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      Virginia Democrats Aim to Block Trump’s E.P.A. Chief From State Agency

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      In Virginia, cabinet nominees are rarely blocked. But the Republican governor-elect’s choice of Andrew Wheeler to be natural resources secretary has alarmed Democrats.WASHINGTON — A rare confirmation battle is brewing around the nomination of Andrew Wheeler, who ran the Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald J. Trump, to take a similar role in an incoming Republican state administration in Virginia.Democratic leaders said they would try to block Mr. Wheeler from taking charge of conservation programs, environmental cleanups and climate change initiatives like the ones he opposed as E.P.A. administrator.Resistance to Mr. Wheeler began building just moments after his nomination to be natural resources secretary was announced on Wednesday by Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who will be sworn in on Jan. 15.Republicans won control of the House of Delegates in November, but Democrats retain a 21-to-19 majority in the State Senate. They would be able to block confirmation of Mr. Wheeler if every Senate Democrat were to vote against him.It would be one of just a handful of times in recent history that a governor’s pick had been upended in a state where polite politics have long been the norm.Democratic lawmakers on Thursday said Mr. Wheeler’s former employment as a coal lobbyist and the role he played at the E.P.A. reversing federal protections against air and water pollution were reasons to fight his appointment.“Our governors tend not to propose people for these positions that are all that polarizing,” said Scott A. Surovell, a Democratic state senator from Northern Virginia. “I can’t think of a nominee in the last 20 years that has had the level of a controversial history as this guy does.”Mr. Surovell, who is vice chairman of the Senate Democratic caucus, said he was unsure if there were enough votes to defeat Mr. Wheeler’s nomination. But he said he had been fielding text messages all day from colleagues who expressed astonishment at Mr. Youngkin’s choice.“I think there’s a real chance that he could be rejected if Governor-elect Youngkin continues to insist on his nomination,” Mr. Surovell said.Mr. Wheeler, who lives in Virginia, did not respond to an email seeking comment. A spokesman for Mr. Youngkin also declined to comment.In a statement announcing his nomination of Mr. Wheeler as well as Michael Rolband to be state director of environmental quality, Mr. Youngkin said “Virginia needs a diverse energy portfolio in place to fuel our economic growth, continued preservation of our natural resources, and a comprehensive plan to tackle rising sea levels. Andrew and Michael share my vision in finding new ways to innovate and use our natural resources to provide Virginia with a stable, dependable, and growing power supply that will meet Virginia’s power demands without passing the costs on to the consumer.”Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin will be sworn in on Jan. 15.Eva Russo/Richmond Times-Dispatch, via Associated PressAs E.P.A. administrator in the Trump administration, Mr. Wheeler acknowledged the science of climate change but also said he believed it was not “the greatest crisis” facing the planet. He repealed several regulations that had been implemented by President Barack Obama and were designed to cut emissions from automobiles, power plants and oil and gas wells. Mr. Biden has revived many of those rules and is in the process of reinstating others.Mr. Wheeler also worked to make it harder for the E.P.A. to impose new regulations, most notably by trying to limit the kind of scientific studies the agency could consider when writing new pollution restrictions. A federal judge threw out that limit in February.Before joining the E.P.A., Mr. Wheeler worked for Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who has called climate change a “hoax.” He later worked as an energy lobbyist. His biggest client was Robert Murray, the chief executive of Murray Energy, who fought Mr. Obama’s climate and clean air regulations. Mr. Murray, who was a major donor to Mr. Trump, died in October. Representing Mr. Murray’s coal interests brought Mr. Wheeler’s lobbying firm more than $2.7 million over eight years.In September Mr. Wheeler testified before the board of supervisors in Fairfax County, Va., against a proposed 5-cent tax on disposable plastic bags, calling the plan “misguided.”“The appointment of someone like Wheeler is dangerous and reckless,” said Connor Kish, the legislative and political director of the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental group. Mr. Kish said the chapter was launching a direct lobbying effort to squelch Mr. Wheeler’s confirmation, the first time in his memory the group has done so for a state-level nominee.Understand the Lastest News on Climate ChangeCard 1 of 3Biden’s climate agenda in peril. More

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      Michigan’s New Congressional Maps Undo Years of Gerrymandering

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      A citizen ballot initiative took redistricting out of the hands of partisan legislators. The result: competitive political districts — and an example of how to push back against hyperpartisanship.One of the country’s most gerrymandered political maps has suddenly been replaced by one of the fairest.A decade after Michigan Republicans gave themselves seemingly impregnable majorities in the state Legislature by drawing districts that heavily favored their party, a newly created independent commission approved maps late Tuesday that create districts so competitive that Democrats have a fighting chance of recapturing the State Senate for the first time since 1984.The work of the new commission, which includes Democrats, Republicans and independents and was established through a citizen ballot initiative, stands in sharp contrast to the type of hyperpartisan extreme gerrymandering that has swept much of the country, exacerbating political polarization — and it may highlight a potential path to undoing such gerrymandering.With lawmakers excluded from the mapmaking process, Michigan’s new districts will much more closely reflect the overall partisan makeup of the hotly contested battleground state.“Michigan’s a jump ball, and this is a jump-ball map,” said Michael Li, a senior counsel who focuses on redistricting at the Brennan Center for Justice. “There’s a lot of competition in this map, which is what you would expect in a state like Michigan.”The commission’s three new maps — for Congress, the State House and the State Senate — restore a degree of fairness, but there were some notable criticisms. All of the maps still have a slight Republican advantage, in part because Democratic voters in the state are mostly concentrated in densely populated areas. The map for the State House also splits more than half of the state’s counties into several districts, despite redistricting guidelines that call for keeping neighboring communities together.The maps may also face a legal challenge from Black voters in the Detroit area, to whom the commission tried to give more opportunities for representation by unpacking them, or spreading them among more legislative districts.Redistricting at a GlanceEvery 10 years, each state in the U.S is required to redraw the boundaries of their congressional and state legislative districts in a process known as redistricting.Redistricting, Explained: Answers to your most pressing questions about redistricting and gerrymandering.Breaking Down Texas’s Map: How redistricting efforts in Texas are working to make Republican districts even more red.G.O.P.’s Heavy Edge: Republicans are poised to capture enough seats to take the House in 2022, thanks to gerrymandering alone.Legal Options Dwindle: Persuading judges to undo skewed political maps was never easy. A shifting judicial landscape is making it harder.Detroit’s State Senate delegation will jump to nine members from five, and its State House delegation to 15 representatives from nine. But local Black elected officials and civil rights groups contend that while the intention may have been noble, the result actually dilutes Black voting strength, not only in general elections but also in primaries, in which elections for Black legislators are almost always decided.The reduced percentages of Black voters in some of the new districts may prevent candidates from winning primary elections on the strength of the Black vote alone, those critics say.