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      Democrats Express Deep Anxiety as Polls Show Biden Trailing Trump

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      President Biden’s team emphasized that polls have failed to predict the results of elections when taken a year ahead of time.White House officials on Sunday shrugged off weekend polling that showed President Biden trailing former President Donald J. Trump, even as Democrats said they were increasingly worried about Mr. Biden’s chances in 2024.The new polling from The New York Times and Siena College found Mr. Biden losing in one-on-one matchups with former President Donald J. Trump in five critical swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden is ahead by two percentage points in Wisconsin.Although the polling is worrisome for the president, Mr. Biden still has a year to campaign, which his team emphasized on Sunday. They noted that polls have historically failed to predict the results of elections when taken a year ahead of time.“Gallup predicted an eight-point loss for President Obama only for him to win handily a year later,” said Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for Mr. Biden’s campaign. “We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll.”Still, the results of the poll, and other recent surveys showing similar results, are prompting public declarations of doubts by Democrats.David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist who has expressed concerns about Mr. Biden before, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the new polling “will send tremors of doubt” through the party.“Only @JoeBiden can make this decision,” Axelrod wrote, referring to whether the president would drop out of the race. “If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”In a follow-up interview, Mr. Axelrod said he believed Mr. Biden, 80, had achieved a lot during the past three years but was rapidly losing support largely because of concern about how his age affects his performance.“Give me his record and chop 10 to 15 years off, I’d be really confident,” Mr. Axelrod said. “People judge him on his public performance. That’s what people see. That’s where the erosion has been. It lends itself to Republican messaging.”Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday that he was concerned “before these polls.”“And I’m concerned now,” he said.“These presidential races over the last couple of terms have been very tight,” he said. “No one is going to have a runaway election here. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, concentration, resources.”Donna Brazile, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee and a supporter of Mr. Biden, said, “don’t count out Joe Biden” on ABC’s “This Week” program. But she added that Democrats should be mindful of the polling from The Times.“I would say a wake-up call once again for Democrats to be reminded that they have to go back out there, pull the coalition that allowed Joe Biden to break new ground in 2020, especially in Arizona and Georgia, but more importantly to bring back that coalition,” she said. “Without that coalition, it’s going to be a very, very difficult race.”Mr. Munoz declined to comment on the specifics of the Times/Siena poll.Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, said in a memo released on Friday — before the Times poll was public — that it would be “crucial” for Mr. Biden to show strength among key parts of his coalition in order to win.The weekend poll results, including a 10-point deficit behind Mr. Trump in Nevada, strike at the heart of the argument the president’s campaign advisers have been making for a year: that voters will back Mr. Biden once they are presented with a clear choice between him and his predecessor.In her memo, Ms. Rodríguez said “voters will choose between the extremism, divisiveness and incompetence that extreme MAGA Republicans are demonstrating — and President Biden’s historic record of accomplishment.“The American people are on our side when it comes to that choice,” she wrote.Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, left, said in a memo released on Friday that it would be “crucial” for Mr. Biden to show strength among key parts of his coalition in order to win.Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times, via Getty ImagesThe Times polls presented voters with that choice, and many of them, including Democrats, said they would pick Mr. Trump if the election were held today.Already, there were signs that the campaign is scrambling to address the vulnerabilities on display in the poll among young, Black and Hispanic voters.Last month, the campaign quietly started two pilot programs aimed at bolstering support among Democrats in two key states, Arizona and Wisconsin. In each state, the campaign has hired 12 full-time staff members to test their assumptions about how Mr. Biden is viewed by particular groups and what he needs to do to earn their votes.In Arizona, the new staff members in two offices in Maricopa County will focus on Latino and female voters in that state. In Wisconsin, staff members will work out of an office in Milwaukee to evaluate the president’s message for Black and young voters in the state.Campaign officials say the idea is to use the next several months to test new ways of communicating to those voters. Those include the use of “microinfluencers” who are popular on social media platforms, and “relational” campaigning, in which the campaign reaches out to voters through their network of friends rather than impersonal ads.One of the central arguments of the Biden campaign is a belief that polls taken now, by definition, do not take into account the robust campaign that will unfold during the course of the next year.Mr. Biden has already generated a significant campaign war chest. The president and Vice President Kamala Harris have $91 million in cash on hand and are expected to raise hundreds of millions more for use during the general election campaign that will begin in earnest next summer.The president’s campaign aides say they are confident the polls will shift in Mr. Biden’s direction once that money is put to use attacking Mr. Trump (or another Republican, if Mr. Trump loses the nomination) and reaching out to voters.That is similar to the argument that Mr. Axelrod made in September 2011, when Mr. Obama was trailing badly in the polls.“The president remains ahead or in a dead heat with the Republican candidates in the battleground states that will decide the election in 2012,” Mr. Axelrod said at the time. “And ultimately it is in those battleground states where voters will choose, 14 months from now, between two candidates, their records, and their visions for the country.”But Mr. Axelrod said he believed Mr. Biden is further behind now than his candidate was in 2011.He said he believed Mr. Biden would continue to run for re-election, and would likely end up facing Mr. Trump again next year. He urged Mr. Biden and those around him to begin attacking Mr. Trump politically to make it clearer what a Trump victory in 2024 would mean for the country.That kind of “competitive frame” is more important now, Mr. Axelrod said, than trying to tell people about the accomplishments that Mr. Biden has made.“I think he’ll run,” Mr. Axelrod said. “I think he will be the nominee. If so, they need to throw the entire campaign into a very, very tough competitive frame very quickly.” More

