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      Jim Marchant, a Nevada Election Denier, Announces Senate Run

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      Mr. Marchant, who lost his bid for Nevada’s secretary of state last year, will now attempt to unseat Senator Jacky Rosen, the Democratic incumbent.Jim Marchant, a vocal election denier and Trump ally who lost his bid for Nevada’s secretary of state in last year’s midterm elections, declared his candidacy on Tuesday for the Senate in a swing state contest that could decide control of the chamber in 2024.Mr. Marchant, a Republican, is seeking to challenge Senator Jacky Rosen, a moderate Democrat who is in her first term. No other high-profile Republicans have entered the contest so far.During last year’s midterm elections, Mr. Marchant helped organize a national “America First” slate of secretary of state candidates, a group of right-wing election deniers whose campaigns centered on re-litigating baseless voter fraud claims. All but one of the candidates were rejected by voters.The once-obscure election oversight post has taken on heightened significance since the 2020 election. In Mr. Marchant’s race, he did not appear to concede.Mr. Marchant, 66, a former one-term assemblyman, was also part of Nevada’s alternate slate of pro-Trump electors who sought to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the state in 2020. He refused to accept the results that same year in his race for Congress, unsuccessfully challenging them in court.“There’s nothing more precious than our freedom and personal liberty,” Mr. Marchant said on Tuesday, speaking at a Las Vegas church known for having tested Nevada’s pandemic stay-at-home orders in court in 2020. “And I’m running for United States Senate to protect Nevadans from the overbearing government, from Silicon Valley, from big media, from labor unions, from the radical gender change advocates, where Jacky Rosen has failed you.”In a statement on Twitter on Tuesday, Ms. Rosen cast Mr. Marchant as an extremist.“Nevadans deserve a Senator who will fight for them, not a MAGA election denier who opposes abortion rights even in cases of rape and incest,” she wrote. “While far-right politicians like Jim Marchant spread baseless conspiracy theories, I’ve always focused on solving problems for Nevadans.”Mr. Marchant was joined on Tuesday by the political strategist Dick Morris, who Mr. Marchant said would be working as a general consultant on his campaign. Mr. Morris, who preceded him onstage, also repeated false claims about election fraud. More

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      The ‘Diploma Divide’ Is the New Fault Line in American Politics

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      The legal imbroglios of Donald Trump have lately dominated conversation about the 2024 election. As primary season grinds on, campaign activity will ebb and wane, and issues of the moment — like the first Trump indictment and potentially others to come — will blaze into focus and then disappear.Yet certain fundamentals will shape the races as candidates strategize about how to win the White House. To do this, they will have to account for at least one major political realignment: educational attainment is the new fault line in American politics.Educational attainment has not replaced race in that respect, but it is increasingly the best predictor of how Americans will vote, and for whom. It has shaped the political landscape and where the 2024 presidential election almost certainly will be decided. To understand American politics, candidates and voters alike will need to understand this new fundamental.Americans have always viewed education as a key to opportunity, but few predicted the critical role it has come to play in our politics. What makes the “diploma divide,” as it is often called, so fundamental to our politics is how it has been sorting Americans into the Democratic and Republican Parties by educational attainment. College-educated voters are now more likely to identify as Democrats, while those without college degrees — especially white Americans, but increasingly others as well — are now more likely to support Republicans.It’s both economics and cultureThe impact of education on voting has an economic as well as a cultural component. The confluence of rising globalization, technological developments and the offshoring of many working-class jobs led to a sorting of economic fortunes, a widening gap in the average real wealth between households led by college graduates compared with the rest of the population, whose levels are near all-time lows.According to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, since 1989, families headed by college graduates have increased their wealth by 83 percent. For households headed by someone without a college degree, there was relatively little or no increase in wealth.Culturally, a person’s educational attainment increasingly correlates with their views on a wide range of issues like abortion, attitudes about L.G.B.T.Q. rights and the relationship between government and organized religion. It also extends to cultural consumption (movies, TV, books), social media choices and the sources of information that shape voters’ understanding of facts.This is not unique to the United States; the pattern has developed across nearly all Western democracies. Going back to the 2016 Brexit vote and the most recent national elections in Britain and France, education level was the best predictor of how people voted.This new class-based politics oriented around the education divide could turn out to be just as toxic as race-based politics. It has facilitated a sorting of America into enclaves of like-minded people who look at members of the other enclave with increasing contempt.The road to political realignmentThe diploma divide really started to emerge in voting in the early 1990s, and Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016 solidified this political realignment. Since then, the trends have deepened.In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden defeated Mr. Trump by assembling a coalition different from the one that elected and re-elected Barack Obama. Of the 206 counties that Mr. Obama carried in 2008 and 2012 that were won by Mr. Trump in 2016, Mr. Biden won back only 25 of these areas, which generally had a higher percentage of non-college-educated voters. But overall Mr. Biden carried college-educated voters by 15 points.In the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats carried white voters with a college degree by three