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      As Britain Prepares for a New Leader, Tensions With Allies Loom

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      Comments from the front-runner for prime minister, Liz Truss, suggest bumpier relations with Europe and the U.S. if she wins, with Northern Ireland getting in the way of the “special relationship.”LONDON — Three weeks after Liz Truss became Britain’s top diplomat in 2021, she told a Conservative Party conference that her country need not compete for the affection of the United States. Britons, she said, should not worry “like some teenage girl at a party if we’re not considered to be good enough.”Her line drew laughs, but little more than that, at a meeting dominated by the flamboyant figure of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Now, though, Mr. Johnson is on his way out and Ms. Truss is the front-runner in the contest to replace him, making such provocative comments a potential clue to future policy.Should Ms. Truss emerge victorious in a party vote that will be announced on Monday, she will have a chance to flesh out the vision of a Global Britain that Mr. Johnson unveiled after the country left the European Union two years ago. Based on her record as foreign secretary, diplomats and analysts in London and Washington said, relations could get bumpier with the United States and, even more so, with Europe.Tensions between London and Brussels have already flared over legislation introduced by Ms. Truss that would upend the post-Brexit trade arrangements in Northern Ireland. She has vowed to push the new law through Parliament, stoking fears that it could trigger a trade war across the English Channel.The Biden administration is keeping close watch, anxious that the dispute could threaten a quarter-century of peace in Northern Ireland secured by the Good Friday Agreement. President Biden has asked aides to pass along his concern about the negotiations between Britain and the European Union over the trade rules.Rishi Sunak met supporters last month in Birmingham, England. During the campaign, he has promoted his credentials as a Brexiteer.Rui Vieira/Associated Press“We’re going to trundle along in a pretty bad place” in part because “she’s going to keep playing to the peanut gallery of those who are deeply committed to Brexit,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, the director of the U.S. and Americas program at Chatham House, the British research institution.“There is a swath of Britain that doesn’t like being dependent on the United States or the European Union,” Ms. Vinjamuri said. “She is completely aligned with a vision of Britain being global, strong, sovereign and, most of all, independent.”That Brexit-inflected message has helped Ms. Truss pile up a commanding lead in the polls over her opponent, Rishi Sunak, even if he performed well in the final debates of the campaign. But some of the pressures will mount regardless of which candidate is victorious. Mr. Sunak, too, has pledged to push through the Northern Ireland bill, and he promotes his credentials as a Brexiteer. (Ms. Truss opposed Brexit before becoming a fervent proponent of it after the 2016 referendum.)Britain’s role in the world is shaped by forces larger than the next occupant of 10 Downing Street. Having cast itself off from the European Union, Britain can act as more of a free agent, seeking its own relations with great powers like China. But it has lost its role as a bridge between the United States and Europe, becoming a less influential player on global issues like Russia’s war in Ukraine.In that crisis and others, including Iran’s nuclear program, Britain is likely to keep aligning itself with the United States. Mr. Johnson has acted as a kind of wingman to Mr. Biden on Ukraine, encouraging him to impose harsher sanctions on Russia and ship heavier weapons to the Ukrainian army.Loyalists marching last year in Portadown, Northern Ireland, to protest trade rules that require border checks on goods flowing from mainland Britain to the North, as part of a Brexit deal with the European Union.Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York TimesMs. Truss would most likely double down on Mr. Johnson’s backing of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. She has presented herself as a hawk on Russia, using language that at times goes further than that of American officials. But her most memorable diplomatic encounter, with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in February, was marred when Russian officials claimed to reporters that she was ignorant of Russian geography in a private exchange with Mr. Lavrov.While Ms. Truss lived with her family in Canada for a year as a child, she is not a globe-trotting figure like Mr. Sunak, who has an M.B.A. from Stanford, owns a home in Santa Monica, Calif., and until recently held a U.S. green card. Mr. Johnson was born in New York City and renounced his American citizenship only in 2016.For all of his Brexit bluster, which appealed to former President Donald J. Trump but grated on Mr. Biden, Mr. Johnson regularly expressed his affinity for the United States. In his last appearance as prime minister in the House of Commons in July, Mr. Johnson offered his successor some parting advice, borrowed from his hero, Winston Churchill: “Stay close to the Americans.”Ms. Truss, by contrast, shows little reverence for the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States. “It’s special, but not exclusive,” she said at the party conference last year, noting that Britain had other important allies like Australia, India and European countries, notably the Baltic States.“Words matter,” Ms. Vinjamuri said, “and they matter especially when the U.S. is in a period of elections and political upheaval.”Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain with President Biden in June during a NATO meeting in Spain. In the final moments of his last appearance as prime minister in the House of Commons in July, Mr. Johnson offered his successor some advice: “Stay close to the Americans.”Jonathan Ernst/ReutersMs. Truss’s most ambitious outreach to Washington came during the Trump years and ended in frustration. As trade secretary, she led negotiations for a trans-Atlantic trade agreement with Mr. Trump’s trade representative, Robert E. Lighthizer. He recalled her as an energetic, well-briefed free trader.The talks, however, petered out with Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020, and Mr. Biden has shown little interest in reviving them. That means Ms. Truss will have to find other common ground with him, beyond Ukraine.“Brits expect their prime minister to have a good personal relationship with the American president,” said Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to Washington. “If they’re not getting on, that will get picked up and commented on, probably critically.”Perhaps stung by her previous statements about foreign leaders, Ms. Truss has steered clear of American politics. Asked by a journalist last week if she viewed Mr. Trump as a friend or foe, she said, “I’m not going to comment on future potential presidential runners,” adding, “We have to work with whoever is in the White House.”She was less diplomatic when it came to continental Europe, particularly France. “The jury is out,” she said, when she was asked the friend-or-foe question about President Emmanuel Macron of France. That drew a backhanded reply from Mr. Macron, who said Britain was a friend, regardless of its leader.Peter Westmacott, another former British envoy to Washington, likened Ms. Truss’s remarks to those of a candidate in an American primary — in this case, aimed at the 160,000 or so members of the Conservative Party who are voting for a new leader. If she wins, he predicted, she will pivot back to the center.Still, he said her campaign messaging had done damage that went beyond France. She floated the idea of Britain sending asylum seekers to Turkey in addition to Rwanda, a proposal swiftly shot down by the Turkish government.President Emmanuel Macron of France last month in Paris. He said Britain was a friend of France, regardless of its leader.Yoan Valat/EPA, via Shutterstock“I hope she will also conclude before too long that the U.K. has every interest in finding allies in Europe to help limit the damage caused by Brexit, energy prices and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Mr. Westmacott said.A trade war with the European Union is far from inevitable. European officials may choose to hold off on major retaliation until the Northern Ireland legislation gets through Parliament. That process could drag on for months, given the fierce resistance the bill is likely to face in the House of Lords, where many members view it as a breach of international law and a power grab by cabinet ministers.The dilemma for Ms. Truss, if she wins, is that her political ascent has been powered by her cultivation of the party’s Brexiteer wing. That will make it hard for her to give ground in the dispute with Brussels. And Britain’s relations with the European Union are increasingly inseparable from its relations with the United States.“The U.K.-E.U. relationship looks more destructive in the short term,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at the political risk consultancy, Eurasia Group. “It’s going to subtract from the level of credibility she’ll enjoy in Washington.”“All roads run through Europe,” he said. More

