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      Why Joe Biden Has Slow-Walked His Way to a 2024 Run

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      Closed-door planning meetings involving White House officials, the Democratic National Committee and outside advisers are intensifying as President Biden nears a final decision about how and when to kick off his 2024 campaign.Mr. Biden’s seemingly off-the-cuff remark at an airport in Ireland on Friday that he would announce his campaign “relatively soon” was the kind of tantalizingly vague comment that could be — and was — read by his aides and others as either a reaffirmation that he was in no particular hurry to announce or a sign of gathering momentum.Behind the scenes, advisers and allies are weighing how soon the president should set in motion a re-election operation — an announcement that will surprise no one but will signal the start of a challenging new phase of his presidency.Before Mr. Biden’s remarks on Friday, conflicting signals abounded about the imminence of an announcement. Preparations have accelerated, according to people involved in and briefed on the planning sessions, even as those involved discuss the pros and cons of delaying a formal announcement into early summer, seeing little advantage in interrupting Republican infighting. At the same time, there has been increasing discussion among the broader Biden team about the notion of a low-key video announcement on April 25, the fourth anniversary of his entrance to the 2020 race — the kind of symmetry that Mr. Biden is said to appreciate.What is clear is that any external pressure that Mr. Biden and his team once felt to formally enter the 2024 race has mostly evaporated. No serious primary challenge to the president has emerged, and potential opponents have rallied behind him. The leading Republican candidate, former President Donald J. Trump, faces felony charges related to a hush-money payment to a porn star. And Republicans are generally more focused on thrashing one another and dragging the party to the right than on attacking Mr. Biden, who is content to draw a sharp contrast to the G.O.P. chaos from the Oval Office.“There is no immediate urgency,” said Kate Bedingfield, who recently departed the White House as communications director. “The president has the luxury of being able to decide when he wants to announce.”The waiting game began last year, with the suggestion that Mr. Biden would enter the race after the winter holidays. Then came hints that a campaign would begin after the State of the Union address and the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. Then the likely timing was April, to take advantage of the beginning of a fund-raising quarter. (Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said, “There has never been a time frame for any announcement.”)Inside the West Wing, Mr. Biden has kept most direct discussions about 2024 limited to a pin-size inner circle, where two senior aides, Anita Dunn and Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, are taking the lead. He has yet to designate a campaign chief, and only last week Democrats announced that Chicago would host the party’s 2024 convention.Mr. Biden traveled to Kyiv in February and met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Daniel Berehulak/The New York TimesAt 80, Mr. Biden is already the oldest president in American history, and he is likely to face questions about his plans no matter how many times he teases his re-election intentions without formalizing them. “I’m planning on running, Al,” he told Al Roker of NBC News at the White House Easter Egg Roll last week. “But we’re not prepared to announce it yet.”Mr. Biden’s timeline is well behind where President Barack Obama’s was at this point in 2011. Mr. Obama released a video that year in the first week of April announcing his bid, but top aides including David Axelrod and Jim Messina had begun forming the campaign months earlier. And Mr. Obama had chosen Charlotte, N.C., to host the convention in early February 2011.A top Democratic donor allied with Mr. Biden was quietly asked early this year to begin planning for a New York fund-raising trip in late April or early May to coincide with a potential kickoff to a 2024 re-election campaign. Then the donor received new guidance recently that such an event was on hold — and no new timeline was provided.“The longer he waits, the less scrutiny he is under,” Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist, said. “You have to measure that against creating momentum in these states that will matter. You’ve got to build infrastructure.”The desire to rebuild key relationships and renew political outreach in a way that only a campaign makes possible is one of the few internal pressures to get started. Mr. Biden won the Electoral College by a comfortable 306 to 232, but seven states in 2020 were decided by less than three percentage points.Money is at the center of the timing conversation. Delaying will postpone building a war chest for the general election.Those preparing to raise money for the campaign express few doubts that the party’s big donors will pony up to back Mr. Biden, and some officials fear an earlier entry might prove to be a wheel-spinning exercise, demanding that the aging president traverse the grueling fund-raising circuit sooner than necessary.And given that a majority of Democrats consistently say in polls that they prefer someone other than Mr. Biden as the nominee, a reliable infusion of grass-roots dollars is not guaranteed — at least until voters see the stakes of the election. Mr. Biden struggled to raise money online in 2019, breaking records only once he emerged as the nominee.Mr. Biden’s advisers argue that he and the Democrats bucked political history — and similar low ratings — to outperform in the 2022 midterm elections, in part by relentlessly painting Republicans as extremists.That is the basic blueprint for 2024. The Biden campaign-in-waiting is expected to be built around one of the president’s favorite political sayings: Don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.On four consecutive days last week, Mr. Biden posted tweets attacking “MAGA Republicans,” part of a drumbeat of warnings about