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      In Voter Fraud, Penalties Often Depend on Who’s Voting

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      WASHINGTON — After 15 years of scrapes with the police, the last thing that 33-year-old Therris L. Conney needed was another run-in with the law. He got one anyway two years ago, after election officials held a presentation on voting rights for inmates of the county jail in Gainesville, Fla.Apparently satisfied that he could vote, Mr. Conney registered after the session, and cast a ballot in 2020. In May, he was arrested for breaking a state law banning voting by people serving felony sentences — and he was sentenced to almost another full year in jail.That show-no-mercy approach to voter fraud is what Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has encouraged this year during his re-election campaign. “That was against the law,” he said last month about charges against 20 other felons who voted in Florida, “and they’re going to pay a price for it.”But many of those cases seem to already be falling apart, because, like Mr. Conney, the former felons did not intend to vote illegally. And the more typical kind of voter-fraud case in Florida has long exacted punishment at a steep discount.Last winter, four residents of the Republican-leaning retirement community The Villages were arrested for voting twice — once in Florida, and again in other states where they had also lived.Despite being charged with third-degree felonies, the same as Mr. Conney, two of the Villages residents who pleaded guilty escaped having a criminal record entirely by taking a 24-hour civics class. Trials are pending for the other two.Florida is an exaggerated version of America as a whole. A review by The New York Times of some 400 voting-fraud charges filed nationwide since 2017 underscores what critics of fraud crackdowns have long said: Actual prosecutions are blue-moon events, and often netted people who didn’t realize they were breaking the law.Punishment can be wildly inconsistent: Most violations draw wrist-slaps, while a few high-profile prosecutions produce draconian sentences. Penalties often fall heaviest on those least able to mount a defense. Those who are poor and Black are more likely to be sent to jail than comfortable retirees facing similar charges.The high-decibel political rhetoric behind fraud prosecutions drowns out how infrequent — and sometimes how unfair — those prosecutions are, said Richard L. Hasen, an expert on election law and democracy issues at the U.C.L.A. School of Law.“It’s hard to see felons in Gainesville getting jail terms, and then look at people in The Villages getting no time at all, and see this as a rational system,” he said.The Times searched newspapers in all 50 states, internet accounts of fraud and online databases of cases, including one maintained by the conservative Heritage Foundation, to compile a list of prosecutions in the last five years. But there is no comprehensive list of voter fraud cases, and The Times’ list is undoubtedly incomplete.Election workers in Riviera Beach, Fla., prepared ballots to be counted by machine after the November 2020 general election.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesThe number of individuals charged — roughly one and one-half per state per year — is infinitesimal in a country where more than 159.7 million votes were cast in the 2020 general election alone.For all the fevered rhetoric about crackdowns on illegal voting, what’s most striking about voter fraud prosecutions is how modest the penalties for convictions tend to be.Most fraud cases fall into one of four categories: falsely filling out absentee ballots, usually to vote in the name of a relative; voting twice, usually in two states; votes cast illegally by felons; or votes cast by noncitizens.Edward Snodgrass, a trustee in Porter Township, Ohio, said he was trying to “execute a dying man’s wishes” when he filled out and mailed in his deceased father’s ballot in the 2020 election. He was fined $800 and sentenced to three days in jail.Charles Eugene Cartier, 81, of Madison, N.H. and Attleboro, Mass., pleaded guilty in New Hampshire to voting in more than one state, a Class B felony, in the 2016 election. He was fined $1,000 plus a penalty assessment of $240, and had his 60-day prison sentence suspended on condition of good behavior.At least four Oregonians cast votes in two states in 2016; none were fined more than $1,000, and felony charges were reduced to violations, akin to traffic tickets.Two federal prosecutors in North Carolina, Matthew G.T. Martin and Robert J. Higdon, made national headlines in 2018 with a campaign to prosecute noncitizens who voted illegally. In the end, around 30 charges were brought, out of some 4.7 million votes cast in 2016. But prison sentences in those cases were few, and usually measured in months; fines, usually in the hundreds of dollars or less.Still, there are exceptions, often apparently meant to send a message in states where politicians have tried to elevate fraud to a major issue.Foremost is Texas, where convictions that would merit probation or fines elsewhere have drawn crushing prison sentences. Rosa Maria Ortega, a green-card holder who cast illegal votes in 2012 and 2014, was sentenced to eight years in prison for a crime she says she unknowingly committed. Crystal Mason, who cast a ballot in 2016 while on federal probation for a tax felony, drew five years for violating felon voting laws. The court has been ordered to reconsider her case.Both prosecutions were the work of the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, perhaps the nation’s most zealous enforcer of voter-fraud laws. Mr. Paxton runs a $2.2 million-a-year election integrity squad that claims a 15-year record of prosecutions, though some of its high-profile cases, like a lengthy one against a South Texas mayor, ended in acquittals.Many of the squad’s cases have turned out to be decidedly small-bore affairs. Mr. Paxton’s integrity sleuths recorded 16 prosecutions in 2020, all of them Houston-area residents who put wrong addresses on registration applications, The Houston Chronicle has reported. None resulted in jail time. A handful of states have followed Texas’s lead. In Tennessee, Pamela Moses, a Black activist who violated a ban on voting by felons — mistakenly, she said — drew a six-year prison sentence in 2021. Prosecutors abandoned the charge after she won a new trial.In Florida, Kelvin Bolton, 56 and homeless, attended the same presentation that Mr. Conney did, and also voted in 2020. He has been awaiting trial in the Gainesville jail for five months, unable to make the $30,000 bond slapped on him by a county judge.“I said, ‘Kelvin, why did you vote?’” his sister, Derbra Bolton Owete, said in an interview. “And he said, ‘Well, they told me I could vote, so I voted.’ ”An amendment to the Florida Constitution that voters approved in 2018 restored voting rights to Mr. Bolton and other former felons who had completed their sentences. But the Republican legislature passed a law requiring full payment of fines and court fees to complete a sentence. The state has no central record of what former felons owe, adding another hurdle to their efforts to regain voting rights.Because Mr. Bolton owes fines or court costs, he faces felony charges of perjury and casting illegal votes.People of means usually fare better.In Kansas, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, Steve Watkins, railed during his 2020 re-election campaign against a “corrupt” prosecutor after Mr. Watkins was charged with illegally misstating his residence for voting and with lying to law enforcement officers, both felonies. Mr. Watkins later quietly accepted a diversion plea, escaping a criminal record in return for paying court costs and hewing to requirements like staying out of legal trouble. (Mr. Watkins lost his re-election bid.)Steve Watkins, a Kansas state legislator, faced felony voting fraud charges in 2020 and lost his bid for re-election. He spoke at a rally in Topeka with President Donald Trump in 2018.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesIn North Carolina, prosecutors have yet to decide after six months of scrutiny the seemingly straightforward question of whether Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to President Donald J. Trump and a former North Carolina congressman, essentially did the same thing.Mr. Meadows stated on a 2020 voter registration form that his residence for voting purposes was a mobile home in the western part of the state, although there is no public evidence that he ever actually lived there. A few prosecutions have approached the sort of broader allegations of fraud that are common in political messaging, though all were local affairs.A convoluted tale of election shenanigans in the Canton, Miss., city government produced charges against at least nine people in 2019, though punishment was minimal, and one woman was cleared. An absentee-ballot scheme that forced a rerun of the 2018 Ninth Congressional District race in North Carolina led to seven fraud indictments. The alleged ringleader, Leslie McCrae Dowless, a Republican operative, died before he could stand trial.In Florida, where attacks on voter fraud have been a staple of Mr. DeSantis’s term as governor, prosecutors have adjudicated at least 25 voting law cases since 2017. Until recently, penalties have been mild — probation, small fines, jail time served concurrent with other sentences.The 20 cases of voting by felons announced last month nearly double that total. But those prosecutions appear endangered, because the state itself approved the felons’ applications to vote and even issued them registration cards. The Republican who sponsored the state law requiring felons to pay court costs, State Senator Jeff Brandes, told The Miami Herald that he believed those who were charged had no intent to break the law.Asked about that, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis noted that the governor said that local election officials vet registration applications, not the state. That contradicts what his own former secretary of state, Laurel Lee, told journalists in 2020, The Herald reported.“When people sign up” to vote, “they check a box saying they’re eligible,” Mr. DeSantis said at a news conference last week. “If they’re not eligible and they’re lying, then they can be held accountable.”Critics of Mr. DeSantis say his goal is less to stop fraud than to make political hay from Republican voters’ obsession with the subject, something the party has relentlessly stoked for years.“This is political grandstanding,” said Daniel Smith, an expert on elections and voting at the University of Florida. “Individuals are registering, being told they can vote, handed registration cards and then told they’ve committed a felony. It’s tragic.”Sometimes the focus on voter fraud can become self-fulfilling.An Iowa woman, Terri Lynn Rote, said she cast two ballots for Mr. Trump in 2016 because she believed her first vote would be switched to favor Hillary Clinton. “I wasn’t planning on doing it twice — it was spur of the moment,” she later told The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. “The polls are rigged.”A judge fined her $750 and sentenced her to two years’ probation.Kitty Bennett, Isabella Grullón Paz and Heather Bushman contributed research. More

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      Is the Democratic Midterm Surge Overrated? Why Republicans Can Still Win the House and Senate.

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      Ross Douthat, a Times Opinion columnist, hosted an online conversation with Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster, and the conservative writer and radio host Erick Erickson, to discuss whether Republicans are blowing the fall campaign — or whether a red wave is still possible.Ross Douthat: Kristen, Erick, thanks so much for joining me. Let’s start with the big picture. From early 2022 through the middle of the summer, Republicans consistently led the generic ballot for Congress, by around two and a half points. Today, the same generic ballot is either tied or gives Democrats a slight edge. Kristen, what changed?Kristen Soltis Anderson: The biggest thing that I’ve seen shift is enthusiasm on the Democratic side. During the winter and spring, Republicans had an advantage when voters were asked how motivated they were to vote. Key parts of the Democratic coalition were just not as tuned in or interested in participating.That’s a relatively normal dynamic in a midterm year, but the last two or three months have seen Democrats close that enthusiasm gap.Erick Erickson: I underappreciated how much the Dobbs decision would play a role in that.But the RealClearPolitics polling averages go back about two decades. For midterm elections where Republicans have done well, at this time of year, the polling has narrowed. Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics had a good piece on it last week. I actually told my radio listeners that we should expect a tying of the generic ballot in August, and here it is. I would wait to really assess the direction of the race until late September.Douthat: If we assume Dobbs has boosted Democratic enthusiasm, Kristen, how heavily should we weight that effect relative to, say, falling gas prices?Anderson: The Dobbs decision was the big turning point. It has been less about changing voters’ minds from Republican to Democratic and more about activating voters who might have been tuned out and less engaged. It has also given Democrats a message to run on that changes the topic from inflation and gas prices. I still see the economy as a huge driver of this midterm, which is why I still think at this point Republicans are in an OK position. But there’s a reason Democratic candidates have been running ads about abortion.Douthat: Erick, you just said you might have underestimated the Dobbs effect. Do you think G.O.P. politicians were actually prepared to have abortion back in democratic debate?Erickson: I have been more than a bit perplexed at the G.O.P.’s surprise over the Dobbs decision, considering it leaked weeks before it was official. They had time to prepare for it and find some common ground and never seemed to get on the same page. By not being prepared, they allowed more aggressive voices on the issue to spook voters. When you have loud voices in the G.O.P. start talking about making abortion a criminal offense after Dobbs, that tends to spook people.Still, I do continue to think the economy is going to be disproportionately at play in the election. As Kristen said, more Democrats will turn out than otherwise would have pre-Dobbs, but the G.O.P. should be OK if the party focuses on the economy and inflation.Douthat: Well, unless inflation continues to diminish, right? It