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      Pennsylvania Stakes Its Claim as Center of the Political Universe

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      WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Pennsylvania, the site of crucial victories and devastating defeats for both political parties in recent elections, has emerged as the nation’s center of political gravity and its ultimate battleground as peak campaign season arrives.Perhaps no other state features as many high-stakes, competitive races, each pulsing with political currents shaping midterm campaigns across the country. The open race for governor between a right-wing political outsider and a veteran of the Democratic establishment may determine both the future of abortion rights and of free and fair elections in a large presidential swing state.The personality-driven, increasingly ugly Senate contest — shaped by clashes over celebrity and elitism, crime and crudités, and a candidate’s health — could decide control of the chamber.And in races up and down the ballot, Pennsylvania is poised to test whether the political realignment of the Trump era can hold, after the moderate Philadelphia suburbs overwhelmingly rejected the former president’s brand of politics, while many white working-class voters abandoned the Democrats to embrace him.It’s no surprise, then, that President Biden, whose 2020 success in Pennsylvania propelled him to the White House, delivered two speeches in the state this week, lashing Trumpism as an urgent threat to the nation in Philadelphia and also speaking in Wilkes-Barre, a northeastern city in politically competitive Luzerne County. He is expected in Pittsburgh on Monday for a Labor Day appearance.Former President Donald J. Trump, who in 2016 became the first Republican presidential nominee to win Pennsylvania in nearly three decades, is also kicking off the unofficial start to the general election in the state. He’s scheduled to appear in the Wilkes-Barre area on Saturday for a rally with Republican candidates. It is his first major public appearance since the F.B.I. searched his Palm Beach, Fla., home.Supporters of former President Donald J. Trump waited for Mr. Biden’s motorcade to pass in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday. Mark Moran/The Citizens’ Voice, via Associated Press“It’s always a heavily contested state in presidential elections as well as statewide elections, and this year, we happen to have two of the biggest races in the country,” said Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania. “The nation’s watching to see what will happen.”In a sprawling, politically complex place where voters historically have often elevated consensus-minded statewide candidates, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, is running for governor against State Senator Doug Mastriano, the right-wing, election-denying Republican nominee who strenuously opposes abortion rights.The Senate race has pitted Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a shorts-wearing, social media-savvy official who is recovering from a stroke, against Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity television physician.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAn Upset in Alaska: Mary Peltola, a Democrat, beat Sarah Palin in a special House election, adding to a series of recent wins for the party. Ms. Peltola will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a New York special election is one of the latest examples.G.O.P.’s Dimming Hopes: Republicans are still favored in the fall House races, but former President Donald J. Trump and abortion are scrambling the picture in ways that distress party insiders.Digital Pivot: At least 10 G.O.P. candidates in competitive races have updated their websites to minimize their ties to Mr. Trump or to adjust their uncompromising stances on abortion.The Democratic candidates have led in fund-raising and the polls. But party and campaign officials expect both races to tighten, given the closely divided nature of the state.That may especially be the case in the Senate race, as a flood of money from national groups comes in to support Dr. Oz (Mr. Fetterman has benefited from outside spending too), and as voters think about political control of Washington, beyond their attitudes toward individual candidates. Many voters remain furious about the cost of living, and are inclined to take it out on the party in power.“Have you gone food shopping lately? Have you filled your car with gas?” said Sue Sullivan, 61, in an interview on Biden Street in Scranton, Pa., the city of the president’s birth. “Nothing is going well.”Ms. Sullivan, a Republican from Garnet Valley, Pa., said she was unenthusiastic about the Republican nominees but intended to back them anyway.“With the way the country’s going, I would probably vote for a Republican I didn’t like versus voting for a Democrat that I did like,” she said.As of Friday, the average gas price in Pennsylvania was $4.04 a gallon, according to AAA — less than the average a month ago, but still more than the $3.29 of a year ago. The state’s unemployment rate in July was 4.3 percent, higher than the national rate but slightly lower than that of states including New York.There are signs of an improving political environment for Democrats.Outrage over the overturning of Roe v. Wade has helped them close a once-yawning enthusiasm gap. While Mr. Biden has suffered months of abysmal approval ratings, his numbers are ticking up. Mr. Trump, who has strongly unfavorable ratings, has re-emerged in the headlines thanks to the F.B.I. effort to retrieve classified documents from his home. And in several key Senate races, Republican candidates have stumbled.Lt. Gov. John Fetterman appeared at a rally in Erie in August but has otherwise kept to a light schedule since having a stroke in May.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesIn Pennsylvania, where Mr. Fetterman has a strong personal brand, the Democrat has used his prolific social media presence to cast Dr. Oz as an out-of-touch carpetbagger more at home in New Jersey, which had been his longtime principal residence, than in Pennsylvania, where he says he now lives. Mr. Fetterman has maintained a light public schedule since his stroke in May, but he has kept up an active presence on the airwaves, and there are signs that the messaging has resonated.