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      Why Canada Races on Gun Policy When America Crawls

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      As Congress once more struggles through acrimonious and so far fruitless negotiations over gun reforms in the wake of a mass shooting, Americans may find themselves looking north in befuddlement.Canada’s government has begun moving to ban handgun sales and buy back military-style rifles — dramatic changes in a country with one of the world’s highest gun ownership rates outside of the United States, expected to pass easily and with little fuss.Ask Americans why Canada’s government seems to cut through issues that mire their own in bitterness and frustration, and you might hear them cite cultural differences, gentler politics, even easygoing Canadian temperaments.But ask a political scientist, and you’ll get a more straightforward answer.Differences in national culture and issues, while meaningful, do not on their own explain things. After all, Canada also has two parties that mostly dominate national politics, an urban-rural divide, deepening culture wars and a rising far-right. And guns have been a contentious issue there for decades, one long contested by activist groups.Rather, much of the gap in how these two countries handle contentious policy questions comes down to something that can feel invisible amid day-to-day politicking, but may be just as important as the issues themselves: the structures of their political systems.Canada’s is a parliamentary system. Its head of government, Justin Trudeau, is elevated to that job by the legislature, of which he is also a member, and which his party, in collaboration with another, controls.If Mr. Trudeau wants to pass a new law, he must merely ask his subordinates in his party and their allies to do it. There is no such thing as divided government and less cross-party horse-trading and legislative gridlock.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada with government officials and gun-control activists, during a news conference about firearm-control legislation in Ottawa, Ontario, on Monday.Blair Gable/ReutersCanada is similar to what the United States would be if it had only a House of Representatives, whose speaker also oversaw federal agencies and foreign policy.What America has instead is a system whose structure simultaneously requires cooperation across competing parties and discourages them from working together.The result is an American system that not only moves slower and passes fewer laws than those of parliamentary models like Canada’s, research has found, but stalls for years even on measures that enjoy widespread support among voters in both parties, such as universal background checks for gun purchases.Many political scientists argue that the United States’ long-worsening gridlock runs much deeper than any one issue or the interest groups engaged with it, to the basic setup of its political system.The Perils of PresidentsThe scholar Juan Linz warned in a much-discussed 1990 essay, as much of the developing and formerly Soviet worlds moved to democracy, that those countries not follow what he called one of the foundational flaws of the United States: its presidency.“The vast majority of the stable democracies in the world today are parliamentary regimes,” Dr. Linz wrote.Presidential systems, on the other hand, tended to collapse in coups or other violence, with only the United States having persisted since its origin.It’s telling that when American diplomats and technocrats help to set up new democracies abroad, they almost always model them on European-style parliaments.Subsequent research has found that parliamentary systems also perform better at managing the economy and advancing rule of law than presidencies, if only for the comparative ease with which they can implement policy — witnessed in Canada’s rapid response to gun violence or other crises.Gun control activists during a rally in Washington last week.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesAmerica’s legislative hurdles, requiring cooperation across the president, Senate and House to pass laws, are raised further by the fact that all three are elected under different rules.None represents a straight national majority. Presidential elections favor some states over others. The Senate tilts especially toward rural voters. All three are elected on different schedules. As a result, single-party control is rare. Because competing parties typically control at least one of those three veto points on legislation, legislation is frequently vetoed.Americans have come to accept, even embrace, divided government. But it is exceedingly uncommon. While Americans may see Canada’s legislative efficiency as unusual, to the rest of the world it is American-style gridlock that looks odd.Still, America’s presidential system does not, on its own, explain what makes it function so differently from a country like Canada.“As long as things are moderate, a presidential system is not so bad,” said Lee Drutman, a political scientist who studies political reform.Rather, he cited that America is nearly alone in combining a presidency with winner-take-all elections.Zero-Sum ContestsProportional votes, common in most of the world, award seats to each party based on its share of the vote.Under American-style elections, the party that wins 51 percent of a race controls 100 percent of the office it elects, while the party with 49 percent ends up with nothing.This all but ensured that politics would coalesce between two parties because third-ranked parties rarely win office. And as those two parties came to represent geographically distinct electorates struggling for national control, their contests took on, for voters, a sensation of us-versus-them.Canada, too, has winner-take-all elections, a practice inherited from Britain. Still, neither of those countries hold presidential contests, which pit one half of the nation against the other.And in neither country do the executive and legislative branches share power, which, in times of divided government, extends the zero-sum nature of American elections into lawmaking, too. And not only on issues where the parties’ supporters disagree.Mourners gathered at Newtown High School in Connecticut in 2012 for a service for those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.Luke Sharrett for The New York TimesIn 2013, shortly after a gunman killed 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., polls found that 81 percent of Republicans supported background checks for gun purchases. But when asked whether the Senate should pass such a bill — which would have required Republicans to side with the then-Democratic majority — support dropped to 57 percent. The measure never passed.The episode was one of many suggesting that Americans often privilege partisan victory, or at least denying victory to the other side, over their own policy preferences, the scholar Lilliana Mason wrote in a book on partisanship.“Even when policy debates crack open and an opportunity for compromise appears,” Dr. Mason wrote, “partisans are psychologically motivated to look away.”Unstable MajoritiesStill, there is something unusual to Canada’s model, too.Most parliamentary systems, as in Europe, elect lawmakers proportionally. Voters select a party, which takes seats in the legislature proportional to their overall vote share. As a result, many different parties end up in office, and must join in a coalition to secure a governing majority. Lawmaking is less prone to gridlock than in America but it’s not seamless, either: the prime minister must negotiate among the parties of their coalition.Canada, like Britain, combines American-style elections, which produce what is not quite a two-party system in those countries but is close, with European-style parliaments.As a result, Canada’s prime minister usually oversees a legislative majority, allowing him or her to breeze through legislation even more easily than in European-style parliaments.Handguns on display in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.Jennifer Gauthier/ReutersThis moment is an exception: Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party controls slightly less than half of the House of Commons. Still, his party dominates a legislative alliance in which he has only one partner. Canada also includes a Senate, though its members are appointed and rarely rock the boat.But the Canadian system produces what Dr. Drutman called “unstable majorities,” prone to whiplashing on policy.