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      Do Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis Stand a Chance?

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      Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | AmazonAnna Foley and Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesWatching the Republican primary debates can feel like a study in self sabotage. In the latest one, which Donald Trump skipped, the candidates spent most of their time attacking one another — not the guy who is 50 points ahead in the polls.But there is a logic to it. Candidates are trying to position themselves as the party’s alternative to the former president. And to do that, they have to push one another aside and unite the roughly 40 percent of Republicans who are still up for grabs.This week, we ask anti-Trump Republicans: What’s stopping their coalition from getting on the same page? And with the early contests fast approaching, is it too late? We travel to a debate night watch party for Nikki Haley in New Hampshire and check in with Bob Vander Plaats, an influential Iowa evangelical and supporter of Ron DeSantis.About ‘The Run-Up’“The Run-Up” is your guide to understanding the 2024 election. Through on-the-ground reporting and conversations with colleagues from The New York Times, newsmakers and voters across the country, our host, Astead W. Herndon, takes us beyond the horse race to explore how we got to this unprecedented moment in American politics. New episodes on Thursdays.Credits“The Run-Up” is hosted by More

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      Donald Tusk, a Man of Eclectic Identities, Returns to Power in Poland

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      The opposition leader was endorsed by Parliament as the country’s next prime minister, unseating the right-wing Law and Justice party that had long denounced him as unfit to rule.It was just minutes after Donald Tusk made his triumphant return as Poland’s leader that his archenemy stepped to the podium in Parliament to rain acid on his parade.“I don’t know who your grandfathers were but I know one thing: You are a German agent, just a German agent,” growled Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the chairman of Law and Justice, the right-wing party that, until Monday, had held all the reins of power.The accusation, one of many smears aimed at Mr. Tusk over a political career stretching back to the 1980s, came after Parliament endorsed Mr. Tusk as prime minister, stirring joy and relief among Polish liberals and pro-European centrists.The attack reflected the no-holds-barred approach to Polish politics after eight years of Law and Justice rule. But it also highlighted the difficulties for many in Poland of pinning down who their country’s next leader is and where he stands.In a country that has been largely mono-ethnic and monolingual since the end of World War II, Mr. Tusk stands out as a man of eclectic identities, interests and linguistic talents.As Parliament on Tuesday debated whether to endorse a cabinet proposed by Mr. Tusk, one of his most strident critics, the far-right legislator Grzegorz Braun, used a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukkah candles during an event with members of the Jewish community.The new government lineup later won a vote of confidence as expected.Mr. Tusk has described himself as having four parallel identities: a proud son of Gdansk, the formerly German port city of Danzig on the Baltic Sea; a Kashubian, an ethnic minority native to northern Poland with its own language and traditions; a Pole and a European.He speaks Polish, Kashubian, German and English, a language he barely knew when he took a break from Polish politics in 2014, to take a senior job in Brussels, but mastered quickly.Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland’s Law and Justice party, left the plenary hall of the Parliament as Mr. Tusk spoke on Tuesday.Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBeing Polish, Mr. Tusk said in 2014, when he became president of the European Council is “my main identity” but the others matter, too — a position that baffles Mr. Kaczynski and other Polish nationalists, who see allegiance to the Polish state as indivisible.Riina Kionka, a diplomat from Estonia who advised Mr. Tusk in Brussels, remembers him as both a “passionate European” and a “proud Pole determined to lead his country.”Mr. Tusk always had “his two feet firmly on the ground” and sought compromise rather than total victory, she said. “He always told us: ‘It is better to have part of something than all of nothing.’”This distaste for all-or-nothing dogmatism led some to question the convictions of a politician who began his career in a circle of radical free-market believers but who, in Poland’s recent campaign, promised to preserve a raft of welfare payments introduced by Law and Justice.Asked in 2013 whether he had changed his earlier views, he quoted the philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, a former Marxist who, after leaving Poland, became a trenchant critic of communism and described himself as a “liberal conservative socialist.” That, Mr. Tusk said, described his own views.