“Fetterman is like for the working man,” said Robert Thompson, 63, a retired firefighter and passionate defender of Mr. Biden’s, in an interview this week across the street from the office of the Republican Party of Luzerne County. “Dr. Oz, that’s Mr. Hollywood.”Dr. Oz is trying to paint Mr. Fetterman as a far-left Democrat who is soft on crime. Mr. Fetterman has released his own ad stressing his public safety bona fides, a sign that the issue has the potential to become a flash point in the race.Dr. Mehmet Oz checked the blood pressure of an audience member during an event in Monroeville on Monday. Dr. Oz has begun to mock Mr. Fetterman over the pace of his recovery.Matt Freed/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, via Associated PressThe Republican Dr. Oz, trained as a heart surgeon, and his campaign, have begun to mock Mr. Fetterman over the pace of his recovery, offering pointed debate “concessions,” like a promise to pay for additional medical personnel. A spokeswoman said that if Mr. Fetterman “had ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke.”In an interview on MSNBC this week, Mr. Fetterman — who has said that he almost died — blasted the Oz campaign for appealing “to folks that get their jollies, you know, making fun of the stroke dude.”“I might miss a word every now and then, or I might mush two words together,” he said, but stressed that he was expected to make a full recovery.Mr. Fetterman is still using closed captions for interviews and other business conducted by video, his spokesman, Joe Calvello, confirmed, saying that it “helps him keep conversations moving fast.” A number of Democrats have argued that his health scare is a relatable episode for many voters.But his decision to decline a debate next week has brought questions about his health back into public focus.People waited to enter the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie to attend the rally with Mr. Fetterman.Jeff Swensen for The New York Times“Mr. Fetterman has to show a presence so that he can show people that he’s healthy and he’s able to fill that position without a health issue,” said Mayor George C. Brown of Wilkes-Barre, adding that he expected Mr. Fetterman, whom he supports, would do so more visibly as the race unfolds. “Come out, do some rallies, talk to people.”“Unfortunately, the way that some of this campaigning is going, it shows that there’s an issue with Mr. Fetterman’s health, and I can’t say that, because I’ve never really spoken to the man,” he added in a Wednesday interview.Mr. Calvello, the Fetterman spokesman, said that the candidate was pursuing an increasingly busy campaign schedule, though he stopped short of committing to debating.“John has been and will continue to be open about his health and his struggles with auditory processing,” Mr. Calvello said. “He is going to be doing more and more events and will continue to draw large crowds.”Mr. Fetterman is planning a “Women for Fetterman” rally in the Philadelphia suburbs for next Sunday — which is Sept. 11 — focused on abortion rights.After the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, which handed control over abortion rights back to the states, the matter has become a top-tier issue in major races, including in Pennsylvania. The state has a Republican-led legislature and Mr. Shapiro has cast himself as a bulwark against any effort to enact the kind of bans that have taken hold in other states. Dr. Oz met voters at the Capitol Diner in Swatara Township last month.Sean Simmers/The Patriot-News, via Associated PressAbortion has a been major focus in the governor’s race as Mr. Shapiro works to brand Mr. Mastriano as far too extreme for the state. Mr. Shapiro has so far spent $18 million on television advertising this year, his campaign said, with plans for a significant fall advertising campaign.Mr. Mastriano’s campaign, which rarely engages with mainstream media outlets, did not respond to a request for comment. As of Thursday, Mr. Mastriano had not been on the airwaves in the general election, according to AdImpact. The Republican Governors Association has also not yet reserved airtime to boost Mr. Mastriano.A growing number of Republicans have announced their support for Mr. Shapiro, with some citing their concerns about Mr. Mastriano’s efforts to spread lies about the 2020 election and warning of the threat they believe he poses to a state that is home to the birthplace of American democracy.Josh Shapiro at an event in Lock Haven.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesDoug Mastriano at an event in Pittsburgh.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesBut for all of Mr. Mastriano’s structural challenges, and scrutiny over incidents like his appearance in a Confederate uniform or backing from an antisemitic ally, the race may wind up being highly competitive.“The real professionals know it’s going to be very tough,” Shanin Specter, a Philadelphia lawyer and son of the late Senator Arlen Specter, said. Mr. Shapiro, he said, was meeting the race with appropriate seriousness. But he warned that some live in an “echo chamber” and believe “Shapiro couldn’t possibly lose. And they’re just dead wrong.”Mr. Casey, the senator, suggested that Mr. Mastriano’s ascent in the Republican Party indicated that “few, if any” of the state’s successful former Republican governors would have won the nomination today.Indeed, the G.O.P. has been increasingly remade in the image of Mr. Trump, who will rally Saturday in a county that he flipped in 2016.Pennsylvania “plays an important part in both the former president’s history and narrative as well as the current president’s,” said David Urban, a Republican strategist who helped run Mr. Trump’s Pennsylvania operation in 2016.Nodding to the possibility that both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump may seek the presidency in 2024, he added, “Past may be prologue here. You may see both the former president and the current president duking it out in Pennsylvania again.” More

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      Myanmar’s Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Gets More Prison Time