the policies that Republicans want to roll back, including abortion rights. The Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade turbocharged Democratic voters in 2022 and is expected to be a motivator into 2024, even if abortion has been an uneasy topic for Mr. Biden.If Mr. Obama had soaring oratory and Mr. Trump had concertlike rallies, Mr. Biden’s advisers feel his strength is his governing ability and projection of competence. Spending time on the campaign trail, with its unscripted moments, introduces the risk of age-related mishaps.The president’s slipping on stairs while boarding Air Force One or falling off a bicycle were minor episodes during his first two years in office that nonetheless circulated heavily in the conservative news media. A similar incident during the heat of a presidential campaign could be far more significant.Mr. Biden’s advisers believe his strength is his governing ability and projection of competence. Spending time on the campaign trail, with its unscripted moments, introduces the risk of age-related mishaps. Doug Mills/The New York TimesMs. O’Malley Dillon, the White House deputy chief of staff, said Mr. Biden was maintaining an aggressive schedule. “Whether it was in Kyiv, barnstorming the country highlighting the manufacturing jobs he’s bringing back, averting international crises in the wee hours of the morning like he did in Bali or putting Republicans on defense over Social Security in the State of the Union, the American people and the world see his qualified leadership,” she said, “and younger aides have to push themselves to keep up with that pace.”Republicans have steadily hammered Mr. Biden’s mental and physical state, and are already trying to transform any Rose Garden-based approach into a liability. “He’s going to be Biden in the basement again,” Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman, predicted on Fox News last week.The Biden operation has taken steps to signal a coming bid, like announcing a “national advisory board” of influential Democratic leaders last month in The Washington Post. But some of the elected officials who were named as top Biden surrogates on the board found out about their involvement in such a council only when reading about it, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. There have been no communications to the full advisory board since its creation.In Washington, speculation has raged about who will serve as campaign manager, with an approved short list of Democratic operatives circulating for potential senior roles. Yet not all of the people on that list have had substantive contact with top Biden officials this year.Michael LaRosa, a former adviser to Jill Biden, the first lady, said power would inevitably be centralized at the White House regardless of the location of the campaign’s headquarters — Wilmington, Del., is favored but Philadelphia has also been under consideration — or the person named as campaign manager.“The person who is going to be running the campaign is going to be taking orders from the West Wing,” Mr. LaRosa said. He described Mike Donilon, Ms. Dunn, Ms. O’Malley Dillon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed as “the five people who inform his decision making when it comes to anything on policy or politics.”“And I don’t mean that in a disparaging way,” he added. “This president, like every president before him, has a small circle of trust who he seeks advice from.”A top Biden adviser disagreed with the suggestion that the West Wing would dominant the campaign, saying the eventual campaign manager would be “empowered.”Whenever he does enter the race, Mr. Biden is expected to reveal a slate of top campaign advisers — not just a single campaign manager — to put forward a diverse team.“They should have as much diversity as they can at the highest echelons of the campaign,” said Mr. Rocha, who has focused on mobilizing Latino voters. “Their biggest challenge is going to be motivating Latinos to vote for him.”Mr. Biden has been doing some extra contributor outreach. Donors are often among the attendees to the White House Easter Egg Roll, and some were among those invited to an additional breakfast with Mr. Biden and the first lady in the state dining room before the event, according to two people with knowledge of the breakfast, which did not appear on the president’s public schedule.Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, Democrat of Delaware, who is close with Mr. Biden, downplayed the timing of his 2024 entry. “The American people are going to judge him on the job that he’s done for four years as president,” she said, “not on the one day that he announces.” More

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      Biden Says He Will Announce 2024 Campaign ‘Soon’

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      The president, who is widely expected to run again but faces little pressure to imminently announce a formal bid, tiptoed beyond his previous public comments on the subject.President Biden inched closer on Friday to formally announcing his re-election campaign, telling reporters that he would do so “relatively soon.”“No, no, no, no,” he said during a trip to Ireland, when asked whether his “calculus” had changed in recent days on when to make his announcement. “I’ve already made that calculus. We’ll announce it relatively soon. But the trip here just reinforced my sense of optimism about what can be done.”Asked if that meant he had made a decision, he responded, with a hint of impatience, “I told you, my plan is to run again.”He had: Four days earlier, speaking to Al Roker of NBC News at an Easter event at the White House, Mr. Biden said, “I plan on running,” adding, “But we’re not prepared to announce it yet.”Mr. Biden made his latest remarks on Friday at an airport in Ireland, where he has spent part of his week. On Wednesday, he gave a speech in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Then he traveled to the Republic of Ireland, where he visited his ancestors’ hometown.Mr. Biden’s 2024 campaign has been a subject of will-he-or-won’t-he debate since the moment he was elected as the oldest president in United States history. He is now 80, and would be 86 by the end of a second term, which has made even some of his fellow Democrats uncomfortable.But Mr. Biden suggested from the start that he would probably run again.He has not faced much pressure to imminently announce a formal campaign, though, because there is no sign of a competitive Democratic primary. The self-help author Marianne Williamson is running against Mr. Biden, and the anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has indicated that he will also run, but neither has a large base of support.And across the aisle, the early weeks of the Republican primary have been consumed by news of former President Donald J. Trump’s mounting legal problems, including his arraignment in New York last week on 34 felony charges related to a hush-money payment to a porn star who said they had sex. That has left little incentive for Mr. Biden to draw attention to himself and away from Republicans’ troubles. More

