor last week. “That just enshrines that bad behavior into the maps forever. If we’re going to fix the things that you did that were wrong, we have to fix them.”The maps will also play a pivotal role in Democratic primaries, with the new district lines benefiting some incumbents that left-wing hopefuls had seen as too moderate or entrenched in the party establishment.That appeared to be the case in Mr. Ma’s district, which is now represented by Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, a high-ranking Democrat who has served for nearly four decades. The new lines for her district carved out parts of the Long Island City waterfront where some of her most likely challengers, including Mr. Ma, reside.Political observers said the new district lines could have benefited her in a primary, even though the revamped district includes portions of neighborhoods that might favor a more progressive candidate.But the race was again upended on Friday when Ms. Nolan, who was diagnosed with cancer last year, announced she would not seek re-election. The seat is now up for grabs, with a number of left-leaning candidates showing interest.“This obviously locks in the supermajorities, and means that the crux of New York State politics — for interest groups, for labor, for everyone — is going to be the ideological fight among Democrats in a primary,” said Matt Rey, a partner at the political consulting firm Red Horse Strategies. “New York is now moving to the California model.”Elsewhere in the 150-seat Assembly, which Democrats have controlled since 1975, some of the redrawn lines appear to offer additional protection for other incumbent party members. Others seemed to ensure that tossup races in key suburban areas — including Long Island’s North Shore, the Capitol Region and near Syracuse — remained competitive.The biggest changes, however, involve the State Senate, where Democrats controlled the redistricting process for the first time in decades after regaining a majority in the chamber in 2018.The new maps appear to improve Democrats’ chances of flipping at least three Republican-held Senate seats. In a reflection of New York City’s population growth and demographic changes, lawmakers shifted two upstate Senate districts to Brooklyn and Queens. Both are expected to be safe seats for Democrats.The new lines also give slight edges to Democratic incumbents in highly competitive districts, including on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, before the November election, when all legislative seats will be on the ballot.Even so, Democrats’ recent gains in Albany are bound to be tested in significant ways this year, with Republicans — helped by President Biden’s flagging approval ratings and concerns about crime and inflation — poised to perform well in the congressional midterm elections and, potentially, in down-ballot races.In justifying the new maps, Mr. Gianaris and other Senate Democrats say the lines merely restore the proper balance of power after decades of Republicans drawing maps that maximize their waning influence in an increasingly Democratic state.The Senate minority leader, Michael Gianaris, left, said the new district lines corrected partisan lines drawn by Republicans.Hans Pennink/Associated PressSenate Democrats insist that their maps more closely follow the spirit of the law, creating districts with more uniform populations after a longstanding practice among Republicans of drawing fewer, highly populous districts downstate for Democrats, and more sparse ones in parts of the state where Republicans could be competitive.Democrats say another main objective was to unify and strengthen the voting power of so-called communities of interest — ethnic, racial or cultural groups with shared concerns — that they said Republicans had divided over decades to dilute Democrats’ power in the State Senate.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? 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