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      What the Virginia Election Result Will Mean for Democrats and Republicans

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      Republicans hope to hit on a recipe for renewal, while Democrats worry that a loss could force them to defend seats in blue states next year.ALEXANDRIA, Va. — During one of the most hectic weeks of her speakership — as she sought to unite her fractious party and corral two sweeping pieces of legislation — Nancy Pelosi made time for a meeting in her Capitol suite with a group of Democratic lawmakers from New Jersey and Virginia bearing an urgent message of their own.They warned Ms. Pelosi that if the candidates for governor in those two states, particularly former Gov. Terry McAuliffe in liberal-leaning Virginia, were to lose on Tuesday, it could have a cascading effect on the party, prompting Democrats to pull back from President Biden and his ambitious agenda, and perhaps even drive some to retirement.Representative Gerald Connolly of Virginia said he used the meeting last Tuesday to urge Ms. Pelosi to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which had already cleared the Senate, and to share his alarm about the party’s fortunes. “You don’t have to be a front-liner to be worried,” he said, invoking the word House Democrats use to describe their most politically at-risk incumbents.Unable to overcome mutual mistrust between a group of House progressives and Senate moderates, however, Ms. Pelosi pulled the public works legislation from consideration hours after Mr. Biden visited the Capitol on Thursday, dashing the group’s hopes of delivering Mr. McAuliffe and other Democrats on the ballot a win after a two-month drumbeat of bad news.The former Virginia governor and his top aides, who have been pushing congressional and White House officials to pass the bill for over a month, were both stunned and infuriated, according to Democrats. They were amazed Ms. Pelosi had been forced to delay the vote for the second time in a month, baffled why the president didn’t make a more aggressive push and despairing about the impact of yet another round of negative stories from Washington.“The last two-and-a-half months makes it look like Democrats are in disarray,” said Representative Filemon Vela, a Texas Democrat who has raised money for Mr. McAuliffe.The races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey that occur a year after the presidential election have long been the first political temperature checks on the new White House and Congress, particularly among the election-deciding suburbanites so abundant in both states. But rarely have contests traditionally fought over decidedly local issues been so interwoven with the national political debate and, in the case of Virginia, loomed as so large a portent for the future of both parties.Glenn Younkin, Republican nominee for Virginia governor, spoke at a farmer’s market in Alexandria, Va., on Saturday.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesMr. McAuliffe’s strategy of relentlessly linking his Republican rival, Glenn Youngkin, to Donald J. Trump represents the best test yet of how much of a drag the former president still exerts on his party in blue and purple states. At the same time, Mr. Youngkin’s fancy footwork regarding Mr. Trump — avoiding his embrace without alienating him or his base — and his attacks on Mr. McAuliffe over the role of parents in schools will indicate if G.O.P. candidates can sidestep Trumpism by drawing attention to what they argue is Democratic extremism on issues of race and gender.Far from such old standbys of statewide races as property taxes and teacher pay, the issues in Virginia reflect the country’s canyonlike polarization and what each party portrays as the dire threat posed by the other.To Republicans, Virginia represents the promise of renewal, the chance to rebuild their party in a fairly forbidding state — and without having to make the difficult choice of fully embracing or rejecting Mr. Trump. Addressing supporters near a farmer’s market in Old Town Alexandria Saturday morning, Mr. Youngkin said his victory would send “a shock wave across this country.”Suffering yet another loss here, though, would make it clear to Republicans that they cannot continue to delay their internal reckoning over the former president and that, even in exile, his unpopularity remains the party’s biggest impediment.Because Mr. Biden carried the state by 10 points last year, and Mr. McAuliffe began the race with an advantage befitting the former governor he is, the most significant implications in Virginia are for Democrats. The party is also haunted by recent history: Their loss in the 2009 Virginia governor’s race — the last time Democrats controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress — foreshadowed the party’s electoral wipeout the following year.Mr. McAuliffe spoke with Virginia Beach Councilman Aaron Rouse, Gov. Ralph Northam and Bruce Smith, the former football star who is now a developer, during a visit to Virginia Beach on Saturday.Kristen Zeis for The New York TimesShould Mr. McAuliffe lose or barely win, moderates will demand immediate passage of the infrastructure bill. Liberals will argue that the Democratic Party, and democracy itself, are in such a parlous state that they must push through new voting laws. And strategists across the party’s ideological spectrum will be made to contend with a political playing field in the midterm elections that stretches deeper into blue America.“We’re going to have to change our calculation of what’s a race and look at the districts Trump lost,” said Rebecca Pearcey, a Democratic consultant. “Even if he wins,” she added, referring to Mr. McAuliffe, “we’re going to have to reassess what the map looks like on Wednesday, because Tuesday is not going to be a pretty night.”With Mr. Biden’s approval ratings tumbling among independents thanks to Covid-19’s summer resurgence, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal and rising inflation, Democrats are also bracing for additional retirements among lawmakers who would rather not run in a newly redrawn district or risk ending their careers in defeat.Already, three House Democrats announced their departures earlier this month. Mr. McAuliffe’s defeat in a state Mr. Biden so easily won would likely accelerate that exodus because lawmakers will chalk it up to the president’s unpopularity. “We’re going to see a lot more by the end of the year,” predicted Ms. Pearcey.Ms. Pelosi is acutely aware of these flight risks — she herself is one — and has privately expressed concern about the fallout from Mr. McAuliffe’s race. Last week, she told a Democratic colleague that the House’s failure to pass the infrastructure bill could imperil Mr. McAuliffe, according to a lawmaker familiar with the exchange.Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that the House’s failure to pass the infrastructure bill could imperil Mr. McAuliffe.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesA longtime friend of Mr. McAuliffe’s, Ms. Pelosi headlined a fund-raiser for him last week and has personally given him $250,000 and raised over three times as much. She has also spoken with him by telephone repeatedly about negotiations over the infrastructure bill.A backlash next year may be inevitable in part because, as one longtime Democratic lawmaker noted, the party often suffers at the polls after it pushes an expansive agenda of the sort that congressional Democrats are painstakingly negotiating.“Somebody reminded me: In ’66, after all we did in ’65, we got beat,” Representative Robert C. Scott of Virginia said, referring to the losses Democrats incurred after passing much of the Great Society. “We passed Obamacare and we got beat.”Much as the protracted debate over the Affordable Care Act in 2009 and 2010 overshadowed their economic-recovery legislation then, Democrats this year have been more focused on negotiating their towering twin bills than on promoting their earlier Covid relief legislation.While Democratic lawmakers have dwelled almost exclusively on the infrastructure bill and their broader social welfare and climate proposal — matters on which they have not reached consensus — Americans outside of Washington have grown impatient with the lingering virus and the soaring prices of goods.“If you listen to the Democratic speaking points, it’s all what we haven’t done,” said Mr. Scott, pointing out that the child tax credit enacted in the Covid rescue plan earlier this year was often left unmentioned.Mr. Vela, a moderate who has demanded an infrastructure vote since August, said a McAuliffe defeat should prompt quick passage of that bill, which passed the Senate with 69 votes. “Progressives should wake up and realize that linking the two processes together was a huge mistake,” he said, adding: “That’s from somebody who supports both bills.”But many on the left believe that the party’s vulnerabilities, laid bare by the prospect of defeat in Virginia, where they have not lost a statewide race since 2009, only underscore the need to scrap the Senate filibuster and push through sweeping voting laws that could stave off a disastrous 2022 and long-term loss of power.“A close race in Virginia would signal just how hard the midterms will be for Democrats and the urgency of passing democracy reform,” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for the left-wing Justice Democrats who grew up in Virginia.Progressives were already unenthusiastic about Mr. McAuliffe, a fixture of the party establishment and a former national Democratic chairman, and they have been irritated that he did not do more this year to help the party’s state lawmakers hold onto the majority they won in the House of Delegates in 2019.Mr. McAuliffe spoke to supporters in Norfolk, Va., on Saturday.Kristen Zeis for The New York Times“Whatever happens Tuesday, one lesson we already know from Virginia is that we better prioritize winning state legislatures like our democracy depends on it — because it does,” said Daniel Squadron, who runs the States Project, which is dedicated to electing Democrats in statehouses.To Democrats in Northern Virginia, who prospered in the Trump years, there is an especially close connection between what takes place in the nation’s capital and their seats.Mr. Connolly recalled that at the Halloween parade last week in Vienna, Va., a handful of people yelled at him to pass the infrastructure bill, a major quality-of-life issue in his traffic-choked district. “It really got my attention,” he said.Now, he said, he hopes it will not take another high-profile loss in his home state to get his party’s attention.“If past is prologue,” he said, “we cannot have a repeat of what happened in 2009.” More

