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      R.F.K. Jr. Allies Say They’ll Spend Over $10 Million on Ballot Access

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      A super PAC backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential candidacy is leading the costly and legally complex effort, which the Democratic establishment is trying to fight.A super PAC backing the independent presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to spend $10 million to $15 million to get Mr. Kennedy on the ballot in 10 states, a substantial effort that, even if partly successful, could heighten Democratic concerns about his potential to play the role of spoiler in 2024.The hefty sum underscores the challenge facing Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and prominent purveyor of conspiracy theories, as he pursues his long-shot White House bid. It also shows the substantial financial support he has generated so far.The super PAC, American Values 2024, has raised at least $28 million. (The group last disclosed its unofficial fund-raising haul in early October, but has not filed official records since mandatory midyear reports with the Federal Election Commission in July, when it had $9.8 million on hand.) The group was planning to announce the strategy on Monday, according to a draft announcement reviewed by The New York Times.The states, which include several battlegrounds, are among the country’s most populous and carry, between them, 210 Electoral College votes — Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York and Texas.Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, as well as efforts from No Labels, the Green Party and other independent candidates, have worried President Biden’s campaign and its Democratic allies. They fear that such campaigns could siphon votes away from Mr. Biden and tilt the election toward his likely Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump.States make their own rules governing ballot access. Independent candidates must navigate a labyrinthine network governing signature collections and financial reporting requirements. The effort is time-consuming and expensive.Tony Lyons, the super PAC’s co-founder, said that the goal was to get Mr. Kennedy on the ballot in every state, but that the group was focusing on the 10 states where it expected the most difficulty, particularly in terms of expensive legal challenges. “That’s where we believe we can have the most impact,” he said.He said the campaign was working on its own ballot access efforts — the campaign’s website includes a sign-up for people who would like to be contacted by volunteers.In an interview this year, Ralph Nader, who twice ran for the presidency as the Green Party’s candidate, estimated that it would cost at least $5 million simply to collect signatures to qualify for ballots. The inevitable legal fights to defend ballot access, he said, would require many more millions of dollars.Marc Elias, one of the Democratic Party’s leading election lawyers, has been retained by the super PAC American Bridge to vet third-party and independent candidates’ ballot access in battleground states where such candidates could damage Mr. Biden.Mr. Elias said in an interview last month that he would work to make sure that any candidate who might be a threat to Mr. Biden followed the precise letter of the law when it comes to qualifying for the ballot.“The law is the law. The law requires candidates to get on the ballot in a certain way,” Mr. Elias said. “Once you have the rules you have for ballot access, you have to meet them and there’s no exception to it.”Mr. Kennedy entered the presidential race in April as a Democratic challenger to Mr. Biden, but ended his bid for the party’s nomination in October, arguing that Democrats’ primary system was rigged against him.From the outset, Mr. Kennedy has drawn support from disaffected Democrats, Republicans and independents, some of whom have been drawn to his anti-establishment message. A poll from The New York Times and Siena College that was released last month found that unfavorable opinions of Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump left an opening for independent candidates like Mr. Kennedy.Democrats are not alone in their concerns about Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy. The Republican National Committee, on the day he announced his independent bid, sent out an email titled “23 Reasons to Oppose RFK Jr.,” listing ways in which he has been aligned with Democrats in the past. More

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      Talk About Abortion, Don’t Talk About Trump: Governors Give Biden Advice

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      At an annual gathering in Arizona, Democratic governors offered a series of explanations for the president’s political struggles and suggested ideas for selling voters on his re-election.America’s Democratic governors brag about booming local economies, preside over ribbon-cuttings of projects paid for with new federal legislation and have successfully framed themselves as defenders of abortion rights and democracy.Almost all of them are far more popular in their home states than the Democratic president they hope to re-elect next year.While President Biden is mired in the political doldrums of low approval ratings and a national economy that voters are sour on, Democratic governors are riding high, having won re-election in red-state Kentucky last month and holding office in five of the seven most important presidential battleground states.The governors, like nearly all prominent Democrats, are publicly projecting confidence: In interviews and conversations with eight governors at their annual winter gathering at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix over the weekend, they expressed on-the-record optimism that Mr. Biden would win re-election.But also like many Democrats, some privately acknowledged fears that former President Donald J. Trump could win a rematch with Mr. Biden. They also said that Mr. Biden, at 81 years old, might not compare well with a younger Republican like Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida or even former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.The governors offered a series of explanations for Mr. Biden’s political struggles and supplied free advice. Here are six ways they believe he can raise his standing ahead of next year’s election.Talk more about abortion.Mr. Biden barely says the word abortion in his public statements, a fact that frustrates fellow governors hoping he can, as many of them have, use anger over the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade to improve his political fortunes.