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      Bola Tinubu Elected to Be Nigeria’s Next President

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      Bola Tinubu, declared the winner on Wednesday in the presidential election, has boasted of making the careers of major politicians. Now he has to deliver for a divided country facing multiple emergencies.In the run-up to Nigeria’s presidential election on Saturday, the ruling party candidate’s best-known slogan was “Emi lo kan,” a phrase in the Yoruba language meaning “It’s my turn.”By Wednesday morning, his turn had finally come. Bola Tinubu, a former state governor and one of the most powerful political kingmakers in Nigeria, was declared the West African nation’s next president by election officials in the capital at around 4 a.m., after the most closely-fought contest in years.While opposition parties dismissed the election as a “sham,” alleging widespread fraud and violence and vowing to challenge the outcome in court, many Nigerians were trying to come to terms with the prospect of four years under one of the country’s most contentious figures.Widely perceived as corrupt, in poor health, and a stalwart of the old guard, Mr. Tinubu may struggle to unite a country with a huge population of young people — particularly those plugged into social media — who are increasingly trying to make themselves heard, and fighting against old ways of governing.But in Mr. Tinubu, many others see a capable pair of hands with extensive experience, who turned around Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, when he served as governor of Lagos State, from 1999 to 2007.A country of immense natural riches, bursting with talent — with big technology, music and film industries — Nigeria is also a nation where over 60 percent of people live in poverty, millions of children are out of school, and where kidnapping is a daily risk for Nigerians from all walks of life.A police truck drives past demonstrators accusing election officials of disenfranchising voters in downtown Abuja on Tuesday.Ben Curtis/Associated PressMr. Tinubu, a multimillionaire, says he made his money in real estate. But he has faced questions over the source of his wealth. The U.S. government took $460,000 from a bank account in his name in 1993, saying the funds were probably the proceeds of drug trafficking. He has denied any wrongdoing.He is a man of many nicknames, both reverent and irreverent. The one most often yelled at him by his supporters is “Jagaban”: meaning “big boss” or “boss of bosses,” it captures the power he wields and the deference he is often treated with as a result.But more recently, many Nigerians have taken to calling Mr. Tinubu “Balablu” — a reference to a speech in which he tried and failed to say the word “hullabaloo” — and a shorthand to imply that he is too old and sometimes not coherent enough to take on the leadership of Africa’s largest economy and one of its most complex, diverse nations. Mr. Tinubu says he is 70, but some Nigerians think he is much older.Nigerians have reason to worry about this. Their current president, Muhammadu Buhari — an octogenarian who ruled the country as a military dictator in the 1980s and returned as a democrat in 2015 — has spent much of his time in office receiving treatment in London for an illness he hasn’t disclosed.Many Nigerians did not pause to celebrate or protest Mr. Tinubu’s victory on Wednesday morning, so focused were they on surviving a cash crisis, the most recent economic shock that Mr. Buhari’s government had thrown at them.Outside an A.T.M. in Lagos — Nigeria’s biggest city — a few hours after the election result was announced, James Adah, a 38-year-old network engineer, said he had been waiting to withdraw cash for five hours. A currency redesign rolled out just before the election created a dire shortage of the new bills, leaving millions of Nigerians unable to pay for essentials, though they had money in the bank. Lines at a bank in Lagos days before the election. The government redesigned the currency, leading to widespread cash shortages just before the vote.John Wessels/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe quiet mood in Lagos reflected the overall resignation of many Nigerians, Mr. Adah said.“If people were happy you’d see jubilation,” he said. “But they’re just moving ahead amidst this perception that the election may not have been free and fair.”Mr. Tinubu won about 8.8 million votes, according to results announced in the early morning hours by the Independent National Electoral Commission, trailed by Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s perennial opposition candidate, with about 7 million.Not far behind, with 6.1 million, was Peter Obi, who six months ago was not seen as a serious contender in Nigeria’s traditional two-party race, but who managed to build a formidable campaign that largely grew out of a youth movement formed to protest government abuses and injustice.Mr. Obi’s and Mr. Abubakar’s opposition parties, as well as one smaller party, rejected the election results on Tuesday, calling for it to be canceled and rerun because, they said, there had been extensive vote rigging.