Governors (US)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Hard-Line Republican Leads Race to Succeed Louisiana’s Democratic Governor

      by

      Should Jeff Landry, the state attorney general and front-runner, win, he will likely drive Louisiana further right on issues such as crime and L.G.B.T.Q. rights.Jeff Landry, the hard-line conservative leading the race for governor of Louisiana, surveyed the crowd packed into a small restaurant in Monroe, where his staff had covered the tables and a lone Halloween skeleton in his blue-and-yellow campaign merchandise.“How would y’all like to finish this in October?” Mr. Landry, the state attorney general, said, teasing the possibility of his winning the state’s all-party primary outright this Saturday and foreclosing the need for a runoff election next month.He did not offer specifics about any issues. He did not mention any of his opponents, whom he has largely refused to debate. But his undisputed status as the race’s front-runner has suggested that for much of Louisiana, there has been little need for him to do any of that.Mr. Landry has parlayed his aggressive litigation against the Biden administration and Gov. John Bel Edwards, a conservative Democrat who is term-limited, into a huge war chest, a slew of early Republican endorsements and what appears to be a comfortable lead in a crowded primary field.Also on the ballot in Saturday’s “jungle primary” are two Democrats, four independents and seven other Republicans, none of whom have had the same visibility in recent years as Mr. Landry has had as a headline-making statewide office holder.Should he win and cement Republican dominance of Louisiana government — Republicans already have a supermajority in the state House and Senate, and former President Donald J. Trump won about 60 percent of the state vote in both 2016 and 2020 — there is little question that Mr. Landry will drive the state further to the right on issues such as crime, the environment and L.G.B.T.Q. rights.“You can’t just be for the white collar — you’ve got to be for the blue collar, the no collar, the no shirt,” Shawn Wilson, a Democratic candidate, center, told union workers in Gonzales, La. “You’ve got to be for everybody.”Emily Kask for The New York Times“I think the key to leadership is solving problems, creating coalitions, bringing people together,” said Stephen Waguespack, a Republican candidate. “In modern politics, that’s hard to sell.”Emily Kask for The New York TimesThe sea change in leadership would come at a moment when Louisiana is losing population while most of its Southern neighbors boom, with employers and families worried about growing brain drain, intensifying natural disasters and soaring insurance rates.Mr. Landry’s dominance of the field has dampened the state’s typically raucous politics, leaving the remaining candidates to essentially jockey for second place in the primary on Saturday. If nobody wins more than 50 percent of the vote, which most election watchers expect, the top two candidates will face off in a runoff on Nov. 18.Mr. Edwards, the only Democratic governor left in the Deep South, twice bucked the state’s conservative bent in elections and has retained support over his two terms. At times, he has managed to head off conservative social measures that have easily become law in nearby states run by Republicans, though he has supported stringent limits on abortion access and gun rights.The race to replace him underscores how Louisiana’s particular brand of populist, personality-driven local politics has increasingly given way to a focus on nationalized issues that split along urban and rural lines. It has also left candidates struggling to energize voters disillusioned by bitter national divisions and weary of inflation, grueling heat and the lasting toll of the coronavirus pandemic.Open to all candidates regardless of political leaning, the primary field includes Shawn Wilson, a Democrat and former state transportation secretary, and Hunter Lundy, an evangelical independent and former trial lawyer. It also includes three prominent Republicans: Sharon Hewitt, a state senator; Stephen Waguespack, a former aide to Gov. Bobby Jindal and business lobbyist, and John Schroder, the state treasurer.Hunter Lundy, left, an independent and former trial attorney, at a campaign event on Tuesday.Emily Kask for The New York Times“What we try to say is, if you want Louisiana to be different, then you have to elect a different kind of leader,” said Sharon Hewitt, a state senator, in an interview in Slidell, La. Emily Kask for The New York Times“I’m in it for the people — I’m not in it for any political party,” said Mr. Lundy, speaking to a reporter as he drove to spend time eating lamb and boudin, a Cajun sausage, with farmers in Elton, west of New Orleans. It is unclear, however, whether enough voters will accept his deep Christian nationalism or his medical skepticism.As the leading Democratic candidate, Mr. Wilson is favored to make the runoff, with multiple polls showing him in second place. Should he defy the polls, he would be the first Black candidate elected statewide in 150 years.He has emphasized his long experience working with both parties, particularly in the transportation department.“The leadership that I can provide can tamp down the extremism that only satisfies a very small portion of our state, either on the far, far left or the far, far right,” Mr. Wilson said in an interview. “That’s where the sweet spot of government is supposed to be — satisfying the masses.”At an event hosted by the Louisiana AFL-CIO in Gonzales, west of New Orleans, concerns about Mr. Landry’s views resonated with several union workers gathered to hear Mr. Wilson speak.“The next four years could be the rest of our lives,” said Sean Clouatre, 48, a Democrat and a local alderman in the Village of French Settlement. “Because of the policies they could pass and implement — it’s always harder to take them out than it is to implement them.”Mr. Landry’s fellow Republicans in the race have struggled to carve out a distinct identity.“We expected the race to be a little bit more on policy and issues,” Ms. Hewitt said. Stories of her time spent navigating the male-dominated oil and energy industries — including showering in a bathing suit on an oil rig because of a lack of doors — have resonated with some women on the campaign trail, she said.Ms. Hewitt was among those who was irked early on by the state party’s unusually speedy endorsement of Mr. Landry. Their frustration was later exacerbated by his hefty fund-raising hauls and unwillingness to participate in most candidate forums.John Schroder, the state treasurer, in the first televised debate of the Louisiana governor’s race in September.Pool photo by Sophia GermerSupporters of Mr. Landry in Monroe.Emily Kask for The New York Times“I’m trying to say you can be a conservative, but at the same time be wanting to bring people together,” said Mr. Waguespack, who has highlighted his time as the chief executive of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, rather than his years as a top aide to Governor Jindal, who quickly became unpopular as he made a failed run for president.He added, “Bringing people together is a good thing, not a weakness.”As attorney general, Mr. Landry has honed a confrontational approach, at one point suing a reporter for requesting public records related to a sexual harassment investigation into one of his aides. After a court hearing on Louisiana’s abortion law, one of the strictest in the nation, Mr. Landry said that critics could leave the state.That combative spirit has earned him support from staunch Republicans, who cheered his willingness to challenge both Mr. Edwards and the Biden administration over coronavirus vaccine mandates. He also won support for his sweeping promises to address crime and prioritize parents’ rights in education, as well as for other positions that have motivated the Republican base.“Jeff was actually fighting for us,” Kim Cutforth, a 64-year-old retiree, said of Mr. Landry’s opposition to pandemic mandates, as she waited for him to appear at a Baton Rouge restaurant on Thursday. “I loved him for it.”The other Republican candidates, she added, should “just go — let Jeff be the governor.”At his stop in Monroe, in the state’s north, he brushed off criticism that many of his stances could be too extreme for the state.Noting that Louisiana’s population has suffered one of the biggest declines in the nation, he added, “we have a structural problem here in the state, and I believe on those issues I am the most qualified person.” More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Newsom Emerges as Biden’s Top Surrogate But Promotes Himself, Too

