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      Are Democrats Actually Winning Older Voters?

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      Some intriguing signs that the party may be doing better among seniors than is commonly thought.Some polling suggests President Biden gained among seniors.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesIn the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, the polls showed something strange: Joe Biden was faring far better than expected among voters over age 65. Some polls showed him ahead by 10 points or more.It was a little hard to explain — and believe. Yes, the pandemic hit seniors hardest. Yes, Mr. Biden was old himself. Yes, the baby boomer generation was aging into the 65-and-older group, replacing somewhat more conservative voters. But could Mr. Biden really be winning older voters? When the final overall results came in far better for Donald J. Trump than the polls suggested, it appeared to offer an obvious answer: no.Three years later, I’m wondering whether there was more to Mr. Biden’s strength among older voters than it seemed. Maybe he didn’t win older voters by 10 points, but maybe he actually did come close to winning older voters or outright did so.My renewed interest boils down to this: The polling, which was accurate last year for the midterms, still shows Mr. Biden and Democrats doing quite well among older voters.Our own Times/Siena polls, for instance, were highly accurate. They did not overestimate Democrats. And yet the Times/Siena polls found the generic congressional ballot tied among seniors, at 45 percent support for each party. In a question asking how they voted in the 2020 presidential election, the polls still found Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump, 53 percent to 47 percent, among older voters.Could Mr. Biden really have done so well? Unfortunately, it’s very hard to be sure. The various post-election studies — like the exit polls or the data from the Democratic firm Catalist — still show Republicans winning the group in 2022. Worse, the hard election results don’t offer much additional evidence to help clarify the matter. Voters aren’t nearly as segregated by age as they are by race or education, making it difficult to find additional evidence in voting results to confirm whether the trends evident in the polls are ultimately borne out on Election Day.But there is one additional data point worth considering: our high-incentive mail study of Wisconsin. As you may recall, we promised Wisconsin voters up to $25 dollars in an effort to reach the kinds of people who don’t usually take political surveys. In the end, it achieved a response rate surpassing 20 percent (by contrast, only about 1 percent of our attempted phone calls yield a completed interview in a typical poll). The response rate among older Wisconsinites appeared to be much, much higher.Democrats fared better among older voters in the Wisconsin mail survey than in any other major election study. The mail survey found the Democrat Mandela Barnes beating the Republican incumbent senator, Ron Johnson, by 52-40 among older registered voters. In comparison, the concurrent Times/Siena poll — using our traditional live-interview methods — found Mr. Barnes up by 46-43 among that group, while the other election studies were even farther to the right. The exit polls found Mr. Johnson ahead by seven points with that group while AP/VoteCast found Mr. Johnson up by four points.The findings were just as extreme when voters were asked to recall how they voted in the 2020 presidential election. In the high-incentive mail survey, voters over 67 in 2022 (meaning over 65 in 2020) said they backed Mr. Biden by 55-38 over Mr. Trump. In contrast, the Times/Siena poll found Mr. Biden ahead, 48-43, among the same group. The exit polls and VoteCast data both found Mr. Trump winning seniors by a comfortable margin in 2020.To reiterate: There’s not much additional evidence to help corroborate these very different versions of what happened among older voters. But the mail survey in Wisconsin is intriguing evidence. It’s renewed my curiosity in the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Democrats are doing better among older voters than is commonly thought.If they are, it would help make sense of the party’s new strength in special elections — which tend to have very old electorates — and perhaps in last November’s midterm elections as well. More

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      New York’s Primary Elections 2023: What to Know