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      The Quiet Coronation of Joe Biden

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      Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicA few weeks after the midterms, something happened that largely flew under the radar. Democrats were celebrating a successful election, and giving all the credit to President Biden. And against that backdrop, the party made an announcement: It would be changing the order in which states voted in the primary election, moving South Carolina first. The party was talking about it in terms of representation and acknowledging the role of Black voters.But given that South Carolina essentially saved Mr. Biden’s 2020 candidacy, Astead wondered: Was something else going on? We headed to the party’s winter meeting as it prepared to make the change official.Photo Illustration: The New York Times; Photo: Al Drago for The New York TimesAbout ‘The Run-Up’First launched in August 2016, three months before the election of Donald Trump, “The Run-Up” is The New York Times’s flagship political podcast. The host, Astead W. Herndon, grapples with the big ideas already animating the 2024 presidential election. Because it’s always about more than who wins and loses. And the next election has already started.Last season, “The Run-Up” focused on grass-roots voters and shifting attitudes among the bases of both political parties. This season, we go inside the party establishment.New episodes on Thursdays.Credits“The Run-Up” is hosted by More

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      What Are Biden’s 2024 Chances? I Asked These Democratic Campaign Veterans.

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      On Monday, when the “Today” show’s Al Roker asked President Biden about seeking a second term, Biden replied, “I plan on running, Al, but we’re not prepared to announce it yet.”That answer strikes me as another in a series of soft launches and quasi-commitments meant to manage expectations, but the president and those around him have been signaling that he intends to seek re-election. When it comes, an official declaration will be just a formality, a campaign mechanism to concentrate attention and coverage.Biden is running now.And in anticipation of the inevitable, in recent weeks I talked to several political advisers who’ve run campaigns for Democratic presidents to get their assessments of Biden’s advantages and challenges.The list includes Timothy Kraft, who ran Jimmy Carter’s re-election campaign in 1980 until just before the election, and Les Francis, who stepped in to run day-to-day operations in Kraft’s wake. It also includes James Carville, who ran Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, and David Plouffe, who ran Barack Obama’s in 2008.I wasn’t interested in predictions, which are mostly worthless this far from Election Day. I wasn’t asking how the race would look at the end, but how it looked at the beginning.To start, there was general agreement that Biden’s policy record was strong: The economy, a mixed bag with low unemployment and high inflation, may be a net positive for Biden right now, but some said that how voters feel about it nearer the election is what will matter most. As Plouffe said, “People have one life, and they are living it right now.” It’s about how people feel about that life at the moment they vote, regardless of what the data say or the future holds.Most of these political pros agreed that Biden’s age will be a significant issue to overcome — one reason they’d prefer a rematch with Donald Trump rather than a contest against a younger, first-time Republican presidential candidate who’d be able to draw a more stark generational contrast. It’s unclear how the age issue will play out, but as Kraft put it, the Republicans “are going to do this ‘Sleepy Joe’ thing to the fare-thee-well.”The other reason Trump is the preferred opponent is that, as Francis observed, “he is damaged goods, and he’s going to be more damaged.” The consensus was that Trump’s legal problems will help him in the primaries but weaken him in the general. The consideration is simple: Among those who voted against Trump-created chaos in 2020, who would vote for Trump in 2024 after he’s sown even more chaos?Several of the consultants were conscious of, and concerned about, the country’s growing partisan divide and the dwindling pool of swing voters and swing districts — the shrinking number of minds to change and hearts to woo. An untold number of people in the United States “have probably never met anyone from the other party,” Carville said.He raised perhaps the most interesting concern, one I wasn’t expecting: “The biggest story in my mind out of 2022 is abysmally low Black turnout.” Specifically, he said, “it’s a problem with younger Black voters.”In the most recent midterm elections, even in places where Democrats fielded strong Black candidates against flawed Republican opponents, Carville considered Black turnout underwhelming. But he isn’t sure what’s causing this problem, or how to fix it.I talked to Terrance Woodbury, a founding partner at the consultancy HIT Strategies, which researches Black voter sentiment. A January survey found that three-quarters of Black voters don’t believe their lives have improved since Biden became president, despite his administration’s “initiating or completing” a