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      Robert Kennedy Jr., a Noted Vaccine Skeptic, Files to Run for President

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      While he has not yet announced his plans, he filed the federal paperwork for a campaign to run as a Democrat.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the political activist known most recently for his campaign to discredit coronavirus vaccines, filed paperwork on Wednesday to run for president as a Democrat, offering a potential long-shot challenge to President Biden.Mr. Kennedy, the son and namesake of Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated while running for president in 1968, has not made a formal announcement. However, he teased a run at a political gathering in New Hampshire last month, telling a crowd: “I’ve passed the biggest hurdle, which is, my wife has greenlighted it.” He has set up a website to solicit donations and volunteers for a potential run, and a tweet pinned to his Twitter account says he will run if “I can raise the money and mobilize enough people to win.”Mr. Kennedy, 69, was once a top environmental lawyer, but his interests veered away from the Democratic mainstream into conspiracy theories, for which he has earned the public rebuke of some members of his prominent family. A longtime vaccine skeptic, he linked childhood vaccinations to autism, a claim thoroughly rebuked by medical experts. In a recent book, he claimed that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who was President Biden’s top medical adviser for the coronavirus pandemic, and Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, conspired with drug companies to profit from vaccines. Instagram blocked Mr. Kennedy’s account for spreading vaccine misinformation in 2021.If he becomes a candidate, Mr. Kennedy wrote on Twitter, his top priority will be to “end the corrupt merger between state and corporate power.”While many Democrats express concerns about Mr. Biden as a candidate in 2024, when he would be 81 on Election Day, no major party leaders are actively exploring a primary challenge. The only well-known announced challenger to date is the author Marianne Williamson, who also ran in 2020. More

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      Fact-Checking Trump’s Speech After His Arraignment

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      Hours after pleading not guilty to 34 counts of filing false business records, former President Donald J. Trump maintained his innocence before a crowd of supporters in Florida. Here’s a fact-check.WASHINGTON — Hours after pleading not guilty to 34 counts of filing false business records in a courtroom in Lower Manhattan, former President Donald J. Trump maintained his innocence on Tuesday before a crowd of supporters at Mar-a-Lago, his estate and private club in Florida.He repeated a host of familiar and inaccurate attacks on his opponents. Here’s a fact-check of his remarks.What WAS Said“From the beginning, the Democrats spied on my campaign, remember that? They attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations. Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine impeachment hoax No. 1, impeachment hoax No. 2, the illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago right here.”This is misleading. This list covers five years’ worth of grievances that Mr. Trump long harbored and largely misconstrues the various investigations into his campaign, administration and conduct.Mr. Trump has complained for years that the counterintelligence investigation the F.B.I. opened in July 2016 about Russia’s interference in the presidential election was an attack on his campaign.He was first impeached in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for soliciting election assistance from Ukraine at the same time he was withholding a White House meeting and nearly $400 million in vital military assistance for the country.He was impeached again in 2021, one week before he left office, for inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, after he lost the 2020 presidential election.The F.B.I. searched Mar-a-Lago in August for classified documents that Mr. Trump was thought to have improperly removed from the White House. The search was not illegal and occurred after the Justice Department obtained a warrant.What WAS Said”And now this massive election interference at a scale never seen before in our country, beginning with the radical left George Soros-backed prosecutor Alvin Bragg of New York.”This needs context. The links between Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who has brought the case against Mr. Trump, and George Soros, the financier and Democratic megadonor, are real but overstated. (Attacks that portray Mr. Soros as a “globalist” mastermind often veer into antisemitic tropes.)In reality, Mr. Soros donated to a liberal group that endorses progressive prosecutors and supports efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system — in line with causes that he has publicly supported for years. That group used a significant portion of the money, but not all of it, to support Mr. Bragg in his 2021 campaign.A spokesman for Mr. Soros said that the two men had never met and that Mr. Soros had not given money directly to Mr. Bragg’s campaign.What WAS Said“That has absolutely nothing to do with openly taking boxes of documents and mostly clothing and other things to my home, which President Obama has done.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.False. Mr. Trump has repeatedly and wrongly compared his handling of classified documents to that of his predecessor.After his presidency, Mr. Trump took a trove of classified documents — including 18 marked as top secret — to Mar-a-Lago.In contrast, the National Archives and Records Administration, which preserves and maintains records after a president leaves office, has said in a statement that former President Barack Obama turned over his documents, classified and unclassified, as required by law.The agency has also said it is not aware of any missing boxes of presidential records from the Obama administration.What WAS Said“In fact, they seem to have forgotten about his documents entirely, so many, thousands and thousands. It’s OK with him. They like to say that I’m obstructing, which I’m not, because I was working with NARA very nicely until the raid on my home. Biden is obstructing by making it impossible to get the 1,850 boxes.”False. Mr. Trump is again drawing an inaccurate comparison between his and President Biden’s improper handling of classified documents.The Justice Department appointed a special counsel to investigate Mr. Biden’s handling of documents in January, two months after the initial discovery of classified material at an office he had used at a Washington think tank. So clearly the matter was not “forgotten,” nor was Mr. Biden given an “OK.”Officials at the National Archives and Records Administration might also disagree with Mr. Trump’s assertion that he was cooperating “very nicely” with archivists responsible for storing and accounting for his presidential records. NARA asked Mr. Trump to return documents in spring 2021 once it had discovered files were missing and received them only