“He is a political cherry picker,” said Jarolaw Kuisz, the author of a recent book, “The New Politics of Poland.” He added, “He takes what he sees as the best bits from every part of the spectrum.”Active in politics for more than 40 years, Mr. Tusk started out as a youth activist and journalist with Solidarity in Gdansk. After communism’s collapse, he went on to win two consecutive terms as prime minister, though he cut short the second to take the Brussels position.Mr. Tusk, when he was president of the European Council, in Gdansk in 2019.Adam Warzawa/EPA, via ShutterstockThe job that perhaps prepared him best for his current role, juggling implacable hostility from Law and Justice and tensions within his diverse alliance of supporters, however, was one he took in the 1980s in Gdansk, after communist authorities imposed martial law.Unable to find regular work after being briefly arrested, he took a job scaling chimneys and high buildings with mountaineering gear so as to paint or repair them.This “high-altitude work,” Mr. Tusk later recalled, involved being a “crazy alpinist” and equipped him to calibrate results and risk, a useful political skill. Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, leader of the Polish Peasants Party and Mr. Tusk’s candidate for defense minister, praised him Monday for taking the risk of leaving Brussels to return to Polish politics in 2021, starting what seemed a long-shot effort to beat Law and Justice.“He showed courage when he abandoned a comfortable life,” he said. “He abandoned lucrative posts and came back here.”Mr. Tusk’s flexibility has alarmed some progressives. They loathe Law and Justice but complain that Mr. Tusk has not rallied more forcefully to their side on issues like abortion, on which the outgoing government imposed a near total ban and which Mr. Tusk did nothing to liberalize when he was prime minister.A pro-European Union demonstration following a ruling of the Constitutional Court against the primacy of E.U. law in Poland, in Warsaw on October. Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Tusk declared women’s rights the “No. 1 issue” in Poland this year but, ahead of the general election, removed from his party’s list of candidates an activist who called for allowing for abortion at any stage of pregnancy, a position that risked alienating voters.His party, Civic Coalition, wants to liberalize Poland’s harsh abortion law but only to allow termination up to the 12th week of pregnancy.Zuzanna Dąbrowska, a veteran political journalist, said Mr. Tusk deserved credit for addressing an issue that most politicians avoided. “The majority in Poland has the same opinion that policy on abortion should be more liberal. But politicians have done everything to avoid this reality.”To become prime minister, Mr. Tusk stitched together an array of diverse opposition parties that together won a clear majority of seats in Parliament, and joined forces on Monday to reject Law and Justice’s nominee as prime minister and select Mr. Tusk. They include a leftist grouping, the center-right Polish Peasants Party and hard-line free-market liberals.“To be a good prime minister you must be everything but sometimes you can’t combine water and fire,” said Bartosz Rydlinski, a political scientist at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw. “You cannot have low taxes and an effective welfare state. This is Tusk’s biggest challenge.”A fan of Miles Davis who studied history at university, Mr. Tusk has sometimes alienated potential voters, particularly more traditional-minded ones in small rural towns and villages.Mr. Tusk offended millions of Poles in 2005 by dismissing conservatives as a “mohair coalition” — a reference to the berets many older women wear to church. Mr. Tusk apologized but struggled for years to shake off an image of haughty contempt.The candidates Lech Kaczynski of Law and Justice and Mr. Tusk of Civic Platform during a TV debate three days ahead of the first round of presidential elections, in 2005.Tomasz Gzell/European Pressphoto AgencyHe has since talked about his youth in what he describes as “poverty” in Gdansk, particularly after his father, a carpenter, died when he was 14, and how he used to hang out with street toughs. His older sister, he says, helped set him straight.As a university student and then a journalist and youth activist with Solidarity, he embraced free-market economics. He helped found the Liberal Democratic Congress, a group of anti-communist free-marketeers. After the 1990 election of the Solidarity leader Lech Walesa as president, he was involved in managing the privatization of state assets.Widespread public discontent with economic “shock therapy” crushed his early political ambitions. His party’s defeat in a 1993 election dampened his faith in free-market orthodoxy.“He realized he had to follow political currents and adjust to reality,” said Ms. Dąbrowska. “He has been doing this ever since — adjusting his views and himself to political reality.”After retreating from politics for four years to write books, he won a seat in the Polish senate and then helped set up Civic Platform, a liberal party. He became prime minister after the party won a 2007 election, and served a second time after another victory in 2011.He boasted after his second triumph, “we have no one left to lose to” and, to the dismay of many supporters, decamped to Brussels before finishing his second term.A year after his departure, Law and Justice defeated his party in a parliamentary election and won an upset in a presidential race. “He was arrogant and misjudged the situation,” said Mr. Kuisz.But Law and Justice recently made the same mistake, misjudging Mr. Tusk’s ability to reach out to voters after seven years in Brussels.“He was presented as a lofty liberal and came back unsure of his success but determined to fight,” said Mr. Kuisz. “From Brussels he was suddenly everywhere in small towns and villages doing basic grass-roots politics.”Mr. Tusk addressing the Polish Parliament on Tuesday.Pawel Supernak/EPA, via Shutterstock More