“We won the election as Labour Party, we are going to claim our mandate,” said Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, Mr. Obi’s running mate, on Wednesday. “We shall rescue Nigeria.”Questions about whether Mr. Tinubu attained the presidency fraudulently mean that he will face a legitimacy problem, according to Tunde Ajileye, a partner at SBM Intelligence, a Nigerian risk consultancy.“Any hard decisions he has to make — there are people waiting to prove that those decisions are detrimental, even if they may be right decisions,” he said. “And hard decisions need to be made about Nigeria’s economy.”A market in Abuja last month.Michele Spatari/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Tinubu has already promised to scrap an expensive fuel subsidy, but also has to figure out how to handle government debt and restrictions on foreign exchange, said Mr. Ajileye.Mr. Tinubu is seen by many as more capable of managing Nigeria’s oil-dependent economy than Mr. Buhari, whose tenure included two recessions.“He has a record as governor that he needs to expand nationwide,” Akeem Salau, a minibus driver, said of Mr. Tinubu on Wednesday in Lagos. “Education and infrastructure should be his priorities.”Mr. Tinubu will also face Nigeria’s multiple and mushrooming crises of security, including kidnappings, violent extremist groups like Boko Haram in the northeast and separatists in the southeast.He will have to work hard to gain the trust of the southeast, and the mostly Christian members of the Igbo ethnic group who live there, said Mucahid Durmaz, a senior West Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.Most southeastern states voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Obi, who is from the region and is Christian, and against Mr. Tinubu, a southwestern Muslim who picked another Muslim as his running mate. The ticket went against Nigerian political tradition, under which one Muslim and one Christian usually run together.Peter Obi campaigning in Lagos last month.Taiwo Aina for The New York TimesIn Lagos on Wednesday afternoon, traffic flowed through the Lekki tollgate, where young people demonstrating against police brutality were gunned down by security forces in 2020. A billboard there now reads: “Vote in peace, stop electoral violence.” The Nigerian Army was accused by witnesses of having killed unarmed protesters that day, but there has been no justice for those victims, according to Amnesty International.Teniola Tayo, a policy analyst based in Abuja, said that she hoped Jagaban — the “boss of bosses” — would become accountable to Nigerians.“I hope that he will consider Nigerians his new jagabans, as he said in his acceptance speech that he is here to serve,” she said.Indeed, Mr. Tinubu took a more conciliatory tone than usual when he addressed the nation early Wednesday, reaching out to the Nigerians who didn’t vote for him, and telling the youth: “I hear you loud and clear.”A Tinubu poster in Lagos, on Wednesday.Akintunde Akinleye/EPA, via ShutterstockOladeinde Olawoyin contributed reporting. Susan Beachy contributed research. More

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      Peter Obi, Third-Party Candidate in Nigeria Election, Refuses to Concede

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      Nine months ago, Peter Obi was a member of Nigeria’s main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, and one of the 15 presidential aspirants cleared for its ticket. As a former state governor, he stood solidly in the ranks of the political establishment.On Wednesday, after a remarkable transformation into an outsider candidate running for the little-known Labour Party, he came in third in the race for the presidency, according to election officials.Mr. Obi’s running mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, vowed on Wednesday that the party would contest the election results, saying the ballot was tainted by violence, voter intimidation and suppression. He said his team would make its challenge against the declared victory of Bola Tinubu of the governing party, through “all legal and peaceful means.”A former governor of southeastern Anambra state with a reputation for frugality, Mr. Obi left the People’s Democratic Party the day before Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president who was one of his main rivals, became its presidential candidate.A few days later, Mr. Obi won the Labour Party ticket and began one of the most remarkable political campaigns in Nigerian history. It was driven by his multitude of followers, including well-known figures like the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and former president Olusegun Obasanjo.On social media, his fans call themselves the Obidients.Drawing on a deep well of anger at the governing party — particularly among the country’s millions of digitally-savvy youths — he connected on issues that mattered to them: unemployment, justice, fighting corruption and creating economic opportunities. Amid a wave of young people leaving or trying to leave the country, he gave hope that Nigeria could become a place they could stay and thrive.And though he is 61, for many voters he became the youthful candidate — mainly in contrast with the 76-year-old Mr. Abubakar and the other front-runner, 70-year-old Bola Tinubu — an important factor in a country where the median age is 18.In an interview with The New York Times before the election, Mr. Obi said that he would “aggressively” pursue the development of agriculture to drive Nigeria’s oil-dependent economy. He said he would also increase the country’s manufacturing base and “declare war on energy” — Nigeria has endemic energy problems, despite being one of Africa’s biggest oil producers.A top priority was to unite a country that he said was increasingly divided along ethnic lines, and to move past the economic and security shocks that have left many feeling despondent.“What drives every country is hope,” Mr. Obi said. More