seems like Republicans have pushed a lot of chips onto that issue. Do you both think the G.O.P. needs a highly inflationary economy or a potential recession to win Congress this fall?Anderson: I’m certainly not rooting for a bad economy. But there is typically a link between people’s perceptions of the economy and their willingness to stick with the party in power. It is worth noting that inflation and rising gas prices were an issue where even Democrats were expressing concerns before Dobbs. Republicans rightly saw it as an issue on which their party had two key things going for them: Independents thought it was a top issue, and voters trusted Republicans more on it.Erickson: We are not going to see deflation, so reduced inflation is still inflation.Anderson: It’s also worth noting that even though the chatter in Washington seems to be that inflation is fading fast as an issue for voters, I’m not necessarily buying that that’s the case.Erickson: Yeah, as a dad who does a lot of the grocery shopping and cooking, milk and meat are still expensive, even if not as expensive as they were a few months ago, and wage increases for Americans have not offset the costs of many consumer goods.Douthat: Have Republicans focused too much on the economy at the expense of other issues that might have worked for them — crime, immigration, even education?Anderson: Crime and immigration are areas where Republicans have an advantage with voters, but those issues just haven’t been as salient with them.Erickson: Republicans have a comprehensive story to tell about the deterioration of the quality of life in America.Douthat: Let’s talk about the candidates who are trying to tell that story. Erick, you’re in Georgia, where Herschel Walker is the G.O.P. nominee for Senate and not exactly impressing on the campaign trail. Popular Republican governors in swing states passed up Senate races, presumably because they didn’t want to deal with the demands of Trumpism, and now you’ve got G.O.P. candidates trailing in the polls everywhere from Arizona to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin.How bad is the candidate problem, and can a Walker or a Dr. Oz still win?Erickson: I’ll take the last part first. The G.O.P. has managed to nominate some clunkers of candidates. But yes, Republicans can still win. This is actually why I am a bit hesitant now to embrace the national narrative of this election.Walker is a flawed candidate, but the national narrative has the race worse than it actually is. Walker has actually been ahead in some recent polls. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair recently mentioned races he expected to do well in, and Georgia was not on the list. On the ground in Georgia, Walker has retooled his campaign, brought in new people, and the crowds are growing as his air war likely intensifies.Oz and Blake Masters are not great. But the political environment can get some of these flawed candidates elected. Remember, in 1980, a bunch of Republicans got elected as “accidental” senators; they were swept into office by Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory and because the national mood was so dour. Also, it is worth noting that in 2020, the G.O.P. exceeded expectations, and pollsters still do not have good answers for why they missed that. We could be experiencing part of that again.Douthat: Let me pitch that point to you, Kristen: Not only Republicans but a lot of liberals are very hesitant to trust polls showing big Democratic advantages in Senate races, especially in Midwestern states, given the record Erick mentions. How doubtful should we be about polling in this cycle?Anderson: I’m far from a poll truther or unskewer or what have you. But I am keenly aware of the ways in which public polling can miss the mark. And it is notable that in some of the last few election cycles, we’ve had public polls that told a very rosy story about Democratic Senate candidates that did not pan out and lost to incumbent Republicans. Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins, anyone? I’m also thinking of 2018, where states like Indiana and Missouri were considered tossup or close races in a blue-wave year and yet Republicans won.At the same time, those 2018 examples show that it is possible for candidates to outperform expectations even in the face of a wave that is supposed to be crashing the other direction.Douthat: Do you think the polling industry has substantially adjusted since 2020? Are the polls we’re seeing of, say, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin more trustworthy than past polling, in your view?Anderson: I’ll use a recent example to highlight my concerns. In Florida we just had a big primary election, and one of the major polls that got released before the primary showed in the governor’s race, the more progressive candidate, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, ahead of the more centrist Democrat and former Republican, Charlie Crist. The poll was very transparent in its methodology, but the underlying data had a large number of college-educated voters. Even if you do the appropriate things with data weighting, that underlying data is skewing quite progressive. Crist actually defeated Fried by a wide margin.I don’t say this to criticize those pollsters, as they were transparent about their data, but if Democrats are extra fired up to vote right now, there’s a chance they’re also extra fired up to take polls.Douthat: But we do have a few actual results, from the abortion referendum in Kansas to the recent special election in New York, where liberal causes and Democratic candidates have done well in real voting, not just in polls.How much do you read into those kinds of election results?Anderson: The Kansas result was a wake-up call for Republicans. It showed Democrats making real strides in speaking to voters in the center about abortion using language those voters might use and tapping into values those centrist voters might hold. But I’m reluctant to say that special election results are transferable to other races in other states on other issues.Erickson: I’m doubtful we can really extrapolate Kansas to the rest of the nation.Douthat: Erick, let’s talk about Donald Trump, because the other big change from the summer is that the former president is back in the headlines. Assuming, as seems likely, that the classified-documents scandal is somewhat frozen from here till Election Day, how long a shadow does Trump cast over the midterms?Erickson: Democrats have said for some time they wanted Trump to be an aspect of their 2022 argument. He, of course, wants to be part of it as well. Republicans have been terrible about taking the bait and talking about Trump. To the extent the G.O.P. is willing to ignore their reflexive “stand by your man” impulse and instead focus on the economy, education, crime, etc., they can move past his shadow quickly.I’m just not optimistic Republicans can do that, given their prior behavior on the matter.Douthat: And Kristen, as Erick says, from the Democratic side and especially the Biden White House, there seems to be a clear desire to make the midterms about Trumpism. That didn’t work particularly well for Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race last year. Is it a better strategy now?Anderson: In a midterm, the party out of power always wants it to be a referendum, while the party in power wants it to be a choice.The problem with Trump