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    Senator Ben Cardin Won’t Seek Re-election in Maryland

    His retirement is likely to draw a number of Democrats and Republicans to compete for the seat.Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, a long-serving Democrat, announced his retirement on Monday, clearing the way for highly competitive primaries to replace him in 2024, especially among Democrats in a deep-blue state.Maryland’s liberal-leaning voters have not sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 1980, and the eight-member congressional delegation includes just one member of the G.O.P.“I have run my last election and will not be on the ballot in 2024, but there is still much work to be done,” Mr. Cardin, 79, said in a statement. “During the next two years, I will continue to travel around the state, listening to Marylanders and responding to their needs.”High-profile Maryland Democrats who could be in the mix to replace Mr. Cardin include Representatives Jamie Raskin and David Trone, and Angela Alsobrooks, the executive of Prince George’s County.On the Republican side, there is already speculation about whether Larry Hogan, a popular former governor who in March said he would not run for president, will make a bid.In an interview, Mr. Cardin declined to endorse a successor, but he said he was confident Democrats would hold the seat. His election to the Senate in 2006 made him the third straight representative from Maryland’s Third Congressional District to join the chamber. The House seat is now held by John Sarbanes, a son of Paul Sarbanes, the senator who preceded Mr. Cardin.Mr. Cardin was named last month by Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, to serve on the Judiciary Committee as a temporary replacement for Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who is on leave recovering from shingles, but Republicans have blocked the move. Without her vote, Democrats have been unable to advance stalled judicial nominations.In a video announcing his retirement that he recorded with his wife, Myrna Cardin, Mr. Cardin touched on highlights of a career that includes enacting the Magnitsky sanctions, international penalties aimed at violators of human rights, and environmental protections for Chesapeake Bay.Much of his motivation through his 58 years in elected office, Mr. Cardin said in the video, “comes back to tzedakah, part of our tradition as Jews to help those that are less fortunate.”Mr. Cardin, who was speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates before being elected to Congress, said in the interview on Monday that he hopes to focus his final two years in the Senate on helping small businesses. More

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    This Is Why Politicians Like to Change the Subject

    Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. You know I’m no fan of Kevin McCarthy’s. But the House speaker did succeed in getting a bill through Congress with a debt-ceiling increase, and now the Biden administration needs 60 votes in the Senate — meaning 51 Democrats and independents plus 9 Republicans — to get the limit increase to the president’s desk for a signature.So, shouldn’t Joe, you know, negotiate?Gail Collins: Bret, with your strong feelings about fiscal responsibility, you of all people should be offended by McCarthy’s ploy. The debt ceiling needs to be raised in order to avoid an unprecedented, messy, horrible moment when the country’s credit goes bad and economic collapse spreads around the globe.Everybody knows that has to be done. But McCarthy now wants to use it as a hostage — attaching his wish list of spending cuts (weaken the I.R.S.!) and prosecuting the G.O.P. war on environmentalism.Bret: I don’t think anyone wants Uncle Sam to default on his debts — except, well, the nuttier Republicans who hold the balance of power in the House. McCarthy had to pass a bill that could garner their support. That’s just political reality, and we can’t wish it away.Gail: President Biden’s right, though. We have to go ahead and do the thing we have to do. It’s the government equivalent of paying the mortgage. Then we can fight about regular spending, like a family debating whether to get a second car.Bret: Biden’s budget request was the largest in history — $6.8 trillion — which is far more than the $3.7 trillion President Barack Obama asked for just 10 years ago. Is that the right thing to do? We’ve got a federal debt that surpasses $30 trillion. Democrats show little interest in fiscal restraint, but they have maximum appetite for tax increases they know all Republicans will oppose. So of course the G.O.P. is going to play hardball. It’s not much different from the mid-1980s, when Biden, as a senator, linked his own support for an increase in the debt ceiling with a freeze on federal spending.But here’s a question, Gail: Let’s say you got your way and Republicans magically agreed to a “clean” raising of the debt ceiling. What sort of spending cuts would you endorse?Gail: Bret, as you know, my top priority for fixing government finances is to get the rich to pay their fair share of Social Security taxes.Bret: Don’t usually think of a tax increase as a spending cut, but go on.Gail: Right now, the Social Security tax cap is so low that anybody who’s made a million dollars or more this year has already maxed out. You and I are getting taxed right now, but Elon Musk isn’t.Bret: Give the guy a break: He’s been busy blowing up rockets, launchpads, Twitter, the S.E.C., not to mention his reputation ….Gail: On the spending-cut side, while I concede we’ll inevitably spend a ton on defense, there are plenty of obvious saving targets. For instance, military bases that exist only because some powerful House or Senate member is defending them.Bret: If it were up to me, I’d do away with nearly all agriculture subsidies, starting with biofuels, which are environmentally destructive and contribute to global food scarcity by diverting corn and sugar and soybean fields for fuel production. I’d get rid of the Department of Education, which was not Jimmy Carter’s best idea and which has presided over 43 years of persistent and worsening educational failure in this country. I’d eliminate the National Flood Insurance Program; we are encouraging people to build irresponsibly in the face of climate change.Gail: Want to jump in and agree about the flood insurance. But go on …Bret: I’d stop subsidizing rich people who want to buy Teslas. Electric vehicles can compete in the market on their own merits. I’d terminate the Space Force; the Air Force was doing just fine before Donald Trump decided to add another layer of Pentagon bureaucracy. I’d claw back unspent Covid funds. The pandemic is over; we’ve spent enough. I’d … I’m really getting into this, aren’t I?Gail: I’m with you on Covid funds and the Space Force. But we do need to encourage the production and sale of electric vehicles. If we have to spend money to push back on global warming, so be it.Bret: Switching gears, Gail, our colleague Tom Friedman wrote a powerful