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      Bolsonaro Allies and Election Officials Reach Truce on Voting Machines

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      President Jair Bolsonaro has claimed that Brazil’s voting machines are vulnerable to fraud, with little evidence. Election officials agreed to explore changes to security tests before the October election.BRASÍLIA — President Jair Bolsonaro has made Brazil’s electronic voting machines the center of his attacks on the country’s electoral system, despite little evidence that the machines are at risk, raising concerns he will contest the presidential election results if he loses in October.But it now appears that, after quarreling for months, the president’s allies and Brazil’s election officials are starting to make peace.In a private meeting on Wednesday, Brazil’s elections chief and the country’s defense minister agreed to explore changes to security tests of the voting machines that the armed forces have sought for months, according to election officials.While the two sides have not yet finalized the details, Alexandre de Moraes, Brazil’s elections chief, said he would try to have some tests carried out on Election Day on machines that had just been used by voters, as the military has requested, according to a person involved in the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks were private.Fábio Faria, Brazil’s communications minister and a senior adviser to Mr. Bolsonaro, said in a text message that Mr. Faria felt the issue had been resolved.With less than five weeks left before the election, the agreement represented a notable détente that could weaken the president’s ability to claim voter fraud.Brazil’s armed forces have been a key ally of Mr. Bolsonaro in his criticism of the voting machines as vulnerable to fraud, despite little evidence. Mr. Bolsonaro, in turn, has said that he trusts the armed forces to ensure the elections are safe. In recent interviews, military officials have said that the security tests were their principal remaining concern. And now it appears that election officials are trying to comply with the military’s requests.The easing of tensions is positive for the outlook of Brazil’s elections, but Mr. Bolsonaro has agreed to similar truces in the past and then later continued his criticism of the electoral system.Brazil’s election officials have been planning to run security tests on 600 voting machines on Election Day by simulating the voting process on each machine. Those tests are scheduled to be completed in a controlled room outside voting stations.The military has said it is concerned that sophisticated malicious software could evade such simulated tests. For example, hacking software could be designed not to activate unless a real voter unlocked the machine with a fingerprint.Judge Alexandre de Moraes at his inauguration as head of the country’s Superior Electoral Tribunal, in mid-August.Antonio Augusto/Superior Electoral Tribunal, via Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesElection security experts in Brazil have said such a scenario is technically possible but highly unlikely because of other controls in the voting machines. There has been no evidence of material fraud in Brazil’s voting machines.To solve for the hypothetical, the military has asked for security tests to be completed in actual voting centers during the election, on machines that were just used by actual voters.Elections officials had previously said such changes to the security tests so close to Election Day were not feasible. But on Wednesday, Mr. Moraes told Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, Brazil’s defense minister, that he would try to change the security tests for a limited number of machines. Military officials have suggested changing the tests for two to four machines per state in Brazil, but Mr. Moraes said Wednesday that he needed to discuss the issue with other elections officials to determine how many would be possible, according to the person involved in the meeting.The meeting over coffee between Mr. Moraes and Mr. Nogueira was positive and cordial, the person said.Military officials have said that they want certainty that there is no malicious software installed on the machines because Brazil’s voting system lacks paper backups for potential audits if there is suspicion of fraud.Mr. Bolsonaro has repeatedly claimed that the voting machines can be hacked, but when pressed for evidence, he has cited a 2018 hack of election officials’ computer network, which is not connected to the voting machines. A federal investigation into that hack concluded that the hackers could not gain access to any voting machines. Mr. Bolsonaro has not presented other evidence of past fraud. More