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      Primaries were being contested Tuesday for a range of New York City Council seats, district attorneys in the Bronx and Queens, and offices throughout New York State.Several Democratic incumbents in New York saw unusual challenges from more conservative candidates in Tuesday’s primary, with the opponents hoping to benefit from a demographic change, as an influx of immigrants is shifting some districts to the right.Incumbents easily held off primary challenges in Democratic primaries for district attorney in Queens and the Bronx; further north, a Council race in Buffalo was won by a woman whose son was shot in the Tops supermarket racist massacre.In New York City, just over 149,000 people had cast their ballots as of 6 p.m., according to the City Board of Elections. That includes 44,611 votes that were cast during the nine-day early voting period that began June 17 and ended on Sunday — less than a quarter of the early-voting turnout two years ago, when candidates for mayor were competing in the primary.There were contested primaries in New York City Council contests across the boroughs, with the races for a two-year term instead of the usual four years because of redistricting. Every seat on the City Council is up for re-election, but less than half of the 51 Council seats are being contested in primaries, and of those, 13 races feature more than two candidates — making ranked-choice voting, where voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference, necessary.Ranked-choice voting will not be used in the races for district attorney.How Ranked-Choice Voting Will Affect the ResultsThe New York City Board of Elections will reveal the first-place vote totals each candidate receives on Tuesday; if one of the candidates in the 13 Council contests where there are three or more contestants draws 50 percent of the vote or more, a winner should be declared.If no candidate hits the 50 percent mark, the board will use the ranked-choice system, but not until July 5. The board usually runs the first ranked-choice calculation seven days after the vote, but because that day falls on the Fourth of July, the tabulation will be delayed a day.If necessary, additional ranked-choice tabulations will be held each week afterward, on July 11 and July 18, said Vincent Ignizio, the deputy executive director of the Board of Elections.About 15,000 absentee ballots have already been filed, but additional absentee ballots can be received a week after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by June 27.Under recent changes to state law, voters will also have an opportunity to cure or fix mistakes on their absentee ballots. The tentative last day to receive absentee ballot cures is July 17.Because of the low turnout, Board of Elections officials don’t expect that more than three rounds of ranked-choice voting tabulations will be required.Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, a government watchdog group, said ranked-choice voting gave people more options. “We heard some voters in our 2021 exit polling say that because they knew they had the ability to rank, they actually paid more attention to more candidates,” she said.Some Key Races to WatchNew York City District Attorney RacesThe incumbent district attorneys of the Bronx and Queens both fended off challengers to win their respective Democratic primaries, according to The Associated Press.In the Bronx, Darcel Clark defeated Tess Cohen, a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, who was the first person to challenge Ms. Clark in a primary. With 65 percent of the votes counted, Ms. Clark led Ms. Cohen by more than 12,000 votes.In Queens, Melinda Katz, rebuffed a challenge from her right, defeating George Grasso, a former Police Department first deputy commissioner who attacked Ms. Katz as being soft on crime. Ms. Katz disputed the accusation by pointing to her focus on retail theft, gang takedowns and gun seizures.The challenge from Mr. Grasso came four years after Ms. Katz narrowly defeated a democratic socialist who wanted to abolish the police and end cash bail. Ms. Katz was leading Mr. Grasso and another opponent, Devian Daniels, by 27,000 votes with 71 percent of the vote counted.Ms. Clark, whose tenure began in 2016, was the first Black woman to be elected district attorney in New York. She grew up in the Bronx, was raised in public housing and went to public schools.She said that her biggest accomplishment as district attorney has been “putting humanity into the criminal justice system.”Central Harlem City Council RaceIn Harlem, three moderate Democrats are running in one of the most competitive races in the city to replace Kristin Richardson Jordan, a democratic socialist who dropped out last month.Ms. Jordan faced questions about her belief that the police should be abolished and about her far-left stance on housing development. Her name will remain on the ballot.The three Democrats running to replace her have sought to distance themselves from Ms. Jordan. They are: Inez Dickens, 73, who held the Harlem Council seat for 12 years before joining the State Assembly; Yusef Salaam, 49, one of five men exonerated in the rape of a female jogger in Central Park in 1989; and Al Taylor, 65, who is serving his sixth year in the Assembly.All three candidates gathered at Lenox Avenue and West 134th Street on Tuesday afternoon to try to woo voters. Ms. Dickens’s staff used a bullhorn, while Mr. Salaam’s team rang a bell every time a voter said they had ranked him first.Chantel Jackson, an assemblywoman from the Bronx who grew up in Harlem, came out with her nearly 2-year-old son to hand out fliers for Mr. Taylor. Mr. Salaam and Mr. Taylor had cross-endorsed each other, asking voters to rank them first and second. Ms. Dickens was endorsed by Mayor Eric Adams.The major issues in the historically Black neighborhood include the loss of Black residents, lack of affordable housing and a saturation of drug treatment centers and social service providers.The candidates have struggled to differentiate themselves. All three say they would have supported a new housing development on West 145th Street that Ms. Jordan initially rejected because it was not affordable enough.Ms. Dickens and Mr. Taylor have contended that their experience would make a difference, while Mr. Salaam, who moved back to the city from Georgia to run for the seat, has argued that it is time for a generational shift.“Knowledge is power,” Ms. Dickens said while campaigning. “If you don’t have the knowledge, working in the system is difficult.”Other City Council RacesIn Lower Manhattan, the incumbent Chris Marte, a progressive Democrat, was leading challengers Susan Lee, a consultant; Ursila Jung, a private investor; and Pooi Stewart, a substitute teacher. All the challengers emphasized public safety and education and argued that Mr. Marte was too far to the left.In the Bronx, incumbent, Councilwoman Marjorie Velázquez, was leading her opponents who criticized her because she backed the rezoning of Bruckner Boulevard in Throgs Neck, which will bring affordable housing to the area.In southern Brooklyn, three Asian American Democrats are running in a newly formed district.The candidates are Wai Yee Chan, the executive director at Homecrest Community Services; Stanley Ng, a retired computer programmer; and Susan Zhuang, the chief of staff for Assemblyman William Colton.In a district that has swung to the right in recent years, the winner of the Democratic primary is expected to face a tough general election challenge from the Republican primary winner.Vito J. LaBella, a conservative Republican and former Police Department officer, is facing Ying Tan, who works in senior services, in that primary.Buffalo Common CouncilIn Buffalo, Zeneta Everhart, a political newcomer whose son was a victim of a racist shooting at a Tops supermarket last May, appeared on track to defeat a well-known progressive, India Walton, in a primary race for a seat on the city’s Common Council.The seat represents Masten, an East Side district where the Tops is located and which is a traditional base of Black political power in Buffalo, New York’s second largest city and a Democratic stronghold.Ms. Everhart, a former television news producer who works for State Senator Timothy Kennedy, testified in front of Congress after the shooting, in which her son, Zaire Goodman, was shot in the neck but survived. Ten other people — all Black — were killed by the gunman, who targeted East Buffalo because of its large Black population.Ms. Walton, a democratic socialist, became a liberal star after she defeated Mayor Byron Brown in a primary in 2021, only to lose the general election that fall after Mr. Brown mounted a write-in campaign.In this campaign, Ms. Walton had criticized Ms. Everhart’s connections to the Democratic establishment, which included endorsements from the county Democratic Committee and Senator Chuck Schumer. But returns on Tuesday showed Ms. Everhart leading with about two-thirds of the vote, with about 85 percent of precincts reporting.Jesse McKinley More

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      Hunter Biden Isn’t Hiding. Even Some Democrats Are Uncomfortable.