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      Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the politician and Nobel laureate, was found guilty of election fraud on Friday, a sign that the junta has no intention of easing its pressure on her.Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s ousted civilian leader who was detained in a coup last year, was sentenced to three more years in prison, with hard labor, on Friday when a court found her guilty of election fraud in a case that the army brought against her after her political party won in a landslide in 2020.The latest sentence brings her total prison term to 20 years, an indication that the junta is not easing its pressure on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi despite international condemnation. The guilty verdict comes as the military seeks to erase her influence in the country. Last month, Myanmar’s military-backed Supreme Court announced that it would auction off her residence, where she spent nearly 15 years under house arrest under a previous regime.The election fraud case stems from a November 2021 charge brought by the junta-controlled Election Commission: Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior officials were accused of manipulating voter lists to clinch the 2020 election. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party, the National League for Democracy, crushed the military-backed party in that vote, which independent international observers declared free and fair.The election commission’s previous members also pushed back against the claim of voter fraud, saying there was no evidence. A day after announcing the coup in February 2021, the army dismissed all the members of the commission and installed their own people. It later announced that the election results had been canceled.In July, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi testified for the first time on the election fraud charge, saying she was not guilty. On Friday, a judge in Naypyidaw, the capital, also sentenced U Win Myint, the country’s ousted president, to three years, the maximum term, on the same charge.The junta, which has long rejected criticisms that the charges against Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi were politically motivated, has accused her of breaking the law. In the election fraud case, it said it had found nearly 10.5 million instances of irregularities and had identified entries where a person’s national identification number had been repeated — either under the same name or a different one. It also said it found ballots with no national identification number listed at all.Supporters of the National League for Democracy, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, celebrating her victory in Yangon in November 2020. A court found her guilty of election fraud after her political party won in a landslide in 2020.Sai Aung Main/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe U.S.-based Carter Center, which had more than 40 observers visiting polling stations on Election Day, said voting had taken place “without major irregularities being reported by mission observers.”Friday’s sentencing was the fifth verdict meted out against Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, who has already stood trial on a series of other charges that include inciting public unrest and breaching Covid-19 protocols. It was the first time she had been sentenced to hard labor, which forces convicts to carry heavy rocks in quarries, a practice international rights groups have denounced. She is appealing the sentence, according to a source familiar with the legal proceedings.She had already been sentenced to a total of 17 years in prison, starting in December 2021. She still faces eight more charges relating to corruption and violating the official secrets act. If found guilty on all remaining charges, she could face a maximum imprisonment of 119 years.Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, has denied all of the charges against her, while the United Nations and many other international organizations have demanded her freedom.No one has heard from Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi since she was detained, except for her lawyers, who are banned from speaking to the media. She is being held in solitary confinement, whereas previous military regimes allowed her to remain under house arrest.Despite the regime’s effort to make her disappear, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is still revered by many in Myanmar. A paper fan that belonged to her sold in an online auction for more than $340,000 last month to help a victim who had been burned by the military in an arson attack. Her son, Kim Aris, auctioned off a piece of art that sold for more than $1 million, money that will go toward helping victims of the military’s brutality.Myanmar has been wracked by widespread protests since the coup. Thousands of armed resistance fighters are battling the army, carrying out bombings and assassinations that have handicapped the military in some parts of the country. The civil disobedience movement, started by striking doctors, teachers and railway workers, is still going strong.Protestors in Yangon in March 2021. Myanmar has been wracked by widespread protests since the coup.The New York TimesOn Friday, the junta sentenced Vicky Bowman, a former British ambassador, and her Burmese husband, Ko Htein Lin, to one year in prison for breaching immigration laws, according to a prison official.The Tatmadaw, as Myanmar’s army is known, has long resented Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, whose widespread popularity threatens military rule. Before her most recent arrest, she had kept a distance from Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the army and the general behind the coup.The two leaders were part of a delicate power-sharing arrangement in which Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi headed the civilian side of government and General Min Aung Hlaing maintained absolute control over the military, the police and the border guards. The two rarely spoke, choosing instead to send messages through an intermediary.Many political experts point to the time in 2016 when Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party, the N.L.D., introduced a bill in Parliament to create a new post for her as state counselor as a moment when ties fractured between the army and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. As state counselor, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi declared herself above the president and named herself foreign minister, a move that the military saw as a power grab.In November 2020, the N.L.D. won by an even greater margin compared with its previous election showing. Three months later, and hours before the new Parliament was scheduled to be sworn in, soldiers and the police arrested Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and other party leaders.General Min Aung Hlaing announced the coup later that day, declaring on public television that there had been “terrible fraud” during the vote. More

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      Doug Mastriano’s Extremely Online Rise to Republicans’ Governor Nominee in Pa.