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      On Virginia's Election and a Battle That Has Already Been Lost

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      On Tuesday, Virginians will vote to choose their next governor. The Democratic candidate is Terry McAuliffe, who served as governor from 2014 to 2018 but was term-limited out of office. The Republican candidate is Glenn Youngkin, a private equity executive and newcomer to electoral politics.There are real, material issues at hand in Virginia, where I grew up and where I currently live, from transportation and housing costs to climate, economic inequality and, of course, the commonwealth’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The battleground for this election, however, is culture, identity and the specter of the previous president.McAuliffe and his supporters want Virginians to feel that a vote for Youngkin is a vote for Donald Trump. “I ran against Donald Trump and Terry is running against an acolyte of Donald Trump,” said President Biden while speaking at a rally Tuesday night in Arlington. “We have a choice,” said McAuliffe at the same event. “A path that promotes conspiracies, hate, division, or a path focused on lifting up every single Virginian.”Youngkin, for his part, wants Virginians to know that a vote for McAuliffe is a vote for “critical race theory.” Not the legal discipline that deals with the distance between formal and actual equality, but the idea, spread by right-wing activists and their wealthy supporters, that public schools are teaching a racist ideology of guilt and anti-white sentiment. Youngkin’s singular message has been that he will keep this “critical race theory” out of Virginia’s schools.What this means, if the rhetoric of Youngkin’s strongest supporters is any indication, is an assault on any discussion of race and racism in the state’s classrooms. In an interview with the journalist Alex Wagner, a leading Republican activist in Virginia said exactly this, asserting that it should be “up to the parents” to teach students about racism and condemning a school assignment in which a sixth grade student blamed President Andrew Jackson for violence against Native Americans.Try to imagine what this would look like.Virginia is where African slavery first took root in Britain’s Atlantic empire. It is where, following that development, English settlers developed an ideology of racism to justify their decision to, as the historian Winthrop Jordan put it, “debase the Negro.” It is where, in the middle of the 18th century, a powerful class of planter-intellectuals developed a vision of liberty and freedom tied inextricably to their lives as slave owners, and it is where, a century later, their descendants would fight to build a slave empire in their name.And all of this is before we get to Reconstruction and Jim Crow and massive resistance to school integration and the many other forces that have shaped Virginia into the present. Just this week came news of the death of A. Linwood Holton, elected in 1969 as the state’s first Republican governor of the 20th century. Holton integrated Virginia schools and broke the back of the segregationist Byrd machine (named for the domineering Harry F. Byrd), which controlled the state from the 1890s into the 1960s.To take discussions of race and racism out of the classroom would, in practice, make it impossible to teach Virginia state history beyond dates, bullet points and the vaguest of generalities.One of the closing advertisements from the Youngkin campaign features a woman who took umbrage over Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” after her son, a high-school senior, said that the book gave him nightmares when he read it as part of an A.P. English class. (I do not doubt that this is true, but I also think that if Black students have to encounter racism — and speaking from experience, they do — then white students should at least have to learn about it.)Democracy requires empathy. We have to be able to see ourselves in one another to be able to see one another as political equals. I think history education is one important way to build that empathy. To understand the experiences of a person in a fundamentally different time and place is to practice the skills you need to see your fellow citizens as equal people even when their lives are profoundly different and distant from your own. This is why it’s vital that students learn as much as possible about the many varieties of people who have lived, and died, on this land.This democratic empathy is, I believe, a powerful force. It can, for example, lead white children in isolated rural Virginia to march and demonstrate in memory of a poor Black man who died at the hands of police in urban Minnesota.I do not know who will win the Virginia election. It looks, at this point, like a tossup. But I do know that, viewed in the light of empathy and its consequences, the panic against critical race theory looks like a rear-guard action in a battle already lost: a vain attempt to reverse the march of a force that has already done much to undermine hierarchy and the “proper” order of things.What I WroteMy Tuesday column was on the history of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and why Congress should expel those members who played a part in the Jan. 6 insurrection.If the ultimate goal of Section 3, in other words, was to preserve the integrity of Congress against those who would capture its power and plot against the constitutional order itself, then Representative Bush is right to cite the clause against any members of Congress who turn out to have collaborated with the plotters to overturn the election and whose allies are still fighting to “stop the steal.”My Friday column was a little more introspective than usual, as I tried to explain why I keep writing about structural and institutional changes I know will never happen:All of this is to say that I do not write about structural reform because I believe it will happen in my lifetime (although, of course, no one knows what the future will hold). I write about structural reform because, like Dahl, I think about and want readers to think expansively about American democracy and to understand that it is, and has always been, bigger than the Constitution.Now ReadingKeisha Blain on Fannie Lou Hamer for Time.Ali Karjoo-Ravary on Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of “Dune” for Slate.Garrett Epps on critical race theory for Washington Monthly.Talia B. Lavin on corporal punishment in her Substack newsletter.Anna Gaca on the Clash for Pitchfork.Andrea Stanley on the trauma of climate change in The Washington Post Magazine.Feedback If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to your friends. They can sign up here. If you want to share your thoughts on an item in this week’s newsletter or on the newsletter in general, please email me at jamelle-newsletter@nytimes.com. You can follow me on Twitter (@jbouie) and Instagram.Photo of the WeekJamelle BouieHere is something a little more lighthearted than what I’ve written this week. It is from Dinosaur Kingdom II, a bizarre attraction near the Luray Caverns in central Virginia. It features life-size dinosaur figures engaged in pitched battle with Union soldiers. It’s very strange. I visited not long after moving back to Virginia and wasted a few rolls of film taking pictures. This was one of the keepers.Now Eating: Creamy Cashew Butternut Squash SoupThis is a great, if nontraditional, butternut squash soup. My only recommendation is that you should roast your butternut squash before adding it to the pot. I prefer to cut a squash into large chunks and then roast it at around 400 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes, to develop the flavor of the squash. It’s a little extra work, but you won’t regret it. Recipe comes from NYT Cooking.Ingredients3 tablespoons olive oil or unsalted butter1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped1 cup raw cashews1 clove garlic, finely chopped1 large butternut squash (about 2 pounds), peeled and cut into ½-inch dice5 cups vegetable or chicken stock, plus additional if needed2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger2 teaspoons ground cumin2 teaspoons ground coriander1 teaspoon curry powder1 teaspoon ground turmericKosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste1 cup coconut milk, plus additional1 sprig fresh rosemaryDirectionsIn large stockpot or Dutch oven set over medium-high heat, warm the olive oil until shimmering. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the cashews and cook, stirring, until the onions are translucent and the cashews have slightly browned, about 3 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the squash, broth, ginger, cumin, coriander, curry powder and turmeric and stir to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and bring the soup to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pot, and cook the soup until the squash is easily pierced with a knife, 20 to 25 minutes. Uncover the soup and let it cool for 15 minutes.Starting on slow speed and increasing to high, purée the soup in small batches in a blender until smooth. Place a towel over the top of the blender in case of any splatters. You can also use an immersion blender (let the soup remain in the pot), but it will take longer to purée until smooth.If using a blender, return the soup to the pot, add the coconut milk and rosemary sprig, and cook over low heat, covered, until slightly thickened, for about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready. If serving the soup later, while reheating the soup, thin it out with more broth or coconut milk until the desired consistency. More

