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      The Democrats’ Use of Dark Money: Is It Hypocritical?

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      More from our inbox:Trump’s Big ‘If’Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, Taking Cancel Culture Too FarEpilepsy and LEDs  Mark HarrisTo the Editor:“Denouncing Dark Money, Then Deploying It in 2020” (front page, Jan. 30) is one of many examples of attempts to gin up controversy over Democrats’ understandable reaction to Republican fund-raising operations.The piece details, at length, the many “dark money” activities of both Democrats and Republicans, while characterizing the Democrats’ behavior as exposing “the stark tension between their efforts to win elections and their commitment to curtail secretive political spending by the superrich.”Really? Is it valid to negatively judge Democrats for being forced to use dark money to level the playing field after Republicans’ long history of influencing elections with dark money? Dark money shouldn’t be legal, but it is. Until that changes Democrats can’t be held to a higher standard that puts their candidates at a serious disadvantage to Republicans.Gail M. BartlettChicagoTo the Editor:While your front-page story provided a great analysis of “dark money” spending in the 2020 election, it did not highlight who is working for and against regulation and transparency in campaign spending.For the past three years, my organization has been part of the Declaration for American Democracy coalition, working to pass the For the People Act. This legislation will reduce the influence of money in politics and create more robust ethics rules for elected officials.Almost every House and Senate Democrat has endorsed this legislation, and it has broad support from Democratic, independent and Republican voters. Conversely, every Republican member of Congress has voted against these bills when they’ve come up for a vote.I encourage all of us, when writing about subjects that significantly shape our elections, to think about who is working for the people and who is standing in the way of change.Alex MorganChicagoThe writer is executive director of the Progressive Turnout Project.To the Editor:While it would be healthy for the nation to regulate or eliminate dark money, I cannot criticize Democratic large donors for preserving their anonymity. There was a fair chance that Donald Trump, the most vengeful president in my time and probably in the nation’s history, was going to be re-elected. He has an enemies list a mile long, and I don’t envy anyone on it.Many of his supporters and fellow Republicans have been acting in like fashion. Respect for one’s opponents or their donors is a remnant of the past.George UbogySarasota, Fla.Trump’s Big ‘If’“If I run and I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly,” former President Donald J. Trump said at a speech on Saturday in Conroe, Texas.Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Suggests He May Pardon Jan. 6 Rioters if He Has Another Term” (news article, Jan. 31):Former President Donald Trump said at a political rally on Saturday night that if he wins the White House back, he may pardon people sentenced for the Capitol riot. He said they “are being treated so unfairly.”These words are important on three levels. First, he’s seriously thinking about running in 2024. Second, stunningly, he would actually consider pardoning convicted insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.But most remarkable of all, perhaps, is that he said, “If I run and I win.” This man with a monstrous ego and narcissism said “if”! Who knew that word was even in his vocabulary?It’s telling as he consciously and steadfastly remains to this day true to his “Big Lie” that he actually won the 2020 election. His “if” he wins in 2024 suggests that he knows, at least subconsciously, that he truly lost in 2020 and could do so again, if he runs in 2024.When Mr. Trump rambles on long enough, the truth sometimes spills out, as it seems to have at this rally. Our truth is that it is incumbent on all of us who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 to not allow Donald Trump to ever disgrace the office of the presidency again!Ken DerowSwarthmore, Pa.Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, Taking Cancel Culture Too FarJoni Mitchell was honored by the Kennedy Center last year.Pool photo by Ron Sachs/EPA, via ShutterstockDarren Hauck/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Joni Mitchell Plans to Follow Neil Young Off Spotify, Citing ‘Lies’” (Daily Arts Briefing, nytimes.com, Jan. 28):So Joni Mitchell and Neil Young don’t want their music played on Spotify because it also carries “The Joe Rogan Experience.” Am I now supposed to follow their example and cancel my cable TV subscription because Spectrum carries Fox News, an even greater source of misinformation?Once in a while, the radical right has a legitimate point about “cancel culture” going too far, and this is one of them.Lawrence PeitzmanStudio City, Calif.Epilepsy and LEDsDeborah Turner of Columbus, Ohio, found that her local dollar stores didn’t stock LED bulbs, which could have saved her hundreds of dollars in electricity bills.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesTo the Editor:“Obsolete Bulbs Fill the Shelves at Dollar Stores” (front page, Jan. 24) ignores a critical problem with LED lighting: It’s making many people seriously ill. I am one. I have epilepsy, and even the briefest glimpse of an LED light instantly throws me into a seizure. It’s incredibly dangerous for me to be anywhere near LEDs.LED-triggered seizures have left me with broken teeth, bruises and excruciating pain that lingers for days. I need to be able to buy incandescent bulbs. I can’t enter LED-lit stores, doctor’s offices, hospitals or civic buildings. How am I supposed to live if no one can purchase incandescent light bulbs?Super-efficient incandescent bulbs were developed but put aside by the industry in favor of LEDs. For the tens of thousands of Americans with light-reactive conditions, having access to incandescent bulbs is no mere “consumer choice”; it is a medical necessity.MarieAnn CherryCambridge, N.Y. More

