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      Meta Removes Chinese Effort to Influence U.S. Elections

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      Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said on Tuesday that it had discovered and taken down what it described as the first targeted Chinese campaign to interfere in U.S. politics ahead of the midterm elections in November.Unlike the Russian efforts over the last two presidential elections, however, the Chinese campaign appeared limited in scope — and clumsy at times.The fake posts began appearing on Facebook and Instagram, as well as on Twitter, in November 2021, using profile pictures of men in formal attire but the names of women, according to the company’s report.The users later posed as conservative Americans, promoting gun rights and opposition to abortion, while criticizing President Biden. By April, they mostly presented themselves as liberals from Florida, Texas and California, opposing guns and promoting reproductive rights. They mangled the English language and failed to attract many followers.Two Meta officials said they could not definitively attribute the campaign to any group or individuals. Yet the tactics reflected China’s growing efforts to use international social media to promote the Communist Party’s political and diplomatic agenda.What made the effort unusual was what appeared to be the focus on divisive domestic politics ahead of the midterms.In previous influence campaigns, China’s propaganda apparatus concentrated more broadly on criticizing American foreign policy, while promoting China’s view of issues like the crackdown on political rights in Hong Kong and the mass repression in Xinjiang, the mostly Muslim region where hundreds of thousands were forced into re-education camps or prisons.Ben Nimmo, Meta’s lead official for global threat intelligence, said the operation reflected “a new direction for Chinese influence operations.”“It is talking to Americans, pretending to be Americans rather than talking about America to the rest of the world,” he added later. “So the operation is small in itself, but it is a change.”The operation appeared to lack urgency and scope, raising questions about its ambition and goals. It involved only 81 Facebook accounts, eight Facebook pages and one group. By July, the operation had suddenly shifted its efforts away from the United States and toward politics in the Czech Republic.The posts appeared during working hours in China, typically when Americans were asleep. They dropped off noticeably during what appeared to be “a substantial lunch break.”In one post, a user struggled with clarity: “I can’t live in an America on regression.”Even if the campaign failed to go viral, Mr. Nimmo said the company’s disclosure was intended to draw attention to the potential threat of Chinese interference in domestic affairs of its rivals.Meta also announced that it had taken down a much larger Russian influence operation that began in May and focused primarily on Germany, as well as France, Italy and Britain.The company said it was “the largest and most complex” operation it had detected from Russia since the war in Ukraine began in February.The campaign centered around a network of 60 websites that impersonated legitimate news organizations in Europe, like Der Spiegel, Bild, The Guardian and ANSA, the Italian news agency.The sites would then post original articles criticizing Ukraine, warning about Ukrainian refugees and arguing that economic sanctions against Russia would only backfire. Those articles were then promoted across the internet, including on Facebook and Instagram, but also on Twitter and Telegram, the messaging app, which is widely used in Russia.The Russian operation involved 1,633 accounts on Facebook, 703 pages and one group, as well as 29 different accounts on Instagram, the company’s report said. About 4,000 accounts followed one or more of the Facebook pages. As Meta moved to block the operation’s domains, new websites appeared, “suggesting persistence and continuous investment in this activity.”Meta began its investigation after disclosures in August by one of Germany’s television networks, ZDF. As in the case of the Chinese operation, it did not explicitly accuse the government of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, though the activity clearly mirrors the Kremlin’s extensive information war surrounding its invasion.“They were kind of throwing everything at the wall and not a lot of it was sticking,” said David Agranovich, Meta’s director of threat disruption. “It doesn’t mean that we can say mission accomplished here.”Meta’s report noted overlap between the Russian and Chinese campaigns on “a number of occasions,” although the company said they were unconnected. The overlap reflects the growing cross-fertilization of official statements and state media reports in the two countries, especially regarding the United States.The accounts associated with the Chinese campaign posted material from Russia’s state media, including those involving unfounded allegations that the United States had secretly developed biological weapons in Ukraine.A French-language account linked to the operation posted a version of the allegation in April, 10 days after it had originally been posted by Russia’s Ministry of Defense on Telegram. That one drew only one response, in French, from an authentic user, according to Meta.“Fake,” the user wrote. “Fake. Fake as usual.” More