points, while Republicans won white non-college voters by 34 points (a 10-point improvement from 2018).This has helped establish a new political geography. There are now 42 states firmly controlled by one party or the other. And with 45 out of 50 states voting for the same party in the last two presidential elections, the only states that voted for the winning presidential candidates in both 2016 and 2020 rank roughly in the middle on educational levels — Pennsylvania (23rd in education attainment), Georgia (24th), Wisconsin (26th), Arizona (30th) and Michigan (32nd).In 2020, Mr. Biden received 306 electoral votes, Mr. Trump, 232. In the reapportionment process — which readjusts the Electoral College counts based on the most current census data — the new presidential electoral map is more favorable to Republicans by a net six points.In 2024, Democrats are likely to enter the general election with 222 electoral votes, compared with 219 for Republicans. That leaves only eight states, with 97 electoral votes — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — up for grabs. And for these states, education levels are near the national average — not proportionately highly educated nor toward the bottom of attainment.The 2024 mapA presidential candidate will need a three-track strategy to carry these states in 2024. The first goal is to further exploit the trend of education levels driving how people vote. Democrats have been making significant inroads with disaffected Republicans, given much of the party base’s continued embrace of Mr. Trump and his backward-looking grievances, as well as a shift to the hard right on social issues — foremost on abortion. This is particularly true with college-educated Republican women.In this era of straight-party voting, it is notable that Democrats racked up double-digit percentages from Republicans in the 2022 Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania governors’ races. They also made significant inroads with these voters in the Senate races in Arizona (13 percent), Pennsylvania (8 percent), Nevada (7 percent) and Georgia (6 percent).This represents a large and growing pool of voters. In a recent NBC poll, over 30 percent of self-identified Republicans said that they were not supporters of MAGA.At the same time, Republicans have continued to increase their support with non-college-educated voters of color. Between 2012 and 2020, support for Democrats from nonwhite-working-class voters dropped 18 points. The 2022 Associated Press VoteCast exit polls indicated that support for Democrats dropped an additional 14 points compared with the 2020 results.However, since these battleground states largely fall in the middle of education levels in our country, they haven’t followed the same trends as the other 42 states. So there are limits to relying on the education profile of voters to carry these states.This is where the second group of voters comes in: political independents, who were carried by the winning party in the last four election cycles. Following Mr. Trump’s narrow victory with independent voters in 2016, Mr. Biden carried them by nine points in 2020. In 2018, when Democrats took back the House, they carried them by 15 points, and their narrow two-point margin in 2022 enabled them to hold the Senate.The importance of the independent voting bloc continues to rise. This is particularly significant since the margin of victory in these battleground states has been very narrow in recent elections. The 2022 exit polls showed that over 30 percent of voters were independents, the highest percentage since 1980. In Arizona, 40 percent of voters in 2022 considered themselves political independents.These independent voters tend to live disproportionately in suburbs, which are now the most diverse socioeconomic areas in our country. These suburban voters are the third component of a winning strategy. With cities increasingly controlled by Democrats — because of the high level of educated voters there — and Republicans maintaining their dominance in rural areas with large numbers of non-college voters, the suburbs are the last battleground in American politics.Voting in the suburbs has been decisive in determining the outcome of the last two presidential elections: Voters in the suburbs of Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Phoenix determined the winner in the last two presidential elections and are likely to play the same pivotal role in 2024.These voters moved to the suburbs for a higher quality of life: affordable housing, safe streets and good schools. These are the issues that animate these voters, who have a negative view of both parties. They do not embrace a MAGA-driven Republican Party, but they also do not trust Mr. Biden and Democrats, and consider them to be culturally extreme big spenders who aren’t focused enough on issues like immigration and crime.So in addition to education levels, these other factors will have a big impact on the election. The party that can capture the pivotal group of voters in the suburbs of battleground states is likely to prevail. Democrats’ success in the suburbs in recent elections suggests an advantage, but it is not necessarily enduring. Based on post-midterm exit polls from these areas, voters have often voted against a party or candidate — especially Mr. Trump — rather than for one.But in part because of the emergence of the diploma divide, there is an opening for both political parties in 2024 if they are willing to gear their agenda and policies beyond their political base. The party that does that is likely to win the White House.Doug Sosnik was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and is a senior adviser to the Brunswick Group.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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      Biden Looks to Bolster Support Among Seniors With a Focus on Health Care

