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      As Biden Speaks, Ukraine Crisis Escalates and Midterm Elections Start

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      As President Biden delivers his first formal State of the Union address, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine escalates and the midterms begin in earnest in Texas.An entrance to a voting site in Laredo, Texas, today.Jason Garza for The New York TimesThe first votes of 2022 Russian missiles are terrorizing Ukraine. President Biden hopes to rally the nation in his first formal State of the Union address. And the first votes of the 2022 midterm elections will be counted tonight.This is an extraordinary political moment, both at home and abroad.Those first votes of the midterms are being cast and counted today in Texas, in Republican and Democratic primaries, providing the first morsels of data on what voters are prioritizing amid multiple national and international crises.Our colleagues have been tracking the turnout, major themes and top races as part of our live Texas election coverage tonight. Keep up with the results as they come in.Here are some of the highlights:How will new voting laws affect turnout?Republican legislators throughout the country responded to former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud by passing legislation restricting voting access. In Texas, voters have already seen higher rates of rejection for absentee ballot applications. Now, the ballots themselves have been rejected at a higher rate than usual. Nick Corasaniti reports.Most voters will need to vote in person, or have already done so, since Texas’ criteria for qualifying for mail-in voting are unusually narrow. Maggie Astor writes.Do Democrats need to keep to the political center?The highest-profile progressive challenger of the night, Jessica Cisneros, isn’t focusing her early messaging on progressive causes. Instead, she’s going after the new vulnerabilities of the incumbent Democrat, Henry Cuellar, who has become ensnared in an F.B.I. investigation, though its target isn’t totally clear. Jonathan Weisman reports from Laredo.Dozens of Hispanic voters and candidates in South Texas explained why the Republican Party has been making inroads in the region. Trump-style grievance politics has been resonating with Hispanic residents in the Rio Grande Valley. Jennifer Medina reports from Brownsville.Abortion specifically seems to be moving Hispanic voters in South Texas toward Republicans. Edgar Sandoval writes from Laredo.Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, made headlines in 2019 in the crowded presidential primary when he declared, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.” Now, he’s running for governor in a state where Republicans have the advantage. J. David Goodman reports from Tyler.One candidate for the State Board of Education is taking a unique approach to rising above partisan politics — he’s running in both major party’s primaries. Maggie Astor writes.Will appeasing Trump’s base in the primary cost Republicans in November?Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican, is more likely to face a threat from a far-right challenger in his redrawn district in the Houston suburbs.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesRedistricting has created fewer competitive districts, and therefore more races where winning the primary is the most important contest. For Democrats and Republicans, that elevates the importance of campaigning to the most ideologically focused voters. Still, Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican, says he refuses to “toe the line,” and has been feuding with Trump allies like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Shane Goldmacher reports from The Woodlands, Texas.Gov. Greg Abbott has been pushing Texas even farther to the right, and it helped him pick up Trump’s endorsement for re-election. Tonight’s results will reveal how those efforts have resonated with actual Republican voters. J. David Goodman reports from Austin.For the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, his allegiance to Trump may or may not be enough to win the Republican primary outright. J. David Goodman reports from Midland.What to read tonightOur colleagues are tracking developments in Ukraine as part of our live coverage. Thousands of civilians are fleeing Kyiv as Moscow intensifies its military attack and appears “to target civilian areas with increasingly powerful weapons.”The New York Times is also providing live updates and analysis on Biden’s State of the Union address tonight. Peter Baker writes that no president has delivered a State of the Union address “with such a large-scale and consequential land war underway in Europe since 1945.”Michael D. Shear reports that Biden will use the State of the Union address to “claim credit for a robust economy and a unified global response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, even as he acknowledges the pain of inflation.”A report commissioned by the Republican speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly “endorsed a host of debunked claims of fraud and false assertions about lawmakers’ power to decertify” Biden’s victory, Reid J. Epstein reports.Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahWere you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Primary Election Calendar 2022

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      Texas
      GovernorTX-15TX-28
      Gov. Greg Abbott has vocal primary opponents, including Allen West, the former chairman of the state’s Republican Party. Beto O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman and a former presidential candidate, is expected to win the Democratic nomination. For attorney general, three Republicans are challenging the scandal-plagued and Trump-endorsed incumbent, Ken Paxton. The congressional races to watch include an open seat in the 15th District — where the parties are pretty evenly matched — and a Democratic primary between Representative Henry Cuellar and a progressive challenger, Jessica Cisneros, who narrowly lost to him in 2020.

      Ohio
      GovernorSenate
      The Senate race features several state politicians looking to out-Trump one another against Tim Ryan, the likely Democratic nominee and a former presidential candidate from Youngstown. Republicans are favored in a state that has trended red in recent election cycles. At the House level, former President Donald J. Trump is backing Max Miller for the seat being vacated by Anthony Gonzalez, a Republican who voted for his impeachment.

      Indiana
      Senate

      Nebraska
      Governor
      Representative Don Bacon, a Republican, is running for re-election in the Second Congressional District, where he narrowly defeated a Democratic challenger in 2018 and 2020. The Democratic primary is likely to come down to Tony Vargas, a state senator, and Alisha Shelton, a mental health practitioner. Nebraskans will also elect a successor to Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican who has reached his term limit.

      West Virginia

      North Carolina
      SenateNC-13
      With the Republican senator Richard Burr retiring, the race to fill his open seat will be one of the key statewide races that help determine control of the Senate. In the Republican primary, former Gov. Pat McCrory is running against former Representative Mark Walker and Representative Ted Budd, who has former President Donald J. Trump’s endorsement. Cheri Beasley is favored to win the Democratic primary. She would be the first Black woman to serve in the Senate from North Carolina.