“The goal of creating partisan fairness cannot so negatively impact Black communities as to erase us from the space,” said Adam Hollier, a state senator from the Detroit area. “They think that they are unpacking, because that is the narrative that they hear from across the country, without looking at what that means in the city of Detroit.”Republicans were also discussing possible challenges to the new maps.“We are evaluating all options to take steps necessary to defend the voices silenced by this commission,” Gustavo Portela, a Michigan G.O.P. spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday, without elaborating on whose voices he meant.The G.O.P. advantage in Michigan’s Legislature has held solid for years even as Democrats carried the state in presidential elections and won races for governor and U.S. Senate. In 2014, Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat, won the seat formerly held by Carl Levin by more than 13 percentage points. Yet in the same year, Republicans in the State Senate expanded their supermajority, winning 27 of 38 seats.So great a divergence between statewide and legislative elections is often a telltale sign of a gerrymandered map. And a lawsuit in 2018 unearthed emails in which Republicans boasted about packing “Dem garbage” into fewer districts and ensuring Republican advantages “in 2012 and beyond.”But the new State Senate map would create 20 seats that President Biden would have carried in 2020 and 18 that former President Donald J. Trump would have carried, giving Democrats new hopes of competitiveness.The new maps offer no guarantee that Democrats will win either chamber, however. And in a strong year for the G.O.P., which 2022 may be, Republicans could retain their advantage in the Legislature and could also come away with a majority of the state’s new 13-seat congressional delegation.The congressional map includes three tossup seats where the 2020 presidential margin was less than five points, and two more seats that could be competitive in a wave year, with presidential margins of less than 10 points. Two current Democratic representatives, Haley Stevens and Andy Levin, were drawn into the same district, setting up a competitive primary in the 11th District. Both declared their intention to run on Tuesday.The State House will also feature at least 20 competitive districts.Preserving such competition, election experts say, is one of the key goals in redistricting reform.“This is the quintessential success story of redistricting,” said Sam Wang, director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. “These maps treated the two parties, Democrats and Republicans, about as fairly as you could ever imagine a map being. In all three cases, whoever gets the most votes statewide is likely to control the chamber or the delegation. And there’s competition in all three maps.”Understand How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Democrats Say They Are Serious About State Elections. But Are They Too Late?

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      State-level races are becoming a central focus of American politics as the lasting effects of new congressional maps and election laws raise the stakes.Late on Nov. 8, 2016, the mood inside President Barack Obama’s West Wing turned grim. Hillary Clinton was coming up short. The realization was growing that Donald J. Trump would be elected president.Suddenly, David M. Simas, Mr. Obama’s political director, pumped his fist and called out, “Yes!”A cautious, cerebral lawyer, Mr. Simas was not known for attention-getting exultation. Asked why he was cheering, he deadpanned: “We just won a North Carolina Supreme Court seat.”Incongruous as it was, the moment of triumph in a relatively minor contest reflected a growing concern among Democratic leaders, all the way up to Mr. Obama, that their party needed a more assertive strategy for the end-of-decade redistricting fights to come. But as Democrats awakened to the depth of their plight, they found that learning to think small was easier said than done: Hopes of big gains at the state level in 2020, a crucial year for redistricting, did not materialize. Liberal voters showed they were less hungry to win those races than they were to oust Mr. Trump.Now, however, state-level contests like those for governor’s offices, legislatures and courts are suddenly moving from the periphery to the center of American politics. And the ongoing tussle over political maps is just one front in a larger conflict: As Mr. Trump pushes his false claims of a stolen 2020 election, what was once seen at most as a decennial scrum for partisan advantage in the provinces of government is transforming, in some Democrats’ minds, into a twilight struggle for the future of American democracy.“We’re at a moment of reckoning in America,” former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said during a recent fund-raising event for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group he formed that became the primary locus of Mr. Obama’s political activity when he left the White House. “I’m not being hyperbolic or alarmist. I think our democracy is on the line.”Fund-raising appeals on behalf of Democratic legislative candidates note the fact that at least six Republican state lawmakers were in Washington on Jan. 6, and that Republican-led states from Arizona to Georgia have passed laws tightening the rules around voting. And revelations about Mr. Trump’s ad hoc efforts to overturn the previous presidential election are fueling fears that in a rematch of 2020, Mr. Trump might conspire with G.O.P. state lawmakers to alter the outcome illegitimately.“We believe the right wing is signaling a strategy to steal the election through state legislatures in 2024,” said Daniel Squadron, a former New York state senator whose group, the States Project, has announced plans to raise $30 million to support Democratic candidates in state legislative races in 2022.Former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., left with microphone, at a Virginia rally in 2019. He formed a group focused on redistricting.Emma Howells for The New York TimesYet it remains to be seen whether such dire warnings will move voters. Selling rank-and-file Democrats on the importance of offices like state senator or state Supreme Court justice has proved daunting. In the 2020 campaign cycle, donors showered Amy McGrath, a doomed Democratic candidate for Senate from Kentucky, with $96 million, dwarfing the $51 million raised by the national Democratic Party committee responsible for aiding candidates for legislative seats in all 50 states. And Democrats tend to suffer disproportionately from “roll-off,” a phenomenon in which voters fail to complete their ballots, withholding their votes from candidates at the bottom of the ticket.