majority of the Black agenda, Woodbury said.Woodbury underscored what can only be described as a glaring communications failure, particularly when it comes to young people. As he said, “It’s not that we haven’t made progress,” it’s that younger Black voters “don’t know about the progress.”Now, people can chafe at Woodbury’s characterization and criticize voters for not staying abreast of political news‌, but it’s not a winning strategy to place blam‌e on the voters you’re trying to court‌.Kraft echoed the concern, and said it went beyond outreach to Black voters: “The D.N.C. chairman should be on those Sunday talk shows or should have more guest columns, op-ed pieces, anything.”Carville is also worried about Republican weaponization of the term, and idea of, “wokeness.” If being woke “means that people, particularly Black people, should be aware of interactions they have with white power, it’s a totally legitimate word,” he said. “But if it means the triumph of identity over ideology, you lose me, and I think you lose a lot of people.”He went further in his attempt to insulate Biden from the concept, saying, “The most non-woke person is Joe Biden,” even as he’s “become the greatest president for Black America maybe we ever had.”I think that’s a stretch, and his framing could do more harm than good in trying to attract young Black voters, but it could work in attracting another demographic that Democrats are worried about: the non-college-educated. In fact, one of Carville’s central complaints about wokeness is his belief that it was appropriated by white intellectuals.This all bleeds into an issue Plouffe calls “the biggest question in American politics today”: whether Republicans continue to make gains with non-college-educated voters of color in an era in which the “education fault lines are much more severe than they were in 2008 or 2012,” with Democrats attracting more college graduates and Republicans strengthening their position among those who didn’t graduate.My takeaway from these conversations was that, at least at the beginning of his campaign, Biden has obvious advantages but also faces significant obstacles. Often, late in campaigns, Democratic candidates to try to use fear of the opponent as voter motivation. But that can backfire.As Woodbury told me, his firm saw a significant erosion in turnout and Democratic support in 2022 among Black men because they “do not respond to messages of fear and loss.” Instead, he said, “they need a message of what they have gained, not what they will gain.” They respond to a message of being empowered rather than being endangered.This messaging, which should already have been a more central part of Democrats’ overall pitch, has to start now.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 and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Democratic Convention Gives Chicago, Staggered by Pandemic, a Chance to Shine

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      Republicans have cast Chicago as a metropolis of crime and dysfunction, but with the 2024 Democratic convention, Chicagoans are eager to prove them wrong.CHICAGO — Word had just leaked Tuesday that the Democratic Party had chosen the nation’s third-largest city for its 2024 national convention when Republicans began trotting out warnings about crime infestations and the necessity of bulletproof vests.But no political trash talk seemed to dampen the excitement of a metropolis less in need of a pick-me-up than a little validation for the comeback it is sure is coming.“It’s definitely a shot in the arm to the city,” said Sam Toia, a longtime Chicago booster and the president of the Illinois Restaurant Association, adding, “We are a world-class city,” an oft-used phrase here that projects Chicagoans’ time-honored self-doubt.It would be dishonest to say Chicago, which last hosted the Democratic convention in 1996, has recovered all of its swagger since the coronavirus laid it low. Then-President Donald J. Trump was already denouncing Chicago as some sort of national embarrassment even before the virus reached American shores. Its violent crime, though receding from its post-pandemic high by some measures, is still “a cancer that’s eating the soul of this city,” said Arne Duncan, a former secretary of education whose new venture addresses violence in Chicago’s worst neighborhoods.Hotel and retail traffic is back to 85 percent of 2019 levels while public transit is at 73 percent, according to the Chicago Loop Alliance. But Chicago’s downtown late last year was only at half the activity it hosted before the pandemic, 48th among the 62 North American cities the University of Toronto measured.Brandon Johnson campaigning with supporters in February in Chicago, before his eventual victory.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThe surprise mayoral triumph last week of a young, untested liberal, Brandon Johnson, has brought with it a nervous excitement — the hope of a fresh face but the worry that comes with inexperience. Still, with the sun out, temperatures in the 70s and the summer festival season on its way, Chicagoans were already feeling optimistic. “It gives us an opportunity to feature the best of the best, in a space where there is a lot of energy and a lot of hope,” said Representative Delia Ramirez, a progressive in her first term in Congress from Chicago’s near northwest side. “This is a truly new day, with a brand-new mayor-elect, the youngest, most progressive, most diverse City Council ever, our first Latina in Congress — it’s a magical place and it’s ready.”Chicago beat out its biggest competitor, Atlanta, with three basic appeals. It’s in a state with a Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker, who also happens to be a billionaire with deep and wide-open pockets. It has powerful unions who pressed the pro-labor occupant of the White House to choose a city with unionized hotels, unionized convention and entertainment sites and unionized restaurants. And it’s in a state whose progressive policies contrasted sharply with Georgia’s abortion ban, open-carry gun law and “right-to-work” labor requirements.Chicago’s proximity to the “Blue Wall” states that President Biden will need for his re-election — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — may have been a factor, but Georgia is no less important a swing state in 2024. The people who made the pitch were far more intent on emphasizing that no conventioneers would have to cross picket lines to crawl into their nonunion hotel beds or deal with openly armed protesters.