after months of asking.As for Mr. Biden’s 1,850 boxes, that was referring to a collection of documents he had donated to the University of Delaware in 2012 from his tenure as a senator representing the state from 1973 to 2009. Unlike presidential documents, which must be released to NARA once a president leaves office, documents from members of Congress are not covered by the Presidential Records Act. It is not uncommon for senators and representatives to give such items to research or historical facilities.The university agreed to not give the public access to Mr. Biden’s documents from his time as senator until two years after he retired from public life. But the F.B.I. did search the collection in February as part of the special counsel investigation and in cooperation with Mr. Biden’s legal team. The New York Times reported at the time that the material was still being analyzed but did not appear to contain any classified documents.What WAS Said“I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris.”This needs context. Loren Merchan, the daughter of the judge presiding over the case, is the president and a partner at a digital campaign strategy agency that has done work for many prominent Democrats, including the 2020 campaigns of Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris. Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Trump argued that Justice Juan M. Merchan should recuse himself because of her work, but experts in judicial ethics agreed that this was not adequate grounds for recusal.Under New York State rules on judicial conduct, a judge should disqualify himself or herself from a case if a relative within the sixth degree had “an interest that would be substantially affected by the proceeding.” Ms. Merchan’s work on Democratic campaigns does not give her enough of an interest that would qualify, experts said.“Political interests are widely shared and thus diffused,” said Arthur D. Hellman, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Pittsburgh. “If this kind of work by a relative within the sixth degree were enough to require recusal, it would be hard to find any judge who could hear the case.” More

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      Rejecting a ‘Republican in Disguise,’ Chicago Voters Elect Johnson as Next Mayor

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      In a largely liberal city, Chicago voters chose Brandon Johnson, a county commissioner and union organizer, over Paul Vallas, who took a hard line on crime.CHICAGO — Rufus Burns, a 73-year-old resident of Chicago’s West Side, voted for Brandon Johnson for Chicago mayor on Tuesday. But it was really more of a vote against Paul Vallas.“A Republican in disguise,” he said of Mr. Vallas.Ever since the resurfacing of a television interview from 2009 — during which Mr. Vallas called himself “more of a Republican than a Democrat” — many Chicagoans in this overwhelmingly Democratic city have doubted whether Mr. Vallas, a former schools executive, was really the Democrat that he more recently claimed to be.Mr. Johnson, a county commissioner with more liberal policies on education, housing and policing, won the mayoral election in a close race, according to a projection by The Associated Press. At the polls on Tuesday, some voters said that as they considered the choice between Mr. Johnson, 47, and Mr. Vallas, 69, they were largely swayed by a sense that Mr. Johnson was the true progressive in the race.“It was pretty obvious for me,” said Annie Wang, 22, a business analyst who lives in the South Loop. “Johnson is the much more progressive candidate. Vallas was closer to the Republican Party. That made all the difference.”Carmen Moore, a schoolteacher who lives in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side, said that she cast a ballot for Mr. Johnson because she felt he would be a better agent for addressing systemic issues on the South and West Sides of the city. Then, she added, there was that clip from Mr. Vallas’s television interview, which began playing as a campaign ad in early February.“That kind of got me from the beginning,” she said. “That was one thing that stuck out for me.”In Hyde Park on Chicago’s South Side, Richard Strier, a retired professor of English literature at the University of Chicago, said he was worried that Mr. Vallas was a closet Republican.“Vallas makes me nervous,” he said. “I’m basically voting against Vallas for someone who is more progressive.”Mr. Vallas pitched himself to a voters as a tough-on-crime technocrat who would hire thousands more police officers and make the city safer than it has been since the pandemic, when shootings and homicides spiked. But he also spent much of the campaign trying to convince voters that he was a devoted Democrat.On the campaign trail, he cited support from Black leaders, including Jesse White, the former Illinois secretary of state, and surrounded himself with Democratic City Council members who lined up behind him at events and vouched for his credibility and experience.Voting at Beard Elementary School on Tuesday.Mustafa Hussain for The New York TimesPaul Vallas, lower right, speaks with reporters at Manny’s Deli on election day.Mustafa Hussain for The New York TimesOne major obstacle for Mr. Vallas among liberal voters was his early endorsement by the Chicago chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, a union representing rank-and-file officers whose leader, John Catanzara, has alienated many Chicagoans with strident hard right positions. (Mr. Catanzara, for example, defended the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, then apologized.)Kristen Lopez, 30, a graduate student on the South Side, said on Tuesday that when she learned that Mr. Vallas was endorsed by the police union, she knew who would get her vote for mayor: Mr. Johnson.“That made my choice for me,” she said.Crime was one of Ms. Lopez’s general concerns, she said, but she also cared about issues like gentrification and affordable housing — and rejected Mr. Vallas’s notion of adding more police officers to the force.“Obviously, giving the police more power hasn’t worked so far,” she said. But for some voters, it was Mr. Vallas’s more conservative policies, especially on crime and policing, that drew them to him.Brad Walker, 44, who lives on the city’s North Side, described himself as an independent who is liberal on social issues, but a strong proponent of gun rights and financial responsibility.He voted for Mr. Vallas because progressives “have been very weak” on rising crime in Chicago, he said.“The one thing Chicago was known for was its cleanliness and safety,” he said. “If you’re going to be in the city and pay high taxes, you want to feel safe.”As he cast a vote in downtown Chicago, Daniel Lancaster, 37, an engineer who lives in Roscoe Village, a neighborhood on the North Side, said that he saw the two candidates as far apart politically. Mr. Johnson was “the Bernie Democrat,” he said, noting his endorsement by the progressive Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.“For me, it was more of a vote for an ideal,” he said.Voting for Mr. Johnson was riskier, Mr. Lancaster conceded. His proposals for solving crime were more long term than Mr. Vallas’s, with calls to invest more deeply in education and affordable housing.