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      Madison Cawthorn is Under Pressure as Scandals Pile Up

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      Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, once a bright young star in the conservative firmament, finds himself besieged by accusations and insinuations.WASHINGTON — Besieged by multiplying scandals and salacious accusations, Representative Madison Cawthorn, Republican of North Carolina, is under mounting pressure from both parties to end his short career in Congress.In rapid succession, Mr. Cawthorn, who entered Congress as a rising star of the party’s far right, has been accused of falsely suggesting that his Republican colleagues routinely throw cocaine-fueled orgies, insider trading and an inappropriate relationship with a male aide. This week, he was detained at an airport, where police said he tried to bring a loaded handgun onto an airplane, the second time he has attempted that.That came just days after pictures surfaced of him wearing women’s lingerie as part of a cruise ship game, imagery that might not go over well in the conservative stretches of his Western North Carolina district. And last month he was charged with driving with a revoked license for the second time since 2017.The deluge of revelations and charges have left him on an island even within his own party. A political group supporting Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, has been pouring money into an ad campaign accusing Mr. Cawthorn of being a fame-seeking liar. The group is supporting the campaign of a more mainstream Republican, State Senator Chuck Edwards, who is running against Mr. Cawthorn. And the far-right, anti-establishment wing of the party now views the first-term congressman with similar skepticism, as someone who is falsely selling himself as a gatekeeper in his state to former President Donald J. Trump.After initially blaming Democrats for the onslaught, Mr. Cawthorn on Friday said it was Republicans who were targeting him because he threatens the status quo.“I want to change the GOP for the better, and I believe in America First,” he wrote on Twitter. “I can understand the establishment attacking those beliefs, but just digging stuff up from my early 20s to smear me is pathetic.”At 26 years old, Mr. Cawthorn is not far removed from his early 20s, and Republicans running to unseat him in the May 17 North Carolina primary said the drumbeat of revelations could put his seat at risk if he secures the nomination for a second term.Washington Republicans scoff at the notion that a solidly conservative district could be at risk during a year in which they are heavily favored, but early voting began this week as the avalanche of accusations against Mr. Cawthorn was gaining steam.“He could absolutely lose,” said Michele Woodhouse, one of seven Republicans challenging Mr. Cawthorn in the primary.His leading Democratic opponent, the Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, continues to raise money off her Republican opponent’s foibles. Ms. Beach-Ferrara called Mr. Cawthorn “a troubled young man.”“I hold him in my prayers, but I believe he is not fit to serve in office,” she said in an interview.Still, the dirt being dished is coming from Republicans — not in Washington but in North Carolina, said David B. Wheeler, president of American Muckrakers PAC, a group he said was put together to “hold Cawthorn accountable.”Mr. Wheeler’s group, run by Western North Carolina Democrats, filed an incendiary ethics complaint on Wednesday that included a video of Mr. Cawthorn with a senior aide, Stephen L. Smith. In the video, Mr. Cawthorn, in the driver’s seat of a car, appears to say, “I feel the passion and desire and would like to see a naked body beneath my hands.”The camera then pans back to Mr. Smith who says, “Me too” as he places his hand onto Mr. Cawthorn’s crotch.The ethics complaint said Mr. Cawthorn has provided loans to Mr. Smith in violation of House rules. It also suggested that Mr. Cawthorn, who, according to the complaint, lives with the aide, has violated rules put in place during the #MeToo movement that bar lawmakers from having sexual relationships with employees under their supervision.After the story broke in The Daily Mail, Mr. Cawthorn posted on Twitter, “Many of my colleagues would be nowhere near politics if they had grown up with a cell phone in their hands” — not exactly a denial but a suggestion that other members should not cast stones.Mr. Wheeler provided The Times with a screenshot of the anonymous text he received that included the video, and he said he believed the tipster to be a former Cawthorn campaign aide. Another former aide, Lisa Wiggins, went public in an audio recording released by Mr. Wheeler with her consent, saying, “We all want the ultimate goal of him never serving again.”Republicans in the state insist that accusations of lawlessness and neglect of his district are more damaging than details of his sex life. Democrats say they are most concerned with Mr. Cawthorn’s support for the protesters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A legal effort led by North Carolina Democrats to label him as an “insurrectionist” and constitutionally disqualify him from the ballot failed last month.But the revelations about his conduct are making a splash. The photos of Mr. Cawthorn in women’s lingerie, first published in Politico, stemmed from a bawdy game aboard a cruise that he took before he was elected to the House, said Melissa Burns, a self-described conservative Republican from Tennessee who witnessed the game, part of an onboard show.For the finale, the audience was divided into teams, each of which selected a man to dress as a woman, “the sexier ‘she’ is, the more points you get,” Ms. Burns said in an email. Mr. Cawthorn volunteered.The description is consistent with a description that Mr. Cawthorn provided in a link on Twitter, when he dismissed the photos, saying, “I guess the left thinks goofy vacation photos during a game on a cruise (taken waaay before I ran for Congress) is going to somehow hurt me?”Ms. Burns also provided a link to a dating app for the cruise from someone identified as “Cawthorn,” using the same photo that was published in Politico, saying, “Im in search of sexy women or couples for some wild sexapades. You wont be disappointed.”Luke Ball, a spokesman for Mr. Cawthorn, did not deny Ms. Burns’ description of the lingerie game, but he said the dating app was a fake that used the wrong age, wrong hometown and wrong name of the ship.The hits are taking a toll. The far-right wing of the party once viewed Mr. Cawthorn, a telegenic congressman who uses a wheelchair after a car crash at the age of 18, as a young leader with potential. Now its members keep him at arm’s length and view him as a troubled individual who isn’t always aligned with the base on the issues.They describe Mr. Cawthorn as someone who is “Twitter famous,” but who does not work the district and lacks grass-roots support at home. Many of them have noted that even Donald Trump Jr., a popular figure on the right, has stayed quiet and made no attempt to come to his defense.“I don’t see MAGA voters being quite this forgiving,” said Jason Miller, an adviser to the elder Mr. Trump.Still, the former president himself endorsed Mr. Cawthorn last year and has continued to stand by him; Mr. Trump invited the congressman to appear at a rally with him this month in Selma, N.C.The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with House Republicans, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, which don’t involve themselves in primaries in states where a G.O.P. candidate is positioned to win a general election, are staying out of the fracas.But Mr. Wheeler said his group will keep up the pressure. He said legal authorities have taken no action after Mr. Cawthorn’s two firearms charges, his brush with law enforcement over expired licenses or his failure to obtain hunting and fishing licenses, despite boasting that he does both.“The guy hasn’t been held accountable,” Mr. Wheeler said. More