becoming more in the news is that it helps Democrats try to make it a choice. It gives them a prominent foil. But simply saying, “Don’t vote for candidate X because of Trump” isn’t foolproof.Douthat: If a bunch of Trump-picked candidates lose their Senate or governor races, does it weaken him for 2024 at all?Erickson: I have resigned myself to Trump’s core supporters insisting the G.O.P. establishment undermined those candidates in order to stop Trump and the only way to chart a better course is to double down on Trump. They will blame Mitch McConnell and others before Trump gets blame.Anderson: It is notable that when my firm asked Republican voters if they thought Trump was helping or hurting Republican candidates in the midterms, 61 percent said he was helping, and only 27 percent said hurting. This was from a survey we did in August.Even among Republicans who don’t think of themselves as “Trump first,” putting him before their party, a majority view him as helping. Granted, some of this may be Republican respondents circling the wagons in response to the question. But I doubt a poor showing in the midterms will lead to blaming Trump.Erickson: If Democrats really do want Trump to go away, they should just ignore him. Before the F.B.I. going to Mar-a-Lago, Republicans were doing their slow walk away from Trump. I somewhat suspect Democrats really want to keep Trump’s position in the G.O.P. elevated because independent voters just do not seem to care for the guy, and that gives Democrats an edge while making a 2024 Republican primary messy.The bigger issue for Trump is major donor support. Those people will see a need to move on. Trump will be less able to rely on larger dollar donors to build out 2024 than he did in 2020, though he won’t need them as much, since he can raise a lot from small-dollar donors. If they, however, consolidated behind someone else, it could cause problems for Trump.Douthat: OK, time to ask for predictions. Out of the competitive Senate races where G.O.P. candidates are seen as struggling or the race is just close — let’s say Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada, because I think J.D. Vance will win Ohio — which ones do you think are the most likely G.O.P. wins, and which the most likely Democratic victories?Erickson: The G.O.P. takes Georgia. The Democrats take Pennsylvania and hold Arizona. The G.O.P. takes Nevada. I continue to think Ron Johnson wins his re-election in Wisconsin, too. I agree on Vance and think the national narrative there is out of sync with Ohio voters, who’ve moved more Republican.Anderson: I have the same choices as Erick: Republicans taking Georgia and Democrats taking Pennsylvania. That’s not to say I think those are rock solid, and the Pennsylvania race is just strange in general.Douthat: And if the economy worsens and the possibility of a red wave returns, what could be the most unexpected G.O.P. pickup?Anderson: I keep hearing buzz around this Washington Senate race. Republicans are very happy with their candidate there, Tiffany Smiley, who is a former triage nurse. A female candidate with a health care background could be powerful in this cycle.Erickson: I would keep my eye on the Colorado Senate race and the Oregon gubernatorial race. Also, New Hampshire remains in play, though the G.O.P. needs to settle on a candidate.Douthat: Final predictions — give me House and Senate numbers for Republicans.Erickson: I’m going with 51 in the Senate and 235 in the House.Anderson: I’ll say 230 seats in the House and 51 in the Senate. But I would also like to note that we are two months away.Douthat: Your sensible humility is duly noted, Kristen. Thanks to you both for a terrific discussion.Ross Douthat is a Times columnist. Kristen Soltis Anderson, the author of “The Selfie Vote,” is a Republican pollster and a co-founder of the polling firm Echelon Insights. Erick Erickson, the host of the “Erick Erickson Show,” writes the newsletter Confessions of a Political Junkie.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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      The Florida activist poised to become the first Gen Z member of Congress – video

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      Maxwell Frost, at just 25 years old, has won a competitive primary in Florida’s heavily Democratic 10th congressional district. That gives him a strong chance of becoming a member of the US House of Representatives – and the first generation Z candidate to do so. Before his victory, the Guardian’s Oliver Laughland met him during his campaign to talk about why he decided to enter the race and what he hopes  to achieve as in Congress 

      ‘I’ve always had these crazy ideas’: the 25-year-old Uber driver bidding to become the first Gen Z member of Congress More

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      The Florida activist hoping to become the first Gen Z member of Congress – video

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      Maxwell Frost, at just 25 years old, has won a competitive primary in Florida’s heavily Democratic 10th congressional district. That gives him a strong chance of becoming a member of the US House of Representatives – and the first generation Z candidate to do so. Before his victory, the Guardian’s Oliver Laughland met him during his campaign to talk about why he decided to enter the race and what he hopes  to achieve as in Congress 

      ‘I’ve always had these crazy ideas’: the 25-year-old Uber driver bidding to become the first Gen Z member of Congress More

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      ‘I’ve always had these crazy ideas’: the 25-year-old Uber driver bidding to become the first Gen Z member of Congress

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      Interview‘I’ve always had these crazy ideas’: the 25-year-old Uber driver bidding to become the first Gen Z member of CongressAndrew Lawrence Maxwell Alejandro Frost has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders and the gun-control activist has won a Democratic primary in Florida – but he still drives a taxi to make ends meet. Can he now make history?It’s been a decade since Maxwell Alejandro Frost launched his first big campaign. He was 15 years old, coming off a stint volunteering on Barack Obama’s reelection bid and desperate to attend the president’s second inauguration. In an online search for tickets, Frost stumbled across a page soliciting applications to perform in the inaugural parade. So he submitted what he thought was the perfect act to represent central Florida, the region he calls home: his nine-piece high-school salsa band, Seguro Que Sí (translation: “of course”). “I got some videos together, wrote about our band and how we would love to represent Florida and specifically the growing Latino population,” says Frost. Weeks later, he received a call while in class from the inaugural committee inviting his band to play if they could get a US senator to vouch for them and fund the trip to Washington DC themselves. When Frost totted up the costs of transport, lodging, food and the band’s float, he arrived at a figure of $13,000. His headteacher told him the school did not have the funds or the pull to make the trip happen and suggested backing out. But Frost was undaunted.He spent his Thanksgiving break doorstepping local businesses for donations and raised $5,000. He blitzed the office of Bill Nelson, Florida’s