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      N.Y. Democrats Could Gain 3 House Seats Under Proposed District Lines

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      A new map drawn by legislative leaders would reconfigure state congressional districts to benefit Democrats in their fight to maintain a grip on the House of Representatives.ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Democrats on Sunday proposed a redesign of the state’s congressional map that would be one of the most consequential in the nation, offering the party’s candidates an advantage in 22 of the state’s 26 House districts in this fall’s midterm election. Party leaders in Albany insisted that the redrawn districts were not politically motivated, and they appeared to be somewhat less aggressive than many Democrats had wanted and analysts had forecast.But the proposed lines promise to be a major boon for the party for a decade to come, beginning with a hard-fought national battle with Republicans this year for control of the House of Representatives. With President Biden’s agenda hanging in the balance, Democratic gains in New York could help offset those Republicans expect to rack up in red states like Texas, Florida and Georgia. “With the stroke of a pen they can gain three seats and eliminate four Republican seats,” said Dave Wasserman, a national elections analyst with the Cook Political Report, who called the proposed lines “an effective gerrymander” by Democrats.“That’s a pretty big shift,” he added. “In fact, it’s probably the biggest shift in the country.”The new lines give Democrats opportunities to pick up seats on Long Island, in upstate New York and in New York City, where Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a Staten Island Republican, would be drawn into a Democratic-leaning district. Republicans are likely to lose a fourth seat because New York, which had less population growth than some other states, must shed one district overall.The new boundaries will be in place for the next 10 years. Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesOther proposed changes could help shore up Democrats’ hold on swing districts on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley ahead of what is expected to be a punishing election season for the party overall.In 2014, New York State voters had empowered a bipartisan commission to draw the new districts, but the panel broke down on party lines and could not reach consensus. Its stalemate left it to Democratic leaders in Albany to redesign the map.“We did the best we could with a flawed process,” said State Senator Michael Gianaris, who chairs the legislative redistricting task force that took over the process from the commission. He added: “This is a very Democratic state, let’s start there. It’s not surprising that a fairly drawn map might lead to more Democrats getting elected.”Lawmakers plan to vote on the congressional map as soon as Wednesday. New maps for the State Senate and Assembly are also expected this week. Democrats dominate both houses, and the new maps offer the party a chance to maintain majorities, if not supermajorities, in the Legislature.Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has indicated that she supports using the redistricting process to help her party and is likely to approve the maps if they pass both chambers.Republicans are expected to oppose them en masse, but have little power to stop them legislatively. They accused Democrats of undertaking a blatant and unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to approve the new map if the Legislature passes it. In the last redistricting, she lost her seat when her Buffalo area district became one of the most conservative in the state.Libby March for The New York TimesNick Langworthy, the chairman of the New York Republican Party, blasted the map as a “textbook filthy, partisan gerrymandering” and hinted that Republicans could challenge the proposed district as unconstitutional in court.“These maps are the most brazen and outrageous attempt at rigging the election to keep Nancy Pelosi as speaker,” he said, adding that Democrats “can’t win on the merits so they’re trying to win the election in a smoke-filled room rather than the ballot box.”Republicans were not the only interested parties alarmed by Democrats’ swift action. Lawmakers are poised to vote this week without convening a single public hearing, drawing the ire of good governance groups and community leaders. Even rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers only saw the proposed lines for the first time in the last few days, leading to last-minute changes.The redistricting stakes could scarcely be higher. Democrats control the House of Representatives by the thinnest of margins and are preparing for stiff challenges to their hold on Albany as well. Midterm elections are often difficult for the party in power, and with Mr. Biden’s approval rating at about 40 percent, Democrats are on the defensive.Around the country, battles over redistricting have become increasingly bare-knuckle, with high-stakes brawls between ruling Republicans and disempowered Democrats in North Carolina, Alabama and Ohio landing in state court. In some cases, the pitched battles reflect the tensions not just over party representation, but over race and voting rights at a time when states across the country are advancing laws concerning the right to vote: some expanding it, and others restricting it.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      What We Learned About ‘Dark Money’