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      Egypt’s Presidential Election Ends, With el-Sisi Expected to Win

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      President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is all but certain to come out on top after a three-day vote, with the war in Gaza turning the country’s focus from economic calamity to security.There were four men on the ballot when Egyptians voted in this week’s presidential election, but with rare exception, only one of their faces gazed out from billboards, banners, buses and lampposts across Egypt: that of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.According to the government, Mr. el-Sisi won 97 percent of the vote in his last two electoral bids, in 2014 and 2018. “All of us are with you,” many of the pro-Sisi banners read, as if anticipating a similar result this time.At voting stations, which closed on Tuesday at the end of a three-day vote, “Oh Egypt, My Love” and other patriotic songs played at nightclub-worthy volumes, while glowing newspaper headlines told of newlyweds so dedicated to the nation that they showed up to the polls still in tuxedos and white gowns.In a country with almost no space for dissent, a tightly leashed media and a lamed opposition, Mr. el-Sisi’s victory is not a matter of great suspense. Official energy appeared to be channeled instead into boosting turnout — a measure of Mr. el-Sisi’s popularity that an economic crisis, and the deep resentment and despair it has generated, was otherwise likely to depress.The get-out-the-vote effort appeared to involve some unsubtle encouragement.Four people in Cairo, the capital, said they had received 200 Egyptian pounds each — the equivalent of about $6.67 — after voting. Several others said they had voted only because they had heard they would be fined for failing to do so or because their employers had given them time off with explicit instructions to use it to cast ballots.The thought of selecting any of the other three candidates, all unknowns, did not seem to cross anyone’s mind. A few said they had deliberately spoiled their ballots by checking all four boxes; the rest said they had voted Sisi.Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt’s State Information Service, said in a statement that while there was a fine for not voting on the books, in practice it had never been applied. He said that providing money or goods in exchange for votes was a criminal offense, but dismissed allegations of such offers as “hearsay.”Voters who said they had taken payments explained that they needed the money. Others, disdaining the election, said they had skipped voting altogether.A Cairo street in September.Mauricio Lima for The New York Times“I used to like Sisi a lot, but now I’m fed up,” said Nadia Assran, 63, who on Sunday, rather than voting, was having coffee with her sister in the lower-middle-class Cairo neighborhood of Shubra.Such coffee breaks are increasingly expensive, and therefore increasingly rare. Then there was the problem of paying for her daughter’s marriage expenses, or of simply finding affordable sugar and onions amid soaring inflation.Ms. Assran mentioned the roads, bridges and shiny new cities Mr. el-Sisi has built around Egypt, which officials and state media have hailed as a major presidential accomplishment.“This is good for our sons and our grandsons,” said Ms. Assran, a widow who survives on the pension from her husband’s job as a police officer. “But how does it help me now?”Her sister, Hana Assran, 50, flicked a hand at some nearby Sisi banners.“Why would we vote? He’s going to make it anyway,” she said, reflecting widespread cynicism about the outcome. “And why are you spending so much on election propaganda when we’re struggling so much with the prices?”Though it dipped slightly in November, annual inflation hit record highs of nearly 40 percent this year as Egypt grapples with an economic crisis in which the currency’s value has plummeted and basic items have disappeared from grocery shelves.The 200 pounds voters said they had received for casting their ballots was worth about $12.50 in 2019, when a constitutional referendum granted Mr. el-Sisi the right to run for a third term, lengthened presidential terms to six years from four and handed him greater powers. Now it is worth about half that.Economists say Egypt’s economic implosion stemmed from mismanagement, most notably Mr. el-Sisi’s lavish spending on weapons and megaprojects such as new cities, a spree that piled unsustainable debt on what had already been a structurally unsound economy.Construction at an administrative megaproject,some 30 miles east of Cairo, in 2020.Khaled Desouki/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe country managed to dodge a reckoning until Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Egyptian officials have attributed Egypt’s problems to outside causes such as the war and the coronavirus pandemic.Egypt says it is opening up its politics, pointing to initiatives such as a much-publicized dialogue between government and opposition figures.But Mr. el-Sisi, a former general who rose to power in a 2013 military takeover, has also succeeded in persuading many Egyptians that they need a strong leader like him to fend off the war, chaos and destruction that have swallowed many of Egypt’s neighbors in recent years, including Libya, Sudan and now the Gaza Strip.“At least we’re guaranteed to have safety and security,” said Nadia Negm, 28, a housewife in Shubra al-Khaima, a working-class area northeast of Cairo, who said she had proudly voted for Mr. el-Sisi. “Yes, it’s hard, but at least we’re better off than other countries.”Ms. Negm, like other Sisi supporters interviewed, pointed out that many other countries were also staring down high inflation and shortages, a common refrain in the state-controlled media.But for others who declined to vote or said they voted only because they had heard they would be fined if they did not, the humiliation of not knowing how they would pay for next week’s meals, of having to break off a child’s engagement for lack of funds to cover marriage expenses or of being in constant debt outweighed their fear of instability.“Security and safety should be applied to food and jobs, too,” said Mahmoud Mohamed, 65, a coffeehouse waiter in Banha, a small city in Egypt’s Nile Delta region, who said he had fallen into a cycle of borrowing each month just to pay back the previous month’s debts. “He promised us so much, and none of it was achieved.”The war in next-door Gaza, however, has shifted some Egyptians’ focus back to other threats such as terrorism, which Mr. el-Sisi says he has successfully battled in northern Sinai, and what many Egyptians see as Israel’s drive to push Gazans across the border into Egypt.Yasmine Fouad, 39, who owns a cellphone accessories shop in Banha, said she had initially planned to sit out the election as a quiet protest of Mr. el-Sisi and the inflation he has presided over.The crisis in Gaza changed her mind.“At this moment, we all have to be behind the president, because anything could happen,” she said. “That makes us accept the current situation.”Hanging a campaign banner for President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo this month.Khaled Desouki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images More

