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      Terry Virts, Former Astronaut, Announces Texas Senate Run

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      Terry Virts, an early entrant in the Democratic field targeting Senator John Cornyn’s seat, appeared eager to take on his own party as well as President Trump’s.Terry Virts, a retired NASA astronaut, is not a household name, even in his home of Houston. But the way he announced his campaign on Monday for Senator John Cornyn’s seat in Texas, taking a swing at both political parties, may be blazing a trail for Democratic candidates in 2026.Mr. Virts’ official announcement video was revealing in two ways. It reflected the growing hunger among Democratic outsiders to take on President Trump. And it underscored how such outsiders believe the best way to do that is to also take on the Democratic leaders in Washington.“Trump’s chaos must be stopped,” Mr. Virts said in the video. “But leadership is M.I.A.,” he added over an image of the Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York.Mr. Virts, who describes himself as a “common sense Democrat,” emphasized the point in a telephone interview on Monday. “The Texas senator should not work for the senator from New York,” he said. “I’m going to work for Texas voters.”He said he was willing to break with the national party on issues such as immigration, which he says he supports only if it is legal. “The Democratic Party, for some inexplicable reason, gaslit us and told everybody that, ‘Hey, this illegal immigration is OK,’ and voters knew that it wasn’t,” he said.Democrats in Texas, who have not won statewide office since the 1990s, have become hopeful about their chances in 2026, particularly if Mr. Cornyn is defeated in the Republican primary next year by the state’s hard-right attorney general, Ken Paxton.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Big Names, Bigger Money and Global Themes Color the N.Y.C. Council Races

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      All 51 seats are up for election this year, and the Democratic primary battles feature crowded fields, moneyed interests and some recognizable figures.The ballots feature political figures who resigned in disgrace. Global story lines related to Israel and President Trump have defined contests. And millions of dollars from corporate interests have been injected to sway outcomes.Even as most of New York City’s political attention is focused on Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary, this year’s races for City Council have also drawn widespread interest and money.Two names well known in New York congressional circles will grace the ballots in Manhattan: Anthony Weiner, the former congressman who spent about a year and a half in prison and much longer in public exile; and Virginia Maloney, whose mother, Carolyn Maloney, was a longtime congresswoman. Each is running to fill an open seat.All 51 Council seats will be up for election in November, and eight have no incumbent. But with most districts heavily Democratic, the primary on Tuesday has become the real race.Super PACs backed by companies, unions and housing advocacy groups, many with interests before the Council, have spent about $13.4 million to influence the contests, $6.8 million more than in 2021.Some of the races have been defined by local issues. In Lower Manhattan, for example, candidates have sparred over the fate of the Elizabeth Street Garden, where a long-gestating plan to build affordable housing for older New Yorkers has been put on hold.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bill Clinton Endorses Andrew Cuomo for NYC Mayor

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      The former president’s endorsement came as Letitia James, the state attorney general who supports Andrew M. Cuomo’s mayoral rivals, criticized the former governor over harassment allegations.Former President Bill Clinton endorsed former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in the New York City mayor’s race on Sunday, giving a last-minute boost of support to Mr. Cuomo, as he urged supporters to head to the polls for the last day of early voting.Mr. Cuomo worked in the Clinton administration as the housing secretary. The backing of the former president, as well as a taped robocall providing his support, could help turn out older voters in the tightening Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday.Mr. Clinton said in the robocall that he had hired Mr. Cuomo “because he knew how to get things done” and that he believed he would “stand up and protect the people of this city” from President Trump.Mr. Clinton, 78, who lives in a Westchester County suburb north of New York, has not often weighed in on city primary races. His endorsement is another indication that some establishment Democrats prefer Mr. Cuomo to Zohran Mamdani, a state lawmaker and Democratic Socialist who is second in the polls.The endorsement came as Mr. Cuomo and his rivals attended campaign events across the city, trying to convert undecided voters and to ensure that their supporters showed up at the polls. The push appeared more urgent this weekend, with a forecast heat wave potentially depressing turnout on Primary Day.By the end of the early voting period on Sunday, 384,000 Democrats had voted in the primary. That was nearly twice as many people as voted during the same period four years ago, when the coronavirus pandemic was still raging and many New Yorkers voters cast ballots by mail.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Democrats Need Their Own Trump

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      We are more than 1,200 days away from the 2028 presidential election, but the Democratic presidential primary is already well underway. The likely candidates are fund-raising, hosting campaign rallies, starting podcasts and staking out ideological lanes.Candidates will try to carve out distinct political identities, but one challenge unites them all: Their party is historically unpopular. The Democratic Party’s favorability rating is 22 percentage points underwater — 60 percent of respondents view it unfavorably, 38 favorably. Apart from the waning days of Joe Biden’s presidency, that is by far the lowest it’s been during the more than 30 years Pew Research has collected data.The presidential hopefuls are likely to divide into two camps, moderates and progressives. But these paths misunderstand Democrats’ predicament and will fail to win over a meaningful majority in the long term. If the next Democratic nominee wants to build a majority coalition — one that doesn’t rely on Republicans running poor-quality candidates to eke out presidential wins and that doesn’t write off the Senate as a lost cause — the candidate should attack the Democratic Party itself and offer positions that outflank it from both the right and the left.It may seem like an audacious gambit, but a successful candidate has provided them a blueprint: Donald Trump.To be clear, the blueprint I refer to is not the one Mr. Trump has used to violate democratic norms and destabilize American institutions, but rather the one for resetting how Americans view a party and its leaders.In January 2013, at the time of Barack Obama’s second inauguration, Republicans were deeply unpopular. Conservative thought leaders like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove advocated comprehensive immigration reform as a pathway back to a majority. By the summer, the base’s backlash to the idea was itself so comprehensive that many of them were forced to retreat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Closing Arguments of the N.Y.C. Mayoral Candidates