      Oregon
      GovernorSenateOR-05

      Kentucky
      Senate

      Pennsylvania
      GovernorSenatePA-17PA-07PA-08
      Open seats for Senate and governor have set off a land rush. The Senate Republican primary includes the celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz and a former hedge fund executive, David McCormick. On the Democratic side, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is the early front-runner in a field that also includes Representative Conor Lamb. For governor, Democrats coalesced early around Attorney General Josh Shapiro; the Republican primary has more than a dozen hopefuls and no clear front-runner.

      Idaho
      GovernorSenate
      Gov. Brad Little is expected to seek re-election, and he is likely to face a primary challenge from his own lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin. Ms. McGeachin, one of several Republicans in the race, is running as a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump.

      Alabama
      GovernorSenate
      Senator Richard Shelby is retiring after more than 30 years in office. The state’s Republican establishment backs Katie Britt, Mr. Shelby’s former chief of staff. But former President Donald J. Trump has endorsed Representative Mo Brooks.

      Georgia
      GovernorSenate
      Nowhere are there more elections to watch than in Georgia. Senator Raphael Warnock and Stacey Abrams lead a strong Democratic field in marquee races. Senator Warnock’s re-election bid for a full term in the seat he won last year is critical to Democrats’ hope of maintaining Senate control; former President Donald J. Trump endorsed his challenger, Herschel Walker. Ms. Abrams is seeking to defeat Gov. Brian Kemp, the Republican who beat her by a small margin in 2018 — but first, Gov. Kemp will have to best David Perdue, the Trump-backed former senator, in the primary. At the House level, redistricting is expected to pit two Democrats against one other. The secretary of state race is notable: Mr. Trump endorsed Representative Jody Hice to challenge Brad Raffensperger, the Republican incumbent who rejected the former president’s efforts to overturn the election.

      Arkansas
      GovernorSenate
      The races in this deep-red state will essentially be decided in Republican primaries, and the results could help clarify the strength of former President Donald J. Trump’s hold on the party. He has endorsed his former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for governor and the Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin for attorney general. He also supports the re-election of Senator John Boozman.

      California
      GovernorSenateCA-13CA-22CA-27CA-45CA-47
      Gov. Gavin Newsom is on the ballot, but Californians essentially re-elected him in last year’s failed recall effort. This year, we’re watching the Los Angeles mayor’s race and the June 7 recall vote against San Francisco’s district attorney. In the fall, the state controller and attorney general races could show whether Californians would consider a Republican of any kind for statewide office. The U.S. House majority could hinge on a few congressional seats in California. And sports betting is likely to be on the ballot.

      Iowa
      GovernorSenateIA-03
      In the Senate race, Democrats are hoping that Abby Finkenauer, a former representative, can beat Charles E. Grassley, the longtime Republican senator. The incumbent Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, is strongly favored to win re-election. And in the newly redrawn Third District, Republicans hope to unseat Representative Cindy Axne, a two-term Democrat.

      Mississippi

      Montana

      Montana gained a new congressional district after the census, doubling its delegation. Representative Matt Rosendale, a Republican who currently represents the whole state, is expected to win re-election in the Second Congressional District. The First District is more competitive but leans red: Ryan Zinke, the former secretary of the interior, is the most prominent Republican candidate, and Democrats include Cora Neumann, a rural health care leader; Monica Tranel, a lawyer; and Tom Winter, a former state representative.

      New Jersey
      NJ-07
      Democrats flipped several House seats in New Jersey during the Trump era. But after making headway in a closer-than-expected governor’s race last year, energized Republicans see fresh opportunities in the state. All eyes will be on how many House seats become truly competitive.

      New Mexico
      GovernorNM-02
      Republicans think they have a chance to unseat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat. Their crowded primary includes Rebecca Dow, a state legislator, and Mark Ronchetti, a former television meteorologist. The state also has two competitive House seats: Yvette Herrell, a freshman Republican, will defend the seat she took from a Democrat in 2020, and Republicans are planning to focus on Teresa Leger Fernández, a Democrat.

      South Dakota
      GovernorSenate

      Maine
      GovernorME-02
      Representative Jared Golden is up for re-election in Trump-friendly territory in northern Maine. Mr. Golden is the only Democrat left in Congress who voted against impeaching former President Donald J. Trump. He is likely to face a rematch against Bruce Poliquin, the Republican he ousted in 2018. Paul R. LePage, a Republican former governor, is running for his old job, hoping to oust Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat.

      Nevada
      GovernorSenateNV-01NV-03NV-04
      Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, is likely to face Adam Laxalt, the Republican former state attorney general who has the backing of both former President Donald J. Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell. Jim Marchant, a Trump-backed Republican who has sowed doubts about the 2020 election, is running for secretary of state. And in a state that President Biden won narrowly in 2020, Republicans are looking to beat incumbent Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat.

      North Dakota
      Senate

      South Carolina
      GovernorSenate
      Gov. Henry McMaster is seeking re-election with former President Donald J. Trump’s endorsement, and none of his primary challengers seem to have built traction against him. Joe Cunningham, a Democrat, is vying for the governor’s seat instead of running for his old House district, which is no longer competitive after redistricting. He faces State Senator Mia McLeod in the primary. Senator Tim Scott, a Republican, is up for re-election.

      Virginia
      VA-02VA-07
      Glenn Youngkin’s successful bid for governor in 2021 jolted Virginia politics after years of Democratic dominance, energizing Republicans. This year, at least two House Democrats face tough re-election campaigns: Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria. Republicans are also hoping to unseat Representative Jennifer Wexton in a suburban district outside Washington, D.C.