“It feels very much like climbing uphill, pushing a rock while your arms are melting,” said Amanda Litman of the liberal group Run for Something, which recruits young people to run for state and local office.Redistricting at a GlanceEvery 10 years, each state in the U.S is required to redraw the boundaries of their congressional and state legislative districts in a process known as redistricting.Redistricting, Explained: Answers to your most pressing questions about redistricting and gerrymandering.Breaking Down Texas’s Map: How redistricting efforts in Texas are working to make Republican districts even more red.G.O.P.’s Heavy Edge: Republicans are poised to capture enough seats to take the House in 2022, thanks to gerrymandering alone.Legal Options Dwindle: Persuading judges to undo skewed political maps was never easy. A shifting judicial landscape is making it harder.Gaby Goldstein, co-founder of Sister District, a grass-roots organization that supports progressive candidates in state legislative races, noted that conservatives have mobilized around state politics for decades. “I always say that Democrats are tardy to the party,” she said.The Democratic Party’s belated interest in lower-tier races grew out of its bruising experience in 2010, when Republicans rode an anti-Obama backlash to oust hundreds of Democratic incumbents nationwide. Spending just $30 million, Republicans flipped 680 state legislative seats and 20 chambers, a stunning victory that put them in position to redraw election maps and entrench their hold over those states — and their congressional delegations — for a decade.“Democrats were frankly unprepared during that cycle,” said Kelly Ward Burton, who at the time was running House Democrats’ campaign committee. Now the president of Mr. Holder’s redistricting committee, Ms. Burton has been working closely with several Democratic campaign groups in hopes of a different outcome from the current round of redistricting.Part hardball politics and part good-government activism, the groups’ strategy has been to break up G.O.P. “trifectas” where possible — reducing the number of states where Republicans enjoy full control of the redistricting process because they hold the governorship and majorities in both legislative chambers. They also ask candidates for state and federal offices to pledge support for “fair redistricting that ends map manipulation and creates truly representative districts,” an aspiration that is sometimes in tension with more partisan goals.Midway through the current redistricting brawl, the results of those Democratic efforts are mixed.The long-troubled Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee became a force under new leadership in 2016, setting up the party to take six chambers in the 2018 midterm elections. Since 2017, Democrats have flipped 10 governor’s offices, including in the battlegrounds of Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and picked up seven state Supreme Court seats. Five states have passed nonpartisan redistricting reforms, putting map-drawing in the hands of independent commissions.But the blue wave that Democrats were counting on in 2020 never washed ashore. Although Democratic groups spent record amounts trying to win back G.O.P.-held statehouses, their party ended last year worse off, losing both chambers in New Hampshire. As a result, Republicans not only kept control of prizes like the Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin legislatures, but they also have retained the power to draw maps for 187 congressional districts, while Democrats control the fate of just 75.As a result, Democrats’ hopes of keeping the House may rest on legal challenges to maps that Republican-led states have already approved. And a 2019 Supreme Court ruling, which put partisan gerrymandering claims beyond the purview of federal courts, ensures that state courts will be the main arena for such lawsuits.In 2019, Democrats lost a crucial state Supreme Court contest in Wisconsin by fewer than 6,000 votes, cementing the body’s conservative majority. But the election of liberal judges in North Carolina and Ohio has given Mr. Holder’s group, and other liberal outfits allied with it, at least a chance to win in court what Democrats lack the power to achieve in Republican-dominated legislatures.Tim Butler, a Republican state lawmaker in Illinois. Aggressive gerrymandering in the state could net Democrats at least one additional House seat.Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register, via Associated PressElsewhere, high-minded sentiments are yielding to the demands of brass-knuckle politics. Many Democrats cheered the aggressive gerrymandering in Illinois, where maps approved by Gov. J.B. Pritzker could net them at least one additional House seat, and they are urging a similar approach in New York, where a Democratic supermajority may seek to gerrymander its way to capturing as many as four seats currently held by Republicans.None of which is lost on Republicans. “Democrats pretend to be for ‘fair maps,’ but they use every advantage they get,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for the Republican State Leadership Committee.Understand How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Edward Durr Jr.: The Trump Republican Who’s Riding High in New Jersey

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      “If anything, my election showed nobody’s untouchable,” said Edward Durr Jr., who pulled off a stunning victory to win a New Jersey State Senate seat.Edward Durr Jr., a Republican who this month toppled New Jersey’s second most powerful lawmaker, had three children under 13 when a mortgage company began foreclosure proceedings on his 1,200-square-foot, one-story home in South Jersey in 1997.Within two years, he and his first wife had filed for bankruptcy, identifying $64,784.99 in debts to J.C. Penney, an insurance company and a bank, court records show.“My kids didn’t really know what was going on,” said Mr. Durr, who dropped out of high school when his father, a self-employed carpenter, got sick and needed help at work. “We kind of sheltered them from that.”Two decades later, New Jersey’s high property taxes and cost of living would become centerpieces of Mr. Durr’s campaign, cementing his improbable win against Steve Sweeney, a Democrat who had held a near-final say over all legislation in Trenton as president of the State Senate.A commercial truck driver, he describes himself as a “blue-collar, Christian, Second Amendment supporter.” He is a strong backer of former President Donald J. Trump, who called to congratulate him on his win, and an opponent of vaccine and mask mandates and what he calls government “tyranny.”Mr. Durr’s victory and the region’s strong Republican turnout are considered emblematic of evaporating enthusiasm for Democrats in suburban and rural areas and wide dissatisfaction with President Biden. That mix contributed to a Republican win in Virginia and Gov. Philip D. Murphy’s unexpectedly close re-election in New Jersey, and is seen as an ominous sign for the Democratic Party ahead of next year’s congressional midterms.“If anything, my election showed nobody’s untouchable,” Mr. Durr said.During the campaign, Democratic operatives used mailers and a video ad to highlight Mr. Durr’s past financial troubles, but he won by about 2,300 votes anyway, pulling off one of the biggest political upsets in state history.“Not for nothing,” said Steve Kush, a Republican consultant who worked with Mr. Durr’s campaign, “but those kinds of attacks actually backfired this time. There’s a lot of other people going through some very hard times. Who hasn’t had problems with financing?”Since the Nov. 2 election, Mr. Durr, 58, has become a mini-celebrity, unable to walk through Walmart or ShopRite or pick up chicken wings from his local pub, Wilson’s, without being asked to pose for a selfie.Mr. Durr, a Republican who won an upset race against one of the most powerful Democrats in New Jersey, has said his newfound fame made him queasy.