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      Letitia James Is Running for Governor of New York

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      The attorney general, who oversaw the inquiry into sexual harassment allegations against Andrew Cuomo, will challenge Gov. Kathy Hochul for the Democratic nomination.Letitia James, the New York attorney general who oversaw the inquiry into sexual harassment claims against former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that ultimately led to his resignation, declared her candidacy for governor on Friday, setting up a history-making, high-profile matchup in the Democratic primary.She begins the campaign as Gov. Kathy Hochul’s most formidable challenger, and her announcement triggers a start to what may be an extraordinarily competitive primary — a contest set to be shaped by issues of ideology, race and region in a state still battling its way out of the pandemic.Her announcement comes at a volatile moment in state politics, a day after Mr. Cuomo was charged in a sexual misconduct complaint based on the account of one of the women whose claims of sexual harassment were detailed in the attorney general’s report.That development, Ms. James said, validated “the findings in our report,” and to her allies it further cemented the case for her leadership. But it has also added fresh fuel to Mr. Cuomo’s suggestion that her investigation was politically motivated, a message that may resonate with some of the voters who still view him favorably.“I’m running for governor of New York because I have the experience, vision, and courage to take on the powerful on behalf of all New Yorkers,” Ms. James wrote on Twitter as she released her announcement video on Friday.In the video, a narrator said that Ms. James was running “for good-paying jobs, a health care system that puts people ahead of profits, to protect the environment, make housing more affordable and lift up our schools in every neighborhood.” The video did not mention Mr. Cuomo by name.Ms. James, a veteran Brooklyn politician and the first woman of color to be elected to statewide office in New York, is seeking to become the first Black female governor in the country; Ms. Hochul, who is white, is the state’s first female chief executive and the first governor in more than a century to have deep roots in western New York.The race may have even broader implications as a key barometer of the direction of the Democratic Party in the Biden era. Ms. Hochul, of the Buffalo area, was once known as a more conservative Democrat, but she has increasingly moved leftward.Ms. James, by turn, has plenty of connections to the relatively moderate Democratic establishment, but also has longstanding ties to the left-wing Working Families Party. It is not yet clear what issues she will use to differentiate herself politically from Ms. Hochul, but there is plainly the potential for vigorous clashes over how best to move the state and party forward.Her announcement came two days after The New York Times and other outlets reported that she and her team had begun informing key political players of her intentions.“Since she was first elected as a Working Families Party candidate nearly 20 years ago, Tish has been a courageous fighter for everyday New Yorkers,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, the state director of the New York Working Families Party. “We expect that Tish will campaign with a clear progressive vision for New York.”Ms. James enters the race with a record that has drawn acclaim from many liberals in the state. As attorney general, she made headlines for suing the National Rifle Association, investigating President Donald J. Trump and presiding over the Cuomo inquiry, which was conducted by outside lawyers.“I’ve sued the Trump administration 76 times — but who’s counting?” she deadpanned in the video.She appeared to make several allusions to Mr. Cuomo. “I’ve held accountable those who mistreat and harass women in the workplace, no matter how powerful the offenders,” she said at one point.“I’ve spent my career guided by a simple principle: Stand up to the powerful on behalf of the vulnerable,” she said at another. “To be a force for change.”Ms. James’s allies believe that she could assemble a powerful coalition that includes Black voters of varying ideological views, a broad swath of left-leaning voters who welcomed her probes of Mr. Cuomo, national donors interested in her history-making potential, and a base in the most vote-rich part of the state.She has deep connections to some labor leaders, too; John Samuelsen, the international president of the Transport Workers Union, declared minutes after Ms. James’s announcement that she “will be a governor that working New Yorkers can trust.” His union officially endorsed Ms. James a few hours later — the first union endorsement in the race for governor, her campaign noted.In recent weeks, Ms. James has moved to build out her political and fund-raising teams, and she begins the contest with significant New York City connections after serving on the City Council and as public advocate.She has also spent time traveling across New York — in her official capacity and for purely political outings — and she and her team have sounded out donors, labor leaders and elected officials as she moved toward a bid. Her team has begun seeking commitments for early endorsements that could help her build momentum quickly.But Ms. Hochul begins the race with her own significant advantages. She has been racing to cement an overwhelming fund-raising edge; receptive donors are one of the many benefits of incumbency.Ms. Hochul is strong upstate and already has several key endorsements.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesShe is likely to perform strongly upstate, and she has spent years building relationships on Long Island. Since becoming governor, she has maintained a breakneck public schedule heavily concentrated in the five boroughs, working to shore up her downstate strength and tapping a lieutenant governor, Brian A. Benjamin, who hails from Harlem.And she has already locked down significant institutional support from groups including the Democratic Governors Association and Emily’s List, the fund-raising powerhouse that backs female candidates who support abortion rights. She has been endorsed by county chairs across the state, the state Democratic chairman and the president of the N.A.A.C.P. New York State Conference.Many New Yorkers approve of the way she has handled the transition from a decade of Mr. Cuomo’s iron-fisted reign and appear inclined to give her more time to acclimate to the job — while some Democrats would prefer Ms. James to stay as attorney general to see through existing cases, including one involving Mr. Trump and his business dealings.Ms. Hochul and Ms. James are unlikely to be the only contenders for the nomination, and there is a real possibility of the kind of messy, crowded primary that some party leaders, wary of Democratic infighting, had hoped to avoid.Two of Ms. James’s fellow Brooklynites, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Jumaane D. Williams, the public advocate, are both taking steps toward campaigns for governor and could cut into her coalition in New York City.Jumaane D. Williams, the public advocate, has formed an exploratory committee ahead of a possible bid for governor.Thalia Juarez for The New York TimesRepresentative Thomas Suozzi, who represents Long Island and a sliver of Queens, has also been considering a run. Unlike the other possible contenders, he would seek to outflank Ms. Hochul as a moderate option in the race as she works to build strength in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Steven Bellone, the Suffolk County executive, is also weighing a campaign.But for months, the question of whether Ms. James would run was the defining issue of the nascent primary contest, with some allies describing her as deliberative, and others growing increasingly eager to learn her decision as other aspects of the race came into focus.Her answer goes a long way toward cementing the contours of the field.Now, perhaps the biggest unknown is the question of how Mr. Cuomo may seek to involve himself in the race. The former governor, who as of the most recent filings continued to maintain a large war chest, and his team have repeatedly sought to question Ms. James’s integrity, attacking her in emails and letters sent to onetime supporters.“The fact that the attorney general — as predicted — is about to announce a run for governor is lost on no one,” Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said in response to the complaint on Thursday.Ms. James, for her part, laced into those efforts at a recent speech in New York City as she defended her work.“No one is above the law,” she said. “Our state can do better.” More