“We should talk about all the threats to women’s health care, including abortion, and use that word specifically,” said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. “We should be talking about it like that because Americans are awake. They are angry that this right could be stripped away and we are the only ones fighting for it.”On abortion politics, Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey acknowledged that “it’s widely known that this is probably an uncomfortable reality for him,” given that Mr. Biden, a practicing Catholic, once voted in the Senate to let states overturn Roe v. Wade and his stance on abortion rights has evolved over the years.Mr. Murphy said Mr. Biden must be forthright about discussing the likelihood that Republicans would aim to enact new abortion restrictions if they win control of the federal government in 2024 and emphasizing the Democratic position that decisions about abortion should be left to women and their doctors.“That has to be laid out in a much more crystal-clear, explicit, affirmative way,” he said.Stop talking about Trump.The governors broadly agreed that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee. They don’t love Mr. Biden’s recent turn to focus more attention on his predecessor.“You’ve got to run for something and not against someone,” said Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky. That is easy for Mr. Beshear to say — he is among the nation’s most popular governors and just won re-election in a deep-red state.Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas urged the president to stop talking about Mr. Trump altogether. Be positive, she said, and let others carry the fight to Mr. Trump.“If I were in Biden’s shoes, I would not talk about Trump,” she said. “I would let other people talk about Trump.”Appeal to moderate Republicans and independents.Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota also said Mr. Biden needed to adopt some of Mr. Trump’s penchant for bragging.“He’s been modest for so long, to watch him do it now feels a little uncomfortable,” Mr. Walz said.Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said his constituents were hoping Republicans would nominate someone other than Mr. Trump.Mr. Murphy said hopefully that Republicans supporting someone else in their primary might stay home or wind up voting for Mr. Biden next year.“What if Trump is the nominee? What’s the behavior pattern among the Haley, DeSantis and Chris Christie supporters? Where do they go?” Mr. Murphy said. “I find it hard to believe that a majority of them are going to Trump.”Tell people what Biden’s done.Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, fresh off a prime-time Fox News debate against Mr. DeSantis that seemed meant in part to elevate the ambitious Mr. Newsom to the role of Mr. Biden’s leading defender, lamented “the gap between performance and perception.”He was one of several governors who said their constituents felt good about their lives but were pessimistic about the state of the country.“People feel pretty good about their states, feel pretty good about their communities, even their own lived lives,” Mr. Newsom said. “You ask, ‘How are you doing?’ They say, ‘We’re doing great, but this country’s going to hell.’”Mr. Newsom said Mr. Biden’s biggest problem was that he had not been able to communicate to voters that he is responsible for improvements in their lives.“People just don’t know the record,” he said. “They don’t hear it. They never see it.”In North Carolina, which last week became the 40th state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Cooper said people who are newly eligible for health care were not likely to credit Mr. Biden or White House policies.“The people who are getting it don’t really associate it with anybody other than finally being able to get health care for themselves,” he said.Focus more attention on legislative achievements.The governors all seemed to agree that they would like to see Mr. Biden spend more time cutting ribbons and attending groundbreakings for new projects paid for by infrastructure, climate and semiconductor funding he signed into law.“I would be doing those morning, noon and night,” Mr. Murphy said.Ms. Kelly of Kansas, who won her red state twice, said Mr. Biden should announce the opening of new projects and factories because she said it would focus attention away from his age.“I would spend a lot of time doing those just because they’re relatively easy and they are energizing,” she said.And Mr. Walz, whom his fellow governors voted the new chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said Mr. Biden’s challenge would be explaining to people the future benefits of investments being made now.“The problem is going to be, it’s going to take us 20 years to build all this infrastructure out,” Mr. Walz said. “Whether they see it within the next 11 months or not, that’s what we need to tell the story.”Find some Democrats with enthusiasm.No governor at the Phoenix gathering expressed more desire to give Mr. Biden another term in the White House than Mr. Newsom, who used a 40-minute chat with reporters to take a victory lap from his debate with Mr. DeSantis, a ratings bonanza for the Fox News host Sean Hannity that doubled as the largest audience of the California governor’s political career.Mr. Newsom, who since the middle of last year has evolved from a friendly critic of Mr. Biden’s political messaging to one of his most enthusiastic supporters, said his fellow governors needed to perform like old-school politicians who could deliver a constituency for an ally through force of will by activating supporters to follow political commands.“We, the Democratic Party, need to get out there on behalf of the leader of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, and make the case and do it with pride,” Mr. Newsom said. “We’ve got to wind this thing up.”The task may be difficult. Mr. Cooper described “a general malaise and frustration” that has Americans blaming Mr. Biden for forces often beyond his control.But Mr. Newsom said that if others were wary of carrying the torch for Mr. Biden in the next year, he was not afraid to do so all by himself.“If no one’s showing up doing stuff, I’m going to show up,” he said. “I can’t take it. I can’t take the alternative. I can’t even conceive it.” More

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      Nikki Haley’s Views on Social Security

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      More from our inbox:A Climate Protest at the OperaMore Trump Coverage? Brian Snyder/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Haley Is Coming for Your Retirement,” by Paul Krugman (column, Nov. 28):Mr. Krugman is right in pointing out the inequality connected to proposals to raise the age at which one becomes eligible for Social Security. As he points out, the proposals are, “in effect, saying that the aging janitors must keep working (or be cast into extreme poverty) because rich bankers are living longer.”But it’s even worse than that. The problem of an impending shortfall of the Social Security Trust Fund is in significant part a consequence of our rising economic inequality. High-income people pay a smaller share of their income into Social Security because salary over $160,200 — the so-called “tax max” — is not subject to the Social Security tax.Also, there is no Social Security tax on income from capital (including dividends, interest, capital gains and rents), which tends to go to wealthy people. Consequently, as a larger and larger part of our national income goes to the rich, the share collected by