ranking US senator, with beseeching phone calls and, after two weeks, had his recommendation letter. Eventually, Frost’s school had a change of heart and added a matching pledge. Impressed, the inaugural committee picked up the cost of the float.On inauguration day, there was no missing Seguro Que Sí as they glided down Pennsylvania Avenue in matching black overcoats and red scarves, with Frost leading on the timbales. No sooner had the president and first lady heard them than they shot up from their seats to sway along. For Frost, the moment is a testament to the power of community organising. “Me and a bunch of teenagers got our band to DC, and we made the president dance,” Frost says. “I’ve always had these crazy ideas. Sometimes they work out. Sometimes they don’t.”Frost’s latest folly, running for a seat in the House of Representatives, seems to be working out so far, too. Last month he emerged from a field of 10 Democrats to comfortably win the primary for Florida’s 10th congressional district, which comprises a sizeable chunk of Orlando. This is after Val Demings, the thrice-elected Democratic incumbent, stepped down to challenge Marco Rubio’s US Senate seat.In a state where politics are increasingly defined by Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and other old, conservative white men, Frost cuts against the grain. An Afro-Cuban progressive who is barely old enough to legally hire a car, Frost fights for universal healthcare and against gun violence. (Which is to say: he’d fit right in with The Squad.) He wasn’t born into a political dynasty or educated at an Ivy League university. He was adopted at birth and went to college online – “before it was cool,” jokes the political science major, who is still a few credits short of finishing his degree. And despite raising more than $1.5m for the campaign, more than any candidate in the race by a wide margin, Frost doesn’t come from means. To make ends meet, he drives for Uber. In between, he keeps fuelled with a steady diet of egg, cheese and avocado sandwiches. (“I love breakfast sandwiches,” he gushes.) He hopes his campaign motivates more regular people to run for office.If Frost wins his seat in the midterm elections in November, it won’t just be a victory for the working class. It will also mark the first time a member of generation Z is voted to Congress. (Aged 25, he’s just old enough to legally run.) Ask Frost why he is chasing history instead of making TikToks, swiping right and otherwise whiling away his youth, and he will cite the inspiration he took from Amanda Litman, a former Hillary Clinton aide and founder of Run For Something, an organisation that encourages young progressives to enter politics. “She said: ‘You don’t run for office at 25 years old because it’s the next step in your career, or the thing you’ve been planning since you were in kindergarten or college. You run because there was a problem so piercing driving you, and you can’t imagine doing anything else with your time,’” he says. “For me, that encapsulates it. There’s so much work that needs to happen.”Frost has been at it for a while. After the school shooting at Sandy Hook in 2012, in which 20 children and six adults were killed, he started an organisation to end gun violence – a scourge that has become such a constant during his life that he refers to generation Z by a different name: “the mass shooting generation.” Even his post-primary mini-break to Charleston, South Carolina, was rocked by a pair of Labor Day weekend shootings – one downtown that left five people injured, and another that sent a 13-year-old to hospital.In recent years in Florida alone, there has been the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, (where 14 students and three staff members were killed), and the 2016 shooting at the gay Orlando nightclub, Pulse (which killed 49 people). Besides Obama’s reelection, Frost has volunteered on the political campaigns of Clinton and Bernie Sanders and worked for the ACLU. In 2018, he helped to pass Florida amendment 4, which restored voting rights to 1.5 million Floridians with felony convictions.Frost’s political endorsements run the gamut from Sanders to Parkland survivor David Hogg to the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, which fights for gun reform and abortion rights. But it was while he was national organising director of March for Our Lives – the group formed by Parkland student survivors – that Frost announced himself as a political star who would not be intimidated by gun-rights champions.He recounts how, while on a barnstorming awareness tour called Road to Change, he and his fellow activists were tailed by a group called the Utah Gun Exchange in an armoured car. It was scary, he says: “Like, wow, I’m travelling with a bunch of school shooting survivors, and these people are brandishing weapons. One day we were just like: ‘Screw it.’ We parked the bus, walked back there and started talking to them.” That led to long conversations and even agreements on some things, such as background checks. It is moments like these that give Frost the confidence that he can reach across the aisle and forge bonds that yield meaningful legislation. But when those respectful conversations can’t happen, Frost won’t hesitate to force the issue. If elected, he says he will push for a ban on assault weapons, dismantle the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun lobbies, and create a national gun-violence taskforce made up of young, Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) representatives.Three months ago, Frost created a national stir when he confronted Florida governor DeSantis at an Orlando event after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed. In a widely circulated video posted on his Twitter page, Frost can be seen haranguing DeSantis to do something about gun violence. “Nobody wants to hear from you,” DeSantis sniffs, as Frost is escorted away. “I’m not afraid to pull up,” Frost says. “I have been Maced. I’ve been to jail for talking about what I believe in. So the threshold for un-comfortability is higher than the average person’s.”Despite his obvious maturity, Frost is prepared to follow in the august tradition of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin and other young politicians who have been pilloried for acting their age. His youth is an obvious line of attack for his Republican opponent, Calvin Wimbish, a 72-year-old former Green Beret, who was carrying out intelligence operations in Iraq while Frost was still wearing GapKids clothes. But Frost isn’t about to straighten up for any opponent; if they go low, he’ll limbo lower. “You’re gonna see me at concerts,” he says. “You’re gonna see me drumming. You’re gonna see me dancing. I was just at a library, and somebody came up to me and said: ‘I saw you dancing on stage on election day and it made me really happy to see a politician dancing.’