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      How N.Y. Democrats Lost a Critical Redistricting Battle

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      When an independent redistricting commission failed to reach consensus, Democratic leaders decided to make their own maps and risk a lawsuit.It was 2020, more than a year before New York began its once-in-a-decade redistricting process, when Carl Heastie, the Assembly speaker, foresaw a problem.New York voters had empowered a bipartisan commission to guide the task of drafting new legislative maps for the House and local state districts. But Mr. Heastie worried that constitutional language behind the new process would give incentive to Republicans to undermine the commission, according to two Democrats familiar with the discussions.If the commission failed to complete its work, Republicans could try to push the mapmaking process directly to the courts, rather than the Democrat-dominated Legislature.With a handful of crucial House and State Senate seats hanging in the balance, that outcome could have been disastrous for Democrats. They drafted a constitutional amendment to head off Republicans, but voters soundly rejected it last November. Lawmakers then tried another workaround, passing a bill authorizing the Legislature to act if the commission failed to complete its work.Mr. Heastie’s fears came to pass in January, when Republican commissioners refused to approve a final recommendation to the Legislature.But rather than defer to the courts, Democratic leaders decided to make a bet: They disregarded the commission’s work, unilaterally approved maps that positioned their party to pick up key House seats, and hoped that their legal change would withstand scrutiny.Carl Heastie, the Assembly speaker, had warned colleagues that a new redistricting commission might intentionally deadlock.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesOn Wednesday, the Democrats’ maneuver imploded.In a sharply worded decision, the New York State Court of Appeals said that the Legislature’s actions violated the State Constitution, accusing Democratic leaders of placing partisan interests above the will of the voters who, in 2014, created the commission and outlawed partisan gerrymandering.A majority of the seven-judge panel — all appointed by Democrats — explicitly found fault with Mr. Heastie’s attempted procedural fix, ruled that the congressional maps had been “drawn with impermissible partisan purpose,” and empowered a court-appointed special master to redraft the congressional and State Senate lines.The ruling threw New York politics into chaos and scrambled the national fight for control of the House of Representatives this fall.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Deepening Divides: As political mapmakers create lopsided new district lines, the already polarized parties are being pulled even farther apart.“Any Democrat in New York today who you get on the phone and tells you anything other than this was an unmitigated disaster, is just not telling you the truth,” said Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who helps lead the Republicans’ national redistricting effort.Democrats had been counting on the new maps in New York to provide as many as three new House seats, offsetting expected Republican gains through redistricting in other states.The final outcome of the 2022 battlefield may still depend on whether Florida courts strike down Republicans’ new map there as a gerrymander. But for now, Republicans appear poised to best the Democrats nationally for the second consecutive redistricting cycle, making it increasingly difficult for Democrats to hold onto their slim House majority.The situation in New York was even more tenuous. Not only will it take a court-appointed special master weeks to draw new lines — significantly scrambling contests that have already been going on for months — but election lawyers said on Thursday that they were not certain how the state could even comply with the order and other election-related requirements.For instance, while it at first appeared that primaries for statewide offices like governor and lieutenant governor had not been affected by the ruling, those contests may be called into question, after all. To qualify for the ballot, the State Board of Elections requires candidates for statewide office to collect petitions from voters in multiple congressional districts. No one could immediately say whether those petitions, filed weeks ago, were now invalid.“Boy, that could really upend the elections much more than I originally thought,” said Jerry H. Goldfeder, a Democratic elections lawyer who wrote a leading textbook on New York election law, as he puzzled through the ruling Thursday morning.Mr. Goldfeder and other Democrats strenuously disagreed with the Court of Appeals’ decision, the first time in half a century that the judges have struck down a map approved by lawmakers. They called it judicial overreach and heaped blame back on Republicans, who they say intentionally sabotaged the commission’s work in hopes of achieving the outcome they ultimately won in court.“It would have been impossible for us to actually meet the threshold laid out by the Court of Appeals because the Republicans refused to come to a meeting to vote,” said David Imamura, the Democratic appointee who chaired the redistricting commission.He called the current system “unworkable” and warned that the Court of Appeals decision, while attempting to vindicate the will of the voters, would actually ensure that one party or the other always has a political incentive to deprive the Legislature of the ability to draw lines.Jack Martins, Mr. Imamura’s Republican counterpart, did not return requests for comment.In reality, both parties entered this year’s redistricting cycle knowing that the commission was legally untested and had serious flaws that made it different from those that have worked in other states.Created out of a compromise between former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Republicans who controlled the Senate at the time, the panel consisted of even numbers of Democratic and Republican appointees. It lacked clear incentives to compromise, and its work could always be overruled by the Legislature if lawmakers rejected two consecutive proposals by the body.But voters, sick of years of political mapmaking in New York, enthusiastically enshrined it in the State Constitution alongside language outlawing partisan gerrymandering.For a time, the commission appeared to be working. That changed late last year, when the members began to draft final congressional, State Senate and Assembly maps. Rather than sending the Legislature one set of maps to consider in January, the commission sent competing partisan maps.When those maps were rejected, the commission simply collapsed without submitting a second proposal required by the State Constitution, eventually laying the groundwork for the Republicans to sue.Democratic lawmakers insist that after the commission failed, they proceeded in good faith, acting on what courts in New York have long recognized as the authority of the representative branch of government to draw maps.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Republican Primaries in May Will Test Trump’s Continued Pull