“There’s a lot of political theory behind it, but it’s going to take more time,” he said.Brandon Johnson holds his I VOTED card outside the Lorraine Hansberry Apartments polling site.Jim Vondruska for The New York TimesIn the Far North Side neighborhood of Rogers Park, on the shore of Lake Michigan, Cal Graham, 62, said he took Mr. Vallas’s years-ago description of himself as a Republican seriously.“He said he was,” Mr. Graham said.But Mr. Graham said that he remains unsure if Mr. Johnson is better equipped to handle the crime problem in Chicago.“I don’t know until one of them gets in office,” he said. “That’s the only way you can tell. They all have ideas but nobody has the solution.”For Kevin Yahampath, 23, a business analyst, choosing between Mr. Johnson and Mr. Vallas required a last-minute gut check. Before he headed into a polling station in the Loop late Tuesday afternoon, he logged onto an online quiz on the Chicago Sun-Times website, designed to help voters see which candidate aligned with their politics.The quiz told Mr. Yahampath that he was a Johnson voter.“I kind of expected it,” he said. “I knew Vallas was to the right.”Robert Chiarito More

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      Defendant Trump Has the G.O.P. Just Where He Wants It

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      It was perhaps inevitable that, with Donald Trump’s historic arraignment taking place in the run-up to Easter Sunday, one of his most zealous disciples, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, would aim to drag Jesus into this mess.The former president “is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested,” the MAGA chaos agent blathered to a conservative news outlet just hours before Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts related to a hush-money deal with a porn star. “Jesus! Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government!” proclaimed Ms. Greene.As a lapsed Southern Baptist, I’ll leave it to the more devout to debate whether this comparison qualifies as outright blasphemy or is merely idiotic. Regardless, it was a perfect distillation of Mr. Trump’s longstanding political refrain and current legal defense: He is the faultless victim of political persecution — a righteous martyr beset on all sides by America-hating, baby-eating Democrats and Deep Staters. In the Gospel According to the Donald, any bad thing he is ever accused of is just more proof that the forces of evil are out to get the MAGA messiah.It’s a great story if you can sustain it. Unless you’re a Republican presidential hopeful not named Donald Trump, in which case being required to shovel this grade of malarkey to please the base is increasingly awkward — at least for anyone hoping to retain a shred of credibility beyond the hard-core MAGAverse.This uncomfortable reality is actually something for every member of the G.O.P. to think about. Again. Because, if Mr. Trump’s prime-time, post-arraignment remarks on Tuesday were any indication, this is going to be a central theme of his third presidential run — one that promises to relegate everyone else in the party, including those considering a 2024 run themselves, to being minor players in this latest, tawdriest season of “The Trump Show.”Tuesday night was Mr. Trump’s first chance to address the criminal charges against him — his first real opportunity to counterpunch — since the New York indictment came down. Safely back in the gilded cocoon of Mar-a-Lago, surrounded by American flags and supporters sporting red hats and campaign signs, he delivered a half-hour battle cry that was painfully on brand: a greatest hits of his witch-hunt grievances interwoven with his dark take on how the country is “going to hell” without him. As he tells it, “all-out nuclear World War III” is just around the corner. “It can happen! We’re not very far away from it!” He also suggested that the investigation into his squirreling away sensitive documents at Mar-a-Lago could somehow lead to his being executed.Precisely the kind of responsible rhetoric one likes to hear from a political leader.It was not one of Mr. Trump’s more compelling speeches. The Mar-a-Lago crowd, while friendly, wasn’t the kind of roaring mass of fans from which Mr. Trump draws energy, and the former president sounded heavily scripted. Even so, the address was impressively offensive in its attacks on the justice system in general and the individuals leading the investigations of Mr. Trump in particular — as well as their families. (Seriously, what was with all the wife bashing?) He sniped about the “racist in reverse” officials out to get him. He went on a bizarre riff about how President Biden had hidden a bunch of documents in Chinatown. And his repeated attacks on the “lunatic” Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal investigations of Mr. Trump, suggest that whole business is really chafing the former president’s backside.Get ready for more of this magic. As Mr. Trump’s legal troubles heat up, with possibly more indictments to come, these investigations are going to eat at him and distract him. A hefty chunk of his campaign is likely to be an extended whine about his ongoing martyrdom, constantly putting other Republicans in the awkward position of having to defend him. And they won’t really have any choice as he whips his devoted followers into a frenzy over his persecution — and, of course, by extension, theirs.That is certainly what we have seen happening. Republicans have been lining up to trash the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. It was in no way surprising to see Representative Lauren Boebert comparing the indictment of Mr. Trump to the actions of Mussolini and, yes, Hitler. But one might have expected slightly more from Gov. Ron DeSantis, widely regarded as the biggest threat to Mr. Trump’s 2024 ambitions, than his pathetic vow to refuse to assist any effort to extradite Mr. Trump to New York. Weak, Ron. Very weak.A long-shot candidate or two, like Asa Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas, may try to distinguish themselves by not smooching Mr. Trump’s backside so sloppily. But this is a risky path that few contenders seem inclined to tread. Having bowed to Mr. Trump so low and for so long, the party has left itself few, if any, good options for dealing with him now.Anyone looking to lead the G.O.P. beyond its Trump era was already at a disadvantage before the charges. Be it Nikki Haley or Mike Pence or Mr. DeSantis, the political world is busy assessing potential 2024 contenders in Trump terms, obsessing over where they fall on the MAGA spectrum and how delicately they are or are not handling the former president.Team Trump, meanwhile, is happy to play the martyr card for all it’s worth. They have been boasting about using the former president’s legal troubles to fund-raise and sign up volunteers.Any day now, look for the campaign to start hawking bracelets asking: WWDTD? (What would Donald Trump do?) Ms. Greene will surely snap up several. What classier, more tasteful Easter present for the MAGA faithful in one’s life?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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      Wisconsin Supreme Court Election: Protasiewicz Wins With Abortion Message