the Social Security tax declines.The solution is not hard to envision: Raise the “tax max” and tax income from capital. Better yet, adopt a set of policies that would move us toward a more equal distribution of income.Arthur MacEwanCambridge, Mass.The writer is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston.To the Editor:As a member of Gen Z, I commend Nikki Haley for suggesting ideas to keep Social Security solvent. Raising the retirement age is not a pleasant thought, but tough times require tough decisions. Our national debt is at a record high, and interest repayments are reaching worrying levels. Changes have to be made if the country’s finances are to stay healthy. Numbers don’t lie.I, for one, do not expect to ever be able to collect Social Security, despite having paid 6.2 percent of my income into it over my entire working life. I would rather get rid of the tax altogether than continue to pretend that Social Security will still be around when I retire.I have absolutely zero faith that members of Congress will fix this problem; they have been kicking this can down the road for longer than I’ve been alive.Eric FuquaAtlantaTo the Editor:Paul Krugman’s piece on Nikki Haley makes it quite clear that she is far from the perfect candidate, but what it does not address is the critical role that she may play.The Economist recently described Donald Trump as the gravest danger to the world in 2024, and considering viable alternatives, apart from Nikki Haley, there is only one 81-year-old man with major failings of his own standing in Donald Trump’s way.Even with all her shortcomings, there are strong reasons to support Nikki Haley, as she may be best positioned to save our democracy and the world from Donald Trump.Jon LandauPhiladelphiaA Climate Protest at the OperaThe Metropolitan Opera House, center, at Lincoln Center.Kathy Willens/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Climate Protesters Interrupt Met Performance of Wagner’s ‘Tannhäuser’” (news article, nytimes.com, Dec. 1):The recent climate protest at the opera made my heart sink.I’m a climate activist. I’ve marched, I’ve lobbied, I’ve contacted legislators. I’m co-leader of a local chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a grass-roots organization that believes that effective change will come about through respectful dialogue — and the sheer force of numbers.I’m also a professional singer and an operagoer. And I cringe when I see protesters disrupt the arts to make their point. The very people who might be inclined to help contribute to the urgent cause of fighting global warming may well be sitting in that opera house. But these protesters chose to alienate them. How in the world is that productive?The most effective path toward change is to work with others, not against them. We need dedicated, respectful activists who do their work by finding common ground and then gently but insistently nudging all of us forward.What we don’t need is this kind of spectacle, which gives the rest of us climate activists a bad name, and serves as an affront to the music and art we all need to inspire us in a troubled world.Francesca Huemer KellyHighland Park, Ill.More Trump Coverage?For years, President Biden and Democrats have been happy to mostly ignore Donald J. Trump. But now their thinking appears to be changing as the 2024 election season begins to ramp up.Sophie Park for The New York Times, Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Democrats Want Trump Plastered All Over the News” (news article, Nov. 22):How soon we forget. Think back to Wednesday morning, Nov. 9, 2016. Whether you supported and voted for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, you were likely shocked when you heard the final results.Now, Democrats are hoping that heavy media coverage of Mr. Trump, assuming he is the nominee, will remind Americans of his flawed character, his lies, his legal troubles and his hate-filled rhetoric, and this will repel them.But back in 2015 and 2016, Mr. Trump was far from invisible, enjoying plenty of media coverage: as a failed TV star and businessman, as a clown and an entertainer, not to be taken seriously. The polls at the time were suggesting that Mrs. Clinton was the heavy favorite, so many Americans either stayed home or voted for Mr. Trump as a joke or an anti-Hillary statement.Why would we think next year’s coverage won’t still focus on Mr. Trump’s entertainment value as much as on his lies, his threats and his crimes?Democrats may ask for more news coverage, but we should be careful what we wish for.Betsy FrankMattituck, N.Y. More

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      There Are Politicians Who Lie More Than Is Strictly Necessary

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      Gail Collins: Bret, this may sound a bit strange, but I’ve decided to be grateful for all the political debates going on around us. While the real world can get kinda depressing, the debate world is always ready to just chatter away.I want to hear your predictions on the Republican set-to coming this week. But first, did you watch the governors go at it? Gavin Newsom versus Ron DeSantis? What did you think?Bret Stephens: The idea for the governors’ debate was first mooted when it looked like DeSantis could be the Republican presidential nominee. Now he seems slightly less relevant than the moderator, Sean Hannity, as well as slightly more obnoxious. Which is … saying something.But I still think DeSantis got the better of Newsom on the substance of their arguments. What did you think?Gail: Thought DeSantis won in the sense that he sounded somewhat less dim than many of us expected.Bret: I never thought of DeSantis as a dummy. Just a jerk.Gail: Although having Sean Hannity continually tossing him softball questions helped.Bret: True.Gail: Newsom was quicker, and his answers were smarter. As to which state works better, Californians do have to spend a lot to live there, when it comes to housing, food, gas, etc., but Florida ranks 14th on those basics and that’s a whole lot closer to the top than DeSantis seemed to be claiming.Florida’s taxes are lower but way more regressive — heavy on sales and property taxes that burden the middle and working classes with very little of the social services California dedicates to the poor.Bret: Since Newsom became governor in 2019, roughly 2.3 million Californians have left the state, but fewer than 1.4 million have arrived, a net loss of close to a million people. This is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot, but in this case it’s literally true: People are voting with their feet. And they are going to red states like Florida and Texas, in part because California ranks last in the country in terms of affordability, violent crime rates are way above the national average and the state has the largest homeless population in the country.I’m no fan of DeSantis when it comes to his views about abortion or his petty battles with Disney. But as blue states go, the Golden State ain’t exactly a role model for Democratic governance.Gail: One thing I was thinking while watching the two of them have at it was that the whole scene was a good promotion for your version of conservatism. Whenever the conversation turned to social issues like abortion, DeSantis was toast. When the questions were about public spending, Newsom had to work a whole lot harder.Bret: It would have been better to have a Democrat from a purple state, like Kentucky’s Andy Beshear or North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, provide the Democratic counter to DeSantis’s extremism.Gail: Well, I’ll bet a whole bunch of other governors are out there waving their arms to volunteer if Fox News wants to go down this road again.Bret: I hope someone smart and sane like Chris Wallace can moderate the next one. And speaking of smart and sane, we lost Sandra Day O’Connor last week. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was often treated like a feminist saint, but as a pioneer for women and a legal powerhouse, O’Connor deserves more of the accolades.Gail: Super happy to applaud Sandra Day O’Connor, but Bret, I think she’d prefer if you celebrate her without dissing another female pioneer.Bret: Sorry, that came out wrong. Point taken.Gail: One of my favorite O’Connor stories was when William French Smith, Ronald Reagan’s attorney general at the time, called to interview her for the Supreme Court post. She cheerfully reminded him that she’d applied to his law firm when she graduated from Stanford Law, and the only job she was offered was secretary.O’Connor then served Smith and her other visitors a salmon mousse she prepared and answered all their questions brilliantly without mentioning that she was recovering from a hysterectomy at the time they dropped by.Bret: I’ll raise a toast to both O’Connor and Ginsburg for helping ensure that my daughters’ generation won’t have to put up with much of the sexism my mother’s generation had to suffer.Gail: Amen!Bret: And, more specifically to O’Connor, to salute her for helping save abortion rights for a generation with her vote in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, as well as for her impassioned and correct dissent in Kelo v. New London, in which she denounced the use of eminent domain to suit the needs of private developers over poorer private homeowners. She was a conservative who could speak up for the vulnerable. Also, a good reminder that it was a conservative president, Reagan, who nominated her to the court. History will remember them both well.Another historic figure we lost last week was Henry Kissinger. I’m guessing you weren’t a big fan?Gail: Well, Bret, I was a student during the Vietnam War era, and I can’t say I was ever a fan. I realize Kissinger’s approach to the war was much more complicated than we gave him credit for at the time. But still not feeling any compulsion to mourn.Bret: I knew Kissinger personally and once had a spectacularly, almost hilariously, unfriendly interview with him on the subject of China, in which he refused to answer most of my questions. I also disagreed with him about many things, though my criticisms were from the right, not the left. Arms control deals with the Kremlin, for instance, were always a mistake, since the Soviets could never be trusted to keep their word.Yet I couldn’t help but admire him. His books, especially “Diplomacy,” are guideposts for my thinking about foreign policy. He came to this country as a refugee, served it as a soldier, rose to the pinnacle of influence and had a concept about husbanding American power through what he called our “disastrous oscillations between overcommitment and isolation.” I think it’s better to learn from him than just to castigate him.Gail: Almost always a smart approach.Bret: Let’s talk about someone less controversial. How about Elon Musk telling the companies that won’t advertise on Twitter — sorry, X — to, er, go do something or other with themselves?Gail: Never claimed to be an expert on any twittery issues, but I do have a strong impression that Musk is one of those guys who had one great moment, capitalism-and-market-wise. But it turned out that was absolutely all he had, and once he took his billions down other paths, it was a disaster.Sorta scary he’s one of the richest guys on the planet. Your thoughts?Bret: I once called Musk “the Donald Trump of Silicon Valley,” because I thought he was basically a BS artist making a living off misdirected government subsidies for electric vehicles. That was unfair, especially considering the achievements of Tesla and SpaceX. He’s more like the Howard Hughes of Boca Chica — a technological and entrepreneurial visionary whose increasingly self-destructive behavior suggests he should probably lay off the drugs or whatever else he’s on.And then there’s his efforts to meddle in foreign policy and his endorsement of antisemitic conspiracy theories — which may make him more comparable to Henry Ford. Maybe I’ve been too soft on opinionated billionaires.Gail: Yeah, maybe what we need to do more of this holiday season is forget about Musk and Take a Lonely Billionaire Out to Lunch.Bret: Unless you’d prefer to take lonely George Santos out to lunch.Gail: Think anybody would give us a reservation? Can’t remember when a politician collected so many enemies for stuff that stupid. He’s going to spend the rest of his life known as the Campaign Contributions for Botox guy.Bret: Or as the Politician Who Lied More Than Is Strictly Necessary.Gail: Onward and upward. Bret, I promised we’d come back to this, so here goes: There’s another Republican debate coming up on Wednesday night. Might only be three people in it — your fave Nikki Haley, our friend DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy the, um, entrepreneur.I’m hoping Chris Christie might somehow manage to qualify. If we have to watch a quarreling batch of Republicans who will not get the presidential nomination, I’d at least like it to be diverting.Any predictions?Bret: Gary Lineker once described soccer as a game in which “22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans win.” That feels a bit like this Republican debate: Three or four adults chase the political football across the stage and at the end, Trump wins.I hope I’m wrong. But with Trump’s primary lead looking increasingly insurmountable, isn’t it time for you Democrats to, uh, panic?Gail: Joe Biden is the inevitable nominee, if he wants to run for another four years. No way you can dump a guy who’s done a really good overall job as president, who has a fine character and no scandals more pressing than the thing with his son, which many American voters find totally boring.Of course, we want someone younger than 81, but there’s no non-insulting way to rip the nomination away from him. And he’ll almost certainly be running against Trump, who we note every single week is almost as old and in way worse shape. And while Biden is certainly given to garbling his messages, he seldom comes up with total misstatements and lies.Plus we’re going to have a campaign in which one of the candidates is facing more felony indictments than most of America’s Most Wanted. Call me sad, but not panicked.Bret: Gail? I’m panicked.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      George Santos Is Gone. What Happens to His Seat in Congress?