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      In a trip to Las Vegas, President Biden warned that Republicans would endanger popular programs like Social Security and Medicare.LAS VEGAS — One of President Biden’s promises to America’s seniors when he first campaigned for the Oval Office was this: You will pay less for health care.So on Wednesday, with a possible re-election announcement getting closer every day, the president traveled to Las Vegas to boast that millions of older adults would save on their medications thanks to the health care legislation he championed last year.Because of the Inflation Reduction Act, he said, seniors will no longer have to make co-payments for some recommended vaccines like shingles and tetanus, saving them an average of $70 each year in the future.“For seniors on fixed income who often need expensive medications to stay healthy, that constant question is can they take the medications and can they pay the bills without giving up important elements of their life,” Mr. Biden told an audience at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.“It’s not just your health,” he said. “It’s about your dignity. It’s about your security.”In the 2020 election, Mr. Biden came up short among people 65 and older to former President Donald J. Trump, 48 percent to 52 percent. The president and his advisers are hoping to increase his support among that group in 2024 by arguing that its financial and medical security will be better protected with Mr. Biden in office.The centerpiece of that argument so far has been the fate of the government’s primary retirement programs, Social Security and Medicare. Mr. Biden has been aggressive in seizing on proposals by a handful of Republican politicians to argue that the party would put the popular programs in danger.He said as much on Wednesday, standing in front of a sign at the University of Nevada that said “Lowering Costs for American Families.” The president recounted his State of the Union speech this year, when several Republican lawmakers called him a liar for claiming that they wanted to cut the social safety net programs.“I hope it’s true,” he said, noting that the legislators were being filmed as they denied any interest in doing any damage to Medicare and Social Security. “But I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said.Beyond that issue, however, the administration argues that older Americans will also be grateful for the president’s efforts to keep costs down, especially when it comes to their medications, at a time when prices have been rising sharply.In addition to the $70 average savings on vaccines, White House officials said on Wednesday that seniors across the country would benefit from provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that penalize drug companies when they increase the cost of a drug faster than inflation..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Officials said that 27 specialized drugs recently met that criteria, and that their makers would be required to pay rebates to the federal government for the extra costs. Administration officials said that older Americans might see some savings in the future as drug companies keep prices lower to avoid having to pay the rebates.“Some people with traditional Medicare or managed care Medicare may stand to save starting in just a matter of weeks,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters before the president’s appearance.Mr. Biden also highlighted the impact that his health care actions have had on the cost of insulin, which is a common — and usually expensive — drug for many seniors who suffer from diabetes.The president’s health care law caps the price of insulin at $35 per month for older adults, and Mr. Biden has succeeded in persuading two of the three biggest drug manufacturers to lower costs for younger people in need of insulin. Eli Lilly announced this month that it would cap out-of-pocket costs for insulin at the same $35. Novo Nordisk said it would cut the cost of its insulin drug by 75 percent.The focus on medical costs for older adults has been part of Mr. Biden’s agenda since before he became president. His campaign website said under the heading “The Biden Plan for Older Americans” that seniors in the United States “deserve to retire with dignity — able to pay for their prescriptions and with access to quality, affordable long-term care.”But his policy ambitions are now part of a political effort to win back some in that demographic who have trended toward Republicans as the average age of people living in the country increases each year.A group of about two-dozen Republican lawmakers is pushing legislation to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, a move that White House officials and the president have seized on. Mr. Biden wants to make his Republican White House rival — whomever that turns out to be — pay for a repeal effort by suggesting that it will hurt older adults.In a statement last month, the White House said that efforts to repeal the law “would give tens of billions of dollars in subsidies back to Big Pharma, raise seniors’ prescription drug prices and raise taxes on an estimated 14.5 million people — all while increasing the deficit.”Mr. Biden’s visit to Las Vegas comes just weeks before he is expected to announce that he is running for a second term. Nevada is a critical swing state that Democrats need in their column if they want to retain control of the White House for another four years. In 2020, Mr. Biden won the state with 50.06 percent of the vote, to Mr. Trump’s 47.67 percent.Wednesday’s speech took place at the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, a nod to the service unions that are extremely powerful in Las Vegas and an important Democratic constituency. More

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      Democrats Set to Vote on Overhauling Party’s Primary Calendar

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      The proposal would radically reshape the way the party picks its presidential nominees, putting more racially diverse states at the front of the line.PHILADELPHIA — Members of the Democratic National Committee are expected to vote on Saturday on a major overhaul of the Democratic primary process, a critical step in President Biden’s effort to transform the way the party picks its presidential nominees, and one that would upend decades of American political tradition.For years, Democratic nominating contests have begun with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, a matter of immense pride in those states and a source of political identity for many highly engaged residents.But amid forceful calls for a calendar that better reflects the racial diversity of the Democratic Party and of the country — and after Iowa struggled in 2020 to deliver results — Democrats are widely expected to endorse a proposal that would start the 2024 Democratic presidential primary circuit in South Carolina, the state that resuscitated Mr. Biden’s once-flailing candidacy, on Feb. 3. It would be followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and then Michigan on Feb. 27.