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      The Left-Right Divide Might Help Democrats Avoid a Total Wipeout

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      With the midterm election less than two weeks away, polling has turned bleak for the Democrats, not only increasing the likelihood that the party will lose control of the House, but also dimming the prospects that it will hold the Senate.The key question is whether Republicans will wipe out Democratic incumbents in a wave election.In a 2021 article, “The presidential and congressional elections of 2020: A national referendum on the Trump presidency,” Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California San Diego, described how the Trump administration and its 2020 campaign set the stage for the 2022 midterms:Reacting to the [Black Lives Matter] protests, Trump doubled down on race‐baiting rhetoric, posing as defender of the confederate flag and the statues of rebel generals erected as markers of white dominance in the post‐Reconstruction South, retweeting a video of a supporter shouting “white power” at demonstrators in Florida, and vowing to protect suburbanites from low-income housing that could attract minorities to their neighborhoods.The headline and display copy on my news-side colleague Jonathan Weisman’s Oct. 25 story about the campaign sums up the party’s current strategy:With Ads, Imagery and Words, Republicans Inject Race Into Campaigns: Running ads portraying Black candidates as soft on crime — or as “different” or “dangerous” — Republicans have shed quiet defenses of such tactics for unabashed defiance.Republican strategies that emphasize racially freighted issues are certainly not the only factor moving the electorate. Republican skill in weaponizing inflation is crucial, as is inflation itself. Polarization and the nationalization of elections also matter, particularly in states and districts with otherwise weak Republican candidates.Jacobson is one of a number of political analysts who argue that the calcification of the electorate into two mutually adversarial blocs limits the potential for significant gains for either party. In a recent essay, “The 2022 U.S. Midterm Election: A Conventional Referendum or Something Different?” Jacobson writes:Statistical models using as predictors the president’s most recent job approval ratings and real income growth during the election year, along with the president’s party’s current strength in Congress, can account for midterm seat swings with considerable accuracy. For example, applying such a model to 2018, when President Donald Trump’s approval stood at 40 percent and real income growth at 2.1 percent, Republicans should have ended up with 41 fewer House seats than they held after the 2016 election — improbably, the precise outcome.Applying those same models to the current contests, Jacobson continued,the Democrats stand to lose about 45 House seats, giving the Republicans a 258-177 majority, their largest since the 1920s. For multiple reasons (e.g., inflation, the broken immigration system, the humiliating exit from Afghanistan) Biden’s approval ratings have been in the low 40s for the entire year. High inflation has led to negative real income growth.No wonder then, Jacobson writes, that “the consensus expectation at the beginning of the year was an electoral tsunami that would put Republicans in solid control of both chambers.” Now, however, “this consensus no longer prevails.”Why?Partisans of both parties report extremely high levels of party loyalty in recent surveys, with more than 96 percent opting for their own party’s candidate. Most self-identified independents also lean toward one of the parties, and those who do are just as loyal as self-identified partisans. Party line voting has been increasing for several decades, reaching the 96 percent mark in 2020. This upward trend reflects a rise in negative partisanship — growing dislike for the other party — rather than increasing regard for the voter’s own side. Partisan antipathies keep the vast majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents from voting for Republican candidates regardless of their opinions of Biden and the economy.Jacobson noted in an email that over the past weekthe numbers have moved against the Democrats, and they should definitely be worried. The latest inflation figures were very bad news for them. But I still doubt that their House losses will approach the 45 predicted by the models and I think they still have some hope of retaining the Senate — or at least, their tie.Jacobson points out that in the current lead-up to the midterms, there is an exceptionally “wide gap between presidential approval and voting intentions, with the Democrats’ support on average 9.2 percentage points higher than Biden’s approval ratings.” He also notes that in previous wave elections, the spread between presidential approval and vote intention was much closer, 5 points in 1994, 4.9 in 2006, 0.3 in 2010 and 4.1 in 2018.Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, argued in an email that polarization has in very recent years changed the way voters evaluate presidents and, in turn, how they cast their ballots in midterm contests. “There is a higher floor and lower ceiling in presidential approval,” she said:If anything, approval is fairly resistant to external shocks in ways that look very different from either George W. Bush or Obama. An approval rating below 50 percent seems to be the new norm. But if we think about this from a partisan lens, an overwhelming percent of Democrats will always support the Democratic president, while an overwhelming percent of Republicans will oppose him.Put another way, Wronski said, “it wouldn’t matter what Biden does or doesn’t do to curb inflation, Democrats will largely support, and Republicans will largely oppose.”In this context, “partisanship serves as lens through which economic conditions are evaluated. The stronger partisanship exists as a social identity, the more likely it will be used as the motivation to view and accept information about economic conditions, like inflation.”Negative partisanship, Wronski wrote, “has emerged in recent elections as a driver of voting turnout and vote choice,” with the resultthat partisan antipathies keep Democrats from voting for Republican candidates. No matter how bad economic conditions may be under Biden, the alternative is seen as much worse. The threat to abortion rights and democracy should Republicans take control of Congress may be a more powerful driver of voting behavior.While polls show growing public fear that adherence to the principles of democracy have declined, Wronski pointed out thatthose concerns do not trump more immediate needs like being able to afford food, housing, and gas. To be fair, people cannot fight for lofty ideals like democracy when their basic needs are not being met. People need to be secure in their food and housing situation before they can advocate for bigger ideas.There is another factor limiting the number of House seats that the Republican Party is likely to gain: gerrymandering.Sean Trende, senior elections analyst at RealClearPolitics, makes the case that in state legislatures both parties “hoped to avoid creating districts that were uncertain for their party and/or winnable for the other party. One upshot of this is that in a neutral or close-to-neutral environment, there aren’t many winnable seats for either party.”Trende elaborates: “In the swingiest of swing seats where Biden won between 51 percent and 53 percent, there are just 19 seats. Of those seats, 10 are held by Democrats, seven are held by Republicans, and one is a newly created district.” In a neutral year when neither party has an advantage in the congressional vote, Trende writes, if “Republicans won all the districts where Joe Biden received 52 percent of the vote or less and lost all of the districts where he did better, they would win 224 seats.Gerrymandering has created what Trende calls “levees” — bulwarks — that limit gains and losses for both parties. The danger for Democrats is the possibility that these levees may be breached, which then turns 2022 into a Republican wave election, as was the case in 1994 and 2010: “In a universe where Republicans win the popular vote by four points, sweeping all of the districts that Biden won with 54 percent of the vote or less, the levee would break and the Republican majority would jump from 232 seats to 245 seats.”When Trende published his analysis on Sept. 29, the generic congressional vote was almost tied, 45.9 Republican to 44.9 Democratic, close to a “neutral” election. Since then, however, Republicans have pulled ahead to a 47.8 to 44.8 advantage on Oct. 22, according to RealClearPolitics. FiveThirtyEight’s measure of the generic vote shows a much closer contest as of Oct. 25, with Republicans ahead 45.2 to 44.7 percent.In 2010, the Republican Party’s generic advantage in late October was 9.4 points, a clear signal that a wave election was building.Educational polarization — with college-educated voters shifting decisively to the Democratic Party and non-college voters, mostly white, shifting to the Republican Party — in recent elections has worked to the advantage of the right because there are substantially more non-college voters than those with degrees.This year, the education divide may work to some extent to the benefit of Democrats.James L. Wilson, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, pointed out in an email that not only do “polarization and party loyalty make the election outcomes less likely to depend on immediate economic circumstances,” but also “educational polarization, combined with the fact that better-educated voters tend to turn out at higher rates in midterm elections than do less-educated voters, may help the Democrats despite voter concerns about Biden or the economy.”Even with inflation as one of the Democratic Party’s major liabilities, the intensification