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      Abortion Is on the Ballot in Tuesday’s Elections, Giving a Preview for 2024

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      Elections in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia will give an early preview of how abortion will shape the political landscape in 2024, and the effectiveness of both parties’ approaches.Abortion has emerged as a defining fault line of this year’s elections, with consequential contests in several states on Tuesday offering fresh tests of the issue’s political potency nearly 18 months after the Supreme Court ended a federal right to an abortion.The decision overturning Roe v. Wade scrambled American politics in 2022, transforming a longstanding social conflict into an electoral battering ram that helped drive Democrats to critical victories in the midterm races. Now, as abortion restrictions and bans in red states have become reality, the issue is again on the ballot, both explicitly and implicitly, in races across the country.In Kentucky, Democrats are testing whether abortion can provide a political advantage even in a red state, as Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, has used the state’s near-total ban on abortions — which was triggered by the fall of Roe — to bludgeon his Republican opponent as an extremist. In Ohio, a socially conservative state, a ballot question that would enshrine abortion rights in the State Constitution will measure the extent of the country’s political pivot toward abortion rights.And in Virginia, the only Southern state without an abortion ban, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, is trying to flip the script in the state’s legislative elections, casting Democrats as “extreme” and saying his party supports a “common-sense position” — a 15-week ban.The contests give an early preview of how abortion will shape the political landscape in next year’s presidential and congressional elections — and the effectiveness of both parties’ approaches.Strategists across the political spectrum agree that abortion remains highly energizing for the Democratic coalition, particularly in states where Republicans could pass further restrictions. In Pennsylvania, where the parties are battling over a State Supreme Court seat, even a gun control advocacy group began ads backing the Democratic candidate by raising alarms about the future of abortion rights — a tacit nod to the issue’s resonance.“It’s still a very, very powerful issue to folks, both in terms of motivating Democrats to vote and as a very fruitful persuasion issue for swing voters,” said Angela Kuefler, a longtime Democratic pollster working on the proposed Ohio amendment.What remains less clear is how far into conservative areas Democrats’ arguments will be effective and whether Republicans can deflect some of the attacks.That’s what Republicans are trying to do in Virginia, where G.O.P. candidates like State Senator Siobhan Dunnavant, an OB-GYN running in one of the state’s most hotly contested races for a newly redrawn seat, have aired numerous ads on the issue.In one ad, she says, “I don’t support an abortion ban,” even though she supports a 15-week ban on the procedure with exceptions for rape, incest, the woman’s health and cases of several fetal anomalies. She argues that a 15-week restriction is not a ban but rather “legislation that reflects compassionate common sense.”“Every Republican in a swing district knows the Democrat playbook that’s going to be run against them,” said Liesl Hickey, a Republican strategist and ad maker working on the race. “The abortion issue can either define you, or you can define it in your campaign.”In Ohio, a red state with a history of opposition to abortion rights, Democrats are pushing a referendum that would enshrine abortion rights in the State Constitution.Julie Carr Smyth/Associated PressSince Roe was overturned, Democrats have prevailed in six out of six ballot measures that put the question of abortion straight to voters. This year, national groups backing both sides have poured tens of millions of dollars into the Ohio contest, transforming an off-year ballot measure into one of the most important races this fall.A victory in Ohio would provide further fuel for abortion rights efforts next year. That will be especially true in pivotal battleground states where campaigns are already underway, including Arizona, Florida and Missouri, said Amy Natoce, a spokeswoman for Protect Women Ohio, a group founded by national anti-abortion groups to oppose the amendment.“We know that all eyes are on Ohio right now,” she said. “States that are considering similar constitutional amendments are looking to us.”In Kentucky, Mr. Beshear is further testing the limits of where abortion can mobilize a Democratic coalition. Since Roe ended, the state has become engulfed in a political battle over how abortion should be regulated. A trigger law that took effect immediately after the decision banned abortion in nearly all circumstances, except to save the life of the woman or prevent severe injury. Efforts by abortion providers to block the ban in court were denied.Last fall, voters rejected a ballot measure that would have amended the state’s Constitution to ensure that no right to an abortion was in the document.In his campaign ads, Mr. Beshear has focused on how his Republican opponent, Daniel Cameron, supports a near-total ban.The Beshear campaign has aired some of the cycle’s most searing spots, including a straight-to-camera testimonial from a woman who was raped as a child by her stepfather. She says in the ad that Mr. Cameron would force child victims to carry the babies of their rapists.“We have the most extreme law in the country, where victims of rape and incest, some as young as 9 years old, have no options,” Mr. Beshear said this past week in Richmond, Ky. “The people of Kentucky have enough empathy to believe that those little girls ought to have options.”After the ad aired, Mr. Cameron, the state attorney general, flipped his position and said that he would support carving an exception in state law in instances of rape or incest. Even if Mr. Beshear wins re-election, he would most likely struggle to change the state’s abortion law because Republicans control the Legislature.Courtney Norris, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cameron, said in a statement, “Andy mischaracterizes and flat-out lies about Daniel’s position on a number of issues in an attempt to deflect attention away from his failures as governor and his extreme record on this issue.”Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat, has used the state’s near-total ban on abortions to paint his Republican opponent as an extremist.