      by

      Gavin Newsom predictably declared Joe Biden the winner of the second G.O.P. debate. Another big winner? Gavin Newsom.For much of Wednesday evening, Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, drew nearly as much attention at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif., as the Republican presidential candidates who were there for their second debate.Mr. Newsom spoke to Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. He was there before the debate, shuttling from microphone to open notebook, and stayed long after the Republican candidates headed out, thronged by reporters as he talked down the Republican field and talked up President Biden.“Clearly Joe Biden walks away with this debate,” Mr. Newsom said to a jostling crowd who sought his reaction afterward. “And maybe Donald Trump. It’s just the J.V. team. These guys are maybe running for vice president.”Mr. Newsom went to Simi Valley, aides said, at the request of the Biden campaign, which — in what has long been standard practice — assigns high-profile surrogates to talk to reporters and television correspondents at moments like this.But Mr. Newsom was no ordinary surrogate. A bundle of energy and sharp-edged quotes who seems to relish the prospect of scrapping with high-profile conservative hosts like Sean Hannity, Mr. Newsom left little doubt that he has become the leading surrogate for not only Mr. Biden but also for himself, as he considers a run for the White House in 2028. (He’s also waiting by the sidelines on the off chance that Mr. Biden ends up not running in 2024.)“What Gavin fundamentally gets is that Democrats want leaders who speak with confidence about the future with an intergenerational credibility, can take a punch but hit back harder and don’t begin their sentences with talking about House resolutions or Senate bills or various acronyms,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic consultant who has worked in national and California politics. “He goes on these shows playing to win, not as if they are a Harvard-Yale debate.”Mr. Newsom is not the only Democrat with a political future who has been out making the case for Mr. Biden. He is part of a next-generation field that includes, among others, three governors: Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois. But none have been quite as active in this slow roll-up to the Iowa caucuses as Mr. Newsom, who has been traveling across the country.“I think this is in equal service to Biden ’24 and Newsom ’28,” said Matt Bennett, a founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic organization. “He’s clearly genuine in his support for the president, and he is obvious in his intent to run someday.”And Mr. Newsom is now set to debate Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Florida Republican seeking his party’s presidential nomination, in Georgia this November. That unusual face-off — between two sitting governors, one of them a presidential candidate — came up often as Mr. Newsom boasted that he had baited Mr. DeSantis into this encounter.“Why is he doing it?” Mr. Newsom said on CNN. “The fact that he took this debate, the fact that he took the bait in relation to this debate, shows he’s completely unqualified to be president of the United States. Why is he debating a guy who’s not even running for president when he’s running for president?”Mr. Newsom made much the same point at another of his round-robin, post-debate sessions, this one with Mr. Hannity of Fox News, which will host the DeSantis-Newsom skirmish. Mr. Newsom laughed when Mr. Hannity suggested that his real agenda was positioning himself to be the Democratic candidate for president.“Joe Biden’s our president,” Mr. Newsom said. “Joe Biden is going to win this election.” More