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      Why a Changing Richmond and Its Suburbs Are Key to Virginia’s Vote

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      The region has been an engine of Democratic victories, but now the party is on defense as Republicans go after swing voters with worries about schools.RICHMOND — Schuyler VanValkenburg, a Democrat in the Virginia House of Delegates, drove the oak-shaded streets of his suburban district, pointing out landmarks that told the story of how he had won his seat after Republicans held it for decades.Over there was one of the county’s first mosques. There, the Hindu Center. The Final Gravity Brewing Company had opened near Love Shack, a breakfast spot offering Virginia ham and eggs on a croissant.The houses of worship for global immigrants and the cool watering holes for young transplants reflected sweeping demographic changes that have pushed politics in the Richmond suburbs, including Henrico County, to the left.“A new generation moved in,” said Mr. VanValkenburg, a high school government teacher first elected in 2017. “Henrico became browner. It became denser.”But now, he and his party are in races that are far tighter than most expected, including a deadlocked governor’s contest. And Democrats’ historic margins in Virginia in recent years are suddenly looking as though they may have been the result not of an inexorable demographic tide, but of a furious resistance to Donald J. Trump — one that exaggerated the true strength of the Democratic Party in a state that could be returning to its previous role as a battleground.Without Mr. Trump in office, Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic governor seeking a new term in that post, is fighting for his political life, four years after the current Democratic governor coasted to a 9-point win.Greater Richmond, including the capital city and its diversifying suburbs, is the second-fastest-growing region in the state and a key to the governor’s race, as well as to control of the Legislature.Demographic changes in Richmond are reflected in the many new houses of worship, like the Islamic Center of Richmond.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesA poll released Wednesday by Christopher Newport University suggested that Democrats were falling well short in the region. While it mirrored most other polls in showing the governor’s race deadlocked statewide, it said Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate, had pulled away from Mr. McAuliffe in the Richmond media market — an area extending beyond the city and its populous suburbs into rural counties.A Fox News poll on Thursday was even grimmer for Democrats: It showed Mr. Youngkin with an 8-point lead among likely voters statewide ahead of Tuesday’s election.“On the ground, it feels like our side has all the energy,” said Mark Early Jr., a Republican vying for a Democratic-held seat in the House of Delegates that straddles Richmond and suburban Chesterfield County.Mr. Early said a Youngkin television ad ripping Mr. McAuliffe for saying parents shouldn’t tell schools what to teach had poured “gasoline on the fire” of some voters’ frustrations over public schools, first kindled last year by Covid-related school closures that set back students’ learning. “I hear a lot of blowback from moms, especially working moms,” he said.Democrats accuse Mr. Youngkin of distortions and fear-mongering on schools, including calls for police officers in every school and a ban on critical race theory, which educators say plays no role in K-12 curriculums.Still, Mr. Youngkin’s forward-looking closing message, emphasizing “parents’ rights,” seemed considerably more resonant with voters than Mr. McAuliffe’s retrospective final appeal — reminding Virginians, whose swing counties are doing quite well economically, of all the jobs he created and the money he spent on education as governor from 2014 to 2018.“If Youngkin is able to turn it around here, I think it will be because of his education gambit,” said Richard Meagher, a politics professor at Randolph-Macon College near Richmond. “That’s the one issue where you can still win back those suburban voters who have turned into the Democratic column lately.”For Mr. McAuliffe to prevail in greater Richmond, Democrats need to drive up turnout in the city; maintain their gains of the past 15 years in Henrico County, north and east of the city; and not cede too much ground in Chesterfield County, which includes more conservative western suburbs.Mary Margaret Kastelberg told voters she wasn’t a Trump apologist as she canvassed in Henrico County.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesOn Thursday evening, Mary Margaret Kastelberg, a Republican challenging a Democratic delegate in a bellwether district in Henrico County, spent her 26th wedding anniversary knocking on the doors of residents her campaign had identified as swing voters.She wasn’t having much luck.Laura Kohlroser, still in hospital scrubs from her workday, said the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol had deeply soured her on Republicans. “The way the Republican Party stood behind Donald Trump, that to me was just deplorable,” she said.Walter Taylor said that he had been a “die-hard Republican” through 2016, voting that year for Mr. Trump, but that his shambolic presidency “turned me 180 degrees.” He was not convinced that Mr. Youngkin, a former financial executive, was really the hoops-shooting, fleece-vest-wearing regular guy he portrayed in TV ads.“He’s too close to Trump,’’ said Mr. Taylor, a retired insurance underwriter. But Ms. Kastelberg earned his vote, he told her.Walter Taylor, right, a Republican, is skeptical of Mr. Youngkin because “he’s too close to Trump.’’Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesEarlier on Thursday, Mr. McAuliffe had been in Richmond for a rally with leaders of the African American community, which makes up 40 percent of the population. Early voting in the city has been running behind early voting in the suburbs, an imperfect but useful gauge of enthusiasm.At a community center on the North Side, Frank Moseley, director of a nonpartisan group that informs voters of color about issues, said Democrats’ failure to deliver on big promises made to Black voters in 2020 — on gun violence, affordable housing and voting rights — had cooled some voters’ ardor. “We are probably one of the most letdown voting blocs,” he said. “That is one of the biggest detractors for individuals going out to vote.”Aja Moore acknowledged that voters under 30 are much less likely to vote this year.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesOne of the few younger people in the room, Aja Moore, 24, acknowledged what polls are showing: Voters under 30, a big part of the Biden coalition last year, are less likely to vote now.“They’re busy with their life,” said Ms. Moore, who works in government relations for a big law firm. “They’re not into it.’’In an interview, Amy Wentz, a member of a civil rights group, the Richmond Crusade for Voters, suggested another potential reason that some Black voters, especially women, may be in a funk: The party nominated a 64-year-old white man for governor after he defeated two Black female legislators in the primary.Ms. Wentz, who said she was a strong McAuliffe supporter, forwarded a Facebook post from a friend. “I know I am going to get fussed at, but I am not motivated to vote,” the woman wrote. “I really feel some type of way about Virginia not having a Black woman as our gubernatorial candidate.”Ms. Wentz said Mr. McAuliffe had done a good job reaching out to people of color, including in a Zoom meeting with her own organization. “I feel like we’re going to step up,” she said. “We’re not feeling it right now, but I feel like that by Tuesday, people are going to do the right thing. There’s too much at stake.”The 2020 census confirmed the demographic upheaval of the Richmond region. Within the city, which only last month removed the last Confederate statue — of Robert E. Lee — from historic Monument Avenue, the share of white residents rose over the past decade faster than any locality in the state. Gentrification has transformed industrial areas into neighborhoods of craft breweries and restaurants serving Alsatian cuisine.At the same time, the Black population swelled in the suburbs: by 25 percent in Chesterfield County, its largest growth among all racial groups. In Henrico County, the populations of Black, Asian and Hispanic residents all rose significantly.Politics in the Richmond suburbs have moved to the left because of gentrification and a population swell of Black, Asian and Latino residents.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesMr. VanValkenburg, the lawmaker and teacher, said that 15 years ago, his students were overwhelmingly white. Now, about 100 languages are spoken in the county.He rose to anger over Mr. Youngkin’s campaigning on issues involving education, including his stoking the cultural issue of critical race theory — a dog whistle to white voters that is not even taught in grade school — and accusing Democrats of wanting to keep parents out of classrooms.“Of course parents should have a say in education,” said Mr. VanValkenburg, who emails parents weekly updates on their children’s class work.Republicans, he complained, “keep trying to gin up issues that aren’t real as a way to scare people,” including appeals to conservatives who have led efforts to remove books with gay and racial themes from schools.If Mr. Youngkin is elected and fulfills his pledge to ban critical race theory his first day, Mr. VanValkenburg said, it would have no practical effect. “But what it would do is create a culture of fear,” he said, driving through his district on Wednesday.“Does somebody feel bad about their race if we teach about slavery?” he added.On Thursday, the local paper reported that a parent had complained at a school board meeting about a novel in school libraries about an interracial teenage romance. Mr. VanValkenburg’s Republican opponent was quoted expressing his disgust. The district removed eight copies of the book from its shelves. More