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      Hunter Biden’s public appearances came across as a message of defiance by the president, who is determined to show that he stands by his son.During last week’s state dinner at the White House, Hunter Biden seemed to be everywhere. Upbeat and gregarious, he worked the pavilion with grins and gusto, shaking hands and hugging other guests.One guest who surely did not want to chitchat with him, though, was Merrick B. Garland, the attorney general whose Justice Department just two days earlier reached a plea agreement in which the president’s son will likely avoid prison time.The presence of the younger Biden at such a high-profile event so soon after the plea deal proved to be the buzz of the evening. It was all the more attention-grabbing given the risk of an accidental encounter with the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, who would rather cut off a thumb than be caught looking chummy with the target of an investigation that he had guaranteed would be conducted by the book.It did not go unnoticed either when, just days later, there was Hunter Biden getting on and off Marine One with the president heading to and from Camp David for the weekend.In the nation’s capital, where such things are rarely accidental and always noticed, the oh-so-public appearances came across as an in-your-face message of defiance by a president determined to show that he stands by his son in the face of relentlessly toxic attacks. Yet some Democrats, including current and former Biden administration officials, privately saw it as an unnecessary poke-the-bear gesture.“He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was willing to sustain the appearance issues to send a message to his son that he loves him,” said Norman Eisen, who was the ethics czar in President Barack Obama’s White House when Mr. Biden was vice president.Had he been advising Mr. Biden, Mr. Eisen said, he would have warned him about “the flak they were going to take” but added that it would be a matter of optics, rather than rules. “That’s probably more of a question for an etiquette czar than an ethics czar,” he said. “Certainly, there’s no violation of any ethics rule as long as they didn’t talk about the case.”The White House said Mr. Biden was simply being a father.“In all administrations, regardless of party, it’s common for presidential family members to attend state dinners and to accompany presidents to Camp David,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said on Tuesday. “The president and first lady love and support their son.”The visuals at the White House in the week since Hunter Biden’s plea deal was announced highlight the thorny situation for a president with a 53-year-old son traumatized by family tragedy and a devastating history of addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine. While Democrats scorn the conspiratorial fixation of the hard right on Hunter’s troubles, some of the president’s allies privately complain that, however understandably, he has a blind eye when it comes to his son. They lament that he did not step in more assertively to stop the younger man from trading on the family name in business dealings.It is not a subject that advisers raise with Mr. Biden easily, if at all, and so many of them are left to watch how he handles it and react accordingly. They take solace in the belief that many Americans understand a father’s love for his son, even one who makes mistakes, and in the assumption that it will not significantly hurt Mr. Biden’s bid for re-election next year any more than it did his victory over President Donald J. Trump in 2020. And they recognize that no matter what the family does, Hunter will be a target for the next 16 months.The plea deal last week was fraught for many reasons. It meant that the president’s son was admitting to criminal behavior by failing to file his taxes on time and would be subject to a diversion program on a felony charge of illegal gun possession, but would be spared time behind bars if a judge approves. Republicans immediately denounced it as a “sweetheart deal” by the Biden team.In fact, the decision was announced by a Trump appointee, David C. Weiss, a U.S. attorney who was kept on by the Biden Justice Department so as not to appear to interfere in his inquiry into Hunter Biden. Mr. Garland and Mr. Weiss have both insisted that Mr. Weiss had what he called “ultimate authority” over the case.There is no evidence that the president or the White House has played any role — unlike Mr. Trump, who while in office openly and repeatedly pressured the Justice Department to prosecute his perceived enemies and drop cases against his allies.But congressional Republicans have been promoting two I.R.S. “whistle-blowers” who assert that the Justice Department restrained Mr. Weiss, despite his own denial. Republicans plan to call Mr. Weiss to testify in coming days and are threatening to impeach Mr. Garland.One of the I.R.S. agents produced a message sent by Hunter Biden in 2017 invoking his father, who was then out of office, in pressuring a potential Chinese business partner to agree to a deal. While repeating that the president “was not in business with his son,” the White House has not disputed the authenticity of the message nor commented on the impression that Mr. Biden, as a former vice president, may have been used to secure business.Asked by a reporter on Monday whether he had lied when he previously said he did not discuss Hunter’s business dealings with him, the president said simply, “No.”Hunter Biden has appeared with his father since the start of his presidency, including previous trips to Camp David or the family home in Delaware. Hunter attended the first state dinner of the Biden presidency in December and accompanied his father on a trip to Ireland this spring.So in that sense, it might not have been all that surprising that he showed up last Thursday for the state dinner for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. But it quickly set off Republicans and conservative media.“Hunter and Merrick hanging out at Joe’s place?” Representative Andy Ogles, Republican of Tennessee, wrote on Twitter. “Classic Biden Crime Family.”Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri, said on Fox Business: “We saw a fancy state dinner at the White House, and you have the person who’s accused of these criminal allegations and also the department that has slow-walked these allegations, the leader of that department, seated and dining at the same table. All of this smells bad.”The tuxedo-clad Hunter Biden appeared in high spirits at the dinner, making his way around the pavilion set up on the South Lawn. He put his arm around Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator and former senator from Florida, and gave a friendly shoulder grip to Andy Moffit, the husband of Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary. Contrary to Mr. Smith, Mr. Garland was not at the same table and stayed resolutely on the other side of the pavilion, at least while reporters and photographers were there to watch.While Mr. Garland was invited weeks beforehand, some who know him suspected he must not have known that Hunter Biden would be there and likely would have been upset to be put in such an awkward position. One person familiar with the dinner said those not on the White House staff were not given the guest list in advance. Representatives for the White House and Justice Department would not say whether the president’s staff gave the attorney general a heads up.Still, even Democrats who would have preferred that Mr. Biden had not made such a public display of his son in the immediate aftermath of the plea deal bristle at criticism from Republicans who have shown little interest in nepotism involving Mr. Trump, who put his daughter and son-in-law on the White House staff and whose children have profited off his name for years.David M. Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, said the state dinner made clear what Mr. Biden wanted to make clear — that he would not walk away from his son. “That may cause him problems, but it also reinforces a truth about a guy who has suffered great loss in his life and loves his kids,” he said.Richard W. Painter, who was the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, later ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Democrat and has been critical at times of ethical decisions by the Biden team, said the president is forced to balance his personal and campaign imperatives.“These are the political calls that are made by the president,” said Mr. Painter, who according to media reports has been consulted by Hunter Biden’s lawyers about setting up a legal defense fund. “He wants to protect his political position running for re-election. He also wants to be a good father. That was his decision. You’re going to get heat. But I understand why he made the decision.”Glenn Thrush More

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      While We Wait for the Supreme Court to Make Up Its Mind …