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      What We Learned About ‘Dark Money’Kenneth P. Vogel and Shane GoldmacherFollowing the moneyFor years, Democrats attacked Republicans for spending huge sums on politics through secretive nonprofit groups that don’t reveal their donors. But in 2020, we found, Democrats evened the playing field, and even pulled ahead by some metrics. A big reason: former President Donald J. Trump.As Democrats’ outrage grew over the Trump presidency, so too did their undisclosed giving. More

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      In North Carolina, a Pitched Battle Over Gerrymanders and Justices

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      A fight over who is fit to hear a redistricting case highlights what experts say is the growing influence of ideology and money over state supreme courts nationwide.It is the state that put the hyper in partisan politics, setting the blunt-force standard for battles over voting rights and gerrymanders that are now fracturing states nationwide.So it is unsurprising that North Carolina’s latest battle, over new political maps that decisively favor Republicans, is unfolding in what has become an increasingly contested and influential battlefield in American governance: the State Supreme Court.The court meets on Wednesday to consider whether a map drawn by the Republican-dominated legislature that gives as many as 11 of 14 seats in the next Congress to Republicans — in a state almost evenly divided politically — violates the State Constitution. Similarly lopsided state legislative maps are also being contested.But for weeks, both sides of a lawsuit have been waging an extraordinary battle over whether three of the court’s seven justices should even hear the case. Atop that, an influential former chairman of the state Republican Party has suggested that the legislature could impeach some Democratic justices, a move that could remove them from the bench until their fates were decided.The central issue — whether familial, political or personal relationships have rendered the justices unfit to decide the case — is hardly frivolous. But the subtext is hard to ignore: The Supreme Court has a one-justice Democratic majority that could well invalidate the Republican-drawn maps. Knocking justices off the case could change that calculus.“I think we’re at the brass-knuckles level of political fighting in this state,” said Michael Bitzer, a scholar of North Carolina politics at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C. “It is a microcosm of the partisan polarization that I think we’re all experiencing. It’s just that here, it’s on steroids.”It also is a reminder that for all the attention on the U.S. Supreme Court this week after Justice Stephen G. Breyer announced his retirement, it is in Supreme Courts in states like North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio that many of the most explosive questions about the condition of American democracy are playing out.State Supreme Courts have become especially critical forums since the U.S. Supreme Court said in 2019 that partisan gerrymanders were political matters outside its reach.In North Carolina, the justices seem likely to reject calls for their recusal. The court said last month that individual justices would evaluate charges against themselves unless those justices asked the full court to rule.But the high stakes reflect what may happen elsewhere — and in some cases, already has. In Ohio, Justice Pat DeWine of the State Supreme Court rebuffed calls last fall to recuse himself from redistricting lawsuits in which his father — Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican — was a defendant. Days later, the state Republican Party urged a Democratic justice, Jennifer Brenner, to recuse herself because she had made redistricting an issue when running for office.Nationwide, 38 of 50 states elect justices for their highest court rather than appoint them. For decades, those races got scant attention. But a growing partisan split is turning what once were sleepy races for judicial sinecures into frontline battles for ideological dominance of courts with enormous sway over peoples’ lives.The U.S. Supreme Court issued 68 opinions in its last term. State Supreme Courts decide more than 10,000 cases every year. Increasingly, businesses and advocacy groups turn to them for rulings on crucial issues — gerrymandering is one, abortion another — where federal courts have been hostile or unavailing.Campaign spending underscores the trend. A new report from the Brennan Center for Justice, at New York University, concluded that a record $97 million was spent on 76 State Supreme Court races in the most recent election cycle. Well over four in 10 dollars came from political parties and interest groups, including the conservative nonprofit Judicial Crisis Network, which has financed national campaigns backing recent Republican nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court.Most interest group spending has involved so-called dark money, in which donors’ identities are hidden. Conservative groups spent $18.9 million in the 2019-20 cycle, the report stated, but liberal groups, which spent $14.9 million, are fast catching up.The money has brought results. In 2019, a $1.3 million barrage of last-minute advertising by the Republican State Leadership Committee was credited with giving the G.O.P.