    • 150 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis Played Both Sides of the GOP Rift Over the 2020 Election

      by

      The Florida governor created an election crimes unit that placated election deniers. It led to scores of “zany-burger” tips, and, according to one Republican, “Kabuki theater.”It resembled a political rally more than a news conference. In November 2021, exactly one year after Donald J. Trump lost the presidential election to Joseph R. Biden Jr., Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida spoke to a raucous crowd in a hotel conference room just a few miles from Mr. Trump’s home base of Mar-a-Lago.Their suspicions about vast election malfeasance would be heard, Mr. DeSantis promised. He was setting up an election police unit and he invited the crowd to send in tips about illegal “ballot harvesting,” nodding to an unfounded theory about Democrats collecting ballots in bulk.The crowd whooped and waved furiously. “He gets it!” posted a commenter watching on Rumble.But in his seven-minute, tough-on-election-crimes sermon, Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, never explicitly endorsed that theory or the many others spread by the defeated president and embraced by much of their party.In this way, for nearly three years, Mr. DeSantis played both sides of Republicans’ rift over the 2020 election. As his state became a buzzing hub of the election denial movement, he repeatedly took actions that placated those who believed Mr. Trump had won.Most prominent was the creation of an election crimes unit that surfaced scores of “zany-burger” tips, according to its former leader, disrupted the lives of a few dozen Floridians, and, one year in, has not yet led to any charges of ballot harvesting or uncovered other mass fraud.Yet Mr. DeSantis kept his own views vague. Only last month — two years, six months and 18 days after Mr. Biden was sworn into office — did Mr. DeSantis, now running for president, acknowledge that Mr. Biden had defeated Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis has said he pushed “the strongest election integrity measures in the country.” But critics say their main impact was to appease a Republican base that embraced conspiracy theories about elections — and that came with a cost.He failed to counter lies about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Florida judges are considering whether his administration overstepped its legal authority.Nathan Hart, a 50-year-old ex-felon from near Tampa, is among 32 people who have been arrested or faced warrants under the new initiative. Mr. Hart, who plans to appeal his conviction, said he lost his job as a warehouse worker because he had to show up in court. When he cast his ballot for Mr. Trump he had no idea he was ineligible to vote, he said.He and others suffered so that the governor “could have a really good photo op and make himself look tough,” he said.Workers at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department tabulating mail-in ballots in October 2020. The 2020 election was one of the smoothest in state history.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesThe 2020 AftermathTightening voting rules had not been high on Mr. DeSantis’s agenda when he first came into office in 2019. After the ballot-counting debacle during the 2000 presidential election, Florida had substantially revamped its elections. Experts considered the 2020 election, in which over 11 million Floridians voted, well run and smooth. Mr. Trump won by 371,686 votes.One significant change Mr. DeSantis made to Florida’s elections was his decision to join the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC. The data-sharing program, which had bipartisan support, helps states identify people who had moved, died or registered or voted in more than one state.When he announced the move to a group of local election supervisors, they broke into applause.But after the 2020 election, Mr. DeSantis came under concerted pressure from Mr. Trump’s loyalists. Florida became a staging ground for people promoting election conspiracy theories, including Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, and the Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne.Pressed again and again on whether he accepted Mr. Biden’s victory over Mr. Trump, Mr. DeSantis dodged. “It’s not for me to do,” he replied in December 2020. “Obviously, we did our thing in Florida. The college voted,” he said, referring to the Electoral College. “What’s going to happen is going to happen.”But within a few months, Mr. DeSantis was pushing for legislation he said would bulletproof Florida’s elections from fraud, with tighter rules for mail-in ballots, the use of drop boxes and third-party organizations that register voters.The governor signed the bill live on Fox News in May 2021.Peter Antonacci, the now-deceased former director of the election crimes unit, and Mr. DeSantis in 2022.Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel, via Associated PressElection Crimes UnitBut lobbying by the election denial movement did not end. Cleta Mitchell, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers in his effort to undo the outcome of the 2020 election, helped organize Florida activists into state and local groups through her national Election Integrity Network.Members of Defend Florida, another group, went door to door canvassing for evidence of voter irregularities. They delivered their leads to local elections officials, who, to the group’s frustration, typically investigated and dismissed them.Public records show the organization’s representatives met repeatedly with aides to the governor and other high-level members of his administration. Six months after the 2021 changes became law, Mr. DeSantis proposed the election crimes unit — a top priority, aides told lawmakers. He requested a team of state law enforcement officers and prosecutors who could bypass the local officials he suggested had turned a blind eye to voting abuses.Some lawmakers worried about giving the governor’s office too much influence over law enforcement, according to people familiar with the deliberations. The Republican-led Legislature did not explicitly authorize state prosecutors to bring voter fraud charges, as Mr. DeSantis had requested.Otherwise, the governor got much of what he wanted: $2.7 million for a 15-member investigative unit and 10 state law enforcement officers dedicated to election crimes. His administration has used prosecutors under the attorney general’s office to handle the bulk of the cases, even without the Legislature’s authorization.The new investigative unit became a receptacle for activists’ tips about fraud. Activists at times alerted conservative media outlets to their leads, generating headlines about new investigations. Some accusations poured through unusual channels.Activists in Mr. DeSantis’s home county, Pinellas, handed over one binder full of tips to Mr. DeSantis’s mother. They later heard back that the package had been successfully delivered in Tallahassee, according to two people familiar with the episode.A small team reviewing the claims found the vast bulk were not credible.