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      The Georgia Runoffs, Part 2: ‘I Have Zero Confidence in My Vote’

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyThe DailySubscribe:Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsThe Georgia Runoffs, Part 2: ‘I Have Zero Confidence in My Vote’Republicans have typically done well in runoff elections in the state. Will President Trump’s attacks on the electoral system change that?Hosted by Alix Spiegel; produced by Alix Spiegel, with help from Robert Jimison, Austin Mitchell and Neena Pathak; and edited by Lisa Tobin and Mike Benoist.More episodes ofThe DailyJanuary 5, 2021  •  More

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      To Defend Democracy, Investigate Trump's Georgia Call

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyTo Defend Democracy, Investigate TrumpThere needs to be a cost to trying to overthrow an election.Opinion ColumnistJan. 4, 2021Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesAccording to Title 52, Section 20511 of the United States Code, anyone who “knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a state of a fair and impartially conducted election process” for federal office can be punished by up to five years in prison.Donald Trump certainly seems to have violated this law. He is on tape alternately cajoling and threatening Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes,” enough to give him a winning margin in a state that he lost. He may have also broken federal conspiracy law and Georgia election law.“This is probably the most serious political crime I’ve ever heard of,” Michael Bromwich, a former inspector general for the Department of Justice, told me. “And yet there is the high likelihood that there will be no accountability for it.”At this point, demanding such accountability feels like smashing one’s head into a brick wall, but our democracy might not be able to stagger along much longer without it. Republicans already often treat victories by Democrats as illegitimate. Their justification for impeaching Bill Clinton was flimsy at the time and looks even more ludicrous in light of their defenses of Trump. Trump’s political career was built on the racist lie that Barack Obama was a foreigner ineligible for the presidency.Now Trump and his Republican enablers have set a precedent for pressuring state officials to discard the will of their voters, and if that fails, for getting their allies in Congress to reject the results.It isn’t working this time for several reasons. Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory wasn’t close. Republican state officials like Raffensperger behaved honorably. Democrats control the House, and some Senate Republicans retain a baseline commitment to democracy.None of those conditions are likely to be permanent, though. Minimally decent Republicans are particularly endangered. Expect Trumpists to mount primary challenges to them and replace them with cynics, cranks and fanatics.True democracy in America is quite new; you can date it to the civil rights era. If Trump’s Republican Party isn’t checked, we could easily devolve into what political scientists call competitive authoritarianism, in which elections still take place but the system is skewed to entrench autocrats.Some are trying to constrain Trump’s lawlessness. Two Democratic members of the House, Ted Lieu and Kathleen Rice, asked the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, to open a criminal probe. In Atlanta, the Fulton County district attorney has expressed openness to bringing a case, saying, “Anyone who commits a felony violation of Georgia law in my jurisdiction will be held accountable.”But there is little appetite in the House for impeaching Trump again, though he transparently deserves it. (“We’re not looking backwards, we’re looking forward,” Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said on Monday.) Joe Biden doesn’t seem to want his attorney general to investigate Trump, though he’s also said he wouldn’t stand in his or her way. And experts point to numerous reasons federal prosecutors might decline to bring a case.The first is what we might call the psychopath’s advantage: Prosecutors would have to prove that Trump knew that what he was doing was wrong. “You’re not dealing with your ordinary fraudster or your ordinary criminal or even your ordinary corrupt politician,” said Bromwich. “He seems to believe a lot of the lies that he’s telling.”There’s also the sheer political difficulty of prosecuting a former president. “My guess is that in the weeks and months that a prosecutor takes to develop a case like that, they’re at the end of the day going to say, ‘The guy’s not in office, nothing happened, we’re not spending our resources on it,’” the Republican election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg told me. “Which doesn’t take away from the really immoral nature of the call.”Taken on their own, most excuses for not investigating or prosecuting Trump make at least some sense. Launching an impeachment less than three weeks before Biden’s inauguration might appear futile. It could even feed right-wing delusions by creating the impression that Democrats think Trump might be able to stay in office otherwise. Both the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress will be fully occupied dealing with the devastation to public health and the economy that Trump is