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      Bret Stephens: Gail, I hope your summer is off to a great start. We’re in the season of Supreme Court decisions, waiting any day for the Harvard and U.N.C. ruling to come down. Assuming the court overturns affirmative action for private and public universities, and maybe beyond that, what do you think the effect will be?Gail Collins: Bret, I guess we’ll have to see the how and the why of the much-dreaded decision before it’s possible to tell.Bret: The fine print is what has really mattered in past affirmative action cases, going back to the Bakke decision in 1978, which ruled that explicit racial quotas were unconstitutional, but that race could be considered a plus factor in admissions.Gail: I’m hoping the court will leave some room for schools and employers to continue taking race into account — and also things like economic background, childhood home environment — factors that help produce a diverse America where people who come from impoverished communities and disadvantaged homes can get some breaks.Bret: I’d have a much easier time accepting affirmative action if the principal criterion was class, not race. If universities thought of themselves more as ladders of social mobility and less as curators of racial rebalancing, they could still give a lot of poorer minorities a lift while also opening their doors to larger numbers of low-income white students who might otherwise have been denied a shot at admission.Gail: You can’t leave race out, but yes, it’s important to mix it with other parts of a biography. We have to protect schools’ right to create a diverse freshman class every year — one that will help students learn the joys and struggles and fun and exasperation that comes from living with people who aren’t like you in color, creed or background.Bret: Or viewpoint. Diversity is also about making sure universities don’t become ideological monocultures where people look different but share nearly all the same opinions and assumptions.Gail: To me, diversity is a very, very important goal — you don’t want to be living in a world in which all the folks of one race or class never interact with folks from another.How about you?Bret: Diversity can be a virtue, but it doesn’t have to apply in every conceivable setting or override other considerations, especially academic excellence. I don’t think it’s any secret that students whose families are from East and South Asia outperform many of their peers in high school academics, just as Jewish kids from immigrant backgrounds did a couple of generations ago. If the end of affirmative action means that top-tier universities will be demographically overrepresented with students of Asian background for the simple reason that they worked that much harder to get there, should that be considered a problem?Gail: Of course we have to include, and celebrate, the many fabulous students with East and South Asian backgrounds. And part of the educational opportunities they deserve is a chance to be in school with kids from other backgrounds. So that they graduate with the ability to work with, supervise and take directions from Black, white and Hispanic colleagues.It’s a win-win.Bret: It would be win-win if universities vastly expanded their enrollments, perhaps by doing more of the coursework online, so that every academically qualified student got in. For now it’s zero-sum: At Harvard in 2013, according to the initial lawsuit, the admission rate for Asian American students was 19 percent, even though 43 percent of the admitted class would have been Asians if based on academic performance alone.Gail: Have a feeling this isn’t going to be the last time we debate this issue. But Bret, we’ve had a busy news week and I want to check in on some of the big developments. Starting with … Hunter Biden! Am I right in recalling he’s not your favorite presidential offspring?Bret: He’s running neck-and-neck with Don Jr. and Eric in that contest, though I hear that James Madison’s stepson, Payne Todd, may have been the worst of them all.Gail: Hunter’s legal issues seem to have been pretty much resolved — he’s pleading guilty to two far-from-major tax crimes, getting probation and pledging to remain drug-free for two years.Bret: For which we wish him well.Gail: Two questions: Is this resolution fair? And what political impact will it have? Some Republicans are acting as if this is gonna be a large cloud over the Biden administration. That the president won’t be able to campaign for re-election without being followed by “Huckster Hunter’s Dad” banners.Bret: Hard to judge without seeing all the evidence. The U.S. attorney in the case, David Weiss, was appointed by Donald Trump and kept in his job by Merrick Garland to complete the investigation, so this hardly seems a case of partisan favoritism. And Weiss says the investigation is “ongoing,” which I have to assume means he’s taking a close look at Hunter’s fishy foreign business deals.But the political timing is lousy and plays into Donald Trump’s narrative that the Biden administration is weaponizing the Justice Department against him while letting off Biden’s son with a slap on the wrist.Gail: I’ve always believed that as long as there was no reasonable evidence that Joe was actually involved in any of Hunter’s smarmy let’s-make-a-deal-did-you-happen-to-notice-my-last-name schemes, the whole thing has no political impact whatsoever. Nobody but desperate Republicans cares about Hunter’s misdeeds, and if anything, I think he stirs sympathy for his father.Bret: Well, desperate Republicans means tens of millions of Americans. But since we keep touching on the subject of errant children of famous politicians, your thoughts on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?Gail: I know the polls suggest he might be a problem for Biden. A good chunk of that is just boredom with the current election picture and name recognition for Junior. Once voters take a serious look at him, his anti-vaccine craziness and overall right-wing loopiness, I’m confident those polls will plummet.Bret: I would call it left-wing loopiness, but go on.Gail: Nevertheless, if he runs as a third-party candidate, he always has the potential to screw things up — just a sliver of votes in a swing state could do the trick. Which is why I’m so hostile to third-party presidential candidates.Bret: I don’t see him running, Nader-like, as a third-party candidate. But I think one reason some Democrats are rallying to him is because they are wary of the idea of a second Biden term, even if they think he’s done a decent job in his first.Gail: We were both hoping Biden wouldn’t run again because of the age issue, but here we are. And he’s still a thousand leagues better than Trump, who’s only a few years younger. So Joe’s the one.Bret: They see him as old and faltering, they don’t think Kamala Harris is up to the job if she needs to succeed him, and they worry that any Republican save Trump could defeat him. If Bobby Jr. wins in New Hampshire because Biden isn’t even on the ballot, it could shake things up, and he could wind up being the Eugene McCarthy of this political season: not the nominee, but the catalyst for change. I’ve been saying this for months, and I’m still willing to bet you a good Zinfandel that Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, is the surprise Democratic nominee next summer. Mark Leibovich seems to agree, by the way.Gail: All I will say is that I am looking forward to the Zinfandel.Bret: And speaking of catalysts, how about that Chris Christie?Gail: He’s not going to be elected president, but gosh I would so love to see him in the Republican primary debate this August. Think there’s a chance he’ll raise enough money to qualify?Bret: For sure. He’ll get it because he’s a bring-the-popcorn sort of candidate who will make the debates interesting and because a lot of the big Republican donors long ago soured on Trump and because all the other Republicans in the race look like a bunch of moral midgets auditioning for cabinet-level jobs in the next G.O.P. administration and because the choice of Ron DeSantis or Trump is starting to look about as appetizing as the choice between Vladimir Putin and Yevgeny Prigozhin — scorpions in the proverbial bottle who really deserve each other.Gail: This is the reason you’re my favorite Republican.Bret: Ex-Republican. Still conservative.Christie’s essential theory of the race is that the only way to defeat Trump is the “They pull a knife, you pull a gun” theory that Sean Connery espoused as the best way to defeat Al Capone in “The Untouchables.” Except Christie aims to bring a .44 magnum, a rocket-propelled grenade and maybe even some HIMARS artillery — rhetorically speaking, of course.Gail: Of course.Bret: Which is all another way of saying that he’ll tell the truth about Trump. It will be a joy to watch, however it turns out.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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      Sarah McBride Aims to Be First Openly Transgender House Member With 2024 Campaign

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      Sarah McBride is no stranger to firsts: In 2012, she became the first openly transgender person to work at the White House, during the Obama administration.State Senator Sarah McBride announced on Monday that she would run for Delaware’s at-large U.S. House seat — a bid that, if successful, would make her the first openly transgender member of the U.S. Congress.The seat is currently held by Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat who said on Wednesday that she would pursue the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Thomas R. Carper, who is retiring. Both elections will take place next year.Ms. McBride, 32, is no stranger to firsts: In 2012, she became the first openly transgender person to work at the White House, as an intern in President Barack Obama’s administration. She won her Wilmington-based State Senate seat in 2020 with more than 70 percent of the general election vote, becoming the first openly transgender legislator in that position nationwide, and ran unopposed for a second term last year.Her candidacy comes during an onslaught of Republican-led policies that target L.G.B.T.Q. people.This year, 17 states have passed bills directed at gender-affirming care for transgender youth, a sharp uptick from the three states that had previously approved restrictions. And there are discussions to ban L.G.B.T.Q.-related information for K-12 students in states like Florida, where laws prevent public schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity.Ms. McBride, also a former national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization, is likely to face a primary challenge in her solidly blue district. But she holds ample political capital in the state — helped by her relationship with President Biden, who wrote the foreword for the memoir she wrote in 2018. She also worked on the attorney general campaigns for Beau Biden, his son who died in 2015.Ms. McBride recently spoke with The New York Times about her candidacy. Excerpts from this conversation have been edited for clarity and length.What issues do you hope to prioritize in your campaign?There were so many pieces of the Build Back Better Act that were unfortunately left on the cutting room floor, and it is going to be critical for Congress to pick up those policies, like paid family and medical leave, affordable early childhood education and elder care. Those types of policies will be at the heart of my campaign, as will policies that I fought for in the Delaware General Assembly, like gun safety and reproductive rights. One of the issues where we have to continue to make progress is climate change. We can’t build a fairer, more just world if we also don’t protect our planet.A wave of bills in recent years have affected transgender people, like limiting transitioning procedures for children and restricting which bathrooms transgender people can use. What are your concerns going forward?The policies that you mentioned are wrong and unconstitutional, and they are an attempt by MAGA Republicans to distract from the fact that they have absolutely no agenda for families and for workers in our country. They are solutions in search of a problem. They are cruel, and we know that policies that target young people, that target parents, that target families, that target vulnerable people in our society, they never wear well in history. I truly believe that democracy only works when it includes all of us.What should members of your party do to respond to these laws?I’m incredibly proud that the Democratic Party has been unwavering in its support of L.G.B.T.Q. rights. We have seen Democrats from Montana, to Nebraska, to Virginia, to Delaware, who have made clear that attacks on vulnerable members of our communities, including L.G.B.T.Q. young people, will not stand, and we will do everything we can to stop them.People across this country are eager for politicians to appeal to our better angels and to focus on issues that actually matter to them. I don’t believe that targeting kids and parents for discrimination is a priority for voters in Delaware or across the country.Going into 2024, President Biden is struggling to maintain public approval. In your view, what should he and other Democrats be thinking about?Democrats have a strong record to run on, and there’s obviously unfinished work before us. This president has focused on working families, on recognizing that we all have a responsibility to one another. I think if this president continues to contrast his priorities with the invented problems and the culture wars of the right, that this president will win.There’s a sort of scrutiny that historically has come with being the first of anything. Are you concerned about backlash?There will certainly be attacks, but I’m no stranger to those. What I’ve demonstrated over the last few years is that I’m able to move past those attacks and focus on what matters to the people I represent. Congress is certainly different than the Delaware State Senate, but I am confident that when I get there, by focusing on issues that impact people of every party, of every ideology, and in every part of our state, that I’ll be able to find common ground with people whom I disagree with vehemently. More