“If you have a 52 percent margin for one party, and then you throw the bums out because four percent of the vote went the other way, now you’ve moved completely in the other direction,” he said.Gun laws are a case in point. After a 1989 mass shooting, Canadian lawmakers passed registration rules, but phased them in over several years because they were unpopular among rural communities.Those rules were later abolished under a Conservative government. Though Mr. Trudeau has not reimposed the registry, he has tightened gun laws in other ways.In a European-style system, by contrast, a four-point shift to the right or left might change only one party in the country’s governing coalition, prompting a slighter policy change more proportional to the electorate’s mood.American liberals may thrill at the seeming ease with which Canada’s often-left-leaning government can implement policy, much as conservatives may envy Britain’s more right-wing, but similarly rapid, lawmaking under a similar system.But it is the slow-and-steady European model, with its frustratingly incremental advances, that, over the long run, research finds, tend to prove the most stable and effective. More

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      Conservative Party Wins Big in South Korean Local Elections

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      The victory adds to the influence of President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took power by a razor-thin margin less than three months ago.SEOUL — President Yoon Suk-yeol’s governing party won​ 12 of the 17 races for big-city mayors and provincial governors ​in local elections held in South Korea ​on Wednesday, further expanding Mr. Yoon’s conservative influence less than three months after he won the presidential election.The results on Wednesday were a decisive victory for Mr. Yoon, who won the presidential race by a razor-thin margin in March and was inaugurated just three weeks ago. Although this week’s elections were only held at the local level, the results were seen as an early referendum on Mr. Yoon’s performance as leader.Oh Se-hoon, of Mr. Yoon’s People Power Party, or P.P.P., won the mayoral race in Seoul, the capital. The P.P.P. also won 11 other elections for mayors and governors, including mayor of Busan, the country’s second-largest city after Seoul. (Both the mayor of Busan and the mayor of Seoul were incumbents elected during last year’s by-elections.)The opposition Democratic Party won five races, three of them in Jeolla in the southwest, which is its perennial support base. Its candidates also won the governors’ races in the southern island of Jeju and in Gyeonggi​​-do, a populous province that surrounds Seoul.The election​ results were a stunning setback for the Democratic Party. During the last local elections four years ago, it won 14 of the same 17 races for leaders of big cities and provinces. It also won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in 2020. But the political winds began turning against the Democratic Party last year, as voters grew angry with then-President Moon Jae-in and his party’s failure to curb skyrocketing housing prices, as well as for #MeToo and cor​ruption scandals​ involving Mr. Moon’s allies.The same voter discontent helped catapult Mr. Yoon into the presidency in the March election. But the Democratic Party still dominates the National Assembly, where Mr. Yoon’s party lacks a majority.During the campaign for this week’s elections, the P.P.P. urged voters to support Mr. Yoon’s government so that it could push its agenda at a time when North Korea’s recent weapons tests highlighted the growing nuclear threat on the Korean Peninsula. The Democratic Party appealed for support by billing itself as the only party able to “check and balance” Mr. Yoon’s conservative government.Pre-election surveys had predicted a big win for P.P.P. candidates in this week’s elections, which followed on the heels of the presidential race and were considered an extension of it. Many of the same issues highlighted during the presidential campaign loomed large during the campaign for the mayoral and gubernatorial races.Mr. Moon and his Democratic Party had focused heavily on seeking dialogue and peace with North Korea. Mr. Moon met with the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, three times, and helped arrange summit meetings between Mr. Kim and President Donald J. Trump. But Mr. Moon and Mr. Trump both left office without having removed any of North Korea’s nuclear missiles.During his campaign, Mr. Yoon signaled a shift in South Korea’s policy on North Korea, emphasizing enforcing sanctions and strengthening military deterrence against the North. When he met with President Biden in Seoul last month, the two leaders agreed to discuss expanding joint military exercises. They also agreed to expand economic and technological ties, bringing South Korea-based global companies like Samsung deeper into Washington’s efforts to secure a fragile supply chain amid growing tensions with China.Mr. Yoon’s early policy moves include passing a new budget bill to support small-business owners hit hard by the pandemic and relocating the presidential office in Seoul. He turned the historical Blue House, which had been off-limits to ordinary citizens for seven decades, into a public park. But he has also stumbled: Two of his first Cabinet appointees have resigned amid allegations of misconduct.South Korea also held parliamentary by-elections on Wednesday to fill seven vacant National Assembly seats. Two presidential hopefuls ran, including Lee Jae-myung, a Democratic Party leader who lost the March election to Mr. Yoon, and Ahn Cheol-soo, an entrepreneur turned politician who withdrew from the presidential race this year to endorse Mr. Yoon. Both Mr. Lee and Mr. Ahn won parliamentary seats.The elections on Wednesday also filled hundreds of low-level local administrative seats. The P.P.P. won a majority of those races as well, according to the National Election Commission. More

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      El ascenso de Rodolfo Hernández cambia el juego en Colombia

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      Con un discurso populista, y su verbo incendiario, Hernández podría acaparar a los votantes de la derecha que no quieren arriesgarse con Gustavo Petro, el líder de la izquierda colombiana.BOGOTÁ, Colombia — El panorama político de Colombia ha cambiado notablemente en solo 24 horas.Durante meses, los encuestadores predijeron que Gustavo Petro, un exguerrillero convertido en senador que aspira a ser el primer presidente de izquierda del país, iría a una segunda vuelta presidencial en junio contra Federico Gutiérrez, el candidato conservador que había argumentado que votar por Petro equivalía a “un salto al vacío”.En cambio, el domingo, los votantes respaldaron a Petro y a Rodolfo Hernández, un exalcalde y un próspero hombre de negocios con una plataforma populista anticorrupción cuyo estatus antisistema, sus declaraciones incendiarias y su enfoque político limitado a un solo tema han hecho que lo comparen con Donald Trump.La votación, por un izquierdista que ha hecho su carrera atacando a la clase política conservadora y por un candidato relativamente desconocido sin respaldo formal de un partido, representó un repudio al establecimiento conservador que ha gobernado Colombia durante generaciones.Pero también cambió la situación política para Petro. Ahora es Petro quien se presenta como el cambio seguro, y Hernández es el peligroso salto al vacío.