      New York
      GovernorSenateNY-11NY-18NY-01
      Prominent Democratic officials including Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, will face voters. Ms. Hochul is running for her first full term, after the resignation of Andrew M. Cuomo, and has the advantage in the primary. Republicans are also engaged in a contested primary for governor and see opportunities to make inroads in general election races up and down the ballot.

      Illinois
      GovernorSenateIL-13IL-14IL-17IL-06
      Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, is the favorite to win re-election, but there’s a competitive primary on the right, and wealthy megadonors are backing two of the Republicans, Richard Irvin and Darren Bailey. The state’s marquee race pits two congressional Democrats against each other in the new Sixth District: Representatives Marie Newman and Sean Casten. Ms. Newman is the subject of an ethics investigation. There is a member-on-member primary on the right, too: Representatives Mary Miller and Rodney Davis will face off in the 15th District.

      Colorado
      GovernorSenateCO-08
      This blue-trending state will feature two statewide races. One is for the U.S. Senate, where Michael Bennet, a Democrat, is seeking re-election to his third full term. The other is for governor: Jared Polis, a popular Democrat, is running for re-election. Redistricting has created a new, competitive district just north of Denver.

      Maryland
      GovernorSenateMD-01
      With the Republican governor, Larry Hogan, reaching his term limit, Democrats are clamoring to take back the office. Republicans wanted Mr. Hogan to run for Senate against Chris Van Hollen, but he declined. Democrats also hope to oust Representative Andy Harris in the First District, while Republican sights are on David Trone in the Sixth District.

      Oklahoma
      GovernorSenate

      Utah
      Senate

      Kansas
      GovernorSenateKS-03
      Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat who won an upset victory in 2018, is running for re-election in a more challenging environment, most likely against Derek Schmidt, the state attorney general endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump. Representative Sharice Davids, the only Democrat in Kansas’ congressional delegation, could be at risk, too. Kansans will also vote in August on a constitutional amendment that would enable the state to ban abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade.

      Arizona
      GovernorSenateAZ-01AZ-06
      In one of the nation’s most competitive governor races, the candidates include Kari Lake, a Trump-endorsed Republican, and Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state who gained national attention after the 2020 election. Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, is in a fierce contest to retain the seat he just won in 2020, and several Republican candidates are challenging him. Mark Finchem, a state legislator who promotes election conspiracy theories, is one of several candidates for secretary of state.

      Washington
      SenateWA-08
      Two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald J. Trump are seeking re-election in Washington: Dan Newhouse and Jaime Herrera Beutler. Now, they both face primary challenges. Mr. Trump endorsed Joe Kent, a U.S. Special Forces veteran, in the primary against Ms. Herrera Beutler. Republicans are also hoping to flip the seat of Representative Kim Schrier, a Democrat.

      Michigan
      GovernorMI-10MI-03MI-07MI-08
      Few candidates draw the ire of the Republican base like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, who is running for re-election in what will likely be a close race. At least five of Michigan’s 13 House races should be competitive in November. And the Democratic secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, who has faced violent threats for standing up to efforts to subvert the election, could face a well-funded Republican challenger, such as Kristina Karamo, a Trump-backed conservative.

      Missouri
      Senate
      Republicans are lining up to replace the retiring Senator Roy Blunt, including: Eric Schmitt, the state’s attorney general; Eric Greitens, a scandal-plagued former governor; and Representative Vicky Hartzler, who was endorsed by Senator Josh Hawley. On the Democratic side, Lucas Kunce, a Marine veteran, and State Senator Scott Sifton are the top contenders.

      Tennessee
      Governor

      Connecticut
      GovernorSenate

      Vermont
      GovernorSenate

      Minnesota
      GovernorMN-02
      Five Republicans are vying to challenge Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat seeking his second term. Scott Jensen, a physician and a former state senator who has cast doubt on coronavirus mitigation efforts and vaccines, faces Paul Gazelka, a former majority leader of the Minnesota State Senate, and three lesser-known candidates. The state G.O.P. will formally back a candidate at a May convention; each of the Republican candidates has pledged to drop out of the race if denied the party’s endorsement.

      Wisconsin
      GovernorSenate
      Both parties have difficult and expensive primaries: Democrats for the chance to challenge Senator Ron Johnson and Republicans for the office of Gov. Tony Evers. The leading Democrat in the Senate race is Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. In the Republican primary for governor, the former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch is the favorite against Kevin Nicholson, an ex-Marine who lost a 2018 Senate primary but has the backing of the billionaire megadonor Richard Uihlein.

      Hawaii
      GovernorSenate

      Alaska
      GovernorSenate
      Senator Lisa Murkowski faces a stout challenge from fellow Republican Kelly Tshibaka, whom former President Donald J. Trump endorsed. Both Ms. Murkowski and Ms. Tshibaka are expected to advance to the general election because of the state’s new open-primary rules, in which the top four finishers will appear on the November ballot.

      Wyoming
      Governor
      In the country’s highest-profile House primary, Representative Liz Cheney is trying to hold back a Trump-inspired challenge from Harriet Hageman, a longtime activist in the state Republican Party. Ms. Cheney has framed the race as a referendum on democracy, while Ms. Hageman has stressed her loyalty to the former president.

      Florida
      GovernorSenate
      Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, is widely considered to be harboring White House ambitions. But, first, he is seeking re-election in a state that has been shifting away from Democrats. Representative Charlie Crist, a former governor, and Nikki Fried, the state agriculture commissioner, are among those competing for the Democratic nomination. The other big-name Republican on the ballot: Senator Marco Rubio, who won his second term in 2016 after bowing out of the G.O.P. presidential primary. Representative Val Demings is the Democratic favorite to take him on.