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      Turkish Author Ece Temelkuran Sees a Contested U.S. Election Through the Lens of an Attempted Coup

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      Ece Temelkuran, a Turkish author, sees parallels between Donald Trump’s claims of election theft and the 2016 attempt to depose Recep Tayyip Erdogan.This article is from a special report on the Athens Democracy Forum, which convenes this week in the Greek capital to examine the ways in which self-governance might evolve.When President Donald J. Trump announced in November 2020 that he had been robbed of victory in the presidential election that month, the author and political commentator Ece Temelkuran (pronounced eh-jeh) drew direct parallels with her homeland, Turkey.“Make no mistake, this is an attempted coup,” she wrote in an editorial for The Guardian. “If it were happening in Turkey, the world’s media would not think twice about calling it so.”Ms. Temelkuran spoke from experience. She lived through the July 2016 coup attempt against the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and left the country to avoid the crackdown that followed. Three years later, she published “How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship,” a nonfiction book that charted a democratic country’s potential slide into authoritarianism.Ms. Temelkuran was born into a political family. Her mother was a student activist who was imprisoned after a military coup in Turkey in the 1970s and rescued by a young lawyer whom she would go on to marry.When she was 16, Ms. Temelkuran started writing for a feminist magazine and went on to become one of Turkey’s most widely read political commentators.She remains a high-profile commentator today while she lives in Hamburg, Germany, where she is a fellow at the New Institute’s Future of Democracy program.In a recent interview, Ms. Temelkuran spoke of the threats to democracy in the West and in her native Turkey. This conversation has been edited and condensed.Since you published your book “How to Lose Your Country,” a few things have happened. Mr. Trump is no longer in power. Nor is the British prime minister Boris Johnson, who championed Britain’s exit from the European Union. How do you view the world today?I think there’s too much optimism, and also too much pessimism. The optimists think that if they get rid of Boris Johnson or Trump, everything will be back to normal in terms of democracy — that we can just fix a few mechanisms in the democratic machine, and we will be fine after that. I think this is a deeper crisis: a cluster of crises, actually, that we have to look deeper into.The crisis of democracy is very much intertwined with the crisis of capitalism. There is no way out, unless we address the issue of social equality.Ece Temelkuran is an author and political commentator who lives in Hamburg, Germany, where she is a fellow at the New Institute’s Future of Democracy program.Roberto Ricciuti/Getty ImagesYou say democracy in its present form is dead, because capitalism is essentially incompatible with democracy. Can you explain?Right-wing populist movements did not suddenly appear in the last 10 years. We have to go back to the 1980s to understand what really is happening in the world today, especially in terms of democracy.Democracy stands on the fundamental promise of equality and social justice. Capitalism does not promise social justice. If people are not equal in real terms, meaning financially and economically, how can you promise them equality as citizens?Why do you believe that capitalism is at odds with social justice?People pretend as if the rights that workers enjoy — Sundays off, eight-hour work days, etc. — are all thanks to capitalism. In fact, whatever the working classes have achieved or earned has come after a very long and hard struggle against the ruling classes.The depoliticization of society in the 1970s and 1980s contributed to an infantilization of citizens — to their perception of politics as being dirty. This massive depoliticization contributed to the right-wing populist movements of today. That’s why we have all these masses who believe that Trump is the savior, or that Brexit will make Britain great again.Another consequence was that we were made to be afraid of words like socialism, social democracy, regulation, financial regulation. These words became taboo after the 