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      Donald Tusk Chosen as Poland’s Prime Minister After Rival Is Rejected

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      Parliament shot down a new government proposed by the caretaker prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, whose party, Law and Justice, lost its parliamentary majority in an October election.Poland’s newly elected Parliament torpedoed a long-shot effort by right-wing forces to stay in power and chose the opposition leader Donald Tusk as the nation’s new prime minister on Monday. The decision ushers the biggest and most populous country on the European Union’s formerly communist eastern flank into a new era.Legislators, as expected, rejected a new government proposed by the caretaker prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, whose party, Law and Justice, lost its parliamentary majority in an October election.As Parliament shot down Law and Justice’s effort to keep power, opposition legislators taunted Mr. Morawiecki and his supporters over their defeat, chanting “Donald Tusk, Donald Tusk.”Later on Monday, Parliament nominated and confirmed Mr. Tusk, 66, as Poland’s new leader, drawing cheers and applause from his allies and a sour denunciation of the new prime minister as a “German agent” from Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the chairman of Law and Justice and Poland’s de facto leader since 2015. Mr. Tusk, a veteran centrist politician who led Poland from 2007 to 2014, is expected to be sworn in on Wednesday by President Andrzej Duda, an ally of Law and Justice.“This is a truly wonderful day, not only for me, but for all those who have deeply believed for many years that things will get better, that we will chase away the darkness, that we will chase away evil,” Mr. Tusk said after being confirmed as prime minister by the Sejm, the more important lower house of the Polish Parliament.The return to power of Mr. Tusk, endorsed as Poland’s new leader with 248 votes for and 201 against in the Sejm, completed an ill-tempered period of political transition that Law and Justice had sought to prolong as long as possible, despite losing its majority in the October election.Mr. Morawiecki, who led Poland’s previous right-wing government, resigned after the election but was asked by Mr. Duda to stay on in a caretaker capacity and to try to form a new government.Critics of Law and Justice denounced Mr. Duda’s move as a last-gasp attempt by the defeated party to prolong its rule and appoint allies to positions in state institutions and companies.In a final, desperate effort to keep the opposition from taking over, a commission formed by the outgoing government to investigate Russian influence recommended on Nov. 29 that Mr. Tusk and other leading opposition figures not be allowed to hold positions responsible for state security.Votes in Parliament on Monday, however, ended the defeated party’s efforts to remain in office and elevated Mr. Tusk, the leader of the main opposition party, Civic Coalition, to leadership of a new government. He is expected to announce his cabinet on Tuesday.After a day of often raucous debate, 266 legislators voted against the government proposed by Mr. Morawiecki and 190 voted for, far short of the majority it needed in the 460-member Sejm to hang on.Delegates listened as Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the Law and Justice party, addressed Parliament on Monday.Wojtek Radwanski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBy rejecting Mr. Morawiecki’s proposed government, doomed to fail because of Law and Justice’s electoral defeat, Parliament delivered a humiliating blow to Mr. Kaczynski, a bitter political and personal enemy of Mr. Tusk.Mr. Kaczynski warned that the vote against Mr. Morawiecki and the return to power of Mr. Tusk, whom he has repeatedly reviled as an agent for German and Russian interests, “look like the end of Polish democracy but we hope this will not be the case.”Many others, however, cheered the end of the deeply conservative party’s rule, including Lech Walesa, a former Polish president and leader in the 1980s of the anti-communist Solidarity trade union movement. A longtime foe of Mr. Kaczynski, who has accused him of collaborating with the communist-era secret police, Mr. Walesa was so eager to witness the demise of Law and Justice that, despite a recent struggle with Covid, he traveled to Warsaw from his home in the port city of Gdansk to witness the vote. He stood in the spectators’ gallery beaming with delight as Mr. Tusk was confirmed as prime minister.The installation of a new government headed by Mr. Tusk could be a drastic shift