“Most that comes my way has zany-burger all over it,” Peter Antonacci, the now-deceased former director of the election crimes unit, wrote to an official in a local prosecutor’s office in 2022, according to an email obtained by The New York Times through a public records request.Andrew Ladanowski, a former analyst for the unit who describes himself as an elections data hobbyist, said he spent weeks combing through voter records from the 2020 election. He had expected to find thousands of cases of illegal votes, but pickings were slim. “I can safely say there was no large-scale fraud that could have had a change in a state or a national election. It wasn’t sufficient,” he said.Jeff Brandes, a Republican former state senator who opposed the election crimes unit, described it as largely “Kabuki theater.”Five days before Florida’s 2022 primary election, the governor, then running for re-election, announced third-degree felony charges against Mr. Hart and 19 other ex-felons.Nathan Hart, a 50-year-old ex-felon from near Tampa, is among 32 people who have been charged with election crimes under the new initiative.Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post, via Getty ImagesA 2018 ballot initiative allowed former felons to vote but exempted those who had been convicted of murder or sex offenses. Defendants and their lawyers have said they were unaware of that distinction. They said they thought they could vote because the state had allowed them to register and issued them voter registration cards.At a news conference announcing the charges, Mr. DeSantis said more cases from the 2020 election were to come. “This is the opening salvo,” he said.But by the end of 2022, the unit had announced only one other case against a 2020 voter. Mr. Ladanowski said by the time he had left in December, the team had moved on to vetting the current voter rolls.As of July, the election crimes unit had referred nearly 1,500 potential cases to local or state law enforcement agencies, according to the governor’s office. Just 32 — or 2 percent — had resulted in arrests or warrants, and those cases were unrelated to the purportedly systematic abuses that elections activists claimed had tainted the 2020 election.Thirteen of the defendants had been convicted of felonies. Defense attorneys said that some ex-felons accepted plea deals simply out of fear of being sent back to prison, and that none received a stiffer penalty than probation. Appeals court judges are now considering whether the state prosecutors had the legal authority to bring charges.The election crimes unit also fined more than three dozen organizations that ran voter registration drives a total of more than $100,000 — much of that for failing to turn in the voter registration forms quickly enough.The governor has said that even a limited number of arrests will deter voter fraud. Press officers for the secretary of state and the state law enforcement agency said the DeSantis administration expected courts to eventually decide that it acted within its authority, and that investigations of mass fraud like ballot harvesting are complex, time-consuming and still open.Warning Against ‘the Left’s Schemes’Mr. DeSantis endorsed Doug Mastriano, a vocal election denier running for governor, during a rally in Pittsburgh in 2022.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesIn August 2022, the day after he announced the election crime unit’s first arrests, Mr. DeSantis went to Pennsylvania to endorse Doug Mastriano, a vocal election denier running for governor.The trip was another chance for the governor to show election activists he gets it. Onstage with a man who had worked with Mr. Trump’s lawyers to send an “alternate” slate of electors to Washington, Mr. DeSantis spoke carefully.He did not mention the 2020 result, but he stressed that his state had cracked down on illegal voters. “We’re going to hold ’em accountable,” he told an enthusiastic crowd, ending his speech with an exhortation to “take a stand against the left’s schemes.”Mr. DeSantis continued to dance around the 2020 election for another year, while his policies sent a strong message to the Republican base.In March 2023, Cord Byrd, Mr. DeSantis’s secretary of state, announced that Florida would pull out of ERIC, the system Mr. DeSantis had ordered the state to join in 2019.Only a few weeks earlier, Mr. Byrd had called ERIC the “only and best game in town” to identify people who had voted in two different states, according to the notes of a private call he had with Florida activists allied with Ms. Mitchell. The notes were provided by the investigative group Documented. In its annual report, the election crimes unit also described ERIC as a useful tool.But Ms. Mitchell’s group and other critics had attacked the system as part of a liberal conspiracy to snatch Republican electoral victories. Mr. Byrd said publicly that Florida had lost confidence in it, and his agency cited ERIC’s failure to correct “partisan tendencies.”In Florida, activists celebrated the victory. But they also want more. In interviews they said they were frustrated that the election crimes unit hasn’t brought more charges or validated their claims of mass elections malfeasance.And when Mr. DeSantis finally said last month that “of course” Mr. Biden had won the 2020 election, he faced the sort of reaction he had long tried to avoid.“It’s a betrayal,” said Wesley Huff, a Florida elections activist who has been involved in Defend Florida and other groups.Trip Gabriel More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      The Republican Party Has Devolved Into a Racket