“Hay cambios que no son cambios”, dijo Petro en un evento de campaña el domingo por la noche, “son suicidios”.Hernández alguna vez se definió como un seguidor de Adolf Hitler, sugirió combinar los principales ministerios para ahorrar dinero y dice que como presidente planea declarar un estado de emergencia para enfrentar la corrupción, lo que genera temores de que podría cerrar el Congreso o suspender a los alcaldes.Sin embargo, la derecha tradicional de Colombia ha comenzado a respaldarlo, trayendo consigo muchos de sus votos y haciendo que la victoria de Petro se vea cuesta arriba.El domingo, Gutiérrez, exalcalde de Medellín, la segunda ciudad más grande del país, apoyó a Hernández y dijo que el propósito era “cuidar la democracia”.Pero Fernando Posada, un politólogo, dijo que la medida también era el último esfuerzo de la derecha para bloquear a Petro, cuyo plan para rehacer la economía colombiana “pone en riesgo muchos de los intereses de la clase política tradicional”.“La derecha colombiana llegó a un escenario tan extremadamente desastroso que incluso prefieren un gobierno que no les ofrece nada con tal de que no sea Petro”, dijo Posada.Gustavo Petro acompañado por su esposa, Verónica Alcocer, y su candidata a la vicepresidencia, Francia Márquez, al término de la primera vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales en Bogotá.Federico Rios para The New York TimesHernández, quien hasta hace unas pocas semanas no era muy conocido en la mayor parte del país, fue alcalde de la ciudad de Bucaramanga, ubicada en la parte norte del país. Hizo su fortuna en la construcción, edificando viviendas para personas de bajos ingresos en la década de 1990.A los 77 años, Hernández consolidó gran parte de su apoyo en TikTok, una vez abofeteó a un concejal de la ciudad frente a las cámaras y recientemente le dijo a The Washington Post que tenía un efecto “mesiánico” en sus seguidores, a quienes comparó con los secuestradores “con lavado de cerebro” que destruyeron las torres gemelas el 11 de septiembre.Cuando lo presionaron diciéndole que esa comparación era problemática, rechazó la idea. “Lo que estoy comparando es que después de entrar en ese estado, no cambias de posición. No la cambias”.Hasta hace apenas unos días, la narrativa política de Colombia parecía simple: durante generaciones, la política había estado dominada por unas pocas familias adineradas y, más recientemente, por un conservadurismo de línea dura conocido como uribismo, fundado por el poderoso líder político del país, el expresidente Álvaro Uribe.Pero la frustración de los votantes con la pobreza, la desigualdad y la inseguridad, que se vio exacerbada por la pandemia, junto con una creciente aceptación de la izquierda luego del proceso de paz firmado en 2016 con la guerrilla colombiana más grande, las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), pareció cambiar la dinámica.Para 2022, Petro, quien durante mucho tiempo ha sido el rostro combativo de la izquierda colombiana, pensó que era su momento. Y en los meses previos a las elecciones del 29 de mayo, los votantes acudieron en masa a sus propuestas: una amplia expansión de los programas sociales, detener todas las nuevas perforaciones petroleras en un país que depende de las exportaciones de petróleo y un enfoque en la justicia social.El argumento era: izquierda contra derecha, cambio contra continuidad, la élite contra el resto del país.Pero el improbable ascenso de Hernández refleja tanto un rechazo a la élite conservadora como a Petro.También revela que la narrativa nunca fue tan simple.Hernández, quien obtuvo el 28 por ciento de los votos, ha atraído a una amplia franja de votantes ansiosos por un cambio pero que nunca podría estar de acuerdo con Petro.Petro es un exguerrillero que fue miembro de un grupo rebelde llamado el Movimiento 19 de abril (M-19) en un país donde los rebeldes aterrorizaron a la población durante décadas. Y es de izquierda en una nación que comparte frontera con Venezuela, un país sumido en una crisis humanitaria por un gobierno autoritario que reivindica a la izquierda.Hernández, con su cabello anaranjado y desprolijo y su enfoque político de hombre de negocios, también ha atraído a votantes que dicen que quieren a alguien con la ambición de Trump y que no les preocupa si es propenso a la falta de tacto. (Años después de decir que era seguidor de Adolf Hitler, Hernández aclaró que quería decir que era seguidor de Albert Einstein).Federico Gutiérrez, candidato conservador de la derecha, en un mitin celebrado en Parques del Río, este mes.Nathalia Angarita para The New York TimesDos de los mayores problemas del país son la pobreza y la falta de oportunidades, y Hernández apela a las personas diciéndoles que puede ayudarlos a escapar de ambos.“Creo que él mira a Colombia como una posibilidad de crecimiento. Y en eso creo que se diferencia de los demás candidatos”, dijo Salvador Rizo, de 26 años, consultor tecnológico en Medellín. “Creo que los otros candidatos están viendo una casa que está en llamas y quieren apagar el fuego y preservar la casa. Creo que la opinión de Rodolfo es que hay una casa que puede ser un hotel enorme en el futuro”.También ha sido un crítico implacable de la corrupción, un problema crónico que algunos colombianos califican como un cáncer.Al principio, se comprometió a no aceptar dinero de campaña de entidades privadas y dice que él mismo está financiando su candidatura presidencial.“La gente política roba descaradamente”, dijo Álvaro Mejía, de 29 años, quien dirige una empresa de energía solar en Cali.Dice que prefiere a Hernández en vez de Petro, un senador desde hace muchos años, precisamente por su falta de experiencia política.La pregunta es si Hernández podrá mantener este impulso en las semanas previas a la segunda vuelta, mientras figuras políticas clave se alinean con su campaña.Minutos después de que obtuviera el segundo lugar el domingo, dos poderosas senadoras de la derecha, María Fernanda Cabal y Paloma Valencia, le prometieron su apoyo, y Posada predijo que era probable que otras lo respaldaran.Uribe, quien apoyó la candidatura de Hernández a la alcaldía en 2015, es una figura cada vez más polémica que aleja a muchos colombianos. Posada pronosticó que no apoyará a Hernández para no restarle votantes.El expresidente Álvaro Uribe en la Corte Suprema de Justicia de Bogotá, en febreroJuan Barreto/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSi Hernández logra mantener el delicado equilibrio de conseguir los votos de la derecha, sin afectar su imagen, podría ser difícil que Petro logre vencerlo.Muchos analistas políticos creen que los aproximadamente 8,5 millones de votos que obtuvo Petro el domingo son su techo, y que muchos de los cinco millones de votos de Gutiérrez se sumarán a los seis millones que logró Hernández.Cuando los resultados quedaron claros, los partidarios de Hernández corrieron a la sede de su campaña en una de las principales avenidas de Bogotá, la capital.Muchos vestían camisetas, sombreros y ponchos de campaña de color amarillo brillante, que dijeron que habían comprado ellos mismos en vez de que la campaña los repartiera gratis, de acuerdo con los principios de reducción de costos de Hernández.“Nunca había visto a una persona con las características como las del ingeniero Rodolfo”, dijo Liliana Vargas, una abogada de 39 años, usando un apodo común para Hernández, quien es ingeniero civil. “Es un ser político que no es político”, dijo. “Es la primera vez que estoy totalmente emocionada de participar en unas elecciones democráticas en mi país”.Cerca de allí, Juan Sebastián Rodríguez, de 39 años, líder de la campaña de Hernández en Bogotá, dijo que el candidato era “un rockstar”.“Es un fenómeno”, dijo. “Estamos seguros de que vamos a ganar”.Petro y Hernández en las portadas de los diarios locales, el lunesYuri Cortez/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesGenevieve Glatsky More

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      Rodolfo Hernández is Colombia’s Trump and He May Be Headed for the Presidential Palace