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      Our Latest Covid Poll

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      Americans on the left end of the political spectrum have become less anxious about Covid.Almost six months ago, when my Morning colleagues and I released our last poll about Covid, the deep anxiety among Americans identifying as “very liberal” was one of the main findings.Forty-seven percent of very liberal adults said that they believed Covid presented a “great risk” to their own personal health and well-being. That was a significantly larger share than among conservatives, moderates or even liberals who stopped short of calling themselves very liberal. Particularly striking was the level of concern among liberals under age 45, even though the virus’s worst effects have been concentrated among older people.I understand why attitudes about the virus vary so sharply by ideology. Our country is polarized on most high-profile issues today. In the case of Covid, Donald Trump and some other Republicans exacerbated the divide by making a series of false statements that downplayed the threat or misrepresented the vaccines.To many liberals, taking Covid seriously — more seriously, at times, than the scientific evidence justified — became an expression of identity and solidarity. As one progressive activist tweeted last year, “The inconvenience of having to wear a mask is more than worth it to have people not think I’m a conservative.”This morning, we’re releasing the results of our latest Covid poll (which, like the earlier ones, was conducted by Morning Consult). This time, one of the central findings is how much attitudes have changed since the spring. Americans are less worried about the virus today — and driving that decline is the receding level of anxiety among the very liberal, including many younger adults.The share of the very liberal who say the virus presents a great risk to their own personal health has fallen to 34 percent. The 13-point drop since March was larger than the drop among any of the six other ideological self-identifications in the poll:Share of adults who say Covid presents a great personal risk More

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      Garland Adds Limits at Justice Dept. on Political Activity of Staff

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      Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on Tuesday imposed new restrictions on partisan activity by political appointees at the Justice Department, a policy change that comes ahead of the midterm elections.The new rules prohibit employees who are appointed to serve for the duration of a presidential administration from attending rallies for candidates or fund-raising events, even as passive observers.Under the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in political activities while on the job, the department had previously allowed appointees to attend such events as passive participants provided they had permission from a supervisor.That is now banned. Under the new policy, the department also prohibits appointees from appearing at events on election night or to support relatives who are running for office. Both had been allowed in the past with prior approval.“We have been entrusted with the authority and responsibility to enforce the laws of the United States in a neutral and impartial manner,” Mr. Garland wrote in a memo sent to department employees.“In fulfilling this responsibility, we must do all we can to maintain public trust and ensure that politics — both in fact and appearance — does not compromise or affect the integrity of our work,” he added.Mr. Garland’s memo was accompanied by a pair of notices from Jolene Ann Lauria, acting assistant attorney general for administration, reminding employees of the department’s existing regulations under the Hatch Act.All department employees are prohibited from engaging in political activity at work, and when using a government-issued phone, email account or vehicle. They are not allowed to seek partisan elective office, enlist subordinates in campaigns or ask co-workers for political donations.Other career employees, including F.B.I. employees and administrative law judges, are banned from a much broader array of partisan activity; they are prohibited, for example, from addressing a political rally or helping a political group with driving voters to the polls on Election Day.The policy change coincides with intensifying government investigations into former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Trump has lashed out at the attorney general and President Biden, baselessly claiming that they conducted a partisan witch hunt in the search of his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Aug. 8.After the search, the F.B.I. reported a surge in threats against its agents; an armed man tried to breach the bureau’s Cincinnati field office, before being killed in a shootout with the local police.Mr. Garland is also overseeing the sprawling investigation into the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which has increasingly focused on the actions of Mr. Trump and his supporters.The attorney general has repeatedly said he will go where the evidence leads him, unmoved by political considerations or concerns about a backlash, without “fear or favor.” More

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      Introducing ‘The Run-Up,’ a Politics Podcast from The New York Times

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      Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicStarting Sept. 6, 2022First launched in August 2016, three months before the election of Donald Trump, “The Run-Up” is back.Through conversations with colleagues, newsmakers and voters across the country, Astead Herndon will grapple with the big ideas animating the 2022 midterm election cycle — and explore how we got to this fraught moment in American politics.Elections are about more than who wins and who loses. “The Run-Up” starts Sept. 6. See you there.Meet Your HostASTEAD HERNDON is a national politics reporter for The New York Times. Previously, Astead was an integral part of The Times’s reporting on the 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential elections, anchoring the coverage on Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Before joining The Times, Astead held several positions as a reporter at The Boston Globe, including one as a national politics reporter in the Washington office, where he covered the Trump White House.In 2020, Astead was included on Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 media list. His reporting on grass-roots voters and the politics of white grievance was included in a New York Times submission that was named a finalist for a 2021 Pulitzer Prize. Astead is also a political analyst for CNN. More