      by

      This is the Republican Party today. In the House, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, trying to corral a fractious majority, has ordered an impeachment inquiry into President Biden over his son’s financial entanglements, even as elements in his caucus push to shut down the government unless there are drastic cuts in spending. In the Senate, Mitt Romney announced his plan to retire, having declared to his biographer that “a very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”In Wisconsin and North Carolina, G.O.P. legislators push the envelope of hardball tactics to remove or disempower Democrats in other branches of government. And in the presidential campaign, Republican contenders struggle to make the case for a non-Trump candidacy without antagonizing Donald Trump’s many supporters, and often avoid major spheres of public policy.Together these depict a party that is preoccupied with antics that crash into the guardrails of American political life and conspicuously lacks a coherent, forward-looking vision for governing. A modern political party has devolved into a racket.The country needs a right-of-center party. But today, as the G.O.P. has lost a collective commitment to solving the nation’s problems and become purposeless, the line separating party politics from political conspiracy has frayed. Mr. Trump, in this way, is the product more than the author of that collective party failure.The Georgia election case against Mr. Trump and 18 others makes for a particularly powerful X-ray of the party. The sheer array and specific identities of those indicted in the case highlights how easily a conspiracist approach to political life, unconstrained by a party now incapable of policing boundaries or channeling passions into a larger purpose beyond raw hardball, can justify and compel illicit machinations.The defendants in the Georgia case represent every major component of what scholars term a modern “party network”: formal party organizations at the state and local level (like the former Georgia party chairman David Shafer), informal activist and interest groups (like John Eastman of the Claremont Institute) and candidate-centered operations (like Harrison Floyd of Black Voices for Trump).Beyond those indicted, the broader party work of evasion and deflection contributes to the conspiracy. The posture’s stock-in-trade is an “anti-anti” discourse, which focuses on excoriating foes rather than making explicit defenses of behavior or positive arguments about plans for the country. As Senator Romney described the dynamic among his colleagues, “These guys have got to justify their silence, at least to themselves.” A conservative media ecosystem, including Fox News, helps enable a politics of performative antics and profits handsomely from it.The Trump-focused personalism that has defined Republican politics since 2015 is more a symptom than the cause of the party’s pathology. Indeed, the combined conspiracy of insider electoral malfeasance and outsider “anti-anti” attacks says less about how spellbound the party is by Mr. Trump than about how aimless it has become beyond the struggle for power and the demonization of its enemies.Conspiracism has a long provenance on the American right, reaching back to McCarthyism and the John Birch Society. So does a ruthlessly mercenary view of political parties. A speaker at the second Conservative Political Action Conference in 1975 deemed parties “no more than instruments, temporary and disposable.” Such activists soon occupied the party’s commanding heights.Along with that activism came the constriction of the party’s vision for the public good. Starting in the 1970s, Republicans won elections by marrying a regressive economic agenda with us-versus-them populist appeals. At moments like the “Reagan revolution,” Jack Kemp’s work to broaden conservatism’s appeal to more working-class voters or George W. Bush and Karl Rove’s ambition to build an enduring Republican majority around an “opportunity society,” the party’s collective effort could take on a confident and expansive cast.But the programmatic side of the party, under the leadership of figures like Paul Ryan (a Kemp protégé), came eventually to alienate even the party’s own base with an unpopular agenda more and more tailored to the affluent.By 2016, as a demagogue unleashed a hostile takeover of a hollowed and delegitimized party, the conspiracism and the transactional view of political institutions had fully joined. Conspiracism brought about active conspiracy.But conspiracy and party have an even longer history, one that stretches back to the frenzied and unbounded politics of the early Republic. In the 1790s, the emergent parties of Hamiltonian Federalists and Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans fell into personalized strife, but possessed neither the legitimacy nor the machinery to channel and stabilize the conflict. The organizers of new party activity on both sides were, to a one, avowedly antiparty politicians, and so they conceived of their efforts as a temporary expediency — emergency measures necessary to combat the nefarious conspiracies threatening to undermine the Constitution.In an era in which personal reputation was still inextricable from conflict over public matters, politicians refused to accept their opponents as legitimate, let alone as constituting a loyal opposition.For example, the vitriol and paranoia that attended the election of 1800, pitting the incumbent John Adams against Thomas Jefferson, underscored the danger that a politics unfettered by strong parties poses to the Republic. The election featured not merely epic bouts of mudslinging but credible threats of collective violence and secession from both sides.The construction of mass political parties in subsequent generations — organizations with huge electoral bases and institutions like nominating conventions for party decision-making — channeled individual ambition into collective public purposes. At times, to be sure, as when Democratic pioneers of the mass party of the 19th century aimed for a cross-sectional politics that would sideline the divisive slavery question, the stability achieved through party politics actually suppressed conflict necessary to providing genuine political alternatives.But with mass parties came a shared understanding that the erosion of collective party principle could threaten a reversion to the 18th century’s politics-as-cabal. As the early political scientist Francis Lieber put it in 1839, “all parties are exposed to the danger of passing over into factions, which, if carried still farther, may become conspiracies.”The Republican Party of the 21st century has succumbed to that danger, and so revived something of the brittle and unstable quality of politics in the Republic’s early years. This leaves the Republic itself, now as then, vulnerable.Parties organize political conflict — what the political theorists Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum term “the discipline of regulated rivalry” — but they also offer projects with visions, however blinkered and partial, for how societies should handle their challenges and build their futures.Without that commitment to solve problems, the tendencies to conspiracism and ultimately conspiracy prove harder to resist. Barring the sort of fundamental course correction that typically comes only from the defeats of many political actors in multiple elections, those tendencies inside the Republican Party will endure long after, and regardless of how, Mr. Trump departs from the scene.This is not to impugn every Republican. As confirmed by both the federal and Georgia election-related indictments, many Republican officials, like the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, resisted intense pressure to interfere with the election and did their duty. And for all their defenses of Mr. Trump against his several indictments, his Republican presidential rivals have generally shied away from taking the critical step of saying they would have acted differently from Mike Pence when the Electoral College votes were counted at the Capitol on Jan. 6.But these responsible individual actions simply cannot substitute for a conspicuously missing party project.Might that project emerge from Republican governors? Lacking the option of substituting antics for governance, they have forged viable approaches in power. Indeed, many of the country’s most popular governors are Republicans.But our polarized political system is also a nationalized one, where state-level success as a problem solver too often obstructs rather than clears a path to national influence within the Republican Party. And we have no illusions that behavior dangerous to democracy will lead to long-lasting punishment at the polls.To see the personalism around Mr. Trump in the context of the entire party is to see past the breathless statements about his magnetic appeal and to observe a party more bent on destroying its enemies than on the tough work of solving hard problems.As long as that remains so, the impulse to conspiracy will remain, and democracy will depend on keeping it in check.Sam Rosenfeld, an associate professor of political science at Colgate, and Daniel Schlozman, an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins, are the authors of the forthcoming “The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics.”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