column last week making the case that Biden needs to think hard about the wisdom of keeping Kamala Harris on the ticket. I gather you think that ship has already sailed?Gail: Tom is a great columnist and great friend — he once took me on a tour of Israel and the West Bank that was one of the most enlightening weeks of my life.Bret: Oy vey!Gail: And a year or two ago, I would definitely have agreed with him about Harris. But I’ve come around to believing that she’s grown in the job despite being saddled with a lousy agenda early on. (Kamala, would you please go solve the Mexican border situation?) Lately she’s been the administration’s fierce advocate for abortion rights.Practical bottom line — you have here a Black woman who’s been, at minimum, a perfectly adequate vice president. I just can’t see any way Biden could toss her off the ticket. Even if there’s a good chance at his age that he’ll die in office. Which is, of course, not a train of thought he wants to take us on.Your opinion?Bret: Remember all those independents who might have voted for John McCain in 2008 save for Sarah Palin? Well, Kamala Harris is gonna be another deal breaker for some of those same independents.Gail: One of the happier factoids of the world today is that a huge proportion of it has forgotten who Sarah Palin even is. What’s worse than being both terrible and forgettable?But go on about Kamala …Bret: Her approval rating is the lowest for any vice president in the last 30 years at this point in the administration — and that includes Mike Pence and Dick Cheney. It’s an open secret in Washington that she runs the most dysfunctional office of any major office holder. Nobody thought she’d “solve” the Mexican border situation, but it would have been nice if she showed a basic command of facts. Because of Biden’s age, the chances of her taking the top job are substantial, and many voters will judge the Biden-Harris ticket on how confident they feel about Harris. How would I feel about President Harris dealing with a nuclear crisis in Korea or a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or another global financial crisis? Not good.Democrats need to get over their fear of offending her. There are plenty of qualified replacements.Gail: We used to be in agreement here, but I do think she’s grown in the job. And when it comes to being terrified about somebody dealing with a nuclear crisis — how would you feel about, say, Ron DeSantis? Or of course Donald Trump?Bret: You’re sort of making my point. If you think, as Tom and I do, that she’s a major political liability for Biden, it’s that much more of an incentive to get a stronger running mate. Surely the U.N. secretary general can be cajoled into early retirement so Harris can get an office with a nice view of the East River?Gail: You just brought me back to an old fantasy about finding a job for Biden so great it would tempt him to leave office after one term. Guess secretary general wouldn’t do it. But I do keep wishing he’d announced last week that he wasn’t running again. He has plenty of major accomplishments to point to, and the nation would have a good long time to watch and appraise the many promising Democratic candidates to replace him. Including his vice president.Bret: Frank Bruni was really on the money on this subject: There really is no better job than the presidency. The perks, the pomp and the power are all irresistible, particularly to guys like Biden who have been chasing the office their whole adult lives and now finally have it. We were fools to imagine he might be tempted not to run again — even though he’s tempting fate, and second terms rarely exceed the quality of first terms.Gail: OK, Bret — that’s enough politics for today. Always count on you to finish with something more profound.Bret: One of the delights of our conversation, Gail, is being able to point our readers toward some of the very best work of our colleagues. This week, they really shouldn’t miss Mike Baker’s beautifully written, heartbreaking story about Craig Coyner, a brilliant public defender who served as mayor of Bend, Ore., in the 1980s — only to die there earlier this year as a homeless man, broken by mental illness.We all need stories that uplift us. But we also need those that remind us of the adage that “there but for the grace of God go I.” May Coyner’s memory be for a blessing.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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    Estos son los colaboradores de Biden que lo ayudarán en su campaña por la reelección

    Rara vez conceden entrevistas oficiales y solo dos tienen Twitter. Pero serán la fuerza principal de la estrategia política del presidente.Cuando el presidente Joe Biden anunció esta semana su campaña de reelección y a los dos principales miembros de su equipo, no se incluyeron los nombres de sus asesores más cercanos que durante mucho tiempo han trabajado a su lado.Un pequeño círculo de altos funcionarios, algunos de los cuales conocen a Biden desde hace más tiempo del que llevan vivos muchos de los miembros de la campaña que pronto serán contratados, guiará la estrategia política del presidente, tanto en la Casa Blanca como en la campaña electoral.Ninguno de ellos tiene una imagen pública significativa. De los seis, solo Jennifer O’Malley Dillon y Jeff Zients, jefe de gabinete de la Casa Blanca, tienen cuentas activas en Twitter. Pero los miembros de este grupo fueron quienes empezaron a hacer llamadas telefónicas el pasado fin de semana para ofrecer puestos en la campaña de Biden, de los que ya se anunciaron algunos integrantes.Funcionarios de la Casa Blanca y de su reciente campaña insisten en que la directora de campaña, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, estará facultada para dirigir la reelección de Biden. Pero una serie de funcionarios demócratas que han participado en la preparación de su estrategia electoral para 2024 han dejado claro que muchas decisiones importantes seguirán en manos del grupo de asesores principales del presidente.Según dos asesores de Biden, los miembros del personal de la Casa Blanca que han participado en el despliegue de la campaña son O’Malley Dillon, Zients, Anita Dunn, Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti y Bruce Reed.A continuación analizamos quiénes son las personas que están en el centro del universo político del presidente y que ayudarán a guiar su proyecto de reelección.Jeff ZientsBiden nombró a Zients su segundo jefe de gabinete en enero después de que este supervisó el programa de vacunación de COVID-19. Ha estado encargado de que el ala oeste reciba con regularidad los panecillos de Call Your Mother, una cadena de Washington de la que fue copropietario (a cuatro días del inicio de su presidencia, Biden ordenó a su comitiva que se detuviera en una de las tiendas para que su hijo Hunter pudiera recoger un pedido).Jeff Zients cuando era el encargado de supervisar el programa de vacunación contra la covid de la administración Biden.Pete Marovich para The New York TimesZients ha asistido a entrevistas y deliberaciones sobre posibles