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesStill, not every Democrat running in a red state has embraced Mr. Beshear’s approach. Just as in the midterms, when abortion benefited Democrats most in states like Arizona and Michigan, where the right to the procedure was directly at risk, Democrats are leveraging the issue race by race.In Mississippi, Brandon Presley, the Democratic candidate for governor, has promoted his “pro-life” stance in television ads and has focused on issues like Medicaid expansion. And Shawn Wilson, a Democratic who lost the race for governor in Louisiana last month, said he was personally “pro-life.” Both are deeply conservative states where abortion is banned in almost all circumstances.In Virginia, where abortion remains legal through the second trimester, Republicans are the ones mitigating their approach. Mr. Youngkin has tried to be proactive in his messaging on abortion, promising to sign a 15-week ban if he and his Republican allies take over both chambers of the Legislature.Such a policy would have significant implications for the entire region, because Virginia has become a destination for patients across the South seeking the procedure. Currently, abortion remains legal in the state until nearly 27 weeks, and afterward if needed to save the life of the woman.Most doctors say there is no medical basis for an abortion cutoff at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Nor would it stop the vast majority of abortions, given that more than 93 percent happen before that stage in pregnancy, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But 15 weeks is the point at which many polls indicate that a majority of Americans would support restrictions.That’s one of the reasons Mr. Youngkin’s political committee has spent $1.4 million on ads pushing what the spots call a “reasonable” 15-week limit and accusing Democrats of disinformation as a heartbeat can be heard in the background. “Here’s the truth: There is no ban,” the narrator says.National Republican strategists have been pushing that message as well, urging their candidates to embrace a 15-week ban and exceptions in cases of rape, incest and risks to the physical health of the woman — all relatively popular positions with the general public.Zack Roday, a top political adviser to Mr. Youngkin, said Republicans were trying to reclaim and redirect the extremist label. He said Republicans needed to proactively neutralize that attack and create a “permission structure” for voters who are wary of G.O.P. candidates’ stances on abortion but like their approach to other issues.“They understand 40 weeks, no limits is extreme,” Mr. Roday said. “We’re trying to reclaim and bat that down. Because when you do, the voters will look at you more broadly.”Democrats say there are significant complications to Mr. Youngkin’s strategy. Polls show that a plurality of voters dislike the Republican approach to abortion rights. In private meetings and research memos, even some Republican strategists have urged their candidates to move away from the “pro-life” label, saying that many Americans now equate the term with support for a total ban.Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who worked for Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign in 2020, said that voters tended to see the issue of abortion as a fight over personal autonomy, and were less interested in litigating a number of weeks or specific exceptions.“Before Dobbs, people were very willing to entertain exceptions and restrictions,” she said. “Now they are much less open to that conversation because they just think there’s a bigger fundamental point here.”She added, “The fundamental freedom to an abortion has been taken away, and we want to guarantee that right.”State Senator Scott Surovell, the campaign chairman of the Virginia Senate’s Democratic caucus, said abortion remained the No. 1 issue driving people to vote.When Mr. Surovell first heard that Mr. Youngkin’s operation was planning to spend more than $1 million on abortion ads, he said he felt like what “the Union troops thought at Gettysburg,” when the Confederate army made a famously ill-fated charge.“You’re going to try to charge us here?” he said. “They’re going to try to attack us while we’re on the high ground here?”Reid J. Epstein More

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      How the Louisiana Democrats Lost the House Legislature

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      Even before the Nov. 18 election, some liberals are pushing the state party to confront its internal divisions and paltry fund-raising.Before a single ballot was cast, Louisiana Democrats knew they couldn’t win control of the State Legislature this year. It was mathematically impossible, because a lack of candidates meant they were not even contesting the majority of districts.Their best hope for political success rested with Shawn Wilson, a former state transportation secretary, and the expectation he would force a runoff against Jeff Landry, the state’s hard-line Republican attorney general, in an open primary for governor.At least, Democrats reasoned, Mr. Wilson would make it a little harder for the overwhelmingly favored Republican to flip control of the governor’s mansion in a region increasingly dominated by conservatives.But when Mr. Landry won a majority of the primary vote in October, eliminating the need for a runoff, the results instead laid bare the bleak conditions of a state Democratic Party decimated by internal divisions, paltry fund-raising totals and a disenchanted voter base.“If my defeat brings about change and organization, so be it because it’s worthy of that — it deserves that kind of change,” Mr. Wilson said in an interview. “Our citizens deserve better than what we’re getting.”Now just a handful of political offices and legislative seats are undecided as early voting for runoff elections begins Friday. Republicans are barreling toward uniting a conservative government for the first time in eight years, led by Mr. Landry, who has defended the state’s strict abortion ban, questioned the results of the 2020 election and battled environmental regulation.Shawn Wilson, the Democratic candidate for governor, was critical of the support he received from the state party. “Our citizens deserve better than what we’re getting,” he said.Emily Kask for The New York TimesIt is not the first time in recent years that Democrats have confronted the party’s dwindling influence in the South: Senator Mary L. Landrieu’s defeat in 2014 marked the end of a 138-year streak of at least one Democrat representing the state in the U.S. Senate. But even before the Nov. 18 election, some liberals are pushing the state party to consider deeper systemic changes ahead of high-stakes presidential and congressional elections.Just over 36 percent of the electorate voted, and one analysis estimated that 17 percent of Black voters chose a Republican candidate in the governor primary, underscoring the extent of apathy and discontent