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      Angola’s Ruling Party, MPLA, Retains Power in Tightest Election Yet

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      The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola won in the general election with the lowest margin since coming to power in 1975.LUANDA, Angola — Angola’s ruling party on Monday was declared the winner of the general election, but it was its weakest showing in the five elections that have taken place since the country gained independence.The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA, the liberation army turned political party that has governed Angola since the end of Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, won 51.17 percent of the vote, the country’s electoral commission announced.The opposition party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, or UNITA, received 43.95 percent of the vote, its most successful showing so far.The two parties have faced off in four previous elections, and in the 2017 contest, the MPLA had 61 percent of the vote to UNITA’s 26 percent.UNITA said it planned to challenge the result, but the electoral commission dismissed calls for a recount.Angola, on the southwestern coast of Africa and the continent’s second-largest oil producer, has dipped in and out of recession over the past five years. The incumbent president, João Lourenço, campaigned on a promise to wipe out corruption and fix the economy, but it was a message that was similar to his campaign promises in 2017.In a speech Mr. Lourenço, 68, described his party’s victory as “a guarantee of stability.” He dismissed allegations of fraud, citing the presence of international election observers.Mr. Lourenço’s running mate, Esperança Francisco da Costa — the current cabinet minister in charge of fisheries and oceans — will become Angola’s first female vice president.Voting in Luanda last week. More than half of Angola’s registered voters stayed away from the polls. John Wessels/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWith half of Angola’s registered voters under the age of 35, the result suggests that the MPLA’s influence is waning among younger voters who were not alive during the battle for independence.As with other liberation movements in southern Africa, election results show that young voters are losing faith in the parties that brought an end to colonialism or white-minority rule. Instead, issues like the economy and high youth unemployment are top of mind for many voters.More than 30 percent of Angolans are unemployed, and the country’s vast oil wealth has not trickled down to the majority of people, according to Angola’s national statistics agency. Significantly, UNITA unseated the MPLA in the capital, Luanda — the MPLA’s traditional stronghold.If the results of last week’s elections are upheld, this would be the first time that the MPLA will not hold a two-thirds majority in the national assembly. The ruling party maintains the majority with 124 seats, while UNITA will now have 90 seats and three smaller parties two seats each, which could result in more oversight of the MPLA, analysts said.The new configuration in Parliament means the MPLA can no longer amend the Constitution, said Augusto Santana, a political analyst in Angola. Appointing seats on the constitutional court, the electoral commission and even the news media regulator “will need proper negotiations,” he added.“UNITA is now in better position to monitor government activities,” he said.More than half of Angola’s registered voters stayed away from the polls. And many of those who did vote participated in an unusual civic movement, called “vote and stay,” in which they remained at their voting stations after casting their ballots to make sure their votes were counted.UNITA, which says the electoral commission is packed with pro-MPLA commissioners, conducted an independent count through a network of observers but has not yet released any results.Angola’s vast oil wealth has not trickled down to the majority of people.John Wessels/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images More

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      What’s With All the Fluff About a New Civil War, Anyway?