-backed candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Brian Hagedorn, a 6,000-vote victory out of 1.2 million cast.Liberal groups have not matched that success. But they have outspent conservatives in recent races in Michigan and North Carolina.“Two things are happening,” said Douglas Keith, a co-author of the Brennan Center report. “There are in-state financial interests that know these courts are really important for their bottom lines, so they’re putting money toward defeating or supporting justices to that end. And there are also national partisan infrastructures that know how important these courts are to any number of high-profile issues, and probably to issues around democracy and elections.”How important is easy to overlook. It is well known, for example, that President Donald J. Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election were rejected by every court where he filed suit, save one minor ruling. But when Russell Wheeler, a Brookings Institution scholar and president of the nonpartisan Governance Institute, analyzed individual judges’ votes, he found a different pattern: 27 of the 123 state court judges who heard the cases actually supported Mr. Trump’s arguments.Twenty-one of the 27 held elected posts on State Supreme Courts in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Both Michigan and Wisconsin are among the top five states in spending for Supreme Court races, the Brennan Center study found.Mr. Keith called that a red flag, signaling the rising influence of money in determining which judges define the rules for political behavior.North Carolina is another top-five state. Of $10.5 million spent on the state’s Supreme Court races in 2020, $6.2 million was devoted to a single race, for chief justice. Both figures are state records.The court has become increasingly partisan, largely at the Republican legislature’s behest. Legislators ended public financing for Supreme Court races in 2013, and made elections partisan contests in 2016.Anita Earls is one of three justices accused of conflict of interest in the redistricting case.Julia Wall/The News & Observer, via Associated PressBut Dallas Woodhouse, a former state Republican Party chair and columnist for the conservative Carolina Journal, said blame for the current tempest lay not with Republicans, but their critics. They kicked off the recusal battle last summer, he said, when the state N.A.A.C.P. sought to force two Republican justices to withdraw from a case challenging two referendums for constitutional amendments.Mr. Woodhouse crusaded against the demands in his columns, and the Supreme Court left the decision up to the justices, both of whom said this month that they would hear the case.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Democrats Decried Dark Money in Politics, but Used It to Defeat Trump

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      A New York Times analysis reveals how the left outdid the right at raising and spending millions from undisclosed donors to defeat Donald Trump and win power in Washington.For much of the last decade, Democrats complained — with a mix of indignation, frustration and envy — that Republicans and their allies were spending hundreds of millions of difficult-to-trace dollars to influence politics.“Dark money” became a dirty word, as the left warned of the threat of corruption posed by corporations and billionaires that were spending unlimited sums through loosely regulated nonprofits, which did not disclose their donors’ identities.Then came the 2020 election.Spurred by opposition to then-President Trump, donors and operatives allied with the Democratic Party embraced dark money with fresh zeal, pulling even with and, by some measures, surpassing Republicans in 2020 spending, according to a New York Times analysis of tax filings and other data.The analysis shows that 15 of the most politically active nonprofit organizations that generally align with the Democratic Party spent more than $1.5 billion in 2020 — compared to roughly $900 million spent by a comparable sample of 15 of the most politically active groups aligned with the G.O.P.The findings reveal the growth and ascendancy of a shadow political infrastructure that is reshaping American politics, as megadonors to these nonprofits take advantage of loose disclosure laws to make multimillion-dollar outlays in total secrecy. Some good-government activists worry that the exploding role of undisclosed cash threatens to accelerate the erosion of trust in the country’s political system.Democrats’ newfound success in harnessing this funding also exposes the stark tension between their efforts to win elections and their commitment to curtail secretive political spending by the superrich.Spurred by opposition to President Trump, donors and operatives allied with the Democratic Party embraced dark money with fresh zeal in 2020.Eve Edelheit for The New York TimesA single, cryptically named entity that has served as a clearinghouse of undisclosed cash for the left, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, received mystery donations as large as $50 million and disseminated grants to more than 200 groups, while spending a total of $410 million in 2020 — more than the Democratic National Committee itself.But nonprofits do