of polarization appears to be muting its adverse impact.In their 2019 paper, “Motivated Reasoning, Public Opinion, and Presidential Approval,” Kathleen Donovan, Paul M. Kellstedt, Ellen M. Key and Matthew J. Lebo, of St. John Fisher University, Texas A&M University, Appalachian State University and Western University, wrote that “Polarization has increased partisan motivated reasoning when it comes to evaluations of the president,” as the choices made by voters are “increasingly detached from economic assessments.”As partisanship intensifies, voters are less likely to punish incumbents of the same party for failures to improve standards of living or to live up to other campaign promises.Yphtach Lelkes, a professor of communication and a co-director of the polarization lab at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote by email that “people (particularly partisans) are far less likely to, for instance, rely on retrospective voting — that is, they won’t throw the bums out for poor economic conditions or problematic policies.”In the early 1970s, Lelkes wrote, “partisanship explained less than 30 percent of the variance in vote choice. Today, partisanship explains more than 70 percent of the variance in vote choice.”This trend grows out of both identity-based partisanship and closely related patterns of media and information usage.As Lelkes put it:There are various explanations for this. There is an identity/motivated reasoning perspective, where people think better us than them and would prefer a lampshade to an out partisan. Another possibility is that people get skewed information. If I watch lots of Fox News or pay even marginal attention to Republican candidates, I’ll hear lots about the economy. If I watch MSNBC and pay attention to Democratic candidates, I’ll hear a lot about abortion, but less about the economy.Not everyone agrees that polarization will limit Democratic losses this year.John Sides, a political scientist at Vanderbilt, wrote by email that “it is absolutely true that party loyalty in congressional elections has increased. But this does not stop large seat swings from occurring.”There is, Sides continued, “some evidence that midterm seat swings can be driven by people actually switching their votes from the previous presidential election,” suggesting that “clearly not every voter is a die-hard partisan.”Sides remained cautious, however, about his expectations for the results on Nov. 8: “The recent poll trends are pushing toward larger G.O.P. gains but I am not sure those trends suggest the 40+ House seat gains that the national environment would forecast.” A narrow win, he wrote, would mean that Republican leaders in the House will face “a very delicate task. On the one hand, they have to appease Freedom Caucus types. But they also have to protect potentially vulnerable G.O.P. members in swing districts. I do not know how you manage that task, and so I do not envy Kevin McCarthy.”Dritan Nesho, a co-director of the Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, was distinctly pessimistic concerning Democratic prospects:An empirical analysis of the 2022 midterm polls in the final stretch suggests that this election will tip both the House and the Senate toward Republicans, and it’s no exception to historical trends suggesting the incumbent party tends to lose an average of 28 seats in the House and 3 or so seats in the Senate. Key numbers around lack of confidence in the economy, the pervasive impact of inflation, and a worsening personal financial situation among a majority of voters today, actually suggest a stronger loss than the average.The two best predictive variables for election outcomes, Nesho writes,are presidential approval and the direction of personal finances. Both are severely underwater for Democrats. In our October Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, Biden has plateaued at 42 percent job approval and 54 percent of voters report their personal financial situation as getting worse. 55 percent blame the Biden administration for inflation rather than other factors (including 42 percent of Democratic respondents), and 73 percent expect prices to further increase rather than come down. 84 percent of voters think the U.S. is in a recession now or will be in one by next year.If that were not enough, Nesho continued,at the same time Democrats are seen as disconnected from the key issues of concern for the median voter. Republicans are connecting better with general voters on inflation and the economy, crime, and immigration; Democrats are seen as preoccupied with Jan. 6, women’s rights/abortion, and the environment, which are further down the list of concerns.Republicans, in turn, have pulled out all the stops in activating racially divisive wedge issues, relentlessly pressing immigration, crime and the specter of generalized disorder.In Missouri, for example, Brian Seitz, a state representative, is determined to “shut down” critical race theory, declaring, “There is a huge red wave coming.” Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican Conference, ran a Facebook ad that read: “Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION. Their plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.” In Ohio, J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate candidate, contends that Democrats are recruiting immigrants and “have decided that they can’t win re-election in 2022 unless they bring in a large number of new voters to replace the voters that are already here.” Blake Masters, the Republican Senate nominee in Arizona, warns that Democrats want to increase immigration “to change the demographics of our country.”Robert Y. Shapiro, a political scientist at Columbia, observed in an email: “By all rights this should be a debacle for the incumbent party based on the fundamentals — the relative bad news about the economy — inflation — crime, the southern border, and the lingering Afghanistan fiasco.”But, Shapiro added:There are mitigating factors: a very important one is that the Republicans picked up many seats in the House in 2020 so those seats are not at risk now for the Democrats, thanks to around 11 million more Republican voters in 2020 than in 2016. The other factor is the Dobbs abortion decision that led to a surge in Democratic voter registration, very likely significantly women and younger voters. This at best has just helped the Democrats to catch up to Republicans.The crucial question in these circumstances, in Shapiro’s view, “will be relative partisan turnout — will this be more like 2010 or 2018? I sense the enthusiasm and anger here is at least a bit greater among Republicans than Democrats for House voting.”Bruce Cain, a political scientist at Stanford, emailed me to say that he agrees “with those who think the Democrats will lose the House,” but with Republicans seeing “a below historical average seat gain, i.e. under the 40-45 seats that some models are predicting.”Cain argued that a Democratic setback will not be as consequential as many on both the left and right argue: “It’s not like either party needs to worry about being locked out of power for very long. The electoral winds will shift, and the window to power and policy will open again soon enough.” Polarization, Cain noted, “has made it clear to both parties that you have to grab the policy prizes while you have trifecta control” — as both Trump and Biden have done during their first two years in office.One difference between the current election and the wave election of 1994 is that this time around Republicans have no attention-getting, mobilizing agenda comparable to Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America. They have contented themselves with hammering away on the economy, race and immigration.Republicans are fixated on an ethnically and racially freighted agenda of gridlock and revenge. They propose to reduce immigration and to roll back as much as they can of the civil rights revolution, the women’s rights revolution and the gay rights revolution. They threaten to hound Biden appointees, not to mention the president’s son Hunter, with endless hearings and inquiries. The party has also signaled its refusal to raise the debt ceiling and promised to shut down the government in order to force major concessions on spending.While this agenda may win Republicans the House and perhaps the Senate this year, it contains too many contradictions to achieve a durable Republican realignment.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Las encuestas electorales en Brasil se equivocaron, y ahora Bolsonaro quiere penalizar a las que fallen