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      The Colombian establishment is lining up behind Rodolfo Hernández, a populist businessman with an incendiary streak, to defeat the leftist former rebel Gustavo Petro.BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Colombia’s political landscape has shifted remarkably in a matter of 24 hours.For months, pollsters predicted that Gustavo Petro, a former rebel-turned-senator making a bid to be the nation’s first leftist president, would head to a June presidential runoff against Federico Gutiérrez, a conservative establishment candidate who had argued that a vote for Mr. Petro amounted to “a leap into the void.’’Instead, on Sunday, voters gave the top two spots to Mr. Petro and Rodolfo Hernández, a former mayor and wealthy businessman with a populist, anti-corruption platform whose outsider status, incendiary statements and single-issue approach to politics have earned him comparisons to Donald Trump.The vote — for a leftist who has made a career assailing the conservative political class and for a relatively unknown candidate with no formal party backing — represented a repudiation of the conservative establishment that has governed Colombia for generations.But it also remade the political calculus for Mr. Petro. Now, it is Mr. Petro who is billing himself as the safe change, and Mr. Hernández as the dangerous leap into the void.“There are changes that are not changes,” Mr. Petro said at a campaign event on Sunday night, “they are suicides.”Mr. Hernández once called himself a follower of Adolf Hitler, has suggested combining major ministries to save money, and says that as president he plans to declare a state of emergency to deal with corruption, leading to fears that he could shut down Congress or suspend mayors.Still, Colombia’s right-wing establishment has begun lining up behind him, bringing many of their votes with them, and making a win for Mr. Petro look like an uphill climb.On Sunday, Mr. Gutiérrez, a former mayor of Medellín, the country’s second-largest city, threw his support behind Mr. Hernández, saying his intention was to “safeguard democracy.”But Fernando Posada, a political scientist, said the move was also the establishment right’s last-ditch effort to block Mr. Petro, whose plan to remake the Colombian economy “puts at risk many of the interests of the traditional political class.”“The Colombian right has reached such an extremely disastrous stage,” said Mr. Posada, “that they prefer a government that offers them nothing as long as it is not Petro.”Gustavo Petro, flanked by his wife Verónica Alcocer and vice-presidential candidate Francia Márquez at the end of the first round of presidential elections in Bogotá.Federico Rios for The New York TimesMr. Hernández, who had gained limited attention in most of the country until just a few weeks ago, is a one-time mayor of the mid-sized city of Bucaramanga in the northern part of the country. He made his fortune in construction, building low-income housing in the 1990s.At 77, Mr. Hernández built much of his support on TikTok, once slapped a city councilman on camera and recently told The Washington Post that he had a “messianic” effect on his supporters, who he compared to the “brainwashed” hijackers who destroyed the twin towers on 9/11.Pressed on whether such a comparison was problematic, he rejected the idea. “What I’m comparing is that after you get into that state, you don’t change your position. You don’t change it.”Until just a few days ago, Colombia’s political narrative seemed simple: For generations, politics had been dominated by a few wealthy families, and more recently, by a hard-line conservatism known as Uribismo, founded by the country’s powerful political kingmaker, former president Álvaro Uribe.But voter frustration with poverty, inequality and insecurity, which was exacerbated by the pandemic, along with a growing acceptance of the left following the country’s 2016 peace process with its largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, seemed to shift the dynamic.By 2022, Mr. Petro, long the combative face of the Colombian left, thought it was his moment. And in the months leading to the May 29 election, voters flocked to his proposals — a broad expansion of social programs, a halt to all new oil drilling in a country dependent on oil exports, and a focus on social justice.The story line was: left versus right, change versus continuity, the elite versus the rest of the country.But Mr. Hernández’s improbable rise reflects both a rejection of the conservative elite and of Mr. Petro.It also reveals that the narrative was never so simple.Mr. Hernández, who won 28 percent of the vote, has attracted a broad swath of voters eager for change who could never get on board with Mr. Petro.Mr. Petro is a former member of a rebel group called the M-19 in a country where rebels terrorized the population for decades. And he is a leftist in a nation that shares a border with Venezuela, a country plunged into a humanitarian crisis by authoritarians who claim the leftist banner.Mr. Hernández, with his fuzzy orange hair and businessman’s approach to politics, has also attracted voters who say they want someone with Trumpian ambition, and are not troubled if he is prone to tactlessness. (Years after saying he was a follower of Adolf Hitler, Mr. Hernández clarified that he meant to say he was a follower of Albert Einstein.)Federico Gutiérrez, a conservative establishment candidate, at a rally in Parques del Rio, this month.Nathalia Angarita for The New York TimesTwo of the country’s biggest issues are poverty and lack of opportunity, and Mr. Hernández appeals to people who say he can help them escape both.“I think that he looks at Colombia as a possibility of growth. And that’s how I think that he differs from the other candidates,” said Salvador Rizo, 26, a tech consultant in Medellín. “I think that the other candidates are watching a house that is on fire and they want to extinguish that fire and reveal the house. What I think the view of Rodolfo is: That there’s a house that can be a massive hotel in the future.”He has also been a relentless critic of corruption, a chronic issue that some Colombians call a cancer.Early on, he made a pledge not to take campaign money from private entities, and says he is funding his presidential bid himself.“Political people steal shamelessly,” said Álvaro Mejía, 29, who runs a solar energy company in Cali.He says he prefers Mr. Hernández to Mr. Petro, a longtime senator, precisely because of his lack of political experience.The question is whether Mr. Hernández will be able to maintain that outsider status in the weeks leading up to the runoff, as key political figures align themselves to his campaign.Just minutes after he won second place on Sunday, two powerful right-wing senators, María Fernanda Cabal and Paloma Valencia, pledged their support for him, and Mr. Posada predicted that others were likely to follow.Mr. Uribe, who backed Mr. Hernández’s run for mayor in 2015, is an increasingly polemic figure who turns off many Colombians. Mr. Posada predicted that he would not throw his weight behind Mr. Hernández, so as not to cost him voters.Former President Álvaro Uribe at the Supreme Court in Bogotá, in February.Juan Barreto/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIf Mr. Hernández can walk that difficult line — courting the establishment’s votes without tarnishing his image — it could be difficult for Mr. Petro to beat him.Many political analysts believe that the roughly 8.5 million votes Mr. Petro got on Sunday is his ceiling, and that many of Mr. Gutiérrez’s five million votes will be added to the six million Mr. Hernández received.As the results became clear, Mr. Hernández’s supporters rushed to his campaign headquarters on one of the main avenues in Bogotá, the capital.Many wore bright yellow campaign T-shirts, hats and ponchos, which they said they’d bought themselves instead of being handed out free by the campaign, in keeping with Mr. Hernández’s cost-cutting principles.“I have never seen a person with characteristics like those of the engineer Rodolfo,” said Liliana Vargas, a 39-year old lawyer, using a common nickname for Mr. Hernández, who is a civil engineer. “He is a political being who is not a politician,” she said. “It is the first time that I am totally excited to participate in a democratic election in my country.”Nearby, Juan Sebastián Rodríguez, 39, a leader of Mr. Hernández’s Bogotá campaign, called the candidate “a rock star.”“He is a phenomenon,” he said. “We are sure that we are going to win.”Mr. Petro and Mr. Hernández on the front pages of local newspapers on Monday.Yuri Cortez/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesGenevieve Glatsky contributed reporting from Bogotá. More