not abide by the same transparency rules or donation limits as parties or campaigns — though they can underwrite many similar activities: advertising, polling, research, voter registration and mobilization and legal fights over voting rules.The scale of secret spending is such that, even as small donors have become a potent force in politics, undisclosed money dwarfed the 2020 campaign fund-raising of President Biden (who raised a record $1 billion) and Mr. Trump (who raised more than $810 million).Headed into the midterm elections, Democrats are warning major donors not to give in to the financial complacency that often afflicts the party in power, while Republicans are rushing to level the dark-money playing field to take advantage of what is expected to be a favorable political climate in 2022.At stake is not just control of Congress but also whether Republican donors will become more unified with Mr. Trump out of the White House. Two Republican secret-money groups focused on Congress said their combined fund-raising reached nearly $100 million in 2021 — far more than they raised in 2019. More

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      Republicans Relish Biden’s Troubles, Eyeing a Takeover of Congress

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      The president’s woes have delighted Republicans, who have been seeking to rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of voters after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.WASHINGTON — Republicans on Capitol Hill are using President Biden’s failures to fuel their bid to retake control of Congress, focusing on his collapsing legislative agenda, his unfulfilled promise to “shut down” the coronavirus pandemic and rising voter anxieties over school closures and inflation as they seek a winning message for this year’s elections.Mr. Biden’s troubles have frustrated Democrats, prompting calls for a major course correction. At the same time, they have delighted Republicans, who have been intent on rehabilitating themselves in the eyes of voters after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol last year, which highlighted the party’s lurch toward extremism and its continuing rifts under the influence of former President Donald J. Trump.Now, after months of grappling with their party’s role in stoking the riot, the ongoing influence of Mr. Trump’s election lies and the rise of right-wing activists who risk alienating more mainstream conservative voters, Republicans believe they are finally in a position to capitalize on what they view as a historically advantageous environment.Many Republicans say they see no need for any course correction — or to put forward a positive agenda in an election year they say will boil down to a referendum on Mr. Biden.“I’ll let you know when we take it back,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, said at a news conference this month when asked what his party’s agenda would look like if it won control of Congress. He added, “The election this fall is a referendum on this all-Democratic government.”With inflation at a 40-year high, Republicans have spotlighted so-called kitchen-table issues like rising gas and home heating costs. They have sought to undermine Mr. Biden’s most ambitious policy proposals by casting them as “reckless spending,” and they have gloated as Democrats have been unable to hold together to push them through. And they have highlighted the administration’s foreign policy setbacks, like the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, in an effort to undercut Mr. Biden’s competence in the eyes of voters.Republicans have single-mindedly kept the focus on President Biden.Cheriss May for The New York Times“They’ve been like a bass drum in a band — it’s going on all the time,” Josh Holmes, a political adviser to Mr. McConnell, said of the Republicans and their stream of critiques. “Leadership has never gotten off on a tangent of talking about the 2020 election. They’ve been entirely forward-looking.”The message discipline could be foiled as the campaign season intensifies and Republican candidates seeking Mr. Trump’s endorsement embrace his false claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen. Mr. Trump has already denounced Republican lawmakers by name for voting to impeach him and to pass Mr. Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan.“They can try to hide and distract from Tump as much as they want, but the reality is you have a former president who is hitting the campaign trail twice a month,” said Xochitl Hinojosa, a Democratic strategist and former communications director for the Democratic National Committee. “He’s still out there, and he says crazy things and gets coverage.”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 are already poised to capture enough seats to take control, thanks to redistricting and gerrymandering alone.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s race will be at the center of the political universe this year, but there are several important contests across the country.Key Issues: Both parties are preparing for abortion rights and voting rights to be defining topics.Chris Meagher, a White House spokesman, said Republicans were “rooting for inflation and don’t have a plan to address price increases for working families.” He added, “They don’t have a plan to beat back the pandemic or to grow jobs.”For Republicans, the biggest political fear is that they may be peaking too soon. In private meetings, some have raised the question of whether voters will still blame Mr. Biden for the prolonged pandemic in the fall if the Omicron wave subsides and supply chain issues dissipate.But for now, with Mr. Trump out of office and Mr. Biden struggling to energize the voters who elected him, Republicans are feeling optimistic.They have expressed glee over the decision by Democrats to take up voting rights legislation in a midterm election year, an ultimately losing legislative fight that left senators in the majority party struggling to explain arcane filibuster rules, while Republicans focused on more tangible topics like the price of a gallon of milk.