“This is a significant effort to make the presidential primary nominating process more reflective of the diversity of this country, and to have issues that will determine the outcome of the November election part of the early process,” said Representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who has vigorously pushed for moving up her state’s primary.President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Many prominent Democrats have been adamant that the committee should defer to Mr. Biden’s preference on the primary calendar changes.Al Drago for The New York TimesIt’s a proposed calendar that in many ways rewards the racially diverse states that propelled Mr. Biden to the presidency in 2020.But logistical challenges to fully enacting it will remain even if the committee signs off on the plan, a move that was recommended by a key party panel in December. And resistance to the proposal has been especially fierce in New Hampshire, where officials have vowed to hold the first primary anyway, whatever the consequences.The Democrats’ Primary CalendarA plan spearheaded by President Biden could lead to a major overhaul of the party’s presidential primary process in 2024.Demoting Iowa: Democrats are moving to reorder the primaries by making South Carolina — instead of Iowa — the first nominating state, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire, Georgia and then Michigan.A New Chessboard: President Biden’s push to abandon Iowa for younger, racially diverse states is likely to reward candidates who connect with the party’s most loyal voters.Obstacles to the Plan: Reshuffling the early-state order could run into logistical issues, especially in Georgia and New Hampshire.An Existential Crisis: Iowa’s likely dethronement has inspired a rush of wistful memories and soul-searching among Democrats there.New Hampshire, a small state where voters are accustomed to cornering candidates in diners and intimate town hall settings, has long held the first primary as a matter of state law.New Hampshire Republicans, who control the governor’s mansion and state legislature, have stressed that they have no interest in changing that law, and many Democrats in the state have been just as forceful in saying that they cannot make changes unilaterally. Some have also warned that Mr. Biden could invite a primary challenge from someone camped out in the state, or stoke on-the-ground opposition to his expected re-election bid.Mr. Biden has had a rocky political history with the state — he placed fifth there in 2020 — but he also has longtime friends and allies in New Hampshire, some of whom have written a letter expressing concerns about the proposal.Attendees cheering after President Biden’s speech at the D.N.C.’s winter meeting. Georgia would move to Feb. 13 in the new primary calendar lineup.Al Drago for The New York TimesThe D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee has given New Hampshire until early June to work toward meeting the requirements of the proposed calendar, but some Democrats in the state have made clear that their position is not changing.“They could say June, they could say next week, they could say in five years, but it’s not going to matter,” said former Gov. John Lynch, who signed the letter to Mr. Biden. “It’s like asking New York to move the Statue of Liberty from New York to Florida. I mean, that’s not going to happen. And it’s not going to happen that we’re going to change state law.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.But many prominent Democrats have been adamant that the committee should defer to Mr. Biden’s preference, reflecting his standing as the head of the party.“If he had called me and said, ‘Jim Clyburn, I’ve decided that South Carolina should not be in the preprimary window,’ I would not have liked that at all, but I damn sure would not oppose,” said Representative James E. Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat and close Biden ally. His state, under the new proposal, would zoom into the most influential position on the primary calendar, though Mr. Clyburn said he had personally been agnostic on the early-state order as long as South Carolina was part of the window.D.N.C. rules demand consequences for any state that operates outside the committee-approved early lineup, including cuts to the number of pledged delegates and alternates for the state in question. New Hampshire Democrats have urged the D.N.C. not to punish the state, and party officials there hope the matter of sanctions is still up for some degree of discussion.Candidates who campaign in such states could face repercussions as well, such as not receiving delegates from that particular state.Such consequences would be far more relevant in a contested primary. Much of the drama around the calendar may effectively be moot if Mr. Biden runs again, as he has said he intends to do, and if he does not face a serious primary challenge.Whether the president would campaign in New Hampshire if the state defied a D.N.C.-sanctioned calendar is an open question. Some Democrats have also questioned whether there will be an effort, if New Hampshire does not comply, to replace it with a different Northeastern state for regional representation.Georgia Democrats have also received an extension until June to work toward hosting a primary under the new calendar lineup, but they face their own logistical hurdles.Republicans have already agreed to an early primary calendar, keeping the order of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, and Republican National Committee rules make clear that states that jump the order will lose delegates.Georgia’s primary date is determined by the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, and officials from his office have stressed that they have no interest in holding two primaries or in risking losing delegates.A Democratic National Committee meeting on Thursday in Philadelphia. Under the new plan, the 2024 Democratic presidential primary calendar would start in South Carolina.Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAccording to a letter from the leaders of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan have met the committee’s requirements for holding early primaries.Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan this week signed a bill moving up the state’s primary to Feb. 27. There are still questions regarding how quickly that could take effect, and how Republicans in the state may respond, but Democrats in the state have voiced confidence that the vote can be held according to the D.N.C.’s proposed calendar.There has also been some resistance to the idea of South Carolina — a Republican-tilted state that is not competitive in presidential general elections — serving as the leadoff state, while others have strongly defended the idea of elevating it.Regardless, the reshuffle may only be temporary: Mr. Biden has urged the Rules and Bylaws Committee to review the calendar every four years, and the committee has embraced steps to get that process underway. More