“Illinois really does represent the values of the Democratic Party, from A to Z, especially the labor piece,” said Bob Reiter, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor.Mr. Johnson’s victory was something of a bonus, along with the landslide election last week of a liberal judge to Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court, just to the north.“Chicago had the clear advantage of a Democratic governor, a governor who was intimately involved in the bid and also a political race where a progressive Democrat just won a really tough race,” said Shirley Franklin, a former Atlanta mayor who was part of the public campaign to bring the convention to the South.Had Mr. Johnson’s much more conservative rival, Paul Vallas, prevailed, Democratic Party officials would have had to figure out how — or whether — to embrace a mayor whom many of them had spent months painting as a secret Republican who used fear tactics and crime to garner support from Chicago-area Republicans.Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois was instrumental in bringing the Democrats’ convention to Chicago.Evan Jenkins for The New York TimesThe city’s liberal leaders hope convention organizers will elevate Mr. Johnson, as they try to energize young voters who have been supercharged by issues like abortion and guns but have not quite warmed to their octogenarian president.“Democrats need to show that we have people on the mic, front and center, that excite people, that unite people and give them hope that we can come together,” Ms. Ramirez said.Party officials are unsure what role the new mayor might play at the convention. Mr. Johnson may not have all the internal party baggage that Mr. Vallas had, but he did openly discuss “defunding” the police during the civil rights protests that followed the murder of George Floyd. More than a year before the actual convention, Republicans are already latching onto Chicago’s reputation for criminal violence and political dysfunction.“What’s the bigger concern, sirens drowning out nominating speeches or what items attendees must leave at home to make room for their bulletproof vest in their suitcase?” quipped Will Reinert, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.The right-wing website Breitbart blared, “Democrats Choose Chicago, America’s Murder Capital.”Jeffrey Blehar, a Chicago-based contributor for the conservative National Review, predicted, “Democratic conventioneers are in for an entirely new experience in either highly militarized downtown security or exciting street-crime adventure.”If, by the summer of 2024, crime rates are improving and Chicago’s police force is amply funded, Mr. Johnson may well be center stage. If trends go otherwise, he may not be.What is clear, city boosters say, is that Chicago will be ready, with Michelin-starred restaurants within walking distance of the arena, gracious hotels scrubbed of their pandemic dust and city residents eager to prove their detractors wrong.“Are there things we need to snap into place post-pandemic? Sure,” Mr. Reiter said. “This event helps us clinch that.” Maya King More

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      Biden Says He Plans to Run for Re-election in 2024

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      But the president said he was not ready to formally announce a campaign yet, and a delayed announcement would not be out of character for him.WASHINGTON — President Biden on Monday said he was “planning on” seeking re-election next year but was not ready to launch his campaign yet.Mr. Biden’s 2024 plans have for months been the subject of speculation, with top aides quietly making plans to build out a campaign. But the president has yet to make a final decision.At the White House Easter egg roll, Al Roker of NBC News asked Mr. Biden if he planned on being in the White House after 2024.“I’m planning on running, Al,” Mr. Biden said. “But we’re not prepared to announce it yet.”NEW: TODAY’s @alroker asks President Biden about his possible Presidential run in 2024. pic.twitter.com/3OELi0yJmK— TODAY (@TODAYshow) April 10, 2023
      The White House has long said Mr. Biden “intends to run” but has not revealed a timeline to start a campaign. A delayed announcement would not be out of character for Mr. Biden, who waited to begin his 2020 campaign until April 2019 — well after other major candidates entered the race.President Barack Obama began his 2012 re-election campaign in April 2011. By then he had selected Charlotte, N.C., to host the 2012 Democratic National Convention and had announced his campaign headquarters would again be in Chicago.Mr. Biden has made neither type of announcement. A 2024 convention site selection could come at any time, officials say. Atlanta, Chicago and New York are the three finalist cities. The campaign headquarters will be in either Philadelphia, where Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign was based, or Wilmington, Del., where Mr. Biden has a home he often visits on weekends.Mr. Biden faces limited Democratic primary opposition despite polling that suggests majorities of Democrats would prefer he not seek re-election in 2024. More

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      South Carolina Democrats, Stung by String of Losses, Clash Over Next Leader