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      El presidente Jair Bolsonaro y los legisladores conservadores de Brasil quieren ilegalizar la publicación de encuestas que no coinciden con los resultados de las elecciones.BRASILIA — Este mes se celebró la primera vuelta de las elecciones en Brasil, que han sido observadas con detenimiento, y las encuestas mostraron un pronóstico errado porque subestimaron el apoyo con el que cuenta el presidente en funciones, Jair Bolsonaro, un líder de extrema derecha, y otros candidatos conservadores de todo el país.Muchos integrantes de la derecha se pusieron furiosos y criticaron las encuestas por estar desconectadas del electorado brasileño.Esa reacción no fue ninguna sorpresa. Lo que pasó después, sí lo fue.A instancias de Bolsonaro, algunos líderes políticos brasileños ahora buscan tipificar como delito las predicciones incorrectas de una elección.La Cámara de Diputados de Brasil ha acelerado un proyecto de ley que penalizaría la publicación de una encuesta que luego se compruebe que estuvo fuera de su margen de error. Se prevé que la Cámara Baja, controlada por aliados de Bolsonaro, vote para aprobar la medida en los próximos días.El contenido y destino finales de la propuesta de ley aún no están claros. Los líderes legislativos han insinuado que podrían cambiar algunos aspectos de la legislación, y las posibilidades de que se apruebe en el Senado, donde los oponentes a Bolsonaro son mayoría, parecen mucho menos certeras.Sin embargo, independientemente del futuro de esa propuesta, tanto ese proyecto como otras iniciativas para investigar a las encuestadoras por sus recientes errores de cálculo forman parte de una narrativa más amplia, sin evidencias, promovida por Bolsonaro y sus aliados, según la cual la clase política y la izquierda de Brasil tratan de amañar las elecciones en su contra.Mientras Brasil se prepara para votar en la segunda vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales el 30 de octubre, las encuestas siguen mostrando que Bolsonaro está rezagado detrás de su rival de izquierda, el expresidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, aunque la contienda luce cada vez más cerrada.Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva celebrando los resultados de la primera vuelta de las elecciones en São Paulo, a principios de este mes.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesPor su parte, Bolsonaro optó por tildar a las empresas encuestadoras de “mentirosas” y denunciar que sus errores cambiaron hasta tres millones de votos a favor de Da Silva en la primera ronda electoral, y ha abogado para que las firmas enfrenten consecuencias. “No es por haberse equivocado, ¿OK? Una cosa es cometer un error”, puntualizó. “Es por los delitos que cometieron”.Bolsonaro no ha aclarado qué delitos considera que se cometieron.La Asociación Brasileña de Empresas Encuestadoras declaró en un comunicado que estaba “ofendida” por los intentos de criminalizar las encuestas que arrojan pronósticos equivocados.“Iniciar este tipo de investigación durante el periodo de campaña para la segunda vuelta electoral, cuando las encuestadoras están realizando su trabajo, demuestra otro intento flagrante de obstruir la investigación científica”, aseveró el grupo.Las firmas encuestadoras agregaron que su trabajo no era predecir elecciones, sino brindar un panorama general de las intenciones de los electores en el momento en que se realiza una encuesta.El proyecto de ley en el Congreso no es el único recurso que se ha entablado contra las encuestadoras. A petición de la campaña de Bolsonaro, el ministro de Justicia y Seguridad Pública de Brasil le ordenó a la policía federal que abriera una investigación contra las encuestadoras por los sondeos que realizaron antes de la primera ronda electoral. Además, la agencia federal antimonopolio de Brasil inició sus propias pesquisas sobre las principales instituciones encuestadoras de la nación por posible colusión.Alexandre de Moraes, juez del Supremo Tribunal Federal y director del tribunal electoral del país, no tardó en ordenar la suspensión de ambas investigaciones, tras señalar que carecían de jurisdicción y parecían cumplir las órdenes políticas del presidente. A su vez, Moraes le ordenó al tribunal electoral de Brasil investigar si Bolsonaro trataba de usar de manera indebida el poder que tiene sobre las agencias federales.En este último año, Moraes se ha posicionado como el principal contrapeso al poder de Bolsonaro, lo cual le ha valido algunas críticas por medidas que, según expertos en derecho y gobernanza, representan un giro represivo para el máximo tribunal de Brasil.Entre otras decisiones, Moraes encarceló a cinco personas sin juicio previo por hacer publicaciones en redes sociales que él consideró que eran ataques contra las instituciones brasileñas. El 20 de octubre, los funcionarios electorales ampliaron aún más su poder al otorgarle la autoridad unilateral para suspender las plataformas de redes sociales en Brasil que no obedecieran de inmediato sus órdenes de eliminar la desinformación.Alexandre de Moraes en Brasilia antes de la primera vuelta de las elecciones, a principios de este mes.Dado Galdieri para The New York TimesMoraes y el Senado del país parecen estar listos para proteger a las encuestadoras de las medidas en contra de sus sondeos.Sin embargo, las acusaciones reiteradas de que las encuestadoras son corruptas podrían socavar aún más su capacidad para brindar la mejor estimación posible de la opinión pública. Algunos de los asesores principales de Bolsonaro han hecho un llamado para que sus partidarios ignoren a los encuestadores con el fin de sabotear los resultados.“¡¡¡No le respondan a ninguno de ellos hasta el final de la elección!!! Así será seguro desde el principio que cualesquiera de sus resultados son fraudulentos”, escribió Ciro Nogueira, el jefe de gabinete de Bolsonaro, en su cuenta de Twitter. “¿Fue un delito su absurdo error? Solo una investigación profunda lo determinará”.Las firmas encuestadoras más importantes habían pronosticado que Bolsonaro recibiría alrededor de un 36 por ciento del voto en la primera ronda electoral. Recibió un 43,2 por ciento, una brecha de siete puntos porcentuales fuera del margen de error de prácticamente todas las encuestadoras.Sus pronósticos fueron aún peores en muchas contiendas por cargos de menor relieve. En Río de Janeiro, los sondeos mostraron que el candidato conservador a gobernador llevaba una ventaja de unos nueve puntos porcentuales. En cambio, ganó por 31 puntos.En São Paulo, algunas encuestas mostraron que un candidato de izquierda que aspira a llegar al Senado llevaba una delantera de 14 puntos porcentuales frente a su oponente antes de la primera ronda de elecciones. En cambio, un candidato de derecha ganó por casi el mismo margen, una diferencia de 28 puntos porcentuales de lo que predijeron los sondeos previos a la elección.Las empresas encuestadoras han atribuido sus pronósticos fallidos a una variedad de factores, entre ellos los datos obsoletos del censo, los cuales minaron su capacidad de encuestar a una muestra estadísticamente representativa de electores. Esas firmas mencionaron que sus encuestas también fueron deficientes porque una ola de votantes más grande de lo esperado cambió su voto para apoyar a Bolsonaro en el último minuto.Algunas encuestadoras también comentaron que creían que muchos electores conservadores no estuvieron dispuestos a responder sus encuestas.La proporción de votantes de mayor edad excedió por mucho sus expectativas, tal vez debido a un anuncio que hizo el gobierno este año de que votar era una nueva manera de dar fe de vida y mantener activos sus beneficios de jubilación. Las encuestas en la víspera de las elecciones mostraron que los electores mayores apoyaban a Bolsonaro más que a Da Silva.Brasil está lejos de ser el único país donde las encuestas luchan por dar una imagen precisa del electorado, particularmente la fuerza del apoyo conservador.En 2016, las encuestas en Estados Unidos no pronosticaron con precisión el apoyo a Donald Trump, y las empresas dieron razones similares para el error, incluido que algunos votantes de derecha no estaban dispuestos a responder las encuestas.El presidente Jair Bolsonaro, en São Paulo, a principios de este mes.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesLa credibilidad de las empresas de encuestas en Brasil se vio afectada después de la primera vuelta de las elecciones, y algunos periodistas se han mostrado reacios para compartir las encuestas antes de la segunda vuelta del domingo.Ricardo Barros, un congresista conservador que está ayudando a impulsar el proyecto de ley para criminalizar las encuestas defectuosas, dijo que la legislación obligaría a las empresas encuestadoras a ser más cuidadosas con sus resultados. Según la ley propuesta, solo las encuestas que se equivocan fuera de su margen de error enfrentarían responsabilidad.“Si no están seguros del resultado, usen un margen de error del 10 por ciento”, dijo. “Pierden credibilidad, pero no desinforman a los votantes. El problema es que hoy en día siempre se presentan como una verdad absoluta”.Los legisladores tanto de la Cámara como del Senado también han reunido suficientes firmas para abrir investigaciones en el Congreso sobre las firmas de encuestas, aunque se espera que el líder del Senado tome medidas para bloquear la investigación.Alexandre Cordeiro Macedo, director de la agencia federal antimonopolio de Brasil que fue designado por Bolsonaro, trató de ir más allá que Barros al señalar la supuesta responsabilidad de las firmas de encuestas.Antes de que Moraes interviniera y detuviera la investigación, Cordeiro Macedo acusó a las principales encuestadoras de colusión basándose en lo que calificó como la improbabilidad estadística de que todas hubieran subestimado el apoyo de Bolsonaro por un margen tan significativo. Afirmó que el escenario era tan probable como ganar la lotería varias veces.Pero Alexandre Patriota, profesor de estadística en la Universidad de São Paulo, lo cuestionó y dijo que probar la colusión basada únicamente en esa única medida sería casi imposible.“Incluso si todos los institutos se equivocaron de la misma manera, eso no es una prueba de colusión”, dijo. “Para tener un toque de malicia, necesitas algo más que números”.Jack Nicas es el jefe de la corresponsalía del Times en Brasil, que abarca Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay. Antes cubría tecnología desde San Francisco. Antes de unirse al Times, en 2018, trabajó durante siete años en The Wall Street Journal. @jacknicas • Facebook More

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      Rishi Sunak’s Challenge: Unifying the Party and Fixing the Economy