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      In New York Primaries, Democrats Feel the Heat From the Right

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      The Queens district attorney and several City Council members face more conservative challengers who are criticizing them on issues including public safety.When Melinda Katz ran for Queens district attorney in 2019, her principal opponent in the Democratic primary was a public defender and democratic socialist with a platform of ending cash bail and eventually abolishing the police.With endorsements from progressive prosecutors around the country — as well as from Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — Tiffany Cabán, a first-time candidate, lost by fewer than 60 votes after painting Ms. Katz as a regressive Democrat.Four years later, the strongest challenge to Ms. Katz is coming from George Grasso, an opponent running to her right who has accused her of being soft on crime.It’s not the only contest in the city where moderate Democrats are facing opponents on the right in primaries on Tuesday. In several City Council races, from the Bronx to southern Brooklyn, moderate Democrats are being challenged over public safety, affordable housing and education by more conservative members of their own party.“It’s really rare that so many challengers in this primary season are running to the right of the incumbent Democrat,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic consultant who is working on the campaign of Stanley Ng, who is running to the right of the front-runner in the 43rd Council District in southern Brooklyn. “Primary challengers to incumbent Democrats are usually running from the left or making a generational argument about it being time for new leadership.”In the Bronx, Councilwoman Marjorie Velázquez, who ran as a progressive in 2021, is facing two such challengers who have criticized her support of a plan to rezone Bruckner Boulevard in Throgs Neck. In Lower Manhattan, Councilman Chris Marte is facing off against opponents who have accused him of wanting to “defund” the police, which he denies.A councilwoman from Queens, Linda Lee, who represents Bayside, faces more conservative challengers. In Harlem, three moderate candidates are running to replace Kristin Richardson Jordan, a democratic socialist who dropped out. And in the newly drawn 43rd Council District, the three Asian American Democrats running in the primary listed public safety and education as their top two issues.Marjorie Velázquez, a City Council member from the Bronx, said she is a moderate who is falsely viewed as a socialist.Anna Watts for The New York TimesSome see the trend as partially tied to demographic shifts from immigrants who are more conservative on two issues: public safety, especially after a rash of attacks on Asian Americans during the pandemic, and education, where progressives have backed changes to entry exams for specialized high schools with large Asian American enrollment.Between 2010 and 2020, New York City’s population grew by more than 629,000, according to a report from the CUNY Research Consortium on Communities of Interest. More than half of that increase came from a net growth in the Asian population, including a 43 percent growth in Brooklyn and the Bronx.Asian American voters have shifted to the right in recent elections. In the race for governor last year, majority Asian districts remained Democratic but shifted to the right by 23 points from the 2018 election, according to an analysis by The New York Times.Yiatin Chu, president of the Asian Wave Alliance, said Republican candidates are aligned with views that many Asian immigrants value, which she said Democrats have not engaged well on. Others say that Democrats have left themselves vulnerable by not effectively articulating their positions.“What elected official doesn’t care about public safety?” said Councilman Justin Brannan, a Democrat who represents Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and is likely to face a strong Republican challenge in the general election. “But because we’ve allowed the right to paint us with this broad brush that we all want to abolish law enforcement, now Democrats feel compelled to lead with that.”He is supporting Wai Yee Chan, the executive director at Homecrest Community Services, in the 43rd Council District Democratic primary. She is running against Mr. Ng and Susan Zhuang, the chief of staff for Assemblyman William Colton.Sensing a threat from the right, Future NYC, a pro-business super PAC; Labor Strong, a coalition of the city’s most powerful unions; and the New York City District Council of Carpenters are funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars for advertising and on-the-ground support to help several moderate candidates.Future NYC recently pledged to spend approximately $500,000 to support Ms. Velázquez and Ms. Lee, said Jeff Leb, the group’s treasurer.Ms. Velázquez was one of 15 people who left the City Council’s Progressive Caucus in February after it asked members to agree to a statement of principles that included less funding for the police. She was recently endorsed by the conservative Police Benevolent Association. Still, her challengers have criticized Ms. Velázquez as too far left, citing her support of the Bruckner Boulevard rezoning that would bring affordable housing.One of them, Bernadette Ferrara, chairwoman of Bronx Community Board 11, said at a recent debate: “I am not going to let a weak and woke progressive like Marjorie Velázquez destroy a lifetime of work by stuffing the East Bronx with high-density, low-income housing.” Ms. Velázquez said she changed her mind and decided to support the Bruckner Boulevard rezoning, where new buildings will range from three to eight stories, because it would bring jobs and housing for older residents and families. The first Latina to represent her district, she said voters assume that she’s further left than she actually is.“I’ve heard that you’re socialist because you’re like A.O.C., and it’s like, no, I’m not,” Ms. Velázquez said referring to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist. “I am a moderate.”In Manhattan, Mr. Marte, who considers himself a progressive, said he has no plans to leave the Council caucus, and characterized his opponents as being further right than their comments suggested.All three of Mr. Marte’s challengers — Susan Lee, a consultant, Ursila Jung, a private investor, and Pooi Stewart, a substitute teacher — listed public safety as their top issue in the New York City voting guide.In a debate on NY 1, Susan Lee cited hate crimes against Asian Americans as a top public safety priority.And in the same debate, Ms. Jung defended her position by saying, “You can argue the numbers are going down, but a lot of public safety is perception.”Ms. Chu’s group endorsed George Grasso over Ms. Katz and ranked Susan Lee and Ms. Jung as their first two choices in the race against Mr. Marte. The group did not rank Ms. Chan in Brooklyn’s District 43, choosing Ms. Zhuang and Mr. Ng as their first and second choices. The Asian American winner of the Democratic primary in District 43 could face Vito J. LaBella, a former Police Department officer who is a conservative Republican, in what is expected to be a competitive general election. Mr. LaBella lost a close election for the State Senate by about 200 votes last year. He is running against Ying Tan, who works in senior services, in the Republican primary.Ms. Chu said many in her group are wary of “identity politics” and would not have a problem voting for Mr. LaBella in the general election.In the district attorney race, Ms. Katz has fended off attacks from Mr. Grasso, a former administrative judge and former Police Department first deputy commissioner, about her approach to crime.George Grasso, a primary candidate for Queens district attorney, is running as a more conservative Democratic who has accused his opponent of being soft on crime.Amir Hamja/The New York Times“I think there’s a gnawing sense among people throughout the city, and Queens in particular, that they’re just not feeling as safe as they felt a few years ago, and they’re not seeing the political leadership respond in an assertive way,” Mr. Grasso said in an interview.Ms. Katz has been endorsed by Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul, both moderates. During her first term, she said she had focused on gang takedowns, gun seizures and retail theft. She accused her opponent of “cherry picking” crime data and courting Republicans.“His claims,” said Ms. Katz, “are ludicrous.”Emma G. Fitzsimmons More