among the voters who had rallied twice behind Gov. John Bel Edwards, a conservative Democrat limited to two terms.John Couvillon, a longtime Republican pollster who analyzed precincts with at least 70 percent of registered Black voters, said the combination of some Black voters turning away from the Democratic candidate, the low turnout and a decline in registered Democrats made for “a whole new ballgame.”Many Democrats acknowledged they had faced long odds in the governor’s race, given that Louisiana has become increasingly conservative and is historically prone to flip-flopping control of its highest post between parties. A combination of gerrymandering and increased polarization has also led to several centrists to either lose their political posts or leave the Democratic Party altogether.Mr. Wilson, who scrambled to introduce himself to voters, also faced different challenges than Mr. Edwards: He would have been the first Black candidate elected statewide in 150 years, in a state that nearly elected a former Ku Klux Klan leader as governor in the 1990s.Mr. Edwards, who opposes allowing access to abortion, also ran long before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and abortion rights became an issue that galvanized the Democratic base.But some also wondered if the air of inevitability surrounding Mr. Landry’s campaign led some Democratic allies to preemptively move to make inroads with the next governor. Others questioned why top Democrats had not done more to shore up support for obvious successors to Mr. Edwards, knowing that he was unable to seek a third term.“Democrats just really aren’t competing,” said Trey Mustian, who works with the Jefferson Parish Democratic Executive Committee. “The state party has a great responsibility going out and recruiting candidates, and they just don’t do a good job of that.”He added, “We’ve just got to really rehabilitate and rebuild.”Several Democrats have focused much of their ire on the state party chair, Katie Bernhardt, calling on her to resign.As attorney general, Mr. Landry defended the state’s harsh abortion ban, questioned the results of the 2020 election and battled environmental regulation.Emily Kask for The New York TimesMs. Bernhardt inherited an already downtrodden party, taking over after Governor Edwards initially endorsed another candidate and replacing a previous chair who pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud after siphoning funds away from the party.But anger began to fester after she released an ad that appeared to tease a run for governor, a move that some Democrats felt stymied Mr. Wilson’s introduction to the race and prioritized her personal political brand over that of the party.“It’s pretty daunting for us, and it’s already hard enough,” said Dustin Granger, a candidate for state treasurer who had the best Democratic performance by garnering just a third of the vote. He called on Ms. Bernhardt to resign in a statement, saying the party could not “let self interests at the top continue to drag us down.”The internal drama, some said, further spooked donors from committing to the party.Mr. Wilson described his interactions with the state party as “We need you to raise money, Shawn.” His campaign raised “right at $300,000,” he said.“And,” he added, “to this day, I’m still waiting on a mailer — a ballot from the state Democratic Party — in spite of the fact that we played by the rules, we followed the law, we made investments.”Mr. Wilson’s defeat has led several Democrats to call for the state party chair, Katie Bernhardt, to resign or for an overhaul of the party infrastructure and approach.Emily Kask for The New York TimesAnother division emerged when Mr. Edwards and other top Democrats backed a challenger to Mandie Landry, a liberal state representative who had tussled with party leaders, in a safe New Orleans seat. (Ms. Landry has taken great pains to emphasize that she and the governor-elect are not related.)“There’s a big battle still — do they go more moderate to get more rural white moderates back, or do they go full city progressive to energize people?” said Ms. Landry, who won her race. “And it seems like what they’ve been doing for a while is trying to get the white moderates or white conservatives back, and I think that’s stupid.”Ms. Bernhardt and her allies have largely avoided directly responding to the calls for her resignation, choosing to focus on the remaining races. Those include Mr. Granger’s bid for treasurer and two Democratic women running for attorney general and secretary of state.“Division leads to defeat,” Ms. Bernhardt, who did not respond to requests for an interview, wrote in an opinion piece published after the primaries. “Unfortunately, some are looking to stoke divisions to advance their political agenda. This divisive rhetoric is untimely and counterproductive.”But without Mr. Edwards in place to wield his veto pen, there appears little Democrats can do to advance their own agenda in the Legislature or push back against Republican policies.“When resources are not garnered, are not gathered and invested, you cannot be surprised if you don’t have that sort of backbone to be able to lean on,” said Stephen Handwerk, a former executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party.And in recent days, as most Americans learned about Representative Mike Johnson, the hard-line Louisiana Republican newly elected as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, several local Democrats grimly noted one biographical detail: Mr. Johnson ran unopposed in 2022. More

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      The Presidential Fantasy Draft America Needs

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      Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThe polls are clear: Neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump has the full confidence of American voters. But is Biden’s latest competition, Democratic Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, the answer to voters’ malaise? Or perhaps an independent candidate like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?On this week’s episode of “Matter of Opinion,” the hosts imagine their own alternative candidates for 2024 and debate what good — if any — could come from long-shot contenders.(A transcript of this episode can be found in the center of the audio player above.)Illustration by The New York Times; Photograph by Ken Wiedemann/Getty ImagesMentioned in this episode:“Dean Phillips Has a Warning for Democrats,” by Tim Alberta in The AtlanticThoughts about the show? Email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com.Follow our hosts on X: Michelle Cottle (@mcottle), Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT), Carlos Lozada (@CarlosNYT) and Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen).“Matter of Opinion” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Sophia Alvarez Boyd and Derek Arthur. It is edited by Alison Bruzek. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Isaac Jones, Efim Shapiro, Carole Sabouraud, Sonia Herrero and Pat McCusker. Our fact-checking team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Katherine Miller. More