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      The Conservative Party is fractured and Britain’s public finances are battered. That will test the political skills of a leader who has been involved in national politics for only seven years.LONDON — Rishi Sunak took over as Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday, the third in seven weeks, hoping to slow the revolving door at 10 Downing Street and restore stability to a government in turmoil.But as he assembled a cabinet and began to confront a grave economic crisis, Mr. Sunak faced formidable political challenges, for which analysts said his seven-year career in national politics had not fully prepared him. The swift, truncated nature of his election may further complicate his task.Having been elected with the votes of some 200 Conservative Party lawmakers, but not the party’s rank-and-file members, Mr. Sunak could have trouble claiming a mandate to lead a deeply fractured party, let alone the whole country. With his government forced into spending cuts and tax increases, he will have few resources with which to reward either his lawmakers or the public.“He’s inheriting a divided party with a large number of Conservative M.P.s and members who believe he has no legitimate mandate,” said Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics at the University of Kent. “That’s compounded by the fact that the party is in a free-fall and it’s not clear it has a parachute.”And yet, on a day of now-familiar rituals, as Mr. Sunak, the fifth prime minister in six years, traveled to Buckingham Palace to be anointed by King Charles III, there was also a calm in British politics — something that had been missing since Boris Johnson’s chaotic departure this past summer.Much of that owed to the 42-year-old prime minister himself: His well-received address to the nation on Tuesday showed a degree of political awareness, conceding the mistakes of his predecessor, Liz Truss, and promising improvement, while also reaching out to her and Mr. Johnson.“I will place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government’s agenda,” a somber and solitary Mr. Sunak said on Downing Street, after returning from the palace. “This will mean difficult decisions to come.”Mr. Sunak and King Charles III in Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.Pool photo by Aaron ChownHis decision to appear there without his wife or daughters, and to dispense with the cheering staff members that greeted Ms. Truss last month, lent his arrival a brisk, businesslike tone. It also underlined the contrast between Mr. Sunak and his predecessor, which he said would extend beyond optics.A former chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Sunak is expected to pull Britain back to more mainstream policies after Ms. Truss’s experiment in trickle-down economics, which rattled financial markets and badly damaged Britain’s fiscal reputation.More on the Political Turmoil in BritainMaking History: Rishi Sunak is the first person of color and the first Hindu to become prime minister of Britain — a milestone for a nation that is more and more ethnically diverse but also roiled by occasional anti-immigrant fervor.Economic Challenges: Sunak already has experience steering Britain’s public finances as chancellor of the Exchequer. That won’t make tackling the current crisis any easier.Political Primaries: Are primary elections of British leaders driving Britain’s dysfunction? The rise and fall of Liz Truss offers some lessons.Lifelong Allowance: As a former prime minister, Ms. Truss is eligible for a taxpayer-funded annual payout for the rest of her life. Some say she shouldn’t be allowed to receive it.“Mistakes were made,” Mr. Sunak said. “Not borne of ill will or bad intentions. Quite the opposite, in fact. But mistakes, nonetheless. And I have been elected as leader of my party, and your prime minister, in part, to fix them.”Mr. Sunak quickly set about selecting a cabinet remarkable for its familiar faces. He retained Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor whom Ms. Truss installed after ousting Kwasi Kwarteng, the architect of ill-fated tax cuts. Mr. Hunt, who has soothed the markets, is scheduled to present a more detailed fiscal plan on Oct. 31.Mr. Sunak also kept on Ben Wallace as defense secretary and James Cleverly as foreign secretary, even though both had backed Mr. Johnson over him in the leadership race. And he retained Penny Mordaunt, who mounted a spirited challenge to him in that contest, as leader of the House of Commons.It was a striking contrast to Ms. Truss, whose cabinet consisted almost entirely of people who had backed her for leader, and it seemed to signal a recognition by Mr. Sunak that he could not succeed by drawing dividing lines in the party.Clockwise from top left: Jeremy Hunt, Ben Wallace, Dominic Raab, Michael Gove, Suella Braverman, James Cleverly.AFP — Getty; EPA, via Shutterstock; EPA, via Shutterstock; EPA, via Shutterstock; AFP — Getty; AFP — GettyMost conspicuously, Mr. Sunak reappointed Suella Braverman as home secretary, a job she had been forced out of only a week ago, ostensibly because she breached security rules. Her appointment was a gesture to the Conservative Party’s right flank: Ms. Braverman is a hard-liner who wants to cut immigration numbers. She said her “dream” was to see flights deporting asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda.Mr. Sunak did reward some loyalists, naming Dominic Raab, who campaigned faithfully for him, as deputy prime minister and justice minister, posts he held under Mr. Johnson.Ms. Truss made her own appearance at Downing Street in the morning with her family, after formally submitting her resignation to the king, just seven weeks after she had been anointed by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in one of her last official acts, two days before her death.In defiant, unapologetic farewell remarks, Ms. Truss took credit for protecting people from rising energy bills. Reiterating her belief in lower taxes and a fast-growing economy, she said, “I am more convinced than ever we need to be bold and confront the challenges that we face.”Taking a page from Mr. Johnson, who likened himself to the retiring fifth-century Roman politician Cincinnatus, Ms. Truss quoted the Roman philosopher Seneca: “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare. It is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”Liz Truss after her farewell remarks on Downing Street on Tuesday.Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMs. Truss’s misfires have made Mr. Sunak’s job even more difficult. Britain’s straitened public finances and its higher borrowing costs — a consequence, in part, of rising interest rates in reaction to her policies — will require painful spending cuts. That will further test Mr. Sunak’s political skills. Last summer, he struggled to sell his tough-love message to party members, who preferred Ms. Truss’s supply-side remedies.“The ideological riddle that Sunak has to try to solve is how the Conservative Party, amid a profound and prolonged economic crisis, can reconnect with the voters it attracted after Brexit,” Professor Goodwin said.Mr. Sunak did reappoint Michael Gove, a seasoned minister, to a post overseeing efforts to “level up” struggling cities in the Midlands and north of England with more prosperous London. That is important to retaining working-class voters who propelled the Conservatives to their landslide general election victory in 2019.As chancellor, Mr. Sunak was lionized when he doled out billions of pounds to people who had lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic. He sponsored another good-news program, “Eat Out to Help Out,” which subsidized meals at restaurants to revive the industry after lockdowns.But when it came to withdrawing those benefits and raising taxes, Mr. Sunak’s reputation unsurprisingly suffered. During his campaign against Ms. Truss, he struggled to stick to his message of fiscal conservatism. Under pressure from her promises of tax cuts, he said he would temporarily suspend the value-added tax, a sales tax, on energy bills — something that he had earlier rejected.“He doesn’t have a lot of what I’d call trench-fighting experience,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “His progress through the party has been so rapid that he hasn’t spent years forging friendships with colleagues who’ve got his back come what may.”Mr. Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty at the British Asian Trust Reception at the British Museum in London, in February.Vickie Flores/EPA, via ShutterstockProfessor Bale said Mr. Sunak was also thin-skinned about criticism he faced last spring of his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of an Indian technology billionaire, for her privileged tax status. Her so-called non-domicile status allowed her to avoid paying taxes in Britain on millions of pounds of her global income (she eventually agreed to pay British taxes).While Mr. Sunak’s sensitive reaction to the attacks against his wife may have been understandable, he is likely to face many more of them in the coming months from an opposition Labour Party that will seize on his extreme wealth to paint him as out of touch with the anxieties of ordinary people.“They don’t care that he and his family are filthy rich,” Professor Bale said. “They do care they didn’t seem to be paying their fair share. That — and his heated outdoor swimming pool and his house in Santa Monica — is going to make it difficult for him to argue, ‘We’re all in this together.’”Political analysts said the sheer magnitude of Ms. Truss’s failure was Mr. Sunak’s biggest asset. The Conservatives are trailing Labour by more than 30 percentage points in some polls. Even those who ardently opposed Mr. Sunak recognize that he is likely their last hope of avoiding a general election rout that would sweep hundreds of Conservative lawmakers out of their seats.“His M.P.s have looked over the edge of the precipice and know that, unless they get behind the guy, who is basically their last chance, they’re heading for a huge fall,” Professor Bale said. “Basically, it’s Rishi or bust.”Mr. Sunak is Britain’s third prime minister in seven weeks. Hannah Mckay/Reuters More

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      Putin Is Onto Us