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      Gov. Hochul Stockpiles Donations, as Rivals Struggle to Keep Pace

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      Real estate, unions and crypto interests were among the donors to Ms. Hochul. Here are five takeaways from the money battle in New York’s race for governor.ALBANY, N.Y. — In the final stretch of the primary race for New York governor, the incumbent, Kathy Hochul, has widened her already formidable fund-raising lead over both Democratic and Republican rivals, scooping up millions from lobbyists, wealthy New Yorkers and special interest groups with a stake in policy outcomes in Albany.Ms. Hochul pulled in more than $10 million from mid-January to late May, outpacing her nearest Democratic competitor, Representative Thomas R. Suozzi, by about a 3-to-1 margin, according to new filings released on Friday. A third Democratic candidate, the New York City public advocate, Jumaane Williams, raised just $250,000 during the period and was left with only $130,000 in the bank at the end of the month.On the Republican side, Representative Lee Zeldin, a Long Island conservative, led his rivals with $3.2 million raised. Harry Wilson, a businessman who said he intended to mostly self-fund his campaign, reported just under $2 million in contributions; he also dipped into his personal fortune to blanket the airwaves with TV ads. Thanks to his considerable wealth, Mr. Wilson had more money to spend — $4.2 million — than any challenger to Ms. Hochul. But the governor’s $18.6 million war chest, eye-poppingly fat even after she spent $13 million (mostly on TV and online ads) in the last four months, puts her in the driver’s seat in a state that hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 2002.Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate, badly trails his Democratic rivals in fund-raising efforts.Libby March for The New York TimesThe power of incumbencyAs Ms. Hochul was helping decide how to spend $220 billion of the state’s money, she raked in cash from every corner of the economy just as — or shortly after — the state budget negotiations were taking place.Eleven donors gave the maximum $69,700 in the latest report — from organized labor groups such as the American Dream Fund service workers union and the Transport Workers Union, to major corporate givers like John Hess, chief executive of the Hess Corporation, and Manhattan real estate developers like Jack and Michael Cayre.All told, 84 percent of the haul came in chunks of $5,000 or more, records show. The campaign noted that 70 percent of the donations came from contributors giving $250 or less, signaling Ms. Hochul’s “broad coalition of supporters.”Few were more generous than lobbyists registered with the state to influence lawmakers at the Capitol — on everything from cannabis regulation to education policy and funding.Many of the lobbyists who donated to Ms. Hochul soon after she was sworn in last summer re-upped with contributions once her first legislative session began. The firm Featherstonhaugh, Wiley & Clyne, whose clients include Saratoga Casino Holdings and the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, gave Ms. Hochul $25,000 about a month after she took office and then another $25,000 a few weeks into her first session.The Albany lobbying firm Ostroff Associates and its partners have showered $78,000 on Ms. Hochul since she became governor, and Shenker, Russo & Clark, which represents banking and auto dealer interests, among others, just chipped in another $5,000 after giving Ms. Hochul $20,000 in October.“Follow the money, and none of it leads to addressing the crime and affordability crisis in our state,” said Kim Devlin, a senior adviser to Mr. Suozzi.Representative Thomas R. Suozzi raised far more than one of his Democratic rivals, Jumaane Williams, but far less than Ms. Hochul.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMining for Hochul’s approvalWith controversy swirling over the expansion of cryptocurrency mining in New York, where aging industrial facilities and cheap electricity have lured major players in the sector, a single five-figure donation to Ms. Hochul stands out: $40,000 from Ashton Soniat, the chief executive of Coinmint, according to the company’s website.The company has a crypto-mining operation on the grounds of a former aluminum plant in Massena, N.Y., a small town northeast of Niagara Falls. Environmentalists have raised alarms about the high electricity consumption of crypto mining and its potential contribution to climate change. Crypto speculators have been drawn to northern and western New York because of its abundant hydroelectric power.Coinmint did not respond to requests for comment sent through its website and to email addresses and phone numbers listed in business directories and state records.Ms. Hochul’s campaign reported that she received the donation from Mr. Soniat, via credit card, on May 23. A day later, Ms. Hochul, during a breakfast with legislators at the governor’s mansion in Albany, spoke optimistically about the potential job creation bonanza in the economically distressed area.“We have to balance the protection of the environment, but also protect the opportunity for jobs that go to areas that don’t see a lot of activity and make sure that the energy that’s consumed by these entities is managed properly,” Ms. Hochul told reporters after the breakfast meeting.Assemblywoman Anna R. Kelles, a Democrat who represents the Ithaca area, said Ms. Hochul told her the state can’t ignore the jobs crypto mining in Massena could bring. Ms. Kelles said Ms. Hochul told her, “I spoke to them and they said they employ about 140 people and they are looking to go up to 400 employees in an area where there are very few industries. So this is really important.”Ms. Kelles is the sponsor of a bill that would put a two-year moratorium on certain crypto-mining operations that rely on fossil fuels, legislation that Ms. Hochul said she would consider once a final version reaches her desk.“Political donations have no influence on government decisions,” said Hazel Crampton-Hays, a Hochul spokeswoman. “Governor Hochul approaches every decision through one lens: What is best for New Yorkers.”Gov. Hochul, right, with Vice President Kamala Harris, before a memorial service for a victim of the racist massacre in Buffalo.Patrick Semansky/Associated PressReal estate stands firm with HochulOn April 18, Governor Hochul joined the real estate developer Scott Rechler and Mayor Eric Adams to hail the opening of a publicly accessible rooftop in an office development on a pier in the city- and state-controlled Hudson River Park. In the ensuing month, Mr. Rechler, the chief executive of RXR, and his wife, Deborah Rechler, gave a combined $85,600 to the campaign this filing period. Both are Nassau County constituents of Mr. Suozzi, a Long Island congressman who is running to the right of Ms. Hochul.Big real estate donors have a habit of sticking with politically moderate incumbents they perceive to be doing a decent job. This year appears no different. Ms. Hochul, the incumbent in question, has continued to haul in donations from landlords and developers.Jerry Speyer, the chairman of Tishman Speyer, which owns Rockefeller Center, donated $50,000 to Ms. Hochul’s campaign in April. Donald Capoccia, the managing principal of Brooklyn-based developer BFC Partners, donated $25,000. James L. Dolan, who controls Madison Square Garden — which sits atop the Penn Station Ms. Hochul is renovating — donated $69,700.