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      Glenn Youngkin Was a Traditional Republican. Then He Became a Culture Warrior.

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      As he runs for governor of Virginia, Mr. Youngkin has built a coalition, as one prominent conservative described it, of Trump voters and angry parents.For months as he campaigned for governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin tried to sound a lot like the kind of Republican who dominated the party back in 2009 — the last time a Republican was elected to statewide office.He avoided discussion of divisive social issues in favor of praise of free markets and job creators, and conservative activists knew very little about him or what he believed as a result.“He was on nobody’s radar screen,” said John Fredericks, a radio host who was chairman of Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaigns in Virginia in 2016 and 2020.In the final days before the election on Tuesday, many Republicans say they still have no idea what Mr. Youngkin really believes. But they have cheered him on regardless, after he took a hard-right turn and began promoting the causes that are animating conservatives and supporters of the former president, from the debate over teaching the impact of racism to transgender rights in schools.To Mr. Youngkin’s critics, his culture warrior persona is cynical and disingenuous — just the kind of transactional decision that a career investment manager with a fortune estimated at close to $400 million would make to win.But to his Republican supporters, whether or not it’s an act isn’t really the point.As long as Mr. Youngkin is saying what they want to hear and signaling what they understand he cannot say out loud — running on the issue of “election integrity,” for instance, rather than wholeheartedly accepting Mr. Trump’s lies about election fraud in 2020 — many conservatives see his campaign as providing a template for how to delicately embrace Trumpism in blue states.“What he’s done is he’s danced on the edge of a knife for seven months,” said Mr. Fredericks, who initially backed a more overtly pro-Trump candidate before Mr. Youngkin won the Republican nomination. “But he’s built a coalition that is very formidable — Trump voters and angry parents.” He added, “I think Trump supporters understand there really is no time for internal squabbling or hurt feelings. They understand the stakes of this election are enormous.”Mr. Youngkin’s Republican detractors, however, see an opportunistic politician pandering to the party’s base.“Whether he believes in this Trump stuff or if he’s trafficking in it, I don’t know,” said David Ramadan, a former Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates who now teaches at George Mason University. “But if he doesn’t really believe this stuff and is just trafficking in it,” Mr. Ramadan added, “that’s worse than believing it.”The Youngkin campaign did not respond to an interview request.On paper at least, Mr. Youngkin, 54, is an odd fit for a party that has rejected the elitism he embodies. In fact, his life and career have had far more in common with Mitt Romney’s than Mr. Trump’s: a degree from Harvard Business School, a long and lucrative career in private equity, devout religious convictions and even a family love of horses. He owns a 31-acre horse farm in Fairfax County with his wife, Suzanne.Before he entered the governor’s race — his first try at elected office — Mr. Youngkin donated extensively to Republican candidates who were aligned with the party’s establishment wing: Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor; Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Rob Portman of Ohio; and former Representative Paul Ryan, according to federal campaign finance records. He gave Mr. Romney’s campaign and its allied political groups $75,000 during the 2012 campaign, records show.Those affiliations and his lack of a reputation in Virginia Republican politics made many conservatives skeptical of Mr. Youngkin. His background did, too. He worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company before joining the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based private equity firm with deep roots in the political establishment. He worked there for more than 25 years, climbing the ranks and eventually becoming a co-chief executive officer. He announced he was leaving the firm in the summer of 2020 and declared his candidacy for governor a few months later.As the country’s culture wars reached a boiling point earlier this year, angry parents in Loudoun County denounced school administrators for implementing a curriculum that they said taught white students they were racist. Mr. Youngkin seized on the issue, surprising conservatives who assumed he was more in the mold of Republicans who have fallen out of favor with the activist base.“Where you have to give Glenn Youngkin credit is he leaned into it,” said Terry Schilling, president of the Virginia-based American Principles Project, which has been running pro-Youngkin ads. “I didn’t see a willingness from him to take these issues on. I just assumed he was a Mitt Romney-type candidate.”One of the group’s ads centers on the sexual assault of a girl in a high school bathroom, a case that conservatives have used to criticize transgender bathroom laws, although it was not clear the attacker in that case was transgender. In a speech last week, Mr. Youngkin linked the case to the campaign themes he has aimed at anxious suburban parents.“What other tragedy awaits Virginia’s children?” he asked.Mr. Youngkin has also vowed that if elected, he would ban the teaching in public schools of critical race theory, an academic body of thought about the effects of systemic racism that has galvanized conservatives around the country. It is generally not introduced until college and is not part of classroom teaching in Virginia.At a parent-focused rally in Winchester, Va., supporters listened to Mr. Youngkin. Jason Andrew for The New York TimesSome Republicans have been surprised at the audience their messages have found in Virginia, a state that has steadily trended away from the party in the last decade. Polls have generally put the race in a dead heat between Mr. Youngkin and his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, a former governor and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, but a Fox News survey released Thursday showed Mr. Youngkin pulling away from Mr. McAuliffe, with an eight-percentage-point lead among likely voters, exceeding the poll’s margin of sampling error.Mr. Youngkin began his campaign by selling himself as a political outsider and businessman who would bring competence and common sense to the governor’s mansion. “I was tired of watching what was happening with folks that have never really run anything,” he said in an interview with Fox Business in February. Early on, he nodded to the exaggerated claims by pro-Trump Republicans that fraud had tipped the 2020 election and established a task force to recruit citizens to help his campaign monitor balloting in Virginia.He made little secret of his desire to avoid getting dragged into debates over social issues and was secretly filmed by a liberal activist saying that he couldn’t talk about abortion because he would alienate independent voters. But when the debate over critical race theory started consuming conservative media, Mr. Youngkin wasn’t so taciturn.“Critical race theory has moved into our school system and we have to remove it,” he told Fox News in August.Increasingly, Mr. Schilling with the American Principles Project and other conservative activists see the Virginia race as a dress rehearsal for the 2022 midterm elections. Those races, they said, are likely to hinge on parents of schoolchildren who believe their public schools have become battlegrounds in the culture wars.“If Youngkin pulls this out, or even if he outperforms expectations, I think what you’re going to see in 2022 is a Tea Party-like movement centered on families and schools,” Mr. Schilling said.If Mr. Youngkin prevails, it will be in part thanks to Republicans who decided it did not matter what he believed.“I don’t know where his heart is,” Mr. Schilling added. “I’m not thinking a lot about it.” More