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      South Africa’s Embattled Deputy President Resigns

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      Despite scandal and controversy, David Mabuza remained in office for five years, only leaving once he had lost power within the governing African National Congress party.JOHANNESBURG — David Mabuza, the deputy president of South Africa whose political rise became emblematic of the scandals and leadership crises that have eroded the credibility of the governing African National Congress party, has resigned. Mr. Mabuza was sworn in as deputy president in 2019. Despite longtime accusations of financial misdeeds against Mr. Mabuza, his enduring presence alongside Mr. Ramaphosa cast doubt on the president’s ability to root out corruption and restore the reputation of the governing party.In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Ramaphosa thanked Mr. Mabuza for his “exceptional service to the country over the last five years.” Mr. Ramaphosa is set to reshuffle his cabinet soon, moving around lawmakers to reflect shifts within the A.N.C. He will also appoint a minister of electricity, a new position announced last month to steer the country out of a “state of disaster” caused by prolonged, daily power outages.Mr. Mabuza rose from being a little-known union leader in a rural province to second in command of the A.N.C. As deputy president, he focused on land reform and the plight of military veterans demanding compensation, but he largely remained a shadowy figure among many voters.His long medical absences and trips to Russia for treatment raised questions among South Africans. In November, just weeks before the A.N.C. held its crucial party conference, Mr. Mabuza’s motorcade was involved in a deadly crash that left one of his security guards dead.Despite being Mr. Ramaphosa’s No. 2, Mr. Mabuza’s political influence had waned in recent years. Once nicknamed “the Cat” for his stealth political machinations, Mr. Mabuza failed to win a second term as the party’s deputy president at the A.N.C.’s conference last December, which meant he would have lost his national office. He was also left out of the party’s 80-person national executive committee.With the writing on the wall, Mr. Mabuza told mourners during a private funeral service last month that he would soon leave office. Despite his election loss, his announcement seemed to catch the president off guard, according to local media reports. He is likely to be replaced by Paul Mashatile, an ambitious Johannesburg politician who beat out Mr. Mabuza as deputy president of the party.A former mathematics teacher and school principal, Mr. Mabuza used his background in teachers’ unions and education activism to bolster his political career. After South Africa transitioned from apartheid to democracy, he rose rapidly, becoming A.N.C. chairman in 2007 and premier of Mpumalanga, a small province in the east of the country.A 2018 investigation by The New York Times found that Mr. Mabuza and his allies had siphoned money from Mpumalanga province’s education system. Some schools were built as an easy way to funnel money, while many more classrooms crumbled. His critics say the money was used to helped build a powerful political machine with Mr. Mabuza at the helm. Mpumalanga is largely rural and impoverished, yet Mr. Mabuza became wealthy during his time as premier. Mr. Mabuza only took office in 2019 once the A.N.C.’s internal disciplinary committee cleared him of any allegations, his office said. A recent sweeping judicial commission of inquiry into corruption also “started and finished without Mabuza’s name being mentioned,” Matshepo Seedat, Mr. Mabuza’s spokeswoman, said. He was never criminally charged.Outside of provincial politics, he has been unable to sustain power and influence. His own province eventually snubbed him: Mpumalanga backed another candidate at the December conference.“I am no kingmaker,” Mr. Mabuza said in response to The Times’s 2018 investigation, rejecting the report. “I abhor corruption. Any fiction to the contrary or ‘fake news’ is laughable.” More

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      Chicago Votes for Change