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      Democrats Face Obstacles in Plan to Reorder Presidential Primary Calendar

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      The party is radically reshuffling the early-state order, but Georgia and New Hampshire present challenges.Democratic efforts to overhaul which states hold the first presidential primaries entered a new and uncertain phase this week, with hurdles to President Biden’s preferred order coming into focus even as several states signaled their abilities to host early contests, a key step in radically reshaping the calendar.But in Georgia, Democrats face logistical problems in moving up their primary. And New Hampshire, the longtime leadoff primary state, has officially indicated that it cannot comply with the early-state lineup endorsed by a D.N.C. panel, under which the state would hold the second primary contest alongside Nevada.That panel backed a sweeping set of changes last month to how the party picks its presidential nominee, in keeping with Mr. Biden’s vision of putting more racially diverse states at the beginning of the process.Democratic nominating contests have for years begun with the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Under the new proposal, the 2024 Democratic presidential primary calendar would begin in South Carolina on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and then Michigan on Feb. 27.Those states — several of which played critical roles in Mr. Biden’s 2020 primary victory — had until Thursday to demonstrate progress toward being able to host contests on the selected dates. According to a letter from the co-chairs of the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan have met the committee’s requirements for holding early primaries.Both Georgia and New Hampshire are more complex cases.In the letter, sent on Thursday, the committee’s co-chairs recommended that the two states be granted extensions to allow for more time to work toward meeting the requirements of the new calendar.“We expected both the New Hampshire and Georgia efforts to be complicated but well worth the effort if we can get them done,” wrote Jim Roosevelt Jr. and Minyon Moore, in a letter obtained by The New York Times. They added, “We are committed to seeing out the calendar that this committee approved last month.”Under the new D.N.C. proposal, Georgia would host the fourth Democratic primary in 2024. A onetime Republican bastion that helped propel Mr. Biden to the presidency, Georgia also played a critical role in cementing the Democratic Senate majority and has become an undeniably critical battleground state. Atlanta has been vying to host the Democratic National Convention and is considered one of the stronger contenders.President Biden, if he seeks re-election, could decide against filing in the New Hampshire primary, a state where he came in fifth place in 2020.David Degner for The New York TimesBut there are challenges in moving up Georgia’s Democratic primary. Republicans have already agreed to their own early-voting calendar, keeping the order of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, and rules from the Republican National Committee are clear: States that jump the order will lose delegates, and party rules have already been set (though the R.N.C. is in a period of tumult as its chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, faces a challenge to her leadership).In Georgia, the primary date is determined by the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican. Officials from his office have stressed that there is no appetite to hold two primaries or to risk losing delegates.“This needs to be equitable to both political parties and held on the same day to save taxpayers’ money,” Jordan Fuchs, Georgia’s deputy secretary of state, said in a statement this week.Georgia Democrats hoping that the money and media attention that come to an early primary state might persuade Gov. Brian P. Kemp, a Republican, to intercede for them may be disappointed, too.“The governor has no role in this process and does not support the idea,” Cody Hall, an adviser to Mr. Kemp, said on Wednesday night.The situation is fraught for different reasons in New Hampshire, which has long held the nation’s first primary as a matter of state law. Neither the state’s Democrats nor its Republicans, who control the governor’s mansion and state legislature, are inclined to buck the law, playing up the state’s discerning voters and famed opportunities for small-scale retail politicking.That tradition puts New Hampshire’s Democrats directly at odds with the D.N.C. mandate to host the second primary in 2024. Officials in the state have signaled their intent to hold the first primary anyway, risking penalties.In a letter to the Rules and Bylaws Committee before the deadline extension, Raymond Buckley, the chairman of the state Democratic Party, wrote that the D.N.C.’s plan was “unrealistic and unattainable, as the New Hampshire Democratic Party cannot dictate to the Republican governor and state legislative leaders what to do, and because it does not have the power to change the primary date unilaterally.”He noted a number of concessions New Hampshire Democrats would seek to make, but urged the committee to “reconsider the requirements that they have placed,” casting them as a “poison pill.”The early-state proposal is the culmination of a long process to reorder and diversify the calendar, and Mr. Roosevelt and Ms. Moore said later Thursday that the tentative calendar “does what is long overdue and brings more voices into the early window process.”D.N.C. rules stipulate consequences for any state that moves to operate ahead of the party’s agreed-upon early window, as well as for candidates who campaign in such states.If New Hampshire jumps the line, Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, assuming he runs, could decide against filing in the New Hampshire primary, a state where he came in fifth place in 2020.While few prominent Democratic officials expect, as of now, that he would draw a major primary challenge if he runs — making much of the drama around the early-state calendar effectively moot in 2024 — a lesser-known candidate could emerge and camp out in New Hampshire, some in the state have warned.The eventual calendar is not set in stone for future elections: Mr. Biden urged the Rules and Bylaws Committee to review the calendar every four years, and the committee has embraced an amendment to get that process underway.And there are still a number of steps this year.The Rules and Bylaws Committee is expected to meet to vote on the proposed extensions. The D.N.C.’s. winter meeting, where the five-state proposal must be affirmed by the full committee, is scheduled for early February in Philadelphia, and there is certain to be more jockeying ahead of that event.“The first real inflection point is the meeting of the full D.N.C.,” Mr. Roosevelt said in an interview late last month. More