leaving behind. Beyond its legal challenges, a federal prosecution of Trump would maintain his toxic grip on the country’s attention.Yet if there is no penalty for Republican cheating, there will be more of it. The structure of our politics — the huge advantages wielded by small states and rural voters — means that Democrats need substantial majorities to wield national power, so they can’t simply ignore the wishes of the electorate. Not so for Republicans, which is why they feel free to openly scheme against the majority.During impeachment, Republicans who were unwilling to defend the president’s conduct, but also unwilling to penalize him, insisted that if Americans didn’t like his behavior they could vote him out. Americans did, and now Trump’s party is refusing to accept it. It’s evidence that you can’t rely on elections to punish attempts to subvert elections. Only the law can do that, even if it’s inconvenient.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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Trump Call to Georgia Official Might Violate State and Federal Law

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump Call to Georgia Official Might Violate State and Federal LawThe president’s demand for action to overturn the result of the election in the state raised questions about whether he violated election fraud statutes, lawyers said, though a charge is unlikely.President Trump and Melania Trump, the first lady, last week outside the White House. On Saturday, the president held an hourlong call with Georgia’s secretary of state, urging him to “find” the votes necessary to swing the state to Mr. Trump.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesJan. 3, 2021Updated 9:53 p.m. ETThe call by President Trump on Saturday to Georgia’s secretary of state raised the prospect that Mr. Trump may have violated laws that prohibit interference in federal or state elections, but lawyers said on Sunday that it would be difficult to pursue such a charge.The recording of the conversation between Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of Georgia, first reported by The Washington Post, led a number of election and criminal defense lawyers to conclude that by pressuring Mr. Raffensperger to “find” the votes he would need to reverse the election outcome in the state, Mr. Trump either broke the law or came close to it.“It seems to me like what he did clearly violates Georgia statutes,” said Leigh Ann Webster, an Atlanta criminal defense lawyer, citing a state law that makes it illegal for anyone who “solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage” in election fraud.At the federal level, anyone who “knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a state of a fair and impartially conducted election process” is breaking the law.Matthew T. Sanderson, a Republican election lawyer who has worked on several presidential campaigns — including those of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rick Perry, the former Texas governor — said that while it did appear that Mr. Trump was trying to intimidate Mr. Raffensperger, it was not clear that he violated the law.That is because while Mr. Trump clearly implied that Mr. Raffensperger might suffer legal consequences if he did not find additional votes for the president in Georgia, Mr. Trump stopped short of saying he would deliver on the threat himself against Mr. Raffensperger and his legal counsel, Ryan Germany, Mr. Sanderson said. “You know what they did and you’re not reporting it,” the president said during the call, referring to his baseless assertions of widespread election fraud. “That’s a criminal — that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that’s a big risk.”Lacking additional clear evidence of Mr. Trump’s intent to follow up on any apparent threat, including the potential criminal charges he suggested Mr. Raffensperger or his office might face, Mr. Sanderson said, “Ultimately, I doubt this is behavior that would be prosecuted.”Michael R. Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general and lawyer who represented clients that have been critical of Mr. Trump, said he believed Mr. Trump violated federal law.But the meandering nature of the phone call and the fact that the president made no apparent attempt to conceal his actions as other call participants listened could allow Mr. Trump to argue that he did not intend to break the law or to argue that he did not know that a federal law existed apparently prohibiting his actions.The federal law would also most likely require that Mr. Trump knew that he was pushing Mr. Raffensperger to fraudulently change the vote count, meaning prosecutors would have to prove that Mr. Trump knew he was lying in asserting that he was confident he had won the election in Georgia.“It is unlikely federal prosecutors would bring such a case,” Mr. Bromwich said. “But it certainly was god awful and unbelievable. But prosecuting a federal crime is obviously a very different thing.”David Worley, a Democrat and a supporter of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. who is a member of the State Election Board in Georgia, wrote Sunday evening to Mr. Raffensperger and other members of the board asking the secretary of state, who is the board chairman, to open an investigation into the phone call to see if it violated state law, including a provision prohibiting conspiracy to commit election fraud.If the board concludes a law has been broken, Mr. Worley said, it could ask state law enforcement authorities to consider filing criminal charges or a civil case against Mr. Trump.