away from Poland’s direction during eight years of Law and Justice rule, a period marked by close relations between the governing party and the Roman Catholic Church and frequent quarrels with the European Union.Scope for change, however, will be crimped by the grip of Law and Justice appointees on the judiciary, powerful state bodies like the central bank, the national prosecutor’s office, the national broadcasting system and large state-controlled corporations like the energy giant PKN Orlen. Many of those appointments will be hard to reverse.Mr. Tusk’s room for maneuver will also be constrained by Mr. Duda, who is closely aligned with Law and Justice and has veto power over new legislation. Mr. Duda’s presidential term ends in 2025.The outgoing government made clear it had no intention of cutting Mr. Tusk any slack, with former ministers recycling wild election campaign smears of the man now set to govern Poland.Speaking in Parliament on Monday evening, Mariusz Blaszczak, defense minister in the previous government, responded to Mr. Tusk’s nomination as prime minister by denouncing him as a threat to national security who, “completely obedient to Brussels and Berlin,” will “weaken our security and push us to the periphery of Europe.” He also vowed to “defend” public media, drawing jeers from Mr. Tusk’s supporters.People watching a live screening showing the session of Parliament on Monday.Omar Marques/Getty ImagesThe public broadcasting system, a network of national and local radio and television stations, is stacked with Law and Justice loyalists. TVP, the main state television station, has so far clung to its role as propaganda bullhorn for Law and Justice. Its news coverage is heavily slanted in favor of the former governing party, though it has now curbed somewhat previously incessant denunciations of Mr. Tusk as a traitor. During a debate before the votes in Parliament rejecting Mr. Morawiecki and approving Mr. Tusk, opponents of Law and Justice reviled the former governing party as sore losers who had needlessly dragged out the transfer of power.“These entire two months were built on the foundation of bitterness and non-acceptance of the sovereign’s judgment, which removed Law and Justice from power,” said Wladyslaw Kosniak-Kamusz, the leader of a centrist party allied with Mr. Tusk. “This is the end of this bad stage for Poland,” he added.Law and Justice’s defeat came less than a month after a far-right party performed far better than expected in Dutch national elections. Though it fell well short of winning a majority and is having trouble forming a government, the Dutch party’s result sent shock waves across Europe since the Netherlands had long been seen as one the continent’s most liberal countries.In Poland, Mr. Tusk and his allies are divided on the issue of abortion, which was almost completely banned by the previous government, but they share a desire to restore the independence of the Polish judiciary, which was heavily politicized under Law and Justice, and to repair relations with the European Union.A long and often-vicious election campaign cast a shadow over Poland’s previously robust support for Ukraine as Law and Justice sought to avoid losing votes to a far-right party strongly opposed to helping Kyiv. A new centrist government headed by Mr. Tusk would most likely try to put relations between Warsaw and Kyiv back on track, though issues like cheap Ukrainian grain and a blockade of the border by protesting Polish truckers could obstruct a quick return to more harmonious relations.Law and Justice won more votes than any other single party in the October election and proclaimed victory. But its opponents — Mr. Tusk’s Civic Coalition; a leftist grouping, New Left; and a centrist alliance, Third Way — won a clear majority in the Sejm. The opposition also expanded a majority it had in the Senate, the upper house of Parliament.That simple arithmetic was running against Law and Justice was clear when the new Parliament convened for the first time on Nov. 13 and selected Szymon Holownia, a leader of Third Way, as speaker of the Sejm and rejected a candidate put forward by the previous governing party.The selection of Mr. Holownia, a former television celebrity, as speaker quickly boosted public interest in previously dull legislative sessions, with subscribers to the Parliament’s livestream of debates on YouTube rising 10 times to nearly half a million. “Stock up on popcorn because I suspect there will be a lot of excitement,” Mr. Holownia recommended.Anatol Magdziarz contributed reporting. More

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      Can an ‘Anarcho-Capitalist’ President Save Argentina’s Economy?