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      In Florida, a Hurricane Can’t Bring DeSantis and Biden Together

      by

      President Biden said he would meet with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida during a visit to tour the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia. An aide to the governor said he had no such plans.In normal times, the politics of disaster dictate that a president and a governor from opposite parties come together to show the victims of a natural disaster — and potential voters across the country — that they care.These are not normal times.On Friday, a spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican seeking his party’s nomination for president, said the governor doesn’t “have any plans” to meet President Biden on Saturday when he visits a Florida community ravaged by Hurricane Idalia.At a news conference, Mr. DeSantis said he had told Mr. Biden that it “would be very disruptive to have the whole kind of security apparatus” that comes along with a presidential visit. He said he told the president that “we want to make sure that the power restoration continues, that the relief efforts continue.”The governor’s statement came just hours after Mr. Biden confirmed to reporters that he would meet with the governor during his visit to the state. White House officials responded by saying the president had told Mr. DeSantis he planned to visit before announcing it publicly — and that the governor had not expressed any concerns at that time.“President Biden and the first lady look forward to meeting members of the community impacted by Hurricane Idalia and surveying impacts of the storm,” said Emilie Simons, a deputy press secretary at the White House. “Their visit to Florida has been planned in close coordination with FEMA as well as state and local leaders to ensure there is no impact on response operations.”The discrepancy underscored the tensions between the two politicians, whose campaigns have been lashing out at each other for months. A recent Biden for President email called Mr. DeSantis a politician who oversees an “inflation hot spot” and supports an “extreme MAGA blueprint to undermine democracy.” At the Republican debate last month, Mr. DeSantis said the country is in decline under Mr. Biden and accused Mr. Biden of staying “on the beach” while the people of Maui suffered through devastating fires.The stakes are high for both men. Mr. Biden has struggled with mediocre approval ratings and arrives in Florida following criticism that his initial response to reporters on the Maui wildfires was a lackluster “no comment.” Mr. DeSantis has seen his polling numbers plummet as his onetime benefactor, former President Donald J. Trump, has become a fierce rival, attacking at every turn.Jason Pizzo, a Democratic state senator from South Florida, said Mr. DeSantis’s decision smelled like politics.“Campaign strategy has replaced civility and decorum,” Mr. Pizzo said.Politicians have been caught out in the past for acting cordial with their opponents.In 2012, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican who was considering an eventual run for president, greeted President Barack Obama warmly on a visit to New Jersey in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.“That’s what civilized people do when someone comes to your state to offer help,” Mr. Christie argued later on Fox News. “You shake their hand and you welcome them, which is what I did.”But Republicans thought the greeting — wrongly called a hug in some quarters — was too warm, and Mr. Christie suffered for it. Some of his conservative critics never forgave him for what they saw as being too friendly with the enemy.President Biden, at the White House on Friday, has struggled with mediocre approval ratings.Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesEarlier this week, before Mr. Biden announced his trip, Mr. DeSantis suggested that it was important to put politics aside in the interests of his state.“We have to deal with supporting the needs of the people who are in harm’s way or have difficulties,” Mr. DeSantis said earlier this week when asked about Mr. Biden. “And that has got to triumph over any type of short-term political calculation or any type of positioning. This is the real deal. You have people’s lives that have been at risk.”White House officials appeared to take his comments at face value. On Thursday, Liz Sherwood-Randall, the president’s top homeland security adviser, told reporters that Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis “are very collegial when we have the work to do together of helping Americans in need, citizens of Florida in need.”But 24 hours later, that collegiality appeared to have faded.Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis have put politics on hold — for the most part — in the past when faced with disaster. Mr. Biden and the governor met in the aftermath of the collapse of a condominium building and later were cordial together after Hurricane Ian.A visit on Saturday would have been their first joint event since Mr. DeSantis officially announced he was running for president.After Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida on Sept. 28, Mr. Biden waited seven days before visiting Florida on Oct. 5. Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida on Wednesday.Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis in Florida last year following the far more devastating Hurricane Ian.Doug Mills/The New York TimesHurricane Idalia, which hit Florida as a Category 3 storm, forced Mr. DeSantis off the campaign trail. But it also allowed him an opportunity to project strength, which he has not always done as a presidential candidate. Mr. DeSantis launched his candidacy with a disastrously glitchy event on Twitter. He has at times struggled to take on the front-runner for the Republican nomination, Donald J. Trump, and has repeatedly rebooted his campaign amid a fund-raising shortfall, layoffs and a shake-up of his senior staff.Facing the powerful hurricane, however, the governor sprang into action, as many Florida governors have done in the past.He blanketed local and national airwaves with hurricane briefings, telling residents in the storm’s path that they needed to evacuate. His official schedule showed that he started his workdays at 4 a.m. And early surveys after the storm had passed showed that the damage was not as severe as originally feared, even though many homes and businesses were flooded and the area’s cherished fishing industry may be in long-term peril.Mr. Biden’s administration also moved quickly to confront the storm. Officials said that by Friday there were 1,500 federal personnel in Florida dealing with the storm, along with 540 Urban Search and Rescue personnel and three disaster survivor assistance teams.FEMA made available more than 1.3 million meals and 1.6 million liters of water, officials said. Other efforts were underway by more than a half-dozen other federal agencies.So far, state officials have confirmed only one death as being storm-related as of Friday. Power had been restored to many homes. Roads and bridges were being reopened.A family sifts through belongings in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., on Thursday.Emily Kask for The New York Times“We were ready for this,” Mr. DeSantis told Sean Hannity on Fox News on Wednesday night, as he spoke in front of a historic oak tree that had fallen on the governor’s mansion. “Most of the people did evacuate, and so we’re cautiously optimistic that we’re going to end up OK on that.”(Mr. Hannity set up the interview by showing images of Mr. Biden vacationing on a beach in Delaware in mid-August.)Undoubtedly, Mr. DeSantis was helped that Idalia, while it made landfall as a Category 3 storm, struck a sparsely populated section of the Gulf Coast known as Big Bend. In contrast, Ian overwhelmed a far more dense and developed part of Florida, killing 150 people in the state and becoming its deadliest storm in decades. Rebuilding efforts from that storm are still far from over.Now, having put on a solid display in last week’s Republican debate, Mr. DeSantis will likely hope to return to the campaign trail from a position of strength. He often tells voters in Iowa and New Hampshire about his response to Ian, particularly his efforts to immediately repair bridges and causeways to barrier islands that had been cut off from the mainland. The quick return of power and low number of fatalities from Idalia may be added to that litany.And with the storm gone, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has started to resume normal operations. On Friday, his campaign sent out a fund-raising appeal, offering signed baseball caps with the phrase “Our Great American Comeback” on them.“He autographed 10 hats for us to launch a new contest for YOU to win and raise the resources we need to defeat Joe Biden,” the text appeal said. “Let’s show the nation that we have what it takes to defeat Joe Biden and the far Left.” More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      What Happens if Mitch McConnell Resigns Before His Senate Term Ends?