“To say that I am troubled by President Trump’s attempt to manipulate the votes of Georgians would be an understatement,” Mr. Worley, who is the sole Democrat on the five-member board, wrote in the email. “Once we have received your investigative report, it will be the board’s duty to determine whether probable cause exists to refer this matter.”State officials in Georgia might also face a challenge in bringing a case against a federal official, or even a former federal official, said Ms. Webster and Ryan C. Locke, a second Atlanta criminal defense lawyer.Trevor Potter, a Republican former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said the question would largely be up to the Justice Department in the Biden administration.“There is a good argument that Trump is seeking to procure a fraudulent vote count by stating that he needs exactly 11,780 votes and is threatening the secretary of state if he does not produce them,” Mr. Potter said. “But even if the Biden Justice Department thinks they have a good case, is that how they want to start off the Biden presidency? That is a policy decision.”Congressional Democrats suggested they would examine the legal implications of the call. Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the call raised new legal questions for Mr. Trump even if it was not a clear violation of the law.“In threatening these officials with vague ‘criminal’ consequences, and in encouraging them to ‘find’ additional votes and hire investigators who ‘want to find answers,’ the president may have also subjected himself to additional criminal liability,” Mr. Nadler said in a statement.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Trump Calls Georgia Senate Races ‘Illegal and Invalid’

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump Calls Georgia Senate Races ‘Illegal and Invalid’President Trump continued his assault on election integrity, baselessly claiming the presidential results and the Senate runoffs in Georgia were both invalid — which could complicate G.O.P. efforts to motivate voters.Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Jon Ossoff campaigning in Suwanee, Ga., on Thursday. The president has claimed the runoff race Mr. Ossoff is participating in is “invalid.”Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York TimesJan. 1, 2021, 8:27 p.m. ETATLANTA — President Trump took to Twitter Friday evening to make the unfounded assertion that Georgia’s two Senate races are “illegal and invalid,” an argument that could complicate his efforts to convince his supporters to turn out for Republican candidates in the two runoff races that will determine which party controls the Senate.The president is set to hold a rally in Dalton, Ga., on Monday, the day before Election Day, and Georgia Republicans are hoping he will focus his comments on how crucial it is for Republicans to vote in large numbers for Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, the state’s two incumbent Republican senators.But Mr. Trump has continued to make the false claim that Georgia’s election system was rigged against him in the Nov. 3 general election. Some Republican leaders are afraid that his supporters will take the president’s argument seriously, and decide that voting in a “corrupt” system is not worth their time, a development that could hand the election to the Democrats.Some strategists and political science experts in the state have said Mr. Trump’s assault on Georgia’s voting system may be at least partly responsible for the relatively light Republican turnout in the conservative strongholds of northwest Georgia, where Dalton is, in the early voting period that ended Thursday.More than 3 million Georgia voters participated in the early voting period, which began Dec. 14. A strong early-voting turnout in heavily Democratic areas and among African-American voters suggests that Republicans will need a strong election-day performance to retain their Senate seats.Mr. Trump made his assertion about the Senate races in a Twitter thread in which he also made the baseless claim that “massive corruption” took place in the general election, “which gives us far more votes than is necessary to win all of the Swing States.”The president made a specific reference to a Georgia consent decree that he said was unconstitutional. The problems with this document, he argued further, render the two Senate races and the results of his own electoral loss invalid.Mr. Trump was almost certainly referring to a March consent decree hammered out between the Democratic Party and Republican state officials that helped establish standards for judging the validity of signatures on absentee ballots in the state.Mr. Trump’s allies have unsuccessfully argued in failed lawsuits that the consent decree was illegal because the U.S. Constitution confers the power to regulate congressional elections to state legislatures. But the National Constitution Center, among others, notes that Supreme Court rulings allow legislatures to delegate their authority to other state officials.Since losing the election to Joseph R. Biden Jr. in November, Mr. Trump has directed a sustained assault on Georgia’s Republican leaders — including Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — saying they have not taken seriously enough his claims of voter fraud. He has called Mr. Kemp “a fool” and called for him to resign. At a rally for Ms. Loeffler and Mr. Perdue last month in Georgia, the president spent considerable time airing his own electoral grievances, while devoting less time to supporting the two Republican candidates.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      'Fear the Democrats': Georgia Republicans Deliver Persistent Message