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      Carlos Prieto, Rachelle Bonja and M.J. Davis Lin and Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicWarning: this episode contains strong language.With Argentina again in the midst of an economic crisis, Argentine voters turned to Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian who has drawn comparisons to Donald J. Trump.Jack Nicas, who covers South America for The New York Times, discusses Argentina’s incoming president, and his radical plan to remake the country’s economy.On today’s episodeJack Nicas, the Brazil bureau chief for The New York Times.In his first decree as president of Argentina, Javier Milei cut the number of government ministries from 18 to nine.Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesBackground readingArgentina’s incoming president is a libertarian economist whose brash style and embrace of conspiracy theories has parallels with those of Donald J. Trump.Argentina braces itself for an “anarcho-capitalist” in charge.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Jack Nicas More

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      Mayor Adams’s Swagger Is Diminished. His Foes Are Ready to Pounce

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      Eric Adams is facing stronger pushback from the City Council and progressives, and prominent Democrats in New York are considering running for mayor.If Mayor Eric Adams were in search of evidence that his recent spate of troubles had cost him some standing in New York, he would not need to look far.The city comptroller, Brad Lander, recently restricted the mayor’s spending powers on the migrant crisis, and has playfully alluded to the F.B.I.’s investigation of Mr. Adams’s fund-raising in his own pitch to donors.The City Council is preparing to fight the mayor over his painful budget cuts to city services and could soon override his objection to banning solitary confinement in city jails. Even his friend, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, is eyeing his job.The reasons for the discontent surrounding Mr. Adams are plenty. He faces a federal investigation into his campaign fund-raising, and widespread criticism over his handling of the migrant crisis. He was named in a legal claim accusing him of sexual assault in 1993 and he made unpopular budget cuts to the police, schools and libraries.The extent of his unpopularity was quantified this week in a stunning Quinnipiac University poll: Only 28 percent of New Yorkers approve of the job Mr. Adams is doing, the lowest for any New York City mayor in a Quinnipiac poll since it began surveying the city in 1996.Mr. Adams has not been accused of wrongdoing in the F.B.I. investigation, and he is hardly the first mayor who has faced an investigation: His predecessor, Bill de Blasio, also faced an inquiry into his campaign’s finances. But the political world remains abuzz about his future, especially after the F.B.I. seized his cellphones on the street.One political consulting firm was so curious to know how far the mayor’s star had fallen that it commissioned its own poll to ask New Yorkers who they would support in a special election if Mr. Adams resigned.“We’re in a period of enormous political uncertainty,” said Evan Roth Smith, a founding partner at Slingshot Strategies. He added, “A special election is far from a certainty, but it’s clearly a possibility.”The poll found that Mr. Cuomo would be the most popular candidate at 22 percent, followed by the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, at 15 percent. Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner who finished second in the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary, came in third at 12 percent.Mr. Adams, famously known for his swagger, has appeared chastened in recent weeks, and has seemed on the defensive.His aides immediately responded to the Quinnipiac poll by calling it “misleading” and sending out a torrent of book blurb-like hosannas of the mayor — some with nearly identical wording — from loyalists like Representative Adriano Espaillat, a key Dominican American power broker, and Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar.Rob Speyer, the chief executive of the real estate investment firm Tishman Speyer, praised Mr. Adams’s “hustle and successes.” Steven Rubenstein, chairman of the Association for a Better New York, called the mayor a “champion for all New Yorkers.” The mayor’s stalwarts included other business and union leaders, a signal to potential challengers that the mayor still enjoys broad support from some of the city’s most influential constituencies.At a recent town hall meeting in East Harlem, Mr. Adams addressed his weaknesses head on. He started the event by addressing “two tough issues that you have been reading about,” and told the crowd that he did not break the law by helping the Turkish Consulate and that he did not sexually assault a woman who filed a legal claim against him for an incident she said happened in 1993.Mr. Adams’s ties to Turkish interests, including the Turkish Consulate, are being examined by federal investigators.Sara Hylton for The New York Times“You know my character,” he said. “You know what I stand for.”In most mayoral election cycles in New York, Democratic incumbents are virtually untouchable. But amid Mr. Adams’s problems, more Democrats are weighing potential candidacies — either when Mr. Adams faces re-election in 2025, or in the case of a special election if he were to resign or be forced from office.One past Adams donor, Jean Shafiroff, the wife of a prominent banker, said that she was waiting to see what happens with the F.B.I. investigation and the sexual assault allegation before participating in any more fund-raisers. She said that she works on women’s rights issues and felt conflicted.