1970s.We’ve ended up in a place where we don’t even allow ourselves to think of a better system than capitalism. It is as if the end of capitalism were to lead to the end of the world.You use the word fascism to describe political realities in the West. That word has serious historical resonance. Why use it?Because I think we should use that word. We were made to believe that fascism was buried in the battlefields of the Second World War. The version that wears boots and uniform was buried, yes. But fascism does not just come in a uniform and boots, marching in goose step. If freedom of speech, freedom of organization, and the rights of the working classes are oppressed, that builds up to fascism.In countries such as the United States and Britain, the democratic establishment is powerful enough to protect itself. But in countries where the political and democratic establishment is not mature enough, you see fully formed oppression. There is no doubt that these are regimes that we can easily call fascism — in Turkey, in India, and in several other countries.Parliamentary democracies aren’t suddenly going to turn Hitlerian, are they?They don’t need to. At the time of Hitler, there was a need to be oppressive and violent because there was a massive union movement in Germany and the rest of Europe, a socialist movement. Nowadays, there is no such thing. So why use violence? They can use post-truths or social media to manipulate people, to spread misinformation and so on.If we can shift global politics to being more progressive, then we can get rid of these movements. At the moment, the center of the political spectrum is empty. Centrist politicians don’t have a story with which to mobilize and organize people. There’s a vacuum.Take French President Emmanuel Macron, for example. Why is he there? Because everybody is so afraid of far-right leader Marine Le Pen. For the last decade, at least, voting has become a tool to protect us from the worst.This is not politics. It’s a survival reaction.Unless the center opens its arms to the left and to progressives, there is no way out for democracy in the world.Turkey was for a long time a model when it came to the transition to democracy in the Muslim world. What’s going on there now?It’s a massive form of dictatorship. But then these dictatorships do not have to use violence. Now they’re using a different political tool, which is this very wide web of political money that spans the entire country. Even the smallest sympathizer to the party is getting this money. They have a good life. If you are part of the party, or in the party circle, you have a life. Otherwise, it’s not just economic transactions that are impossible. You cannot exercise your basic rights as a citizen.There are first-class citizens who are submissive to the party or Erdogan, and the others. The others, as Erdogan has said, are welcome to leave, and they are leaving. There is a massive brain drain from Turkey at the moment. It’s another tragic story. Doctors, nurses, well-educated people, academics: They’re all leaving.What’s the way out?The way out, which Turkish political forces are in a very inadequate way trying at the moment, is coming together: for all the opposition parties, despite their political differences, to come together and, in the interests of democracy, participate in elections. More

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      Hochul and Zeldin Turn Potential Debates Into a Game of Chicken

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      There have been accusations of cowardice, name-calling and, of course, liberal use of a chicken suit motif.With six weeks until Election Day, the candidates in the New York race for governor have fully embraced a now-familiar rite of passage to the governor’s mansion in Albany: the debate over the debate.Republican Lee Zeldin, a Republican from Long Island, had for weeks challenged Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic incumbent vying for her first full term, to as many as five debates ahead of the general election on Nov. 8.The taunting played out in typical New York fashion: Mr. Zeldin incessantly accused Ms. Hochul of “chickening out” on Twitter and in emails to supporters, while The New York Post ran a front page of Ms. Hochul — whom they called “scaredy Kat” — in a bright yellow chicken suit.Despite the goading, Ms. Hochul remained noncommittal until last week, when she said she would apparently participate in only one debate: an event hosted by Spectrum News NY1 on Oct. 25.Mr. Zeldin decried her decision as “cowardly” and insisted that the candidates should have several debates. Mr. Zeldin has accepted invitations to two other debates that Ms. Hochul has not agreed to. But he has not, as of now, accepted the invitation to the Oct. 25 debate, in an apparent sign of protest, posturing or bargaining — or all three.The impasse, however long it lasts, has only escalated the one-upmanship