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGeorgia Republicans Deliver Persistent Message: Fear the DemocratsSenators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are resting their re-election hopes on a strategy that calls more attention to what they’re against than what they support.Senator Kelly Loeffler spoke with supporters on Thursday after a campaign event in Norcross, Ga.Credit…Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesAstead W. Herndon and Dec. 31, 2020Updated 9:20 p.m. ETNORCROSS, Ga. — The biggest applause lines in Senator Kelly Loeffler’s stump speech are not about Ms. Loeffler at all.When the crowd is most engaged, including Thursday morning at a community pavilion in suburban Atlanta, Ms. Loeffler invokes President Trump or attacks her Democratic opponents as socialists and Marxists. Her own policy platforms are rarely mentioned.“Are you ready to keep fighting for President Trump and show America that Georgia is a red state?” Ms. Loeffler said when she took the microphone. “We are the firewall to stopping socialism and we have to hold the line.”Such are the themes of the closing arguments in the all-important Georgia Senate runoffs, which have reflected the partisanship and polarization of the national political environment. Ms. Loeffler and her Senate colleague, David Perdue, are seeking to motivate a conservative base that is still loyal to Mr. Trump while also clawing back some of the defectors who helped deliver Georgia to a Democratic presidential nominee for the first time since 1992.Democrats are eager to prove that Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory over President Trump in Georgia was more than a fluke, and that the state is ready to embrace their party’s more progressive policy agenda, rather than anti-Trumpness alone.But the race is also emblematic of each party’s current political messages. Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic Senate candidates, have put forth an array of policy proposals that blend the shared priorities of the moderate center and the progressive left: passing a new Voting Rights Act, expanding Medicaid without backing a single payer system, investment in clean energy while stopping short of the Green New Deal, and criminal justice reform that does not include defunding the police.Republicans are seeking no such calibration. Mr. Perdue, who announced on Thursday that he would quarantine after coming into contact with someone who had tested positive for the coronavirus, and Ms. Loeffler are banking that their loyalists are motivated more by what their candidates stand against than by what they stand for.There are signs that this approach has resonated with many Republican voters. At Ms. Loeffler’s event in Norcross, and later at a New Year’s Eve concert in Gainesville, voters said their top priorities were supporting Mr. Trump and his allegations of voter fraud and beating back the perceived excesses of liberals and their candidates.“The biggest factor for me is stopping socialism,” said Melinda Weeks, a 62-year-old voter who lives in Gwinnett County. “I don’t want to see our country become the Chinese Communist Party.”A campaign event on Wednesday for Senator Loeffler in Augusta, Ga.Credit…Sean Rayford for The New York TimesJohn Wright, 64, said that he was voting for Ms. Loeffler and Mr. Perdue but that he thinks Republicans must do a better job of reaching minority voters. He cited the change in racial makeup that has continued apace in Georgia and fueled Democrats’ chances at winning statewide seats.“Republicans need to figure out how to help these people, how to reach these people,” Mr. Wright said. “Those demographics are changing, and you can’t just pitch the American dream to people who haven’t been able to achieve the American dream.”The statewide jockeying comes at a tumultuous time in Georgia politics, as Mr. Trump continues to upend the Senate races with his baseless accusations of voter fraud, persistent attacks on the state’s Republican governor and secretary of state, and bombastic tweets regarding the coronavirus relief package.In the last month alone, Mr. Trump has called for Gov. Brian Kemp to resign, accused Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of having a brother in cahoots with the Chinese government (Mr. Raffensperger does not have a brother), threatened to veto the pandemic relief package, sided with Democrats on the need for bigger stimulus checks, and claimed Georgia Republicans were “fools” who were virtually controlled by Stacey Abrams and the Democrats.Mr. Trump is scheduled to visit northwest Georgia on Monday, just one day before Election Day. The appearance underscores the complicated relationship Republicans have with the departing president at this time, according to party operatives and members of the state Republican caucus. They need Mr. Trump to motivate the base, while he remains a source of tension that has put Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler under significant pressure in the runoffs.Trump is “delivering a sort of mixed message,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. “Because if you look at the rally he held down at Valdosta, the first time he came down, he spent more time airing his own grievances over the presidential election and claiming that he was cheated out of victory than he really did supporting Loeffler or Purdue. He endorsed them, but he didn’t seem to be as concerned about those races as he was about trying to re-litigate the presidential race.”Charles. S. Bullock III, a political-science professor at the University of Georgia, said the critical question surrounding Mr. Trump’s rally is: “Will it convince some people who have up until that point said they’re not going to vote?”Democrats, he said, had appeared to have done a better job in getting people to the polls for early voting, which ended in some places on Thursday. “So that would be the last moment — a last chance effort to get folks who have been sitting on the sidelines,” Mr. Bullock said.Democratic candidates spent New Year’s Eve targeting voters representing their base: young voters, minority voters in the Atlanta area, and liberal churchgoers. Mr. Ossoff was scheduled to speak at two virtual “Watch Night” services, the New Year’s Eve tradition that dates to 1862, when freed Black Americans living in Union states gathered in anticipation of the Emancipation Proclamation.Mr. Ossoff and Mr. Warnock have several drive-in rallies scheduled from Friday through Election Day, including separate events with Mr. Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.Jon Ossoff, the Democrat running against Mr. Perdue, spoke at a campaign event with Asian and Pacific Islander supporters in Suwanee on Thursday.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMore than three million residents have already cast a ballot in the races. The breakdown of votes so far has buoyed Democratic hopes: Population centers such as Fulton and DeKalb Counties in metropolitan Atlanta are posting sky-high turnout numbers, and the percentage of Black voters continues to trend above presidential election levels.Videos of nearly four-hour-long voting lines in Cobb County angered some liberal groups and voting rights advocates who said it was a failure of state and local leadership. The N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund sent two letters to Mr. Raffensperger, the state’s lead election official, which warned that an increase of polling locations in the county was necessary to accommodate increased turnout.Republicans believe that many of their supporters are waiting until Jan. 5 to vote in person. Across the country in November, Republicans saw big in-person voting turnout wipe away Democratic leads in states like Florida and Texas. Republicans could also be particularly keen to cast their ballots in person this time, considering the widespread fears of voter fraud that Mr. Trump has instilled in his base since his loss.The announcement that Mr. Perdue would be temporarily off the campaign trail in the race’s final days startled some Republicans, who had been gearing up for Mr. Trump’s visit on Monday. Mr. Perdue is still hopeful that he will attend the rally with the president, according to a person familiar with the campaign, considering he has not tested positive for the virus and has multiple days to test negative in advance of the event.Even before Thursday, when his campaign revealed the virus exposure, Mr. Perdue had done fewer public events than Ms. Loeffler or their Democratic opponents. The campaign did not provide an exact timeline for when Mr. Perdue might return to public events.“The senator and his wife have been tested regularly throughout the campaign, and the team will continue to follow C.D.C. guidelines,” a statement read.At the New Year’s Eve Concert in Gainesville on Thursday, organized by the two Republican senators’ campaigns, Mr. Perdue’s absence was not acknowledged. Instead, speakers used Mr. Trump’s scheduled appearance Monday as a hook: Go vote Tuesday after watching the president the day before.Ms. Loeffler was joined by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who emphasized that turnout in the north was crucial to overcoming Democratic enthusiasm in urban centers.“This is the part of the state that runs up the score to neutralize Atlanta, you get that?” he said. “If Republicans win, I’m the budget chairman. If we lose Georgia, Bernie Sanders is the budget chairman.”He left no room for subtext. A vote for Republicans in Georgia, Mr. Graham said, was a vote to ensure Democrats can get little of their agenda enacted in Washington.“Anything that comes out of Pelosi’s House, it’ll come to the Senate and we’ll kill it dead,” he said, as the crowd roared with approval.“If you’re a conservative and that doesn’t motivate you to vote, then you’re legally dead.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Israeli Election, Take Four: Conservatives vs. Conservatives

