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      Why So Many Americans Are So Down on Biden

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      Unemployment is near historic lows, and inflation has come way down. We are inflicting a strategic humiliation on Russia by arming Ukraine without putting American forces at risk. The homicide rate fell by about 10 percent across 30 cities compared with last year. Democrats defied electoral trends by holding the Senate, scoring major legislative victories and easily confirming a Supreme Court nominee.Why, then, do only 20 percent of voters rate the economy as “excellent” or “good,” versus 49 percent who call it “poor,” according to a New York Times/Siena poll? Why are Americans overwhelmingly pessimistic about the country’s future, according to the Pew Research Center? Why does Gallup find a significantly smaller percentage of Americans have confidence in the presidency today than they did in the last, disastrous year of Donald Trump’s tenure? And why is President Biden polling dead even with his predecessor in multiple surveys despite the former president’s 91 felony charges?In short, with everything so great, why are people so down? That’s a question that, as The Times’s Reid Epstein wrote last week, stumps the White House and its political allies, who seem to think the problem is a failure to communicate all the good news.But there’s another explanation: The news isn’t all that good. Americans are unsettled by things that are not always visible in headlines or statistics but are easy enough to see.Easy to see is the average price of a dozen eggs: up 38 percent between January 2022 and May of this year. And white bread: up 25 percent. And a whole chicken: up 18 percent. As for the retail price of gasoline, it’s up 63 percent since January 2021, the month Biden became president.Yet none of these increases make it into what economists call the core rate of inflation, which excludes food and energy. The inflation ordinary people experience in everyday life is not the one the government prefers to highlight.Easy to see is the frequent collapse of public order on American streets. In April hundreds of teenagers wreaked havoc in the Chicago Loop. Two boys were shot. A young couple was beaten by the doorway of a building on North Wabash. Yet only 16 people were arrested. Similar scenes unfolded last month in New York’s Union Square and again in Boston, where police officers were assaulted in two separate riots largely by juveniles.In New York, there were at least 66 arrests. In Boston, just 13.Easy to see is that the kids are not alright. The causes are many; social media companies have a lot to answer for. But so do teachers’ unions, handmaids of the Democratic Party, who pushed to keep school doors closed during the pandemic, helping themselves while doing lasting harm to children. The Biden administration spent much of its early months saying it wanted more than half of schools open at least one day per week by the 100th day of his presidency.“It is a goal so modest and lacking in ambition as to be almost meaningless,” Politico’s Playbook newsletter noted at the time.Easy to see is that the border crisis has become a national one. In May the administration boasted that new policies had contributed to a sharp decline in the “number of encounters” between border patrols and migrants crossing the southwestern border illegally. By August, arrests of migrants who crossed the border with family members had hit a monthly record of 91,000. In New York City alone, more than 57,000 migrants seek food and shelter from the city’s social services on an average night.Nobody can say for certain how many migrants who crossed the border during Biden’s presidency remain in the U.S., but it’s almost certainly in the millions. In 2021 the president dismissed the initial surge of migrants as merely seasonal. “Happens every year,” he said.Easy to see is that the world has gotten more dangerous under Biden’s watch. The president deserves credit for arming Ukraine, as he does for brokering a strategic rapprochement between Japan and South Korea. But he also deserves the blame for a humiliating Afghanistan withdrawal that almost surely played a part in enticing Vladimir Putin into launching his invasion of Ukraine and whetted Beijing’s appetite for Taiwan.How large a part is unquantifiable. Yet it was predictable — and predicted.Easy to see is that the president is not young for his age. The stiff gait and the occasional falls. The apparent dozing off. The times he draws a blank or struggles to complete a thought. Yet the same people yelling #ResignFeinstein or #ResignMcConnell don’t appear to be especially vocal when it comes to the president’s fitness, as if noting the obvious risks repeating a Republican talking point.But people notice, and they vote.Easy to see are tents under overpasses, from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in New York to the I-5 in Seattle. And the zombified addicts passed out on sidewalks in practically every city and town. And the pharmacies with everyday items under lock and key to prevent shoplifting. And women with infants strapped to their backs, hawking candy or gum at busy intersections. And news reports of brazen car thefts, which have skyrocketed this year.“There is a great deal of ruin in a nation,” Adam Smith said. Not all the ruin mentioned above is Biden’s fault, and none of it is irreversible. But there’s much more ruin than his apologists — blinkered by selective statistics and too confident about the president’s chances next year — care to admit.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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      Federal Court Again Strikes Down Alabama’s Congressional Map