miembros del personal de campaña y de manera regular se reúne con Biden para hablar de política.Cuando se convirtió en jefe de gabinete, Zients tenía la reputación de ser uno de los principales solucionadores demócratas de problemas en Washington. Fue convocado por el gobierno de Obama para resolver el problema del sitio web de salud después de que presentó fallas técnicas generalizadas en 2013. En 2021, Biden lo llamó para que se encargara de la respuesta al coronavirus.Anita DunnEn 2020, cuando Biden tuvo dificultades para llegar al cuarto puesto en Iowa (y estuvo a días de quedar quinto en Nuevo Hampshire), cedió el control de su campaña a Dunn, una veterana operadora de Washington que comenzó su carrera como becaria en el gobierno del presidente Jimmy Carter y ascendió hasta convertirse en la principal asesora de comunicaciones de Biden.Anita Dunn, una operadora con experiencia de Washington, ayudó a fundar SKDK, una importante empresa de asuntos públicos y consultoría política.Stefani Reynolds para The New York TimesDunn también ha desempeñado cargos de responsabilidad con líderes demócratas como el presidente Barack Obama. Y ayudó a fundar SKDK, una importante empresa de asuntos públicos y consultoría política que emplea a un grupo de operadores demócratas (a lo largo de los años ha sido cuestionada por la intersección de su trabajo gubernamental y los negocios de la empresa).Está casada con el prestigioso abogado Bob Bauer, una relación que hizo que, en 2009, Newsweek los calificara como la nueva pareja poderosa de Washington. Bauer también es un asesor cercano de Biden y ha sido su abogado personal.“El valor natural de Anita es la acción”, dijo Jennifer Palmieri, quien fue directora de comunicaciones de la Casa Blanca durante la presidencia de Obama. “En un partido de gente que suele preocuparse por todo, como suelen ser los demócratas, ella tiene un estilo de liderazgo único que ayuda a impulsar el movimiento”.Steve RicchettiRicchetti, quien trabajó como jefe de gabinete del vicepresidente, desde hace mucho tiempo es una de las personas de confianza de Biden.En varias ocasiones ha manejado la relación entre Biden, los donantes y los miembros del Congreso (poco después de que Biden asumió el cargo, el hermano de Ricchetti fue objeto de escrutinio por su trabajo como cabildero; Ricchetti también ha desempeñado ese rol).“Steve es el mejor cuando se trata de manejar relaciones y escuchar a mucha gente”, comentó el exrepresentante de Luisiana Cedric Richmond, quien fue asesor principal de Biden en la Casa Blanca y copresidente nacional de su campaña en 2020. “Stevie sabe cómo son las interacciones entre el Congreso y la Casa Blanca”.Cuando se le preguntó si podía comparar a algún alto asesor de Biden con personajes de la serie de televisión El ala oeste de la Casa Blanca, Richmond señaló que Josh Lyman, el personaje de la serie que era el jefe adjunto de gabinete de la Casa Blanca, que hablaba rápido y era muy duro, “sabía lo que hacían todos”.“Quizá Stevie es como Josh”, dijo. “No se le va una”.Mike DonilonAdemás de la hermana de Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, y de la primera dama, Jill Biden, Donilon es una de las personas que ha trabajado con Biden durante más tiempo, en comparación con cualquier otro colaborador de su círculo más cercano.Donilon, discreto asesor de Biden desde principios de la década de 1980, es una presencia habitual en los partidos de baloncesto de la Universidad de Georgetown, incluso durante la mala racha del equipo en los últimos años (nacido en Rhode Island, Donilon tiene dos títulos de la Universidad de Washington).Proviene de una familia de políticos. Uno de sus hermanos, Tom Donilon, trabajó en los gobiernos de Clinton y Obama. Otro, Terrence Donilon, es vocero principal de la arquidiócesis de Boston. La cuñada de Mike Donilon, Catherine Russell, fue jefa de personal de Jill Biden cuando Joe Biden era vicepresidente.Donilon, quien fue el estratega jefe de Biden durante la campaña de 2020, ahora es su asesor principal y viaja con frecuencia con el presidente.“Son personas muy cercanas al presidente y son la razón por la que es presidente”, dijo Cristóbal Alex, un veterano de la campaña de Biden en 2020 y de la Casa Blanca, sobre Donilon y otros asesores principales de Biden. “Ese tipo de liderazgo central jugará un papel increíblemente importante en su elección”.Jennifer O’Malley DillonO’Malley Dillon, un miembro relativamente tardío del círculo cercano a Biden, tuvo una participación importante en la campaña a la presidencia y la reelección de Obama y fue directora de campaña de la candidatura de Beto O’Rourke a la Casa Blanca en 2020, antes de que Dunn la reclutara para se encargara de lo que en ese entonces era la modesta campaña presidencial de Biden.O’Malley Dillon se convirtió en directora de campaña justo cuando se produjo la pandemia. Fue responsable de transformar una operación incipiente en un aparato serio para las elecciones generales, y lo hizo mientras el mundo se quedaba encerrado, por lo que terminó gestionando la postulación de un candidato septuagenario que pasaría gran parte del resto de la campaña fuera de los escenarios.“Jen tiene un gran instinto político y nunca he visto a nadie que logre que los autobuses y los trenes lleguen a tiempo como lo hace ella”, comentó Richmond.Conocida por sus habilidades como organizadora política y porque durante la campaña tenía el hábito de responder llamadas telefónicas nocturnas, mientras pedaleaba en su bicicleta estática Peloton, O’Malley Dillon se convirtió en la primera mujer en dirigir una campaña presidencial demócrata ganadora y ahora es jefa adjunta de gabinete de la Casa Blanca.Bruce ReedAl igual que Biden, Reed ha pasado la mayor parte de su carrera como un centrista demócrata en Washington. Durante algunos años trabajó para el Consejo de Liderazgo Demócrata, cuyo objetivo era fijar al partido en el centro político y tuvo una influencia significativa durante el gobierno de Clinton.Coescribió un libro con Rahm Emanuel y fue autor de una columna diaria para Slate (en 2009, pidió que el Salón de la Fama del Béisbol “incluya en la lista de no elegibles permanentes a todos los jugadores que hayan consumido esteroides”), Reed trabajó para Al Gore y Bill Clinton antes de convertirse en jefe de gabinete de Biden, durante la presidencia de Obama.Nativo de Idaho, cuyo afecto por su estado natal se extiende a su correo electrónico personal, Reed es el principal asesor político de Biden y lo acompaña en viajes nacionales.Reid J. Epstein cubre campañas y elecciones desde Washington. Antes de unirse al Times en 2019, trabajó en The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday y The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.Katie Glueck es reportera de política nacional. Anteriormente, fue corresponsal política jefa de la sección Metro y reportera principal del Times que cubría la campaña de Biden. También cubrió política para la oficina de Washington de McClatchy y para Politico. @katieglueck More

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    South Carolina Democrats Elect First Black Woman to Run State Party