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNews analysisIsraeli Election, Take Four: Conservatives vs. ConservativesAfter the center-left failed in three elections to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the fourth one is shaping up into a contest among right-wing leaders.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has survived three electoral challenges in a row from the center-left. Now he faces two challengers from the right.Credit…Pool photo by Yonatan SindelDec. 23, 2020, 6:28 p.m. ETJERUSALEM — For three elections in a row, Israel’s conservative prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has managed to stave off challenges from the center-left.Now, as Israel moves to an unprecedented fourth early election in two years, the center-left has imploded and Mr. Netanyahu faces a challenge from his own former allies on the right.The election, set for March 23 after a fragile, fractious unity coalition disintegrated on Tuesday, is shaping up as a battle of conservatives versus conservatives, an intramural contest for the leadership of the roughly half of Israeli voters who consider themselves right-of-center.“It will be a right-wing government,” said Gadi Wolfsfeld, a veteran analyst of Israeli elections. “The question is who will lead it, and how right-wing will it be?”Leading the charge against Mr. Netanyahu, the longtime premier and leader of the conservative Likud party, are two former protégés-turned-rivals: Naftali Bennett, a former education and defense minister who leads the religious-right Yamina party, and Gideon Saar, a popular former education and interior minister.Mr. Bennett, 48, sitting in the opposition, elevated his stature and his standing in the polls this year by assailing Mr. Netanyahu’s handling of the coronavirus. He toured the country’s hospitals, courted business owners suffering repeated lockdowns and published a book-length list of recommendations on contact tracing, testing and more, a number of which the government adopted.Naftali Bennett, right, a former education and defense minister, leads the religious-right Yamina party.Credit…Dan Balilty for The New York TimesBut it was the defection this month of Mr. Saar, 54, from Likud to form a breakaway right-wing party called “New Hope” that catapulted him into contention overnight. His move has invigorated critics of the prime minister, known to Israelis as Bibi, raising hopes that this election could be the one that sends Mr. Netanyahu, 71, into retirement.“For the first time, the fight is on the right side of the map,” said Karine Nahon, a political scientist at the Interdisciplinary Center-Herzliya. “Usually it fell in behind Bibi without any questions. Now, two parties are actually challenging the hegemony of the Likud.”Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, will scarcely be at a disadvantage heading into the March contest: He is already trumpeting Israel’s speedy start to vaccinations and its historic normalization deals with four Arab states. And he is a master of controlling the news cycle, among the many benefits of incumbency.Still, the pandemic has thrown a million Israelis out of work, business leaders warn that tens of thousands of companies could be wiped out, and yet another lockdown is looming to remind voters of the government’s inability to curb the virus.But Mr. Netanyahu’s biggest liability could emerge in February, when testimony is to begin in his trial on felony corruption charges, including bribery and breach of trust. A key reason that Israel is being subjected to yet another election, analysts say, is Mr. Netanyahu’s burning desire to bolster his support in Parliament for a possible move to mitigate his legal exposure, defer prosecution or even have the case tossed altogether.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Why Israel Faces a Fourth Election in Just Two Years

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy Israel Faces a Fourth Election in Just Two YearsWhat to know as Israel gears up for another vote, this time set for March 23.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, center, is again fighting for political survival.Credit…Amir Cohen/ReutersDec. 23, 2020, 9:05 a.m. ETJERUSALEM — With Israel heading to its fourth election in two years after the collapse of its government, many in the country are wondering whether it’s a case of too much democracy.The last three ballots ended inconclusively, with no single candidate able to muster the parliamentary majority required to form a government. The stalemate allowed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the conservative Likud party to persuade his main rival, Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party, to join forces in an uneasy coalition.It lasted just seven months.Mr. Netanyahu now finds himself again fighting for political survival while on trial, charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has devastated the Israeli economy.Here is what to watch for as Israel gears up for another election, this time set for March 23.Why is this happening?A protest in Jerusalem this month over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, corruption and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.Credit…Amir Cohen/ReutersThe main reason, analysts say, is Mr. Netanyahu’s legal and political calculation that he can best fight his criminal case from the prime minister’s office. They say he is ready to take the country to election after election in an effort to cling to power.Ostensibly, the latest government fell over Mr. Netanyahu’s refusal to pass a state budget for 2020 by the legal deadline of midnight on Tuesday, in violation of his coalition agreement with Mr. Gantz.Mr. Netanyahu is betting on being able to form a more sympathetic government that could grant him immunity from prosecution, analysts say. His corruption trial is scheduled to move into an intensive evidentiary stage early next year, when the country will witness the spectacle of his appearing in court.Mr. Netanyahu blamed Mr. Gantz for the breakdown in the coalition government, saying that he and his Blue and White party refused to allow the prime minister any say in a series of upcoming government and judicial appointments. But opinion polls indicate that most Israelis blame Mr. Netanyahu.