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      Jumaane Williams Runs for Public Advocate With Eye on Governor's Job

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      Mr. Williams is exploring a run for governor even as he is poised to win his first full term as public advocate after five elections.When New Yorkers show up to vote on Nov. 2, they will see a familiar name listed on the ballot for public advocate: Jumaane D. Williams, the Democratic incumbent.Because of a quirk in political and electoral timing, this is the third time that Mr. Williams has had to run for public advocate in less than three years.“I’m so honored to be your public advocate,” Mr. Williams told a crowd at a get-out-the-vote rally on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Sunday. “I’d be honored if you re-elect me one more time.”But Mr. Williams, 45, left another political goal unmentioned that day: He is also a potential candidate for governor.Just a few weeks earlier, Mr. Williams had traveled around the state, meeting with elected officials and potential constituents in Rochester, Syracuse and Hudson, pitching his economic and social vision for the state.Mr. Williams has formed an exploratory committee to run for governor next year in what is expected to be a crowded, competitive Democratic primary field. He would have to unseat the incumbent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and also might have to beat other candidates who are likely to include the state attorney general, Letitia James.Ms. Hochul, who leads early polls, has been busy fund-raising and collecting endorsements. Ms. James is expected to soon announce her candidacy for governor, while other potential candidates like Mayor Bill de Blasio and Representative Thomas Suozzi also loom.Mr. Williams enjoys some statewide voter recognition: In 2018, he lost to Ms. Hochul in a Democratic primary for lieutenant governor by almost seven percentage points, but did better than expected; he outpaced Ms. Hochul in New York City by 60,000 votes, racking up big totals in Manhattan and Brooklyn, the county with the most registered Democrats in the state.He also would be the clearest left-leaning alternative to Ms. Hochul, a moderate Democrat from Buffalo; Mr. Williams is a self-identified “activist elected official” who says he is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.Mr. Williams said he was considering running for governor because the power to make groundbreaking changes to affordable housing and criminal justice, the two issues he has focused on most during his political career, resides in the governor’s office.“It might be a dereliction to not even consider running for governor,” Mr. Williams said.“It might be a dereliction not to even consider running for governor,” Mr. Williams said.Anna Watts for The New York TimesYet running for one office while publicly eyeing a higher one can be precarious. Just as the race for governor is heating up. Mr. Williams has had to navigate criticism from his opponents that he is not focused on his job as an ombudsman for the public.“New Yorkers deserve someone who is focused on crime, the economy, the issues that are specific to New York City,” Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil, the Republican nominee for public advocate, said in a debate with Mr. Williams earlier this month. “If you are running for governor, there’s also the fact that you would be distracted campaigning for governor.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The office of public advocate was created to help diversify the city’s leadership and potentially serve as a launching pad to higher office. Both Ms. James, who became the first Black woman elected to citywide office when she became public advocate in 2014, and Mayor Bill de Blasio held the post.Antonio Reynoso, a Democratic councilman from Brooklyn who is likely to win election as the borough president of Brooklyn, is on Mr. Williams’s exploratory committee along with Mr. Lander, also a councilman from Brooklyn and the Democratic nominee for city comptroller.The committee hasn’t met in person, and most of their phone conversations have been focused on Mr. Williams’s re-election effort. “We are doing our best to make sure he does well in the public advocate race,” Mr. Reynoso said. “It’s about timing. He didn’t ask the governor to do what he did and resign.”He challenged Kathy Hochul in a Democratic primary for the lieutenant governor nomination, but she prevailed.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesMr. Williams endorsed and campaigned for India Walton, the socialist who won the Democratic nomination for mayor of Buffalo over the longtime mayor Byron Brown. He is expected to return to Buffalo to campaign for Ms. Walton this weekend; Mr. Brown is still running as a write-in candidate.Mr. Lander said he sees many similarities between Ms. Walton’s race and a potential primary run for governor by Mr. Williams.“That’s an example of someone who has a background as a courageous, progressive organizer who challenged a moderate incumbent in a race where most of the pundits didn’t give her any chance to win,” Mr. Lander said.Even if Mr. Williams were to run and lose in a Democratic primary for governor, a good showing could position him to be a leading far-left voice for New York, a local complement to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also a democratic socialist, said Christina Greer, a political scientist at Fordham University.“There is a progressive wind blowing through the state that Jumaane can capitalize on,” Professor Greer said. “He represents a type of progressive politics that is going to push the conversation to the left.”Brad Lander, a city councilman and the Democratic nominee for comptroller, is on Mr. Williams’s exploratory committee.Chery Dieu-Nalio for The New York TimesA recent Marist poll had Mr. Williams in third place with 15 percent of the vote in a theoretical contest against Ms. Hochul and Ms. James. The governor had 44 percent of the vote and Ms. James had 28 percent among registered New York Democrats. Ms. Hochul also had the highest favorability rating among the three.In his unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor, Mr. Williams positioned himself as a check on Mr. Cuomo’s leadership. He has continued that message in his potential bid for governor, suggesting that Ms. Hochul was ineffectual as Mr. Cuomo’s No. 2.Mr. Williams said that became apparent when New York was the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. “That might not have happened if we had a lieutenant governor who was more willing to push,” Mr. Williams said.Ms. Hochul has tackled “low-hanging fruit” since becoming governor, he said, criticizing her for not visiting Rikers Island during a spate of inmate deaths, or seeking more federal resources for the crisis at the jail.“The bar from Cuomo is pretty low,” said Mr. Williams who declined to offer criticisms of Ms. James. (Mr. Williams also refused to comment about the prospect of Mr. de Blasio running for governor.)Meredith Kelly, a spokeswoman for Ms. Hochul, declined to comment.Lee M. Miringoff, the director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said Mr. Williams would have an uphill battle against Ms. Hochul and Ms. James because he would struggle to match their fund-raising and name recognition.“He probably kicks himself periodically when he sees Hochul on television,” said Mr. Miringoff. “He almost became governor because he was close to becoming lieutenant governor.” More

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      Will We See Red or Blue Mirages in Election Results on Tuesday?