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      BOZEMAN, Mont. — The idea was to be permanently chastened by the Civil War, that the relief of emancipation and reunification would always be tempered by the shock of 600,000 corpses. And yet “civil war” has lately become one of those zeitgeist phrases that rattle around the internet, like “quiet quitting” or “Pete Davidson.”After the F.B.I. searched Donald Trump’s home for archival documents, a white nationalist proclaimed, “Civil war is imminent.” These whiffs of civil war from people more enthralled with Fort Sumter than Appomattox Court House are, like the re-emergence of the word “secession,” escapist fantasies of reliving the four years this country was two countries, officially estranged.Liz Cheney said in her Wyoming concession speech that she takes courage from Ulysses S. Grant’s resolve to turn his army south toward Richmond in 1864. Mentioning that Abraham Lincoln lost House and Senate races “before he won the most important election of all,” she announced that her new political action committee to resist election denial is called the Great Task, a reference to the last line of the Gettysburg Address. How far will she take her Civil War analogies? If she’s running in the 2024 presidential primary, “Let’s burn down Atlanta” might not be an optimal vote-getter in Fulton County.As for Ms. Cheney’s likening herself to Abraham Lincoln, I have seen, at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, the bullet that killed him and fragments of his skull. I’m no life coach, but I wouldn’t call following in his footsteps a particularly upbeat career goal.Ms. Cheney might pull off being our generation’s Millard Fillmore — every girl’s dream. In choosing majority rule as her life’s work, she has landed on the only either-or issue in the United States (aside from pineapple on pizza).Defending the premise that, after a fair election, the legitimate Electoral College winner becomes the president-elect — an idea so basic I literally learned it in first grade, when the kids who preferred Gerald Ford in our mock election just sucked it up and congratulated Jimmy Carter’s gang of 6-year-olds — is our most important issue and explains the ginned-up rumors of war, especially since Ms. Cheney’s nemesis on the topic is something of an attention-getter. On everything else, the United States in 2022 feels more 1850 to me than 1861.The country circa 1850 was trapped in a trilateral predicament in which President Fillmore, presiding over a Unionist center aiming to prohibit slavery’s extension into the new western territories, was caught between a far left and a far right, some abolitionists being almost as keen on secession as the slaveholders — an outcome that would have benefited the latter.Recent polling on the growing support for secession echoes that 1850s-style tripartite political divide. Last year the University of Virginia Center for Politics issued an unnerving report in which 41 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of Republicans “somewhat agree” that red and blue states should secede from the Union and form separate countries. Eighteen percent of Democrats and 25 percent of Republican respondents “strongly agree.” Thus secession is one of those subjects where each party’s extremists are de facto allies, like forsaking the First Amendment or provoking every educator and librarian in America to resign.My nephew used to play a video game in which he gave digital haircuts to bears. That is less absurd than founding two new separate “blue” and “red” countries. The party leanings of states can be fluid. Colorado, for instance — it’s almost as if a secret cabal of tech millionaires shoveled a mountain of cash into turning a Republican state into a Democratic one. The federal government owns almost 50 percent of the land out West, so how to divvy it up without antagonizing thrifty New Englanders? What would happen to swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania? Do they form a third Republic of Wishy-Washy?Somewhere around 40 percent of us do not live in the state where we were born. The ability to move from one state to another is not only an essential freedom that Liz Cheney should definitely look into, it is also an economic imperative. How much of Florida’s economy is New Yorkers and Midwesterners waiting around to die? Moreover, interstate migration is a foundation of our arts and culture. Pittsburgh’s Billy Strayhorn wrote “Take the A Train” after following Duke Ellington’s subway directions to Harlem.“This is the story of the United States,” said T Bone Burnett. “A kid walks out of his home with a song and nothing else, and conquers the world.”A poll of more than 8,000 Americans released by the University of California Davis Violence Prevention Research Program and the California Firearm Violence Research Center found that half of the respondents agreed that “in the next several years, there will be a civil war in the United States.” First of all, yikes. Second, how would bringing Shiloh to the suburbs even work?Inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Mike Theiler/ReutersFull-blown wars tend to get bogged down in geography pretty quickly. The arc of George Washington’s command of the Continental Army can be told largely from the banks of rivers. A topographic map of Afghanistan now looks like a prophecy.Yes, the 2020 Electoral College map gives the impression that there are still dependable, contiguous regions of this continent with natural or psychological boundaries akin to the Mason-Dixon Line of yore. But the county election results maps tell a messier story of who we are and where we live. More Californians than Texans voted for Donald Trump. And even Richmond isn’t Richmond anymore — now that the city removed all the Confederate monuments from Monument Avenue, it’s just a bunch of Joe Biden voters driving past a statue of the tennis star Arthur Ashe.Here in Montana, a state as deep red as a Flathead cherry, I’m a Democrat living in a blue county bigger than Delaware. Still, Republicans live among us and they look just like people. (Hi, Larry.) It’s hard to pick them out unless they step in front of the C-SPAN camera to fist-bump Ted Cruz.Mid-pandemic I stood in line for hamburgers between a snarling blonde who chewed me out for wearing a face mask and a high school classmate’s brother keen to talk about the Times linguistics newsletter writer John McWhorter. Both of my neighbors ordered French fries cooked in the same vat of oil. Where is the demarcation line in that scenario — the milkshake machine?The Texas Republican Party, ever aspirational, put secession from the United States into its most recent platform. And yet secession is technically illegal — thanks to Texans. In 1869, in Texas v. White, the Supreme Court ruled secession unconstitutional and declared the Union “perpetual.”Hence the intoxicating appeal of these continuing fantasies of partition and civil war: We are stuck with each other. We are stuck. With each other. Perpetually.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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      Muqtada al-Sadr, Powerful Iraqi Cleric, Says He’s Leaving Politics