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      Janet Protasiewicz prevailed in the state’s highly consequential contest for the Supreme Court, which will now be likely to reverse the state’s abortion ban and end the use of gerrymandered legislative maps.MILWAUKEE — Wisconsin voters on Tuesday chose to upend the political direction of their state by electing a liberal candidate to the State Supreme Court, flipping majority control from conservatives, according to The Associated Press. The result means that in the next year, the court is likely to reverse the state’s abortion ban and end the use of gerrymandered legislative maps drawn by Republicans.Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge, defeated Daniel Kelly, a conservative former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who sought a return to the bench. With more than 75 percent of votes counted, Judge Protasiewicz led by more than 10 percentage points, though the margin was expected to narrow as rural counties tallied ballots.“Our state is taking a step forward to a better and brighter future where our rights and freedoms will be protected,” Judge Protasiewicz told jubilant supporters at her victory party in Milwaukee.The contest, which featured over $40 million in spending, was the most expensive judicial election in American history. Early on, Democrats recognized the importance of the race for a swing seat on the top court in one of the country’s perennial political battlegrounds. Millions of dollars from out of state poured into Wisconsin to back Judge Protasiewicz, and a host of national Democratic groups rallied behind her campaign.Judge Protasiewicz, 60, shattered long-held notions of how judicial candidates should conduct themselves by making her political priorities central to her campaign. She made explicit her support for abortion rights and called the maps, which gave Republicans near-supermajority control of the Legislature, “rigged” and “unfair.”Her election to a 10-year term for an officially nonpartisan seat gives Wisconsin’s liberals a 4-to-3 majority on the court, which has been controlled by conservatives since 2008. Liberals will hold a court majority until at least 2025, when a liberal justice’s term expires. A conservative justice’s term ends in 2026.As the race was called Tuesday night, the court’s three sitting liberal justices embraced at Judge Protasiewicz’s election night party in Milwaukee, as onlookers cried tears of joy. During her speech, the judge and the other three liberal justices clasped their hands together in the air in celebration.“Today’s results mean two very important and special things,” Judge Protasiewicz said. “First, it means that Wisconsin voters have made their voices heard. They have chosen to reject partisan extremism in this state. And second, it means our democracy will always prevail.”Justice Kelly, 59, evinced the bitterness of the campaign with a testy concession speech that acknowledged his defeat and portended doom for the state. He called his rival’s campaign “truly beneath contempt” and decried “the rancid slanders that were launched against me.”“I wish that I’d be able to concede to a worthy opponent, but I do not have a worthy opponent,” Justice Kelly told supporters in Green Lake, Wis. He had not called Judge Protasiewicz by the time she delivered her victory remarks.He concluded the final speech of his campaign by saying, “I wish Wisconsin the best of luck, because I think it’s going to need it.”Judge Protasiewicz made a calculation from the start of the race that Wisconsin voters would reward her for making clear her positions on abortion rights and the state’s maps — issues most likely to animate and energize the base of the Democratic Party.In an interview at her home on Tuesday before the results were known, Judge Protasiewicz (pronounced pro-tuh-SAY-witz) attributed her success on the campaign trail to the decision to inform voters of what she called “my values,” as opposed to Justice Kelly, who used fewer specifics about his positions.“Rather than reading between the lines and having to do your sleuthing around like I think people have to do with him, I think I would rather just let people know what my values are,” she said. “We’ll see tonight if the electorate appreciates that candor or not.”Over the last dozen years, the court has served as an important backstop for Wisconsin Republicans. It certified as constitutional Gov. Scott Walker’s early overhauls to state government, including the Act 10 law that gutted public employee unions, as well as voting restrictions like a requirement for a state-issued identification and a ban on ballot drop boxes.In 2020, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court was the only one in the country to agree to hear President Donald J. Trump’s challenge to the presidential election. Mr. Trump sought to invalidate 200,000 ballots from the state’s two largest Democratic counties. The Wisconsin court rejected his claim on a 4-to-3 vote, with one of the conservative justices siding with the court’s three liberals on procedural grounds.That key vote gave this year’s court race extra importance, because the justices will weigh in on voting and election issues surrounding the 2024 election. Wisconsin, where Mr. Trump’s triumph in 2016 interrupted a string of Democratic presidential victories going back to 1988, is set to again be ferociously contested.The court has acted in Republicans’ interest on issues that have received little attention outside the state.In 2020, a year after Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, succeeded Mr. Walker, conservative justices agreed to limit his line-item veto authority, which generations of Wisconsin governors from both parties had used. Last year, the court’s conservatives allowed a Walker appointee whose term had expired to remain in office over Mr. Evers’s objection.Once Judge Protasiewicz assumes her place on the court on Aug. 1, the first priority for Wisconsin Democrats will be to bring a case to challenge the current legislative maps, which have given Republicans all but unbreakable control of the state government in Madison.Jeffrey A. Mandell, the president of Law Forward, a progressive law firm that has represented Mr. Evers, said he would file a legal request for the Supreme Court to hear a redistricting case the day after Judge Protasiewicz is seated.“Pretty much everything problematic in Wisconsin flows from the gerrymandering,” Mr. Mandell said in an interview on Tuesday. “Trying to address the gerrymander and reverse the extreme partisan gerrymandering we have is the highest priority.”The state’s abortion ban, which was enacted in 1849, seven decades before women could vote, is already being challenged by Josh Kaul, Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general. This week, a circuit court in Dane County scheduled the first oral arguments on Mr. Kaul’s case for May 4, but whichever way a county judge rules, the case is all but certain to advance on appeal to the State Supreme Court later this year.Dan Simmons More

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      Chicagoans Go to the Polls in a Mayoral Race. Here’s What to Know.