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      Mail-in ballots skewed early returns in some states in 2020. Will the trend repeat itself on Tuesday?Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.Virginia was not close last November. Joseph R. Biden Jr. won there by 10 percentage points, roughly the same margin by which then-President Donald J. Trump won Alaska.But for hours after the polls closed in Virginia, partial returns showed Biden trailing, at times by substantial margins — around 18 points, for instance, as of 9 p.m. Eastern time.Part of that was geography; the rural, conservative counties of southwestern Virginia tend to start reporting election results before the more populous Democratic strongholds of Northern Virginia. But it was also a product of something new: a so-called red mirage. Because so many Democrats voted by mail in response to the pandemic and mail-in ballots took longer to process, the early returns were so skewed that even an easy win didn’t look like it for hours. And narrow wins? Well, just look at Georgia or Pennsylvania, which weren’t called for Biden for days.Other states started processing mail-in ballots first, creating blue mirages. Around the same time that Trump appeared to be running away with Virginia, Biden appeared narrowly ahead in Ohio, where he actually lost by eight percentage points.Now, the question is whether the mirages were one more weird 2020 thing, or whether they are now a long-term feature of U.S. politics.More specifically: Should we expect to see mirages in the important elections happening around the country next Tuesday? Like the Virginia governor’s race between the Democrat Terry McAuliffe and the Republican Glenn Youngkin? Or the race for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court?On the one hand, the state of the world, and of U.S. politics, is not what it was last fall. The coronavirus case rate is decreasing, about two-thirds of Americans have received at least one dose of a vaccine, and there are fewer restrictions on daily activities. And while Trump’s lies about fraud in last year’s election have infused nearly every corner of the Republican Party, his broadsides against early and mail voting are no longer in the headlines every day.Christina Freundlich, a spokeswoman for McAuliffe, said the campaign’s data showed that many Democrats who voted by mail last year were returning to in-person voting on Election Day this year. Conversely, my colleague Nick Corasaniti reports that some Republicans are realizing that maligning early and mail voting could hurt them, and are encouraging their supporters to consider those methods. Together, these trends could narrow the partisan gap between early and Election Day ballots.But narrowing is not eliminating.Consider California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom soundly defeated a Republican recall effort last month. With two-thirds of ballots counted, he was about five percentage points ahead of where he ended up with all ballots counted. While the shift was irrelevant in a race Newsom won by a huge margin, it was more than large enough to have created a false impression if the race had been competitive.McAuliffe’s campaign expects early returns in Virginia to be skewed toward Youngkin. That is likely to be the case regardless of who ultimately wins..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}If the 2020 election is a guide, partial results in Pennsylvania — where voters will decide an expensive and contentious race for a state Supreme Court seat that is currently held by a Republican — could be similarly misleading.It’s harder to predict whether we’ll see mirages elsewhere, much less their color, because many states have revised their election procedures since November.In New Jersey, home to a governor’s race that is expected to be less competitive than Virginia’s (Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, has a strong polling lead over his Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli), the early presidential returns were pretty similar to the final results. But that may be because New Jersey ran last year’s election almost entirely by mail, and it’s hard to have a mirage when almost everyone votes by the same method. The state is not doing that this time around.Other notable races next week are for the mayors of Atlanta (Georgia had a red mirage last year), Boston (Massachusetts had no major mirage), Buffalo and New York City (New York State had no major mirage), Detroit (Michigan had a red mirage), Minneapolis (Minnesota had no major mirage) and Seattle (Washington conducts all-mail elections, so no mirage).But if we can’t predict where the mirages will be, we can say this: They will not in any way be evidence of foul play, as Trump so vociferously and falsely claimed after his loss. They’re just the way our elections work now. There is nothing nefarious about election administration procedures varying from state to state, or certain ballots being easier and faster to count than others.So don’t celebrate — or panic — based on what you see at 9 p.m. You might just be in that alternate universe where Trump won Virginia and Biden won Ohio.Change into comfy pajamas and check back in the morning.nine days of ideas to remake our futureAs world leaders gather in Glasgow for consequential climate change negotiations, join us at The New York Times Climate Hub to explore answers to one of the most urgent questions of our time: How do we adapt and thrive on a changing planet? Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 3-11; in person and online. Get tickets at nytclimatehub.com.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      in Elections