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesHe does not take office until Jan. 11. But he is already using a new domain name, edthetrucker.com, to raise funds for re-election and hawking “Ed the Trucker” hats, “Riding DURRty” bumper stickers and “Dangerous Durr” T-shirts and mugs, co-opting a term Mr. Murphy used to describe him.His campaign flew so far under the radar that it was not until after Election Day that a reporter for WNYC, a public radio station, publicized incendiary comments he had made on Twitter that disparaged the Muslim Prophet Muhammad and called Islam a “false religion.”On the day Mr. Sweeney conceded, Mr. Durr met with Muslim leaders at a masjid near his campaign headquarters, reiterating his public apology for the comments and offering a commitment to “stand against Islamophobia and all forms of hate.”“As long as you know somebody, it’s hard to hate somebody — don’t you think?” he told reporters gathered outside, holding a Quran given to him during a two-hour meeting with members of the state’s Council on American Islamic Relations. “It’s very easy to hate somebody that you don’t know.”At home in Logan Township, 15 miles outside Philadelphia, Mr. Durr himself remains largely unknown. He did not win a majority of votes in the Democrat-led town where he lives near the Delaware River, in an area known as Repaupo.In Penns Grove, where the three-bedroom, one-bath house he lost in foreclosure last sold for $22,000, neighbors said they had not heard of him before Election Day, if at all.“He didn’t win his own town,” said Frank Minor, Logan’s Democratic mayor. “That tells you a lot right there.”“He’s been anti-Muslim, anti-vax,” Mr. Minor added. “He’s a Trump Republican. That’s what he is. That’s what he’s going to do.”After disparaging Islam, Mr. Durr met with Muslim leaders at Al Minhal Academy of Islamic Education in Washington Township, N.J. He left carrying a Quran.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesRural and predominantly white, southern New Jersey is one of the most conservative parts of the state. Democrats in Mr. Durr’s district outnumber Republicans, yet Mr. Trump narrowly won more votes than his Democratic opponent in 2016 and in 2020.Buoyed by Mr. Sweeney and the influence of George E. Norcross III, a well-connected political boss, Democrats controlled most local and state offices. That also changed on Election Day.Mr. Durr’s two Republican running-mates ousted incumbent Democrats in the Assembly, and Republicans flipped two seats on the Gloucester County Board of Commissioners, the legislative body where Mr. Sweeney cut his political teeth.Mr. Durr said he shed 55 pounds during the campaign, weight loss he attributed to walking and knocking on doors in places Republicans seldom consider competitive: Mr. Sweeney’s hometown, West Deptford, and the city of Bridgeton, a tight-knit enclave of mostly Latino immigrants.“People were, like, shocked,” Mr. Durr said. “They’d say, ‘Nobody’s ever been here.’”Mr. Durr said he hoped to keep his job as a truck driver for the Raymour & Flanigan furniture chain, and the health insurance it provides, even after he is sworn in as a senator, a part-time position that pays $49,000. Lawmakers who took office after 2010 are not eligible for health coverage.He rides a 2012 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, spoils his three pit bulls — “I call them my fur babies” — and, with his five siblings, takes care of his mother, a recent widow who lives next door.Before joining the furniture company, he worked in construction and said he often held multiple jobs, including making pastries for Dunkin’ Donuts and working in a farm supply store. During two growing seasons, he drove trucks for East Coast Sod and Seed.“He was on time,” said Andy Mottel, the manager of the Pilesgrove, N.J., farm, which transports sod across the country and provides the field grass for Yankee Stadium. “He worked every day. He has that strong voice — very knowledgeable about sports.”Mr. Durr completed his G.E.D. through Gloucester City High School, and he has made no secret of his unease with his sudden stardom. (“I feel like I’m about to throw up,” he said the day Mr. Sweeney conceded.) He will be a member of the minority party in the State House, making it unlikely he will have significant power to steer or stonewall legislation.When ticking off his legislative priorities, he mentions goals like “bringing jobs here, bringing businesses here,” and he is the first to say he has a lot to learn about how Trenton works. “If it’s an issue that concerns New Jersey citizens, I’m going fight for it,” he said.It was his fourth campaign for public office. He ran for State Assembly as an independent in 2017 and as a Republican in 2019, and he ran last year for Logan Township council.It is unclear how much he spent to win. The latest financial reports show he spent roughly $2,300, but he has said that the final figure will be between $5,000 and $10,000.New Jersey has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, and Mr. Durr said he originally decided to run for public office after learning he could not get a license to carry a concealed weapon.“I’ve been on every military base as a truck driver on the East Coast,” he said. “Why am I being refused my right to self-protect? The Second Amendment says I have a right to self-protect.”Mr. Durr’s Islamophobic remarks in 2019 were not his only controversial comments on social media.He also appeared to equate public acquiescence to pandemic-related mandates to remaining silent during the Holocaust. After a violent racist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, he offered comments reflecting the legitimacy of “both sides,” a position similar to Mr. Trump’s initial response.Officials with the Islamic council said that they worried that Mr. Durr’s past hate speech, left unchecked, could lead to violence. During the meeting at the masjid, they offered him examples of relatives who had been targeted for being Muslim.Three people who participated said that he was engaged and appeared genuine in his desire to learn more about the Muslim faith. The group shared snacks, and Mr. Durr observed a 10-minute prayer service.“He was open minded,” said John Starling, the imam of a mosque in Cherry Hill, N.J. “He was without hesitation ready to make the situation right.”Atiya Aftab, who teaches in the Middle Eastern Studies program at Rutgers University and also attended the meeting, said she understood it as the start of an ongoing conversation.“I’m not second-guessing his intent,” Professor Aftab said. “I did feel that it was genuine and authentic. But ultimately it’s actions that will speak louder than words.”Camille Furst contributed reporting and Susan C. Beachy contributed research. More

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      G.O.P. Cements Hold on Legislatures in Battleground States