“In the real estate business, you’re only as strong as the communities where you’re doing business,” Mr. Rechler, who used to be one of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s biggest donors, said in a statement. “Governor Hochul recognizes that to build stronger communities you need to invest in infrastructure, focus on quality of life and prioritize public safety.”Suozzi releases his tax returnOn the day that candidates for governor faced a deadline to release fund-raising information, Mr. Suozzi chose to also make his tax return available to reporters. On both counts, Mr. Suozzi trails the governor.Ms. Hochul and her husband, William J. Hochul Jr., reported a joint taxable income of $825,000 this year, more than twice the combined income of Mr. Suozzi and his wife.Mr. Hochul, a high-ranking executive at Delaware North, a hospitality company and state concessionaire, earned the bulk of the couple’s income: $547,434 from his job at Delaware North. The $363,494 in joint taxable income from Mr. Suozzi and his wife, Helene Suozzi, includes $152,645 in wages — a vast majority of it from Mr. Suozzi’s congressional salary — and $136,339 in capital gains.The Suozzis have a smattering of investments, including a rental office property in Glen Cove, N.Y., that garnered $18,360 in rental income in 2021, and an investment in a Southampton day camp, which earned them $12,677 in passive income.The Suozzis donated $38,097 to charity. The Hochuls donated $72,153, and paid $237,916 in federal taxes, or 29 percent of their income. The Suozzis paid $70,018, a federal tax rate of 19 percent.In the latest fund-raising disclosures, Mr. Suozzi reported raising $3.5 million and transferred a little less than $400,000 from his congressional account, leaving him with $2.7 million in the bank.Andrew Giuliani has raised the least money among the Republican candidates for governor.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesGiuliani has name recognition, but few donorsAndrew Giuliani may have his father’s name recognition going for him, but in the race for money, he is badly lagging the New York Republican Party’s anointed candidate for governor.Mr. Giuliani raised just a little over $220,000 from donors this filing period, with no individual donations greater than $25,000, according to state campaign finance records. He has a bit more than $300,000 on hand. Mr. Giuliani performed worse, financially, than all three of his Republican rivals, even if some polling suggests he may be leading among voters.Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County executive, raised about $600,000 this period, leaving him with more than $1.1 million on hand. Mr. Zeldin, the party-backed candidate, raised a little over $3 million, leaving him with roughly that same amount to spend in the final weeks of the primary race. Mr. Wilson, a wealthy Wall Street trader who nearly won the race for state comptroller in 2010, raised more than $10 million this period, most of it from himself.“The unparalleled outpouring of grass-roots support from every corner of our state has only grown stronger,” Mr. Zeldin said in a statement. “In November, New Yorkers are going to restore a balance of power to Albany.”Dana Rubinstein reported from New York, and Luis Ferré-Sadurní contributed reporting from New York. More

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      The Good News in Georgia That’s Bad News for Trump

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      This is a column about good news, written in the shadow of the worst news imaginable.Like many people, the mass shooting of children in Uvalde, Texas, is basically the only thing I’ve read about for days. But as I’ve marinated in the horror — and, increasingly, in rage at the police response — I’ve also been aware of the way our media experience works today, how we are constantly cycled from one crisis to another, each one seemingly existential and yet seemingly forgotten when the wheel turns, the headlines change.Climate change, systemic racism, toxic masculinity, online disinformation, gun violence, police violence, the next Trump coup, the latest Covid variant, the death of democracy, climate change again. This is the liberal crisis list; the conservative list is different. But for everyone there are relatively few opportunities to take a breath and acknowledge when anything actually gets better.So my next column will be about the darkness in Texas and the possible policy response. In this one I want to acknowledge that in a different zone of existential agitation, things just meaningfully improved.In Georgia, the state at the center of the 45th president’s attempt to defy the public will and stay in office, there were two Republican primary races that doubled as referendums on the Trumpian demand that G.O.P. officials follow him into a constitutional crisis — and in both of them his candidate lost badly.The higher-profile race was the battle for the gubernatorial nomination between Brian Kemp and David Perdue, which Kemp won in an extraordinary rout. But the more important one was the Republican primary for secretary of state, in which Brad Raffensperger, the special target of Trump’s strong-arm tactics and then his public ire, defeated Jody Hice, Trump’s candidate — and did so without a runoff. Probably some crossover Democratic votes helped push him over 50 percent, but most of his voters were Republicans who listened to his challenger’s constant talk of voter fraud and decided to stick with the guy who stood up to Trump.Brian KempNicole Craine for The New York TimesBrad RaffenspergerAudra Melton for The New York TimesThe Kemp victory was expected; the easy Raffensperger win less so, and certainly it wasn’t expected at this time last year. Back then, if you pointed out that all the Republicans in positions that really mattered in the aftermath of the 2020 election, across multiple states and multiple offices, did their jobs and declined to go along with Trump, the usual response was maybe it happened once but wouldn’t happen again, because Trump’s enmity was a guaranteed career-ender.Now that narrative, happily, has been exploded. Any Republican in a key swing-state office come 2024 can look at Kemp and Raffensperger and know that they have a future in G.O.P. politics if, in the event of a contested election, they simply do their job.Moreover, the primary balloting in Georgia saw record early-voting turnout and no evidence of meaningful impediments to voting, which exploded a different crisis narrative that took hold on the left — and in corporate America and the Biden White House — when the state passed new voting regulations last year. According to that narrative, in trying to address the paranoia of their own constituents, Republicans were essentially rolling back voting rights, even recreating Jim Crow — “on steroids,” to quote our president.There was little good evidence for this narrative at the time, and even less evidence in the turnout rate for the Georgia primary, where early voting numbers were higher even than in 2020. “Jim Crow on steroids” should be stricken from the crisis cycle; it does not exist.On the other hand the Trumpian peril, the risk of election subversion and constitutional crisis, does still exist. Doug Mastriano’s recent primary victory in Pennsylvania proves as much, and there may be other swing-state nominees who, like Mastriano, can’t be trusted to imitate Kemp and Raffensperger in the clutch.But the results in Georgia prove that the faction that elevates figures like Mastriano does not have a simple veto in the party. It shows the effectiveness of what you might call a “stay and govern” strategy of dealing with Trump’s hold on the G.O.P., one with wide application as the party moves toward 2024.And it indicates the limits of the all-or-nothing thinking that a crisis mentality imposes. I can easily imagine an alternative timeline where Raffensperger resigned his office rather than standing for re-election, inked a deal with MSNBC, turned his subsequent book into a mega-bestseller in the style of so many Trump-administration exposés and adopted Biden-administration talking points to denounce Georgia election laws. That timeline would have unquestionably been better for the Raffensperger family’s bank account, and it would have prompted many liberals to hail him as a profile in Republican courage.But for everyone else — Georgians, the G.O.P., the country — that timeline would have been worse. Whereas because he stayed in the party, ran again and won, even in a dark week for America one region of our common life looks a little better, and one of our crises should feel a little bit less dire.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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      How a Mapmaker Became New York’s Most Unexpected Power Broker