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      F.B.I. Raid of Adams Ally Brings Corruption Question to Mayor’s Doorstep

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      Mayor Eric Adams has faced ethics issues for years. A raid of his chief fund-raiser’s home poses a serious threat.Even as Eric Adams completed his rise in New York City politics and became mayor, questions remained over ethical issues and his ties to people with troubling pasts.His fund-raising tactics have repeatedly pushed the boundaries of campaign-finance and ethics laws. His relationships with his donors have drawn attention and prompted investigations. Some donors and even a former buildings commissioner have been indicted.Mr. Adams, a moderate Democrat in his second year in office, has not been implicated in any misconduct, but a broad public corruption investigation involving his chief fund-raiser and his 2021 campaign has drawn the mayor even closer to the edge.On Thursday, federal agents conducted an early-morning raid at the Brooklyn home of Brianna Suggs, Mr. Adams’s top fund-raiser and a trusted confidante. The inquiry is focusing on whether the mayor’s campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations.Mr. Adams, who typically takes great pains to distance himself from any investigation of people in his outer circle, took the opposite tack on Thursday.He abruptly canceled several meetings in Washington, D.C., where he was scheduled to discuss the migrant crisis with White House officials and members of Congress, and returned to New York.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      The Democrats Are Their Own Worst Enemy

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      This should be the Democratic Party’s moment. Donald Trump’s stranglehold has lurched the G.O.P. toward the fringe. Republican congressional behavior echoes that of an intemperate toddler and the party’s intellectual and ideological foundations have become completely unmoored.But far from dominant, the Democratic Party seems disconnected from the priorities, needs and values of many Americans.Current polls show a 2024 rematch between Trump and Joe Biden too close for true comfort; the same is true should Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis be the Republican nominee. Many constituents who were once the Democratic Party’s reliable base — the working class, middle-class families, even Black and Latino Americans and other ethnic minorities — have veered toward the G.O.P. In a development that has baffled Democrats, a greater share of those groups voted for Republican candidates in recent elections.Something worrisome has happened to the party of the people.This worry isn’t entirely new. In 2004, Thomas Frank’s book asked, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” Why, Frank wondered, did working- and middle-class Americans vote Republican when Democratic policies were more attuned to their needs?The question to ask now is: Why isn’t the Democratic Party serving their needs either?John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, authors of 2002’s hugely influential “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” might seem like the last people to have an answer, given that book’s failed prophecy that America would be majority Democratic by 2010 given shifts in the electorate and the population.But in “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?” they give a pretty persuasive explanation — one that should be read as a warning.If the answer to Frank’s question was that cultural issues can trump issues of class in ways that favor Republicans, Judis’s and Teixeira’s answer looks doubly troubling to Democrats: Not only is the Democratic Party increasingly failing on matters of culture (despite its strength on abortion rights), it’s also seen as failing in matters of class. In a country that has become more overtly populist in its values and needs, Democrats are the ones who look like the party of out-of-touch elitists.“We’ve had this peculiar situation where the reigning power in the Democratic Party has been between progressive social organizations and the neoliberal business elite,” Judis told me when I spoke to him last week. The majority of Americans are feeling left behind.This bodes ill for Democrats. As he and Teixeira write in the book, “The Democratic Party has had its greatest success when it sought to represent the common man and woman against the rich and powerful, the people against the elite, and the plebians against the patricians.”When it comes to economics, the authors say, Democrats have too often pursued the interests of their own elites and donors. Since the 1990s, the party has pursued policies that worsen the economic plight of Americans who are not well off. President Bill Clinton, for example, supported NAFTA and China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, which undermined American manufacturing; the administration also endorsed the Banking Act of 1999, which accelerated the financialization of the American economy. While Barack Obama conveyed a populist message on the campaign trail, as president, they say, he became captive to neoliberal Washington.Much of the Democratic Party’s agenda has been set by what Judis and Teixeira call the “shadow party,” a mix of donors from Wall Street, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, wealthy foundations, activist groups, the media, lobbyists and scholars.Democratic leaders seem too willing to settle for a kind of cheap progressivism — a carbon-neutral, virtue-signaling, box-checking update on what was once called limousine liberalism. But the Democratic Party cannot win and America cannot flourish if it doesn’t prioritize the economic well-being of the American majority over the financial interests and cultural fixations of an elite minority.Biden has curtailed some of its shadow party’s economic agenda — less so its cultural and social policies. There, Judis and Teixeira argue, the party seems bent on imposing a narrow progressive stance on issues like race, “sexual creationism” (commonly known as gender ideology), immigration and climate, at the expense of more broadly shared beliefs within the electorate.The moral values may differ at each extreme of the two parties, but their efforts to moralize can sound an awful lot alike to many Americans. Even though Democrats themselves are adopting “a pretty aggressive way to change the culture,” Teixeira told me, the Democratic Party acts as if anyone who reacts against the assumptions of its progressive wing is completely off base.“There’s a certain amount of chutzpah among Democrats to assume that it’s only the other side pursuing a culture war,” he said.For too long, the Democratic Party depended on shifting demographics to shore up its side. Then it relied on the horror show of the G.O.P. to scare people onto its side. Both have been an effective and damaging distraction. As Judis and Teixeira put it, Democrats “need to look in the mirror and examine the extent to which their own failures contributed to the rise of the most toxic tendencies on the political right.”We can no longer afford to avoid the hard truths. If the Democratic Party doesn’t focus on what it can deliver to more Americans, it won’t have to wonder anymore where all the Democrats went.Source images by John McKeen and phanasitti/Getty ImagesThe Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      New York Election Will Test Asian Americans’ Political Power