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      Democrats were once able to count on wave elections to win back key statehouses. Republican gerrymandering is making that all but impossible.Republicans are locking in newly gerrymandered maps for the legislatures in four battleground states that are set to secure the party’s control in the statehouse chambers over the next decade, fortifying the G.O.P. against even the most sweeping potential Democratic wave elections.In Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia, Republican state lawmakers have either created supermajorities capable of overriding a governor’s veto or whittled down competitive districts so significantly that Republicans’ advantage is virtually impenetrable — leaving voters in narrowly divided states powerless to change the leadership of their legislatures.Although much of the attention on this year’s redistricting process has focused on gerrymandered congressional maps, the new maps being drafted in state legislatures have been just as distorted.And statehouses have taken on towering importance: With the federal government gridlocked, these legislatures now serve as the country’s policy laboratory, crafting bills on abortion, guns, voting restrictions and other issues that shape the national political debate.“This is not your founding fathers’ gerrymander,” said Chris Lamar, a senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center who focuses on redistricting. “This is something more intense and durable and permanent.”This redistricting cycle, the first one in a decade, builds on a political trend that accelerated in 2011, when Republicans in swing states including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan drew highly gerrymandered state legislative maps.Since those maps were enacted, Republicans have held both houses of state government in all three places for the entire decade. They never lost control of a single chamber, even as Democrats won some of the states’ races for president, governor and Senate.All three of those Northern states are likely to see some shift back toward parity this year, with a new independent commission drawing Michigan’s maps, and Democratic governors in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will probably force the process to be completed by the courts.Gerrymandering is a tool used by both parties in swing states as well as less competitive ones. Democrats in deep-blue states like Illinois are moving to increase their advantage in legislatures, and Republicans in deep-red states like Utah and Idaho are doing the same.But in politically contested states where Republicans hold full control, legislators are carefully crafting a G.O.P. future. They are armed with sharper technology, weakened federal voting statutes and the knowledge that legal challenges to their maps may not be resolved in time for the next elections.In Texas, North Carolina and Ohio, Republican governors have signed into law new maps with a significant advantage for the party. Georgia is moving quickly to join them.Republicans say that the growth of such heavily skewed legislatures is both the result of the party’s electoral victories and of where voters choose to live.State legislative districts are by nature much smaller in population than congressional districts, meaning they are often more geographically compact.As Democratic voters have crowded into cities and commuter suburbs, and voters in rural and exurban areas have grown increasingly Republican, G.O.P. mapmakers say that they risk running afoul of other redistricting criteria if they split up those densely populated Democratic areas across multiple state legislative districts.“What you see is reflective of the more even distribution of Republican and right-leaning voters across wider geographic areas,” said Adam Kincaid, the director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust. Trying to draw more competitive legislative districts, he said, would result in “just a lot of squiggly lines.”He pointed to maps in Wisconsin that were proposed by a commission created by Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. Under those designs, Republicans would still have a majority in both state legislative chambers (though with significantly smaller margins).“They’re limited by geography,” Mr. Kincaid said. “There’s only so many things you can do to spread that many voters across a wide area.”Democrats note that Republicans are still cracking apart liberal communities — especially in suburbs near Akron and Cleveland in Ohio and in predominantly Black counties in northern and central North Carolina — in a way that helps the G.O.P. and cuts against a geographical argument.“They are carving up Democratic voters where they can’t pack them,” said Garrett Arwa, the director of campaigns at the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. He argued that Democratic map proposals “all put forth better and more fair maps that I would say are far from a Rorschach test.”Democrats have fewer opportunities to unilaterally draw state legislative maps, particularly in battleground states. Of the 14 states where the margin of the 2020 presidential race was fewer than 10 percentage points, Democrats are able to draw state legislative maps in just one: Nevada. Republicans control the redistricting process in six of those 14 states. (The rest have divided governments, or their maps are drawn by commissions.)But when Democrats have had an opening, they have also enacted significant gerrymanders at the state legislative level. In Nevada, Democrats are close to finalizing a map that would give them supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature, despite President Biden’s winning just 51 percent of the state’s vote last year.The same holds true in deeply blue states. In Illinois, newly drawn State Senate maps would give Republicans roughly 23 percent of seats in the chamber, even though former President Donald J. Trump won more than 40 percent of voters in the state in 2020.Republicans have taken two approaches to ensure durable majorities in state legislatures. The tactics in Texas and Georgia are more subtle, while Republicans in Ohio and North Carolina have taken more brazen steps.In Texas and Georgia, the party has largely eliminated competitive districts and made both Republican and Democratic seats safer, a move that tends to ward off criticism from at least some incumbents in the minority party.“Out of the 150 seats in the Texas House, only six of them are within seven points or closer,” said Sam Wang, the director of the Princeton Redistricting Project. Republicans now hold a 20-seat advantage in the chamber, 85 to 65, and the new maps will give the party roughly two more seats. So while the G.O.P. lawmakers did not try to draw an aggressive supermajority, “what they really did a good job of there is getting rid of competition and getting a reasonably safe majority for themselves,” Mr. Wang said.Understand How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Scams and Slippery Slopes

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      I’ve always believed that part of education — especially higher education — is learning to ask better questions about complex topics, knowing you might not have the right answers. In my graduate seminars, one of my favorite ways of prompting students to pursue deeper lines of inquiry is by asking this question: If we take off the table that something is racist, sexist or classist, what else can we say about it?Society is embedded with power imbalances and inequalities. Of course there are gender disparities and discrimination, of course there is a racial hierarchy and a racial order. But if we set that aside, what more can we say about a text, about a person, about a moment?I was thinking about this when reading a “rare interview” with Politico this week, in which Kyrsten Sinema weighed in on writing about her clothes, including our three-part discussion of her sartorial presentation as a form of political speech:“It’s very inappropriate. I wear what I want because I like it. It’s not a news story, and it’s no one’s business,” Sinema said. “It’s not helpful to have [coverage] be positive or negative. It also implies that somehow women are dressing for someone else.”The idea that women dress only for themselves is a truism in modern feminism, one that we could dispute or qualify. But let’s set that aside, for now, and stipulate that she’s right, generally speaking.It still remains that she is a politician. And part of the job of politicians is to court attention and manage their image. As I have argued, since presentation and style are part of the politician’s tool kit, the question for us is whether we are willing to allow this kind of political communication to go unexamined and without