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      Jonathan Cervas, a former bartender from Las Vegas, radically redrew New York’s House district lines, forcing some Democratic incumbents to scramble for new seats.He is a postdoctoral fellow from Pittsburgh, a bartender turned political mapmaker. Now, Jonathan Cervas is suddenly New York’s most unforeseen power broker.Last month, a New York State judge chose Mr. Cervas to create new district maps in New York for the House and State Senate, after maps approved by state Democratic leaders were declared unconstitutional.Mr. Cervas’s new maps radically reshaped several districts, scrambling the future of the state’s political establishment for the next decade. Republicans were quietly pleased, and some anti-gerrymandering groups praised his work. But Democrats, who saw several potential pickups in the House of Representatives potentially evaporate, were outraged. Mr. Cervas’s decisions — the rationale for which he outlined in a lengthy explanation released early Saturday — have already caused vicious infighting and prospective primaries between some incumbent Democrats, including one pitting Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney against each other in Manhattan.For his part, Mr. Cervas, 37, insists he was just doing his job, the importance of which he says has been exaggerated by the fact that the state’s changes came so late in the 2022 election cycle.“People have made a narrative how the House of Representatives is going to be determined by one man who is from Pennsylvania; nothing could be further from the truth, ” he said in a lengthy interview this week, adding that “people still have to run” for office.“I serve the court, I serve democracy. That’s it,” he added. “If people want to make me important, so be it, but I just stick with my moral principles and things I’ve learned and apply the law as its written.”That said, the impact of Mr. Cervas’s circumscription has already been profound, creating the likelihood of highly competitive general-election campaigns from Long Island to upstate New York. Some races in the New York State Senate, where Democrats hold a comfortable majority, have also been upended by new lines.Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, was particularly galled by the congressional changes, likening the new lines to “Jim Crow” laws — which restricted Black involvement in voting and other aspects of society — and skewering Mr. Cervas’s work as having “degraded the Black and Latino populations in five New York City-based congressional districts.”“The unelected, out-of-town special master did a terrible job, produced an unfair map that did great violence to Black and Latino communities throughout the city, and unnecessarily detonated the most Jewish district in America,” said Mr. Jeffries, who is chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and the second-highest-ranking Black lawmaker in Congress. “That’s problematic and that cannot be excused or explained in any fair or rational fashion.”What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Deepening Divides: As political mapmakers create lopsided new district lines, the already polarized parties are being pulled even farther apart.Mr. Cervas said that his map “fully reflected” how many of New York’s largest minority populations — including Black, Latino, and Asian groups — are “geographically concentrated.”As for Mr. Cervas’s political beliefs, they are somewhat hard to divine. He describes his political leanings as “pro-democracy,” rather than professing allegiance to any party, though he adds that belief happens “to align more closely with one party than another.” He is registered as an independent in Pennsylvania, where he lives, but he says he recently voted in a Republican primary there in hopes of electing moderate members of that party.What’s more, he says he hates politics, preferring institutions and policy to electoral battles.“I like governance,” Mr. Cervas said. “I don’t really like the bickering, the animosities, the games. Those types of things are uninteresting to me.”Ross Mantle for The New York TimesRoss Mantle for The New York TimesMr. Cervas was appointed as a so-called special master by Justice Patrick F. McAllister of State Supreme Court in Steuben County, who ordered new maps drawn up after a successful lawsuit from Republicans. Justice McAllister, a Republican, found that Democratic lawmakers in Albany had adopted lines that were “unconstitutionally drawn with political bias.”Mr. Cervas’s was appointed in mid-April, after Nate Persily, a Stanford law professor who helped draw New York’s current congressional map in 2012, turned down Justice McAllister. His previous work had been as an assistant on more limited redistricting cases in Georgia, Virginia and Utah. Last year, however, Mr. Cervas was hired for a statewide project, as part of a redistricting commission in Pennsylvania, where the chairman, Mark Nordenberg, said he proved invaluable as a redistricting specialist, as well as having “a deep knowledge of the law” and, of course, “technical, mapping skills.”“He approached everything we did in a fair and nonpartisan fashion,” said Mr. Nordenberg, the former chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, noting he “would hire him again if I had the opportunity.”That said, Mr. Cervas had never been a special master, particularly on such a tight deadline: about five weeks to deliver the final maps, including and incorporating revisions. He worked with several assistants and solicited comments from the public, both online and in a single, in-person hearing in Steuben County, about 275 miles from New York City.And while the remoteness of that location made court appearances cumbersome, some anti-gerrymandering advocates made the trip to voice support for the new maps.“I have to say I was pleasantly surprised,” said Jerry Vattamala, the director of the Democracy Program at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which was part of a coalition lobbying for more representation for people of color in New York City, adding that Mr. Cervas seemed responsive to the thousands of comments he received. “So the six-hour drive, I guess, was worth it.”In some ways, Mr. Cervas seems destined to have played an outsize role in Democratic woe: He was born, outside Pittsburgh, on Election Day in 1984, when Ronald Reagan humiliated the party’s nominee, Walter Mondale, winning a second term. His upbringing — in two swing states — was working-class: His father was a field service representative for Whittle Communications, his mother worked at Kmart.The family moved to Las Vegas in the early 1990s, and Mr. Cervas became interested in politics, eventually studying the topic at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and graduating with a degree in political science. He supported himself by working in a movie theater at a casino and eventually tending bar, a job he said helped him learn how to listen to divergent opinions.“It’s actually an education on how to be moderate,” he said. “When people say things that are inflammatory, you have to not take it too personally. ”Before working on New York’s lines, Mr. Cervas was a redistricting specialist for a Pennsylvania commission.Ross Mantle for The New York TimesIf there was a turning point in the road for Mr. Cervas, it may have come nearly a decade ago at a rock concert in Anaheim, Calif.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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      Jumaane Williams Owns the Left Lane. Why Hasn’t His Campaign Taken Off?