“It’s difficult for me right now, as much as I believe the mayor is innocent,” she said in a phone interview on Friday from Miami where she was attending the Art Basel art event.Mr. Cuomo has spoken to people about potentially running for mayor under the right circumstances, according to three people who have spoken to him and who were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.Mr. Cuomo’s allies have insisted that the former governor, who resigned in 2021 after facing a series of sexual harassment allegations, would consider running for mayor only if Mr. Adams was no longer in the race.“He is not going to run against the mayor,” Charlie King, a Democratic strategist who is close to Mr. Cuomo, said in an interview.Matt Wing, a former adviser to Ms. Garcia, signaled that she might be open to running, saying in a statement: “In the chaos of a special election, New York City will need stability over political spectacle. And there’s only one leader in the potential field ready to meet the moment with competence, character and deep-rooted city management experience, which is perhaps why Kathryn stands out.”Scott Stringer, a former city comptroller whose bid for mayor in 2021 was derailed by sexual misconduct allegations, has had conversations with former staffers about moving quickly to run in a special election, according to a person who was familiar with the matter.When Mr. Adams took office two years ago, he was heralded as a national Democratic star and a moderate who made a compelling case for improving public safety. He called himself the “Biden of Brooklyn.”President Biden, who once counted the mayor as a trusted ally, has not spoken to Mr. Adams in months, and his aides and allies now view the mayor as a grandstanding opportunist because he publicly criticized the White House for not providing enough help to the city to deal with the migrant crisis.Now, as the mayor faces questions about his management ability, even his agenda seems more uncertain.On Monday, City Council leaders will hold an oversight hearing to scrutinize the mayor’s cuts to the Police Department, schools and libraries. They are hoping to reverse some of the cuts and to find ways to raise additional revenue.Progressive leaders say that the mayor’s low approval rating shows that his budget cuts are unpopular, and they are hoping to capitalize on his weakened political position by pushing to raise taxes on the wealthy.“What we hear from this poll is that New Yorkers are asking elected officials to invest in a progressive agenda — affordable housing, schools, sanitation, libraries,” said Ana María Archila, a state director of the Working Families Party, which has had conversations with left-leaning candidates about running against Mr. Adams.Later this month, the mayor may face a battle with the City Council over solitary confinement in city jails. Mr. Adams has threatened to veto a ban, arguing that it would put correction officers in harm’s way. But Mr. Williams and City Council leaders have pushed forward with a bill, saying that the practice is torture.The City Council may vote on the ban at its Dec. 20 meeting, and likely has enough votes to override a veto, should the mayor choose to do so. Mr. Adams’s first major veto in June — aimed to stop a housing bill that expanded a rental voucher program — was overridden by the Council.That rental voucher expansion is nearing a Jan. 9 deadline for implementation, and leaders in the City Council are contemplating suing the Adams administration because they believe it is intentionally not moving forward with the plan, according to Council officials.Diana Ayala, the deputy speaker of the City Council who is considering running for mayor, said that Mr. Adams had undermined the Council and refused to work with leadership to address the city’s many crises.“He’s arrogant, and that arrogance is not helpful,” she said.Shahana Hanif, a chair of the Council’s progressive caucus, said that Council members were becoming more comfortable challenging the mayor given his issues.“These incidents are emboldening our colleagues to feel like this is a mayor who doesn’t have his campaign, personal life, nor the city’s best interests at heart,” Ms. Hanif said. “He is a mess.”Perhaps the most telling sign of Mr. Adams’s diminished stature can be seen in the recent responses of Mr. Lander, the city comptroller and another possible mayoral candidate. He recently curtailed Mr. Adams’s ability to quickly spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the migrant crisis.Earlier this year, Mr. Adams openly mocked Mr. Lander’s voice and his left-leaning politics at news conferences. Now Mr. Lander has returned the favor in a recent fund-raising email, chiding the mayor for his campaign’s ties to the Turkish government.“Turkey should have a special place on your Thanksgiving table,” Mr. Lander’s fund-raising email said. “And that’s the only kind of special treatment that Turkey should have in New York City.”Nicholas Fandos More

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      Putin Says He Will Seek Another Term as Russia’s President