      Massachusetts
      Governor
      With Gov. Charlie Baker, a moderate Republican, declining to run for re-election, the office is a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats in one of the nation’s most liberal states. The Democratic primary includes the state attorney general, Maura Healey, and at least two candidates running to her left. The Republican nomination is likely to go to Geoff Diehl, a former state lawmaker endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump.

      New Hampshire
      GovernorSenate
      In a key Senate race, Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, is up for re-election after narrowly winning the seat in 2016. Whoever emerges from the Republican primary — current contenders include the state Senate president, Chuck Morse — might still benefit in November from President Biden’s low approval in the state.

      Rhode Island
      GovernorRI-02

      Louisiana
      Senate

      General Election More

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      How Do Election Results Work?

      by

      The process behind calling elections: how The Times will report live election results during the 2022 primary season.The 2022 primary season begins on Tuesday with elections in Texas, and The New York Times will be reporting the results live on its website and apps. Here’s how it all works.The ResultsHow does The Times get live election results?Our live results are provided by The Associated Press. To produce its results, The A.P. combines data feeds from state and county websites with on-the-ground reporting by more than 4,000 correspondents who gather vote tallies from county clerks and other local officials after polls close. The Times has also occasionally published data from other results providers.How often are the results updated on election night?When The A.P. gets reports from states, it checks the vote totals for potential inconsistencies or errors. Then it sends the updated data to The Times and other customers about every one to three minutes. Calls projecting winners are sent immediately.Times journalists and engineers have written software that automatically downloads and publishes the results within seconds. Don’t worry about refreshing the page — the results will update automatically.Why do I see different vote counts on different websites?Not every news organization gets its election results from The A.P. like The Times does. There are two other election results providers used by news organizations: Edison Research and Decision Desk HQ. State or local election officials often display their own results as well.A Guide to the Texas PrimaryThe 2022 midterm elections begin with the state’s primary on March 1.Governor’s Race: Gov. Greg Abbott’s rightward shift will face a test in November. His likely challenger, Beto O’Rourke, is haunted by his 2020 presidential bid.Attorney General’s Race: Whether Ken Paxton can survive the G.O.P. primary may be the biggest test yet of Donald Trump’s continued power over voters.A Changing Landscape: Issues like abortion and immigration are driving Hispanic voters in Democratic strongholds to switch parties and prompting liberal candidates to shift tactics.A Deepening Divide: Competitive districts are being systemically erased across the country. Texas is an especially extreme example.New Voting Law: Officials have rejected thousands of absentee ballots based on new requirements, an alarming jump ahead of the primary.These sources can have different counts on election night, depending on the speed and scope of their reporting on a particular race. The results from all providers may not match until all the votes are counted.How does The Times track the share of votes reported in a given election?For years, election results providers used the percentage of precincts reporting to help give readers a sense of how many votes remain to be counted. Not anymore. The rise of mail-in voting and early voting has made the measure all but useless in many states, since absentee votes are usually not counted by precinct. This has often left readers and analysts at a loss about how many votes remain to be counted.This year, The Times will be publishing its own estimates for the number of remaining votes.Early in the night, these estimates will be based on our pre-election expectations for the eventual turnout, based on prior elections and early voting data. Once The A.P. reports that a county has largely completed its count, we will compare the reported vote with our pre-election expectations and gradually revise our expectations for the eventual turnout. We expect these estimates will be better than the old “precincts reporting” metric, but they are still only estimates. They will not usually reflect official information on the number of remaining votes.What’s a precinct?A precinct is the smallest level at which election results are reported. A precinct may be a few city blocks or an entire county.The WinnersHow does The Times call winners?In virtually every race, we rely on The A.P.’s calls. It employs a team of analysts, researchers and race callers who have a deep understanding of the states where they declare winners.In addition to overall vote totals, race callers pay attention to county-level votes, votes by type of ballot and where there are ballots left to count.The A.P. describes its decision-making process as “aimed at determining the answer to a single question: Can the trailing candidates catch the leader?” And only when the answer is an unquestionable “no” will The A.P. call the race.In a very small number of high-profile contests, The Times independently scrutinizes and evaluates A.P. race calls before making a projection.How can The Times call a race before any votes are counted?News organizations can project a winner, even with no results, if the race was not closely contested or the party or candidate has a history of consistent wins in the county or state. In some cases, The A.P. also relies on the results of a pre-election survey to help make a decision.Most major news media organizations, including The A.P., wait until polls are closed before calling a winner.The MapsWhy does my state’s election map look as if it’s dominated by a candidate even though that person is behind in the vote totals? More

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      How Lopsided New District Lines Deepen the U.S. Partisan Divide