critique.Here, it’s important to consider the context when setting the bounds of appropriate discourse. The details of the Democrats’ social spending bill, Build Back Better, are in flux. But it has funds for Pell Grant increases, affordable child care, paid family leave and expanded health care coverage. It contains policy to slow climate change and mitigate its effects. It is not an exaggeration to say that lives hang in the balance with the fate of the bill.And Sinema has placed herself at the center of this political drama. So it matters how she marshals her power. It also matters how she manages attention.Sinema largely allows her performance to speak for her. She avoids interviews, and has been quite guarded about what she wants out of these negotiations. As Politico writes, “On policy, the first-term senator has remained almost completely quiet during breakneck negotiations to finish Biden’s agenda.”That silence puts a curtain between a powerful political actor and the public, who have a lot on the line. It also means it is more than fair to discuss and critique the political rhetoric coded in her performance, and that includes what she is wearing. Politicians should not be allowed to have a one-way dialogue with the American public. One-way political communication is a very slippery slope to a closed political process — one that trades real accountability for a process that appears transparent only because we can see the moving images on our screens.We get to talk back. And we should.Speaking of talking back, many of you wrote in and said we should be keeping our eye on what matters. A pair of reports, both from this month, got my attention. I think they point to an important trend.First, Politico reported that Sinema has received donations from the multilevel marketing industry:The political action committee associated with Alticor, the parent entity of the health, home and beauty company Amway, gave $2,500 to the Arizona Democrat in late June, as did the PAC for Isagenix, an Arizona-based business that sells nutrition, wellness and personal care products. Nu Skin Enterprises, another personal care and beauty company, gave $2,500 that month, as did USANA Health Sciences, which sells similar products. In April, Richard Raymond Rogers, the executive chair of Mary Kay, a Texas-based cosmetics company, gave $2,500 to Sinema. Herbalife, which also sells nutritional supplements, gave $2,500 in July. All are affiliated with the Direct Selling Association, a trade group that promotes multilevel marketing.These are not enormous sums of money, but it is notable for a few reasons. As Politico notes, it’s relatively uncommon for some of these companies to get involved in national politics at all. And Sinema has had a friendly relationship with the Direct Sellers Association, which represents 130 multilevel marketing companies, including Amway and Herbalife.This alliance is unusual for a Democratic senator given her party’s longtime alliance with unions and labor more generally. In multilevel marketing structures, the independent contractors who sell the product are paid commissions from their own sales of the product, but they also can receive income based on the sales or purchases of the sellers they have recruited. Sinema is the one of only three Democratic senators who do not co-sponsor the PRO Act, which would allow the “independent contractors” to unionize, as well as making it harder for companies to classify workers as independent contractors at all.Second, Dr. Mehmet Oz is reported to be considering running for Senate in Pennsylvania, to fill the seat being vacated by Pat Toomey. Through a very convoluted process of media culture that is possible only in the celebrity-obsessed American culture, Dr. Oz has become one of the most visible and wealthy endorsers of a host of scientifically questionable vitamins, herbal remedies and miracle cures.These news items brought to mind the way these kinds of businesses — on the border of illegality and not quite respectable — have gone mainstream in America. Donald Trump is perhaps the best example of this phenomenon. Among other things, he happened to be the founder and namesake of one of the most blatantly fraudulent for-profit school apparatuses that I have ever seen: Trump University, which National Review called a “de jure” scam.Donald Trump’s election seems to have opened the door to us not even pretending anymore that these kinds of scams aren’t legitimate parts of our political and economic system, and even pathways to power.Whenever I talk about multilevel marketing, people often make two suggestions of things to check out. One is a podcast called “The Dream” by Jane Marie. The other is a recent documentary about LuLaRoe, which sells leggings. Both of these tell stories about the mechanisms of multilevel marketers, how they work and why they work.With the holiday coming up, I’m going to spend some time on your behalf listening to the “The Dream” as I travel around by car. And I’m going to watch the LuLaRoe documentary. I have questions about why scamming has become mainstreamed as a legitimate part of national politics, and what it says about culture. We’ll be talking about that soon. I’ll be off next week to celebrate Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you the week after that.Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd) is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, the author of “Thick: And Other Essays” and a 2020 MacArthur fellow. More

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      New York Becomes Marathon City Once Again

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      It’s Friday. We’ll look at the New York City Marathon, which will celebrate its 50th running this weekend with an expected 30,000 people on the starting line. We’ll also look at the continuing fallout from Election Day in New York and New Jersey.Runners in the Bronx during the last New York City Marathon, in 2019. Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThe New York Marathon started as four laps in Central Park, which in 1970 was “hardly the pastoral jewel that New Yorkers now know and love,” recalls George Hirsch, a founder of the five-borough marathon and the chairman of New York Road Runners. He remembers that the park “was marred by rampant vandalism, drugs were sold openly at Bethesda Fountain and graffiti defaced most of its buildings.” He says the 127 original starters established an important theme, revival and resilience.Revival and resilience will be on the runners’ minds on Sunday, according to my colleague Michael Gold, one of the 30,000 entrants. No matter what happens along the way, it is already clear that the marathon will be an important moment in the city’s long recovery from the pandemic, with officials eager to prove that New York remains vibrant and ready to welcome back guests — and their dollars.This year’s field is smaller, with only 30,000 competitors, down from roughly 55,000 in the past. To cut down on crowding in the early minutes on the way to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and elsewhere along the 26.2-mile course, the runners will be grouped in five waves. The intervals separating their starts will be longer than before.The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission celebrated the 50th running of the marathon by creating an interactive map of landmarks the runners will see, but don’t look for some big-name competitors in the race. Some of the top distance runners went elsewhere after three major spring marathons were postponed until fall, packing six major races into six weeks. (One, in Tokyo, was ultimately called off.)One result? Joyciline Jepkosgei chose London over New York, where she would have defended the championship she won in 2019. She won in London.As for Michael, he ran a lot during