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      Muqtada al-Sadr’s move thrust the country, which has gone months without a new government, deeper into crisis. Security forces opened fire on protesters supporting him, an official said.The influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said on Monday that he was retiring from Iraqi politics and closing all of his movement’s political and social institutions, deepening the country’s political crisis and raising fears that his followers could increasingly turn to destabilizing street protests to achieve their aims.His announcement sent hundreds of his followers into the streets of the capital, Baghdad, where they breached concrete barriers guarding the so-called Green Zone, the site of Parliament, Iraqi government offices and diplomatic missions, including the U.S. Embassy.One protester was killed and about 20 were injured by Iraqi security forces who opened fire on them inside the Green Zone, according to a senior military official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.Iraqi security forces declared a curfew in Baghdad effective immediately and announced a nationwide curfew in most provinces beginning Monday evening.Iraq has been without a new government since elections last October, in which candidates loyal to Mr. Sadr won the single biggest bloc of seats and eclipsed rival Shiite political parties backed by Iran. That has left the country with a caretaker government that has not been able to address urgent economic problems, such as passing an annual budget, among other priorities.Mr. Sadr, whose militia fought U.S. troops during the American occupation of Iraq, comes from a family of revered clerics and is Iraq’s most influential Shiite religious figure involved in politics. In the midst of disagreements with other parties over who should be president and prime minister, he threw the process of forming a government into turmoil in June when he ordered members of Parliament loyal to him to resign.His followers then set up a tent camp that blockaded Parliament for weeks to prevent lawmakers from meeting. They also occupied the Parliament building itself for a few days, but later withdrew.On Monday, protesters breached the entrance of the Republican Palace, one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces that served as the headquarters of the U.S.-led occupation and now hosts cabinet meetings. Security forces closed roads south of the capital, preventing more protesters from arriving from southern provinces, and video posted on social media showed riot police using water cannons against some demonstrators.Mr. Sadr has mobilized much larger gatherings of followers in the streets in recent weeks to protest against government corruption and foreign interference in Iraq.The use of force against protesters by Iraqi security forces also raised the prospect of heightened tension within the security forces. The forces include both supporters of Mr. Sadr and members of Iraqi militias backed by Iran — some of them tied to political parties that are rivals of the Shiite cleric.After Mr. Sadr announced his resignation on Monday, his supporters gathered and tried to remove concrete barriers in Baghdad’s Green Zone.Hadi Mizban/Associated PressMr. Sadr in his statement said he was also closing all institutions linked to the Sadrists except for the tomb of his father, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, who was assassinated while Saddam Hussein was in power, and other offices related to the family’s religious heritage.“I have decided not to interfere in political affairs so now I announce my final retirement,” Mr. Sadr wrote on Twitter.Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said he was suspending cabinet sessions until further notice. In an appeal to Mr. Sadr, he said perpetuating political disputes “to the point of damaging all state institutions does not serve the Iraqi people, their aspirations, their future and their territorial integrity.”Mr. Sadr has said before that he was leaving politics and even temporarily suspended his political activities and closed his movement’s offices, prompting questions about whether this could be a tactic to eventually strengthen his negotiating position in the now-paralyzed efforts to form a government.“He repeatedly says he’s not going to be part of politics and then inevitably comes back in,” said Sajad Jiyad, an Iraq-based fellow at the Century Foundation, a U.S.-based think tank. “Maybe this is a way of giving breathing space to all sides.”Mr. Sadr is known as an Iraqi nationalist. He had been trying to form a new government with Sunni Arab and Kurdish partners before those monthslong negotiations failed.The resignation and the appearance of his followers in the streets could also be “a means to exert pressure and have people beg him to roll back his decision,” said Elie Abouaoun, a director at the United States Institute of Peace.Falih Hassan More