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      Republicans failed to comply with a court order to create a second majority-Black district or something “close to it,” the judicial panel said.A panel of federal judges rejected Alabama’s latest congressional map on Tuesday, ruling that a new map needed to be drawn because Republican lawmakers had failed to comply with orders to create a second majority-Black district or something “close to it.”In a sharp rebuke, the judges ordered that the new map be independently drawn, taking the responsibility away from the Republican-controlled legislature while chastising state officials who “ultimately did not even nurture the ambition to provide the required remedy.”The legislature had hastily pushed through a revised map in July after a surprise Supreme Court ruling found that Alabama’s existing map violated a landmark civil rights law by undercutting the power of the state’s Black voters. The revised map, approved over the objections of Democrats, increased the percentage of Black voters in one of the state’s six majority-white congressional districts to about 40 percent, from about 30 percent.In its new ruling, the district court panel in Alabama found that the legislature had flouted its mandate.“We are not aware of any other case in which a state legislature — faced with a federal court order declaring that its electoral plan unlawfully dilutes minority votes and requiring a plan that provides an additional opportunity district — responded with a plan that the state concedes does not provide that district,” the judges wrote. Responsibility for a new map now falls to a special master, Richard Allen, a longtime Alabama lawyer who has worked under several Republican attorneys general, and a cartographer, David Ely, a demographer based in California. Both were appointed by the court. The decision — or the independent map to be produced — can be appealed. State officials have said that a new congressional map needs to be in place by early October, in order to prepare for the 2024 elections.The litigation has been closely watched in Washington and across the country, as several other states in the South face similar voting rights challenges, and control of the U.S. House of Representatives rests on a thin margin. Prominent lawmakers in Washington — including Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California and Democrats in the Congressional Black Caucus — have kept careful tabs on the redistricting effort.At least one nonpartisan political analysis has predicted that at least one Alabama district could become an election tossup with a new map, given that Black voters in Alabama tend to vote for Democratic candidates.The decision was joined by Judge Stanley Marcus, who was nominated by former President Bill Clinton; and by Judges Anna M. Manasco and Terry F. Moorer, both named to their posts by former President Donald J. Trump. (Judge Marcus typically sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta.)For Alabama, the ruling caps off nearly two years of litigation, marking yet another instance in the state’s tumultuous history where a court has forced officials to follow federal civil rights and voting laws.Two decades ago, a lawsuit forced the creation of the Seventh Congressional District, the state’s sole majority-Black district, in southwest Alabama. (Under the Republican-drawn map rejected on Tuesday, the share of Black voters in that district dropped to about 51 percent from about 55 percent.)“It’s really making sure that people who have consistently been kept at the margins or excluded as a matter of law from politics have a chance — not a guarantee — but a realistic chance of electing candidates of choice,” said Kareem Crayton, the senior director for voting and representation at the Brennan Center for Justice and a Montgomery, Ala., native. “The fact that we’re having to fight over that principle is really sad in 2023.”After the 2020 census, which began the process of setting district lines for the next decade across the country, the Alabama legislature maintained six congressional districts with a white Republican incumbent. A group of Black voters challenged the map under a landmark voting rights law, given that more than one in four residents of Alabama is Black.The Birmingham court said the map would need to be redrawn, but the Supreme Court intervened and said a new map could not be put in place so close to the primary races ahead of the 2022 election. In doing so, the Supreme Court unexpectedly affirmed the key remaining tenet of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which bars any voting law that “results in a denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race.” The court had gutted much of that landmark civil rights law a decade earlier, and many had expected a similar result with the Alabama case.But in a weeklong special session, Republicans refused to create a second majority-Black district, and shielded their six incumbents from a potentially brutal primary at a moment when the party has only a slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.Republicans defended their revised map, calling it a fair attempt to keep counties and communities with similar economic and geographic issues together, while adhering to the Constitution. Democrats and the Black voters who brought the challenge called it a squandered opportunity to provide equal representation to a historically disenfranchised bloc of voters.At a hearing in August, the panel of judges sharply pressed the state’s attorneys on whether the revised map had done enough to adhere to their guidance on how to address the voting rights violation, making their skepticism clear.“What I hear you saying is that the state of Alabama deliberately disregarded our instructions,” Judge Moorer said at one point. More