the pandemic, when the gyms were closed. “I had been running smaller races, and I was supposed to run my second-ever half-marathon on March 15, 2020,” he said. “You can guess how that went.”The race on Sunday will be his first marathon. I kidded him about whether he runs faster than he writes or writes faster than he runs. We’ll find out on Sunday, won’t we? “I’m hoping to finish this thing in four hours,” he told me, though he modestly called that “optimistic.”WeatherPrepare to welcome the weekend with a sunny day in the 50s. At night, temps will drop to the high 30s.alternate-side parkingIn effect until Nov. 11 (Veterans Day).CITY COUNCILExpected firsts and some surprisesHolly Pickett for The New York TimesBefore Election Day, the expectation was that women would outnumber men on the next New York City Council.That was not expected to be the only first. It was also widely thought that Council seats would go to the first Korean American members, the first Muslim woman and the first out L.G.B.T.Q. Black women on Election Day.Most of that happened on Tuesday, but not exactly as anticipated.At least two of the women newly elected to the Council were Republicans — part of a trend that saw the G.O.P. gain seats for the first time since 2009. Though Democrats cruised to victories in the vast majority of races, Republicans retained the three City Council seats they had held, including one that Democrats had hoped to flip. They also picked up a fourth.[N.Y. City Council Sees Historic Changes, and Republicans Gain Ground]And in two races where incumbent Democrats ran cross-party support, they received more votes on the Republican line than on the Democratic one.Strategists from both parties said that where Council races were competitive, voters were concerned about public safety, a centerpiece of Mayor-elect Eric Adams’s campaign as the Democratic candidate. Frustration over pandemic guidelines and vaccine mandates also figured in voters’ choices in Council races, strategists said. So did alienation from the Democratic Party among voters who feel progressives have left them out.“There is a lack of a clear message of what the Democratic Party stands for,” said Kenneth Sherrill, a professor emeritus of political science at Hunter College..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-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 Council will have a new speaker. The current speaker, Corey Johnson, could not seek another term representing his Manhattan district because of term limits.One potential contender to succeed him — Councilman Justin Brannan, pictured above, a Democrat whose Brooklyn district covers Bath Beach, Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst and Dyker Heights — is in a race that had not been called by late Thursday. On election night he was 255 votes behind Brian Fox, a Republican who opposed vaccine mandates. Some 1,456 absentee ballots remain to be counted, about 1,000 from registered Democrats.NEW JERSEYPowerful Senate president loses to a newcomerStephen M. Sweeney, the New Jersey State Senate president and a Democrat, lost his re-election bid on Tuesday.The Press of Atlantic City, via Associated PressStephen Sweeney has been the second most powerful lawmaker in New Jersey.His status will change in January. He will no longer be the president of the State Senate — or even a senator.Sweeney, a Democrat, lost his re-election campaign to Edward Durr, a Republican who is a truck driver for the Raymour & Flanagan furniture chain. Durr, who ran for the Assembly in 2017 and 2019 and lost both times, led by 2,298 votes when The Associated Press called the race on Thursday.[Stephen Sweeney, N.J. Senate President, Loses to Republican Truck Driver]The outcome in Sweeney’s race — coupled with Gov. Philip Murphy’s surprisingly narrow win — set off a political upheaval in Trenton. Sweeney’s defeat created a vacuum in the State Legislature, where Sweeney had held the agenda-setting post of senate president for nearly 12 years.He and Durr could hardly have been more different as candidates. Durr’s campaign video was shot on a smartphone. He told news outlets that he had spent $153 on the race, although financial disclosure reports put his total at roughly $2,200. And he had to defer celebrating his surprise win because when his victory was announced he was out driving his truck.Sweeney had unyielding support from the influential building trade unions. But running as an incumbent Democrat when voters were angry about coronavirus restrictions and dysfunction in Washington was enough to erode his once solid standing.The latest New York newsA New York law that imposes strict limits on carrying guns outside the home seemed unlikely to survive its encounter with the Supreme Court.After staging a hunger strike, New York cabbies won millions more in aid.What we’re readingHe is known as Disco. He has been a bouncer for 25 years. Grub Street spent the evening with him working the doors.Annie Leibovitz’s new book is an anthology of fashion images. But she says she is not a fashion photographer.What we’re watching now: Dana Rubinstein, a Metro reporter, will discuss the state of New York politics — from the mayor-elect’s agenda to the forthcoming governor’s race — on “The New York Times Close Up With Sam Roberts.” The show airs on Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and Sunday at 12:30 p.m. [CUNY TV]METROPOLITAN diaryLike toy figuresDear Diary:My husband and I were on the 14th floor of a building at York Avenue and East 74th Street waiting for a medical appointment.The place was beautifully furnished and had drop-dead views of the East River. We took a pair of comfy chairs at the south-facing window, looking down onto the F.D.R. Drive and the esplanade.The river was surging and traffic on the drive was humming, but the esplanade seemed strangely quiet for a summer afternoon. There was not a runner or a cyclist to be seen, only two figures lingering in the shade of a clump of trees. One was in a wheelchair; the other was on a nearby bench. They looked very still, like toy figures.As we watched, they began to come to life. The person in the wheelchair rolled forward. The person on the bench stood up, then bent down to adjust something.Was it a hoverboard? It was a hoverboard!The person on the hoverboard began to push the person in the wheelchair. They headed off down the esplanade together, gathering steam.We watched them glide away, then sat back down.— Jane ScottIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero, Rick Martinez and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Republican Truck Driver Beats Sweeney in N.J. Election

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      Mr. Sweeney, the second most powerful lawmaker in New Jersey and a Democrat, lost his bid for re-election to Edward Durr, a driver for a furniture chain.For nearly a decade, Stephen M. Sweeney, the second most powerful lawmaker in New Jersey, seemed truly unassailable. He boasted deep ties to the most feared political power broker in the state and unyielding support from the influential building trade unions. Four years ago, the state’s teachers’ union spent more than $5 million to unseat him. He won by 18 points.This year, his challenger was Edward Durr, a truck driver for Raymour & Flanigan, a furniture chain, who had never before held office. His campaign video was shot on a smartphone.Yet Mr. Sweeney, the State Senate president and a Democrat, was ousted in a shocking political upset by Mr. Durr, a Republican, as voters opted for a political unknown in a result that immediately rattled the political moorings of the state. Voters also nearly ousted Gov. Philip D. Murphy; the governor narrowly won re-election over his Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, leading by 1.6 percentage points.But it was Mr. Sweeney’s