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      Biden Becomes a Boon for Democrats

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      The coattail effect in politics is the theory that the popularity of a candidate at the top of the ticket redounds to the benefit of those in the same party down ballot.You vote Democratic for president, then you might vote Democratic for senator or mayor.But what do we call it when the person from whom the benefit flows is not actually on the ballot? What if the person isn’t even personally that popular?Let’s call it phantom coattails.That is what I believe is happening with President Biden at the moment. With a string of successes, he is building momentum and shaking off narratives of ineffectiveness.Last week he announced that the federal government would forgive billions of dollars of student loan debt. Republicans predictably squawked about it being an unfair giveaway. Progressives complained that the plan didn’t go far enough.But Biden did act. He did fulfill his campaign promise, to a degree. That is crucial. After some major losses — on liberal priorities like voter protections and police reform — voters needed more wins. It wasn’t Biden’s fault that his agenda was blocked. For that, the blame goes to obstructionist Republicans and demi-Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.There was, however, a sense setting in that electing an elderly institutionalist meant that he wasn’t filled with enough fight, that he was guided by a sort of geriatric gentility.Biden’s recent wins put a major dent in those perceptions and are changing how people feel about him. According to FiveThirtyEight’s poll of polls, his approval rating, while still underwater, has been trending up for the past month. This week it reached 44 percent, the highest it has been in a year.It is the direction of the line that is most important in politics. And I believe that Biden’s reversal will bode well for other Democrats.Some of what is helping Biden is not his success but that of Republicans. The overturning of Roe v. Wade was monumental and is still stuck in voters’ minds. Many feel they are stuck in a nightmare and Democrats hold the only possibility of salvation.This decision, this victory by the forced-birth zealots, wiped out the progress Republicans were making by pushing the anti-wokeness canard — this idea that they had to fight back against racial indoctrination, against people who would redefine what a woman is and against health regulation.The War Against Woke now looks silly in light of the escalated War Against Women.Also, Trump has resurfaced as a foil.The stench around him grows stronger as investigations intensify and damning revelations continue to emerge. They may not alter the fealty of his followers, but they remind the rest of us of the horror we escaped by ejecting him from office and how desperately we don’t want to return to it.In fact, the re-emergence of Trump as a constant, prominent feature of national news is probably one of the greatest assets Democrats have going into the midterms. Time has a way of softening the perception of ex-presidents.George W. Bush went from the man who led the charge on the Iraq war, established the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay and defended torture to the man who laughed a lot, painted portraits and passed Michelle Obama candy at funerals.Retrospection rehabilitates.But Trump refuses to exit the battle. And with every revelation of legal jeopardy and suspicious movement, he hinders any possibility of rehabilitation.None of this is to say that Democrats have a lock on the midterm elections or that they will not suffer losses, as the ruling party historically has. There are still headwinds. Violent crime and inflation loom large in voters’ minds because they have risen to rates that some areas haven’t seen in decades. People blame Biden for that. It’s not in his control, but it’s on his watch. That’s just the way politics works.However, Biden keeps adding other things to the other side of the ledger, and on balance, he and the Democrats keep looking stronger.There are some Democrats nervous about campaigning with Biden because of his poor approval numbers, particularly in competitive districts. But Biden and his successes are the best things Democrats have right now.They should probably take a note from Charlie Crist, who just won the Democratic primary in Florida to challenge the incumbent governor, Ron DeSantis.When Crist was asked last week on CNN if he wanted Biden to campaign with him, he responded in part by saying of Biden: “He’s a good man. He’s a great man. He’s a great president. I can’t wait for him to get down here. I need his help. I want his help.”Whether other Democrats want Biden’s help or not, I believe that they are going to need it. Running away from the leader of your party is never a good idea. It’s a particularly terrible idea when that leader is on a hot streak.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 and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More