between the campaigns. On Thursday, Ms. Hochul’s press secretary posted an image on Twitter of Mr. Zeldin in a chicken suit; Mr. Zeldin shot back with a statement challenging Ms. Hochul to “come out, come out wherever you are!”So, as matters stand, it remains unclear when, or even if, New Yorkers will get an opportunity to watch Ms. Hochul and Mr. Zeldin face off as they contend for the state’s highest office, in a race largely defined by competing visions around issues of public safety, affordability and reproductive rights.As is typical for challengers seeking to unseat incumbents, Mr. Zeldin would stand to benefit the most from the free airtime associated with debates. It is plausible that he will eventually capitulate to Ms. Hochul’s offer of a lone debate.Some recent public polls show Mr. Zeldin trailing Ms. Hochul, who enjoys wider name recognition, by roughly 15 percentage points, though other surveys suggest that the race may be tighter. Ms. Hochul, who took office last year after former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo abruptly resigned over sexual harassment allegations, has also amassed a considerably larger campaign war chest that she has deployed to flood the airwaves with a barrage of TV ads attacking Mr. Zeldin.Ms. Hochul’s stance is not unusual for incumbent governors in New York.Mr. Cuomo, who was often reluctant to debate his rivals, held out until about two weeks before Election Day in 2018 before committing to a single debate with his Republican opponent, Marcus J. Molinaro, who had repeatedly accused him of making “a mockery of democracy” and “hiding from public scrutiny.” (Tabloids and chicken suits were also involved in that process).Mr. Cuomo came under similar monthslong pressure from the actress Cynthia Nixon, who unsuccessfully challenged him during the Democratic primary earlier that year, until he finally agreed to one debate.Years before, in 1994, George E. Pataki was not given the chance to debate former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, a three-term Democrat. Mr. Pataki, a Republican, prevailed nonetheless in an upset victory, but he did not debate his opponents in the following election in 1998.In announcing Ms. Hochul’s participation in the Oct. 25 debate, which will take place at 7 p.m. at Pace University, her campaign said that she had participated in two debates during the Democratic primary earlier this year. It added that she would announce “additional public forums and speaking engagements” ahead of November.“Governor Hochul looks forward to highlighting the clear contrast between her strong record of delivering results and Lee Zeldin’s extreme agenda,” Jerrel Harvey, a spokesman for the Hochul campaign, said in a statement.Mr. Zeldin’s campaign said that Mr. Zeldin had already accepted two debate requests — from WCBS-TV and WPIX-TV — and urged the local networks to proceed with the debates “without her and with an empty podium.” The debate on Spectrum News NY1, the campaign said, could also be limited to cable viewers, potentially leaving out television viewers who mostly rely on broadcast channels or are subscribed to another cable provider.The Zeldin campaign also noted that the Oct. 25 debate would take place over a month after election officials began mailing absentee ballots to voters.“Voters should have the opportunity to hear where the candidates stand before they vote, not after,” Mr. Zeldin said in a statement. “Scaredy cat Hochul can run but she can’t hide from her absolutely abysmal record on the issues most important to New Yorkers, including rising crime, skyrocketing cost of living and an eroding quality of education.” More

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      Why Candidates Owe Voters Full Medical Transparency

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      The principal intent of campaigns is to give voice to the candidates’ positions on major issues. When casting their ballots, voters consider personality, party allegiance, character traits and other factors. In Pennsylvania’s Senate election, a candidate’s personal health has come to the fore, and the outcome could be a key in determining control of the Senate.In my experience, politicians who are not fully transparent in disclosing their health information can become vulnerable to the spread of misinformation, rumors and antics that detract from the candidate’s stances on major issues. That risk is playing out in the Fetterman-Oz race in Pennsylvania.It began in May, when the Democratic candidate, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, experienced a stroke, a common affliction. But his campaign has undergone criticism for delays in disclosing relevant health information. It was learned that Mr. Fetterman was diagnosed with a serious abnormal heart rhythm, atrial fibrillation, in 2017. Since that diagnosis, Mr. Fetterman had failed to take prescribed medications and to visit a doctor