    The NewsSouth Carolina Democrats elected Christale Spain, the former executive director of the state Democratic Party, as state party chair at their convention on Saturday. She ran with the backing of the party’s top brass, including Representative James E. Clyburn, and will be the first Black woman to lead the state party.Christale Spain, who was elected Saturday as chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, was backed by the party establishment.Sean Rayford for The New York TimesWhy It Matters: Clyburn and Old Guard Still RuleA longtime organizer in Palmetto State politics, Ms. Spain was widely considered the front-runner in the race, a usually sleepy contest that saw more candidates run than it has in more than 25 years. Her biggest competitor, Brandon Upson, the state Black caucus chair, painted her as an establishment candidate whose connections to the old guard would stymie the party’s progress in an all-important election year.Democrats who supported Mr. Upson were seeking to overhaul a state party they felt had long been dominated by Mr. Clyburn — who helped President Biden win the state primary in 2020 — ahead of South Carolina’s debut as the party’s first presidential primary state in 2024 and in the wake of a down cycle in the 2022 midterm elections.Still, it was Ms. Spain’s connections, paired with her campaign strategy — characterized by social media blasts and regular visits to county party meetings and cattle calls — that ultimately delivered her the victory. She won with the support of nearly 700 of the party’s roughly 1,000 state delegates in a standing vote. Before delegates for Mr. Upson could stand up to vote for him, he conceded to Ms. Spain in a short speech calling for party unity.What’s Next: Primary Prep and Party RepairAs the next chair, Ms. Spain will be responsible for preparing the state party for its moment in prime time: voting first in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary election. She will also have to rebuild a party in turmoil. Democrats lost several safe State House and Senate seats and had low voter turnout during the 2022 midterms, a year that was otherwise considered positive for the party nationally. Ms. Spain’s leadership will offer Palmetto State Democrats a chance to make up those losses and get ready for the national stage.In a news conference after her victory, Ms. Spain offered a message to the South Carolina voters waiting for more meaningful change from the Democratic Party.“Wait no longer,” she said, vowing to focus on year-round voter engagement efforts. “We know who our voters are. We’re going back after them and we’re going to turn them out, plus more.” More

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    As Biden Runs for Re-election, Black Voters’ Frustration Bubbles

    In interviews, Black voters, organizers and elected officials pointed to what some saw as unkept promises — raising questions about the enthusiasm of Democrats’ most loyal voters.President Biden began his re-election campaign this week vowing to “finish the job” he started in 2021. No one wants him to do that more than Black voters.Long the most loyal Democratic constituency, Black voters resurrected Mr. Biden’s struggling presidential campaign in South Carolina and sent him to the White House with his party in control of the Senate after two runoff victories in Georgia. In return, they hoped the administration would go beyond past presidents in trying to improve their communities — and they listened closely to his promises to do so.Yet some of Black voters’ biggest policy priorities — stronger federal protections against restrictive voting laws, student loan debt relief and criminal justice and police accountability measures — have failed or stalled, some because of Republican opposition and some because Democrats have declined to bypass the Senate’s filibuster rules. Those disappointments, highlighted in interviews with more than three dozen Black voters, organizers and elected officials in recent weeks, leave open the question of just how enthusiastic Democrats’ most important group of voters will be in 2024.The interviews point to an emerging split between Black elected officials — who are nearly uniform in praising Mr. Biden and predicting robust Black turnout for him next year — and voters, who are less sure.“Folks are just tired of being tired,” said Travis Williams, a Democratic organizer in Dorchester County, S.C. “They’re just sick and tired of being tired and disappointed whenever our issues are never addressed.”Marvin Dutton, 38, an entrepreneur who moved to Atlanta in 2020 from Philadelphia, suggested that Mr. Biden needed to be “a little bit more sincere,” rather than “pandering to us when it’s time to vote.”Marvin Dutton, an Atlanta-based entrepreneur, criticized Mr. Biden for “pandering to us when it’s time to vote.”Piera Moore for The New York TimesMr. Biden’s re-election bid and his renewed pledge to achieve his first-term policy goals have forced some reflection and frustration among Black voters in battleground states. Many believe that the big promises he made to Black communities have fallen flat.Democrats can feel confident that if Mr. Biden is his party’s nominee, as expected, a vast majority of Black voters will choose him over a Republican. But the question for the party is whether Democratic voters will bring the same level of energy that led to Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory.In his campaign announcement, Mr. Biden made no secret of the importance of Black voters to his re-election. The Biden allies with the most airtime in his three-minute video, aside from his wife, were Vice President Kamala Harris, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton.“I have not found a lack of enthusiasm,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, who was Mr. Biden’s most important Black surrogate in 2020. “I just haven’t found it. And people keep saying it. But it’s not there.”On Friday, Mr. Clyburn’s annual fish fry, which brings together candidates and hundreds of South Carolina Democrats, offered an early look at that enthusiasm. The state party is preparing to hold its presidential primary first in the nominating process — a move Mr. Biden and Democrats said was made to give Black voters more influence.Mr. Biden’s allies maintain that his administration has delivered for Black voters but that he has failed to trumpet some of his progress. Since taking office, he has provided billions of dollars for historically Black colleges and universities, and he has appointed more Black judges, including Justice Jackson, to the federal bench than any other president. Black unemployment is at a record low. The economy, a top concern for Black voters, has recovered from its pandemic doldrums, though inflation, which spiked last summer, remains higher on a sustained basis than it has been for decades.