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      After a crime surge, Chicago voters have ousted their current mayor.Chicago’s mayor race has joined the growing list of evidence that Americans are unhappy about crime.Lori Lightfoot, the incumbent, yesterday became the first Chicago mayor in 40 years to lose a re-election campaign. Lightfoot — a progressive in her first term — finished third in the initial stage of this year’s campaign, in which nine candidates were trying to qualify for a runoff in April. Lightfoot received only 17 percent of the vote, according to the latest count.The runoff will be between Paul Vallas, a former head of the city’s school system who ran on a tough-on-crime message, and Brandon Johnson, a progressive county commissioner who previously worked as a teacher and union organizer. Vallas finished with 34 percent of the vote and Johnson finished second with 20 percent.Brandon Johnson talking to supporters yesterday.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesCrime in Chicago has surged since the pandemic began, with the number of major crimes 33 percent higher last year than in 2019. The murder rate has fallen from its 2021 peak but only modestly, and robberies and car thefts have kept rising recently. In a recent poll, nearly two-thirds of Chicago residents said that they felt unsafe.“Chicagoans are genuinely frustrated by the state of the city, and crime is vastly overshadowing any other concerns,” Julie Bosman, The Times’s Chicago bureau chief, told me. “In a city known for its powerful leaders, it’s unsurprising that a lot of Chicagoans see this as Lightfoot’s failure. Many voters I’ve talked to see this mayoral race as a chance to reset.”New York and Oregon, tooCrime has been a particularly vexing issue for progressive Democrats, both in Chicago and nationally. After police officers in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd in 2020, progressive activists and politicians called for both reforms to reduce police violence and reduced funding for police departments. Many of the proposed reforms — including body cameras and greater accountability for police misbehavior — are popular, but defunding the police is unpopular even among most Democratic voters, polls show.It became more unpopular after crime began to soar during the pandemic. Across 27 cities that publicly report crime data, the murder rate last year was 34 percent higher than it had been in 2019, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.Chart shows 12-month averages. | Source: Council on Criminal JusticeProgressives have struggled to develop a persuasive response. Some have suggested that the crime increase is mostly a right-wing talking point, but the statistics say otherwise. And voters evidently agree with the statistics:In New York City, Eric Adams won the mayor’s race in 2021 by focusing his campaign on crime. In the Democratic primary, he lost only one of the city’s five boroughs: Manhattan, the wealthiest.In New York State last year, Republican candidates in the midterms focused on crime and did much better than usual. Democratic candidates often tried to change the subject. “I think those who stated, ‘Don’t talk about crime,’ it was an insult to Black and brown communities where a lot of this crime was playing out,” Adams said after the election. Nancy Pelosi told The Times’s Maureen Dowd that Democrats might have maintained control of the House of Representatives if the party’s candidates in New York had taken crime more seriously.Republicans also fared well last year in Oregon, where the largest city — Portland — has become a symbol of post-pandemic disorder. Between 2019 and 2022, murders nearly tripled, vandalism incidents nearly doubled and car thefts rose 69 percent.The Bass modelKaren Bass, the recently elected mayor of Los Angeles, has developed arguably the most successful progressive message on crime. A former community organizer who spent 12 years in the House of Representatives, Bass defeated a more conservative candidate not by downplaying crime concerns but by talking about them frequently. Bass herself was a burglary victim last year.She has tried to strike a balance by calling for both the hiring of hundreds of additional police officers and tougher punishments for abusive officers. “We must stop crimes in progress and hold people accountable,” she said in her inaugural address. “Let me be so bold as to add that we can prevent crime and community violence by addressing the social, the health and the economic conditions that compromise a safe environment.”The Chicago runoff will become the next test of whether a progressive message on crime can win in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. As was the case in Los Angeles, the more progressive candidate — Johnson — is Black, while the more conservative one — Vallas — is white.In the past, Johnson supported calls to defund the police but he has tried to avoid the subject during the mayoral campaign. He has instead emphasized his plans to build more housing, expand pre-K and increase funding for social services. He is likely to portray Vallas as a conservative who is out of touch with Chicago. The local police union, whose top official is a Donald Trump supporter, has endorsed Vallas.“No matter where you live, no matter what you look like, you deserve to have a better, stronger, safer Chicago,” Johnson said at his election night party last night.As the chief executive of the Chicago schools, Vallas expanded the number of charter schools. As a mayoral candidate, he has focused overwhelmingly on public safety, calling it “a basic human right for Chicagoans,” and promising an expansion of the police force, and described the city as being in disarray. He is likely to emphasize Johnson’s previous support for defunding the police.