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      Democracy in Bangladesh Is Quietly Being Crushed

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      Bangladesh’s multiparty democracy is being methodically strangled in crowded courtrooms across this country of 170 million people.Nearly every day, thousands of leaders, members and supporters of opposition parties stand before a judge. Charges are usually vague, and evidence is shoddy, at best. But just months before a pivotal election pitting them against the ruling Awami League, the immobilizing effect is clear.About half of the five million members of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, are embroiled in politically motivated court cases, the group estimates. The most active leaders and organizers face dozens, even hundreds, of cases. Lives that would be defined by raucous rallies or late-night strategizing are instead dominated by lawyers’ chambers, courtroom cages and, in Dhaka, the torturously snail-paced traffic between the two.One recent morning, a party leader, Saiful Alam Nirob, was ushered into Dhaka’s 10-story magistrate court in handcuffs. Mr. Nirob faces between 317 and 394 cases — he and his lawyers are unsure exactly how many. Outside the court, a dozen supporters — facing an additional 400 cases among them — waited in an alley whose bustle was cleared only by intermittent monsoon downpours and the frequent blowing of a police whistle to open the way for another political prisoner.The police ushering Saiful Alam Nirob, an opposition leader, to court in Dhaka in June. He faces hundreds of court cases.A rally by supporters of the ruling Awami League in July.“I can’t do a job anymore,” said one of the supporters, Abdul Satar, who is dealing with 60 cases and spends three or four days a week in court. “It’s court case to court case.”In recent years, Bangladesh has been known mostly as an economic success story, with a strong focus on a garment export industry that brought in a steady flow of dollars, increased women’s participation in the economy and lifted millions out of poverty. A country once described by American officials as a basket case of famine and disease appeared to be overcoming decades of coups, countercoups and assassinations.But under the surface, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has waged a campaign of political consolidation whose goal, opposition leaders, analysts and activists say, is to turn the South Asian republic into a one-party state.Over her 14 years in office, she has captured Bangladesh’s institutions, including the police, the military and, increasingly, the courts, by filling them with loyalists and making clear the consequences for not falling in line.She has wielded these institutions both to smother dissent — her targets have also included artists, journalists, activists and even the Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus — and to carry out a deeply personal campaign of vengeance against her political enemies.With an election expected in December or January, the country again feels on the verge of eruption. The opposition sees the vote as a last fight before what could be its full vanquishing. Ms. Hasina’s lieutenants, for their part, say in no uncertain terms that they cannot let the B.N.P. win — “they will kill us” if they come to power, as one aide put it.When asked during an interview in her Dhaka office about using the judiciary to harass the opposition, Ms. Hasina sent an aide out of the room to retrieve a photo album. It was a catalog of horrors: graphic pictures of maimed bodies after arsons, bombings and other attacks.Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office in Dhaka in June.Bangladesh’s economic success story in recent years has overshadowed its slide toward a one-party state. “It is not political, it is not political,” the prime minister said of the court cases, pointing to the visuals as examples of the “brutality” of the B.N.P. “It is because of their crime.”B.N.P. leaders say that about 800 of their members have been killed and more than 400 have disappeared since Ms. Hasina came to power in 2009. In the interview, Ms. Hasina said the B.N.P., when it was in power, had done much the same to her party, jailing and killing her supporters by the thousands.“They started this,” Ms. Hasina said.The SurvivorsThe story of Bangladesh over the past three decades has largely been one of bitter rivalry between two powerful women — Ms. Hasina, 75, and Khaleda Zia, 77, the leader of the B.N.P. and the country’s first female prime minister.Ms. Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was Bangladesh’s most prominent independence leader when the country broke away from Pakistan in 1971. He was killed four years later in a military coup, and much of his family was massacred.Ms. Zia was married to Ziaur Rahman, the army chief who came to power in the bloody chaos that followed Sheikh Mujib’s murder. Mr. Rahman himself was assassinated by soldiers in 1981.For much of the time since, the two surviving women have been locked in a fight over who defines Bangladesh’s democracy — and who is entitled to rule over it.