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      BLOOMSBURG, Pa. — In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, Diane Fisher, a nurse from Weatherly, Pa., was surfing through videos on Facebook when she came across a livestream from Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator.Starting in late March 2020, Mr. Mastriano had beamed regularly into Facebook from his living room, offering his increasingly strident denunciations of the state’s quarantine policies and answering questions from his viewers, sometimes as often as six nights a week and for as long as an hour at a stretch.“People were upset, and they were fearful about things,” Ms. Fisher said. “And he would tell us what was going on.”Ms. Fisher told her family and her friends about what Mr. Mastriano billed as “fireside chats,” after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radio broadcasts during the Depression and World War II. “The next thing you knew,” she recalled, “there was 5,000 people watching.”Mr. Mastriano’s rise from obscure and inexperienced far-right politician to Republican standard-bearer in Pennsylvania’s governor’s race was swift, stunning and powered by social media. Although he is perhaps better known for challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election and calling the separation of church and state a “myth,” Mr. Mastriano built his foundation of support on his innovative use of Facebook in the crucible of the early pandemic, connecting directly with anxious and isolated Americans who became an uncommonly loyal base for his primary campaign.He is now the G.O.P. nominee in perhaps the most closely watched race for governor in the country, in part because it would place a 2020 election denier in control of a major battleground state’s election system. Both President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump are making campaign appearances in Pennsylvania this week. As the race enters its last months, one of the central questions is whether the online mobilization that Mr. Mastriano successfully wielded against his own party establishment will prove similarly effective against Josh Shapiro, his Democratic rival — or whether a political movement nurtured in the hothouse of right-wing social media discontent will be unable or unwilling to transcend it.Mr. Mastriano has continued to run a convention-defying campaign. He employs political neophytes in key positions and has for months refused to interact with mainstream national and local reporters beyond expelling them from events. (His campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)A Mastriano event this month in Pittsburgh. His base is animated, but he has not yet sought to reach the broader electorate.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesHe grants interviews almost exclusively to friendly radio and TV shows and podcasts that share Mr. Mastriano’s far-right politics, and continues to heavily rely on Facebook to reach voters directly.“It is the best-executed and most radical ‘ghost the media’ strategy in this cycle,” said Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign adviser, who said other Republican strategists were watching Mr. Mastriano’s example closely.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsEvidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a New York special election is the latest example.G.O.P.’s Dimming Hopes: Republicans are still favored in the fall House races, but former President Donald J. Trump and abortion are scrambling the picture in ways that distress party insiders.A Surprise Race: Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat seeking re-election in Colorado, is facing an unexpected challenge from Joe O’Dea, a novice Republican emphasizing more moderate positions.Campaign Ads: In what critics say is a dangerous gamble, Democrats are elevating far-right candidates in G.O.P. primaries, believing they’ll be easier to defeat in November. We analyzed the ads they’re using to do it.“It’s never been done before. He’s on a spacewalk,” he said. “And the question we’re all asking is, does he make it back to the capsule?”Although Mr. Mastriano no longer hosts fireside chats, his campaign posts several times more often a day on Facebook than most candidates, according to Kyle Tharp, the author of the newsletter FWIW, which tracks digital politics. His campaign’s Facebook post engagements have been comparable to those of Mr. Shapiro, despite Mr. Shapiro’s spending far more on digital advertising.“He is a Facebook power user,” Mr. Tharp said.But Mr. Mastriano’s campaign has done little to expand his reach outside his loyal base, even as polls since the primary have consistently shown him trailing Mr. Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, albeit often narrowly. And Mr. Mastriano’s efforts to add to his audience on the right through advertising on Gab, a platform favored by white nationalists, prompted a rare retreat in the face of criticism last month.A career Army officer until his retirement in 2017 and a hard-line social conservative, Mr. Mastriano won a special election for the State Senate in 2019 after campaigning on his opposition to what he described as the “barbaric holocaust” of legal abortion and his view that the United States is an inherently Christian nation whose Constitution is incompatible with other faiths. But he was known to few outside his district until he began his pandemic broadcasts in late March 2020.In the live videos, Mr. Mastriano was unguarded and at times emotional, giving friendly shout-outs to familiar names in the chat window. His fireside chats arrived at a fertile moment on the platform, when conservative and right-wing activists were using Facebook to assemble new organizations and campaigns to convert discontent into action — first with the Covid lockdowns and, later, the 2020 election outcome.Mr. Mastriano linked himself closely to these currents of activism in his home state, speaking at the groups’ demonstrations and events. A video he livestreamed from the first significant anti-lockdown rally on the steps of the State Capitol in Harrisburg in April 2020, armed with a selfie stick, eventually racked up more than 850,000 views.Mr. Mastriano on Nov. 7, 2020, the day Joseph R. Biden Jr. was elected. It was the first “Stop the Steal” rally in Harrisburg.Julio Cortez/Associated PressAfter the presidential election was called for Mr. Biden on Nov. 7, 2020, Mr. Mastriano was greeted as a star at the first “Stop the Steal” rally at the capitol in Harrisburg that afternoon. He became one of the most prominent faces of the movement to overturn the election in Pennsylvania, working with Mr. Trump’s lawyers to publicize widely debunked claims regarding election malfeasance and to send a slate of “alternate” electors to Washington, on the spurious legal theory that they could be used to overturn the outcome. (He would later be present at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, though there is no evidence that he entered the building.)When Republican colleagues in the State Senate criticized those schemes and Mr. Mastriano by name, he pointed to the size of his online army.“I have more followers on Facebook alone than all 49 other senators combined,” Mr. Mastriano told Steve Turley, a local right-wing podcast host, in an interview. “That any colleague or fellow Republican would think that it would be a good idea to throw me under the bus with that kind of reach — I mean, they’re just not very smart people.”Mr. Mastriano was eventually removed from the chairmanship of a State Senate committee overseeing an investigation he had championed into the state’s election results, and he was later expelled from the Senate’s Republican caucus — episodes that burnished his credentials with supporters suspicious of the state’s G.O.P. establishment. His campaign for governor, which he formally announced this January, has drawn on not only the base he has cultivated since 2020 but also on the right-wing grass-roots groups with whom he has made common cause on Covid and the 2020 election.“That whole movement is rock-solid behind him,” said Sam Faddis, the leader of UnitePA, a self-described Patriot group based in Susquehanna County, Pa.When UnitePA hosted a rally on Aug. 27 in a horse arena in Bloomsburg, bringing together a coalition of groups in the state dedicated to overhauling the election system they insist was used to steal the election from Mr. Trump, many of the activists who spoke offered praise for Mr. Mastriano and his candidacy. From the stage, Tabitha Valleau, the leader of the organization FreePA, gave detailed instructions for how to volunteer for Mr. Mastriano’s campaign.The crowd of about 500, most of whom stayed for all of the nearly six-hour rally, was full of Mastriano supporters, including Ms. Fisher. “He helped us through a bad time,” she said. “He stuck with his people.”Charlie Gerow, a veteran Pennsylvania Republican operative and candidate for governor who lost to Mr. Mastriano in May, said this loyal following was Mr. Mastriano’s greatest strength. “He’s leveraged that audience on every mission he’s undertaken,” he said.An anti-vaccine and anti-mask rally in Harrisburg in August 2021. Mr. Mastriano built his early support around people angry at government efforts to control the pandemic.Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket, via Getty ImagesBut with recent polls showing Mr. Mastriano lagging between 3 and 10 points behind Mr. Shapiro, Mr. Gerow is among the strategists doubting his primary strategy will translate to a general electorate.“I think it’s going to be important for him to run a more traditional campaign, dealing with the regular media even when it’s unpalatable and unfriendly,” Mr. Gerow said.Mr. Mastriano has also drawn criticism for his efforts to expand his social-media reach beyond Facebook and Twitter into newer, fringier spaces on the right.In July, the liberal watchdog group Media Matters noted that Mr. Mastriano, according to his campaign filings, had paid $5,000 to the far-right social media platform Gab, which gained notoriety in 2018 after the suspect charged in the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, in which 11 people were killed, used the platform to detail his racist and antisemitic views and plans for the shooting. Gab’s chief executive, Andrew Torba, who lives in Pennsylvania, has made antisemitic statements himself and appeared at a white nationalist conference this spring.Mr. Torba and Mr. Mastriano had praised each other in a podcast interview in May, after which Mr. Mastriano had spoken hopefully of Gab’s audience. “Apparently about a million of them are in Pennsylvania,” he said on his own livestream, “so we’ll have some good reach.”Campaign signs at a Pittsburgh rally. Democrats are cautioning not to underestimate Mr. Mastriano.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Torba, who did not respond to emailed requests for comment, has continued to champion Mr. Mastriano, describing the Pennsylvania governor’s race as “the most important election of the 2022 midterms, because Doug is an outspoken Christian,” in a video he posted in late July. He added, “We’re going to take this country back for the glory of God.”But after initially standing his ground, Mr. Mastriano finally bowed to sustained criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike and closed his personal account with Gab early this month, issuing a brief statement denouncing antisemitism.This month Mr. Shapiro, who is Jewish, spent $1 million on TV ads highlighting Mastriano’s connections to Gab. “We cannot allow this to become normalized — Doug Mastriano is dangerous and extreme, and we must defeat him in November,” said Will Simons, a spokesman for the Shapiro campaign.The push reflected a view that one of Mr. Mastriano’s core vulnerabilities lies in his vast online footprint, with its hours of freewheeling conversation in spaces frequented by far-right voices.Still, some Democrats who watched Mr. Mastriano’s rapid rise at close range have cautioned against counting him out. “Mastriano’s been underestimated by his own party,” said Brit Crampsie, a political consultant who was until recently the State Senate Democrats’ spokeswoman. “I fear him being underestimated by the Democrats. I wouldn’t rule him out.” More