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      Warnock’s Victory Forges Democrats’ Path Through the New Battlegrounds

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      Forget about Florida and Ohio: Georgia and Arizona are poised to be the next kingmakers of presidential politics.Follow our latest updates on the Georgia Senate runoff.For decades, Florida and Ohio reigned supreme over presidential politics. The two states relished their role crowning presidents and spawning political clichés. Industrial Cleveland faced off against white-collar Cincinnati, the Midwestern snowbirds of the Villages against the Puerto Rican diaspora of the Orlando suburbs.But the Georgia runoff, the final note of the 2022 midterm elections, may have said goodbye to all that. The Marietta moms are in charge now.Senator Raphael Warnock’s win over Herschel Walker — his fifth victory in just over two years — proved that the Democratic surge in the Peach State two years ago was no Trump-era fluke, no one-off rebuke of an unpopular president. Georgia, with its storied civil rights history, booming Atlanta suburbs like Marietta and exploding ethnic diversity, is now officially contested ground, joining a narrow set of states that will select the next president.Mr. Warnock’s race was the final marker for a 2024 presidential road map that political strategists, officials and politicians in both parties say will run largely through six states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.The shrunken, shifted battlefield reflects a diversifying country remade by the polarizing politics of the Trump era. As white, working-class voters defected from Democrats, persuaded by Donald J. Trump’s populist cultural appeals and anti-elitist rhetoric, demographic changes opened up new presidential battlegrounds in the West and South.That is not good for Mr. Trump, who lost all six of those states to President Biden two years ago, as he begins to plot his third presidential bid. Other Republicans have found more success pulling together winning coalitions in states defined by their growth, new transplants, strong economies and a young and diverse population. But if the party wants to reclaim the White House in 2024, Republicans will have to improve their performance across the new terrain.“You’re going to have your soccer moms and Peloton dads. Those college-educated voters, specifically in the suburbs, are ones that Republicans have to learn how to win,” said Kristin Davison, a Republican strategist who worked on Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s win in Virginia, a once-red state that, until Mr. Youngkin’s victory, had turned a more suburban shade of blue. “It’s these growing, diverse communities combined with the college-educated voters.”“I secured my vote!” stickers at a polling place in Georgia.Nicole Buchanan for The New York TimesVoters at Morningside Presbyterian Church in Fulton County on Tuesday morning.Nicole Buchanan for The New York TimesIn most of the six states, midterm elections brought out deep shades of purple. In Arizona, Democrats won the governor’s mansion for the first time since 2006, but a race for attorney general remains too close to call. In Nevada, the party’s candidate won re-election to the Senate by less than one percentage point, while Republicans won the governor’s office. The reverse happened in Wisconsin.Mr. Warnock narrowly defeated Mr. Walker on Tuesday. But Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, handily toppled Stacey Abrams, a Democratic star, in his re-election bid last month.Only Pennsylvania and Michigan had clean Democratic sweeps in statewide offices.Republicans, meanwhile, swept Florida, with Gov. Ron DeSantis winning re-election in the state by easily the largest margin by a Republican candidate for governor in modern history. In Ohio, Representative Tim Ryan, widely considered to be one the Democratic Party’s strongest candidates, lost his bid for Senate by six percentage points.That new map isn’t entirely new, of course. Since 2008, Democrats have hoped that demographic changes and millions of dollars could help put the growing pockets of the South and West in play, allowing the party to stop chasing the votes of white, working-class voters across Ohio and Iowa.But the party has made inroads before, only to backslide later. When Barack Obama carried North Carolina in 2008, pundits and party officials heralded the arrival of the Democratic revival in the New South. President Obama lost the state four years later and Mr. Biden was defeated there by a little more than a percentage point.Democrats argue their victories in Georgia will be more resilient. Mr. Warnock’s coalition looked very similar to Mr. Biden’s — an alliance of voters of color, younger voters and college-educated suburbanites.For Republicans, the winning formula requires maintaining their sizable advantage among rural voters and working-class, white voters, without fully embracing the far-right stances and combative politics of Mr. Trump that could hurt their standing with more moderate swing voters. Mr. Kemp followed that path to an eight-percentage-point victory.But Mr. Walker was in no position to expand his voting base. He was recruited to run by Mr. Trump, despite allegations of domestic abuse, no political experience and few clear policy positions, and spent much of his campaign focused on his party’s most reliable voters.While votes were still being counted late Tuesday, Mr. Warnock appeared to improve on Mr. Biden’s margins in the suburban counties around Atlanta, including Gwinnett, Newton and Cobb County, home to Marietta.Herschel Walker and his team after a campaign stop in Dawsonville, Ga.Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesGreeting supporters at a Dawsonville restaurant.Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesDemocrats recognized the rising influence of the Sun Belt in a high-profile way last week, when the Democratic National Committee advanced a plan to replace Iowa, a former battleground state that has grown more Republican recently, with South Carolina and add Nevada, Georgia and Michigan to the early-state calendar.