“The president and vice president have made issues Black Americans care most about a priority and are running to finish the job,” said Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for Mr. Biden’s campaign. “The campaign will work hard to earn every vote and expand on its winning 2020 coalition.”But there is evidence of a drop-off in Black voter engagement during the 2022 midterm election, although the results were broadly seen as heartening for Mr. Biden and his party, despite Republicans winning the House.The share of Black voters in the electorate dropped by 1 percent nationally from 2018 to 2022, the biggest drop of any racial group measured, while the share of white, college-educated voters increased, according to data from HIT Strategies, a Democratic polling firm.Representative Jim Clyburn, who helped President Biden win the state primary in 2020, addressed South Carolina Democrats gathered for his annual fish fry event during the state part convention weekend. Travis Dove for The New York TimesIt does not take much of a decrease in Black voters to alter the outcome of elections in the most competitive states. In 2020, Mr. Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin, each by fewer than 35,000 votes.The number of ballots cast for Democratic Senate candidates by voters in Milwaukee — home to a large majority of Wisconsin’s Black population — dropped by 18 percent from 2018 to 2022, while the statewide turnout remained the same, according to Wisconsin voter data. Had Milwaukee delivered the same margin for Democrats in 2022 that it did in 2018, Mandela Barnes, a Democrat, would have defeated Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican.The city’s mayor, Cavalier Johnson, attributed the difference in part to Republican efforts in Wisconsin to make voting harder — particularly after Mr. Biden’s narrow victory there in 2020.Mr. Johnson cited an array of Mr. Biden’s accomplishments for Black voters: He appointed the first Black woman, Justice Jackson, to the Supreme Court. He has emphasized the creation of manufacturing jobs, which were once the heartbeat of Milwaukee but have been moved overseas. And, Mr. Johnson added, Black voters credit Mr. Biden for trying to make voting laws less restrictive, even if his efforts failed.“They know that Joe Biden stood in the breach and stood up for them and fought to build the economy that’s beneficial for people of color, namely African Americans, and also fought against some of the hate and discrimination against people of color and African Americans,” Mr. Johnson said.Some Black voters said in interviews that their frustrations with the pace of change promised by Mr. Biden in 2020 had led them to question whether they would support him again, or perhaps sit out the next election.Jennifer Roberts, 35, is a lifelong Democrat and was one of the Black Georgians who helped elect Mr. Biden and Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. She was confident in 2020 that Ms. Harris, the first woman of color to become vice president, would use her background to advance policies related to women of color, and “was praying for them to win.”Three years later, Ms. Roberts’s view of Mr. Biden’s promises has changed. Her mother moved in with her because of rising rent costs in Metro Atlanta. Inflation has put an added strain on the tow-truck business she and her husband own.Jennifer Roberts, a Democrat in Atlanta who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, said she believed Mr. Trump’s economic policies could provide the “tangible help” she was looking for.Piera Moore for The New York TimesMs. Roberts now says she would support former President Donald J. Trump if he were the Republican nominee next year. What she wants, and has not yet received, is “tangible help” — and she believes Mr. Trump’s economic policies could possibly provide it.“I understand he’s tried,” she said of Mr. Biden. “When you don’t address the things directly, when they don’t go according to what you said publicly they were going to, you can’t just kind of sweep it under the rug.”In Philadelphia, Lamont Wilson, 45, an information technology manager, voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 but said he was not inspired by any 2024 candidates so far. He said Mr. Biden had “done a lot of good” but had not fulfilled his expectations.Mr. Wilson said he hoped Mr. Biden would “hold firm” on his promise to eliminate student debt — the president announced a $400 billion plan to forgive up to $20,000 of debt for certain people, though the Supreme Court may block it. Black college graduates carry an average of $25,000 more in student loan debt than white college graduates, according to the Education Department.“Get rid of that debt and give people a chance,” Mr. Wilson said.Nocola Hemphill, an activist and state party delegate in Winnsboro, S.C., said she had also heard grumblings from Black voters about Mr. Biden. But she saw this as a form of accountability, not evidence of a deeper problem.“Everyone is not happy with the administration,” she said. “And it’s not that we don’t want to see Biden run. We just want to make sure that he’s going to deliver on his promises.”Younger, first-time Black voters such as Evan Spann, 19, a freshman at Morehouse College in Atlanta, are also hoping Mr. Biden will deliver. Mr. Spann said he wanted to hear concrete plans from Mr. Biden for his second term.Evan Spann, 19, a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, wants to hear concrete plans from the president. Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York Times“I think what he needs to do is directly say what he’s going to do,” Mr. Spann said. “And then I think he needs to really show up and talk to us about it.”Mr. Biden’s proponents say that while some Black voters may be frustrated with the party, Democrats remain a safer choice than Republicans, who have opposed the legislation protecting voting rights and cutting student loan debt that Black lawmakers and voters have championed. In several G.O.P.-controlled state legislatures, lawmakers have sought to cut Black history lessons from school curriculums, outlaw books by Black authors and have drawn congressional maps that curb Black voting power.Democrats plan to underline the G.O.P.’s record on these issues.“Black voters understand all that,” Mr. Clyburn said. “And we’re going to spend a lot of time this year and next reminding them of who is doing this.” At the same time, Democrats must win over voters who are reluctant to support the party again.“It’s a difficult conversation to go back into those communities and explain why we didn’t get criminal justice reform,” said Kevin Harris, a former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus. “It’s a difficult conversation to go into those communities and talk about why we didn’t get the protections that we need with voting rights.”He continued: “That’s a hard conversation to have. But you still go have it.”Jon Hurdle More

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    North Carolina Gerrymander Ruling Reflects Politicization of Judiciary Nationally