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      How a Year Without Roe Shifted American Views on Abortion

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      New and extensive polling shows public opinion increasingly supports legal abortion, with potential political consequences for 2024.For decades, Americans had settled around an uneasy truce on abortion. Even if most people weren’t happy with the status quo, public opinion about the legality and morality of abortion remained relatively static. But the Supreme Court’s decision last summer overturning Roe v. Wade set off a seismic change, in one swoop striking down a federal right to abortion that had existed for 50 years, long enough that women of reproductive age had never lived in a world without it. As the decision triggered state bans and animated voters in the midterms, it shook complacency and forced many people to reconsider their positions.In the year since, polling shows that what had been considered stable ground has begun to shift: For the first time, a majority of Americans say abortion is “morally acceptable.” A majority now believes abortion laws are too strict. They are significantly more likely to identify, in the language of polls, as “pro-choice” over “pro-life,” for the first time in two decades.And more voters than ever say they will vote only for a candidate who shares their views on abortion, with a twist: While Republicans and those identifying as “pro-life” have historically been most likely to see abortion as a litmus test, now they are less motivated by it, while Democrats and those identifying as “pro-choice” are far more so.For More Democrats, Abortion Is a Litmus TestThose who say they will vote only for a candidate who shares their view on abortion

      Source: GallupBy Molly Cook EscobarOne survey in the weeks after the court’s decision last June found that 92 percent of people had heard news coverage of abortion and 73 percent had one or more conversations about it. As people talked — at work, over family Zoom calls, even with strangers in grocery store aisles — they were forced to confront new medical realities and a disconnect between the status of women now and in 1973, when Roe was decided.Many found their views on abortion more complex and more nuanced than they realized. Polls and interviews with Americans show them thinking and behaving differently as a result, especially when it comes to politics.“This is a paradigm shift,” said Lydia Saad, director of United States social research for Gallup, the polling firm. “There’s still a lot of ambivalence, there aren’t a lot of all-or-nothing people. But there is much more support for abortion rights than there was, and that seems to be here to stay.”Gallup happened to start its annual survey of American values just as the court’s decision in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, leaked last May. That was when the balance began to tilt toward voters identifying as “pro-choice.” And when the question was divided into whether abortion should be legal in the first, second or third trimester, the share of Americans who say it should be legal in each was the highest it has been since Gallup first asked in 1996.The New York Times reviewed polls from groups that have been asking Americans about abortion for decades, including Gallup, Public Religion Research Institute, Pew Research, Ipsos, KFF and other nonpartisan polling organizations. All pointed to the same general trends: growing public support for legalized abortion and dissatisfaction with new laws that restrict it.Polls show that a majority of Americans now believe abortion laws are too strict.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesPollsters say the biggest change was in political action around abortion, not necessarily in people’s core views. Polls regarding whether abortion should be legal or illegal in most or all cases — long the most widely-used metric — have remained relatively stable, with the percentage of voters saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases slowly ticking up over the past five years to somewhere between 60 percent and 70 percent.And generally, most Americans believe abortion should be limited, especially in the second and third trimesters — not unlike the framework established by Roe.But there were sudden and significant jumps in support for legalized abortion post-Dobbs among some groups, including Republican men and Black Protestants. Polling by the Public Religion Research Institute found that the percentage of Hispanic Catholics saying abortion should be legal in all cases doubled between March and December of last year, from 16 percent to 31 percent. And the share of voters saying abortion should be illegal in all cases dropped significantly in several polls.That largely reflected the dramatic change in abortion access. Fourteen states enacted near-total bans on abortion as a result of the court’s decision. News stories recounted devastating consequences: Women denied abortions despite carrying fetuses with no skull; a 10-year-old pregnant by rape forced to cross state lines for an abortion; women carrying nonviable pregnancies who could not have an abortion until they were on the brink of death.“While Roe was settled law, you kind of didn’t have to worry about the consequences,” said Mollie Wilson O’Reilly, a writer for Commonweal, the Catholic lay publication, and a mother of four. “You could say, ‘I think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances,’ if you didn’t really have to think about what it would mean for that to happen.”Raised in the church and still active in her parish, Ms. O’Reilly, 42, embraced its teachings that abortion was equivalent to murder, as part of a broader church doctrine on the protection of life that also opposes capital punishment and mistreatment of migrants.Her evolution to supporting abortion rights started two years ago when she had a miscarriage that required emergency dilation and curettage; only when she saw her chart later did she realize the term was the technical name for abortion. “When people have the idea that abortion equals killing babies, it’s very easy to say, ‘Of course I’m against that,’” she said. “If you start seeing how reproductive health care is necessary to women, you start to see that if you’re supporting these policies that ban abortion, you’re going to end up killing women.”“While Roe was settled law, you kind of didn’t have to worry about the consequences,” said Mollie Wilson O’Reilly, a writer for Commonweal, the Catholic lay publication, and a mother of four.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesShe wrote about her experience and joined other Catholic women, largely writers and professors, in publicizing an open letter to the Catholic church, declaring that “pro-life” policies centered on opposition to abortion “often hurt women.” They called on the church and elected officials to embrace “reproductive justice” that would include better health care and wages for pregnant women and mothers.Ms. Wilson O’Reilly now believes decisions on abortion should be up to women and their doctors, not governments. It’s impossible to draw a “bright line” around what exceptions to the bans should be allowed, she said.Still, she doesn’t call herself a “pro-choice Catholic”: “I think you can hold the view that a developing life is sacred and still not feel that it is appropriate or necessary to outlaw abortion.” In a poll by KFF, the health policy research firm, a plurality of Americans — four in ten — and more among Democrats and women, said they were “very concerned” that bans have made it difficult for doctors to care for pregnant women with complications. Gallup found Americans more dissatisfied with abortion laws than at any point in 22 years of measuring the trend, with new highs among women, Catholics and Protestants saying the laws are “too strict.”A Pew poll in April concluded that views on abortion law increasingly depend on where people live: The percentage of those saying abortion should be “easier to get” rose sharply last year in states where bans have been enacted or are on hold because of court disputes.In South Carolina, which recently banned abortion at six weeks of pregnancy, Jill Hartle, a 36-year-old hairdresser, had only ever voted Republican. She called herself “pro-choice,” she said, but did not think about how that collided with the party’s opposition to abortion, even though she considered herself an informed voter, and her family talked politics regularly.She became pregnant shortly before the court’s decision to overturn Roe. At 18 weeks, anatomy scans determined that the fetus had a heart defect that kills most infants within the first two weeks of life, one that Ms. Hartle knew well because it had killed her best friend’s child.At the time, her state’s legislature was debating a ban. “The first words the doctor said were, ‘There are things I can discuss with you today that I may not be able to discuss with you tomorrow or in a week because our laws are changing so rapidly in South Carolina,’” she said.Ms. Hartle and her husband ended up traveling to Washington for an abortion.Jill Hartle, center, hugs a Republican lawmaker after describing her experience having an abortion during a legislative committee hearing in South Carolina.Joshua Boucher/The State, via Associated PressPeople, she said, told her she could not be a Christian and have an abortion; others said what she had was “not an abortion” because her pregnancy was not unwanted. After she recovered, she started a foundation to fight against what it calls the “catastrophic turnover” of Roe and to help other women find abortions. She began testifying against proposed bans and campaigning for Democratic candidates.“I want to tell people it’s OK to vote against party lines,” she said. South Carolina legislators passed the state’s ban in May, over the opposition of a small group of female legislators, both Republican and Democrat. Polls show that the state’s voters oppose the ban, but as in many states, legislative districts are gerrymandered and seats often go uncontested, so Republican lawmakers are often more concerned about a primary challenge from the right than a general election fight. Groups that oppose abortion rights emphasize that most Americans want restrictions on abortion — and indeed, just 22 percent of Americans in Gallup’s poll said abortion should be legal in the third trimester.“People will react to a once-in-a-generation event. That’s true, and it should be a wake-up call for Republicans,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which was founded to help elect lawmakers who oppose abortion rights. Republicans, she said, have to paint Democratic candidates as the extremists on abortion: “If they don’t, they may very well lose.”A coalition of Republicans and evangelicals has waged a four-decade campaign to end abortion, but the number of Americans identifying as evangelical has declined sharply. And polls on abortion suggest political dynamics may be shifting.High proportions of women ages 18 to 49, and especially Democrats, say they will vote only for candidates who support their views on abortion. On the flip side, Republicans are less enthusiastic. The Public Religion Research Institute found that the share of Republicans who think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases and who said they would vote only for a candidate whose view matched their own had dropped significantly, to 30 percent last December from 42 percent in December 2020.“That’s a direct effect of Dobbs,” said Melissa Deckman, the chief executive of PRRI and a political scientist. “Does it mean that suddenly Republicans will change their minds about abortion? No, partisans vote for partisans,” she said. “But this is an issue of salience and turnout.”John Richard, a 73-year-old disabled Vietnam veteran who lives in the swing district of Bucks County, Pa., said he had always voted Republican until he became a “Never Trumper.” The court’s decision in Dobbs made him go so far as to switch his voter registration to Democrat.“If my daughters came to me and said they want an abortion, I’d try and talk them out of it,” Mr. Richard, a retired supermarket manager, said. “But I don’t think anyone has the right to tell you how to control your own body. I fought in a war for that. I didn’t do that for no reason.”“It’s not enough anymore to ask what people think about abortion, because to them abortion is part of a larger set of concerns about the country,” said Tresa Undem, who conducts polls for businesses as well as Democratic-leaning groups.Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesAsked in polls to name their biggest concern, most people still don’t say abortion. But in polls and in interviews, many relate abortion rights to other top concerns: about dysfunctional government, gun violence, civil rights and income inequality.“It’s not enough anymore to ask what people think about abortion, because to them abortion is part of a larger set of concerns about the country,” said Tresa Undem, whose firm conducts polls for businesses as well as for Democratic-leaning groups.Starting with the leak and ending after the midterm elections last year, Ms. Undem conducted three surveys that tracked engagement with the issue by how many ads people saw, conversations they had and what concerns they raised about abortion.Increasingly, people mentioned concerns about losing rights and freedoms, the influence of religion in government, threats to democracy, as well as maternal mortality and whether they want to have more children. The biggest change in polls has been the swing in who votes on abortion. In the most recent example, Gallup found that in 2020 roughly 25 percent of Democrats and Republicans alike had said they would vote only for a candidate who shared their view on abortion. The share of Democrats saying this has jumped since the leak of the Dobbs decision, to 41 percent. Among Republicans the percentage was down slightly.In San Antonio, Sergio Mata, a 31-year-old artist, said he was shocked when Texas passed a ban on abortion in 2021, and by how much anti-abortion sentiment he suddenly heard around him. As a gay man and the American-born son of Mexican immigrants, he fears that gay rights will be reversed and birthright citizenship will be taken away: “I kind of feel what will happen if my existence gets illegal.”He considers himself a Democrat, but the overturning of Roe, he said, “pushed me to be more extreme,” he said. That meant paying more attention to the news and voting in the midterm elections for the first time.Sergio Mata, a 31-year-old artist, said he was shocked when Texas passed a ban on abortion in 2021, and by how much anti-abortion sentiment he suddenly heard around him.Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York TimesIn Portland, Ore., Ruby Hill, who is Black, said she had been alarmed at the flourishing of the Proud Boys and other white supremacist groups around her. She lives not far from where two members of an extremist gang ran over a 19-year-old Black man with a Jeep in 2016. Ms. Hill, also a Democrat, said she was then redistricted into a largely white congressional district represented by a Republican.The Dobbs decision, she said, made her start recruiting supporters of abortion rights among her friends, her grandchildren and their friends, and family members in Tennessee and California and Virginia over a weekly Zoom, “so they can convince people they know to stand up for more rights before more get taken from us,” she said. “If they got away with this and they feel that nobody cares, it’s more rights they are going to proceed to take away — civil rights, voting rights, abortion, birth control, it’s all part of that one big package. If you sit on the sideline, it says that you think it’s OK.” More

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      In Bronx DA Race, Darcel Clark Faces a Challenge From Tess Cohen