until the stroke emergency. After his stroke, Mr. Fetterman received a pacemaker-defibrillator for another heart ailment, cardiomyopathy, which reduces the organ’s strength in pumping blood to the body.During recovery he has stammered, spoken haltingly and acknowledged difficulty in auditory processing, a common problem in strokes. In the upcoming Oct. 25 debate with his opponent, Mehmet Oz, Mr. Fetterman has requested accommodations, like a closed-caption monitor so he doesn’t miss words.Like other stroke survivors, Mr. Fetterman has benefited from an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the plasticity of the brain and from medical advances in detecting and treating strokes. He says his health is “robust,” and has responded to journalists’ questions about his fitness for office by saying, “Sometimes I might miss a word and sometimes I might mush two words together.” Such slips, while embarrassing, do not necessarily indicate cognitive problems like deficits in problem solving, reasoning and critical thinking.But the Fetterman campaign has given the public little opportunity to clarify his medical issue. Over the years, my reporting has found that, for various reasons, doctors’ statements concerning a political leader are not always as complete as they should be. The Fetterman campaign has released only one statement from his cardiologist, in June. Although his campaign has said the candidate has received normal scores on cognitive tests, it has not released his full cognitive testing results or information from a neurologist about the stroke-affected area of his brain.Mr. Fetterman may have avoided his health becoming a political issue had he, party officials and journalists met their civic responsibilities to check on his health when he entered the primary campaign. Mr. Oz, a former heart surgeon, only just released his own personal medical information, on Friday.In an election, voters expect that candidates can fulfill their duties for a full term. In my view, no ailment should prevent individuals from seeking elected office provided they have disclosed their full medical information. Voters define and decide fitness for office.A “Get Well Soon” card for John Fetterman at a watch party in Pittsburgh, PA in May while he was in this hospital recovering from a stroke.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesSome view disclosing a candidate’s health as a clash between an individual’s right to medical confidentiality and the public’s right to know about that candidate’s health. Because no one forces anyone to run for office, candidates can easily avoid such a clash by volunteering and authorizing their doctors to disclose complete health information.Seekers of elected offices may not relish disclosing personal health information. Their doctors may be annoyed at armchair physicians not involved with a politician’s medical care second-guessing their diagnostic and treatment decisions. Politicians should realize that disclosing limited information about their health can make it more of an issue than full transparency.Full disclosure is no guarantee that a healthy candidate will serve effectively in office or an ailing one will perform poorly. Nor does it guarantee that a healthy candidate will escape experiencing a serious ailment in office. When that occurs, the public generally supports allowing the office holder a reasonable recuperative period. Two sitting U. S. senators (Ben Ray Luján, Democrat of New Mexico, and Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland) experienced strokes earlier this year and have returned to work.But when ailments become incapacitating or interfere with members fulfilling their duties, Congress lacks its version of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which determines steps to remove a disabled president from office or appointing the vice president as acting president. Without such a provision, seriously ailing members of Congress are allowed to retain their seats until they face re-election at term’s end, and voters should be aware of that possibility.A benefit of candidates disclosing their health status, and attending to their own well-being, is that publicity about a politician’s medical care can be instructive. For example, discovery of President Reagan’s colon cancer after a colonoscopy in 1985 encouraged many other Americans to undergo the screening procedure. Perhaps Mr. Fetterman’s saga will encourage Americans to follow their doctors’ advice and journalists to motivate politicians to release fully transparent health information.Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, a former New York Times senior medical correspondent and columnist, is writing a book on the personal health of political leaders.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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      ¿El máximo tribunal de Brasil se extralimita en su defensa de la democracia?