      by

      The longtime Republican leader froze up during a news conference on Wednesday in Kentucky. The second such episode in recent weeks, it stirred speculation about his future in the Senate.For the second time in a little over a month, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the longtime Republican leader, froze up during a news conference on Wednesday, elevating concerns about his health and his ability to complete his term that ends in January 2027.At an event hosted by the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Mr. McConnell, 81, who was elected to his seventh term in 2020, paused for about 30 seconds while responding to a reporter’s question about his re-election plans.The abrupt spell — like one at the U.S. Capitol in July — happened in front of the cameras. In March, a fall left him with a concussion. He suffered at least two other falls that were not disclosed by his office.Mr. McConnell has brushed off past questions about his health, but speculation is swirling again about what would happen in the unlikely event that he retired in the middle of his term.How would the vacancy be filled?For decades in Kentucky, the power to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate was reserved exclusively for the governor, regardless of whether an incumbent stepped down, died in office or was expelled from Congress.But with Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, in the state’s highest office, Republican lawmakers used their legislative supermajorities to change the state law in 2021.Under the new law, a state executive committee consisting of members of the same political party as the departing incumbent senator will name three candidates the governor can choose from to fill the vacancy on a temporary basis. Then a special election would be set, and its timing would depend on when the vacancy occurs.At the time that G.O.P. lawmakers introduced the change, Mr. McConnell supported the measure. Mr. Beshear, who is up for re-election this November, vetoed the bill, but was overridden by the Legislature.Who might follow McConnell in the Senate?Several Republicans could be in the mix to fill the seat in the unlikely scenario that Mr. McConnell, the longest-serving leader in the Senate, stepped down including Daniel Cameron, the state’s attorney general; Ryan Quarles, the agricultural commissioner; Kelly Craft, a former U.N. ambassador under former President Donald Trump and Representative Andy Barr.Photographs by Jon Cherry for The New York Times; Grace Ramey/Daily News, via Associated Press and Alex Brandon/Associated Press.In a state won handily by former President Donald J. Trump, several Republicans could be in the mix should Mr. McConnell, the longest-serving leader in the Senate, step down.But replacing him with a unflagging ally of the former president could rankle Mr. McConnell, who has become a fairly sharp, if cautious, critic of Mr. Trump after the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.One name to watch could be Daniel Cameron, the state’s attorney general, who is challenging Mr. Beshear in the governor’s race and has been considered at times an heir apparent to Mr. McConnell.Should he lose his bid for governor — which drew an early endorsement from Mr. Trump — talk of succession could be inevitable despite his connection to the former president.Ryan Quarles, the well-liked agricultural commissioner, might also be a contender. He lost this year’s primary to Mr. Cameron in the governor’s race.Kelly Craft, a former U.N. ambassador under Mr. Trump, who finished third in that primary, has the political connections to seemingly be part of the conversation. She is married to a coal-industry billionaire, who spent millions on advertising for her primary campaign.And then there is Representative Andy Barr, who has drawn comparisons to Mr. McConnell and who described Mr. Trump’s conduct as “regrettable and irresponsible,” but voted against impeachment after the riot at the Capitol.What have McConnell and his aides said about his health?Both times that Mr. McConnell froze up in front of the cameras, his aides have said that he felt lightheaded.But his office has shared few details about what caused the episodes or about his overall health. He missed several weeks from the Senate this year while recovering from the concussion in March, which required his hospitalization.Mr. McConnell, who had polio as a child, has repeatedly played down concerns about his health and at-times frail appearance.“I’m not going anywhere,” he told reporters earlier this year.How is Congress dealing with other lawmakers’ health issues?For the current Congress, the average age in the Senate is 64 years, the second oldest in history, according to the Congressional Research Service.Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California who is the chamber’s oldest member at 90, has faced health problems this year that have prompted growing calls for her to step down.In February, she was hospitalized with a severe case of shingles, causing encephalitis and other complications that were not publicly disclosed. She did not return to the Senate until May, when she appeared frailer than ever and disoriented.This month, she was hospitalized after a fall in her San Francisco home.Longtime senators are not the only ones in the chamber grappling with health concerns.John Fetterman, a Democrat who was Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, suffered a near-fatal stroke last May and went on to win one of the most competitive Senate seats in November’s midterm elections.Nick Corasaniti More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Trial Opens for Men Accused of Aiding Plot to Kidnap Michigan’s Governor