“If I had one wish, it would be that the election would be today, because the political environment is so good for us,” said Richard Walters, the chief of staff for the Republican National Committee, pointing to Mr. Biden’s declining approval rating, which this month hit 41 percent in a Pew Research Center survey.Republican strategists note with optimism that no president in the past 70 years has ever improved his approval rating substantially after late January of a midterm election year. And while nominating a Supreme Court justice to succeed Justice Stephen G. Breyer offers Mr. Biden an opportunity to energize crucial Democratic constituencies, Republicans were quick to shrug it off given that it would not change the court’s conservative tilt.Republicans have single-mindedly kept the focus on Mr. Biden.In the House, Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, has worked to keep his more incendiary members out of the news — with mixed success — and hammered away at the president.He has also tried to lay out what Republicans would do if they won control, releasing a “Parents Bill of Rights” that would give parents more say in their children’s curriculum and drawing up a list of investigations the House would open to scrutinize the Biden administration. He recently sought advice from former Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose “Contract With America” in 1994 encapsulated the Republican message as the party campaigned successfully to win control of the House that year.Mr. Gingrich, whose meeting with Mr. McCarthy was reported by The Washington Post, recently said on Fox News that if Republicans won this year, members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack could be jailed.In the Senate, Republican leaders have used regular news conferences, often attended by a majority of their members, as what they call “plug-and-play forums” to speak directly to voters at home about Mr. Biden and his party.Representative Kevin McCarthy has hammered away at the president while working to keep his more incendiary members out of the news.Tom Brenner for The New York Times“The role I see of the minority is to point out the fact that his administration is ignoring the needs of the American people,” Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican, said in an interview.Mr. Barrasso said the concerns he had heard from constituents over this week’s recess had been left unaddressed in Washington.“Heating costs are up, grocery costs are up, and you have a president talking about spending all of this additional money and focusing on voting,” he said. “People asked me 23 different things, and voting ended up dead last.”Some lawmakers and top Republican strategists argue that with Mr. Biden’s numbers sagging and his policies floundering, he is doing their job for them.“When your opponents are hanging themselves, don’t cut the rope, and that’s what we see the Democrats doing here,” said Jeff Roe, the founder of Axiom Strategies, a political consulting firm that has worked for Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, both Republicans. “All we need to do is stay out of the way.”Republicans on Capitol Hill point to the withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer — a tumultuous period during which a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members — as the turning point for a once-popular administration. Internal Republican polls showed Mr. Biden losing six percentage points in his approval rating at that time, a decline that he has not managed to reverse.“Republicans have a lot of significant, deep problems, but Democrats have been so bad that it made it really easy to overlook them,” said Brendan Buck, a former adviser to the past two Republican speakers of the House, Paul D. Ryan and John A. Boehner. Republicans are still dealing with the culture wars and populism that may pose serious long-term demographic challenges, he said, but for now the Democrats have overshadowed those fissures.Mr. McCarthy, who is in line to be speaker if Republicans win the House, has been increasingly bullish about the prospect, predicting that 70 Democratic-held seats will be competitive.There are some bright spots for Mr. Biden. Democrats view his opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice as a chance for a change in focus and a moment for him to claim a high-profile victory. Mr. Biden has highlighted the 3.9 percent unemployment rate as part of the recovery he promised to Americans, and his top aides have underscored that he has overseen the strongest economic growth in decades.The Senate map for Democrats is also somewhat favorable; Mr. Biden won a majority of the battleground states with Senate races that are likely to decide control of the chamber.Ms. Hinojosa said Democrats must spend heavily in competitive states to tell voters the story of Mr. Biden’s accomplishments.“The White House realizes that and there’s a better-coordinated effort to do that than there has been in the past,” she said. “They’re just going to need to do it more aggressively.”But some Republicans believe it will be difficult for Mr. Biden to improve his standing.“The left is disappointed with him and the anti-Trump Republicans and independents thought they were going to get a moderate governing,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. “I don’t know how resolving the pandemic is going to affect that fundamental reality that he is completely misplaying his hand.” More