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      The announcement was long expected after the Constitution was amended in 2020, effectively allowing the Russian leader to stay in power until 2036.President Vladimir V. Putin said on Friday that he would seek another term as Russia’s leader at an election scheduled for March 17, setting in motion a campaign that is widely expected to result in another victory.With the war in Ukraine as a backdrop, Mr. Putin’s announcement was laden with symbolism. According to Tass, a Russian state news agency, he made it during a military awards ceremony in the Kremlin, responding to a question posed by Artyom Zhoga, a Russian military officer and official from Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine.“I won’t hide it, I had different thoughts at different times,” Mr. Putin said. “But now you are right, the time is such when a decision needs to be made,” he said. “I will run for president of Russia.”It was a long-expected announcement, awaited by observers at least since the Russian Constitution was amended in 2020 to effectively allow Mr. Putin to stay in power until 2036. He has led Russia as either president or prime minister since 1999.While there is little doubt about the outcome of the election, the coming vote carries more significance because it is the first presidential election since Mr. Putin, 71, ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.Nikolay Petrov, an analyst with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said, “This is not an election, this is the re-election of the same leader.”“Mr. Putin is essentially competing with himself — with the younger Putin,” Mr. Petrov added. “It is important for him to show that he is not in a worse place than he was 25 years ago.”The invasion of Ukraine was perhaps the most consequential decision Mr. Putin had taken for Russia during his 23 years in power. He also ordered an unpopular mobilization campaign last year, in which hundreds of thousands of men were called up to fight in the war.So far, the conflict has not figured heavily in Mr. Putin’s public appearances in the months running up to the election — a strategy that observers say is intentional. More

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      Russia Sets Date for Presidential Election

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      The winner of the contest is widely seen as a foregone conclusion: Vladimir V. Putin.Lawmakers in Russia on Thursday set March 17 as the date for the country’s next presidential election, launching a race that few doubt will result in President Vladimir V. Putin’s re-election for another six-year term.While the vote’s outcome is widely seen as a foregone conclusion in Russia, the campaign will take place under drastically different circumstances than the previous one in 2018.It will be the first presidential election since Mr. Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It also will be the first election since the passage of constitutional amendments in 2020 that allowed Mr. Putin, 71, to reset his term limit clock. (Some constitutional lawyers and experts still debate the legality of the reset.)The vote on Thursday in the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, marked the formal start of the election campaign. Speaking before the vote, Valentina I. Matviyenko, the council’s speaker, gave a strong indication of who she thought would win.“Our people will confidently make the only right choice by casting their votes for Russia, victory, and a future in a strong and sovereign country,” said Ms. Matviyenko, referring to the priorities stated by Mr. Putin, even if she didn’t mention him by name.Mr. Putin is expected to announce his intention to run in the coming weeks, but some political parties rushed to endorse him on Thursday ahead of a formal declaration.Sergei M. Mironov, the leader of the Just Russia party, one of five represented in the Russian parliament, said his group was endorsing Mr. Putin, as did Vladimir A. Shamanov, a deputy from the ruling United Russia party.Ella A. Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s Central Electoral Commission, said the body would deliberate in the coming days about whether the vote would take place over a three-day period, instead of on one day — a more drawn out process that critics have said reduces transparency.The commission will also discuss whether the vote will be conducted in the areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia following the invasion, Ms. Pamfilova said.The presidential campaign got launched amid a period of intense diplomacy for Mr. Putin. On Wednesday, he made quick trips to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. On Thursday, he spoke to international investors, many of them from China and India, at a conference in Moscow. Later Thursday, he was scheduled to meet with President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran.Many parties and potential candidates have featured in previous elections, but this time, following the invasion of Ukraine, the political landscape is vastly different.Numerous outspoken critics of Mr. Putin and his policies have had to flee Russia. Aleksei A. Navalny, whose presidential bid was rejected by the Central Electoral Commission, is serving a lengthy prison term in a penal colony. On Thursday, Mr. Navalny’s political allies called on Russians to vote for any candidate other than Mr. Putin.“Putin has been terrorizing our country for 24 years,” said Ivan Y. Zhdanov, the director of Mr. Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, in a video announcing the effort. “He plans to do it indefinitely.”So far, three Russian politicians have announced their intention to run against Mr. Putin.Boris B. Nadezhdin, a municipal deputy in a suburban town near Moscow, has said the end of the war was his top priority. Igor Girkin, a nationalist warlord and blogger currently in jail awaiting trial on extremism charges, has argued for a tougher approach in Ukraine. Yekaterina S. Duntsova, who also campaigns against the war, has garnered limited national appeal so far.In order to register as candidates, they must collect thousands of signatures from supporters, a requirement that can be a tough bar to overcome for opposition politicians in a country where opposition activity has been sharply curtailed by the state. More