“We’ve been conditioned to think politicians should behave a certain way. That’s why I danced on that stage after my speech. I want to give people a little taste of me and demystify the whole thing for them. I am you, you are me; I’m a small piece of a bigger puzzle.”As an Afro-Cuban on the campaign trail, Frost runs the risk of being othered by potential voters in either group. But beneath his mixed heritage and adoption story is a lot of common ground. His adoptive mother came to the US as a child in the 1960s, via a Freedom Flight from Cuba, with his grandmother and aunt; between them, they had one suitcase and no money. His childhood is full of fond memories of sumptuous food and weekend trips to south Florida. Frost’s adoptive father, a white Kansan, was a full-time steel pan player who introduced him to John Coltrane and Earth, Wind & Fire, and gifted him a drum kit in the second grade. “Not to get too deep, but when he showed me the wonder of culture, art and music, it changed my life,” Frost says. “It opened me up to what it means to be vulnerable and what it means to allow art to make you vulnerable.”Frost did not anticipate his rising political profile would result in him running for office this soon. Even as Democratic operatives recruited Frost after Demings announced her intention to unseat Rubio, Frost was content working in the grassroots. But then last July, Frost reconnected with his biological mother. Among other things, she disclosed that she had been battling with drugs, crime and poverty when Frost was born. “What made the conversation even more powerful was that I never meant to have it,” he says. “Not because I hated her, but because I was living my life.” She explained that she had given up Frost for adoption not to give him a chance for a better life, but to spare him for something even greater. After their chat Frost was convinced: he was running for Congress.So far, the Frost campaign’s biggest gains have come the old-fashioned way, through a disciplined and methodical ground game. He has been especially deliberate about canvassing the University of Central Florida and its 70,000 students, many of them in-state local people. “We had Nights for Frost, with a group of young people knocking on doors,” he says. “We did ‘dorm storms’ multiple times. All too often people write off the youth vote because it hasn’t performed as much as other [groups]. But we also have to recognise that there are so many structural barriers that impact young people going to vote. We have a lot of work to do that spans beyond registering voters. It’s not just talking to people when they’re 18, but talking to people when they’re 16, 14 – creating lifelong advocates, not just waiting until they’re 18.” Frost doesn’t just understand where young people are coming from; he’s in the same boat. He lives with his girlfriend and his sister. When they were priced out of their apartment last October, he couch-surfed and slept in his car for a month before he found a new place. “I couldn’t go back home because my 97-year-old grandmother lives there, and this was in the middle of the Delta variant,” he says.Now in a new apartment, he is splitting $2,100 a month rent, which is still too high, he says. He has made up his mind to move out when the lease expires in November, potentially leaving him unhoused on election day. If he wins, he says he wouldn’t get paid until February at the earliest. Technically, he could take a stipend from his campaign fund now, but he would rather not give the Wimbish campaign or its allies any ammunition. To soften the potential blow to come, he hit the Uber trail hard and completed 60 rides one weekend. This is in between pulling 70-hour weeks on the campaign. So when he talks with urgency about the affordable housing crisis, it’s real. “There’s still a lot of barriers for working-class people to run for office,” he says. “I want to be the voice who shows how messed up it is and help demystify the process.”When it comes to considering his potential political legacy, though, to hear Frost tell it, if he does his job right, he won’t be in it for long. “I want to live in a world where you don’t have to care about politics,” he says, “where these political clubs just don’t exist. March for Our Lives doesn’t exist. MSNBC is irrelevant. TV is all about entertainment because the government is working for you. Yeah, that’s utopian, but it’s what we need to work toward.”TopicsUS politicsFloridaDemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      FBI searched Trump Mar-a-Lago home over ‘likely’ efforts to hide classified files, justice department says

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      FBI searched Trump Mar-a-Lago home over ‘likely’ efforts to hide classified files, justice department saysCourt filing alleges files were found despite Trump lawyers saying all documents had been returned The FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after it obtained evidence there was probably an effort to conceal classified documents in defiance of a grand jury subpoena and despite his lawyers suggesting otherwise, the justice department said in a court filing.The recounting – contained in a filing from the justice department that opposed Trump’s request to get an independent review of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago – amounted to the most detailed picture of potential obstruction of justice outlined to date by the government.“Efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the justice department alleged in its filing on Tuesday night.Among the new revelations in the 36-page filing were that FBI agents recovered three classified documents from desks inside Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago and additional classified files from a storage room, contrary to what the former president’s lawyers indicated to the justice department.The justice department said in the submission that, after a Trump lawyer in May accepted service of a subpoena for materials removed from the White House, the lawyer and Trump’s records custodian in June gave the government a single Redweld legal envelope, double-taped, that contained the documents.As Trump’s lawyer and custodian turned over the folder to Jay Bratt, the justice department’s chief counterintelligence official, the custodian produced and signed a letter certifying a “diligent search” had been conducted and all documents responsive to the subpoena were being returned.The lawyer for the former president also stated to Bratt that all the records in the envelope had come from one storage room at Mar-a-Lago, that there were no other records elsewhere at the resort, and that all boxes of materials brought from the White House had been searched, the justice department said.The custodian who signed the letter has been identified by two sources familiar with the matter as Christina Bobb, a member of Trump’s in-house counsel team, though a copy of the letter reproduced by the justice department in the filing redacted the custodian’s name. But the FBI subsequently uncovered evidence through multiple sources that classified documents remained at Mar-a-Lago in defiance of the subpoena, and that other government records were “likely” concealed and removed from the storage room, according to the filing.The justice department said in its submission that the evidence – details of which were redacted in the search warrant affidavit partially unsealed last week – allowed it to obtain a warrant to enter Mar-a-Lago, where FBI agents found more classified documents in Trump’s private office.