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      Pennsylvania Court Says State’s Mail Voting Law Is Unconstitutional

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      The decision deals a temporary blow to voting access in a critical battleground state. Democrats pledged an appeal.A state court in Pennsylvania on Friday struck down the state’s landmark election law as unconstitutional, dealing a temporary blow to voting access in one of the nation’s most critical battleground states. The law, known as Act 77, was passed by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed by Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, in 2019. It permitted no-excuse absentee voting, created a permanent mail-in voter list, reduced the voter registration deadline from 30 days to 15 and provided for $90 million in election infrastructure upgrades. It also eliminated straight ticket voting.The opinion from Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt, a Republican, sided with 14 Republican lawmakers who sued last year, arguing that the law was unconstitutional and that the legislature could not make alterations to voting laws without amending the constitution. The bipartisan law was praised by both sides when it was passed, but it became a target of conservatives during the 2020 election, as former President Donald J. Trump unspooled falsehoods and lies about mail-in voting. Eleven of the 14 lawmakers who sued to kill the law had voted for it in 2019.Democrats said they were not surprised that the Commonwealth Court, which they said leans Republican, ruled against the law, and they pledged an appeal to the state Supreme Court, which has sided with the state on voting issues both during and following the 2020 election. “This is just a continuation of attacking and undermining our electoral process,” said State Senator Jay Costa, the Democratic minority leader. He added that an appeal would be filed by the end of the day. “Act 77 will ultimately be deemed to be constitutional.” More

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      The Man at the Center of Arizona’s Primary Is Donald Trump

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      Spoiler alert: It’s Donald Trump.Senator Kyrsten Sinema has received so much attention recently that you might have forgotten that she’s not the Arizona Democrat up for re-election in 2022.That would be Senator Mark Kelly. As a freshman Democrat in a state that President Biden won by less than a percentage point in 2020, he’s one of four vulnerable incumbents whom Republicans are targeting as they seek to regain the majority in the U.S. Senate.If Republicans fail to knock off Kelly, a popular former astronaut with piles of campaign cash, it’ll be for one main reason, party strategists and pollsters tell us: A primary so consumed with winning Donald Trump’s blessing that the Republican Party sets itself up to lose the general election.“With the current electoral environment shaping up to be very pro-Republican, the only potential issue is that a hard-right candidate comes out of the primary and ends up losing in what should be a gimme Republican year,” said Mike Noble, an Arizona-based pollster.The obvious choice for a challenger to Kelly might have been Doug Ducey, Arizona’s Republican governor. He managed to win re-election in a brutal year for Republicans and is not allowed to run for a third term. But Ducey has steadfastly maintained he’s not interested in the Senate.That leaves a number of lesser-known Republicans to vie for the nomination. The best way to stand out? Obtaining the endorsement of Trump, which means making remarks or taking positions that could haunt them in November.First, there’s Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who’s worked in Arizona government for the last decade. But he faces intense pressure from Trump and from the Republican grass-roots to find fraud in his investigation of the 2020 election. At an Arizona rally earlier this month, Trump referred to his baseless claims that he actually won the state and told the crowd that he was “anxiously waiting” to see whether Brnovich would agree with him, and that they’d soon find out if the attorney general is a “good man.”Brnovich, apparently undeterred, posted on Twitter a photo of himself with Trump.Trump reserved a warmer reception for Blake Masters, calling him “a really terrific guy” at the rally. Masters — a venture capitalist backed by Peter Thiel, a billionaire tech mogul who’s close to Trump — has said that he believes Trump won in 2020 and that the country is being run by “psychopaths.”Then there’s Jim Lamon, a businessman whose campaign put $1 million behind a TV ad cheering “Let’s Go Brandon,” a far-right slogan that translates to an expletive directed at Biden. Lamon also helped facilitate Republicans’ post-mortem review of the 2020 election results in the state’s most populous county.All of these efforts to win the former president’s support could backfire in the fall if Democrats are able to anchor the eventual nominee to Trump.