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      The expulsion of George Santos from Congress on Friday swept away one major political headache for Republicans, but it immediately set the stage for another: The party will have to defend his vulnerable seat in a special election early next year.The race in New York is expected to be one of the most high-profile and expensive off-year House contests in decades. It has the potential to further shrink Republicans’ paper-thin majority and offer a preview of the broader battle for House control next November.With towering stakes, both parties have been preparing for the possibility for months, as Mr. Santos’s fabricated biography unraveled and federal criminal charges piled up. More than two dozen candidates have already expressed interest in running, and labor unions, super PACs and other groups have begun earmarking millions of dollars for TV ads.“It’s going to be like a presidential election for Congress,” said Steve Israel, a Long Island Democrat who once led his party’s House campaign arm. “It becomes ground zero of American politics.”Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has 10 days to formally schedule the contest after Friday’s lopsided vote to remove Mr. Santos. But both parties expect the election to take place in mid-to-late February, just over a year after he first took the oath of office.Unlike in a normal election, party leaders in Washington and New York — not primary voters — will choose the Democratic and Republican nominees. They were moving quickly to winnow the field of potential candidates, and could announce their picks in a matter of days.George Santos Lost His Job. The Lies, Charges and Questions Remaining.George Santos, who was expelled from Congress, has told so many stories they can be hard to keep straight. We cataloged them, including major questions about his personal finances and his campaign fund-raising and spending.Democrats were expected to coalesce around Thomas R. Suozzi, a tested centrist who held the seat for six years before Mr. Santos but gave it up for a failed run for governor in 2022. Mr. Suozzi, 61, is a prolific fund-raiser and perhaps the best-known candidate either party could put forward. Anna Kaplan, a former state senator, is also running and has positioned herself to Mr. Suozzi’s left.The Republican field appeared to be more fluid. Party leaders said they planned to interview roughly 15 candidates, though officials privy to the process said they were circling two top contenders, both relative newcomers: Mike Sapraicone, a retired New York Police Department detective, and Mazi Pilip, an Ethiopian-born former member of the Israel Defense Forces.Political analysts rate the district, stretching from the outskirts of New York City into the heart of Nassau County’s affluent suburbs on Long Island, as a tossup. President Biden won the district by eight points in 2020, but it has shifted rightward in three consecutive elections since, as voters fearful about crime and inflation have flocked to Republicans.Democratic strategists said they would continue to use the embarrassment of Mr. Santos to attack Republicans, blaming them for aiding the former congressman’s rise. But recapturing the seat may be more difficult than many Democrats once hoped.Local Republicans moved decisively to distance themselves from Mr. Santos last January, and the strategy has shown signs of working. When Long Island voters went to the polls for local contests last month, they delivered a Republican rout that left Democrats scrambling to figure out how to rehabilitate a tarnished political brand.“Anyone who thinks a special election on Long Island is a slam dunk for Democrats has been living under a rock for the last three years,” said Isaac Goldberg, a strategist who advised the losing Democratic campaign against Mr. Santos in 2022.“Politics is a pendulum,” he added. “Right now, it’s on one side, and it’s unclear when it’s going to swing back.”Republicans face their own challenges, though, particularly in an idiosyncratic contest likely to favor the party that can turn out more voters. Democratic voters in the district have spent months bemoaning their ties to Mr. Santos and are highly motivated to elect an alternative. It is unclear if Republican supporters will feel the same urgency their leaders do.“It’s been a frustrating year,” said Joseph Cairo, the G.O.P. party chairman in Nassau County. “I look at this as just the beginning to right a mistake, to move forward, to elect a Republican to serve the people the proper way, to elect somebody who is for real — not make believe.”The outcome promises to have far-reaching implications for the current Congress and the next.After Mr. Santos’s ouster, Republicans have a razor-thin majority. Thinning it further could hamper their short-term ambitions to pursue an impeachment inquiry into President Biden and negotiate around a major military aid package for Israel.Whoever emerges as the winner in February would also likely become the front-runner for next fall’s elections and lend their party momentum as they prepare to fight over six crucial swing seats in New York alone, including a total of three on Long Island.Democrats believe Mr. Suozzi, who is currently working as a lobbyist, is best positioned to deliver. In his stints as a congressman and Nassau County executive, he took conservative stances on public safety and affordability that are popular among suburban voters. And his combative primary campaign for governor just last year may help him shake the anti-Democratic sentiment that has sunk other candidates.Jay Jacobs, the Democratic leader for the state and Nassau County, said he still intended to screen multiple candidates, including Ms. Kaplan, a more progressive former state senator who remains in the race, even as other candidates dropped out and coalesced behind Mr. Suozzi.Ms. Kaplan could get a boost from Ms. Hochul, who faced Mr. Suozzi in an ugly 2022 primary fight, during which he questioned her husband’s ethics and referred to her as an unqualified “interim governor.”The governor has pushed Mr. Jacobs and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, to reconsider whether Mr. Suozzi was their strongest candidate, particularly given his hesitancy to fully embrace abortion rights in the past, according to four people familiar with the conversations.But it is unclear if the governor would have the power to block Mr. Suozzi. Mr. Jeffries personally worked to lure the former congressman into the race earlier this fall, and Mr. Suozzi is close friends