“There are a lot of smoke screens, but I think we need to be fair and to be quite explicit about it,” said Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan research group.“This won’t end until either Mr. Netanyahu is replaced or if he finds a way, by legislation or political maneuvering, to either put his trial on hold or to suspend it altogether,” Mr. Plesner said.What happened in the last three elections?Benny Gantz, the Blue and White party leader, addressing supporters in February.Credit…Dan Balilty for The New York TimesThe last three ballots were essentially a face-off between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gantz, a former army chief who entered politics two years ago.Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, came with a strong Likud base and experience. The centrist Blue and White under Mr. Gantz promised national unity and the rule of law.Banding together with smaller parties that vaguely divided up along right-wing-religious and center-left lines, the two blocs ended up in a chronic tie. After two elections failed to produce a stable government, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gantz joined forces.Will Round 4 be different?A new conservative challenger, Gideon Saar, center, hopes to draw voters away from Mr. Netanyahu.Credit…Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPerhaps. A few weeks ago, opinion polls indicated that Mr. Netanyahu would be well positioned to form a new government made up of right-wing loyalists and his ultra-Orthodox allies. But a new conservative challenger, Gideon Saar, has since entered the ring and rejiggered the electoral map, competing for Mr. Netanyahu’s base voters, among others.Mr. Saar, who lost to Mr. Netanyahu in a Likud leadership race a year ago, recently defected from the party and set up a rival one called New Hope, taking a few coalition members with him. Osnat Mark, a Likud lawmaker and Netanyahu loyalist, called New Hope “a party of traitors and deserters.”Mr. Gantz lost most of his public support after joining forces with Mr. Netanyahu, having previously made an election pledge not to. With his Blue and White party now disintegrating amid infighting, the main battle this time is likely to be for the leadership of the right.Numerous polls taken since Mr. Saar’s move suggest, however, that there is still no party leader with an easy path to forming a government.Because no single party ever manages to command an outright majority in the 120-seat Parliament, larger parties must join forces with smaller ones to form a viable coalition. That often gives minor coalition partners disproportionate leverage.If no candidate garners a majority of 61 this time, Israel’s political crisis could go on. And on.What’s at stake for Mr. Netanyahu and for Israel?Israelis at a Dubai shopping mall during a visit to the United Arab Emirates in October. Israel and the Emirates reached a landmark accord this year.Credit…Dan Balilty for The New York TimesA March election comes with significant risk for Mr. Netanyahu, who tried unsuccessfully to postpone Parliament’s budget deadline after Mr. Saar broke away.Israel’s coronavirus vaccination campaign is just getting underway, so a late spring or summer vote might have been more advantageous for him, because an economic recovery might have begun by then.Instead, the campaign will take place as Israel grapples with a third wave of the virus.In another handicap for Mr. Netanyahu, he will be facing voters this time without the support and election gifts provided by his closest international ally, President Trump, and will instead have to deal with the Biden administration after it takes over in January.Yet Mr. Netanyahu, popularly known as Bibi, also has plenty he can boast about. With the help of the Trump administration, he has delivered deals to establish diplomatic relations with four formerly hostile Arab countries in the past four months.His administrations have led the country through years of relative security stability, and the country has now secured millions of coronavirus vaccine doses.“Israel could definitely become one of the first countries to emerge from the crisis,” he said in a televised address on Tuesday night.Election promises made by his staunchest political opponents, including Mr. Gantz, never to sit in a coalition led by a prime minister under criminal indictment have proved worthless in the past.With politicians at loggerheads over fundamental issues like equality and the powers of the courts, Israelis must now decide what kind of democracy they want and which candidate is best equipped to contend with challenges posed by the coronavirus and with regional threats from Iran and its proxies.Whatever the case, this next election, like the three before it, is set to largely be a contest between the “Only Bibi” and “Anyone but Bibi” camps.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More