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      Whether they stick with Democrats or continue their shift to the right, Asian American voters will help decide competitive races on Nov. 7.Two years ago, many Asian American voters in New York City demonstrated their political muscle by voting for Republicans in traditional Democratic enclaves, voicing their concerns about crime and education while sending a warning signal to Democrats.The message was quickly received.“Our party better start giving more” attention to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Representative Grace Meng, a Democrat and the first Asian American elected to Congress from New York, wrote on Twitter at the time, using more colorful language to drive home her point.Asian Americans’ growing political clout was also seen in the New York City Council that year, when a record five were elected, including the first Indian American and Korean American members.As the Nov. 7 election nears, in which every City Council seat will be up for grabs, Asian Americans’ strength — as well as their political alliances — will be put to another test.Several Asian Americans are running in this year’s Council races, most notably in a so-called Asian opportunity district in Brooklyn that was created last year as part of a once-a-decade redistricting process to reflect the community’s growth.“I’ve never seen so many Asian Americans running for office,” said Councilwoman Linda Lee, the Democratic incumbent from Eastern Queens who is running against Bernard Chow, a health care benefits adviser and a Republican, in another race where both major party nominees are of Asian descent.Councilwoman Linda Lee, a Democrat, was one of a record five Asian Americans to be elected to the Council in 2021.Janice Chung for The New York TimesWith Asian American influence clearly on the rise, Democratic and Republican leaders are strategizing over how best to capture their votes.Leading Democrats, including Attorney General Letitia James, have expressed concern that the party is losing touch with Asian American voters, especially in southern Brooklyn and Queens, in part because it has not capably battled “misinformation and disinformation.”Republicans, meanwhile, have cast the wave of migrants who have recently come to New York in a negative light, hoping to attract more conservative Asian American voters by deploying a similar strategy as last year, when they amplified fears of crime as a wedge issue.Focusing on such issues may attract Asian American swing voters who may not otherwise be inclined to “completely flip Republican,” said Jerry Kassar, chairman of the state Conservative Party, but are “willing to cast their vote for Republicans.”The Queens district being contested by Ms. Lee and Mr. Chow includes the Hollis, Douglaston and Bellerose neighborhoods and is 45 percent Asian. Like in many districts with significant Asian American populations, Democrats and Republicans there often hold similar stances on the top line issues of public safety, education and the arrival of migrants.Both Ms. Lee and Mr. Chow opposed the placement of a tent complex for 1,000 men in the parking lot of Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Floral Park, Queens, but Mr. Chow contends, incorrectly, that the migrants are here illegally.“I earned my way in,” said Mr. Chow, who emigrated from Hong Kong to the United States to attend college before becoming a citizen.In July, while Ms. Lee was holding a news conference in a building near the psychiatric center to oppose the tent city, on the grounds that the infrastructure in the area wasn’t sufficient to provide for 1,000 additional people, Mr. Chow was outside with protesters, some who held up signs that said “send them back.”Mr. Chow said opposing the shelter was not enough and that Ms. Lee could have done more, including standing with protesters to demand change. Ms. Lee said she spends time with voters explaining what she has done to mitigate issues around the tent city but rejects the xenophobic comments made at some of the rallies.“Asylum seekers come here from horrible situations, and they want to work,” Ms. Lee said.In northern Queens, Asian American voters are being courted in a rematch of a 2021 election in which the Republican candidate, Vickie Paladino, narrowly defeated Tony Avella, a Democrat.Councilwoman Vickie Paladino, a Republican, works with three surrogates, including Yanling Zhang, right, to better reach Asian American voters.Janice Chung for The New York TimesMs. Paladino often knocks on doors with one of three Asian American surrogates, and Mr. Avella has prioritized printing campaign fliers in Mandarin and Korean, reflecting the fact that Asians now comprise 38 percent of the district.“I think the Asian community is finally coming into its own,” Mr. Avella said. “For decades, they were not listened to. Now, they can turn an election.”Asians are the fastest growing group in New York City, according to the 2020 census, which shows that New York City gained 630,000 new residents, 55 percent of whom are Asian, in the previous decade. “Asian Americans are a waking giant,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic consultant who is working on Mr. Avella’s campaign. “We’re not sleeping any more.”Both Ms. Paladino and Mr. Avella have said the nation’s southern border should be closed because of how the migrant crisis is affecting the city.But Mr. Avella has accused Ms. Paladino of making xenophobic remarks about Asians. He sent out a campaign mailer highlighting comments that Ms. Paladino made about how many “Asian languages” there are and noting that she liked a social media post saying that the country should “stop catering to Asians” because “we speak English,” using an expletive for emphasis.Ms. Paladino said Mr. Avella had dug up “joke tweets” from years ago because he had “nothing productive to add to the conversation,” and that she had worked on behalf of Asian Americans for years.Tony Avella, left, prints campaign fliers in Mandarin and Korean, in recognition that 38 percent of his district is of Asian descent.Janice Chung for The New York TimesIn the new Asian opportunity district in southern Brooklyn, the Democratic nominee, Susan Zhuang, and the Republican nominee, Ying Tan, each held rallies in August to oppose a migrant center in Sunset Park that is not even located in their district.Ms. Zhuang and Ms. Tan have focused their campaigns on crime, quality-of-life issues and education, as they fight to represent a