“The government seized 33 items of evidence, mostly boxes,” from its search of Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida, the filing said. “Three classified documents that were not located in boxes, but rather were located in the desks in the ‘45 Office’, were also seized.”Illustrating the contents of the 8 August seizure, in an exhibit resembling how the justice department would show the results of a drug bust, the filing included a photo of the retrieved documents emblazoned with classification markings including “top secret” and “secret” designations.The justice department added that the documents collected most recently by the FBI included materials marked as “sensitive compartmented information”, while other documents were so sensitive that the FBI counterintelligence agents reviewing the materials needed additional security clearances.“That the FBI,” the filing said, “recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former president’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform, calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification.”After painting an extraordinary portrait of the hurdles that the justice department had to overcome to even recover the documents that belong to the government, prosecutors argued that Trump had no basis to seek the appointment of a so-called special master to review the files.The request for a special master in this case fails, the filing argued, because Trump is attempting to use the potential for executive privilege to withhold documents from the executive branch – which the supreme court decided in Nixon v GSA did not hold.The justice department added that even if Trump could somehow successfully assert executive privilege, it would not apply to the current case because the documents marked classified were seized as part of a criminal investigation into the very handling of the documents themselves.Trump is expected to press on with his request for a special master and to obtain a more detailed list of materials taken from Mar-a-Lago, according to a source close to his legal team, which also disputed that the justice department’s filing raised the likelihood for an obstruction charge.On Tuesday morning, before the justice department filed its response minutes before a court-imposed midnight deadline, Trump added a third lawyer, the former Florida solicitor general Christopher Kise, to his outside legal team, said two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. TopicsDonald TrumpFBIMar-a-LagoFloridaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Artemis generation’: Nasa to launch first crew-rated rocket to moon since 1972

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      ‘Artemis generation’: Nasa to launch first crew-rated rocket to moon since 1972Test flight that will have no human crew aboard aims to return humans to the moon and eventually land them on Mars For the first time in 50 years, Nasa on Monday is planning to launch the first rocket that can ferry humans to and from the moon.The giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is scheduled to take off from Nasa’s Cape Canaveral, Florida, complex at 8.33am ET (1.33pm UK time) atop an unmanned Orion spacecraft that is designed to carry up to six astronauts to the moon and beyond.The 1.3m mile Artemis I test mission – slated to last 42 days – is aiming to take the Orion vehicle 40,000 miles past the far side of the moon, departing from the same facility that staged the Apollo lunar missions half a century ago.Artemis 1 rocket: what will the Nasa moon mission be carrying into space?Read moreNasa’s Space Shuttle program in the intermediary launched manned missions orbiting the earth in relatively near outer space before its discontinuation in 2011. Private American space companies such as Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX have since flown missions similar to the shuttle program. But Artemis I’s job is to begin informing Nasa whether the moon can act as a springboard to eventually send astronauts to Mars, which would truly bring the stuff of science fiction to life.US taxpayers are expected to put up $93bn to finance the Artemis program. But in the days leading up to Monday’s launch, Nasa administrators insisted that Americans would find the cost to be justified.“This is now the Artemis generation,” the Nasa administrator and former space shuttle astronaut Bill Nelson said recently. “We were in the Apollo generation. This is a new generation. This is a new type of astronaut.”For Monday’s debut, the only “crew members” aboard Orion are mannequins meant to let Nasa evaluate its next-generation spacesuits and radiation levels – as well as a soft Snoopy toy meant to illustrate zero gravity by floating around the capsule.TopicsNasaSpaceThe moonMarsFloridaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Ron DeSantis’s Florida

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      How the Republican governor is turning the swing state into a right-wing laboratory.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who appears to be preparing to run for president in 2024, has achieved a national platform by leaning into cultural battles. He signed laws limiting what teachers can teach about race, sexual orientation and gender identity, and he recently suspended an elected prosecutor who said he would refuse to enforce the state’s anti-abortion laws.DeSantis is up for re-election in November. I spoke to my colleague Patricia Mazzei, who as The Times’s Miami bureau chief has tracked his rise, about how DeSantis has changed life in Florida.German: Where do you see DeSantis’s impact on Florida?Patricia: He was elected by just 32,000 votes or so but has governed as if he had a mandate to reshape the state into a laboratory for right-wing policies.Tuesday’s primary didn’t have big-name Republicans on the ballot, so DeSantis got involved in school board races. These are traditionally nonpartisan and sleepy. But he endorsed 30 candidates, and he campaigned for them. And he succeeded: So far, 20 of his endorsed candidates have won outright, and five are going to runoffs.This is an example of trying to turn the state red — not just at the top level, but by starting at the bottom. That builds the bench of candidates who will back him as they go on to make their own political careers. It’s leaving a longer-lasting legacy of the policies and politics he espouses. School board decisions affect parents’ and their children’s lives on a daily basis by deciding what will be in school curriculums.The focus on schools reminds me of the quote from the conservative Andrew Breitbart that “politics is downstream from culture” — meaning that to win elections, partisans first need to shape culture. Changing what the next generation learns about seems like a clear attempt to change the culture, as does DeSantis signing an education bill that critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” law.I went to one of the campaign events for these school boards last weekend in Miami-Dade County. There, the lieutenant governor — DeSantis’s running mate — said, “Our students should go to school to learn their ABC’s, not their L.G.B.T.’s.”But Florida is not entirely a red state. For example, Miami is often called a gay mecca. How do you reconcile that with DeSantis signing the education law?Generally speaking, the people of Florida are less conservative than their leaders. We’ve seen that in statewide ballot initiatives: Voters went against gerrymandering, passed medical marijuana legalization and a minimum wage hike, and restored ex-felons’ voting rights.It’s just a contradiction in the politics. People who live in strictly red or strictly blue areas of the country may not know this. But where I am, if you go into a family gathering, party, anything, you never assume that