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      There Are Now F.E.C. Complaints Against Biden and Trump

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      A conservative group has filed a complaint against President Biden accusing him of violating federal election law by not officially informing the Federal Election Commission that he plans to run again in 2024.The complaint is unlikely to succeed or be resolved quickly — not only because the commission has been hobbled for years by partisan infighting, but also because of the high burden of proof required to show that Mr. Biden has in fact decided to pursue re-election.It nonetheless highlights the political bind the White House has found itself in while facing grumbling about the president from his fellow Democrats, as well as the gridlock that has crippled the nation’s top election agency and has led it to be mocked on late-night talk shows.The complaint was filed more than five months after a Democratic super PAC filed a similar complaint against former President Donald J. Trump, who has openly flirted with another White House bid.Complaint About Biden From Americans for Public Trust to the Federal Election CommissionA conservative group filed a complaint against President Biden that accuses him of violating federal election law by not officially informing the F.E.C. that he plans to run again in 2024.Read Document 6 pagesAmericans for Public Trust filed the complaint against Mr. Biden on Tuesday. The group is led by Caitlin Sutherland, a former research director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans.“It is very clear that President Biden meets the requirements of a candidate who needs to file with the F.E.C.,” Ms. Sutherland said in an interview.Her group is asking the commission to investigate whether Mr. Biden is running what she described as a “shadow campaign,” using taxpayer money to conduct what in essence are political activities under the guise of official travel to swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. A potential punishment could include a hefty fine, as the F.E.C. has levied in the past.The complaint claims that Mr. Biden’s official campaign committee, Biden for President, has spent more than $5 million since Jan. 20, 2021. Most of that money has gone toward expenses related to the 2020 presidential election, but the complaint notes that Biden for President has reported spending $1 million on outreach to voters over email and text messages.Those messages, which are reviewed by Mr. Biden’s campaign lawyers for compliance with the law, promote his policy accomplishments, such as the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, and direct recipients to donate money to the Democratic National Committee.The Biden PresidencyWith midterm elections looming, here’s where President Biden stands.On the Campaign Trail: Fresh off a series of legislative victories, President Biden is back campaigning. But his low approval ratings could complicate his efforts to help Democrats in the midterm elections.‘Dark Brandon’ Rises: White House officials recently began to embrace this repackaged internet meme. Here is the story behind it and what it tells us about the administration.Questions About 2024: Mr. Biden has said he plans to run for a second term, but at 79, his age has become an uncomfortable issue.A Familiar Foreign Policy: So far, Mr. Biden’s approach to foreign policy is surprisingly consistent with the Trump administration, analysts say.But they also serve a tried-and-true function in political campaigns: keeping a valuable contact list warm in case Mr. Biden needs it for a future run.The complaint also details a litany of public statements made by White House officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, indicating that Mr. Biden plans to seek re-election.In late June, for instance, Ms. Harris told Dana Bash of CNN, “Joe Biden is running for re-election and I will be his ticketmate. Full stop.”She quickly walked back those comments, however, as aides apparently realized the legal implications of prematurely declaring Mr. Biden’s candidacy before he has officially decided to run again.Similarly, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on June 13 that Mr. Biden was “running for re-election.” She later tweeted that the president “intends to run in 2024,” only to clarify later that Mr. Biden had not yet decided.Those comments came in response to public reports, including in The New York Times, suggesting that many Democrats were not eager to see Mr. Biden become their party’s nominee again in 2024 given his advanced age and his relative unpopularity.White House officials and other surrogates for Mr. Biden leaned in hard against the emerging narrative, and, according to some accounts noted in the complaint, told reporters anonymously that they recognized that those comments had risked running afoul of legal restrictions on fund-raising.“Biden cannot hide behind the word ‘intend’, and it’s not the shield he thinks it is,” Ms. Sutherland said.The White House declined to comment, as did the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Biden himself has been coy about whether he has indeed decided to seek the Oval Office again, often couching his answers with a caveat: that he intends to do so if he remains in good health, but will not make that determination until sometime after the November midterms.In February, when a reporter asked if he was satisfied with Ms. Harris’s working on voting rights and whether she would be his running mate in 2024 “provided that you run again,” Mr. Biden replied, “yes and yes.”The complaint omits the reporter’s conditional phrase.Some campaign lawyers affiliated with the Democratic Party, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly, argued that the White House press secretary and even the vice president could not speak for Biden for President, the campaign committee — and therefore the commission was likely to dismiss the complaint quickly.That would be unusual: The F.E.C. is notoriously lax about meeting its own statutory deadline of 120 days. A different election-law-related complaint filed by the same group, Americans for Public Trust, about the pre-candidacy activities of Jeb Bush, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, has been languishing for years.Complaint About Trump From American Bridge to the Federal Election CommissionA Democratic super PAC filed a complaint in March against former President Donald J. Trump that accused him of violating federal election law by not officially informing the F.E.C. that he planned to run again in 2024.Read Document 10 pagesAnn Ravel, a Democratic former commissioner at the F.E.C., said she found the complaint about Mr. Biden’s putative candidacy “persuasive.”Ms. Ravel, who has long been an outspoken critic of the commission, which consists of three members appointed by each of the two major political parties, added that “of all the government agencies, the F.E.C. is probably the most dysfunctional of all.”By law, a candidate is required to notify the commission within 15 days of deciding to run for federal office.Despite the F.E.C.’s dysfunction, the convention among presidents has been to obey the letter of the law while countermanding its spirit.Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden’s predecessor, exploded that convention through moves like holding his nominating convention on the White House grounds and failing to police violations of the Hatch Act, a law that governs political activities by presidential aides.In March, American Bridge, a group aligned with Democrats, lodged an F.E.C. complaint against Mr. Trump, accusing him of violating campaign finance law by spending political funds on a 2024 presidential bid without formally declaring himself a candidate. The group later sued the F.E.C. over the matter, claiming that the agency’s inaction gave Mr. Trump a competitive advantage.In a July interview with New York magazine, Mr. Trump said that “in my own mind, I’ve already made that decision, so nothing factors in anymore.” More