district that is 54 percent Asian.During a recent debate, they argued over whether the other had done enough to protect the specialized high school entrance exam and speak out against migrant shelters. Ms. Tan said the city’s right to shelter should be eliminated entirely, while Ms. Zhuang said it should not apply to recent migrants.Mr. Yang, the Democratic consultant, said that the candidates’ response to the migrant influx illustrates how many Asian American voters are more concerned with particular issues than political party lines. Asian Americans, particularly Chinese Americans, are more likely to be unaffiliated with a political party than any racial minority, he added.Hate crimes against Asian Americans is one those issues. A protest on Monday about a 13-year-old Asian teen who was beaten by an adult drew both Mr. Chow and John Liu, a center-left Democratic state senator and the first Asian American elected to citywide office.Both Mr. Liu and Mr. Chow called for criminal charges against the teen’s father to be dropped because he was acting in self-defense.“Incidents like that make people aware in terms of the importance of local elected officials,” said Yiatin Chu, president of the Asian Wave Alliance, which co-sponsored the protest. “What are they saying? How are they helping us navigate these things?”The protest was one of many recent examples of how Asian Americans are pushing elected Democrats to take their concerns more seriously.Shekar Krishnan, the first Indian American elected to the City Council, has a large Bangladeshi population in his district, but noted that there were very few Bengali dual-language programs in public schools.“Government is not hearing our concerns and not taking them seriously enough and treats us still like a monolith,” said Mr. Krishnan, who represents Jackson Heights and Elmhurst in Queens.Grace Lee, an assemblywoman who represents Lower Manhattan, and Mr. Liu are publicly working to protect the commuter vans that are prevalent in Asian communities, and make sure they are not unduly harmed by new congestion pricing rules.The vans are a form of mass transit “that is vital to the Asian American community,” Ms. Lee said. “Those are the sort of things where representation matters.”Ms. Meng said she was starting to see things change. In a recent special election in a Queens Assembly district covering Kew Gardens, College Point and Whitestone, Democrats were able to win over voters who had supported Lee Zeldin, last year’s Republican nominee for governor, instead of Gov. Kathy Hochul.The Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee ran ads in Asian media every day during early voting and worked with a Chinese newspaper to place messages in WeChat, a Chinese messaging app.Councilwoman Sandra Ung represents a district in Flushing, Queens, that has the state’s highest share of Asians.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesOn a warm Friday evening, Sandra Ung, one of the five Asian Americans elected to the Council in 2021, walked north on Main Street in Flushing to knock on doors. Asians comprise 72 percent of her district, the highest share in the city, and Ms. Ung wanted to reach older, first-generation immigrants.One woman, speaking in Mandarin, wanted help finding her polling place. Ms. Ung, a Democrat, and her campaign manager both pulled out their phones.“Ni hao,” Ms. Ung said to another woman who stuck her hand out of the door just far enough to grab a flier written in Mandarin, Korean and English. After a brief conversation in Chinese, the woman said she planned to vote for Ms. Ung.“Sometimes,” Ms. Ung said as she headed for the next apartment, “they just want to have someone who is speaking their language.” More

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      Can a Democrat Running the Biden Playbook Win in Deep-Red Kentucky?

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      Gov. Andy Beshear, the popular incumbent, is campaigning for re-election on abortion rights, the economy and infrastructure — but distancing himself from the unpopular president.Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky is conducting one of this year’s most intriguing political experiments: What happens when an incumbent Democrat campaigns on President Biden’s record and agenda, but never mentions the party’s unpopular leader by name?Mr. Beshear is running for re-election in his deep-red state as a generic version of Mr. Biden, promoting himself as having led Kentucky through dark times to emerge with a strong post-Covid economy.Like Mr. Biden, he is counting on voters’ distaste for aggressive Republican opposition to abortion, which is banned in almost all circumstances in Kentucky, as well as those with good will toward his stewardship during crises like natural and climate disasters.Yet he is doing whatever he can to separate himself from Mr. Biden, whose approval ratings remain mired around 40 percent nationally and are much lower in Kentucky.“This race is about Kentucky,” Mr. Beshear said on Monday in Richmond, Ky. “It’s about what’s going on in our houses, not about what’s going on in the White House.”Mr. Beshear is among the most popular governors in the country, and Democrats are cautiously optimistic about his prospects in Tuesday’s elections, even though former President Donald J. Trump won the state by about 26 percentage points in 2020.As in-person early voting begins on Thursday, officials in both parties in Kentucky say that every private poll of the race has shown Mr. Beshear leading his Republican challenger, Daniel Cameron, the attorney general. That could suggest the continuation of a national political environment that has been favorable to Democrats since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson in June 2022 ended the federal right to abortion.Daniel Cameron, the Republican challenger for governor and the state’s attorney general, acknowledges in his TV ads that Mr. Beshear is “a nice guy.”Timothy D. Easley/Associated PressBut Mr. Biden remains toxic in the state: A poll released Tuesday by Morning Consult found that 68 percent of Kentuckians disapproved of him, while 60 percent — including 43 percent of Republicans — approved of Mr. Beshear.Since Mr. Beshear won the governor’s race in 2019, the number of registered Democrats in Kentucky has fallen while the number of Republicans has increased. And local Republicans believe they’ll outperform polling after surveys underestimated support for Mr. Trump in 2020.Kentucky’s voters have a knack for providing a preview of national trends. The state’s last six elections for governor have forecast presidential election results a year later.On the campaign trail in counties that Mr. Trump carried — which is 118 of Kentucky’s 120 — Mr. Beshear tries to extricate the Biden from Bidenomics, the tagline much heralded by the president’s campaign. Mr. Beshear celebrates record-low unemployment rates, a major bridge project paid for by Mr. Biden’s infrastructure law and what he says are the “two best years for economic development in our history.”No new