    When it had a Democratic majority last year, the North Carolina Supreme Court voided the state’s legislative and congressional maps as illegal gerrymanders. Now the court has a Republican majority, and says the opposite.Last year, Democratic justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that maps of the state’s legislative and congressional districts drawn to give Republicans lopsided majorities were illegal gerrymanders. On Friday, the same court led by a newly elected Republican majority looked at the same facts, reversed itself and said it had no authority to act.The practical effect is to enable the Republican-controlled General Assembly to scrap the court-ordered State House, Senate and congressional district boundaries that were used in elections last November, and draw new maps skewed in Republicans’ favor for elections in 2024. The 5-to-2 ruling fell along party lines, reflecting the takeover of the court by Republican justices in partisan elections last November.The decision has major implications not just for the state legislature, where the G.O.P. is barely clinging to the supermajority status that makes its decisions veto-proof, but for the U.S. House, where a new North Carolina map could add at least three Republican seats in 2024 to what is now a razor-thin Republican majority. Overturning such a recent ruling by the court was a highly unusual move, particularly on a pivotal constitutional issue in which none of the facts had changed.The North Carolina case mirrors a national trend in which states that elect their judges — Ohio, Kentucky, Kansas, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and others — have seen races for their high court seats turned into multimillion-dollar political battles, and their justices’ rulings viewed through a deeply partisan lens.Such political jockeying once was limited mostly to confirmation fights over seats on the U.S. Supreme Court. But as the nation’s partisan divide has deepened, and the federal courts have offloaded questions about issues like abortion and affirmative action to the states, choosing who will decide state legal battles has increasingly become an openly political fight.The new Republican majority of justices said the North Carolina Supreme Court had no authority to strike down partisan maps that the General Assembly had drawn.“Our constitution expressly assigns the redistricting authority to the General Assembly subject to explicit limitations in the text,” Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote for the majority. “Were this court to create such a limitation, there is no judicially discoverable or manageable standard for adjudicating such claims.”Justice Newby said that Democrats who led the previous court had claimed to have developed a standard for deciding when a political map was overly partisan, but that it was “riddled with policy choices” and overstepped the State Constitution’s grant of redistricting powers to the legislature.Legal scholars said the ruling also seemed likely to derail a potentially momentous case now before the U.S. Supreme Court involving the same maps. In that case, Moore v. Harper, leaders of the Republican-run legislature have argued that the U.S. Constitution gives state lawmakers the sole authority to set rules for state elections and political maps, and that state courts have no role in overseeing them.Now that the North Carolina Supreme Court has sided with the legislature and thrown out its predecessor’s ruling, there appears to be no dispute for the federal justices to decide, the scholars said.The ruling drew a furious dissent from one of the elected Democratic justices, Anita S. Earls, who said that it was pervaded by “lawlessness.” She accused the majority of making specious legal arguments, and at times using misleading statistics, to make a false case that partisan gerrymandering was beyond its jurisdiction.“The majority ignores the uncontested truths about the intentions behind partisan gerrymandering and erects an unconvincing facade that only parrots democratic values in an attempt to defend its decision, ” she wrote. “These efforts to downplay the practice do not erase its consequences and the public will not be gaslighted.”Some legal experts said the ruling underscored a trend in state courts that elect their justices, in which decisions in politically charged cases increasingly align with the ideological views of whichever party holds the majority on the court, sometimes regardless of legal precedent.“If you think the earlier State Supreme Court was wrong, we have mechanisms to change that, like a constitutional amendment,” Joshua A. Douglas, a scholar on state constitutions at the University of Kentucky College of Law, said in an interview. “But changing judges shouldn’t cause such a sea change in the rule of law, because if that’s the case, precedent has no value any longer, and judges really are politicians.”The state court also handed down two more rulings in politically charged cases, overturning decisions that favored voting-rights advocates and their Democratic supporters.In the first, the justices reconsidered and reversed a ruling by the previous court, again along party lines, that a voter ID law passed by the Republican majority in the legislature violated the equal protection clause in the State Constitution.In the second, the justices said a lower court “misapplied the law and overlooked facts crucial to its ruling” when it struck down a state law denying voting rights to people who had completed prison sentences on felony charges but were not yet released from parole, probation or other court restrictions.The lower court had said that the state law was rooted in an earlier law written to deny voting rights to African Americans, a conclusion that the Supreme Court justices said was mistaken.The new ruling undid a decision that had restored voting rights to more than 55,000 North Carolinians who had completed prison sentences. Those rights are now revoked, lawyers said, although the status of former felons who had already registered or voted under the previous ruling appeared unclear.The ruling on Friday in the gerrymander case, now known as Harper v. Hall, came after partisan elections for two Supreme Court seats in November shifted the seven-member court’s political balance to 5-to-2 Republican, from 4-to-3 Democratic.The Democratic-controlled court ruled along party lines in February 2022 that both the state legislative maps and the congressional district maps approved by the Republican legislature violated the State Constitution’s guarantees of free speech, free elections, free assembly and equal protection.A lower court later redrew the congressional map to be used in the November elections, but a dispute over the State Senate map, which G.O.P. leaders had redrawn, bubbled back to the State Supreme Court last winter. In one of its last acts, the Democratic majority on the court threw out the G.O.P.’s State Senate map, ordering that it be redrawn again. The court then reaffirmed its earlier order in a lengthy opinion.Ordinarily, that might have ended the matter. But after the new Republican majority was elected to the court, G.O.P. legislative leaders demanded that the justices rehear not just the argument over the redrawn Senate map, but the entire case.The ruling on Friday came after a brief re-argument of the gerrymander case in mid-March.North Carolina voters are almost evenly split between the two major parties; Donald J. Trump carried the state in 2020 with 49.9 percent of the vote. But the original map of congressional districts approved by the G.O.P. legislature in 2021, and later ruled to be a partisan gerrymander, would probably have given Republicans at least 10 of the state’s 14 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.Using a congressional map drawn last year by a court-appointed special master, the November election delivered seven congressional seats to each party. With the decision on Friday, the G.O.P. legislature is likely to approve a new map along the lines of its first one, giving state Republicans — and the slender Republican majority in the U.S. House — the opportunity to capture at least three more seats. More