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      As the Russian Army continues to falter in Ukraine, the world is worrying that Vladimir Putin could use a tactical nuclear weapon. Maybe — but for now, I think Putin is assembling a different weapon. It’s an oil and gas bomb that he’s fusing right before our eyes and with our inadvertent help — and he could easily detonate it this winter.If he does, it could send prices of home heating oil and gasoline into the stratosphere. The political fallout, Putin surely hopes, will divide the Western alliance and prompt many countries — including ours, where both MAGA Republicans and progressives are expressing concerns about the spiraling cost of the Ukraine conflict — to seek a dirty deal with the man in the Kremlin, pronto.In short: Putin is now fighting a ground war to break through Ukraine’s lines and a two-front energy war to break Ukraine’s will and that of its allies. He’s trying to smash Ukraine’s electricity system to ensure a long, cold winter there while putting himself in position (in ways that I’ll explain) to drive up energy costs for all of Ukraine’s allies. And because we — America and the West — do not have an energy strategy in place to dampen the impact of Putin’s energy bomb, this is a frightening prospect.When it comes to energy, we want five things at once that are incompatible — and Putin is onto us:1. We want to decarbonize our economy as fast as we can to mitigate the very real dangers of climate change.2. We want the cheapest possible gasoline and heating oil prices so we can drive our cars as fast and as much as we want — and never have to put on a sweater indoors or do anything to conserve energy.3. We want to tell the petrodictators in Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to take a hike.4. We want to be able to treat U.S. oil and gas companies as pariahs and dinosaurs that should pump us out of this current oil crisis and then go off in the woods and die and let solar and wind take over.5. Oh, and we don’t want any new oil and gas pipelines or wind and solar transmission lines to spoil our backyards.I understand why people want all five — now. I want all five! But they involve trade-offs, which too few of us want to acknowledge or debate. In an energy war like the one we’re in now, you need to be clear about your goals and priorities. As a country, and as a Western alliance, we have no ladder of priorities on energy, just competing aspirations and magical thinking that we can have it all.If we persist in that, we are going to be in for a world of hurt if Putin drops the energy bomb that I think he’s assembling for Christmas. Here’s what I think is his strategy: It starts with getting the United States to draw down its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It is a huge stock of crude oil stored in giant caverns that we can draw on in an emergency to offset any cutoff in our domestic production or imports. Last Wednesday, President Biden announced the release of 15 million more barrels from the reserve in December, completing a plan he laid out earlier to release a total of 180 million barrels in an effort to keep gasoline prices at the pump as low as possible — in advance of the midterm elections. (He didn’t say the last part. He didn’t need to.)According to a report in The Washington Post, the reserve contained “405.1 million barrels as of Oct. 14. That’s about 57 percent of its maximum authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels.”I sympathize with the president. People were really hurting from $5- and $6-a-gallon gasoline. But using the reserve — which was designed to cushion us in the face of a sudden shut-off in domestic or global production — to shave a dime or a quarter off a gallon of gasoline before elections is a dicey business, even if the president has a plan for refilling it in the coming months.Putin wants America to use up as much of its Strategic Petroleum Reserve cushion now — just like the way the Germans gave up on nuclear energy and he got them addicted to Russia’s cheap natural gas. Then, when Russian gas was cut off because of the Ukraine war, German homes and factories had to frantically cut back and scramble for more expensive alternatives.Next, Putin is watching the European Union gear up for a ban on seaborne imports of crude oil from Russia, starting Dec. 5. This embargo — along with Germany and Poland’s move to stop pipeline imports — should cover roughly 90 percent of the European Union’s current oil imports from Russia.As a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., noted, “Crucially, the sanctions also ban E.U. companies from providing shipping insurance, brokering services or financing for oil exports from Russia to third countries.”The U.S. Treasury and European Union believe that without that insurance, the number of customers for Russian oil will shrink dramatically, so they are telling the Russians that they can get the insurance for their oil tankers from the few Western insurance companies that dominate the industry only if they lower the price of their crude oil exports to a level set by the Europeans and the United States.My sources in the oil industry tell me they seriously doubt this Western price fixing will work. Russia’s OPEC Plus partner Saudi Arabia is certainly not interested in seeing such a buyers’ price-fixing precedent set. Moreover, international oil trading is full of shady characters — does the name Marc Rich ring a bell? — who thrive on market distortions. Oil tankers carry transponders that track their locations. But tankers engaged in shady activities will turn their transponders off and reappear days after they’ve made a ship-to-ship transfer or will transfer their cargo into storage tanks somewhere in Asia for re-export, in effect laundering their Russian oil. Oil in just one very large tanker can be worth roughly $250 million, so the incentives are enormous.Now add one more dodgy player to the mix: China. It has all kinds of long-term, fixed-price contracts to import liquefied natural gas from the Middle East at roughly $100 a barrel of oil equivalent. But because President Xi Jinping’s crazy approach to containing Covid — in recent months some 300 million citizens have been under full or partial lockdown — China’s economy has slowed considerably, as has its gas consumption. As a result, an oil industry source tells me, China has been taking some of the L.N.G. sold to it on those fixed-price contracts for domestic use and reselling it to Europe and other gas-starved countries for $300 a barrel of oil equivalent.Now that Xi has locked in his third term as general secretary of the Communist Party, many expect that he will ease up on his lockdowns. If China goes back to anything near its normal gas consumption and stops re-exporting its excess, the global gas market will become even more scarily tight.Last, as I noted, Putin is trying to destroy Ukraine’s ability to generate electricity. Today more than one million Ukrainians are without power, and as one Ukrainian lawmaker tweeted last week, “Total darkness and cold are coming.”So add all of this up and then suppose, come December, Putin announces he is halting all Russian oil and gas exports for 30 or 60 days to countries supporting Ukraine, rather than submit to the European Union’s fixing of his oil price. He could afford that for a short while. That would be Putin’s energy bomb and Christmas present to the West. In this tight market, oil could go to $200 a barrel, with a commensurate rise in the price of natural gas. We’re talking $10 to $12 a gallon at the pump in the United States.The beauty for Putin of an energy bomb is that unlike setting off a nuclear bomb — which would unite the whole world against him — setting off an oil price bomb would divide the West from Ukraine.Obviously, I am just guessing that this is what Putin is up to, and if the world goes into recession, it could take energy prices down with it. But we would be wise to have a real counterstrategy in place, especially because, while some in Europe have managed to stock up on natural gas for this winter, rebuilding those stocks for 2023 without Russian gas and with China returning to normal could be very costly.If Biden wants America to be the arsenal of democracy to protect us and our democratic allies — and not leave us begging Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela or Iran to produce more oil and gas — we need a robust energy arsenal as much as a military one. Because we are in an energy war! Biden needs to make a major speech, making clear that for the foreseeable future, we need more of every kind of energy we have. American oil and gas investors need to know that as long as they produce in the cleanest way possible, invest in carbon capture and ensure that any new pipelines they build will be compatible with transporting hydrogen — probably the best clean fuel coming down the road in the next decade — they have a welcome place in America’s energy future, alongside the solar, wind, hydro and other clean energy producers that Biden has heroically boosted through his climate legislation.I know. This is not ideal. This is not where I hoped we would be in 2022. But this is where we are, and anything else really is magical thinking — and the one person who will not be fooled by it is Vladimir Putin.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Your Wednesday Briefing: Tensions Rise in the West Bank