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      If you doubt the power of Donald Trump’s endorsement, look no further than the Ohio Senate race.Since April 15, when Trump backed J.D. Vance in the Republican primary, the venture capitalist and author of “Hillbilly Elegy” has zoomed to the top of the public polls. Vance jumped from 11 percent of likely voters in March to 23 percent now, according to Fox News.The real test of Trump’s party boss mojo, however, is fast approaching: actual elections, beginning with Ohio’s on Tuesday. Trump has endorsed candidates in at least 40 Republican primaries that are taking place in May, my colleague Alyce McFadden has tabulated. Most of these contests involve an incumbent who faces no serious challenger. But in statewide races from Pennsylvania to Georgia and Idaho to North Carolina, Trump’s imprimatur could prove decisive.Republicans are watching these races closely for signs that Trump’s hold over the party is waning. Privately, many G.O.P. operatives view the former president as a liability. And while he has shown a unique ability to energize the party’s base and turn out new voters, those operatives are still dreading the likelihood that he runs again in 2024, anchoring candidates up and down the ballot to an erratic, divisive figure who was rejected by swing voters in 2020.Everyone knows Trump still has juice. But nobody is sure just how much juice.“The risk for Trump is that if the candidates he has endorsed end up losing, his influence over Republican primary voters looks substantially diminished,” said Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster.Already, there are signs of what one G.O.P. strategist called a “re-centering” of Republican politics — with Trump as the party’s strongest voice, but no longer its sole power broker.In Alabama, he withdrew his endorsement of Representative Mo Brooks, an ardent Trump loyalist who has floundered as a Senate candidate. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Trump’s top 2016 foe, has endorsed his own slate of candidates, as have conservative groups like the Club for Growth. And Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is drawing rapturous receptions within the party as he gears up for a likely presidential run in 2024.The stakes for American democracy are high. In Georgia, Trump is trying to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, two Republicans whose refusal to help overturn the 2020 election results have made them the former president’s top targets. In both cases, Trump is backing challengers who have embraced his false narrative of a stolen election.Trump’s endorsement is no magic wand. In a recent poll by Quinnipiac University, 45 percent of Republicans said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by Trump, whereas 44 percent said it would make no difference.“Every candidate has to lose or win their race themselves,” cautioned Ryan James Girdusky, an adviser to a super PAC supporting Vance.With that caveat in mind, here’s a look at the key primaries to watch:J.D. Vance appears to be on the rise in Ohio after Trump endorsed him.Brian Kaiser for The New York TimesOhio Senate, May 3Vance was looking wobbly before Trump’s endorsement. His fund-raising and campaign organization were anemic; his past comments, such as his comparison of Trump to “cultural heroin,” were hurting him.How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.A Modern-Day Party Boss: Hoarding cash, doling out favors and seeking to crush rivals, Mr. Trump is behaving like the head of a 19th-century political machine.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.Now, G.O.P. strategists largely expect that Vance will win the primary. Support for Mike Gibbons, a businessman who spent more than $13 million of his own money on ads, is crumbling. Most of his voters appear to be migrating toward Vance rather than Josh Mandel, the other leading candidate in the race, said Jeff Sadosky, a former political adviser to Senator Rob Portman, who is retiring.But Mandel, a well-known quantity in Ohio conservative politics, appears to be holding his ground.“If Vance wins, it’ll be because of the Trump endorsement,” said Michael Hartley, a Republican consultant in Columbus who is not backing any of the candidates.Mehmet Oz is locked in a tight primary race for Senate in Pennsylvania.Hannah Beier/ReutersPennsylvania Senate and governor, May 17In some ways, Pennsylvania offers the purest test of Trump’s appeal.Trump recently endorsed Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor, in the Republican Senate primary. But unlike in other states, the public polls haven’t moved much. Democratic strategists still see David McCormick, a wealthy former hedge fund executive and the other leading Republican candidate, as a potent threat.“No one here thinks it’s locked up,” said Christopher Nicholas, a Republican consultant in Harrisburg, though the Oz campaign’s internal polling has shown a shift in the doctor’s favor.Trump has yet to endorse a candidate for governor here, but his shadow looms large. He issued an anti-endorsement to Bill McSwain, a former U.S. attorney who served in the Trump administration, calling him “a coward, who let our country down” by not stopping “massive” election fraud in 2020.Two other candidates are ardent backers of his stolen election claims: former Representative Lou Barletta, whose campaign is managed by former Trump advisers; and Doug Mastriano, a state lawmaker and retired colonel who helped organize transportation to the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6.With Trump cheering him on, Senator David Perdue is trying to oust Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia.Audra Melton for The New York TimesGeorgia, May 24The biggest test of Trump’s influence will come in Georgia, where control of the machinery of democracy itself is on the ballot.It was Georgia where Trump pressured the state’s top elections official to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn the presidential election results, a phone call that is under investigation. Trump is hoping to oust Raffensperger, the secretary of state, who was on the receiving end of that phone call. The former president has backed Representative Jody Hice, who supports Trump’s debunked election fraud claims. Court documents released by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot place Hice at a meeting at the White House to discuss objections to certifying the election.In the governor’s race, Trump dragooned former Senator David Perdue into trying to unseat Kemp, the incumbent.Perdue, who lost to Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, in 2021, has dutifully made 2020 the theme of his campaign. But polls show Kemp comfortably ahead, suggesting that dwelling on the past is not a path to victory despite the power of Trump’s endorsement.Lightning roundA few other primaries we’re watching:May 10: In West Virginia’s Second Congressional District, redistricting has pitted two Republican incumbents against each other. Trump endorsed Representative Alex Mooney, who voted against the bipartisan infrastructure law, while Gov. Jim Justice is backing Representative David B. McKinley, who voted for it.May 17: In North Carolina, Trump’s preferred Senate candidate, Representative Ted Budd, is surging in the polls against former Gov. Pat McCrory and Representative Mark Walker. May 17: Gov. Brad Little of Idaho faces a primary challenge from a field that includes his own lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, who has Trump’s endorsement. The two have feuded bitterly, to the point where McGeachin issued her own executive orders while Little was traveling out of state. McGeachin also has a history of associating with extremists. In February, she gave a virtual speech at an event sponsored by white nationalists, leading to calls for her resignation.Alyce McFadden contributed reporting.What to readReporting from Columbus, Ohio, Jazmine Ulloa notes a new fixation in G.O.P. messaging: the baseless claim that unauthorized immigrants are voting.Jonathan Weisman, from Toledo, Ohio, reports that Democrats are in jeopardy because they can no longer rely on firm support from unions.Patricia Mazzei explores how, under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida has become a laboratory for right-wing policies.Emily Cochrane spoke with Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska about whether her centrist credentials will appeal to Republican voters in November.how they runMadison Gesiotto Gilbert, a Republican House candidate in Ohio, was endorsed by Trump.