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    Joe Biden and the Struggle for America’s Soul

    Joe Biden built his 2020 presidential campaign around the idea that “we’re in a battle for the soul of America.” I thought it was a marvelous slogan because it captured the idea that we’re in the middle of a moral struggle over who we are as a nation. In the video he released this week launching his re-election bid, he doubled down on that idea: We’re still, he said, “in a battle for the soul of America.”I want to dwell on the little word “soul” in that sentence because I think it illuminates what the 2024 presidential election is all about.What is a soul? Well, religious people have one answer to that question. But Biden is not using the word in a religious sense, but in a secular one. He is saying that people and nations have a moral essence, a soul.Whether you believe in God or don’t believe in God is not my department. But I do ask you to believe that every person you meet has this moral essence, this quality of soul.Because humans have souls, each one is of infinite value and dignity. Because humans have souls, each one is equal to all the others. We are not equal in physical strength or I.Q. or net worth, but we are radically equal at the level of who we essentially are.The soul is the name we can give to that part of our consciousness where moral life takes place. The soul is the place our moral sentiments flow from, the emotions that make us feel admiration at the sight of generosity and disgust at the sight of cruelty.It is the place where our moral yearnings come from, too. Most people yearn to lead good lives. When they act with a spirit of cooperation, their souls sing and they are happy. On the other hand, when they feel their lives have no moral purpose, they experience a sickness of the soul — a sense of lostness, pain and self-contempt.Because we have souls, we are morally responsible for what we do. Hawks and cobras are not morally responsible for their actions; but humans, possessors of souls, are caught in a moral drama, either doing good or doing ill.Political campaigns are not usually contests over the status of the soul. But Donald Trump, and Trumpism generally, is the embodiment of an ethos that covers up the soul. Or to be more precise, each is an ethos that deadens the soul under the reign of the ego.Trump, and Trumpism generally, represents a kind of nihilism that you might call amoral realism. This ethos is built around the idea that we live in a dog-eat-dog world. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Might makes right. I’m justified in grabbing all that I can because if I don’t, the other guy will. People are selfish; deal with it.This ethos — which is central to not only Trump’s approach to life, but also Vladimir Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s — gives people a permission slip to be selfish. In an amoral world, cruelty, dishonesty, vainglory and arrogance are valorized as survival skills.People who live according to the code of amoral realism tear through codes and customs that have built over the centuries to nurture goodness and foster cooperation. Putin is not restrained by notions of human rights. Trump is not restrained by the normal codes of honesty.In the mind of an amoral realist, life is not a moral drama; it’s a competition for power and gain, red in tooth and claw. Other people are not possessors of souls, of infinite dignity and worth; they are objects to be utilized.Biden talks a lot about the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. At its deepest level, that struggle is between systems that put the dignity of individual souls at the center and systems that operate by the logic of dominance and submission.You may disagree with Biden on many issues. You may think he is too old. But that’s not the primary issue in this election. The presidency, as Franklin D. Roosevelt put it, “is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.”One of the hardest, soul-wearying parts of living through the Trump presidency was that we had to endure a steady downpour of lies, transgressions and demoralizing behavior. We were all corroded by it. That era was a reminder that the soul of a person and the soul of a nation are always in flux, every day moving a bit in the direction of elevation or a bit in the direction of degradation.A return to that ethos would bring about a social and moral disintegration that is hard to contemplate. Say what you will about Biden, but he has generally put human dignity at the center of his political vision. He treats people with charity and respect.The contest between Biden and Trumpism is less Democrat versus Republican or liberal versus conservative than it is between an essentially moral vision and an essentially amoral one, a contest between decency and its opposite.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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    The Tiny, Tight-Lipped Circle of Aides Guiding Biden 2024