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      Paul Vallas, a former public school executive, has called for a crackdown on crime, while Brandon Johnson, a county commissioner, wants to expand social programs.CHICAGO — After rejecting the incumbent mayor, Lori Lightfoot, in the first round of balloting in February, Chicago voters were set to choose on Tuesday between two candidates with starkly different visions for the country’s third-largest city.Paul Vallas, a former public schools executive, has run on a more conservative platform, calling for a larger police force, a crackdown on crime and more charter schools. His opponent, Brandon Johnson, a county commissioner and union organizer, has campaigned as a proud progressive who wants to expand social programs, spend more on neighborhood schools and add new taxes.The runoff election comes as Chicago fights to regain its prepandemic swagger. In recent years, the city has been confronted by rising crime rates, an emptier downtown and census estimates showing a loss of residents. Ms. Lightfoot, who missed the runoff after receiving only 17 percent of the vote in February, presided over two teacher work stoppages and civil unrest during her single term in City Hall, leaving many voters frustrated and frightened.“This city needs a lot — it needs safety,” said Shermane Thompson, who voted for Mr. Johnson and said she was scared to let her 9-year-old son play outside. “Jobs, mental health — it’s a lot of things that need to be done. But I want it to be done in a way that is long-lasting and that works for everyone, not just for select people.”The election in Chicago is the latest race in a large, liberal American city in which crime has been a primary issue. In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat and former police captain, defeated progressive candidates in his party’s 2021 mayoral primary by calling for a crackdown on crime. And in Los Angeles last year, Karen Bass, a liberal congresswoman, was elected mayor in a race in which her more conservative opponent, Rick Caruso, a billionaire real estate developer, ran on a law-and-order message.Mr. Vallas, 69, made public safety the focus of his campaign, calling for tougher prosecutions of minor offenses and a rapid expansion of the Chicago Police Department, which is operating under a consent decree in federal court and without a permanent superintendent. That platform helped Mr. Vallas finish in first place in the first round of the election in February, though well short of the outright majority he would have needed to clinch the job without a runoff.In a heavily Democratic city, Mr. Vallas has faced criticism for past comments that he considered himself to be more of a Republican than a Democrat, and for an endorsement from the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, whose leaders frequently use brash rhetoric and support Republican politicians. Still, his description of Chicago as a city in crisis and his pledge to get crime under control resonated with many voters.“I’m tired of looking out my window and watching drive-by shootings,” said Sherri Ortiz, a West Side resident who said this week that she was leaning toward Mr. Vallas, who she believed was more likely to fix things quickly.Mr. Johnson, 47, qualified for the runoff by defeating several better-known candidates competing for the same liberal voters. A former social studies teacher, Mr. Johnson has spent the last dozen years as an employee of the Chicago Teachers Union, a powerful but polarizing political force that contributed heavily to his campaign. In recent weeks, he has described a public safety vision that goes beyond law enforcement, but has tried to distance himself from past support for defunding the police.In a West Side campaign stop on Monday, Mr. Johnson pitched an upbeat vision for the city, saying “a better, safer Chicago is possible if we actually invest in people.”“We deserve to have a leader that’s prepared to bring people together,” he said, “and that’s what my candidacy reflects.”Earlier on Monday, outside a South Side doughnut shop in the neighborhood where he grew up, Mr. Vallas said his record leading “institutions in crisis” made him the right candidate for the moment.“It’s about leadership, it’s about somebody with the experience,” said Mr. Vallas, who led the school systems in Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans, and was surrounded by Black politicians who had endorsed him.Race has often played a role in elections in Chicago, which has roughly equal numbers of white, Black and Hispanic residents. Mr. Vallas, who is white, made it to the runoff with strong support in the city’s downtown and in majority white areas of the Northwest and Southwest Sides, where many municipal workers live. Mr. Johnson, who is Black, performed well along the city’s northern lakefront, home to many white progressives, and in predominantly Hispanic areas northwest of downtown.With polls suggesting a tight race, both candidates touted support from Black and Hispanic politicians as they sought to win over voters who supported Ms. Lightfoot or Representative Jesús G. García, another mayoral candidate, in the first round of balloting.Whoever wins the election, it will mark a decisive shift from the policies of Ms. Lightfoot, with Mr. Vallas running to her political right and Mr. Johnson well to her left.Four years ago, Ms. Lightfoot, also a Democrat, carried all 50 wards in the runoff election, becoming the first Black woman and first gay person to serve as Chicago’s mayor. But her tenure was bumpy from the start. Soon after she took office, the teachers’ union went on strike. And after less than a year in office, the coronavirus pandemic upended every aspect of daily life. As the virus spread, the Loop business district emptied out and homicides rose to generational highs.On the campaign trail this year, Ms. Lightfoot emphasized investments in long-neglected parts of the South and West Sides and noted that homicide rates, though still higher than before the pandemic, had started to decline. Voters, however, decided to move on.Michael Gerstein More

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      Wisconsin’s High-Stakes Supreme Court Race: What to Watch