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThis Ohio House race has everythingIt’s a shining example of Democrats’ challenges in 2022, the confusion caused by whiplash over new congressional maps and, yes, the power of a Trump endorsement: This is the race for Ohio’s 13th Congressional District.The district — whose lines are changing and whose current representative, Tim Ryan, is running for Senate — is one of just a few in Ohio expected to be competitive in the fall.President Biden would have carried this newly drawn district by just three percentage points, making it a must-win for Democrats as they face challenges in maintaining their House majority.“If 2022 is as bad for Democrats as most everybody else, myself included, expects it to be, Republicans will flip this district,” said Ryan Stubenrauch, a Republican strategist in Ohio who grew up in the area.An added wrinkle is that the boundaries of the district aren’t technically final: Ohio’s redistricting process has been tied up in the courts, and the State Supreme Court could still rule against the current maps. But most experts believe that the lines will remain in place through the general election.For Democrats, the primary election on Tuesday should be straightforward. Emilia Sykes, a state representative and former minority leader, will be the only Democrat on the ballot. The Sykes name is well known in the Akron area, where her father, Vernon Sykes, remains in the state legislature. His wife, Barbara, also once served in the state House.On the Republican side, Trump endorsed Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, a conservative commentator who worked on Trump’s campaigns in 2016 and 2020. She faces Shay Hawkins, a Republican who narrowly lost a state House race in 2020. He’s the only candidate who has aired a campaign TV ad, but he trails Gilbert in fund-raising. A third Republican to watch, Gregory Wheeler, has an endorsement from The Plain Dealer.No candidates have had much time to make a mark. They learned their district lines — tentatively — just a few weeks before early voting started. And with the primaries split, with state legislative voting postponed to later this year, turnout is a big question.Some of the usual efforts to inform voters about important dates, like when to register and the deadline for early voting, didn’t happen this year with details in flux, said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, which is in litigation over the maps in front of the Supreme Court.“The delay and the fact that we have to have a second primary for the State House maps is really confusing for voters,” Miller said.— Blake & LeahIs 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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      Labor’s Disenchantment in Ohio Puts Even Democratic Veterans at Risk

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      TOLEDO, Ohio — Representative Marcy Kaptur, the blue-collar daughter of this blue-collar city, is on the cusp of a milestone: If elected in November to her 21st term, she will become the longest-serving female member of Congress, breaking Barbara Mikulski’s combined House and Senate record.But for Ms. Kaptur, 75, a famously pro-union, old-school appropriator, the political ground has washed away beneath her feet. A new Republican-drawn district has robbed her of reliable Democratic votes on the outskirts of Cleveland. The national Democratic Party has saddled her with an agenda of phasing out internal combustion engines and the fossil fuels that power them that sits poorly in the region that put the first Jeeps into mass production.And Donald J. Trump rattled the underpinnings of Democratic appeal to labor, with his trade protectionism, thundering denunciations of China and professed belief in job creation at all cost.As Republican voters go to the polls on Tuesday to select Ms. Kaptur’s opponent for the fall election, some of her oldest, firmest allies in the union world are having their doubts — about Ms. Kaptur’s future, and more broadly, the future of the Democratic Party in the industrial heartland.“Listen, Marcy is a friend,” said Shaun Enright, executive secretary and business manager of the 17,000-strong Northwest Ohio Building Trades Council. “But I have to go to membership, whatever the election cycle is, and say, ‘This is the most important election of your life. You have to vote.’ And I’m tired of doing it. Members are tired of hearing it.”Ms. Kaptur’s longevity was supposed to underscore a truism that union families knew their friends and would not abandon them. Democratic senators like Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia have banked on it. Representative Tim Ryan is testing it with his run for an Ohio Senate seat that so far has revolved around blue-collar appeals.Mr. Trump would have won Ms. Kaptur’s newly drawn district by three percentage points, but in the parts that overlapped the old map, Ms. Kaptur outperformed Joseph R. Biden Jr. by six percentage points, giving some hope — at least numerically — that her name recognition, long record and general popularity could still deliver that 41st year in Congress.“My service has now afforded me the ability to make a difference,” she said in an interview, boasting of her seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee and her chairmanship of the subcommittee that doles out energy and water funding.Ms. Kaptur with President Biden last year. The national Democrats’ policy goals, especially on energy, are harder to sell in her district.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut her struggle to reach that historical mark attests to what Republicans and some union leaders here have been saying since the rise of Trumpism: Labor politics have changed forever. There are fewer union voters, and the ones who remain are less Democratic, said Jeff Broxmeyer, a political scientist at the University of Toledo. Since 1990, the percentage of Ohio workers represented by unions has slipped from 23.2 percent to 13 percent.“The organizational capacity of the Democratic Party in northwest Ohio is the organizational capacity of organized labor, and organized labor is much diminished,” he said. “Now we’re at the endgame.”The State of Jobs in the United StatesJob openings and the number of workers voluntarily leaving their positions in the United States remained near record levels in March.March Jobs Report: U.S. employers added 431,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent ​​in the third month of 2022.Job Market and Stocks: This year’s decline in stock prices follows a historical pattern: Hot labor markets and stocks often don’t mix well.New Career Paths: For some, the Covid-19 crisis presented an opportunity to change course. Here is how these six people pivoted professionally.Return to the Office: Many companies are loosening Covid safety rules, leaving people to navigate social distancing on their own. Some workers are concerned.The state legislature lopped off the tail of Ms. Kaptur’s oddly drawn district along Lake Erie — nicknamed the Snake on the Lake — then extended it west through rural Ohio to the Indiana border. That, Professor Broxmeyer said, signaled that Republicans “are coming for the last Democrat.”It was not that long ago, 2012, that Barack Obama won Ohio’s union families, 61 percent to Mitt Romney’s 37 percent. But Mr. Trump took 54 percent of those same voters in 2016, then 55 percent in 2020. While on the coasts, prognosticators fret over the former president’s continued hold on the Republican Party, in northwest Ohio, the party’s embrace of Trump-era protectionism, immigration exclusion and anti-environmentalism is cheered heartily.