      by

      Three men accused of helping to surveil Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s vacation home could face more than 20 years in prison if convicted.Nearly three years ago, amid the tumult of Covid-19 and a presidential campaign, federal and state prosecutors outlined a sprawling right-wing terror plot to kidnap and possibly kill Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, at her vacation home.Since then, in courtrooms across Michigan, that investigation has led to guilty pleas, convictions at trial and two acquittals, as well as introspection about what the plot says about the country’s political discourse.This week, as another presidential election approaches, what is likely the final chapter in that case is unfolding in the same rural county as the governor’s vacation home. Three men — Michael Null and William Null, who are twin brothers, and Eric Molitor — are on trial on a charge of providing material support for a terrorist act. Prosecutors said the plot had been fueled by anti-government sentiment, militia activity and anger over pandemic lockdowns.“For the average person, it’s almost impossible to fathom how brazen and how bold and how dangerous these individuals were,” William Rollstin, a prosecutor, told jurors in state court on Wednesday. “These defendants decided to use force and violence to solve their problems.”Prosecutors have accused the Null brothers and Mr. Molitor of traveling to Antrim County, about 250 miles northwest of Detroit, to scout out the governor’s vacation home and help prepare for an attack. If convicted, they could each face more than 20 years in prison. Unlike the men convicted in federal court, they are not charged with planning to participate in the kidnapping itself.Opening arguments on Wednesday echoed many of the themes aired in two prior federal trials in Grand Rapids, as well as another in state court in Jackson, Mich.Defense lawyers tried to downplay their clients’ actions. They suggested the men were minor players who did not know much about the plans to harm Ms. Whitmer, were egged on by F.B.I. informants and were caught up in overheated pandemic-era politics.“We have police protests — I mean, cities are burning,” Kristyna Nunzio, a lawyer for William Null, said in court, describing national events in 2020. “People are scared during this time period. And it’s fair to keep that in your mind when you review all of the evidence.”But prosecutors said the defendants were aiding the leaders of the plot, Barry Croft and Adam Fox. Federal jurors found that Mr. Croft and Mr. Fox had planned to kidnap Ms. Whitmer and blow up a bridge leading to her home in order to disrupt the police response. Mr. Croft is serving a nearly 20-year prison sentence, and Mr. Fox is serving a 16-year sentence.This trial is playing out in politically conservative Antrim County, where Donald J. Trump received more than 60 percent of the vote in 2020 even as Joseph R. Biden Jr. clinched Michigan. When Ms. Whitmer won re-election in convincing fashion last year, her opponent carried Antrim County by a 14-point margin.In opening arguments, Mr. Rollstin emphasized that the underlying terror plot sought not just to harm Ms. Whitmer but also to attack members of her security detail and other law enforcement officers who might respond to the scene.“It’s much more than just the governor, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Rollstin said. William Barnett, a lawyer for Mr. Molitor, noted for the jury that Ms. Whitmer had blamed Mr. Trump’s rhetoric for the plot.“It’s all politics, folks,” Mr. Barnett said. “There’s something going on here. I don’t know what’s going on. But it looks like weaponization of the government.” More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Inside the Sputtering Campaign of Ron DeSantis

      by

      Rob Szypko and Rachel Quester and Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop and Chris Wood and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicGov. Ron DeSantis of Florida began the race for the Republican nomination with high expectations and a clear argument: that he was a political fighter with a solid record of conservative achievements in his state. Now, he appears to be in a downward spiral.Shane Goldmacher, a national political reporter for The Times, explains why the DeSantis campaign is stumbling so badly.On today’s episodeShane Goldmacher, a national political reporter for The New York Times.Ron DeSantis has cut back, reorganized, reset and refocused his presidential campaign.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesBackground readingGovernor DeSantis, who has been losing ground in polls and dealing with staffing, spending and messaging issues, has tweaked his messaging and tactics.Here are four major challenges facing his campaign.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Shane Goldmacher More