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      The election for a swing seat on the court is likely to determine whether abortion remains illegal in Wisconsin, as well as the future of the state’s heavily gerrymandered political maps.WAUKESHA, Wis. — American political candidates routinely drum up support by warning voters that this election, really, is the most important of their lifetimes.It’s almost always an exaggeration, but the description might just fit for Wisconsin’s deeply polarized voters, who on Tuesday will choose a justice to fill a swing seat on the state’s Supreme Court.The winner — either Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge, or Daniel Kelly, a conservative former State Supreme Court justice — will have the deciding vote on a host of major issues, including abortion rights, gerrymandered political maps, and voting and election cases surrounding the 2024 presidential contest.Officials on both sides have described the stakes of the officially nonpartisan race in existential terms — either they win and democracy survives, or they lose and it perishes.Wisconsin Democrats, who have been lost in the political wilderness for a dozen years, cast Judge Protasiewicz as their path to a promised land of abortion rights and fair maps. The state’s Republicans say Justice Kelly is their last hope to ward off liberal tyranny by fiat.Here are four themes animating Tuesday’s election:Wisconsin could turn sharply back to the left — or not.Wisconsin Republicans tend to talk about the election as if Judge Protasiewicz would roll onto the Supreme Court with a giant eraser to wipe out all of the legislative policies and structural advantages the G.O.P. has built for itself since Scott Walker became governor in 2011.They’re not entirely wrong.“A lot of the duly passed laws by the elected representatives of the state of Wisconsin would be deemed invalid,” Duey Stroebel, a Republican state senator from Cedarburg, said last week. “It wouldn’t be the people electing their representatives that would be making decisions, it would be her, based on her personal beliefs.”Indeed, Judge Protasiewicz has been clear about her views. She has signaled her opposition to Wisconsin’s 1849 law banning abortion in nearly all cases, which went back into effect when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, and she has called the legislative maps Republicans drew to give themselves a durable near-supermajority in the State Legislature “rigged” and “unfair.”But the state’s Democrats sound similarly apocalyptic about the prospect of Justice Kelly, who lost a 2020 bid to retain his seat on the court, returning to deliver conservatives a majority. He is aligned with the state’s anti-abortion groups and has said there is no legal problem with the maps.He also worked as a legal adviser for the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Wisconsin when they sought to overturn the results of the state’s 2020 presidential election. That Republican effort to undo Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in Wisconsin was only narrowly rejected by the State Supreme Court, which voted 4 to 3 to uphold the results.“Dan Kelly advised fake electors in 2020,” said Greta Neubauer, the Democratic leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly, referring to a brazen plan by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn results in several states. “I absolutely fear what he would do in 2024 if a challenge to the popular vote and the election results came in front of him.”Abortion and crime are the two main issues.From the beginning of her campaign, Judge Protasiewicz (pronounced pro-tuh-SAY-witz) has sought to make the race a referendum on abortion rights in Wisconsin. Her campaign has spent $12 million on television ads in the last six weeks reminding voters that she supports them and Justice Kelly does not.“Judge Janet Protasiewicz believes in women’s freedom to make their own decisions when it comes to abortion,” her closing television ad states.It is a bet on the power of the most potent issue for Democrats since last summer, when the U.S. Supreme Court left the issue to the states.Even Republicans acknowledge privately that if the election is about abortion, Judge Protasiewicz has the advantage. Justice Kelly has not been as explicit, but he has implied that because legislators enacted the state’s abortion ban 174 years ago, they would need to rescind the law — something the current Republican majorities are unlikely to do.Hundreds of abortion rights supporters marched to the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., in January. Nearly all abortions became illegal in Wisconsin when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times“He’s running a bit of a traditional campaign talking about larger issues of judicial restraint and things of that nature,” said Mr. Walker, the former governor who appointed Justice Kelly to the State Supreme Court in 2016. “She just spelled it out, and that very well may be the case for the left and the right in the future, just people saying, ‘Here’s how I’m going to vote.’”Republicans, as usually happens in Wisconsin, have tried to make the election about crime. Outside groups backing Justice Kelly have bombarded Judge Protasiewicz with ads attacking her as soft on violent criminals.Last week, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s business lobby, removed from the television airwaves an ad claiming that Judge Protasiewicz had issued a soft sentence to a convicted rapist. The victim in that case had told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the ad had caused her new trauma and that she had no problem with the length of the sentence.In another episode, the Republican Party of Wisconsin, while southern Wisconsin was under a tornado watch last week, texted to voters a replica of an emergency weather alert warning that Judge Protasiewicz was “a soft-on-crime politician with a long history of letting dangerous criminals go free.”The cash-filled contest is all over Wisconsin TV screens.All indications are that more people will vote in this Supreme Court election than any other in Wisconsin history.More people voted in the Feb. 21 primary contest than participated in the state’s primaries in August, when there were races for governor and Senate. According to data from the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the early-vote total as of Monday amounted to about a third of the total turnout of the 2019 State Supreme Court race, the last one that did not fall on the same day as a presidential primary.The record-smashing spending in the race — $39 million on television alone, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm — has ensured that just about every Wisconsinite is at least aware of the race, a key hurdle in typically low-turnout spring elections.The ultimate cost is expected to triple the previous high-water mark for spending on an American judicial election, which was $15 million for a 2004 Illinois Supreme Court race.Weeks ago, Wisconsin Democrats switched their strategy. Instead of sending door-to-door canvassers to visit voters who typically cast ballots in spring elections, they focused on reaching out to a broader group of people who tend to vote in November general elections.