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      El principal contrapeso al poder del presidente Jair Bolsonaro ha sido el Supremo Tribunal Federal de Brasil. Ahora muchos temen que el organismo se convierta en una amenaza.RÍO DE JANEIRO — El chat grupal en WhatsApp era una especie de vestidor de gimnasio para decenas de los más grandes empresarios de Brasil. Estaba un magnate de centros comerciales, el fundador de una tienda de ropa para surfear y el multimillonario de la tienda departamental más conocida de Brasil. Se quejaban de la inflación, enviaban memes y, a veces, compartían opiniones incendiarias.El Times More

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      Don Bolduc Indicates He Has Not Entirely Turned His Back on Election Denial

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      All through his primary, Don Bolduc, a far-right Senate candidate in New Hampshire, said the 2020 election was stolen. A day after his victory was called, he reversed course. But eight days after that?He indicated on a podcast that he had not completely turned his back on the stolen-election movement, conveying that he found it unclear why his election-denial message had not been resonating with voters in the battleground state.“The narrative that the election was stolen, it does not fly up here in New Hampshire for whatever reason,” Mr. Bolduc said in a Sept. 23 appearance on The Mel K Show, a podcast aligned with the QAnon conspiracy movement.Then he renewed his false claim there had been fraud in the election.“What does fly” in New Hampshire, Mr. Bolduc said, “is that there was significant fraud and it needs to be fixed.”For about five minutes on the podcast, Mr. Bolduc attacked the expansion of mail-in voting during the pandemic and said voters in New Hampshire should be forced to present identification at the polls. He further stated his opposition to college students from out of state voting in New Hampshire.Shortly after winning his primary, Mr. Bolduc struck a far different tone in a Fox News interview, saying, “I want to be definitive on this — the election was not stolen.”“Elections have consequences, and, unfortunately, President Biden is the legitimate president of this country,” he said in the interview.Mr. Bolduc’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.He is challenging Senator Maggie Hassan, whose underwhelming job approval ratings have emboldened Republicans in New England. The race could help determine whether Republicans gain control of the Senate in the November elections. More

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      Jim Florio, New Jersey Governor Undone by Tax Hike, Dies at 85

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      A Democrat, he had successes on gun control, the environment and property-tax relief, but after raising income and sales taxes, he lost a bid for re-election.Jim Florio, who was elected governor of New Jersey in 1989 by persuading voters that he would not raise state taxes but who then pushed through a record increase shortly after taking office, incurring public wrath that led to his defeat in his bid for a second term, died on Sunday. He was 85.His law partner Douglas Steinhardt announced the death on Twitter on Monday but did not specify the cause or place of death.The nation was facing a worsening economy and New Jersey the prospect of a yawning budget deficit when Mr. Florio, then an eight-term Democratic congressman, insisted during his campaign that he would balance the budget only by cutting waste in state spending.But two months after taking office in January 1990 he proposed a budget that called for sharp increases in income and sales taxes totaling more than $2.5 billion, in addition to deep cuts in most state services.He had no choice, he said. On taking a close look at the state’s books after he took office, he said, it was plain that just cutting spending would not be enough to balance the budget. Mr. Florio said tax-revenue projections by the previous Republican administration of Gov. Thomas H. Kean Sr. had been grossly overstated, even “phony,” and made even the deep spending cuts he proposed insufficient by themselves.Public reaction was harsh. Many New Jerseyans felt betrayed, asserting that Mr. Florio had broken a firm pledge not to increase taxes. Many fellow Democratic politicians expressed shock at the extent of the proposed increases, and some budget experts said that Mr. Florio had ignored evidence during the campaign that tax increases would be unavoidable.Ultimately, however, the Democratic-controlled State Senate and Assembly approved his plan by slim margins.More popular were his successes in enacting auto-insurance reform aimed at lowering the steep premiums that the state’s residents had been paying; pushing for property-tax relief for many middle-income homeowners, a measure approved by the State Legislature; and appointing an environmental prosecutor to crack down on the state’s notoriously polluting industries.Mr. Florio also won legislation to ban semiautomatic assault weapons, then prevailed over intense efforts led by the National Rifle Association to have the law repealed. And he successfully pushed a bill that shifted a substantial amount of state aid from affluent public school districts to lower and moderate-income ones — a measure that proved widely divisive.But the tax increases were his undoing. Feeding off voters’ anger, Republicans for the first time in two decades gained control of both houses of the legislature in 1991, and in a close election two years later, Mr. Florio was denied