“A lot of those union workers, they’re not happy with their unions right now,” said Craig Riedel, a state representative running in the Republican primary to challenge Ms. Kaptur. “They realize that a lot of those union bosses, they’re part of the Democratic machine, and oftentimes, they’re looking at a political outlook of their unions that is in disalignment with their own.”Union leaders agree that it is becoming much more difficult to paper over disagreements between local Democrats and their national party when Trump-aligned Republican candidates are using the same anti-China, anti-trade rhetoric that Ohio Democrats use. Erika White, president of the Communications Workers of America local in northwest Ohio, said Mr. Trump had given voice to the anger of white workers, even if he did not deliver on his promises.Ms. White, who is Black, said she spends much of her time listening to the frustrations of the white men who make up about half of her union.“I personally cannot stand the guy, but you think of his persona,” she said of Mr. Trump. “Where people are, I don’t know if they’re afraid of accountability or where we’re headed, but instead of personal responsibility, they say, ‘I’d rather blame you for all my problems, and then not only am I going to blame you, I’m going to be mean and aggressive with it.’”Erika White, president of a union local, said Mr. Trump had given voice to the anger of white workers, even if he did not deliver on his promises.Cydni Elledge for The New York TimesMs. Kaptur sees it too, and sees Mr. Trump’s appeal, despite his failure to deliver tangible benefits.“Our party, for the most part, is very coastally oriented,” she said, adding, “Our part of the country just doesn’t have much voice, and so partly what he reflects is that vacuum of people feeling left out, and I can understand that.”In Toledo, a burning issue is a natural gas and crude oil pipeline called Line Five that runs on the floor of the Great Lakes from Canada to Ohio, supplying a refinery here that employs 1,200 union workers.The Democratic administration of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan has labeled it a “ticking time bomb” that needs to be shut down, and allies in the environmental movement say workers need to face reality: As the auto industry shifts to electric vehicles, oil pipelines and refineries will no longer be needed.But what national Democrats see as a planetary imperative, union leaders like Mr. Enright see as an immediate mortal threat, and they fully expect the politicians they back to fight for their jobs. That means keeping Line Five open and the shift to electric vehicles in the lowest possible gear.“Democrats say they’re the ones working on behalf of people’s pocketbooks, but how do I tell my members that’s the guy working to help your pocketbook when that’s the guy who is shutting down the pipeline to your refinery?” Mr. Enright asked.An issue like Line Five is easy for the Republicans in the race. It unites unions and business, without alienating any other constituency.Theresa Gavarone, a state senator, is a leading Republican in the campaign to run against Ms. Kaptur in the fall.Cydni Elledge for The New York Times“I mean, it’s 1,200 direct jobs, and thousands of indirect jobs, which include union workers in good paying jobs, and Marcy Kaptur has been silent,” said State Senator Theresa Gavarone, a leading Republican in the race, as she shook hands at Archbold High School in the rural west of the newly drawn district.Ms. Gavarone has used the Line Five issue to make allies in the building trades unions, and used those allies to separate herself from Mr. Riedel, who is openly anti-union.Ms. Kaptur responded defensively, but she also showed the crosscurrents she faces. As chairwoman of the Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee, she said she had done what she could to protect and move to strengthen the pipeline. But she also leads the Great Lakes Caucus in the House, and protecting the largest body of freshwater on Earth, she said, also has to be a priority.That Mr. Trump never seemed bothered by such conflicts frustrates her, and she does not seem clear on how to overcome his appeal in a region drained by globalization and left behind, first by free trade, then by the changing priorities of environmental protection and an information and technology economy.But she is perfectly clear about her constituents’ point of view.“He was able to prick the despair that results from economic opportunity being jerked out from under you like a rug, and he was able to do it even though he didn’t do anything for them,” Ms. Kaptur fumed. “These are people who’ve worked hard all their lives, and then an earthquake happened. That’s not their fault, and largely Washington never saw it.” More

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      Democrats Lose Control of N.Y. Election Maps, as Top Court Rejects Appeal

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      The Court of Appeals said Democrats violated the State Constitution and ignored the will of the voters. The judges ordered a court-appointed expert to draw replacements.New York’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that Democratic leaders had violated the State Constitution when they took it upon themselves to draw new congressional and State Senate districts, and ordered that a court-appointed special master draft replacement lines for this year’s critical midterm elections.In a sweeping 32-page ruling, a divided New York State Court of Appeals chided Democrats for ignoring a constitutional amendment adopted by voters in 2014 to curb political influence in the redistricting process. The amendment also created a new outside commission to guide the process.The judges additionally found that the congressional districts designed by Democrats violated an explicit state ban on partisan gerrymandering, undercutting the party’s national campaign to brand itself as the champion of voting rights.Writing for the four-judge majority, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said that Democratic lawmakers created congressional and State Senate maps in a way that was “procedurally unconstitutional,” and that the congressional map in particular was “drawn with impermissible partisan purpose.”The ruling, which is not subject to appeal, was expected to delay the June 28 party primaries for the congressional and State Senate districts until August, to allow time for new maps to be drawn and for candidates to collect petitions to qualify for the ballot.The verdict delivered a stinging defeat to Democrats in Albany and in Washington and cast this year’s election cycle into deep uncertainty.Party leaders had been hopeful that the Court of Appeals, with all seven judges appointed by Democratic governors, would overturn earlier decisions by a Republican judge in Steuben County and a bipartisan appeals court in Rochester.Instead, the high court issued an even more damning verdict that denied the Democrat-dominated State Legislature a chance to redraw the maps itself. That task, the judges said, should be handled by a politically neutral special master, who would be overseen by a trial court.National Democrats had been counting on the New York congressional maps adopted in February to deliver as many as three new seats this fall and offset redistricting gains by Republicans across the country. Now, with Democratic gains likely to be erased or minimized in New York, Republicans are on track to make modest gains nationally, easing their path to retaking control of the House of Representatives this fall.Democrats were likewise expecting the State Senate maps they adopted in February to help safeguard the party’s supermajority in Albany.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Deepening Divides: As political mapmakers create lopsided new district lines, the already polarized parties are being pulled even farther apart.Wednesday’s decision was a milestone in New York jurisprudence, the first time since the 1960s that the Court of Appeals has struck down district lines approved by lawmakers in their once-in-a-decade redistricting process.But the ruling is part of a growing trend across the nation in which state courts have taken up more active stances against partisan gerrymandering as federal courts have been removed from these battles by the Supreme Court.This year alone, state courts in Ohio, North Carolina, Kansas and Maryland have scrapped plans put in place by lawmakers because they ran afoul of state constitutional language outlawing partisan mapmaking, like that adopted by New York voters in 2014. The courts are widely expected to scrutinize new lines in Florida that overwhelmingly favor Republicans, as well.