loss that was perhaps best emblematic of the predicament facing Democrats in suburban, exurban and rural communities.The Associated Press called the race on Thursday morning, as Mr. Durr maintained a 2,298-vote lead over Mr. Sweeney with all precincts counted.Though Mr. Sweeney’s district in the southwestern part of the state has never been deeply blue like the northeastern counties, it has reliably elected a Democrat since its creation in 1973, save for one year when the Democratic incumbent switched parties.Mr. Sweeney held a vise grip on the district, largely composed of blue-collar suburbs just south of Camden and poorer, rural areas, thanks to powerful allies and a decidedly moderate record, playing up his background as an ironworker and union leader.But as support for Democrats eroded in the suburbs and evaporated in rural areas in both New Jersey and Virginia, Mr. Sweeney found himself facing a surge in Republican voters and a loss in support from the working-class backing he had so often relied on; being a Democratic lawmaker during an era of coronavirus lockdowns, mandates in schools and dysfunction in Washington was enough to erode what was once unshakable backing.In Gloucester County, Catherine Biasiello, 70, said she is a registered Democrat who voted for Mr. Durr because she is unhappy with the state’s high tax rate, and because she disapproves of the state’s closure of public schools during the pandemic.Ms Biasiello, 70, who lives in West Deptford, said Mr. Sweeney “could have stepped up” to oppose the school shutdowns but did not. “He could have influenced the governor,” she said.Mr. Sweeney’s loss amounts to a seismic restructuring of political power and influence, leaving a substantial vacuum in the State Legislature; he had held the post of senate president, with the ability to set the legislative agenda, for nearly 12 years.In the Trump era, Republicans were seen as doomed to a permanent minority in New Jersey, as voters’ deep contempt for the former president was strong enough to turn the long-held Republican suburbs blue; Democrats flipped four House seats in the 2018 midterm elections.But the surprising defeat of Mr. Sweeney, coupled with Mr. Murphy’s slim margin of victory and unexpectedly tight races involving popular rising Democratic stars in the state like Vin Gopal, a state senator from Monmouth County, reveals a Republican Party that seems to be marching back to relevance..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-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;}Mr. Ciattarelli’s efforts and spending led the way, allowing lesser candidates like Mr. Durr, who lives in a house next to his mother in southern New Jersey, to gather momentum.Mr. Durr told news outlets that he had spent $153 on his campaign, but financial disclosure reports indicate he spent roughly $2,200 on his race. His meager campaign included the 80-second campaign video, where he accentuated his working-class roots with an opening scene of his stepping down from his truck cab, and ending with his riding away on a motorcycle. His victory was announced on the same day Mr. Durr was on a shift driving his truck.With barely any attention given to the race, Mr. Durr remained largely unvetted and unknown to the general public. On Thursday, old posts on social media by the candidate began circulating, including one reflecting support for “both sides” of the violent racist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 and another condemning Islam and disparaging the Prophet Muhammad.Mr. Durr did not respond to several requests for an interview. But in an impromptu news conference outside of his house on Thursday, Mr. Durr nodded to an electorate he saw as angry.“It didn’t happen because of me,” he said. “I’m nobody. I’m absolutely nobody. I’m just a simple guy. It was the people. It was a repudiation of the policies that have been forced down their throats.”Mr. Durr then took his three pit bulls on a walk.His campaign, which largely consisted of his video, lawn signs and door knocking, projected more grievance than platforms, taking issue with the coronavirus policies of Mr. Murphy and claiming Mr. Sweeney “sat by and watched.” He also focused on the state’s high cost of living.“The Senate president has spent 20 years in Trenton: higher taxes, increasing debt, and a rising cost of living,” Mr. Durr says in his video.Mr. Sweeney, in a statement released on Thursday, did not concede.“The results from Tuesday’s election continue to come in, for instance there were 12,000 ballots recently found in one county,” Mr. Sweeney said. “While I am currently trailing in the race, we want to make sure every vote is counted. Our voters deserve that, and we will wait for the final results.”Democrats, of course, still maintain single-party control over the entire state government, but Mr. Sweeney’s loss nonetheless shocked the forces that have long controlled Trenton.Rarely did a governor’s priority reach the floor without Mr. Sweeney’s approval.In the first two years of Mr. Murphy’s term, before the pandemic settled in, Mr. Sweeney served as an obstacle to the governor’s expansive progressive agenda, further burnishing his moderate Democratic bona fides by pushing back on increases in budget spending and a plan to tax the wealthy. While Mr. Murphy was largely able to come to an agreement with Mr. Sweeney and enact his agenda, the Senate president was often the most powerful counter force in a state controlled by Democrats.“He was able to impose his will on legislation,” said Joe Vitale, a Democratic state senator. “He was a force of nature. So it will be a loss for those of us who respect him and support him.”Mr. Sweeney was closely allied with George E. Norcross, an insurance executive and powerful power broker whose stranglehold on southern New Jersey politics lead many to see him as a shadow governor. The two remained close during both Mr. Murphy’s administration and former Gov. Chris Christie’s eight years. Without Mr. Sweeney at the helm of the Senate, and with other Democratic losses in the southern part of the state, Mr. Norcross may no longer possess the ironclad control to shape state policy, though he still counts numerous legislators as allies.In an interview, Mr. Norcross described Mr. Sweeney as “the Lyndon Johnson of the State Legislature” who “brought order to the chaos.” He said the sudden swelling of Republican turnout and independents’ anger “happened with such warp speed, that there was nothing that could have been anticipated or done, because it’s not like we didn’t have the money available to do it.”He added that the Democratic Party will need to change, both in the state and around the country, to win back voters.“The Democratic Party is going to have to, and candidates for office are going to have to, redefine themselves as fiscally responsible legislators and ones that are going to spend government money wisely and not recklessly as is portrayed,” Mr. Norcross said. “They can’t be defined as wanting to defund police or socialist.”Mr. Sweeney’s loss sets up a wide open race for his successor. Nicholas Scutari, a Democratic state senator from northern New Jersey, is seen as a possible candidate to replace Mr. Sweeney in the senate leadership. Troy Singleton, a Democratic state senator from southern New Jersey, also has been mentioned as a possible replacement, among many other candidates.Ed Dobzanski, 56, a union truck driver from Gibbstown, N.J., said he voted for Mr. Sweeney because of the Senate president’s long support for trade unions, but he thought his rival’s victory reflects a public desire for change.“I think this is a backlash of the same people being in the same positions a long time,” he said. “People just wanted change, they are tired of career politicians.”Jon Hurdle contributed reporting from West Deptford Township, N.J. More