a second term by Christine Todd Whitman, a former Somerset County freeholder and scion of a prominent New Jersey family who became the state’s first woman governor.To his supporters, Mr. Florio — who preferred to be called Jim, and the news media obliged — was a tough-minded liberal with an independent streak. The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation gave him its Profile in Courage Award in 1993. Mr. Florio, the foundation said, had shown “courageous political leadership in gun control, education and economic reform,” including having “risked political and public criticism when he swiftly and boldly restructured the state’s income tax system.”Detractors called Mr. Florio stiff-necked. He shrugged off that assessment in his speech accepting the Profile in Courage Award, saying: “The first thing I learned as governor is that you can’t please everybody. The second thing I learned is some days you can’t please anybody. So be it.”Mr. Florio had won the governorship after two previously unsuccessful races for the office during the 15 years he served in Congress, where he made a name nationally as an environmental protection advocate. Most prominently, he helped spearhead the 1980 Superfund legislation to clean up dangerous toxic waste dumps and chemical spills across the country.In Congress, representing the Camden area, he gained a reputation as a hard worker and a frugal one.“My philosophy has always been, I have one pair of shoes because I have one pair of feet,” he said at the time. “My father always worked, always worked very hard. It is just beyond comprehension that anyone would not.”James Joseph Florio was born in Brooklyn on Aug. 29, 1937. His father was a shipyard painter.Mr. Florio dropped out of high school to serve in the Navy, where he earned a high school equivalency diploma. He was also an amateur boxer, an avocation that left him with a permanently sunken left cheekbone. He later served in the Navy Reserve for 17 years, rising to lieutenant commander.Mr. Florio graduated from Trenton State College (today the College of New Jersey) in 1962 and from Rutgers Law School in 1967. While in college he married Maryanne Spaeth. The marriage ended in divorce, and in 1988 he married Lucinda Coleman.Information about Mr. Florio’s survivors was not immediately available.Mr. Florio began practicing law in Camden, became active in local politics and served in the State Assembly in the 1970s. He lost a race for Congress in 1972 to the Republican incumbent, John E. Hunt. But in a return match two years later he defeated Mr. Hunt and served in the House until he was elected governor in 1989.He first ran for governor in 1977 as one of nine Democrats seeking to unseat a fellow Democrat, Gov. Brendan T. Byrne. Mr. Byrne defeated them in the primary and then prevailed in the general election.Mr. Florio ran again in 1981, winning the Democratic nomination but losing the general election to Mr. Kean, a moderate Republican, by a hair — fewer than 2,000 votes out of 2.3 million cast.In 1989, Mr. Florio easily won the Democratic nomination and then handily defeated his Republican opponent, Rep. James A. Courter. As the highly conservative Mr. Courter took a hard line against big government and taxes, Mr. Florio called himself part of “the sensible center” who would pursue policies like fighting pollution and steep auto insurance rates while holding the line on taxes.In seeking re-election in 1993, Mr. Florio had no Democratic primary opponent, even as polls had long suggested that he was unlikely to win in the general election. But as the race with Ms. Whitman heated up, polls showed it had tightened in the weeks before Election Day.Mr. Florio charged that Ms. Whitman, who had not held an elected post above the county level, was too inexperienced to run the state and that, coming from one of its wealthiest families, was out of touch with the needs of most residents. “There are no blue bloods” where he grew up in Brooklyn, Mr. Florio said time and again.Ms. Whitman hammered away at the Florio tax increases, pledged to cut income taxes by 30 percent over three years and accused the incumbent of waging a campaign based on class warfare.In the end, she narrowly won, with 49 percent of the vote to his 48 percent, while more than a dozen independent candidates shared the rest.It was not Mr. Florio’s last hurrah. In 2000 he ran for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat being vacated by a fellow Democrat, Frank R. Lautenberg.Mr. Florio faced a Wall Street multimillionaire and novice politician, Jon S. Corzine, who maintained that Mr. Florio, with his sharp tax increases as the economy sank into a recession in 1990, “took a problem and made it a crisis.” Mr. Florio questioned his opponent’s qualifications for the office and accused him of sounding like a Republican.Mr. Corzine, who outspent Mr. Florio by 14 to 1 — $35 million to $2.5 million — won easily, and then won the general election. Mr. Corzine left the Senate in 2006 after being elected governor and served one term, defeated for re-election in 2009 by the Republican Chris Christie, a prosecutor at the time.After losing his bid for a second term as governor, Mr. Florio returned to private law practice. But he remained active in environmental matters. From 2002 to 2005 he served as chairman of the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, which works to preserve the state’s Pine Barrens, the 1.1 million acres of semi-wilderness spanning parts of seven counties. While in Congress, Mr. Florio had pressed for federal support of such efforts.Alex Traub More