“States can be the laboratories of redistricting reforms,” said Samuel Wang, the director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. “And this just goes to show that if a state court is willing to look carefully to its constitution and laws, it will find principals that can restrict the most extreme partisan acts.”Unlike New York, though, some of those courts have indicated they will allow 2022 elections to take place on tainted maps, potentially putting Democrats at a greater disadvantage nationally.The judges in New York were silent on whether to reschedule primary elections for other contested seats — including for governor, lieutenant governor and the State Assembly — leaving it to a trial court judge, Patrick F. McAllister, and the State Board of Elections to work out the details with “all due haste.” The board said Wednesday evening that it did “not foresee” moving those contests.But the judges appeared to bless the idea of separating them, pointing out that New York has a history of holding bifurcated primaries. They were more explicit in rejecting Democrats’ plea to allow this year’s elections to proceed on tainted lines and fix them later.“We reject this invitation to subject the people of this state to an election conducted pursuant to an unconstitutional reapportionment,” Judge DiFiore wrote in the majority opinion.Justice McAllister has already appointed Jonathan Cervas, a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, as special master to draw the congressional and State Senate lines by late May.Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said Wednesday afternoon that she was reviewing the decision. Michael Murphy, a spokesman for Senate Democrats, said they still “believe in the constitutionality” of their maps and plan to argue their case to the special master.Republicans and several nonpartisan public interest groups lauded the decision.“The will of the people prevailed over the Corrupt Albany Machine in a tremendous victory for democracy, fair elections & the Constitution!” Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a New York City Republican, wrote on Twitter.Ms. Malliotakis’s Staten Island-based district was among several that the Democrats’ congressional map would have made more challenging for Republicans, in her case by adding liberal voters from Park Slope in Brooklyn. The map also created new Democratic pickup opportunities on the eastern end of Long Island and in Central New York, and shored up Democrat-held swing seats in the Hudson Valley, by cramming conservative voters into just a handful of districts.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      New York Democrats Make Last-Ditch Bid to Save New Congressional Maps

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      The state’s highest court heard arguments on Tuesday on whether to uphold earlier rulings that voided maps drawn by Democrats as illegal gerrymanders.New York Democrats made a last-ditch appeal to the state’s highest court on Tuesday to overturn a pair of lower-court rulings and salvage newly drawn congressional districts that overwhelmingly favor their party.In oral arguments before the New York State Court of Appeals, lawyers for the governor and top legislative leaders said that Republicans challenging the lines had fallen short of proving that the state’s new congressional map violated a state ban on gerrymandering.But the arguments turned tense at times, especially as several members of the seven-judge panel scrutinized the constitutionality of the mapmaking process itself.Voters created a new redistricting commission in 2014 to help wean politics from the mapmaking process, at the same time that they outlawed gerrymandering. But after the commission’s efforts broke down this winter, the Democratic-led Legislature quickly shunted aside the commission’s proposals in favor of more politically favorable maps.“Isn’t that evidence of a purpose to gerrymander?” Judge Michael Garcia asked lawyers for the Democrats.The court’s decision, expected as soon as Wednesday, could have far-reaching implications for New York and the rest of the country.A bare-knuckle political fight over representation and power lies beneath the complex legal arguments. National Democrats are relying on New York to help offset Republican redistricting gains in other states. Without it, their path to maintaining the House of Representatives in Washington could become considerably more difficult.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Analysis: For years, the congressional map favored Republicans over Democrats. But in 2022, the map is poised to be surprisingly fair.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.The congressional map, approved by Democratic supermajorities in February, threatens to cut the state’s eight-member Republican House delegation in half and creates three new Democratic friendly seats on Long Island, Staten Island and in central New York. The map, which favors Democrats 22 to four, shores up several swing districts that Democrats hold now with more left-leaning voters.But an Appeals Court ruling could also determine the future of the 2014 reforms to the redistricting process, which takes place once a decade. If the court upholds the maps and the process behind them, its ruling could effectively neuter the redistricting commission after just one cycle of activity and would set a high bar to prove maps are partisan gerrymanders.“It’s a total disregard for the Constitution and what the voters chose in 2014 as a process to try to improve the way the lines were drawn,” Laura Ladd Bierman, executive director of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of New York State, said of the Legislature’s actions. “That’s what just makes me so frustrated: They just seem to have no regard for what the public wanted.”Ms. Bierman’s group has submitted an amicus brief in the case siding with Republicans to argue that the courts should strike down the maps and draw new ones using a special master.The Court of Appeals judges, all of whom were appointed by Democratic governors, appeared to be wrestling with how to balance the interests of the voters, the longstanding right of the Legislature to set district lines and more pragmatic questions about how and when this year’s critical midterm elections should proceed.The court has traditionally shown deference to state lawmakers to set boundaries that they feel are appropriate. But the questions this time were particularly thorny because the case — Harkenrider v. Hochul — is the first time that the courts have tested the 2014 constitutional changes.The challengers, New York voters backed by national Republicans, have argued that the mapmaking power should have gone directly to the courts, not the Legislature, when the commission collapsed this winter. Instead, they contend, Democrats hijacked the process and drew lines expertly devised to knock out Republicans.The commission violated the law, the Republican lawyer, Misha Tseytlin, said, “but then the Legislature attempted to take a step that it had no legal authority to take.”Democrats rejected both claims. They maintain that the commission was an advisory body whose maps required lawmakers’ approval to become law. And they defended their congressional map as a good-faith effort to balance competing requirements to preserve the cores of existing districts and communities of interest — which includes racial and ethnic groups — while achieving maximum compactness and adjusting for population shifts that generally benefit Democrats.“Maybe the petitioners would have drawn the map a little differently, maybe someone from a think tank or the editorial board of a newspaper would have drawn these maps differently, or somebody on Twitter,” said Craig R. Bucki, a lawyer for State Assembly Democrats. “But the fact is they are not the Legislature, and they are not elected by the people, and that’s why all these maps should be upheld.”How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Democrats and the 2022 Midterms: ‘It’s Going to Be a Terrible Cycle’