“We will make Chicago the safest city in America,” Vallas said last night.Related: Read The Times’s coverage of the election, and see the results for all nine candidates.Other politics newsThe Supreme Court’s conservative justices seemed skeptical of President Biden’s plan to forgive student debt.Ron DeSantis will soon visit Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire, another sign that he will run for president.Republicans in Congress questioned military officials on money sent to Ukraine, signaling concerns over future aid.Biden is betting government aid can revitalize semiconductor production in the U.S. and thwart a rising China.THE LATEST NEWSInternationalDestroyed train cars near Larissa, Greece.Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York TimesTwo trains collided in Greece, killing at least 36 people.Bola Tinubu, the 70-year-old candidate of the governing party, won Nigeria’s presidential election. His opponents say the contest was rigged.The biggest tank battle of the war in Ukraine so far was a defeat for Russia.King Charles hosted an E.U. leader for tea on the day of a trade deal, upsetting critics who felt his behavior was too political.An Israeli raid to capture Palestinian gunmen turned into one of the most violent encounters in the West Bank in decades, a Times video investigation shows.A Mediterranean cruise ship has become a shelter for people displaced by the earthquake in Turkey.BusinessA co-founder of Sam Bankman-Fried’s failed crypto exchange FTX pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.Communities in the United States have pushed back against the spread of dollar stores.Republicans are calling environmentally conscious investing “woke capitalism,” pulling businesses into partisan politics.Twitter outages have risen as Elon Musk has slashed the company’s work force.Other Big StoriesMany undocumented immigrants are leaving the U.S. after decades and returning to their countries of origin.The police charged a 23-year-old man with murder over a sidewalk shooting in St. Louis. A witness captured the killing on video.OpinionsIf Nigeria is to have a functional democracy, its people need radical transparency from election officials, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says.Lebanon’s economic crisis has forced citizens to become bank robbers to access their own money, this video argues.Labs that study viruses need to become more secure, David Wallace-Wells writes.MORNING READSAddison’s Walk in Oxford, England.Max Miechowski for The New York TimesThe Lion and the Hobbit: Discover where C.S. Lewis wrote.Comfort zone: Eugene Levy hates traveling. That’s what makes his travel show work.Advice from Wirecutter: Clean your air fryer every time you use it.Lives Lived: Charles Pernasilice wasn’t supposed to be at the Attica Correctional Facility. But his temporary stay there coincided with the deadliest prison uprising in U.S. history, which would haunt him for the rest of his life. He died at 70.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICLawsuit: L.A. County agreed to pay Vanessa Bryant and her daughters nearly $30 million in a settlement over photos shared from the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash.Jersey numbers: The Eagles are proposing to allow players to wear No. 0 again. It hasn’t been allowed since 1973.A dwindling chance: LeBron James suffered a foot injury that could sideline him for weeks, a potential blow to the Lakers’ postseason chances.ARTS AND IDEAS Pink Floyd in 1973.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesThe power of ‘Dark Side’Mortality, madness and greed: On “The Dark Side of the Moon,” released 50 years ago today, Pink Floyd transformed grim subjects into indelible rock music.The album’s sonic experimentation — the ticking clocks of “Time,” the soaring vocals of “The Great Gig in the Sky” — have had an enduring appeal. The record spent almost 14 years on Billboard’s Top 200 album chart, and it remains popular on streaming platforms. “‘Dark Side’ was an album that worked equally well to show off a new stereo,” the Times critic Jon Pareles writes, “or to be contemplated in private communion with headphones and a joint.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookKelly Marshall for The New York TimesLoad up corn tortillas with spiced shrimp and red cabbage.What to ReadA new biography shows Karl Lagerfeld to be more business whiz than artist.What to Listen toFive minutes that will make you love jazz piano.Late NightStephen Colbert joked about Fox News hosts’ texts.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was jailbird. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Singer Simone (four letters).And here’s today’s Wordle.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidP.S. The word “geezerishness” appeared for the first time in The Times yesterday, in a review of John Sayles’s new novel.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about abortion pills.Matthew Cullen, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Reader Mailbag: Bots and Other Business