“Yes, it’s a big benefit and help during the primary due to Trump’s current influence over the electorate,” Noble said. “However, it is absolutely a weakness when they move into the all-important general election.”It’s ‘the Republicans’ to lose’Before we go any further, let’s make one thing clear: Given the national environment, Republicans should have a natural advantage in a state that Biden won so narrowly.It’s not just that the party in the White House tends to struggle in the first midterm election of a president’s term, or that the president’s approval ratings are hovering in the low 40s. It’s also that Biden inherited a pandemic and all the economic and social fallout that came with it. And that Arizona was ruby red only a few short years ago, suggesting that Kelly’s three-point margin in 2020 could be easy enough to erase.“It’s absolutely the Republicans’ to lose,” Brian Seitchik, an Arizona-based Republican consultant, said of the race.Republicans are confident that whoever becomes their nominee will enter the race against Kelly in a strong position to win.“​​Voters and persuadable swing voters will be inclined to want to vote for someone who’s going to be a check and a balance on the Biden administration,” said Daniel Scarpinato, a former chief of staff to Ducey.Proceeding with cautionArizona elected two Democratic senators during Trump’s term and ultimately voted to oust him in 2020. And even in a national environment that could lift Republicans to the majority, they could still find ways to lose.Scarpinato said he hasn’t seen candidates engage in behavior that would “tear the party apart or put people in a position where they’re perceived as being unelectable.”But he cautioned that Republicans can’t become so preoccupied with fighting one another in the primary — which is not until August — that they delay their attacks against Kelly.“They need to start now,” Scarpinato said.One Republican national strategist involved in Senate races told us that the top concern for many in his party is that the eventual nominee drains all their resources on the primary, leaving them cash-strapped against Kelly, who ended last year with nearly $20 million in his campaign account.And while others noted that while Republican-aligned outside groups such as the Club for Growth could make up any gaps in spending, money is likely one reason that many Republicans keep hoping Ducey changes his mind and decides to run, Noble said.Ducey was re-elected in 2018 even as Democrats won a Senate seat in Arizona for the first time in decades. He’s already proven he can put together a top-tier statewide campaign operation. But Ducey has said publicly and privately that he’s not running, and it’s easy to see why: He’d have to get through a Republican primary and general election without the support of Trump, who blames him for losing the state in 2020. Just a few weeks ago, Trump reiterated in a statement that Ducey would never have his “endorsement or the support of MAGA Nation!”One of the great unknowns in the 2022 election is the effect of the president’s approval rating. If it stays in the low 40s, Kelly could be ousted no matter how skilled a campaign he runs, or how bumbling an opponent he faces.“He has to carry around Joe Biden like a sack of potatoes wherever he goes,” said Stan Barnes, a Republican strategist based in Phoenix.What to readSome Democrats hope that nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court will help solidify support from Black voters in the midterms, Trip Gabriel reports.The confirmation process will test Senator Dick Durbin, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.In his latest Congressional Memo, Carl Hulse asks if the Democrats’ new voting bill talks are for real — or for show.The economy is growing faster than it has in decades, so why aren’t voters rewarding Biden for it? Here’s what economists told Jeanna Smialek and Ben Casselman.This is more of a recommendation on what to do tonight: Try gerrymandering an imaginary state in this online game created by Ella Koeze, Denise Lu and Charlie Smart.Justice Thomas, left, has been mistakenly referred to as Chief Justice, the position John Roberts, right, holds.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesOne more thing …A lighthearted moment accidentally illuminated some important dynamics on the Supreme Court — more consequential, perhaps, than the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer.In oral arguments last week in a case about whether Boston can stop a private group from flying a Christian flag in front of its City Hall, a lawyer for the plaintiffs was addressing Clarence Thomas, a deeply conservative associate justice who joined the court in 1991.“Chief —” the lawyer, Mathew Staver, began, before correcting himself and continuing, “Justice Thomas.”The little-noticed hiccup came after a flood of recent commentary and reporting on Thomas’s growing influence after years on the margins of the court.Last year, Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times, observed in an opinion essay that “what is remarkable is the extent to which the Supreme Court, with the addition of three Donald Trump nominees who create a 6-to-3 conservative majority, seems to be reshaping itself in Justice Thomas’s image.”This is the one thing that pundits of opposite political leanings seem to agree on: Liberals have lamented Thomas’s role as “the new chief justice,” while conservatives, including the influential Wall Street Journal editorial page, have hailed “the Thomas court.”It’s not the first time someone has made the same error. In March of last year, when a lawyer in another case mistakenly called Thomas “Mr. Chief Justice,” the actual chief justice — John Roberts — joked, “There’s no opening.”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