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      Garland Adds Limits at Justice Dept. on Political Activity of Staff

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      Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on Tuesday imposed new restrictions on partisan activity by political appointees at the Justice Department, a policy change that comes ahead of the midterm elections.The new rules prohibit employees who are appointed to serve for the duration of a presidential administration from attending rallies for candidates or fund-raising events, even as passive observers.Under the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in political activities while on the job, the department had previously allowed appointees to attend such events as passive participants provided they had permission from a supervisor.That is now banned. Under the new policy, the department also prohibits appointees from appearing at events on election night or to support relatives who are running for office. Both had been allowed in the past with prior approval.“We have been entrusted with the authority and responsibility to enforce the laws of the United States in a neutral and impartial manner,” Mr. Garland wrote in a memo sent to department employees.“In fulfilling this responsibility, we must do all we can to maintain public trust and ensure that politics — both in fact and appearance — does not compromise or affect the integrity of our work,” he added.Mr. Garland’s memo was accompanied by a pair of notices from Jolene Ann Lauria, acting assistant attorney general for administration, reminding employees of the department’s existing regulations under the Hatch Act.All department employees are prohibited from engaging in political activity at work, and when using a government-issued phone, email account or vehicle. They are not allowed to seek partisan elective office, enlist subordinates in campaigns or ask co-workers for political donations.Other career employees, including F.B.I. employees and administrative law judges, are banned from a much broader array of partisan activity; they are prohibited, for example, from addressing a political rally or helping a political group with driving voters to the polls on Election Day.The policy change coincides with intensifying government investigations into former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Trump has lashed out at the attorney general and President Biden, baselessly claiming that they conducted a partisan witch hunt in the search of his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Aug. 8.After the search, the F.B.I. reported a surge in threats against its agents; an armed man tried to breach the bureau’s Cincinnati field office, before being killed in a shootout with the local police.Mr. Garland is also overseeing the sprawling investigation into the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which has increasingly focused on the actions of Mr. Trump and his supporters.The attorney general has repeatedly said he will go where the evidence leads him, unmoved by political considerations or concerns about a backlash, without “fear or favor.” More

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      Introducing ‘The Run-Up,’ a Politics Podcast from The New York Times

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      Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicStarting Sept. 6, 2022First launched in August 2016, three months before the election of Donald Trump, “The Run-Up” is back.Through conversations with colleagues, newsmakers and voters across the country, Astead Herndon will grapple with the big ideas animating the 2022 midterm election cycle — and explore how we got to this fraught moment in American politics.Elections are about more than who wins and who loses. “The Run-Up” starts Sept. 6. See you there.Meet Your HostASTEAD HERNDON is a national politics reporter for The New York Times. Previously, Astead was an integral part of The Times’s reporting on the 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential elections, anchoring the coverage on Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Before joining The Times, Astead held several positions as a reporter at The Boston Globe, including one as a national politics reporter in the Washington office, where he covered the Trump White House.In 2020, Astead was included on Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 media list. His reporting on grass-roots voters and the politics of white grievance was included in a New York Times submission that was named a finalist for a 2021 Pulitzer Prize. Astead is also a political analyst for CNN. More

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul Seeks Donations From Cuomo Appointees