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      Answering questions on topics including polling, independent voters and Black turnout.Voters in College Park, Md., in November. There are still some things to review about the midterm elections. T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesWe’ve gotten a lot of great questions and feedback over the last few months, and I think we’re inclined to make a mailbag a regular feature, especially during the off-season. If you have a question, send it to dear.upshot@nytimes.com.Bots in pollingLet’s start with a question on an issue that I’d already been mulling:Mr. Cohn, you mentioned “bots” in passing as a potential issue for nonprobability polls. Which makes me wonder, how easy/hard would it be for a malign outside actor to interfere in the polling and make Donald Trump’s chances look better than they are? Because if that would be possible, I’d say countries with an interest in a divided U.S. (Russia and China come to mind) would certainly be tempted to pull that off. — Moritz, ViennaThis is a serious question. A Pew Research study a few years ago used a few simple techniques to find that 4 percent to 7 percent of respondents to nonprobability surveys were “bogus,” to use their term. These “bogus” respondents took the survey multiple times, took the poll too quickly, stated that they lived outside the United States, or offered nonsensical answers in open-ended questioning.Anecdotally, I’ve heard more complaints about these kinds of issues from pollsters. I routinely hear about pollsters who toss as many as half of their respondents for data quality issues. It is reasonable to assume that the better-known pollsters take these challenges seriously, but we don’t know much about their practices, let alone whether they work.Could this be part of Donald J. Trump’s strength in online panel polls? It’s hard to prove, but one emerging pattern has caught my attention: Mr. Trump has fared quite poorly in two online nonprobability polls linked to voter registration files, which require the panelist to provide personal information that matches a real registered voter.Or put differently: Mr. Trump has done quite poorly in the nonprobability polls where there’s an extra layer of confidence that the respondents are human. It’s the pattern we would expect if bogus respondents were a factor.Still, I wouldn’t get too excited about this emerging pattern if you’re a Ron DeSantis fan. It’s just two polls, after all. And Mr. Trump’s poll numbers have gone up over the last few weeks, including in telephone polling. So perhaps these voter-file-matched polls are really the outliers. As we’ve written before, voter-file-matched polls like these can be biased in other ways.I’ve asked a few smart and well-positioned pollsters to look into the “bogus” respondent question in their own data. If you’re a similarly well-positioned pollster interested in digging in, you know where to find me.The tilt of independent voters in the midtermsWe’ve written that Republicans enjoyed a pretty meaningful turnout advantage in the midterm elections, but a few of you thought we overlooked one important group in this analysis: independents.It’s always the independents who determine who wins. How did they vote?— Ed from Calhoun, Ga.Article does not mention the impact of the growing number of independent voters who choose not to vote in the primaries but decide final elections.— Julio Stieffel, MiamiDemocrats did quite well among independent voters, and that’s partly why the party held up despite a Republican turnout advantage.Nationwide, self-identified independent voters backed Democrats by two percentage points, according to the network exit polls. It doesn’t sound so impressive, but it is by the standards of recent midterms, when the president’s party has tended to lose independent voters by double digits.And in the high-profile statewide contests — think Senate races in Pennsylvania and Arizona — the Democratic candidates fared even better among independent voters than that, allowing Democrats to win marquee races by unusually wide margins.Black turnout before ObamaOn a related midterm note, we observed that the Black share of the electorate was the lowest it has been since Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008. That left an important question unaddressed:I am interested if the Black voter turnout, which has dropped, is higher or lower than historical norms before the 2008/2012 increase in turnout due to Obama. Thank you. — Lisa Pate, Birmingham, Ala.It depends a bit on how you measure it.By the simplest measure — the proportion of Black adult citizens who vote — Black turnout actually remains slightly higher than it was before Mr. Obama’s historic campaign in 2008.The catch, however, is that turnout is higher across the board than it was before 2008. As a result, the racial gap in turnout in 2020 — that is, the difference between the share of eligible Black voters who turn out, compared with the share of eligible white voters who do — returned almost exactly to what it looked like in the 2004 presidential election. Based on what we’ve seen so far, the racial turnout gap in 2022 will probably look like 2006 or 2002.There’s one last twist to consider: the Black