everybody thinks the way you do. Even in cities like Miami or Orlando, where people are more liberal, your co-worker, neighbor, cousin and parents may have diametrically opposed political views.How has DeSantis succeeded in this environment? The typical formula has been to act as a moderate, but DeSantis has openly embraced the hard right.He has long been a Trump supporter and was a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus when he was in Congress. He got elected governor in 2018 by winning Trump’s endorsement and running a tongue-in-cheek ad with a jaunty tune and DeSantis exhorting his oldest child to “build the wall” with toy blocks.But he governed his first year by trying to lie low.Then came the pandemic. He tried to keep the state open, and he seemed to take criticisms of his looser pandemic policies personally. He started to score political points by portraying himself as a foe of the “corporate media” that conveyed virus restrictions endorsed by public health experts.You can talk to independents, even Democrats, who may not necessarily vote for him, but they remember the lasting impact DeSantis’s policies had on their children, that they could go to school. They are happy they were able to keep their businesses open.Is there a political risk for DeSantis’s re-election campaign in overreaching?He has so many advantages built in for him. He’s got a lot of money right now. He’s got Republicans down the ticket who are all going to campaign with him and for him. His party is much more organized in Florida, and it has a better operation to get their voters to the polls than the Democrats. It’s a governor election in a midterm year, during which Florida has reliably gone red for almost three decades.So even if there’s a feeling of overreach, is that enough for him to lose? Well, Democrats see a narrow path to victory. But it’s unlikely — it’s an uphill climb.More on Patricia Mazzei: She grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and decided to become a reporter after working as a student journalist at the University of Miami, where a professor declared her to be a “muckraker.” She began her career in 2007 and began writing for The Times in 2017.For moreDeSantis is trying to channel the same culture war issues as Donald Trump, but with more discipline, The New Yorker explained in a profile.Florida teachers, worried about violating new state laws, are increasingly nervous about what they can say to their students in schools.DeSantis’s Democratic opponent for governor, Representative Charlie Crist, picked a teachers union leader as his running mate.DeSantis suspended four school board members after a Parkland school shooting report accused them of incompetence. One ousted member called the move “political retribution.”NEWSPoliticsThe redacted F.B.I. affidavit seeking court permission to search Donald Trump’s home.Jon Elswick/Associated PressProsecutors may be pursuing a theory that Donald Trump illegally obstructed Justice Department efforts to retrieve classified documents from him.Intelligence officials will review Trump’s handling of the documents for possible national security risks.President Biden’s student loan plan is the latest example of political limitations forcing Democrats to settle on patchwork solutions to solve economic problems.InternationalUkrainian women have taken on new roles in wartime, including demining and combat.Outrage over videos showing Finland’s prime minister dancing at parties led to a debate over whether she is held to a different standard than older, male leaders.Serbia’s president canceled Europride, a weeklong L.G.B.T.Q. celebration. Organizers pledged to go ahead as planned.HealthAnxious and depressed teens are increasingly prescribed multiple powerful psychiatric drugs, many of them untested in adolescents.Some public health officials expressed concern that the U.S. would fall short on distributing updated Covid vaccines in the coming weeks.Abbott Nutrition said it will resume production of its leading baby formula, months after its plant shutdown triggered a national shortage.FROM OPINIONOn women’s rights, Democrats are in an asymmetrical war. They should act like it, Maureen Dowd argues.Summer sequels are worse than ever — in politics and in movies, Pamela Paul writes.You don’t need an electric car to be as powerful as you might think, Edward Niedermeyer argues.Are you fun? Take Frank Augugliaro’s and Jessica Bennett’s quiz.Talk of secession — or even another American civil war — is escapist fantasy. We’re stuck with each other, says Sarah Vowell.The Sunday question: The way Americans pay for college is broken. What would fix it?President Biden’s plan to cancel student debt is a good start, says Suzanne Kahn, but more government funding for colleges would reduce students’ reliance on loans. Laura Arnold wants more visibility into school quality so students can know whether a loan is worth it.MORNING READSThe Giant Slide in Detroit.“The waxing was a little robust”: A giant slide sent a few too many riders airborne.The office’s last stand: It’s either the end of the flexibility era — or the beginning of rebellion.Chill out: San Franciscans are done apologizing for their cold summers.Sunday routine: An attendant keeps the clock for tennis players at a New York park.Advice from Wirecutter: Bug zappers kill the wrong bugs.A Times classic: How often should you really wash your hair?BOOKSGetting published: The industry is intimidating. How does a writer break in?By the Book: James Hannaham resists the very idea of genres.Times best sellers: “Diana, William, and Harry,” a biography by James Patterson and Chris Mooney, is a hardcover nonfiction best seller. See all our lists here.THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINEArielle Bobb-Willis for The New York TimesOn the cover: Has Coco Gauff’s moment arrived?All the tips: How to do everything.The Ethicist: Is it OK that my friend keeps her anti-abortion views quiet?Eat: The seasonal gems of Japanese fruit sandwiches.Screenland: The app Be-Real captures our nostalgia for a simpler online era.Read the full issue.THE WEEK AHEADWhat to Watch ForNASA will launch a giant rocket on Monday in a first unmanned test of a spacecraft that aims to take astronauts to the moon for the first time in nearly a half-century.The C.D.C. director, Rochelle Walensky, is expected to decide whether to offer doses of an updated Covid booster after an advisory panel meets Thursday and Friday.The Labor Department will release employment data for August on Friday.The MTV Video Music Awards are tonight. LL Cool J, Nicki Minaj and Jack Harlow are the hosts.Tennis’s U.S. Open will start Monday. The men’s star Novak Djokovic will miss the tournament because he is unvaccinated and was not allowed into New York.What to Cook This WeekDavid Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Hadas Smirnoff.Freed from picky eaters for a week (read: kids at camp), Margaux Laskey rounded up spicy, vegetable-abundant weeknight options, including spicy and saucy cherry tomato pasta, saag paneer and skillet chicken thighs with brown butter corn.NOW TIME TO PLAYHere’s a clue from the Sunday crossword:98 Across: Bridge that’s painted International OrangeTake the news quiz to see how well you followed the week’s headlines.Here’s today’s Spelling Bee. Here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times.Matthew Cullen, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More