      by

      THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Representative Dan Crenshaw was tagged as a rising Republican star almost from the moment of his first victory: A conservative, Harvard-educated, ex-Navy SEAL who lost his right eye in Afghanistan, he bucked the 2018 suburban revolt against Donald J. Trump to win a House seat in the Houston suburbs.Mr. Crenshaw won again in 2020, handily, even as Mr. Trump carried his district by only a whisper.But this year, Mr. Crenshaw’s seat has been transformed by redistricting. More liberal enclaves, like the nightlife-rich neighborhoods near Rice University, were swapped out for conservative strongholds like The Woodlands, a master-planned community of more than 100,000 that is north of the city.The result: Mr. Trump would have carried the new seat in a landslide.The new lines mean Mr. Crenshaw now has a vanishingly slim chance of losing to a Democrat in the next decade. The only political threat would have to come from the far right — which, as it happens, is already agitating against him.All across the nation, political mapmakers have erected similarly impenetrable partisan fortresses through the once-in-a-decade redrawing of America’s congressional lines. Texas, which holds the nation’s first primaries on Tuesday, is an especially extreme example of how competition between the two parties has been systemically erased. Nearly 90 percent of the next House could be occupied by lawmakers who, like Mr. Crenshaw, face almost no threat of losing a general election, a precipitous drop that dramatically changes the political incentives and pressures they confront.“What the future of the Republican Party should be is people who can make better arguments than the left,” Mr. Crenshaw said in an interview. Yet in his new district, he will only need to make arguments to voters on the right, and the farther right.When primaries are the only campaigns that count, candidates are often punished for compromise. The already polarized parties are pulled even farther apart. Governance becomes harder.The dynamic can be seen playing out vividly in and around Mr. Crenshaw’s district. He appears in no imminent political danger. He faces underfunded opposition in Tuesday’s primary, out-raising rivals by more than 100 to one.But his repeated rebuke of those who have spread the falsehood that Mr. Trump won the 2020 election — fellow Republicans whom he has called “performance artists” and “grifters” capitalizing on “lie after lie after lie” — have made him a target of what he derisively termed “the cancel culture of the right.”“They view me as a threat because I don’t really toe the line,” Mr. Crenshaw said.He has especially sparred with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, who, in the kind of political coincidence that is rarely an accident, found herself at a recent rally in Mr. Crenshaw’s district, declaring, “It is time to embrace the civil war in the G.O.P.”Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, with supporters after a rally in The Woodlands, Texas.Annie Mulligan for The New York Times“I oftentimes argue with someone you might know named Dan Crenshaw,” she later said, his name drawing boos. “I sure do not like people calling themself a conservative when all they really are is a performance artist themself.”What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.New York: Democrats’ aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional map is one of the most consequential in the nation.Legal Battles: A North Carolina court’s ruling to reject a G.O.P.-drawn map and substitute its own version further cemented the rising importance of state courts in redistricting fights.In 2020, Texas was the epicenter of the battle for control of the House, with a dozen suburban seats around Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio all in play.In 2022, zero Texas Republicans are left defending particularly competitive seats. They were all turned safely, deeply red.“Not having competitive elections is not good for democracy,” said Representative Lizzie Fletcher, a moderate Democrat whose Houston-area district was also overhauled. To solidify neighboring G.O.P. seats, Republican mapmakers stuffed a surplus of Democratic voters — including from the old Crenshaw seat — into her district, the Texas 7th.That seat has a long Republican lineage. George H.W. Bush once occupied it. Under the new lines, the district voted like Massachusetts in the presidential election.For Ms. Fletcher, that means any future challenges are likely to come from the left. The political middle that helped her beat a Republican incumbent in 2018 is, suddenly, less relevant. “There is a huge risk,” she said, “that people will feel like it doesn’t matter whether they show up.”A proxy fight next doorPhill Cady is showing up. He is one of Mr. Crenshaw’s new constituents, an unvaccinated former airline pilot from Conroe who takes a weekly dose of hydroxychloroquine, the Trump-promoted anti-malaria drug that medical experts have warned against, to fend off Covid.Mr. Cady was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest the election results. (He said he didn’t enter the building.) He said Mr. Crenshaw’s acceptance of Mr. Trump’s defeat showed he had “lost his way,” and that Mr. Crenshaw should have helped those facing riot-related charges: “Why hasn’t he fought for the Texans to get out of jail?”Or, as Milam Langella, one of Mr. Crenshaw’s long-shot primary challengers, described the distance between the incumbent and his constituents: “The district is now blood red and he is not.”With Mr. Crenshaw facing only scattershot opposition, it was the neighboring open race to replace the retiring Representative Kevin Brady, a business-friendly Republican, that technically drew Ms. Greene to Texas.On one side is Christian Collins, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz, who is vowing to join the so-called MAGA wing in the House. He is backed by the political arm of the House Freedom Caucus, the party’s hard-line faction.Supporters of Christian Collins, a congressional candidate, at a Feb. 19 rally in The Woodlands, Texas. Redrawn maps mean more candidates are running in safe districts for their parties.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesOn the other side is Morgan Luttrell, a former member of the Navy SEALs who is backed by Mr. Crenshaw and a super PAC aligned with Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader.The contest is the first primary of 2022 that the McCarthy-aligned PAC has intervened in, as some McCarthy allies privately worry that the glut of new, deep-red Republican seats could complicate his speakership bid and governance of the House, should Republicans win a majority.“Does this create incentives to avoid governing? It clearly — clearly, that’s the case,” Mr. Crenshaw said. But he said it is hard to discern the impact of those incentives versus others, like social media amplifying outrage and the increasing sorting of Americans into tribes.There was tension in how Mr. Crenshaw described who holds the real power in the party, at once dismissing the far right as a fringe nuisance that only seeks to “monetize” division, while also saying traditional power brokers like congressional leaders are no longer the real political establishment either.“They’re trying to hang on by a thread,” Mr. Crenshaw said of Mr. McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader. “They’re trying to wrangle cats.”The Collins-Luttrell race has become something of a proxy fight over Mr. Crenshaw.Morgan Luttrell speaking with a supporter in Conroe, Texas, in a congressional race exemplifying internal party fights in safe districts.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesA pro-Collins super PAC used Mr. Crenshaw’s name in an anti-Luttrell billboard along Interstate 45. In a debate, Mr. Collins attacked Mr. Luttrell by saying he had been “endorsed by Dan Crenshaw — I think that name speaks for itself.” At the Collins rally, speaker after speaker called Mr. Crenshaw a R.I.N.O. — a Republican in Name Only.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Defeat Trump, Now More Than Ever