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      Strategists and pollsters are increasingly talking about limiting the party’s expected losses in November rather than how to gain new seats.The collective mood of Democratic insiders has darkened appreciably in recent weeks.Pollsters and prognosticators are forecasting increasingly dire results for their party in the November midterm elections. Inflation, the No. 1 issue on the minds of voters, is accelerating. And despite a booming job market, the president’s average approval rating hasn’t budged since January, when it settled into the low 40s.“Are you calling to ask me about our impending doom?” one Democratic strategist quipped at the outset of a recent phone call.“The vibes just feel very off,” said Tré Easton, a progressive consultant.Others use words like “horrible” and “debacle” to describe a political environment that has gone from bad to worse over the last three months. Many fault the White House for steering President Biden too far to the left as he sought to pass social spending legislation stuffed with progressive priorities. Some see the president as a wounded figure who has failed to establish himself as the unequivocal leader of his fractious party.“It’s going to be a terrible cycle for Democrats,” said Doug Sosnik, a former political adviser to Bill Clinton. Democrats have only a matter of weeks, he said, to try to alter the contours of a race that will largely be determined by factors beyond their control.One sign of the alarm rippling through the party: Some Democratic politicians have begun creating distance between themselves and the president. Senate candidates are stampeding to break with the administration’s immigration policies, for instance. Other moves are more subtle, such as those of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who quietly removed the president’s name from news releases about federally funded infrastructure projects.“What you’re seeing is people feeling like it’s time to head for the lifeboats rather than trying to steer the ship,” said Robert Gibbs, a former White House press secretary who worked under Barack Obama.A sense of fatalism is setting in among many, with discussions centering increasingly on how to limit the party’s expected losses rather than how to gain new seats. In Arizona, for example, some Democrats are losing confidence that they will be able to flip the State House, a major target for national party strategists this year.“We have to be cognizant and realistic about where and how we can win,” said Chad Campbell, a former state lawmaker and Democratic consultant in Phoenix. He added that it was more important for Democrats to position themselves for 2024.“Most of this is baked,” said Dmitri Mehlhorn, the confidant of a number of Democratic megadonors, referring to the historical pattern of the president’s party losing seats in the midterms.Not everyone is so pessimistic. But for those charged with solving the Democrats’ midterms conundrum, the question, increasingly, is: How many seats can they save? Control of the Senate is deadlocked at 50-50, and Democrats are clinging to a five-seat majority in the House. Few Democratic strategists expect to keep the House, but many remain hopeful about the Senate, where there’s far more room for candidates to burnish their own independent brands.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.When Jim Kessler, the executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a center-left think tank, recently reviewed past midterms for a presentation to Democratic strategists and Hill Democrats, he found that the party in power typically lost around 10 percentage points during off-cycle elections.That suggested two main takeaways, he said. First, the Democratic Party’s current struggles are utterly ordinary by historical standards. And second, even candidates in safely blue political areas need to brace themselves for difficult campaigns.“If you’re a district that is Biden plus 12 or less” — meaning the president won the House district in question by that many percentage points in 2020 — “you need to run like you’re losing,” Kessler said.Wealthy donors in Silicon Valley are turning their attention to offices they have traditionally ignored: attorneys general, governors and secretaries of state in parts of the country that could prove decisive to the outcome of the presidential election in 2024.In Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, Republican candidates aligned with Donald Trump have disputed the 2020 election results, promoting dubious “audits” and conspiracy theories about voting machines. The widespread fear among donors is that, if those Trump allies are elected, they will find illegitimate ways to ensure his return to power in 2024.With Democrats’ prospects in Washington looking dim, Mehlhorn is advising donors to look for opportunities to forestall and disrupt full Republican control in those states.“Frankly,” he said, “the most important thing is to preserve the ability to have elections in the future.”‘You don’t have to outswim the shark’Democrats are still weighing, too, how much to emphasize their accomplishments versus how much to sharpen their points of contrast with Republicans.The White House has positioned President Biden as fighting to lower costs for Americans, holding events outside of Washington with vulnerable incumbents such as Representative Cindy Axne of Iowa. On these trips to tout his legislative program, he has invited lawmakers into the conference room on Air Force One to hear their concerns and help him hone his speeches to better reflect local input.But the president has expressed frustration at times that his administration isn’t getting enough credit for taming the coronavirus pandemic, resuscitating the economy and passing funding for infrastructure.“We have done one hell of a job, but the fact is that because things have moved so rapidly, so profoundly, it’s hard for people,” to appreciate Biden said on Thursday at a fund-raising event for the Democratic National Committee in Portland, Oregon, before rattling off a list of favorable statistics about the economy.One challenge for a White House that was slow to recognize the public’s growing anger over rising consumer prices is how to balance such boasts while also empathizing with voters’ anxieties about their personal finances.Inflation, a top voter concern, is reflected in higher gas prices.Gabby Jones for The New York Times“The difference about heading into 2022 is that we have tangible projects that have been accomplished because Democrats were able to get that done,” said Martha McKenna, a Democratic consultant who previously worked for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.McKenna said it was important to convey a double-barreled contrast message: that while Democrats are trying to solve working families’ most pressing problems, Republicans are focusing on distractions — be it feuding over Trump’s false claims of a stolen election or attempting to ban school textbooks.Democrats have made gleeful use of an 11-point plan pushed by Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who chairs the Republicans’ Senate campaign arm. Scott’s plan, which has irritated many of his fellow Republican senators, calls for subjecting all Americans to income taxes and proposes tinkering with government entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare.Around Tax Day, for instance, the Democratic National Committee purchased Google text ads pointing late-filing Americans toward an ungenerous interpretation of Scott’s plan, which Democrats insists represents the Republican Party’s true policy agenda.But more drastic measures might be needed if Democrats are going to turn the fall elections into a choice between the two parties rather than a referendum on Biden, others argue.Gibbs is urging his fellow Democrats to pick a few issues that are important to voters, such as lowering prices for prescription drugs or insulin, and launch a disciplined, party-wide effort to blame Republicans for standing in the way.