“When I was out knocking on doors a month or two months ago, people were aware that this election was coming, because they were seeing YouTube ads with their kids,” Ms. Neubauer said. “They were being bombarded with information about this election.”A key State Senate race is also unfolding.Wisconsin is also holding a special election on Tuesday for a vacant State Senate seat that covers parts of four counties in the suburbs north of Milwaukee.The district has long been held by Republicans but is trending away from the party. Mr. Trump carried it by 12 percentage points in 2016 but by only 5 in 2020. The Democratic candidate, Jodi Habush Sinykin, is contesting it with a heavy emphasis on abortion rights.Jodi Habush Sinykin, a Democrat, is running for a State Senate seat in suburbs north of Milwaukee. Morry Gash/Associated PressIf the Republican candidate, State Representative Dan Knodl, wins, his party will have a two-thirds supermajority in the State Senate, which would allow the G.O.P. to impeach and remove judges, statewide elected officials and appointees of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat.Mr. Knodl, in an interview with PBS Wisconsin, said the impeachment powers granted to State Senate Republicans with his election “certainly would be tested.”Mr. Stroebel, the Republican state senator from Cedarburg, called impeaching Judge Protasiewicz over expected rulings on abortion and gerrymandering unlikely “but certainly not impossible.”If Dan Knodl wins his race for State Senate, Republicans will have a two-thirds supermajority, which would allow them to impeach and remove judges, statewide elected officials and appointees of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat.Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, via Associated Press“If she truly acts in terms of ignoring our laws and applying her own personal beliefs, then maybe that’s something people will talk about,” he said. “If the rulings are contrary to what our state laws and Constitution say, I think there could be an issue.”Even if Republicans do not seek to impeach Democratic officials, the mere possibility could limit Democrats’ ambitions.“Just the threat of it obviously changes the way that public officials will act,” said Kelda Roys, a Democratic state senator from Madison. “It will make agency heads and civil servants be extremely timid and feel like they can’t carry out their job responsibilities.” More

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      To Boldly Go Where No President Has Gone Before

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I have a clear memory of Democrats defending Bill Clinton tooth and nail for lying under oath in the Paula Jones case, about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. At the time, they said it was “just about sex” and that Clinton lied to protect his family and marriage.Morally speaking, is that better than, worse than or equal to the allegation that Donald Trump falsified business records to cover his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels (and possibly another paramour, too)?Gail Collins: Bret, sex scandal aficionado that I am, I’m sorta tempted to go back and revisit Clinton’s argument that he didn’t lie about Monica Lewinsky because it doesn’t count as having sex if … well, no. Guess not.Bret: To say nothing of Clinton parsing the meaning of the word “is.”Gail: Still, I’d say the Stormy Daniels episode — an ongoing, well-financed cover-up during a presidential campaign — was worse.Bret: Hmm. Trump wasn’t president at the time of the alleged affair the way Clinton was. And Daniels wasn’t a starry-eyed 22-year-old intern whose life got destroyed in the process. And lying under oath is usually a felony, unlike falsifying business records, which is usually treated as a misdemeanor.Gail: If you want to argue that Trump’s not the worst sex-scandal offender, I’m fine with it. Won’t even mention Grover Cleveland …Bret: “Ma, ma, where’s my pa?” Always liked Grover.Gail: Of all the investigations into Trump’s egregious misconduct, this strikes me as almost minor compared with, say, trying to change presidential election results, urging a crowd of supporters to march on the Capitol or illegally taking, retaining and hiding secret government documents or …OK, taking a rest.Bret: Totally agree. My fear is that the indictment will focus the media spotlight on Trump, motivate his base, paralyze his Republican opponents and ultimately help him win the G.O.P. nomination. In the first poll after the indictment, Trump’s lead over his Republican rivals jumped. Maybe that will make it easier for Democrats to hold the White House next year, but it also potentially means we could get Benito Milhous Caligula back in office.The only thing that will hurt Trump is if he’s ignored in the press and beaten at the polls. Instead, we’re contributing to the problem just by speaking about it.Gail: OK, now I’m changing subjects. It hurts my heart to talk about this, but we have to consider the terrible school shooting in Nashville — it doesn’t seem to have moved the needle one centimeter on issues like banning assault weapons or 30-round magazines. Pro-gun lawmakers, in light of the Covenant School shooting, are once again arguing that schools would be safer if the teachers could have their own pistols.Bret: I’m not opposed to an armed cop or a well-trained security guard on school campuses, who might be able to respond much faster to an emergency than the police could. Teachers? Seems like a really, really bad idea.With respect to everything else, I’m sometimes inclined to simply give up. Gun control isn’t realistic in a country with more guns than people. Even if stringent gun control were somehow enacted, it would function roughly the same way stringent drug laws work: People who wanted to obtain guns illegally could easily get them. I think we ought to repeal the Second Amendment, or at least reinterpret it to mean that anyone who wants a gun