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      Darcel Clark is running for a third term, emphasizing a balance between public safety and justice. Her opponent, Tess Cohen, is focused on alternatives to incarceration.As Darcel Clark, the Bronx district attorney, made her way through the crowd at a Juneteenth celebration on Monday afternoon, it was clear she was in friendly territory. “Hi, D.A.,” a group of women called out. Ms. Clark smiled, hugged the women and asked how they were.A couple of miles away, Tess Cohen, the criminal defense and civil rights lawyer who is challenging Ms. Clark in next week’s Democratic primary, was knocking on doors at the Pelham Parkway public housing complex, trying to get the word out about her campaign, one apartment at a time.The June 27 primary offers Democratic voters in the Bronx something they have not had in recent years: a choice in the race for district attorney. But Ms. Cohen, who is challenging Ms. Clark from the left, faces a difficult fight against a well-known incumbent with more money, the support of the political establishment and name recognition across the borough.Ms. Clark, 61, a former state appellate court judge, was the first Black woman to be elected district attorney in New York. She grew up in the Bronx and was raised in public housing and went to public schools. She was nominated by Bronx Democratic leaders in 2015 and faced no primary opponent that year or in her re-election bid in 2019.Ms. Cohen, 36, is a criminal defense lawyer at ZMO Law. She spent more than eight years as a prosecutor in New York City’s Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor. She is originally from Riverside, Calif., and has lived in the Bronx for 11 years.Ms. Cohen said in an interview that she decided to run because she was “really frustrated with how the Bronx is consistently left behind” when it comes to receiving services and “things that create true public safety.” Specifically, she suggested that more people could benefit from mental health and gun court programs in the Bronx, which can provide an alternative to incarceration.Ms. Clark said that her biggest accomplishment has been “putting humanity into the criminal justice system,” a mission she said she wanted to continue, and noted that she was focused on balancing both public safety and justice. “You cannot do this work if you don’t know the people that you serve,” she added.Ms. Clark is leading the race by some traditional campaign markers: She has more money on hand, and the backing of numerous unions and Democratic elected officials.Kholood Eid for The New York TimesIn a recent debate hosted by BronxNet, a local TV station, the candidates staked out different positions on crime, on a 2019 legal reform law, and on the troubled Rikers Island jail complex.Ms. Clark said that her office had done “everything that we can to combat crime, whether it’s creating new bureaus in my office to deal with crime strategies, to deal with violent criminal enterprise — anything that will help victims of crimes.” She pointed to her Community Justice Bureau, formerly called the Alternatives to Incarceration Unit, which helps prosecutors connect people with community resources.Ms. Cohen argued that more could be done, and said the district attorney’s focus on incarceration has been detrimental. “The Bronx continues to be left behind,” she said, adding that the borough created a gun court program, which gives a second chance to young people who face gun possession charges and have no prior violent felony convictions, years after Brooklyn had such a program.The candidates also differed on a 2019 law, backed by progressives, that favors criminal defendants.In April, Ms. Clark and two other district attorneys sought to reverse some of the changes progressives had won. One revision would have allowed judges more freedom in detaining certain defendants on bail. Another would have placed a timeline on defense lawyers to flag and request outstanding case material, or “discovery,” from prosecutors. The prosecutors ultimately abandoned the changes.Ms. Clark said that she was in favor of the 2019 discovery reform, especially after spending 16 years on the bench. “I would never want to go back to the way it was,” Ms. Clark said, but she said that she supported “reasonable revisions.”Ms. Cohen said the proposed changes represented a “gutting of the reform” and said that “we cannot go back to a system where we have Kalief Browders.”Mr. Browder was sent to Rikers Island when he was 16, accused of stealing a backpack. He never stood trial and was never found guilty of any crime, but he was held at Rikers for three years. He killed himself in 2015. Prosecutors in his case had received a number of adjournments that prolonged his detention. State legislators invoked his name when they passed the 2019 reform, which aimed to curb such delays.Ms. Clark said during the debate that the Browder incident saddens her to this day. She called the handling of his case a “colossal failure” of the district attorney’s office, his defense attorney, the Department of Correction and nine judges, of which she was one.“I accept that I was part of that,” Ms. Clark said. “But also part of that means that you do something about it, so that doesn’t happen again.”The candidates agreed that Rikers should be closed, but they differed on how it should be managed in the meantime.A federal monitor overseeing the Rikers Island jails complex recently said that officials, including Louis A. Molina, the New York City correction commissioner, were hiding information about violence. And a federal judge signaled that she might be willing to consider a federal takeover.Ms. Cohen argued in favor of a federal takeover of Rikers. She said in an interview that the district attorney’s office should open an independent investigation into the jail. She said that Mayor Eric Adams and Mr. Molina were “really actively hiding how terrible things are at Rikers,” noting a new policy where jails would no longer announce inmate deaths.“The D.A.’s office isn’t proactively going out to look into instances, it’s waiting to see if other agencies refer instances to them,” Ms. Cohen said. “Even when they do bring charges, often they are late or unsuccessful.”On Juneteenth, Ms. Cohen was handing out campaign fliers and introducing herself to residents in a public housing complex.Kholood Eid for The New York TimesMs. Clark said during the debate that she had opened an office on Rikers and opened a public integrity bureau that handles corruption. She said she had won indictments against inmates and corrections officers. “The indictments are happening,” Ms. Clark said. “It takes time to happen.”Asked about a federal takeover of Rikers, Ms. Clark said that she was “in favor of anything that is going to bring justice, that’s going to make Rikers Island more humane and more safe, but it’s not my decision.”Ms. Clark is leading the race by some traditional campaign markers. She has more money on hand — $281,000 according to a report filed on June 16, compared with just under $16,000 for Ms. Cohen — and the backing of numerous unions and Democratic Party heavyweights, including Senator Chuck Schumer, Attorney General Letitia James, Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, and Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie.“Darcel is a strong candidate, she’s been a lifelong Bronxite, she knows intimately what the issues of the Bronx are, and I just don’t see the challenger bringing that to the table,” said Virginia Krompinger, president of the Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club, which endorsed the incumbent.Ms. Cohen has won the support of voters and organizations explicitly looking for a change — including a number of formerly incarcerated people who were exonerated. Amanda Litman, the co-executive director of Run for Something, a progressive group that recruits political candidates, said her group had endorsed Ms. Cohen because “she knows the system in and out, she has a really strong progressive vision for what the office can be and what the office can do.”Turnout in New York City’s primary elections is not expected to be high — and it remains to be seen how focused voters are on the district attorney contest in the Bronx.Ayisha Khalid, a college student studying politics and criminal justice, answered the door when Ms. Cohen knocked, listened to her pitch and appeared to appreciate the candidate’s ideas about providing second chances for people who commit crimes. Still, she said, “I have to read more about it, because I had no clue.” More