share of the electorate. Oddly enough, the Black share of the electorate has usually remained above pre-Obama levels, even though the gap between white and Black turnout is basically the same as it was back then. That’s because white voters, who turn out at higher rates than Black voters, have dipped as a share of eligible voters, while Hispanic and Asian voters, who turn out at lower rates than Black voters, have increased their share of eligible voters.Put it all together and the Black share of the electorate in 2020 was about halfway between where it was in 2004 and 2012.Alternatives to BidenWe haven’t done much to touch on the possibility of a Democratic primary, but that hasn’t stopped many of you from asking about it:Here is a question my friends and I keep wondering: Is there are any Democrat who could stand a chance if Mr. Biden decided not to run? Thanks much!— The Rev. Lorenzo LebrijaWhoever wins the Democratic nomination will at least stand a chance, and probably more than a chance if Mr. Trump is the nominee. Whether there’s a Democrat who would do as well as or better than President Biden is a slightly different question, and it’s really quite hard to say. I hope you don’t ask me that next time!Mrs. Clinton?Believe it or not, the most frequent question we received was about this sentence I wrote:“After all, most modern presidential nominees — Joe Biden, Mrs. Clinton, George W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain, John Kerry, Mitt Romney, Al Gore, to name eight recent ones — were not exactly superstar political talents distinguished by soaring oratory, made-for-television charisma, clap-backs on social media or dominant debate performances.”Here’s one (nice) version of the question it raised:“Can you please explain why you thought it was appropriate to list each male you were referring to with their full name (first and last) and list Hillary Clinton as Mrs. Clinton?” — Maura FitzgeraldThe answer is actually quite mundane. The Times uses people’s full names when they’re mentioned for the first time, but they typically receive courtesy titles, like Mr. and Ms., when mentioned again. In this case, Hillary Clinton had already been mentioned, but the male presidential candidates were being mentioned for the first time. Consequently, Mrs. Clinton, who prefers Mrs. to Ms., received her courtesy title while the male candidates got their full names.I see how it ended up looking a little weird in this case, so we adjusted the sentence after publication. More

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      Who is Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s President Elect?

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      The winner of Nigeria’s presidential election, Bola Tinubu, is a divisive figure in Africa’s most populous country.Mr. Tinubu is revered by some as a political wizard and the man who turned around the fortunes of Lagos, Nigeria’s labyrinthine megacity. His supporters are hoping he can repeat that performance on a national level.Others deride Mr. Tinubu, the candidate of the governing All Progressives Congress party, as “corruption personified” and accuse him of looting state coffers as the governor of Lagos.And many simply worry that Mr. Tinubu is a potential embarrassment to Nigeria, sometimes sounding incoherent and appearing unwell. He says he is 70, but his real age is a matter of dispute.This is a real concern in Nigeria, where several leaders have died in office, and where the current president, Muhammadu Buhari, spent a large chunk of his first term absent, receiving medical treatment in London, for an illness he refused to discuss.Many Nigerians believe that their country, as Africa’s biggest economy, needs an energetic leader.Mr. Tinubu ran Lagos as governor for eight years, and then mentored his successors, giving him a reputation as a political “godfather,” able to ensure that some people’s careers took off while others’ sank.He has also claimed that without his influence, Mr. Buhari, who lost the presidential elections several times before winning his first term in 2015, would never have become president.In the run-up to this election, Mr. Tinubu used the slogan, “It’s my turn” — flaunting his role as kingmaker, but also alienating many voters.A Muslim from Nigeria’s southwest, Mr. Tinubu may struggle to unite Nigeria’s diverse population. He ran for president with another Muslim on the ticket — Kashim Shettima, a former governor of Borno state in the northeast, which has been the epicenter of Boko Haram’s campaign of terrorism for over a decade.Nigeria’s Christian population is almost as big as its Muslim one, and traditionally presidential candidates pick running mates of a different religion.Mr. Tinubu has promised fiscal policy changes, and to fix the worsening security situation. An outbreak of kidnappings by armed gangs has affected people from all walks of life and parts of the country. In the northeast, militants with the extremist groups Boko Haram and a local affiliate of the Islamic State have killed thousands and driven millions from their homes.Ahead of the election, voters cited insecurity as their main concern.He has also pledged to improve Nigeria’s deteriorating infrastructure and to remove a crippling government fuel subsidy.Mr. Tinubu has faced allegations of corruption and questions over the source of his wealth. The U.S. government filed a complaint in 1993 accusing him of banking the proceeds from narcotics trafficking. The case was settled, and Mr. Tinubu has denied any wrongdoing.Susan Beachy contributed research. More