must belong to a “well-regulated militia.” But in our lifetimes that’s a political pipe dream.So we’re left in the face of tragedies like Nashville’s feeling heartbroken, furious, speechless and helpless.Gail: Your impulse to give up the fight is probably sensible, but I just can’t go there. Gotta keep pushing; we can’t cave in to folks who think it’s un-American to require loaded weapons be stored where kids can’t get at them.Bret: Another side of me wants to agree with you. Let’s ban high-capacity magazines, raise the age threshold for gun purchases and heavily fine people if they fail to properly store weapons. I just wonder if it will make much of a difference.Gail: Well, it sure as hell wouldn’t hurt.Bret: Very true.Gail: Let’s move on before I get deeply depressed. We’re slowly creeping toward an election year — close enough that people who want to run for office for real have to start mobilizing. Anybody you really love/hate out there now?Bret: Next year is going to be a tough one for Senate Democrats. They’re defending 23 of the 34 seats that are up for grabs, including in ever-redder states like Montana and West Virginia.I’d love to see a serious Democratic challenger to Ted Cruz in Texas, and by serious I mean virtually anyone other than Beto O’Rourke. And I’d love to see Kari Lake run for a Senate seat in Arizona so that she can lose again.You?Gail: Funny, I was thinking the same thing about Ted Cruz the other night. Wonderful the way that man can bring us together.Bret: He even brings me closer to Trump. “Lyin’ Ted” was priceless.Gail: Another Senate Republican I hope gets a very serious challenger is Rick Scott of Florida, who made that first big proposal to consider slashing Social Security and Medicare.Bret: Good luck with that. Florida may now be redder than Texas.Gail: You’re right about the Democrats having to focus on defense. The endangered incumbent I’m rooting hardest for is Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who’s managed to be a powerful voice for both liberal causes and my reddish home state’s practical interests.Bret: I once got a note from Brown gently reproaching me for using the term Rust Belt about Ohio. The note was so charming, personable and fair that I remember thinking: “This man can’t have a future in American politics.”Gail: And as someone who’s complained bitterly about Joe Manchin over the years, I have to admit that keeping West Virginia in the Democratic column does require very creative and sometimes deeply irritating political performances.Bret: Aha. I knew you’d come around.I don’t know if you’ve followed this, but Manchin is now complaining bitterly that the Biden administration is trying to rewrite the terms of the Inflation Reduction Act, which, with Manchin’s vote, gave the president his biggest legislative win last year. The details are complicated, but the gist is that the administration is hanging him out to dry. Oh, and he’s also skeptical of Trump’s indictment. Don’t be totally surprised if Manchin becomes a Republican in order to save his political skin.Gail: Hmm, my valuation of said skin would certainly drop . …Bret: Which raises the question: How should partisan Democrats, or partisan Republicans, feel about the least ideologically reliable member of their own parties?Gail: Depends. Did they run as freethinkers who shouldn’t be relied on by their party for a vote? Manchin got elected in the first place by promising to be a Democrat who’d “get the federal government off our backs.” But often this explosion of independence comes as a postelection surprise.Bret: Good point. There should be truth in advertising.Gail: Do they — like Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — forget their nonpartisanship when it comes to dipping into donations from partisan fund-raisers?And probably most important — is there a better option? If Sinema had to run for re-election this year, which she doesn’t, I would be a super-enthusiastic supporter if the other choice was Lake, that dreadful former talk show host.Any thoughts on your end?Bret: In my younger, more Republican days, I used to dislike ideological mavericks — they made things too complicated. Now that I’m older, I increasingly admire politicians who make things complicated. I know there’s a fair amount of opportunism and posturing in some of their position taking. But they also model a certain independence of thought and spirit that I find healthy in our Age of Lemmings.Gail: Hoping it’s maybe just the Decade of the Lemmings.Bret: If I had to draw up a list of the Senate heroes of my lifetime, they’d be Daniel Patrick Moynihan, John McCain, Howard Baker, Bob Kerrey and Joe Lieberman. And lately I’d have to add Mitt Romney. All were willing to break with their parties when it counted. How about you?Gail: Well, you may remember that a while back I was contemplating writing a book called “How Joe Lieberman Ruined Everything.”Bret: I recall you weren’t his biggest fan.Gail: Yeah, still blaming him for failing to give Al Gore the proper support in that 2000 recount. But I’ve come around on Mitt Romney. He’s become a strong, independent voice. Of course it’s easier to be brave when you’re a senator from a state that would keep re-electing you if you took a six-year vacation in the Swiss Alps. Nevertheless, I’ve apologized for all that obsessing about his putting the dog on the car roof.Bret: I came around on him too. I was very hard on him in 2012. Either he got better or I got wiser.Gail: I was a big admirer of John McCain. Will never forget following him on his travels when he first ran for president in 2000. He spent months and months driving around New Hampshire talking about campaign finance reform. From one tiny gathering to another. Of all the ambitious pols I’ve known he was the least focused on his own fortunes.Bret: I traveled with McCain on his international junkets. He was hilarious, gregarious, generous, gossipy — a study in being unstudied. If he had won the presidency, the Republican Party wouldn’t have gone insane, American democracy wouldn’t be at risk and Sarah Palin would be just another lame ex-veep.Gail: So, gotta end this with the obvious question, Bret. Republican presidential race! You’re a fan of Nikki Haley, but her campaign doesn’t seem to be going much of anywhere, is it? I know you’ve come to detest Ron DeSantis. Other options?Bret: Biden, cryonics or some small island in the South Atlantic, like St. Helena. Not necessarily in that order.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