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      The democratic nations of the world are in a global struggle against authoritarianism. That struggle has international fronts — starting with the need to confront, repel and weaken Vladimir Putin.But that struggle also has domestic fronts — the need to defeat the mini-Putins now found across the Western democracies. These are the demagogues who lie with Putinesque brazenness, who shred democratic institutions with Putinesque bravado, who strut the world’s stage with Putin’s amoral schoolboy machismo while pretending to represent all that is traditional and holy.In the United States that, of course, is Donald Trump. This moment of heightened danger and crisis makes it even clearer that the No. 1 domestic priority for all Americans who care about democracy is to make sure Trump never sees the inside of the Oval Office ever again. As democracy is threatened from abroad it can’t also be cannibalized from within.Thinking has to be crystal clear. What are the crucial battlegrounds in the struggle against Trump? He won the White House by winning Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin with strong support from white voters without a college degree. Joe Biden ousted Trump by winning back those states and carrying the new swing states, Arizona and Georgia.So for the next three years Democrats need to wake up with one overriding political thought: What are we doing to appeal to all working-class voters in those five states? Are we doing anything today that might alienate these voters?Are the Democrats winning the contest for these voters right now? No.At the start of 2021 Democrats had a nine-point advantage when you asked voters to name their party preference. By the end of 2021 Republicans had a five-point advantage. Among swing voters, things are particularly grim. A February 2022 Economist/YouGov survey found that a pathetic 30 percent of independents approve of Biden’s job performance. Working-class voters are turning against Biden. According to a January Pew survey, 54 percent of Americans with graduate degrees approved of Biden’s performance, but only 37 percent of those without any college experience did.Are Democrats thinking clearly about how to win those voters? No.This week two veteran Democratic strategists, William A. Galston and Elaine Kamarck, issued a report for the Progressive Policy Institute arguing that Democrats need to get over at least three delusions.The first Democratic myth is, “People of color think and act alike.” In fact, there have been differences between Hispanics and Black Americans on issues like the economy, foreign policy and policing. Meanwhile working-class people have been moving toward the G.O.P. across racial lines.“Today, the Democrats’ working-class problem isn’t limited to white workers,” the veteran Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg wrote in The American Prospect. “The party is also losing support from working-class Blacks and Hispanics.”The second Democratic myth is, “Economics trumps culture.” This is the idea that if Democrats can shower working- and middle-class voters with material benefits then that will overwhelm any differences they may have with them on religious, social and cultural issues — on guns, crime and immigration, etc. This crude economic determinism has been rebutted by history time and time again.The third myth is, “A progressive ascendancy is emerging.” The fact is that only 7 percent of the electorate considers itself “very liberal.” I would have thought the Biden economic agenda, which basically consists of handing money to the people who need it most, would be astoundingly popular. It’s popular, but not that popular. I would have thought Americans would scream bloody murder when the expansion of the existing child tax credit expired. They haven’t. Distrust in government is still astoundingly high, undercutting the progressive project at every turn.What do Democrats need to do now? Well, one thing they are really good at. Over the past few years a wide range of thinkers — across the political spectrum — have congregated around a neo-Hamiltonian agenda that stands for the idea that we need to build more things — roads, houses, colleges, green technologies and ports. Democrats need to hammer home this Builders agenda, which would provide good-paying jobs and renew American dynamism.But Democrats also have to do something they’re really bad at: Craft a cultural narrative around the theme of social order. The Democrats have been blamed for fringe ideas like “defund the police” and a zeal for “critical race theory” because the party doesn’t have its own mainstream social and cultural narrative.With war in Europe, crime rising on our streets, disarray at the border, social unraveling in many of our broken communities, perceived ideological unmooring in our schools, moral decay everywhere, Democrats need to tell us which cultural and moral values they stand for that will hold this country together.The authoritarians tell a simple story about how to restore order — it comes from cultural homogeneity and the iron fist of the strongman. Democrats have a harder challenge — to show how order can be woven amid diversity, openness and the full flowering of individuals. But Democrats need to name the moral values and practices that will restore social order.It doesn’t matter how many nice programs you have; people won’t support you if they think your path is the path to chaos.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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      What to Know: India’s Local Elections

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      What to Know: India’s Local ElectionsHari Kumar📍Reporting from Punjab, IndiaSaumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesIf challengers such as the Aam Aadmi Party, which runs on an anti-corruption platform and is currently in power in India’s capital, Delhi, wins in Punjab, it will embolden other regional parties to push for toppling Congress as the natural leader of the opposition. More

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      As French Elections Loom, Macron Tries to Strike a Balance