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      A usually low-key race has taken on unusually high stakes as the party prepares to host the first primary of the 2024 campaign and seeks to reverse its recent misfortunes.COLUMBIA, S.C. — Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, a longtime kingmaker in Democratic politics who helped resurrect President Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, exercised his influence on Wednesday over a much smaller race far closer to home: the campaign to determine who will lead his state’s Democratic Party.Mr. Clyburn endorsed Christale Spain, a former party executive director who once worked in his South Carolina office and would be the first Black woman to lead the party if elected. His involvement underlines the larger-than-usual stakes of the three-candidate race, a contest that has often been a low-key, noncompetitive affair for a behind-the-scenes post.As Democrats in South Carolina recover from several damaging election cycles and stare down their debut as the party’s first presidential primary state, a once-in-a-generation campaign for state party chair has been brought to life, complete with the kind of glad-handing, fund-raising and mudslinging more often encountered in a congressional primary. At stake is who will prepare the party for the next election while staving off further down-ballot losses.The three candidates — the most in over 25 years — represent factions of the state’s Democratic base, from its grass-roots activists to high-powered operatives. Ms. Spain is widely viewed as the front-runner. But the same résumé that brought Mr. Clyburn to her camp has been fodder for some of her biggest critics, who say the party needs a major overhaul, not a return to the status quo they believe she would represent.More than 1,600 county delegates will vote for the chair at the end of the month at the annual state Democratic convention in Columbia. The winner, who will serve a two-year term, will be tasked with rebuilding an understaffed and underfunded state party while re-engaging key Democratic constituencies.The central question, however, is just what strategy the party will employ as it prepares for prime time.“We have an opportunity to stop the bleeding,” Ms. Spain said. “We could have this funding stream that comes in because of our new status. But if we muck it up, then what happens? Every cycle is a 2022 cycle? That’s our new normal forever? That’s the worst that can happen.”For many South Carolina Democrats, the 2022 midterm elections are burned in their memory, as party veterans lost a host of previously safe races from school boards to the State House, where Democrats ceded eight seats to Republicans — five of which had been held by Black women. The G.O.P. secured a supermajority for the first time since the Civil War era.“We have an opportunity to stop the bleeding,” Ms. Spain said.Sean Rayford for The New York TimesThe state party was too short on cash to support most of its candidates and did little to coordinate strategy with its nominee for governor, Joe Cunningham, who lost to the incumbent, Henry McMaster, by nearly 20 points. Paltry engagement with Black voters sank their turnout to the lowest in decades. Democratic officials largely faulted the party’s state leadership for the poor showing.“It was almost as if we just have lost our way, lost our direction,” said State Senator Vernon Jones, whose district covers five counties. “We don’t have the right message.”Against the backdrop of preparations for the 2024 primary, the newly prominent chair race has underscored Democrats’ competing messages for how to improve their standing in the state — via incremental steps to raise money and take back seats or through untested strategies the party has been reluctant to employ.Ms. Spain’s most formidable competitor is Brandon Upson, the chair of the state Democratic Party’s Black caucus, who is running as part of a four-person slate of candidates for party leadership posts. Catherine Fleming Bruce, an activist who fell short in the 2022 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, is also running.The candidates have spent months crisscrossing the state, stumping at county party meetings and recruiting surrogates. Some Democratic groups are exploring the possibility of hosting a debate. Ms. Spain distributes mailers with her campaign message at every stop she makes. Mr. Upson’s slate has established an account on the political donation website ActBlue for its fund-raising. His message to delegates is simple: I’m tired of losing.“The same people have been running our party and handpicking our party chair for 25 years,” Mr. Upson said. “And if you look at the trend line for this party over the 25 years, we’ve been losing more and more every cycle.”Brandon Upson, who is challenging Ms. Spain for the Democratic Party leadership role, at a labor protest outside a Ryder trucking warehouse in Columbia, S.C.Maya King/The New York TimesThe state’s more enthusiastic Democrats have been clamoring for a way to win back seats and put South Carolina in play in the same way that Georgia, its neighbor to the west, has been. Ms. Spain has cautioned fellow Democrats against overplaying their hand, even in the face of the money and attention that voting first in 2024 might bring. Those kinds of inroads are made over several cycles, she said, and will require newer, bolder — and realistic — thinking.“We have to be strategic and responsible about what we’re doing,” Ms. Spain said at a recent meeting of Orangeburg County Democrats. “We have to establish our battlefield.”That battlefield makes up all 46 of South Carolina’s counties and the voters whom Democrats have failed to mobilize. Her main focus, she said, will be on winning back the State House seats the party lost in previous cycles and protecting the remaining safe seats. Then they can talk about unseating Republicans.Much of Ms. Spain’s stump speech focuses on her experience. She started at the state party as a volunteer and worked for the last three state chairs. In 2016, she joined Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign team. After directing Cory Booker’s South Carolina operation in 2020, she coordinated Jaime Harrison’s U.S. Senate campaign with the state party. In 2022, she directed Black engagement for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The departing state party chair, Trav Robertson, is also supporting her bid.On the other hand, Mr. Upson is aiming to harness grass-roots groups, young voters and political newcomers — a constituency that has grown in the state in recent years. Under his leadership, the state party’s Black caucus has expanded its membership, putting a healthy number of delegates in his corner.