with Mr. Jacobs, who has told associates he is the likely pick.Republicans are proceeding more cautiously. They are wary of repeating their experience with Mr. Santos, who secured the party’s backing in 2020 and 2022 despite presenting them with a fraudulent résumé and other glaring fabrications that they failed to catch.This time, Republicans appear to only be considering candidates already known to party officials, and plan to engage a research firm to more formally vet potential nominees.Campaign strategists in Washington were said to favor Mr. Sapraicone, the former police detective who made a small fortune as the head of a private security company. Mr. Sapraicone, 67, could afford to spend a portion of it in a campaign, but he would also enter a race with almost no name recognition or electoral experience.Local Republicans were pushing Ms. Pilip, a potentially mold-breaking rising star with a remarkable biography. She moved to Israel from Ethiopia as a refugee in the 1990s, later served in the Israel Defense Forces and flipped a legislative seat in Nassau County in her 40s as a mother of seven.Other wild card candidates included Elaine Phillips, the Nassau County comptroller; Kellen Curry, an Air Force veteran and former banker; and Jack Martins, a well-known state senator who has run for the seat before.Mr. Santos himself could theoretically run for the seat as an independent. But the task would be arduous and might jeopardize a more urgent priority: fighting charges that could put him in prison for up to 22 years. More

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      DeSantis-Newsom Debate: What We Learned and Key Takeaways

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      Ron DeSantis showed a feistier side, using a friendly moderator to go on offense. Gavin Newsom defended California and President Biden, and jabbed right back.For an hour and a half on Thursday night, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California shouted at and interrupted each other, trying to leave an impression on Fox News viewers beyond the din of their slugfest.The debate in Alpharetta, Ga., was a chance for Mr. DeSantis to hold the spotlight without other candidates for the Republican presidential nomination on the stage. It was a chance for Mr. Newsom to bring his smooth persona and quick wit to a national — and conservative — audience.Here are five takeaways.It was DeSantis and Hannity vs. Newsom and Biden.The debate’s moderator, Sean Hannity, wanted the night to be a showdown between the liberal governor of the most populous state in the nation and the conservative governor of the third most populous state over starkly different views of governance.From the beginning, Mr. Hannity pressed Mr. Newsom on his state’s high tax rates, its loss of residents over the past two years and its relatively higher crime rate. And Mr. DeSantis backed up the moderator in his challenges to how California is run.It was an odd, mismatched conversation, since Mr. Newsom, who is not running for president, tried hard to focus on the 2024 campaign in which Mr. DeSantis is currently running. Mr. Newsom talked up President Biden’s record on the economy, health care and immigration and took swipes at Mr. DeSantis’s flagging campaign in the face of former President Donald J. Trump’s dominance.“We have one thing in common: Neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024,” Mr. Newsom said early in the debate, only to follow later with a left hook about Mr. Trump’s polling lead in Florida. “How’s that going for you, Ron?” he taunted. “You’re down 41 points in your own state.”An exasperated Mr. Hannity asked Mr. Newsom at one point: “Is Joe Biden paying you tonight? I thought this was state versus state.”DeSantis was far feistier than in the Republican debates.Mr. DeSantis showed more assertiveness on Thursday night than he has onstage at the Republican presidential debates. Fox NewsThrough three Republican primary debates, Mr. DeSantis has struggled to make an impression on a crowded stage with several deft campaigners. On Thursday night, a different Mr. DeSantis was onstage.He kept Mr. Newsom on his heels for much of the night. With Mr. Hannity’s help, he hit Mr. Newsom on subject after subject: crime, immigration, taxes, education.And he appeared prepared. When Mr. Newsom predictably brought up Mr. DeSantis’s fruitless war with Disney, the Florida governor didn’t defend his actions but went after his California counterpart over his Covid policies: “You had Disney closed inexplicably for more than a year,” he said.Newsom was determined to take down DeSantis’s 2024 campaign.If Mr. DeSantis wanted to take the sheen off the Golden State, Mr. Newsom seemed determined to bury Mr. DeSantis’s White House aspirations. The Californian was definitive in dismissing speculation that he was running for president, and was just as definitive in saying the Floridian was going nowhere.“Joe Biden will be our nominee in a matter of weeks,” Mr. Newsom said before adding of Mr. DeSantis, “In a matter of weeks, he will be endorsing Donald Trump.”It was not a one-off jab. Mr. Newsom told his onstage rival that “Donald Trump laid you out” on Florida’s initial Covid restrictions. He accused Mr. DeSantis of caving to the far right in lifting the restrictions and allowing tens of thousands of Floridians to die.Mr. Newsom invoked Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and one of Mr. DeSantis’s competitors for the Republican nomination, when he said the Florida governor opposed fracking.“You were celebrated by the Sierra Club for that action until you weren’t,” he said.To conclude the debate, Newsom stuck in the knife: “When are you going to drop out and give Nikki Haley a chance to take on Donald Trump?” he asked. “She laid you out.”A debate watch party at an event space in San Francisco.Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesSean Hannity, a neutral moderator? Fuhgeddaboudit.As the debate began, Mr. Hannity allowed that he was a conservative, but stipulated that as a moderator, he would be fair and nonpartisan.About an hour later, he began one question with this assertion: “Joe Biden has experienced significant cognitive decline.”Fair he wasn’t.Protestations aside, Mr. Hannity didn’t even try to be evenhanded. Again and again, he served up softballs to Mr. DeSantis, while shutting down Mr. Newsom’s attempts to defend himself.And he trotted out a series of well-prepared graphics to show Florida in the best possible light, and California in the worst: on education, crime, tax rates and population loss and gain. Mr. Newsom tried to rebut those graphics, but all Mr. DeSantis had to do was turn to the graphics to say the Californian was a slick spinmeister.Despite Newsom’s efforts, Biden had a tough night.The California governor wanted to shine a rosy light on Mr. Biden’s record before a Fox News audience unused to hearing anything positive about the president.Inflation was down to 3.2 percent, he noted. Wage growth had topped 4 percent, and economic growth in the last quarter was a blistering 5.2 percent, he said, adding, “Those are facts you don’t hear on Fox News.”But in a two-on-one fight, those facts probably didn’t get through, especially when both the moderator and the Florida governor were double-teaming Mr. Newsom on their repeated assertions of the president’s cognitive decline. Mr. Newsom did not come up with a particularly good defense on the matter, though he did say he would take Mr. Biden at 100 years old over Mr. DeSantis at any age in the White House.Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Hannity also teamed up on the dangers of an uncontrolled border, and when Mr. Newsom tried to hit Mr. DeSantis on having gladly taken money from Mr. Biden’s signature achievements, including millions of dollars from the law he signed to promote a domestic semiconductor industry and revive commercial science, Mr. Hannity just moved the conversation along. More

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      There’s a Bomb Under the Table

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      Alfred Hitchcock explained the nature of cinematic terror with a story about the bomb under the table. People are sitting around a table having a mundane conversation about baseball when — boom! — a bomb goes off, instantly killing everyone. You’ve momentarily surprised the audience.But what if, Hitchcock asked, we are shown beforehand that the bomb is there?“In these conditions this same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the secret,” Hitchcock explained to his fellow director François Truffaut. While everyone is just sitting around chatting, the viewer wants to shout: “Don’t sit there talking about baseball! There’s a bomb!”“The conclusion,” Hitchcock said, “is that whenever possible the public must be informed.”I bring this up because we know there’s a bomb under the table — the threat of a second Donald Trump presidency. And we have a fairly good idea of the crippling destruction that will ensue. Yet here we are, still talking about baseball.“A shadow looms over the world,” The Economist noted in a recent editorial about the year ahead. “That a Trump victory next November is a coin-toss probably is beginning to sink in.”Trump’s increasingly authoritarian braying makes his intentions clear: nullifying parts of the Constitution, imprisoning political foes. The Trump who used to obsess about what the mainstream media — even Twitter/X — thought of him no longer does. He doesn’t need to. The Trump who tried to burnish his credibility by stocking his cabinet with establishment Republican stalwarts will no longer risk anything less than proven fealty. There will be no one on the inside leaking or secretly restraining Trump in a second term; Trump has kept track of the names.Trump’s first term will look benign compared with what we can expect from a second. “The gloves are off,” Trump has declared.Still, the Democrats act as if everything is normal. They talk about why to support Joe Biden’s campaign for re-election: He has done a pretty good job, they say. He led the country out of the pandemic and avoided a deep recession. He beat all other primary candidates last time. And he beat Trump before. We should go with a proven contender.But even if Biden has done a pretty good job as president, most Americans don’t see that. His approval ratings have just hit a new low. Biden may want another term, but the obvious if unchivalrous response is, “So what?” Not every person, whether young or elderly, wants what is in his own best interest, let alone in the interest of a nation. Democrats can’t afford to take a version of the “It’s Bob Dole’s turn” approach this time around.Whatever success Biden had in the primaries and general election last time, we are not in the same place we were in 2020. The pandemic has receded; the animating cause behind widespread domestic protests has changed. We are now entangled in two overseas wars. Several polls show a tossup between Biden and Trump.“Stop badmouthing Biden,” some Democrats will say, as if acknowledging reality were akin to arming the enemy. But desperate times call for bucking tradition. What we need are extraordinary measures.That means Biden voluntarily stepping aside — and not automatically backing his vice president either. What we need is a capable, energetic candidate who can lure the Democratic faithful to the ballot while offering a plausible alternative for independents and non-Trumpian Republicans.And we have options. Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota has already taken the gutsy step of declaring his candidacy and shown that he’s serious about the effort. A full slate of potential contenders offer the same kind of moderation that propelled Biden to the presidency, but with the benefit of youth and energy: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Even mixed-bag Gov. Gavin Newsom of California or the relatively unproven Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland.It’s past time to start taking the Trump threat seriously. We can no longer pretend that Biden is the same candidate at 81 that he was four years ago, or that the extraordinary circumstances of 2020 mirror those of today. We can no longer entertain petty comparisons over which Republican primary candidate is less awful, as if any of it matters. There is no more illusion that Trump will slip away, that Republicans will move on from Trumpism or that a parade of indictments or even convictions will make a whit of difference to his most ardent supporters.When Trump won in 2016, Americans who sat on the sidelines could say in their defense that they were surprised. Nobody had warned them that Trump could actually triumph. Nobody had warned them about what he would do with that presidency — or they just hadn’t noticed the signs. We no longer have those excuses.We know there is a bomb under the table.Source photographs by Luis Diaz Devesa and Joe Sohm/Visions of America, via Getty Images.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Could a Democrat Really Challenge Biden at This Point? Here’s What to Know.