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      Plus Myanmar’s junta kills dozens and Brittney Griner faces nine years in a Russian penal colony.Mourners attended the funeral of Palestinians killed in an overnight Israeli raid in Nablus.Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIsrael targets a Palestinian militiaIsraeli forces carried out a major raid against a new Palestinian militia in Nablus, a city in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian officials and militia members said the raid yesterday killed a leader of the group and four other men.Israel has blamed the militia, known as the Lions’ Den, for a rise in shootings that it says are aimed at its troops and Jewish settlements; one shooting killed a soldier this month. The militia, which emerged this year and does not answer to any of the established Palestinian factions, is steadily gaining support among young people.Many Palestinians have championed the group’s fighters as popular heroes. These young Palestinians are as frustrated with the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited authority over parts of the West Bank, as they are with Israel.The predawn raid came ahead of Israel’s general election, its fifth since 2019, set for next Tuesday. It could add to right-wing momentum and strengthen Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid to retake power.Context: The Israeli army has kept Nablus under a tight siege for about two weeks. Palestinians have decried the move as a collective punishment.Background: This year has already been the deadliest in the West Bank since 2015 for Palestinians in the conflict with Israel, much of which has been focused on Nablus and Jenin. There has been a notable rise in violence against Palestinians by extremist Jewish settlers.One bomb killed Aurali Lahpai, a popular singer, and other performers mid-song.Associated PressAirstrike kills dozens in MyanmarAt least 80 people died in Myanmar after the military regime mounted its deadliest aerial attack since it seized power last year.The Sunday airstrike in northern Myanmar targeted the territory of ethnic Kachin rebels. People had gathered for an outdoor concert to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the Kachin Independence Organization, one of the largest and most active ethnic groups in the country, which has been fighting the military for years.Since the coup, the organization has joined with pro-democracy forces and has helped train soldiers from the People’s Defense Force, an armed resistance group. The organization pledged to step up its military activities against the junta in retaliation.Military: The junta said that the site of the bombing was a Kachin army base, not a concert venue, and said widespread reports of civilian deaths, including the deaths of the performers, were “rumors based on fake news.”Context: The Kachin Independence Organization has long sought autonomy for Kachin State, which borders China and India and is well known for its lucrative jade trade.Brittney Griner has already been jailed for about eight months.Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesGriner’s prison term upheldA Russian court upheld the nine-year prison sentence for Brittney Griner, the U.S. basketball star. A prisoner swap with the U.S. may be her best hope to avoid a penal colony.There are two higher courts above the appellate division, culminating in the Supreme Court, but Griner’s lawyers said they had not decided whether to take the case any further. Higher courts in Russia are not known for overturning verdicts, especially in a case involving foreign policy and the interests of the Kremlin.The U.S. has proposed exchanging Griner and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine held since December 2018, for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year federal prison sentence, according to a person familiar with the talks. But negotiations have dragged on for months.Background: Griner was arrested days before Russia invaded Ukraine after she arrived in Russia with a small amount of hashish oil. Threats: Russia and Ukraine accused each other of planning attacks to spread radioactive material, raising fears in the West that Moscow’s claims could be a pretext for an escalation. President Biden sharply warned Moscow against using a tactical nuclear weapon.THE LATEST NEWSAustralia’s BudgetJim Chalmers, Australia’s treasurer, delivered the 2022-23 federal budget yesterday.Lukas Coch/EPA, via ShutterstockAustralia’s government released its first budget yesterday. It is the first from the Labor Party in almost a decade, The Guardian reports.Australia’s plan emphasizes spending on families, as well as on older adults, defense and other countries in the Pacific, The Associated Press reports.Reuters reports that the “low-drama” budget stressed stability, pragmatism and tight controls.Australia is anticipating an economic slowdown amid rising global inflation, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.British PoliticsKing Charles III welcomed Rishi Sunak to Buckingham Palace yesterday.Pool photo by Aaron ChownRishi Sunak is now Britain’s prime minister. He opted for stability and continuity in his cabinet. Jeremy Hunt, who quickly reversed Liz Truss’s economic proposals, will stay on as the top finance minister. Sunak supported Brexit and pledged to do “whatever it takes” to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. But he has been tight-lipped about his policy agenda.China said it supported advancing ties with Britain under Sunak, despite simmering tensions.Sunak’s ascent has inspired some members of the Indian diaspora. But his immense personal wealth makes him less relatable.Other Big Stories“I want to cry, I want to scream,” said a 31-year-old Venezuelan migrant, who said he had traversed 10 countries to get to the U.S. Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesTens of thousands of Venezuelans are stranded south of the U.S. border after an abrupt shift in the Biden administration’s immigration policy.WhatsApp went down in India, South Korea and other countries yesterday. The company did not provide a cause.Here are photos from the partial solar eclipse yesterday.A Morning ReadBefore the pandemic, Kathryn Wiltz’s employer repeatedly denied her requests to work from home because of her disability. Now, her new job allows her to do so permanently.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesThe pandemic prompted more employers to consider remote work arrangements. As a result, the share of adults with disabilities who are working has soared.A man with autism spectrum disorder, which has made it difficult for him to find steady work, recently landed a full-time job — with a 30 percent raise. “If I have my bad days, I just pick up the laptop and work from home,” he said.POP CULTUREAdidas drops YeAdidas said it was immediately ending its partnership with Kanye West, now known as Ye, who made a series of antisemitic remarks and embraced a slogan associated with white supremacists this month.In so doing, the German sneaker giant ended what may have been the most significant corporate fashion partnership of Ye’s career. It’s not the first to go: After days of notable silence, Balenciaga, the fashion house that had Ye walk down its runway, cut him loose. CAA, the talent agency that represents Ye, also dropped him as a client.Like many of Ye’s other fashion connections, Adidas seemed to be dragging its feet, perhaps hoping for a public apology. Now, Ye’s economic future and his status as a pop culture icon may be in peril.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookKate Sears for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.Roast butternut squash in miso and butter for a savory vegetarian pasta dinner.Letter of RecommendationThere’s joy in jet lag.FashionFind your personal style.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Polluted air (four letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Park Chung-hee, South Korea’s president who seized power in a coup, was assassinated 43 years ago today. His friend Kim Jae-kyu, then the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, killed him and was sentenced to death.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on Europe’s energy crisis.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Deadly Israeli Raid Targets New Palestinian Militia

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      At least six Palestinians were killed in a night of violence in the West Bank, raising tensions further ahead of elections in Israel next week.JERUSALEM — Israeli forces carried out a major raid against a Palestinian militia in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Tuesday, killing a leader of the group and four other men, according to members of the militia and Palestinian officials.The predawn raid targeted the Nablus-based militia known as the Lions’ Den, which emerged this year and does not answer to any of the established Palestinian factions. Many Palestinians have championed the group’s fighters as popular heroes, in part because Israel’s occupation of the territory has dragged on for more than a half-century and become increasingly entrenched.Israel has blamed the Lions’ Den for a rise in shootings that it says are aimed at its troops and Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including one that killed a soldier this month. It said that it had killed the group’s leader, Wadie al-Houh, in an exchange of gunfire, adding that he was the main target of the raid and was responsible for producing bombs and obtaining weapons for the group.This year has already been the deadliest in the West Bank since 2015 for Palestinians in the conflict with Israel. And the raid, along with the threat of revenge attacks, raised tensions further in an already volatile atmosphere ahead of Israel’s general election, which is set to take place next week.The Israeli army has kept Nablus under a tight siege for about two weeks, severely restricting movement in and out of the city in an effort to contain attacks. Palestinians have decried the closure as a collective punishment.On Tuesday, the Israeli military said that its troops and special forces had raided a “hide-out apartment” in the Old City of Nablus that the Lions’ Den used as a headquarters and explosives manufacturing site. The troops blew up the explosives lab, the military added.It said that its troops hit multiple armed men and fired back at gunmen who were shooting at them, while dozens of Palestinians burned tires and hurled rocks at the forces.Palestinian militants firing into the air during the funeral of those killed in the predawn Israeli raid in Nablus on Tuesday.Majdi Mohammed/Associated PressThe Lions’ Den confirmed that Mr. al-Houh was killed and that he was a leader of the group.The militia has won the admiration of many young Palestinians by posting videos on social media of its attacks on Israelis in real time. These young Palestinians are as frustrated with the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited authority over parts of the West Bank, as they are with Israel.Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, denounced the Israeli raid as a war crime, while Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that dominates the Gaza Strip, warned that Israel’s “crimes would plunge Palestine into escalation.”The dead were carried in a funeral procession in Nablus, wrapped in flags with the Lions’ Den insignia. Along with the five who were killed in the Nablus raid, the Palestinian Health Ministry said at least 20 Palestinians were injured.Another Lions’ Den operative was killed in Nablus on Sunday when a motorcycle exploded as he passed by. The group blamed Israel for what it described as an assassination and swore to avenge it.Israel did not claim responsibility. But if it was behind the killing, Israeli experts said, it would be the first time that Israel has carried out a targeted killing in the West Bank in more than 20 years.In addition to blaming the Lions’ Den for a rise in shootings at troops and in West Bank settlements, the Israeli authorities say that in the past few weeks, the group also sent an operative to carry out an attack in Tel Aviv, which was thwarted by the police, and that it planted an explosive device in a gas station near a West Bank settlement.Separately on Tuesday, Palestinian officials said that a sixth Palestinian was killed overnight in the West Bank town of Nabi Saleh near the city of Ramallah. The Israeli military said its soldiers spotted a man hurling an explosive device at them near Nabi Saleh and responded with live fire.No casualties were reported on the Israeli side in either episode.Much of the violence between Israelis and Palestinians this year has focused on the northern West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin. Unrest has spread to Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 in a move that most countries have not recognized.And there has been a noted rise in violence against Palestinians and their property by extremist Jewish settlers, who frequently set out to confront Palestinians and their supporters during the fall olive harvest.Right-wing opponents of Israel’s centrist prime minister, Yair Lapid, have criticized his government during the election campaign for not acting more aggressively against Palestinian militants. But Mr. Lapid vowed on Tuesday to keep pursuing Palestinians who attack Israelis.“We will reach every place,” he said. “Israel will never be deterred against operating for its own security.”Gabby Sobelman More

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      Trumpism Beyond Trump

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      Which version of the Republican Party will win out?For years, pundits and political strategists have speculated about Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party. It is an essential question for the party and, as a result, the country: Could there be Trumpism without Trump? And what, exactly, would that look like?Two weeks before the first midterm elections since Trump left office, the answer to the first question seems clear. Trumpism is embedded in the DNA of the party. Most of those who refused to pledge fealty to the former president lost their primaries or retired to avoid defeat. With only a handful of exceptions, the Republicans running for office are strongly in Trump’s camp, embracing some version of his denials of his 2020 election loss.Candidates from Arizona to Pennsylvania have adopted his views, bombastic style and anti-establishment attitude and made them their own. Today, I will examine three Republicans who are putting forward their own versions of Trumpism — some of which might help Trump win if he were to run for president again, and others that might someday defeat him.Kari Lake.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesTrump with polishKari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona, is the Trumpism queen of the midterms. Lake, a former news anchor who had never run for office, transformed from a nonpartisan presence on a Fox affiliate in Phoenix into an anti-establishment Republican insurgent.Lake is running as a political outsider, bashing the media and promising to be “the fake news’s worst nightmare.” She has called the 2020 election “stolen” and “corrupt,” and said she would not have certified President Biden’s victory. Last week, in an interview with CNN, she refused to say that she would accept the results of her election if she lost.But unlike Trump, who is easily sidetracked — recall his digressions on topics like flushing toilets — Lake is a polished speaker, the result of a quarter century in television news. She’s quick with a viral zinger and rarely says anything to upset her base. One interviewer asked her this past weekend whether she would run as Trump’s vice-presidential nominee in 2024. (Lake insisted she would remain governor if she won.)If she wins her tightly contested race, Lake will have shown that her smoother version of Trumpism can work even in places where Trump lost.Trump in overdriveRon DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has tried to out-Trump Trump, adopting inflammatory stances that excite core conservative supporters and that position him as a 2024 front-runner.In March, he signed legislation prohibiting classroom instruction and discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in some elementary school grades, a law that opponents derided as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. It also placed DeSantis squarely in the culture-war debate over transgender rights, a theme he has continued to address. In a debate last night against his Democratic challenger, former Gov. Charlie Crist, DeSantis gave a graphic and inaccurate description of gender-affirming care for transgender children, suggesting falsely that doctors were “mutilating” minors.Last month, DeSantis prompted liberal condemnation and conservative applause when he sent two chartered planeloads of undocumented migrants from Texas — hundreds of miles from the Florida state line — to Martha’s Vineyard, the moneyed Massachusetts vacation spot frequented by celebrities and former Democratic presidents. It was an idea that Stephen Miller, a Trump policy adviser, had pursued while working in the White House, but that others in the administration rejected.And unlike Lake, who has remained loyal to Trump, DeSantis has criticized him from the right, saying that he regretted not speaking out against Trump’s early Covid shutdowns. While Lake has fielded questions about running with Trump, DeSantis seems more likely to run against him in 2024. DeSantis refused to say in last night’s debate whether he would serve a full, four-year term if re-elected. (Here are four takeaways from the debate.)The Never Trumpers’ TrumpGlenn Youngkin is not running for office now — he won Virginia’s governor’s race last year — but he has emerged as an in-demand surrogate for candidates at all levels of the Trump spectrum.Youngkin presents what some strategists think is the most politically viable national model for Republicans in a post-Trump era. He does not share Trump’s fiery style, packaging himself as a fleece-vest-wearing suburbanite who can keep Trump’s coalition intact while picking up a significant share of the suburban voters that determine elections in his home state. While he was campaigning, Youngkin liked to say he could bring together “forever Trumpers and never Trumpers.”But on policy, he has embraced many of the issues that rally the base. He has called for a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, prohibited the teaching of critical race theory, restricted transgender students’ rights and expressed anger over pandemic lockdowns. He acknowledges that Biden won the 2020 election, but has campaigned for election deniers, including Lake.Youngkin has insisted that he is not yet thinking about a presidential run in 2024. But his carefully crafted national profile — as well as his meetings with megadonors in New York City — hints otherwise.More midterms newsFearing significant election losses, Democrats are rushing to craft a new message that acknowledges the pain of rising prices.Detroit, which is 77 percent Black, may not have a Black representative in Congress for the first time since 1955.On “The Ezra Klein Show,” the reporter Mark Leibovich talked about how the Republican Party fell under Trump’s influence, the subject of his new book.THE LATEST NEWSSupreme CourtJustice Clarence Thomas temporarily shielded Senator Lindsey Graham from having to answer a grand jury’s questions about efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, assured Senator Ted Kennedy in 2005 of his respect for it, according to diary excerpts in a new book.BritainKing Charles III welcomed Rishi Sunak to Buckingham Palace this morning.Pool photo by Aaron ChownRishi Sunak is Britain’s prime minister. He’s the first person of color to lead the country and at 42, the youngest British prime minister in two centuries. Follow our updates.Sunak and his wife are extremely wealthy — by one estimate, they are worth more than $800 million.His ascent has inspired some members of Britain’s Indian diaspora, though some question his ability to relate to them.Other Big StoriesA gunman killed a 16-year-old girl and a 61-year-old woman at a St. Louis high school. He died in a shootout with the police.Officials at New York State’s largest Hasidic school admitted they illegally diverted millions of dollars, including from food aid for children that they spent on parties.Ukrainians returning to towns that Russia had occupied are finding destruction and a lack of vital services.The fashion industry is distancing itself from Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, after his antisemitic outbursts. His talent agency also dropped him.