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      in Elections

      Foreign Efforts to Subvert Canada’s Last 2 Elections Failed, Report Says

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      An independent review found that China, Russia and Iran tried to interfere in the 2019 and 2021 votes, but that the elections’ integrity was not compromised.OTTAWA — Foreign governments tried to interfere with the last two federal elections in Canada, but they did not succeed in “impacting” the voting results, according to an independent review released on Tuesday.That conclusion comes as opposition politicians and others are pressing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to open a separate, public inquiry into allegations of election interference by Chinese diplomats based in Canada, as well as by informal agents of the Chinese government — a move that Mr. Trudeau has rejected.The report released on Tuesday was a review of the work of a special panel of five senior public servants, created to work with intelligence and law enforcement agencies to alert the public to any “incidents that threaten the integrity of a federal election.”Morris Rosenberg, the former deputy justice minister who wrote the report, said the panel had “determined that the government of Canada did not detect foreign interference that threatened Canada’s ability to have free and fair elections,” adding: “National security agencies saw attempts at foreign interference, but not enough to have met the threshold of impacting electoral integrity.”The report singles out China, Russia and Iran as having tried to interfere in the votes held in 2019 and 2021, and it indicates that social media sites were important tools to that end. It makes particular note of activity by China.More on ChinaDesperate for Babies: For generations, Chinese parents chafed under the country’s one-child policy. Now, facing a declining birthrate, China wants lots of children — but many families don’t.Health Insurance Cuts: China’s local governments, short on money after three years of “zero Covid,” are forcing changes on the country’s health care system, squeezing benefits and angering citizens.Courting Europe: Beijing, in urgent need of reviving its economy, wants to mend ties with Europe but is struggling to create distance between itself and Moscow.Covid Deaths: While a precise accounting is impossible, rough estimates suggest that between 1 and 1.5 million people died of Covid during China’s wave — far more than the official count.It says that Canada’s main intelligence agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, was concerned that “China notably tried to target elected officials to promote their national interests and encouraged individuals to act as proxies.” China’s techniques, the agency told Mr. Rosenberg, included threatening members of the Chinese community in Canada.The reports cites an editorial in Global Times — a Chinese Communist Party-run newspaper — that falsely suggested that the Conservative Party “almost wants to break diplomatic relations with China.”It also notes a post on the Chinese messaging app WeChat, which made the claim that a bill to establish a registry of individuals lobbying for foreign governments — introduced by Kenny Chiu, who sought re-election in 2021 as a Conservative — “suppresses the Chinese community.”Mr. Chiu was defeated by a candidate from Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party.While the report said the foreign efforts had not affected election integrity, it added that it was difficult to precisely measure the total effect of Chinese disinformation on election results. “Were Conservative losses in several ridings with large Chinese diaspora communities due to attacks on the Conservative platform and on one of its candidates by media associated with or sympathetic to the Chinese government?” the report asks. “Or were they the result of the Conservatives simply not being able to connect with sufficient numbers of voters in those communities?”The question of whether China is influencing Canadian elections has long been a political issue in Canada. Pressure from opponents on Mr. Trudeau to call for an inquiry grew after The Globe and Mail, a Toronto newspaper, published reports that it said were based on a viewing of top-secret Canadian intelligence documents, showing that China “employed a sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada’s democracy” in 2021. The newspaper said the documents indicated that officials in Beijing wanted Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals re-elected — but only with a power-limiting minority in Parliament — because they believed that a Conservative government would take a harder line against China.Citing secrecy laws, Mr. Trudeau has not discussed the specifics of those reports. But the prime minister and his staff have said that they contained “many inaccuracies.” More