“That’s where my base of support is,” he said. “You’re not going to see it in James Clyburn’s office.”On Tuesday morning, Mr. Upson joined more than three dozen labor activists protesting working conditions at a factory outside Columbia. After sweating and chanting in the sun outside a Ryder trucking warehouse, he encouraged the crowd to think of the Democratic Party as a partner in their activism, not a bystander.“We have to remind ourselves that we are the people — and we have the power in our hands,” he told the group.Mr. Upson, an Army veteran, has focused much of his organizing work on engaging Black male voters in low-income communities — a part of his biography that he has also promoted in his campaign. In 2020, he was national organizing director for Tom Steyer, whose presidential bid injected millions into South Carolina and frustrated the leaders backing Mr. Biden, who claimed the billionaire was buying Black support. Mr. Upson vehemently denies those claims.But it was Mr. Upson’s work with a candidate for Charleston County Council that agitated even more Democrats. In 2022, he worked with a Republican, Joe Boykin, who unseated a Democratic county councilwoman, Anna Johnson. Both Mr. Boykin and Mr. Upson maintain that Mr. Upson’s involvement was limited to building Mr. Boykin’s campaign website. Still, his victory handed the balance of power on the council to Republicans and cemented a line of attack for Ms. Spain’s supporters.Catherine Fleming Bruce, who fell short in the 2022 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, is running for the leadership post, as well.Meg Kinnard/Associated PressIn describing the state of the race, Mr. Clyburn paraphrased from the Bible: “They are not known by their words but their deeds.”“If somebody tells you they are a Democrat, and you look at what they’re doing and it’s all been to help Republicans, what am I supposed to believe about you?” he said.And for Ms. Spain, the messaging from her opponents echoes a familiar pattern she has observed in politics, of suspicions about qualified Black women in power. Or, worse, being brushed aside for opportunities with little reason.“Being a Black woman with a strong résumé for the role, people can turn that into a negative,” she said. “I’ve been doing the jobs that have been put in front of me. I’ve built the relationships that I’ve had an opportunity to build, not for any hidden agenda, but because I’m working with them.”Gilda Cobb-Hunter, an influential state lawmaker, is supporting Mr. Upson. She is encouraging delegates to pledge their allegiance to the candidate who, she said, is “not in the clique.”“This party has been run for too many years by cliques,” she said. “I want somebody who is interested in expanding the circle.”Ms. Cobb-Hunter, who is Black, recognized the historic implications of having a party led by a Black woman for the first time. However, she said, the determining factor in her decision came down to who she most believed could help Democrats in the state win elections again.“Politics, to me, is a business. It’s not personal. It’s about getting the job done,” she said. She later added, “Simply basing something on gender in and of itself is shortsighted, in my view.”Mr. Stephens, the state senator, announced at the Orangeburg County party meeting that after weeks of deliberation and conversations with all three candidates, he would support Ms. Spain. Fresh off a visit with Black Democrats in rural South Carolina, he said the next chair should be mindful of a shift he has observed in the electorate.“The citizens are taking things in their own hands,” he said. “They’re going to vet candidates. They’re no longer going to be told that ‘this is the individual you should be voting for.’ They are going to vote their conviction. South Carolina is changing.” More

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      Virginia Rolls Back Voting Rights for Ex-Felons, Bucking Shaky Bipartisan Trend

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      State after state has eased restrictions on voting for former felons in recent years. But Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s reversal suggests growing wariness on the right.WASHINGTON — For more than a decade, states around the country have steadily chipped away at one of the biggest roadblocks to voting in the United States — laws on the books that bar former felons from casting a ballot.But there are now signs that trend could be reversing.Last month, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, a Republican who took office a year ago, revealed that he had rescinded a policy of automatically restoring voting rights to residents who have completed felony sentences.In a February hearing, North Carolina’s Supreme Court, which has a 5-2 Republican majority, appeared deeply skeptical that a lower court had constitutional authority when it restored voting rights last year to people who had completed their sentences. A ruling is expected soon.And then there’s Florida — whose Republican-dominated Legislature effectively nullified a citizen ballot initiative granting voting rights to a huge number of former felons in 2020. That left all three states on a path toward rolling back state policies on restoring voting rights for former felons close to where they were 50 and even 100 years ago.Experts say that Virginia’s reversal, which does not affect people who have had their rights already restored, is unlikely to represent a dramatic change in the long-term trend among states toward loosening restrictions on voting by people with felony records. Such restrictions still deny the vote to some 4.6 million voting-age Americans — one in 50 potential voters. But that number is down nearly 25 percent since 2016.Last month, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat, signed legislation expanding voting rights for former felons in the state, and the New Mexico State Legislature, also Democratic, enacted a law doing the same.What is clear, though, is that a shaky bipartisan consensus — that those who have paid their debts to society should be able to cast a ballot — has eroded, as political polarization has risen. The action by Mr. Youngkin is especially notable because it leaves Virginia as the only state in the nation that disenfranchises everyone who commits a felony. Under the State Constitution, a former felon’s rights can be restored only with the governor’s authorization.