#MeToo led to more diversity in the entertainment industry. But Hollywood has started to regress in subtle ways.WhatsApp, the messaging platform, went down in several countries this morning.OpinionsCrime in the U.S. rose substantially in 2020. The perception that it was all in big cities run by Democrats is false, Paul Krugman writes.Frustrated with polling? Pollsters are, too, Quoctrung Bui argues.Detached from the working class, Rishi Sunak won’t save Britain, Kimi Chaddah says.MORNING READSSabrina Brokenborough, a fashion school graduate, in knitwear of her own design.Mary Inhea Kang for The New York TimesNew York wool festival: A decades-old fair is drawing young knitters.Icy-white hair: Would you go “Targaryen blond”?Rebrand: Restoration Hardware was known for selling furniture. Why is it opening restaurants?Pickleball is expanding: Tennis is mad.Well: It’s the time of year when you may notice symptoms of seasonal depression.Advice from Wirecutter: A good air purifier can improve your life.Lives Lived: The comic actor Leslie Jordan became a familiar face on shows like “Will & Grace,” then found new fame with his pandemic videos. He died at 67.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICBears beat Patriots: Led by the quarterback Justin Fields, the Chicago Bears dominated New England 33-14 on the road last night, a surprising result in the N.F.L. landscape.The Lakers’ problem: Los Angeles is 0-3 and its point guard, Russell Westbrook, is shooting poorly. Darvin Ham, in his first year as Lakers head coach, indicated Westbrook’s role could change.Jets trade: New York acquired the Jaguars running back James Robinson yesterday, a clear sign that the team intends to capitalize on a promising 5-2 start. The move comes after the star rookie running back Breece Hall tore his A.C.L.ARTS AND IDEAS Climate protesters in front of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.”Just Stop Oil, via Associated PressTargeting art for climate changeIn recent months, climate activists in Europe have glued themselves to paintings by Picasso and Botticelli, thrown mashed potatoes on a Monet and tossed tomato soup on a van Gogh. In a video, Phoebe Plummer, 21, who threw the soup, asked: “What is worth more: art or life?”The activists didn’t damage the paintings (they were protected by glass) but targeted world-famous art to garner publicity for their cause. The stunts have started a conversation online. Some people are asking how defacing famous artworks helps address climate change, and Plummer has an answer: It’s to direct attention “to the questions that matter.”For more: In The Guardian, the art historian Katy Hessel explains how the protests build on a history of using art for activism.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookKate Sears for The New York TimesMiso and butter create a simple yet flavorful pasta.TheaterThe novel “A Little Life” comes to the stage, raising the question: How much suffering can the protagonist (and the audience) endure?What to ReadIn “The Women of Rothschild,” Natalie Livingstone focuses on generations of the banking family’s wives and daughters.Late NightJames Corden addressed his restaurant ban.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was infantry. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Polluted air (four letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.P.S. The word “forshmak” — chopped herring — appeared for the first time in The Times yesterday in a story about a new food market.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about the European energy crisis. Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, 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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      in Elections

      The John Fetterman-Mehmet Oz Debate: The Midterms in Miniature

      by

      Let’s imagine that someone wanted to design a debate scenario that captured the high-stakes, uncertain, migraine-inducing essence of this freaky election cycle. (Don’t ask me why. Politics makes people do weird stuff some times.) The final result could easily wind up looking an awful lot like the Senate showdown in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz.Here we are, two weeks out from Election Day, with Pennsylvania among a smattering of states set to determine which party controls the Senate. For various reasons, Pennsylvanians have had limited opportunities to take an extended measure of the candidates. With the race now tighter than a bad face lift, this debate may be the candidates’ last big chance for a breakout performance — or a catastrophic belly flop. Rarely have so many expectations been heaped onto one measly debate.Consider the stark contrast between the candidates’ core brands. On the Republican side, there’s Dr. Oz: a rich, natty, carpetbagging TV celebrity with a smooth-as-goose-poop manner and Mephistophelean eyebrows. Mr. Fetterman, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, is 6-foot-8 and beefy, with tats, a goatee and the sartorial flair of a high school gym teacher — an anti-establishment, regular-Joe type better known for his trash-tweeting than for his oratorical prowess.Hovering over this hourlong prime-time matchup are questions about Mr. Fetterman’s health. He suffered a stroke in May that has left him with auditory processing issues, and he will rely on a closed captioning system in the debate. Voters can be unforgiving — and the opposition ruthless — about verbal stumbling. (Just ask President Biden.) And the closed captioning technology Mr. Fetterman uses can lead to lags between questions being asked and answered.Already there has been chatter about his performance on the stump. This month, an NBC reporter said that, in a pre-interview sit-down, Mr. Fetterman seemed to be having trouble understanding her. Republicans have accused him of lying about the severity of his condition and suggested he is not up to the job. A major blunder on the debate stage, or even the general sense that Mr. Fetterman is struggling, could prove devastating.On the other hand … Dr. Oz and his team have mocked Mr. Fetterman’s medical travails — which seems like a particularly jerky move for a medical professional. This may tickle the Republican base but risks alienating less partisan voters. In appealing to a general-election audience, Dr. Oz will need a better bedside manner to avoid coming across as a callous, supercilious jackass.And here’s where the dynamic gets really tense: After much back-and-forth between the campaigns, Mr. Fetterman agreed to only a single debate, pushed to this late date on the campaign calendar. There are no second chances on the agenda, and precious little time to recover if something goes sideways for either candidate.While the particulars of the Pennsylvania race are unusual, the minimalist approach to debating is ascendant. For the past decade, the number of debates in competitive races has been on a downward slide, and they appear headed the way of floppy disks and fax machines. This election season, barring unforeseen developments, the major Senate contenders in Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida, as in Pennsylvania, will face off only once — which is once more than those in Nevada, where debates seem to be off the table altogether. Likewise, the Republican and Democratic candidates in Missouri have yet to agree on conditions for appearing together.This trend is not limited to the Senate. Several candidates for governor have so far opted to shun debates. And starting with the 2024 presidential election, the Republican National Committee has voted to keep its candidates out of events hosted by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates unless it overhauls its rules for how the debates are conducted, including when they are held and who can be a moderator. Even if the committee eventually backtracks (which seems likely), its threat emphasizes just how far debates have fallen.This is a not-so-great development for a democracy already under strain.Once upon a time, candidates felt obligated to participate in debates. But as campaigning increasingly take place inside partisan bubbles, and the ways to directly communicate with voters proliferate, the contenders have become less inclined to brave this arena. Why endure intense, prolonged, unscripted scrutiny when it is so much less stressful to post on social media? Increasingly, campaigns are deciding these showdowns simply aren’t worth the work or the risk involved.But this misses the point. Debates aren’t supposed to be conducted for the electoral advantage of the candidates. They are meant to benefit the voting public. Debates require political opponents to engage face-to-face. They give voters an opportunity to watch the candidates define and defend their priorities and visions beyond the length of a tweet or an Instagram post. They are one of the few remaining political forums that focus on ideas. They contribute to an informed citizenry. Failure to achieve these aims suggests that the practice should be reformed, not abandoned.Admittedly, this seems like wishful thinking as members of both parties grow more comfortable with ducking debates. Republicans in particular are conditioning their supporters to believe that such matchups, and the journalists who typically run them, are biased against them.Those who view debates as some combination of boring, artificial and pointless will probably cheer their decline. (I feel your pain. I really do.) But the loss of this ritual is another troubling sign of our political times, and of a democracy at risk of sliding farther into crisis as its underpinnings are being steadily eroded.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More