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      The news media calls the French president “Jupiter,” the king of the gods, but he is trying to show a more human face. Will it soften his image?PARIS — Rarely has a modern French leader embraced the powers of the presidency as forcefully as Emmanuel Macron. From his earliest days in office, Mr. Macron was called “Jupiter” by the news media, the king of the gods who ruled by hurling down lightning bolts.But if that image has helped Mr. Macon push through his agenda, it has also made him a special focus of anger among his opponents in a way extraordinary, even by the standards of a country where the power of the presidency has little equivalent in other Western democracies. “Death to the king” has been a frequent cry in recent years during street protests, along with makeshift guillotines.As elections approach in April, that image has also become a political liability and left Mr. Macron struggling to strike the right balance between quasi king and electoral candidate in a political culture that swings between an attachment to monarchy and a penchant for regicide.“I’m someone who’s rather emotional, but who hides it,” the president said, lowering his eyes in the gilded ballroom of the Élysée Palace, during a recent two-hour television interview. “I’m someone who’s rather very human, I believe,” he said.Mr. Macron, the Le Monde newspaper wrote, sought to “symbolically kill Jupiter.”Still, Mr. Macron has taken full advantage of presidential prerogatives to so far avoid even declaring his candidacy for a second term — though it is considered a foregone conclusion. That has allowed him to delay descending from the throne of the “republican monarch,” as the presidency is sometimes called, to engage in early battle with his opponents.Mr. Macron on a screen outside the Louvre in Paris in May 2017, the month he became president. He rejected his two predecessors’ attempts to modernize the institution of the presidency.Francois Mori/Associated PressInstead, to increasing criticism, he has run a stealth campaign for months, reaching out to voters and leaving his challengers to squabble among themselves.“His goal is to show that he’s a good-natured monarch, a human monarch, but with authority,” said Jean Garrigues, a leading historian on France’s political culture. “His challengers’ goal is to show Macron as a helpless monarch, someone who has the powers of a monarch, but who’s incapable of putting them to use.”“That’s the great French paradox,” Mr. Garrigues added. “A people permanently in search of participatory democracy who, at the same time, expects everything of their monarch.”France’s president as a “republican monarch” was the product of the father of the Fifth Republic, Charles de Gaulle. The wartime hero and peacetime leader, through a disputed national referendum in 1962, turned the presidency into a personalized, popularly elected office, an all-powerful providential figure.“You have power around one man who is the politician with the most power in his system of all Western nations,” said Vincent Martigny, a professor of political science at the University of Nice and an expert on leadership in democracies. “There is no equivalent of the power of the president of the republic, with checks that are so weak.”Under Mr. Macron, the national assembly has become even less of a counterweight. His party, La République en Marche, was a vehicle he created for his candidacy; many of its lawmakers, who hold a majority in the national assembly, are neophytes beholden to him.Campaign posters for Mr. Macron’s political party on a wall in Paris in January, carrying the slogan, “Avec vous,” or “With you.”Benoit Tessier/ReutersMr. Macron, experts say, chose two weak prime ministers in a bid to exercise direct control over the government, even replacing his first prime minister after he became too popular. At the same time, as president, Mr. Macron is not held accountable by Parliament, unlike prime ministers.“We shouldn’t mix the roles of the president and the prime minister,” said Philippe Bas, a center-right senator who served as secretary general under President Jacques Chirac in the Élysée Palace. “What Macron has done is to absorb the function of the prime minister, which is a problem because he can’t appear in Parliament to defend his draft laws.”That imbalance has allowed Mr. Macron to push economic reforms through Parliament, sometimes with little consultation — or no vote, in the case of an overhaul of the French pension system that had provoked weeks of strikes and street protests, but was ultimately put on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic.Mr. Macron oversaw a crackdown on Yellow Vest protesters that raised the issue of police violence to a national level. His pandemic measures were adopted behind the closed doors of a “defense council,” and included a state of emergency and one of the strictest lockdowns among democracies. He has not fulfilled an earlier pledge to empower Parliament by introducing proportional representation.Mr. Macron’s full embrace of presidential prerogatives and his image of aloofness combined to expose the limits of France’s democratic institutions, Mr. Martigny said. Protesters have directed their anger at Mr. Macron, he added, because the increasingly weak Parliament and other government institutions are incapable of addressing their concerns.“Doubts about the institution of the presidency have come to the fore much more during Macron’s five years in office, especially during the Yellow Vest crisis, which showed there was a real problem with the system,” Mr. Martigny said.A rally to protest Covid-19 restrictions, including a health pass, in Paris in September. Mr. Macron’s pandemic measures have been adopted behind the closed doors of a “defense council.”Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesHe added that Mr. Macron tried to work around the institutional limits with democratic experiments. He defused the Yellow Vest protests, which were set off by a rise in the gasoline tax, by single-handedly engaging in marathon town hall events for two months in a “great debate.” And he announced the creation of a citizens panel to draw up proposals on climate change.Learn More About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 6The campaign begins. More

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      ‘Dark Money’ Suddenly Dominates Australia’s Election