“We’d reached a point for the first time in recent memory, maybe ever, where there was not a single state in the country that disenfranchised everyone,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, the director of the voting rights program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “It is disappointing that on an issue in Virginia that had gotten support from both sides of the aisle, they do seem to be taking a step backwards.”The backtracking spotlights the often-overlooked significance — legally and also politically — of a practice that has likely had a far greater impact on access to the ballot than more notorious voter suppression measures have.Voting rights battles are usually fought over cogs in the election machinery — ID requirements, drop boxes, absentee ballots — that can make it easy or hard to vote, depending on how much sand is tossed into them. The extent to which those battles shrink or expand the pool of voters is often impossible to measure.Not so with restoring the vote to former felons: Minnesota’s new law gives about 56,000 people access to the ballot; the North Carolina court ruling last year made another 56,000 eligible. The law awaiting the signature of New Mexico’s governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, would add another 11,000 to the list.The rollbacks, however, are significant. In 2020, Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature enacted a law that effectively negated a 2018 citizen ballot initiative that restored voting rights to perhaps 934,000 residents, according to the latest estimate. The law limits the vote only to former felons who pay all court costs, restitution and other fees, a yearslong task for many, made surpassingly difficult by the state’s jumbled record-keeping on court cases.That legislative change not only halted the nation’s largest rights-restoration effort but also led to the arrest — in what Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, billed as a crackdown on fraud — of 20 former felons who had registered or voted illegally — many, if not all, out of confusion over their eligibility.In Virginia, governors have used their constitutional powers to restore the vote to more than 300,000 former felons since Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, first made restoration automatic for some in 2013. Two Democratic governors, Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam, expanded that policy to include anyone freed from prison.By the time Mr. Northam left office in January 2022, a huge backlog of people eligible for restoration had been wiped out, said Kelly Thomasson, the official who handled rights restoration during Mr. Northam’s tenure as governor, in an interview. She said that roughly 1,000 to 2,000 newly eligible felons were being released from prison each month.After succeeding Mr. Northam, Mr. Youngkin initially restored voting rights to nearly 3,500 people in just his first four months in office. But that pace slowed dramatically to just 800 others in the next five months.A spokeswoman for Mr. Youngkin, Macaulay Porter, said in a statement that the governor “firmly believes in the importance of second chances for Virginians who have made mistakes,” and that he judges individual cases based on the law and the “unique elements of each situation.”She did not respond to requests to explain why new grants dropped sharply, or whether Republican resistance to restoring voting played a role in that decline.Although a Republican state legislator had once led Minnesota’s effort to give the vote to former felons, the policy became law this year with only a handful of Republican votes. In 2020, the Republican governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, used her executive power to implement an automatic restoration policy much like the one Virginia had in place before Mr. Youngkin changed it.Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa reacts after signing an executive order granting former felons the right to vote in August 2020.Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressBut Iowa, Virginia and Kentucky, another Republican state whose governors’ executive orders have loosened restrictive restoration policies temporarily, have been unable to win legislators’ support for amendments to state constitutions that would make those orders permanent.Some experts say that the resistance stems in part from the common but questionable belief among Republican partisans that allowing former felons to vote would boost Democratic turnout.Although an outsize share of those who complete felony sentences are members of minority groups that broadly tend to vote Democratic, most felons are white, and those with their demographic characteristics — below-average income and education, to name two — increasingly skew Republican.Disenfranchisement has complex legal roots, including the 14th Amendment, which, in addition to granting citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to formerly enslaved people, forbids withholding the right to vote “except for participation in rebellion, or other crime.”In Virginia, there are also antecedents that reflect the state’s history of suppressing the African American vote. The policy on rights restoration that Mr. Youngkin revived is rooted in a 1902 Virginia constitutional convention in which keeping Black residents from voting was an overriding priority.Experts say the potentially fleeting nature of executive actions like those in Kentucky — where Gov. Andy Beshear now automatically restores voting rights to former felons who had committed nonviolent crimes — and in Virginia sows confusion about voting rights. Critics say that bestowing a basic civic privilege becomes subject to the political whim of whoever is governor.Virginians who complete their prison sentences this year may wonder why those who left prison in 2021 are more entitled to cast a ballot than they are, said Christopher Uggen, a University of Minnesota sociologist and an expert on the disenfranchisement of former felons.“It harkens to an era when the king can give a thumbs up or thumbs down,” he said. “We wouldn’t necessarily accept this if it were happening in another area.”Kirsten Noyes More