      Una despedida esperanzada para los lectores

      by

      Mi vida se transformó cuando tenía 25 años y entré nervioso a una entrevista de trabajo en la imponente oficina de Abe Rosenthal, el editor legendario y volátil de The New York Times. En un momento, no estuve de acuerdo con él, así que esperé a que se enojara y llamara a seguridad. En cambio, me tendió la mano y me ofreció un trabajo.La euforia me desbordó: ¡era muy joven y había encontrado a mi empleador para el resto de la vida! Estaba seguro de que la única manera en que dejaría el Times sería muerto.Sin embargo, esta es mi última columna para el diario. Estoy dejando un trabajo que amo para postularme como gobernador de Oregón.Es sensato cuestionar mi decisión. Cuando le preguntaron a mi colega William Safire si dejaría su columna en el Times para ser secretario de Estado, contestó: “¿Y por qué bajar un escalón en mi carrera?”.Así que, ¿por qué estoy haciéndolo?Voy a llegar a eso, pero primero quiero compartir unas cuantas lecciones de mis 37 años como reportero, editor y columnista del Times.En especial, quiero dejar claro que, aunque pasé mi carrera en la primera línea del sufrimiento y la depravación humana, cubriendo genocidio, guerra, pobreza e injusticia, salí de ahí con la firme creencia de que podemos lograr un progreso real si logramos convocar la suficiente voluntad política. Somos una especie magnífica, y podemos hacer las cosas mejor.Lección 1: A un lado de lo peor de la humanidad, encontrarás también lo mejor.El genocidio en Darfur me marcó y horrorizó. Para cubrir la matanza, crucé fronteras sin ser visto, escapé de puestos de control, y me congracié con asesinos en masa.Fue difícil no llorar mientras entrevistaba a niños traumatizados que habían recibido balazos, habían sido violados o quedado huérfanos. Era imposible reportear en Darfur y no oler la maldad en el aire. Pero, junto con los monstruos, invariablemente encontré a héroes.Había adolescentes que se ofrecieron para usar sus arcos y flechas para proteger a sus aldeas de los milicianos que llevaban armas automáticas. Había trabajadores humanitarios, en su mayoría locales, que arriesgaron sus vidas para dar asistencia. Y sudaneses de a pie, como Suad Ahmed, una mujer de 25 años de Darfur que conocí en un campo de refugiados.Suad y su hermana Halima, de 10 años, estaban recogiendo leña cuando vieron que los yanyauid, una milicia genocida, se dirigían hacia ellas a caballo.“¡Corre!”, le dijo Suad a su hermana. “Debes correr y escapar”.Suad creó una distracción para que el yanyauid la persiguiera a ella en lugar de a Halima. Atraparon a Suad, la golpearon brutalmente y la violaron en grupo; la dejaron demasiado herida para caminar.Suad restó importancia a su heroísmo, y me dijo que si hubiera corrido, la habrían capturado de todos modos. Dijo que el hecho de que su hermana escapara hizo que el sacrificio valiera la pena.Incluso en un panorama de maldad, las personas más memorables no son los Himmler ni los Eichmann sino las Anne Franks y Raoul Wallenberg, y las Suad Ahmeds, quienes son capaces de una bondad inspiradora frente al repugnante mal. Ellas son la razón por la que no dejé el frente de batalla deprimido sino inspirado.Lección 2: En general, sabemos cómo mejorar el bienestar en el país y fuera de él. Lo que falta es voluntad política.Hay cosas buenas que suceden a nuestro alrededor sin que nos demos cuenta de ellas, y son el resultado de una comprensión más profunda de lo que funciona para hacer la diferencia. Eso puede parecer sorprendente viniendo de un columnista apesadumbrado, que ha cubierto el hambre, las atrocidades y la devastación climática. Pero el hecho de que los periodistas solo cubran las noticias de los aviones que se estrellan, y no los que aterrizan con éxito, no significa que todos los vuelos terminen en tragedia.Considera esto: históricamente, casi la mitad de los humanos murieron en la infancia; ahora solo muere el 4 por ciento. En los últimos años, hasta la pandemia de la COVID-19, 170.000 personas en todo el mundo salían de la pobreza extrema todos los días. Otras 325.000 personas obtienen electricidad cada día. Unas 200.000 personas lograron tener acceso a agua potable. La pandemia ha sido un gran revés para el mundo en desarrollo, pero la tendencia más general de logros históricos permanecerá; esto es, si aplicamos las lecciones aprendidas y redoblamos los esfuerzos al encarar las políticas climáticas..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Aquí, en Estados Unidos, hemos logrado aumentar las tasas de graduación de la secundaria, reducir a la mitad el número de personas sin hogar entre los veteranos y disminuir el embarazo adolescente en más del 60 por ciento desde su momento más alto en 1991. Estos éxitos deberían inspirarnos a hacer más: si sabemos qué hacer para reducir la carencia de vivienda de los veteranos, podemos aplicar las mismas lecciones para reducirla en los niños.Lección 3: El talento es universal, aunque las oportunidades no lo sean.El mayor recurso del mundo sin explotar es el enorme potencial de las personas que no han sido completamente impulsadas o educadas. Se trata de un recordatorio de lo mucho que podemos ganar si tan solo hacemos mejores inversiones en el capital humano.La médica más excepcional que he conocido no estudió en la Escuela de Medicina de Harvard. De hecho, ella nunca ha ido a una escuela de medicina o a escuela alguna. Mamitu Gashe, una mujer etíope que no sabía leer, padeció una fístula obstétrica y fue sometida a tratamientos prolongados en un hospital. Mientras estaba allí, comenzó a ayudar.Los médicos estaban desbordados y se dieron cuenta de que era muy inteligente y capaz, y empezaron a darle más responsabilidades. Con el tiempo, ella misma comenzó a realizar cirugías de fístulas y, después, se convirtió en una de las cirujanas de fístulas más distinguidas del mundo. Cuando profesores de obstetricia de Estados Unidos iban a su hospital para aprender a corregir fístulas, su maestra a menudo era Mamitu.Pero, por supuesto, hay muchos otros casos, personas igual de extraordinarias y hábiles que Mamitu, que nunca tienen una oportunidad.Hace unos años, me enteré de un niño sin hogar que nació en Nigeria, asistía al tercer grado y acababa de ganar el campeonato de ajedrez del estado de Nueva York para su grupo de edad. Visité al niño, Tanitoluwa “Tani” Adewumi, y a su familia en un refugio para personas sin hogar y escribí sobre ellos. Eso derivó en donaciones de más de 250.000 de dólares para los Adewumi, un coche, becas completas para asistir a escuelas privadas, ofertas de trabajo para los padres, ayuda legal pro bono y vivienda gratuita.Lo que vino después fue quizás aún más conmovedor. Los Adewumi aceptaron el hospedaje pero pusieron el dinero en una fundación para ayudar a otros inmigrantes sin hogar. Mantuvieron a Tani en su escuela pública como forma de agradecimiento a los trabajadores que les condonaron las cuotas del club de ajedrez cuando era el niño recién comenzaba.Tani ha seguido creciendo en el mundo del ajedrez. Ahora, a sus 11 años, ganó el campeonato de ajedrez de Norteamérica para su grupo de edad y es un maestro con una calificación de la Federación de Ajedrez de Estados Unidos de 2262.Pero ganar campeonatos estatales de ajedrez no es un método escalable para resolver la falta de vivienda.La generosidad deslumbrante en respuesta al éxito de Tani es conmovedora, pero debe ir acompañada de políticas públicas generosas. Los niños deberían tener vivienda incluso si no son prodigios del ajedrez.No construimos el Sistema de Autopistas Interestatales con voluntarios ni vendiendo pasteles. Para dar soluciones sistémicas al fracaso educativo y la pobreza se necesita, como pasó con la construcción de autopistas, de una inversión pública rigurosa, sustentada tanto en datos como en la empatía.En Estados Unidos, a menudo somos cínicos ante la política, a veces nos parece ridícula la idea de que los líderes elegidos democráticamente marcan una gran diferencia. Pero durante décadas he escrito sobre manifestantes a favor de la democracia en Polonia, Ucrania, China, Corea del Sur, Mongolia y otros lugares, y ellos me han contagiado parte de su idealismo.Un amigo chino, un contador llamado Ren Wanding, pasó años en prisión por su activismo, e incluso escribió un tratado de dos volúmenes sobre la democracia y los derechos humanos con los únicos materiales que tenía a su disposición: papel higiénico y la punta de un bolígrafo desechado.En 1989, en la plaza de Tiananmén, vi a soldados del gobierno chino abrir fuego contra los manifestantes que pedían democracia. Y luego, en una demostración extraordinaria de valentía, conductores de rickshaws pedalearon con sus carritos hacía ellos para recoger los cuerpos de los jóvenes que habían muerto o habían resultado heridos. Un conductor corpulento, con lágrimas en los ojos, se desvió y pasó a mi lado pedaleando lento para que yo pudiera ser testigo de lo sucedido, y me pidió que le contara al mundo lo que veía.Esos conductores de rickshaws no eran cínicos ante la democracia: estaban arriesgando sus vidas por ella. Después de ver esa valentía en el mundo me entristece aún más advertir que hay personas en este país que están socavando nuestras instituciones democráticas. Pero los manifestantes como Ren me inspiraron a preguntarme si debería participar de manera más plena en la vida democrática de Estados Unidos.Es por esta razón que estoy dejando el trabajo que amo.He escrito con regularidad sobre las tribulaciones de mi amada ciudad natal, Yamhill, Oregón, que ha lidiado con la pérdida de buenos trabajos para la clase trabajadora y la llegada de la metanfetamina. Todos los días llegaba a la escuela primaria de Yamhill, y luego a la secundaria Yamhill-Carlton, a bordo del autobús número 6. Pero hoy, más de una cuarta parte de mis amigos del antiguo autobús han muerto por las drogas, el alcohol o el suicidio. Son muertes por desesperación.El sistema político les falló. El sistema educativo les falló. El sistema de salud les falló. Y yo les fallé. Era el niño en el autobús que ganó becas, recibió una gran educación y luego me fui a cubrir genocidios al otro lado del mundo.Aunque estoy orgulloso de la atención que le di a las atrocidades en el mundo, me puso mal regresar de las crisis humanitarias en el extranjero y encontrar una en casa. Cada dos semanas, perdemos a más estadounidenses por las drogas, el alcohol y el suicidio que en 20 años de guerra en Irak y Afganistán. Y esa es una pandemia que ni los medios de comunicación han cubierto de la mejor manera ni nuestros líderes han abordado adecuadamente.Mientras procesaba esto, la pandemia de covid empeoró la situación. Una amiga que había dejado de consumir drogas recayó al inicio de la pandemia, se quedó sin hogar y durante el año siguiente tuvo 17 sobredosis. Temo por ella y por su hijo.Amo el periodismo, pero también amo a mi estado natal. Sigo pensando en el dicho de Theodore Roosevelt: “El que cuenta no es el crítico, ni el hombre que señala el modo en el que el fuerte tropieza”, dijo. “El mérito pertenece al hombre que está ahí, en el ruedo”.Estoy resistiendo el impulso periodístico de mantenerme al margen porque me lastima ver lo que han soportado mis compañeros de escuela y siento que es el momento adecuado para pasar de cubrir los problemas a tratar de solucionarlos.Espero convencer a algunos de ustedes de que el servicio público en el gobierno puede ser un camino para ejercer responsabilidad por las comunidades que queremos, por un país que puede hacer las cosas mejor. Incluso si eso significa renunciar a un trabajo que amo.¡Adiós, lectores!Nicholas Kristof fue columnista del Times durante 20 años. Ha sido galardonado con dos premios Pulitzer por su cobertura de China y del genocidio de Darfur. Puedes seguirlo en Instagram. Su libro más reciente es Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope. @NickKristof | Facebook More