    They rarely give on-the-record interviews. Only two are on Twitter. But they will be the main force behind the president’s political strategy.When President Biden announced his re-election campaign and its top two staff members this week, the names of his closest and longest-serving advisers were not included.A small circle of senior officials, some who have known Mr. Biden for longer than many of the soon-to-be-hired campaign staff members have been alive, will guide the president’s political strategy both in the White House and on the campaign trail.None of them have significant public personas. Of the six, only Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Jeff Zients, the White House chief of staff, have active Twitter accounts. But it was members of this group who began making phone calls last weekend to offer positions on Mr. Biden’s campaign, only some of which have been announced.Officials in the White House and on his nascent campaign insist the campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, will be empowered to run Mr. Biden’s re-election bid. But an array of Democratic officials who have been involved in ramping up his 2024 effort have made clear that many major decisions will continue to be made by the president’s cadre of top advisers.According to two Biden advisers, the White House staff members who have been involved in rolling out the campaign are Ms. O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Zients, Anita Dunn, Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed.Here is a look at the people at the center of the president’s political universe who will help guide his re-election bid.Jeff ZientsMr. Biden named Mr. Zients as his second chief of staff in January after Mr. Zients oversaw the administration’s Covid vaccination program. He has ensured regular bagel deliveries to the West Wing from Call Your Mother, a Washington chain in which he is a part owner. (Four days into his presidency, Mr. Biden directed his motorcade to stop at one of the shops so his son Hunter could pick up an order.)Jeff Zients during his tenure overseeing the Biden administration’s Covid vaccination program.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMr. Zients has sat in on interviews with and deliberations about potential campaign staff members, and he has a regular political meeting with Mr. Biden.When he become Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, Mr. Zients had a reputation as one of Washington’s top Democratic problem-solvers. He was called in to the Obama administration to fix the health care website after widespread technical problems in 2013. In 2021, Mr. Biden tapped him to run the coronavirus response.Anita DunnIn 2020, when Mr. Biden limped to a fourth-place finish in Iowa — and was days away from coming in fifth in New Hampshire — he handed effective control of his campaign to Ms. Dunn, a veteran Washington operator who began her career interning in President Jimmy Carter’s administration and rose to become Mr. Biden’s most senior communications adviser.Anita Dunn, a longtime Washington operator, helped found SKDK, a major public affairs and political consulting firm.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMs. Dunn also had senior roles with Democrats including President Barack Obama. And she helped found SKDK, a major public affairs and political consulting firm that employs a stable of Democratic operatives. (She has faced questions over the years about the intersection of her government work and the firm’s business dealings.)She is married to the prominent lawyer Bob Bauer — a partnership that in 2009 led Newsweek to call them Washington’s new power couple. Mr. Bauer is also a close Biden adviser who has served as a lawyer for Mr. Biden.“Anita’s default is action,” said Jennifer Palmieri, who served as White House communications director for Mr. Obama. “In a party of hand-wringers that Democrats can be, she has a unique leadership style that helps propel movement forward.”Steve RicchettiMr. Ricchetti, who served as Mr. Biden’s vice-presidential chief of staff, is a longtime Biden confidant.He has often acted as a conduit among Mr. Biden, donors and members of Congress. (Soon after Mr. Biden took office, Mr. Ricchetti’s brother drew scrutiny for his work as a lobbyist; Mr. Ricchetti has also worked as a lobbyist.)“Steve is the best I’ve seen at managing relationships and being an open ear to a lot of people,” said former Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, who served as a senior adviser to Mr. Biden at the White House and as a national co-chair of his 2020 campaign. “Stevie knows the interactions of the Congress and the White House.”Asked whether he could compare any top Biden aides to characters on the TV series “The West Wing,” Mr. Richmond noted that Josh Lyman, the show’s fast-talking, hard-charging deputy White House chief of staff, “kept scores.”“Maybe Stevie to Josh,” he said. “He has a long memory.”Mike DonilonOther than Mr. Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, and Jill Biden, the first lady, Mr. Donilon has worked with Mr. Biden the longest of anyone in his inner circle.An adviser to Mr. Biden since the early 1980s, the low-key Mr. Donilon is a regular presence at Georgetown University’s basketball games — even during the team’s recent stretch of down years. (A Rhode Island native, Mr. Donilon has two degrees from the Washington university.)He comes from a family accomplished in politics. One brother, Tom Donilon, worked in the Clinton and Obama administrations. Another, Terrence Donilon, is the chief spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston. Mike Donilon’s sister-in-law, Catherine Russell, was Dr. Biden’s chief of staff when Mr. Biden was vice president.Mr. Donilon, who served as Mr. Biden’s chief strategist during the 2020 campaign, is a senior adviser now and travels frequently with the president.“These are folks who are very close to the president and are the reason why he is president,” Cristóbal Alex, a veteran of Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign and White House, said of Mr. Donilon and other top Biden advisers. “That sort of core leadership will play an incredibly important role in his election.”Jennifer O’Malley DillonA relatively late addition to the Biden inner circle, Ms. O’Malley Dillon had senior roles on both of Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns and was the campaign manager on Beto O’Rourke’s 2020 bid for the White House before Ms. Dunn recruited her to take over what was then a shoestring Biden presidential campaign.Ms. O’Malley Dillon became campaign manager just as the pandemic hit. She was responsible for transforming a thin operation into a serious general-election apparatus, and doing so as the world shut down, managing the bid of a then-septuagenarian candidate who would spend much of the rest of the campaign off the trail.“Jen has great political instincts, and I’ve never seen anybody get the buses and trains to move on time like she does,” Mr. Richmond said.Known for her skills as a political organizer and for her late-night habit during the campaign of returning phone calls while riding her Peloton stationary bicycle, Ms. O’Malley Dillon became the first woman to manage a winning Democratic presidential campaign and is now a White House deputy chief of staff.Bruce ReedLike Mr. Biden, Mr. Reed has spent his career as a centrist Democrat in Washington. He worked for years for the Democratic Leadership Council, which aimed to focus the party on the political middle and had significant influence during the Clinton administration.The co-author of a book with Rahm Emanuel and the onetime author of a daily column for Slate — in 2009, he called for the Baseball Hall of Fame to “put every player found to have used steroids onto the permanently ineligible list” — Mr. Reed worked for Al Gore and Bill Clinton before becoming Mr. Biden’s chief of staff during the Obama administration.An Idaho native whose affection for his home state extended to his personal email handle, Mr. Reed is Mr. Biden’s top policy adviser and travels with him on domestic trips. More