“The Sun Belt delivered the Senate Democratic majority,” said Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat from Nevada who will face her first re-election campaign in 2024. “The party needs to invest in us and that’s what they’ve done by changing the calendar.”Already, investment in these new battlegrounds has been eye-popping. In Georgia, $1.4 billion has been spent by both parties on three Senate races and the one contest for governor since the beginning of 2020, according to a New York Times analysis.The flood of political activity has surprised even some of those who have long predicted that their states would grow more competitive.“We all thought Arizona would probably be a battleground state at some point like a decade or so down the road,” said Mike Noble, the chief of research with the polling firm OH Predictive Insights, which is based in Phoenix. “It’s mind-blowing that it came so quickly to be quite honest.”Political operatives in Ohio and Florida insist that their states could remain competitive if Democrats would invest in organizers and ads. But for presidential campaigns, the goal isn’t to flip states but to identify the easiest route to 270 electoral votes.David Pepper, a former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, acknowledged that the changed politics had created a national political dynamic that’s bad for Ohio but better for his party. “The fact that Ohio is less essential than it used to be is a good thing because it means there are other states that are now winnable that weren’t 10 years ago. Colorado and Virginia were Republican so you had to win Florida and Ohio,” he said, evoking the predecessor to the cable news interactive maps. “That’s why Tim Russert had them all over his white board.”Senator Raphael Warnock with the rapper Killer Mike at a campaign event on Monday.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThe Warnock campaign visited Georgia Tech on Monday.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThe country wasn’t always so dependent on such a small group of deciders. In the 1980s, presidential candidates competed across an average of 29 states. That number fell to 19 during the 2000s, according to data compiled by FairVote, a nonpartisan advocacy group that works on election practices. In 2020, there were just eight states where the margin of victory for either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump was under 5 percent.The shrinking map leaves one clear loser: The bulk of American voters. About 50 million Americans live in the six states poised to get most of the attention, giving about 15 percent of the country’s nearly 332 million people an outsize role in determining the next president.For nearly 11 million Georgians, the political attention showered on their state during the midterm elections won’t be gone for long. More

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      DNC Panel Supports Biden’s Plan to Make South Carolina First Primary in 2024

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      A key panel supported President Biden’s plan, which would remove Iowa as the first presidential nominating state. States with more diverse, working-class and in some cases more moderate constituencies are being elevated.WASHINGTON — Over objections from some Democratic state leaders, the Democratic National Committee on Friday moved one step closer to enacting President Biden’s vision for drastically overhauling the party’s 2024 presidential primary process, as a key committee voted to recommend sweeping changes to the calendar.At a daylong gathering of the D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee in a Washington hotel ballroom, members voted to recommend supporting a 2024 Democratic presidential primary calendar that would begin in South Carolina on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and then Michigan on Feb. 27. That plan reflected a framework Mr. Biden delivered to the committee on Thursday that emphasized racial and geographic diversity. Representatives from Iowa and New Hampshire voted against the proposal, and officials emphasized that the move by the Rules Committee was one step in what might still be a prolonged and contentious process. The proposed early states have until Jan. 5 to confirm that they can hold a primary on their assigned date.The recommendation, which upends the traditional Democratic order of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, must be affirmed by the full D.N.C. at a meeting in early February, but Mr. Biden’s preferences carry enormous weight with the party committee. The proposed new order rewards some of the states that powered his political rise in 2020, elevating diverse, working-class and in some cases more moderate constituencies that were vital to Mr. Biden’s primary victory. At the same time, smaller states that have long emphasized retail politics — Iowa and New Hampshire — would be diminished. “Given the president’s strong interest in the design of the 2024 primaries, and the dates for them, I think it’s clear that he’s running,” said James Roosevelt Jr., a co-chairman of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, who said he had spoken with Mr. Biden this week about the early-state order.Mr. Biden has said that he intends to run again but plans to discuss the race with his family. If he does not run, the schedule, if adopted, would help other candidates with strong support from the voters of color who make up the backbone of the Democratic Party.Black voters accounted for more than half of the Democrats who voted in the South Carolina primary in 2020, according to exit polling. And they make up a significant share of the primary electorates in Georgia and Michigan. Latino voters play an especially central role in Nevada.But the shift could also hurt candidates without the campaign cash to compete quickly in early states with expensive media markets — like Nevada, Georgia and even New Hampshire, where Boston television stations drive up rates. The fast pacing of the proposed calendar could force contenders with smaller bank accounts to choose to compete in just one or two of the first three states. Scott Brennan and other Iowa Democrats criticized the proposed changes and suggested that the state party would challenge them.