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      Chinese financing, unreported donations, payouts from coal barons: The new political season is shining an unaccustomed light on a culture of opacity.SYDNEY, Australia — When Dr. Ken Coghill served in the Victoria state legislature in the early 1980s, he joined a movement to reform Australia’s campaign finance system, which allowed donations to slosh through politics, with donors mostly able to hide their identities and contributions.Dr. Coghill, a Labor leader at the time, said he was outraged because the so-called dark money undermined the principle of all voters being equal, giving unidentified donors and their chosen candidates or parties “a very considerable advantage.”Nearly 40 years later, Dr. Coghill is still outraged, because little has changed. But now, that culture of cashed-up secrecy is suddenly defining the start of the federal election campaign that will determine whether the current conservative prime minister remains in power.With an election due by the end of May, Australians are not being treated to policy debates but rather accusations of shadowy Chinese financing, failures to report large donations, and payouts to climate-change warriors from coal barons.“The flow of money is increasing, but also the political culture is becoming eroded,” said Han Aulby, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity. “There’s a sense that if you can get away with things, you do it.”Compared with the United States, Australia’s campaign season is shorter and less costly, as is the case for many countries with parliamentary democracies. But even among its peers, such as Canada and New Zealand, Australia is a laggard on campaign finance regulation. Research from the Center for Public Integrity shows that over the past two decades, the source of nearly $1 billion in party income has been hidden.Some scholars argue that Australia’s opacity reflects a distinct set of cultural idiosyncrasies: a belief that transparency is not an obvious social good and a sense that those in power should decide what the public needs to know.A view of the Sydney waterfront. A majority of Australians believe corruption in politics is a common occurrence.Isabella Moore for The New York Times“The prevailing view in Australia is still that the government owns the information — it is not held on behalf of the citizens — and if people want it, it should not be automatically available,” said Johan Lidberg, a media professor at Monash University. “That sits at the very core here. We haven’t shifted away from that yet.”The money fight this time follows a period of increased public concern about corruption.In a country far wealthier than it used to be, where infrastructure money has been known to flow toward political friends, and where government secrecy keeps expanding, polls show overwhelming support for an anti-corruption body at the federal level. A majority of Australians now believe corruption is a common occurrence.The center-right Liberal Party of Prime Minister Scott Morrison had promised to do something about that after winning the last election, in 2019, but never followed through. Now, with support for his government’s pandemic management in decline, he has begun using dark money as a theme on which to attack his political opponents.The effort started with accusations of money and support from China.This month, Mike Burgess, head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the country’s main domestic intelligence agency, warned in his annual threat assessment that the authorities had foiled a foreign interference plot involving a wealthy individual who “maintained direct and deep connections with a foreign government and its intelligence agencies.”Mr. Morrison at a campaign rally in Sydney during the last election in 2019. His campaign pledge to create a federal agency to crack down on corruption has so far gone unfulfilled.Mick Tsikas/EPA, via ShutterstockThe “puppeteer,” he said, had hired someone in Australia and set the person up with hundreds of thousands of dollars procured from an offshore bank account.Speculation immediately turned to Beijing. The next day, in Parliament, Australia’s defense minister, Peter Dutton, said the Chinese Communist Party had chosen to support Anthony Albanese, the Labor party leader, “as their pick.” Mr. Morrison followed up by calling Labor Party leaders “Manchurian candidates.”Critics called the remarks scaremongering. The Labor Party has said it did nothing wrong, and Mr. Burgess has pushed back against the partisan attacks.“Attempts at political interference are not confined to one side of politics,” he said last week.Nor are accusations about hidden money.Zali Steggall, a political independent who entered Parliament in 2019 after defeating Tony Abbott, a former prime minister, with a campaign focused on fighting climate change, has run into her own problems. An Australian Electoral Commission review found that she did not correctly report a $100,000 donation in 2019 from the family trust of a former coal company executive.The commission’s review found that the gift — the largest single donation she received — was not reported because after the check had been received, the money was split into eight separate contributions that were under the $13,800 disclosure threshold.Ms. Steggall called it “a rookie mistake.” She argued that previous investments in coal should not prevent someone from donating to candidates supporting a greener future, and insisted that she did not know the donation had been misreported. Corrected last year, it has come to light now as several independent candidates are threatening to unseat Liberal incumbents in part with money from centralized issue-oriented organizations.Zali Steggall, a political independent who is a member of Parliament, failed to correctly report a $100,000 donation in 2019 from the family trust of a former coal company executive.Lukas Coch/EPA, via ShutterstockThe Steggall campaign’s financial controller is now a director of one such group, Climate 200.“What this highlights is there are a lot of people who are happy to throw stones, but they’re often in glass houses,” Mr. Morrison said.What it actually shows, according to advocates for a more transparent approach, is how the current system has been encouraging a spiral of misbehavior.Disclosures of donations for federal elections are still released just once a year, in unsearchable scans of documents riddled with errors and omissions. Supporters of reform have called for real-time reporting and lower thresholds for reporting donations.“This is an issue that has bubbled along since the early 1970s,” said Dr. Coghill, who is a professor of government at Swinburne University of Technology, as well as a veterinarian.“In a way, that’s a reflection of Australia’s relative isolation,” he added. “We don’t have frequent contact with people in other countries that do have more rigorous regimes in place.”But Ms. Aulby, who founded the Center for Public Integrity in 2016, said that many Australians were starting to question what happens in the shadows where favors and financing intertwine.She said one of the most blatant tactics to hide money involved “associated entities” — essentially shell companies that distribute donations.Both major parties rely on them. Labor, for example, received 33 percent of its income from 1998 to 2021 from associated entities, for a total of more than $120 million.Campaign posters outside a polling station in Melbourne in 2019. Both major parties rely on shell companies to hide donation money.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York TimesThe Liberals brought in even more from their associated entities — about $140 million in the same period, according to the center, amounting to 42 percent of all the party’s reported income.“They do a lot of business, but I don’t know who their directors are or if they and their money are from the resource or banking industry,” Ms. Aulby said.The consequences of that approach, however, are becoming more visible. Last month, Transparency International recorded a drop for Australia in its annual corruption index, giving the country its lowest score since the organization adopted its current measurements in 2012.Polls in Australia also show growing alarm. That has become especially true after the current government assigned public funds to sports infrastructure projects in districts that it needed to win in the last election, even when no one applied for the grant money.In those cases, the Morrison government stonewalled and refused to release its final internal report on what happened with more than $70 million in grants. The minister in charge of them was demoted only temporarily.“Scandal after scandal is happening without any consequence,” Ms. Aulby said.But once the accusations begin, the cycle can be hard to stop. Last week, Mr. Morrison was busy attacking opponents and their supposed financiers; this week his own coalition partner was being dragged through the media for failing to disclose a payment of 1 million Australian dollars ($721,000) from an influential property owner in the capital, Canberra.“There needs to be some consequences — electoral consequences, because there aren’t other consequences happening,” Ms. Aulby said. “I hope that voters have that in mind in the upcoming election.” More