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      It’s really hard to run against a sitting president. And beginning at this point, just two months before primary voting starts, wouldn’t be feasible anyhow.The Democratic anxiety that has swirled around President Biden for over a year has kicked into overdrive in recent weeks, as his approval ratings have stayed stubbornly low and polls have shown the possibility of his losing to former President Donald J. Trump.That anxiety has crystallized into one question, repeated like a drumbeat: Can’t some big-name Democrat challenge him? Someone more prominent than Marianne Williamson or Dean Phillips?The answer: In theory, sure. In practice, the prospects are remote.There are several reasons for that, most of which boil down to it being really hard to run a successful primary campaign against a sitting president. And doing so at this point, just two months before voting starts, wouldn’t be feasible anyhow.Making things still more difficult for a would-be challenger is that Mr. Biden remains relatively popular among Democratic voters. According to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, 79 percent of party voters in six battleground states somewhat or strongly approve of his performance, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for another Democrat.“Logistically, it’s impossible,” said Tim Hogan, a Democratic strategist who has worked for Hillary Clinton and Amy Klobuchar. “Politically, it’s a suicide mission.”Ballot deadlines are approaching, or pastTo appear on each state’s primary ballot, candidates must submit paperwork along with, in many cases, a hefty filing fee and hundreds or even thousands of voter signatures.The deadlines for those submissions have already passed in South Carolina and Nevada, the first two states on the Democratic calendar; in New Hampshire, which is holding an unsanctioned primary in January; and in Alabama and Arkansas.Michigan, another early-voting state, released its list of candidates this month. By mid-December, the window to get added to the ballot there will have closed. The deadline is similar for California, which will account for more delegates than any other state; and for Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Maine, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia.So even if a candidate entered the race tomorrow, they would be unable to get on the ballot in the first two primaries, and probably in a lot of others. It would be a tall order, for instance, to secure 26,000 signatures in California by its Dec. 15 deadline.Pretty soon, defeating Mr. Biden goes from difficult to mathematically impossible.Biden has an enormous financial advantageMr. Biden’s re-election campaign, the Democratic National Committee and a joint fund-raising committee said they raised a combined $71.3 million in the third quarter of this year. They reported having $90.5 million in cash on hand as of the end of September.That would put any new candidate at a staggering disadvantage. Consider that on the Republican side, Mr. Trump alone announced a $45.5 million haul in the third quarter, and his leading rivals, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and the former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, reported raising $15 million and $11 million.Big-name politicians are thinking long termMany voters looking for a savior candidate are, naturally, looking to people seen as rising stars in the Democratic Party — like Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan or Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois.But rising stars generally want to maximize their chances at the right time.“Ambitious candidates are risk-averse,” said Casey Dominguez, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of San Diego who studies primaries. “They don’t want to ruin their chances at a successful run for president by having an unsuccessful run for president, particularly one where you’re running against a sitting president, potentially dividing the party.”Crucially, there is no precedent in the last 50 years for candidates to look to for a path.Pat Buchanan, challenging an unpopular President George Bush in 1992, gave Mr. Bush an unexpectedly close call in New Hampshire but did not end up winning a single primary. Edward M. Kennedy, challenging an unpopular President Jimmy Carter in 1980, won 12 states and contested the nomination all the way to the Democratic convention, but did not come close to a majority.“History tells a story,” said Barbara Norrander, an emeritus professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Government and Public Policy who studies presidential primaries. “Ted Kennedy versus Jimmy Carter 1980 is what you would look back at, and Kennedy had a lot of pluses going for him, but he wasn’t able to unseat Carter. So it’s highly unlikely that someone today could unseat an incumbent president.”Democrats are worried about weakening BidenThe driving force behind many Democrats’ desire to jettison Mr. Biden is fear of another Trump presidency. But the same driving force is behind other Democrats’ desire to stick with him.Mr. Biden’s vulnerabilities, including his age and low approval ratings, are very real. But the electoral advantages of incumbency, universal name recognition and an established campaign organization are real, too.At this point, for a new candidate, “there’s just no way to build momentum and get the resources necessary,” Mr. Hogan said.Potential challengers also have to weigh the possibility that a primary battle could weaken Mr. Biden in the general election, even if he overcame it. Though there is no consensus, some historians believe primary challenges hurt Mr. Bush and Mr. Carter in 1992 and 1980.“Nobody wants to be the person that divided the party and helped to elect Donald Trump,” Professor Dominguez said.There is no ‘generic Democrat’Any challenger would come with their own weak points that would turn off one Democratic faction or another and be exploited by Republicans over the long months of a general-election campaign — a reality not necessarily captured by polls that show an unnamed Democratic candidate performing better than Mr. Biden.“You can’t run a generic Democrat,” Mr. Hogan said. “You have to run a person.”Take Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who entered the race in October. After debuting around 7.5 percent in the FiveThirtyEight polling average, he quickly fell to about 4 percent.That reality played out in 1968, the only time in modern history that an incumbent president was successfully challenged in his party’s primary.Two challengers with substantial name recognition and support — Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy — helped drive President Lyndon B. Johnson not to seek re-election. He announced his decision in March 1968, as the primaries were underway. That August, his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, won the nomination of an agonizingly divided Democratic Party.Humphrey lost the general election with 191 electoral votes to Richard Nixon’s 301.What happens if Biden can’t run?To state the obvious, all of the considerations are what they are because Mr. Biden is running. If something were to change that — if he had a health crisis, for example — the party would be in a difficult situation.If he withdrew just before or early in the primary season, voters would be limited to the other options already in the race. It is highly unlikely that ballot access deadlines, which are set by individual states and not by national party officials, would be reopened.If he withdrew later in the primary season — after he had won enough delegates in early primaries that no candidate could surpass him — the nomination would be decided on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in August, where delegates have the final say in choosing a nominee. That would also be the case if he withdrew between the primaries and the convention. More