“It’s got to be a more coordinated fight than a presidential tweet,” Gibbs said.There’s an analogy some Democrats are drawn to that speaks to their need to shift the race into a head-to-head contest.In the first season of the HBO show “Billions,” a fictional hedge fund chief named Bobby Axelrod is confronting the threat of federal prosecution over his illegal trading practices. He decides his best bet is to distract the government by leaking damaging information about an easier target: a rival financier.As they draw up the plan, Axelrod’s shadowy fixer, a man known only as Hall, tells him: “Remember, you don’t have to outswim the shark. You just have to outswim the guy you’re scuba diving with.”What to readKatie Glueck examines how Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida’s fight with Disney signals an escalation of the Republican Party’s brawl with the business community.At an administrative law hearing in Atlanta on Friday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia spouted debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election but denied that her support for the Jan. 6 protests made her an “insurrectionist,” Jonathan Weisman and Neil Vigdor report.Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House’s top Republican, spent much of Friday containing the political fallout after The New York Times revealed his private criticism of Trump after Jan. 6, Annie Karni reports.ViewfinderSarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesA weather-beaten receiving lineOn Politics regularly features work by Times photographers. Here’s what Sarahbeth Maney told us about capturing the image above on Tuesday:On our way to New Hampshire, we had a bit of a bumpy ride. When we stepped outside, we were met with gusty winds so strong that I struggled to keep my balance.I shielded myself behind some print and TV reporters as we waited for President Biden to exit from Air Force One. I crouched low and noticed an interesting pattern in the way local officials stood in a line, all with a similar pose of locked hands.Everyone was ready to rush into a warm place, but the president appears unfazed by the weather.Thanks for reading. We’ll see you Monday.— Blake (Leah is on vacation)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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      N.Y. House Districts Illegally Favor Democrats, Appeals Court Rules

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      A divided five-judge panel found that Democrats engaged in gerrymandering in creating new district maps. The case is expected to head to New York’s highest court.A New York appeals court ruled on Thursday that new congressional districts drawn by Democrats violated the state’s ban on partisan gerrymandering, partially upholding a lower-court ruling that would block the state from using the lines in this year’s critical midterm elections.A divided five-judge panel in Rochester said Democratic legislative leaders had drawn the new House map “to discourage competition and favor Democrats,” knowingly ignoring the will of voters who recently approved a constitutional amendment outlawing the practice.“We are satisfied that petitioners established beyond a reasonable doubt that the Legislature acted with partisan intent,” a three-judge majority wrote in its opinion. Two judges dissented.Gov. Kathy Hochul and top legislative leaders are expected to immediately appeal the decision to the state’s highest court, the New York Court of Appeals. The judges there, all of whom were appointed by Democratic governors, have indicated they could render a final verdict as soon as next week.The outcome in New York will have significant implications in the broader fight for control of the House of Representatives. National Democratic leaders are counting on the maps their party drew in New York to help offset gains by Republicans.Without them, Democrats are at risk of emerging from this year’s redistricting cycle having been bested by Republicans for the second consecutive decade. Republican gains were on track to grow further after Florida lawmakers this week approved a map drawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis that would create four new Republican-friendly seats.The ruling was the second consecutive setback for New York’s Democratic mapmakers, and this time it came in an appellate court that was viewed as generally friendly to the party.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Analysis: For years, the congressional map favored Republicans over Democrats. But in 2022, the map is poised to be surprisingly fair.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.“Like other state courts around the country, New York courts aren’t finding the question of whether a map is a partisan gerrymander a particularly hard one to decide,” said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “It’s very hard to defend a map like New York’s, and ultimately if it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.”Still, Mr. Li added, Thursday’s decision was only the second of three acts in New York’s redistricting legal drama.On Thursday, the judges from the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court ordered the Democrat-led Legislature to promptly redraft the map by April 30 or leave the task to a court-appointed neutral expert. The judges were largely silent on another key question at stake: whether some of the primaries scheduled for June should be postponed until August to accommodate new districts.The congressional lines in question, adopted by Democratic supermajorities in the Legislature in February, would give Democrats a clear advantage in 22 of the state’s 26 congressional districts by shifting voters favorable to their party into redrawn seats on Long Island and Staten Island and in Central New York, and packing Republicans in a smaller number of districts. Republicans currently hold eight districts on a map that was drawn by a court-appointed special master in 2012.State leaders did emerge with some good news from the latest ruling. The panel rejected more sweeping parts of the decision by the lower-court judge, Patrick F. McAllister of Steuben County, that held that lawmakers lacked the authority to draw any maps at all after New York’s newly created redistricting commission failed to agree on a plan for the state.As a result, the appeals court ruling reinstated State Senate and Assembly maps that Justice McAllister had thrown out.Mike Murphy, a spokesman for Senate Democrats, said they were “pleased” that the appeals court had validated the Legislature’s right to draw the maps this year, and predicted the higher court would reinstate the congressional maps as well.“We always knew this case would end at the Court of Appeals and look forward to being heard on our appeal to uphold the congressional map as well,” he said.John Faso, a spokesman for the Republican-backed voters challenging the maps, said that they would file their own appeal to try to strike the state legislative maps. But he called Thursday’s decision a “great victory.”The broader legal dispute turns on two interlocking questions: whether the mapmaking process properly adhered to procedures laid out in a 2014 amendment to the State Constitution, and whether the maps themselves violated an accompanying ban on drawing districts for partisan gain.The procedural changes made in 2014 were designed to remove the line-drawing process from the hands of politicians by creating an outside commission to solicit public input and forge a bipartisan proposal for House, State Senate and Assembly districts. If the commission had reached agreement, the Legislature’s role would have been to ratify the maps.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More