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      Ahead of the June 24 primary, The New York Times analyzed the closing campaign speeches of the four leading Democrats running for mayor.The leading candidates for New York City mayor, clockwise from top left: Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo; Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani; Brad Lander, the city comptroller; and Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker. Nicole Craine, Scott Heins and Dave Sanders for The New York Times; Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesWith the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City looming on Tuesday, the candidates are making their closing arguments to voters.The New York Times analyzed excerpts from recent speeches by the top four candidates in the polls — Andrew Cuomo, Zohran Mamdani, Brad Lander and Adrienne Adams — to highlight and explain their central campaign messages.Andrew M. CuomoAndrew Cuomo has won endorsements from some of the city’s most influential labor unions.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMr. Cuomo, 67, is trying to make a comeback four years after resigning as New York’s governor amid a sexual harassment scandal. He denies wrongdoing and has run as a moderate who has the most experience and fortitude to stand up to President Trump.The setting: Union Square in Manhattan, one week before Primary Day, with labor leaders who endorsed him and hundreds of union members.The goal: Mr. Cuomo sought to portray himself as the candidate of working-class New Yorkers who are eager to reorient the Democratic Party nationally after its 2024 losses.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Andrew Cuomo’s Complicated Legacy in New York City

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      Mr. Cuomo, the front-runner in the mayoral race and former governor, has a long — and, his critics say, mixed — record handling important issues in the city.As Andrew M. Cuomo runs for mayor of New York City, his prevailing argument to voters has focused on his experience in government, including his nearly 11 years as governor.Mr. Cuomo has highlighted the infrastructure projects he championed as governor, like LaGuardia Airport and the Second Avenue subway, and his role in raising the minimum wage and approving gay marriage.But his tenure, which ended in 2021 after he resigned following a series of sexual harassment allegations that he denies, also included decisions that critics say hurt the city.They contend that Mr. Cuomo was vindictive toward the city as part of his bitter feud with Mayor Bill de Blasio, and that he should have done more to protect the city, especially its lower-income residents, from budget cuts and the pandemic.Here is how Mr. Cuomo handled five key issues.Many New Yorkers blamed Mr. Cuomo for policies that they believe worsened mass transit, even though he helped usher in the new Second Avenue subway line.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesA Beleaguered Transit SystemWhen subway delays began to soar in 2017, Mr. Cuomo remained mostly silent even though he was responsible for the system through his control of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      An Actor, a Bookseller and a Chef Walk Into a Voting Booth

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      We asked scores of well-known New Yorkers from a broad spectrum of the city to give us their ranked-choice ballots for mayor. Here’s what some told us.Graydon Carter, the longtime chronicler of New York City’s glamorous set, is just looking for “somebody who can make the pipes work.”Sarah McNally, one of the city’s top booksellers, said her employees would “hate” whom she was ranking first.And Sonia Manzano, who spent 44 years on “Sesame Street” as Maria, understands her candidate has no charisma. That’s just the way she likes it.With the June 24 Democratic primary just days away, the race for mayor has consumed New Yorkers and divided them into camps. Our famous neighbors, it turns out, are no exception.The New York Times asked dozens of them to share their ranked-choice ballots. The results are not scientific and they diverge from polls of likely primary voters. But they illuminate how some of the people who write Broadway hits, run celebrated kitchens, fill television screens and shape the skyline view the city’s challenges and the crop of 11 Democrats vying to lead it.Many chose not to tip their hands, invoking the principle of the secret ballot, or another sacrosanct New York rule: Do not risk offending the powerful.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Republican Lawmakers Cheer Strike on Iran as Top Democrats Condemn It

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      Republicans in Congress praised President Trump’s decision to hit Iran. Many Democrats and some G.O.P. lawmakers said he should have consulted Congress.Top Republicans in Congress swiftly rallied behind President Trump on Saturday after he ordered strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, even as senior Democrats and some G.O.P. lawmakers condemned it as an unconstitutional move that could drag the United States into a broader war in the Middle East.In separate statements, the leading Republicans in Congress, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, commended the military operation, calling it a necessary check on Iran’s ambitions of developing a nuclear weapon. Both men had been briefed on the military action before the strike was carried out, according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it publicly.Mr. Johnson and Mr. Thune both argued that the airstrikes were necessary after Iran had rejected diplomatic overtures to curb its nuclear program.“The regime in Iran, which has committed itself to bringing ‘death to America’ and wiping Israel off the map, has rejected all diplomatic pathways to peace,” Mr. Thune said.Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said that Iran rejected pathways to peace.Tierney L. Cross/The New York TimesMr. Johnson argued that the military action was consistent with Mr. Trump’s muscular foreign policy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More