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesJoanne Dowdell, a D.N.C. member from New Hampshire, opposed the proposal.Shuran Huang for The New York Times“One of the things that New Hampshire is known for is our retail politics, and candidates having the opportunity to engage the electorate face to face,” said Joanne Dowdell, a D.N.C. member from New Hampshire who opposed the proposal. “By having three states, one on top of the other, I think causes a little bit of conflict for candidates trying to vie for the attention, get name recognition and also raise money.”The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands after the midterm elections.A Defining Issue: The shape of Russia’s war in Ukraine — and its effects on global markets —  in the months and years to come could determine President Biden’s political fate.Beating the Odds: Mr. Biden had the best midterms of any president in 20 years, but he still faces the sobering reality of a Republican-controlled House for the next two years.2024 Questions: Mr. Biden feels buoyant after the better-than-expected midterms, but as he turns 80, he confronts a decision on whether to run again that has some Democrats uncomfortable.Legislative Agenda: The Times analyzed every detail of Mr. Biden’s major legislative victories and his foiled ambitions. Here’s what we found.Jeff Link, a longtime Des Moines operative, said cutting Iowa’s caucuses out of the Democratic presidential nominating process would diminish the importance of organizing, which is central to the state’s political culture.That could prove detrimental to the party nationally, he said, by eliminating a critical proving ground for Democratic field operatives.“Rather than having a big field operation, they’re going to have a big social media operation,” Mr. Link said. “There’s going to be less people talking to other people in the campaign. One of the benefits of having a caucus early is that for three decades, we’ve trained campaign staff on how to organize person to person.”Other objections have been far louder, especially from the two states accustomed to being at the front of the line. New Hampshire has long held the nation’s first primary as a matter of state law, and state officials have said they intend to follow that law rather than any party decision. And the chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party noted in a statement that the country’s longtime leadoff caucus state has a law that “requires us to hold a caucus before the last Tuesday in February, and before any other contest.” The decision on timing would be up to the state central committee and elected officials, said Scott Brennan, a member of the Rules Committee from Iowa.More than political clout and bragging rights is at stake: Studies of the economic impact of past caucuses in Iowa and New Hampshire primaries have found that spending was in the hundreds of millions of dollars, much of that on TV ads, though the figures were a drop in the bucket of each state’s annual economic activity.The party has powerful tools with which to compel states to fall in line.D.N.C. rules agreed upon earlier this year stipulated notable consequences for any state that jumps ahead to operate outside the party’s agreed-upon early window, including cuts to the number of pledged delegates and alternates for the state in question. Significantly, candidates who campaign in such states would face repercussions as well. “If a candidate chose to campaign in a state that operated outside the window, they would lose the delegates from that state,” Mr. Roosevelt said. “They could have other penalties, because the chair is empowered to go beyond that.”Some officials have suggested they are willing to take those risks.The D.N.C.’s Rules and Bylaws Committee gathered in Washington on Friday.Shuran Huang for The New York Times“For decades we have said we will bear any sanctions,” said Raymond Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.Republican willingness, or lack thereof, to change dates may also be relevant in several states, including in Republican-controlled Georgia. A spokesman for Gov. Brian Kemp did not respond to a question on Friday afternoon about his reaction to the Democratic proposal. The primary date is set by Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who declined to comment on the Democrats’ process on Friday. “Our focus is on the security and integrity of the election that’s currently underway, and we will be looking at the entire process for possible improvements once this one is successfully complete,” said Jordan Fuchs, the deputy secretary of state, as Georgia hosts a Senate runoff. But, she noted in a statement, “Our legal team has continuously stated that both parties’ primaries must be on the same day and must not cost anyone any delegates.”Republicans have already agreed to their own early-state lineup of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.The Rules and Bylaws committee’s vote came a day after Mr. Biden sent a letter to members laying out his criteria for the early-voting window. In it, he rejected caucuses — effectively dealing a mortal blow to the troubled Iowa caucuses, which struggled for days to deliver results in 2020.After Mr. Biden came in fourth place in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire, two states with high percentages of white voters, he showed new signs of political life in Nevada. And it was South Carolina’s primary, with large numbers of Black voters, that revived his candidacy and propelled him through Super Tuesday and to the nomination.“Defense, education, agriculture, manufacturing — South Carolina is a perfect laboratory,” said Representative James E. Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat whose endorsement of Mr. Biden in 2020 played a vital role in the president’s victory in the state. “That’s why the people who do well in South Carolina end up doing pretty good in the general.”Mr. Clyburn said that he had urged Mr. Biden to keep South Carolina in the early-state window — “first, second, third or fourth, didn’t matter to me” — but that he had learned of the state’s possible elevation to the kickoff primary on Thursday from the president.Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the D.N.C., who is also from South Carolina, said he had found out at Thursday night’s state dinner.Mr. Biden has urged the Rules and Bylaws Committee to review the calendar every four years, and the committee embraced an amendment to get that process underway.“Nevada still has the strongest argument for being the first-in-the-nation primary,” Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen, the state’s senators, said in a joint statement. “We will keep making our case for 2028.”Reid J. Epstein More