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul’s campaign says contributions from board and commission members and their families are fair game because she did not appoint them.ALBANY, N.Y. — On the road to building one of the largest campaign war chests the state of New York has ever seen, Gov. Kathy Hochul has been taking money from appointees of the governor — despite an executive order designed to prevent it.In her first year in office, Ms. Hochul has accepted more than $400,000 from appointees on boards from Buffalo to Battery Park City as well as the appointees’ spouses, a New York Times analysis of campaign finance data has found.The fund-raising has occurred despite the longstanding executive order — reissued by Ms. Hochul on her first day in office — that prohibits such transactions in order to avoid even the appearance of rewarding donors with jobs in exchange for contributions.Ms. Hochul’s campaign said it was appropriate to accept the contributions because they came from people appointed by her predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo. The argument underscored a loophole in the ethics order that would seem to allow one governor to accept money from another governor’s board and commission appointees. In some cases, Ms. Hochul received donations from people Mr. Cuomo had appointed and then gave them new appointments.A spokesman for Ms. Hochul’s campaign, Jerrel Harvey, said that Ms. Hochul had not accepted money from people she appointed and emphasized that all of her fund-raising had been aboveboard.“We’ve been clear from the beginning of Governor Hochul’s term that people who are appointed by her are prevented from donating once they are appointed,” Mr. Harvey said. “We have followed that straightforward standard consistently and strictly.”But legal experts and good government advocates have called Ms. Hochul’s reasoning into question.“It’s a silly argument to say if I appointed you then you can’t contribute to me, but if my predecessor appointed you, then I can hit you up for donations,” said Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham University Law School and a former member of the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board. “Going forward, presumably, they’re both going to want to be reappointed.”Ms. Hochul has already raised some $35 million and set a goal of raising as much as twice that amount ahead of the general election in November. Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesThe donations that Ms. Hochul accepted from appointees represent just a small portion of her campaign’s huge haul ahead of the election in November. She has already raised some $35 million and set a goal of raising as much as twice that amount, people familiar with her plans said. Doing so would put the 2022 governor’s race at or near the most expensive in state history.Ms. Hochul, a Democrat who was sworn in as governor after Mr. Cuomo resigned amid a scandal last year, easily defeated two primary rivals this summer and is heavily favored to win against Representative Lee Zeldin, a Republican, in the fall.Although she has promised a clean break from the ways of her predecessor, Ms. Hochul’s willingness to raise money from appointees runs counter to that pledge. Mr. Cuomo was known for taking a hawkish approach to soliciting donations from the people he appointed, raising ethics concerns.Ms. Hochul’s campaign has not shrunk from accepting donations from Mr. Cuomo’s appointees, receiving more than $250,000 from them, records show.She got more than $56,000 from the real estate developer Don Capoccia, whom Mr. Cuomo appointed to the Battery Park City Authority in 2011 and who did not respond to requests for comment.She accepted more than $90,000 between October and May from a trial lawyer, Joe Belluck, who was chosen by Mr. Cuomo for two statewide panels, and his wife. Ms. Hochul appointed Mr. Belluck to the state’s new Cannabis Advisory Board in June.Mr. Belluck scoffed at the notion of any impropriety in his donation.“I receive no remuneration and do no business with the state, period,” he said. “I have no private interests related to these positions. I donate to Governor Hochul because I support her policies and admire her leadership, and I am honored to serve.”Ms. Hochul also received $45,200 from John Ernst, an heir to the Bloomingdale’s fortune, whom Mr. Cuomo appointed to the Adirondack Park Agency board in 2016, and Mr. Ernst’s wife. Less than three weeks after receiving those donations, she reappointed Mr. Ernst to the park agency’s board and made him chairman.Mr. Ernst said he initially turned down Ms. Hochul’s offer of the chairmanship, which comes with a $30,000 annual salary, and emphatically denied any connection between his donating and being appointed to the position.“If I had thought it was a conflict, I wouldn’t have done it — wouldn’t have made a contribution,” he said. “I did it independently as a citizen because I believed in Kathy Hochul.”A spokeswoman for the governor’s office, Julie Wood, said Ms. Hochul has applied the ethics order far more “broadly and strictly” than Mr. Cuomo did, saying his administration “violated their own rules.”“Governor Hochul holds herself to a higher ethical standard,” Ms. Wood said.Ms. Hochul has also accepted contributions and then appointed the donors to state boards and commissions. She received $3,000 from Robert Simpson, the chief executive of a Syracuse nonprofit that promotes economic development, in two donations and named him to the board of Empire State Development, New York’s economic development agency, less than a month after the second one.A spokeswoman for Mr. Simpson said that after he assumed the post he adopted policies to limit conflicts of interest and pledged to no longer contribute to or raise money for Ms. Hochul.Ms. Hochul accepted more than $7,800 from Janice Shorenstein, the mother of Ms. Hochul’s former transition director, Marissa Shorenstein, and Janice Shorenstein threw a fund-raiser for the governor in May. Marissa Shorenstein, who attended the event, was confirmed to the New York State Gaming Commission about two weeks later. Ms. Shorenstein and her mother did not respond to requests for comment left at their offices.And Ms. Hochul accepted another $5,000 in April from Sammy Chu, a Long Island businessman whose company also paid more than $2,100 for a Hochul fund-raiser in Plainview two days later. In late May, she tapped him for a spot on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.Mr. Chu said he learned of the rules against governors’ accepting money from appointees only when The Times informed him of them in August.“There was certainly no quid pro quo,” Mr. Chu said. “Now that I’m appointed to the board, you know, I’ll be hypervigilant about it. But at that time, I was not a nominee or a board member.”Taken together, records show, Ms. Hochul accepted at least 40 donations totaling more than $475,000 from her nominees or Mr. Cuomo’s appointees and their family members. Those appointees are sitting on more than 20 boards, commissions and public authorities across New York, including the State University of New York board, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the New York Power Authority and the United Nations Development Corporation.Ms. Hochul’s campaign stressed that she had been careful not to take contributions from any person she appointed to a state position. In at least one case, The Times found, Ms. Hochul accepted contributions from a person appointed by Mr. Cuomo, appointed that person to a different commission and then declined to accept further contributions from him.While none of the donations accepted by Ms. Hochul’s campaign from her own appointees appeared to violate any rules, they nevertheless might create the appearance of impropriety, legal experts said.Some might feel pressure to give to an elected official with power over their appointed positions. Others who wish to be appointed might donate in hopes of getting the job, said Kathleen Clark, a Washington University law professor.“It may appear that the way to get appointed is to give money or to hold fund-raisers,” Professor Clark said, adding: “The scandal is what we allow rather than what we prohibit.”For her part, Ms. Hochul has dismissed any suggestion that her fund-raising practices might raise ethical concerns. When a reporter asked at a recent news conference if she worried about the optics of taking campaign money from people who are doing business with the state, she bristled.“I will say one sentence on this,” she said. “I follow all the rules, always have, always will.”Nicholas Fandos More