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      Mr. Williams, whose candidacy for New York governor was celebrated by progressives, has not gained much momentum and is far behind in fund-raising.At an outdoor event space in Buffalo, a diverse crowd gathered for a benefit to help the families affected by the horrific mass shooting at a supermarket in the city’s East Side.Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate who is running for governor, had planned to attend, his campaign said. But as the crowd hushed and the names and ages of the victims were read aloud, Mr. Williams was absent.Running late, the candidate had decided instead to head directly to the Tops Friendly Market where the racist massacre occurred, milling around a group of volunteers handing out groceries and food to residents.Mr. Williams seemed cautious at first, but eventually he struck up a conversation with Brenda Williams McDuffie, a former president of the Buffalo Urban League and a Brooklyn native.“They want people they trust to be able to communicate sometimes on their behalf,” Ms. McDuffie said. “I know his voice and how he uses his voice and his values and love for the community, so it’s exceptional for him to come.”Still, she conceded that many in Buffalo were less familiar with him. “I knew he was running for governor, but I haven’t really followed it, because I think I haven’t really seen him in upstate New York,” she said.Mr. Williams, at an event to help the families of the shooting victims in Buffalo, said that his wife’s cancer and the premature birth of his daughter had curtailed his campaigning.Libby March for The New York TimesAfter a competitive run for lieutenant governor four years ago, Mr. Williams generated excitement in progressive circles when he announced that he would challenge Gov. Kathy Hochul in her bid for her first full term.He had name recognition, charisma and a clear political lane: Ms. Hochul and another primary rival, Representative Thomas R. Suozzi, are considered centrist Democrats; Mr. Williams is backed by numerous progressive-oriented groups, including the Working Families Party.But Mr. Williams has failed to gain much momentum ahead of the June 28 primary. He is far behind in fund-raising, has not run any television ads, and has done far fewer campaign events than might be expected of a major candidate for governor.Beneath it all is an underlying issue, though Mr. Williams is careful not to blame his campaign woes on it: His wife was diagnosed with cervical cancer last year, and their daughter was born prematurely in February.Mr. Williams’s wife, India Sneed-Williams, a lawyer, said her husband had twice privately offered to drop out of the governor’s race. She refused, she said. She wouldn’t let him because “I know who I had married.”Mr. Williams acknowledged in an interview that he came “closer than I had ever been” to dropping out of the race.“There were a few times that I think it did impact the campaign,” Mr. Williams said.“Could I give everything I would normally give to a campaign while I’m going through this?” he added. “The answer is no.”But he decided to push on, even as his campaign worried that it would not have enough money to compete. “It was always about the ability to show a path, even if it was uphill,” he said.With a month remaining before the primary, Mr. Williams’s supporters recognize that describing his path as uphill undersells just how steep it is.Sochie Nnaemeka, the head of the New York State Working Families Party, described Mr. Williams as a “moral figure” who can “contrast a Hochul administration that believes that the ultra-wealthy also deserve government to do their bidding for them.”Mr. Williams, comforting the family of an 11-year-old girl killed by a stray bullet in the Bronx, has called on state leaders to better address the root causes of violent crime.Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesMr. Williams and his aides concur. They hope that he can use two upcoming debates to portray Ms. Hochul as a nicer version of her predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo, who supports many of the same policies as he did, such as changes to the bail reform law, and raises millions from the same special interests, labor unions and business groups that supported him.Ms. Hochul has shown other recent signs of potential vulnerability: Her chosen lieutenant governor resigned in April after being indicted on fraud and bribery charges. She has also been criticized for pushing $600 million in state subsidies to build a football stadium for the Buffalo Bills.“It’s unfortunate because those things aligned with Jumaane having a baby that was very premature and also his wife going through cancer treatments,” said Jonathan Westin, director of New York Communities for Change, a grass-roots organizing group that has endorsed Mr. Williams. “It was hard for him to be out there as much as he wanted to be.”Ms. Sneed-Williams finished chemotherapy three weeks ago, and their “miracle baby” is now healthy.Ms. Hochul, whose campaign spokesman declined to comment, has largely ignored Mr. Williams. She has amassed an overwhelming advantage in fund-raising and has a solid lead in the polls.The governor has $18.5 million on hand and has raised $31.7 million, her campaign said this week. Mr. Williams had raised just $221,000 as of January, according to the most recent round of financial disclosure reports, and is set to report updated numbers later on Friday.Mr. Williams ran a spirited campaign for lieutenant governor in 2018 against the incumbent, Kathy Hochul, who is now governor.Hilary Swift for The New York Times“We always had a conversation about is this sustainable? Are you OK? Do you want to keep going?” Ana María Archila, a candidate for lieutenant governor and his running mate, said. His decision to stay in the race, she added, solidified Mr. Williams as a candidate “who brings his life into he public arena in a way that humanizes everybody else.”Mr. Williams’s campaign expects to be able to air ads on cable closer to the primary, and noted that he did not widely advertise during the primary for lieutenant governor in 2018, when he beat Ms. Hochul by 60,000 votes in New York City.Bruce Gyory, a Democratic strategist, said that although Ms. Hochul was not exciting the Democratic base, she had not antagonized it either. He still expected Mr. Williams to have a better showing than the 12 percent he received in a recent poll.“He’s working the progressives hard and he has a Hispanic lieutenant governor working hard out there, too,” Mr. Gyory said. “I think there’s more energy on the ground for Jumaane than there is for Suozzi.”Mr. Williams, a self-described “activist elected official,” is known for speaking out against discriminatory policing practices and getting arrested to protest them.When he won a special election for public advocate in 2019, Mr. Williams spoke candidly during his acceptance speech about seeking therapy for mental health challenges. And in the video announcing his bid for governor, he talked about living with Tourette’s Syndrome and the involuntary body movements that come with it.During a walk-through at Kingsborough Houses in Brooklyn with Ms. Archila, Mr. Williams easily connected with tenants as they explained how they had to deal with everything from rundown apartments to the lack of a safe park space.He ran into some he knew from his early days as an activist, and connected others with the public advocate’s office to deal with issues such as a backed-up sewer at the day care center.“Could you see Gov. Hochul really walking around here authentically talking with people?” said Jamell Henderson, a Kingsborough resident who led the visit.Mr. Williams and his running mate, Ana María Archila, at a recent visit to the Kingsborough Houses in Brooklyn.Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesAt another recent event in the Bronx, where various public officials addressed the death of an 11-year-old girl who was struck by a stray bullet, Mr. Williams was the last elected official to speak.He offered a fiery denunciation of Ms. Hochul, accusing her of failing to designate enough funding in the state’s $220 billion budget to address the root causes of violence.At his appearance in Buffalo, Mr. Williams again attacked the governor, this time for funding the Bills stadium while the Black neighborhood where the shooting occurred suffered from decades of systemic racism.He said he was angry that Ms. Hochul had said she lived 10 minutes from the scene of the massacre, but did nothing to help the neighborhood add other grocery options beyond Tops, the only supermarket in the area. “I’m like, ‘You just found that out?’” Mr. Williams said.By the time he made it to the next event, its organizers were packing up. Mr. Williams apologized and chatted for a few minutes. What did he make of his chances, one of the organizers, Willie Aytch, asked?“It’s always uphill for me,” Mr. Williams said. “But I fight uphill.”Jesse McKinley reported from Buffalo, N.Y. More