business development is too small. At a Monday morning stop in Richmond, Ky., Mr. Beshear cited the recent opening of a truck stop just outside town. “We even brought a Buc-ee’s to Madison County,” he said, referring to the franchise’s first outpost in the state and a point of local pride.Left unmentioned in Mr. Beshear’s pitch to voters is the Biden administration’s significant role in his résumé. Mr. Biden’s infrastructure law has directed $5.2 billion to at least 220 Kentucky projects, including $1.1 billion for high-speed internet and $1.6 billion for the rebuilding of the Brent Spence Bridge, which connects Cincinnati to its Kentucky suburbs. It’s a long-awaited project that Mr. Beshear mentions in his closing TV ad.Democrats on the Kentucky ballot with Mr. Beshear on Tuesday have all gotten the message about Mr. Biden.Kim Reeder, the Democrat running for state auditor, laughed when asked if she had ever said the words “Joe Biden” out loud, then requested to go off the record when asked what she thought of his performance in office. Sierra Enlow, the party’s candidate for agriculture commissioner — whose Republican opponent is pledging in television ads to “stop Biden and save Kentucky” — said she responded by “talking about what voters need to hear and what this office actually does.”Kim Reeder, left, a Democrat running for state auditor, with a supporter at a brewery in Richmond, Ky. Jon Cherry for The New York TimesAnd Pam Stevenson, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, said she didn’t talk about Mr. Biden “because for the last year, no one’s asked me about him.”Kentucky Republicans acknowledge that Mr. Beshear is popular and leading even in their polling. Mr. Cameron, who is a protégé of Senator Mitch McConnell, acknowledges in his TV ads that Mr. Beshear is “a nice guy.”The most popular topics in TV ads aired by Mr. Cameron and his Republican allies are crime, opposition to Mr. Biden, Mr. Cameron’s endorsement from Mr. Trump, opposition to L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and jobs, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm.Mac Brown, the chairman of the Republican Party of Kentucky, said Mr. Beshear’s popularity was a remnant of the billions directed to the state from the Biden administration. Crime is the foremost concern, said Mr. Brown, whose home in the Louisville suburbs was vandalized and burned last year.“When you sit down and look at it, he’s very good at taking credit for what other people do,” Mr. Brown said. “That’s probably the easiest way to say it.”As with Mr. Biden and other Democrats, the most potent political weapon for Mr. Beshear is abortion rights. With Republican supermajorities in the Kentucky Legislature, there’s little Mr. Beshear can do to change the state’s near-total ban on the procedure. The building in downtown Louisville that housed one of Kentucky’s last abortion clinics is now for sale.Pam Stevenson, the Democrat running for attorney general, said she didn’t talk about Mr. Biden “because for the last year, no one’s asked me about him.”Jon Cherry for The New York TimesMr. Beshear’s campaigning is a reversal of decades of red-state Democratic reticence on abortion politics. Where Democrats have in the past avoided the issue or watered down their support for abortion rights, Mr. Beshear has blasted Mr. Cameron for his anti-abortion stance and attacked Kentucky Republicans for passing the abortion ban. He is airing striking ads that feature a woman who speaks of being raped by her stepfather when she was 12 years old.Mr. Cameron, who has defended the state’s abortion ban in court, now says he would sign legislation to allow some exceptions if elected.“There’s no ads saying, ‘Don’t elect the pro-abortion guy,’” said Trey Grayson, a Republican who served as Kentucky secretary of state in the 2000s.Last November, voters rejected an effort to write an abortion prohibition into the Kentucky Constitution. Now the Beshear campaign has found in its polling that just 12 percent of Kentuckians favor the state’s abortion ban. Mr. Beshear said he was trying to change the political language surrounding abortion away from the old binary between choice and life.“Those terms were from a Roe v. Wade world that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said in Richmond this week. “In the Dobbs world, we have the most draconian, restrictive law in the country. This race is about whether you think that victims of rape and incest should have options, that the couples that have a nonviable pregnancy should have to carry it to term even though that child is going to die.”Steve Beshear, who is Mr. Beshear’s father and a former governor of the state, was more succinct about where the abortion debate stood in Kentucky.“It’s totally changed from a Republican issue to a Democratic issue,” he said.Steve Beshear, Mr. Beshear’s father and a former Kentucky governor, said abortion politics in the state now favored Democrats.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesJust as Mr. Biden’s fate is likely to be determined by his performance in the counties that ring Atlanta, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, Mr. Beshear has concentrated on the suburban areas near Cincinnati, Lexington and Louisville. In 2019, he won Madison County, a Lexington suburb that includes Richmond, before Mr. Trump won it by about 27 points in 2020.Jimmy Cornelison, a Democrat who is the elected coroner of Madison County, said people there appreciated that the state had far fewer deaths from the coronavirus pandemic because Mr. Beshear had put in place aggressive policies to restrict public gatherings and require masks in indoor spaces. But that doesn’t mean such Kentuckians share Mr. Beshear’s party identification.“There were a lot of people elected Democrats in this county that aren’t Democrats now,” Mr. Cornelison said. “I’m the sole survivor.”Voters who came to Mr. Beshear’s campaign rallies this week spoke of his nightly coronavirus updates in 2020, his relentless travel schedule and a general satisfaction about how the state is doing. While Mr. Biden speaks of restoring “the soul of America,” Mr. Beshear has invited the entire state to join him on “Team Kentucky.”“People disagree with Washington, you know, but they like what’s going on in Kentucky,” said Ralph Hoskins, a Democratic retired school superintendent from Oneida, Ky., who drove through the rain to see Mr. Beshear speak under a tent in the parking lot of an abandoned supermarket in London, Ky.Nearby, Jean Marie Durham, a Democrat who is a retired state employee from East Bernstadt, Ky., showed off a poem she had written about Mr. Beshear during the early days of the pandemic.“He cares about our protection from death and despair; He diligently considers our safety and personal care!” she wrote.Ms. Durham also had handy the response Mr. Beshear had sent her. He called her “a very talented writer” and wrote that he had displayed the poem in his office in Frankfort, the capital.“He’s one of us,” Ms. Durham said of Mr. Beshear, “even though his dad was governor.” More