“Actually it was my struggle to establish democracy,” Ms. Hasina said. Pointing to Ms. Zia’s husband, she added: “This opposition, you know, was created by a military dictator.”The B.N.P. says it was the one that restored multiparty democracy after Ms. Hasina’s father declared the country a one-party state — an unfinished project that the B.N.P. says Ms. Hasina is determined to complete.The story of Bangladesh in recent decades has largely been one of bitter rivalry between two powerful women: Ms. Hasina and Khaleda Zia, seen on a large poster inside the office of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in Dhaka. Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the B.N.P.’s secretary general and de facto leader.“They don’t believe in democracy,” said Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the B.N.P.’s secretary general.In 2018, Ms. Zia was jailed on graft charges. Today, she lives under house arrest, where, in deteriorating health, she is reduced to watching television and reading the newspaper, her aides say.Her son Tarique Rahman, who was implicated in a 2004 attack in which a dozen grenades were hurled at Ms. Hasina during a rally — a charge the B.N.P. denies — lives in exile in London. Mr. Alamgir, the party’s de facto leader in their absence, spends much of his time dealing with the 93 court cases he faces.Ms. Hasina has intensified her assault on the opposition as she has found herself in her most politically vulnerable position in years.Just as Bangladesh was working to get its garment industry back on track after the pandemic disrupted global demand, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in the cost of imported energy and food, pushing the country’s supply of dollars perilously low.“It has put tremendous pressure on our economy,” Ms. Hasina said.Bangladesh was working to get its garment industry back on track after the pandemic when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in the cost of imported energy and food.Anger has risen in Bangladesh over the rising food prices and power cuts.The battered opposition saw an opportunity in anger over rising food prices and power cuts, and, fearing an unfair election, was eager to take the showdown to the streets after Ms. Hasina refused to appoint a neutral caretaker administration to oversee the vote.During a rare large rally in June, B.N.P. speakers demanded free elections and the release of political prisoners. But as supporters marched across Dhaka, their chants offered an indication of the bubbling tensions: “Set fire to Hasina’s throne” and “A flood of blood will wash away the injustice.”As the police held back and allowed the rally and march to proceed, ruling-party leaders staged a rival rally where speakers acknowledged that the European Union and the United States were watching Bangladesh’s democracy. The U.S. government has imposed sanctions on Ms. Hasina’s senior security officers and threatened visa restrictions, and American and European officials have made several visits to Bangladesh in recent months.A few weeks after the B.N.P. rally, though, an unsettled Ms. Hasina responded with force. When the party’s supporters tried to hold another large rally, the police met them with clubs and tear gas — and 500 fresh court cases. The crackdown showed that, even as the West issues warnings, it ultimately has limited sway over a leader who has deftly balanced ties with Asia’s two giants, China and India.Opposition supporters during their rally against the governing party in June.Ms. Hasina has governed Bangladesh since 2009 and is seeking re-election in the coming months.Increasingly, the government’s powers are wielded en masse, said Ashraf Zaman, a Bangladeshi lawyer and activist in exile who works with the Asian Human Rights Commission. The police round up scores of people in one case — accusing them of “anti-state activities” or of blocking police work — and leave room for more to be added by listing dozens or even hundreds of “unnamed persons” in the same case. Each individual case can involve multiple charges.By the time the evidence, often flimsy, is put in front of a judge, the accused have spent months in jail, often at risk of harassment or torture in custody, human rights activists say. Bail, lawyers and legal experts said, has become harder to get in political cases. If the accused does get released, the government presents it as a magnanimous gift, not as acknowledgment that the person should not have been detained in the first place.Defense lawyers argue in court that their client “has a family, he has already spent this long time, if you kindly give him bail it would be appreciated, and the prosecution ‘allows’ it,” Mr. Zaman said.The CourtOne of the busiest places for political cases is Dhaka’s magistrate court, where Mr. Nirob, the B.N.P. leader facing more than 300 cases, was taken one morning in June. Syed Nazrul, Mr. Nirob’s lawyer, said his client had at least one case filed against him in every police station in the city.Before proceedings begin each morning, about a dozen lawyers cram into Room 205 at the bar association building, where Mr. Nazrul checks papers one last time. On June 12, the office’s large ledger showed that the team was defending clients in 33 cases that day, 32 of them involving the B.N.P.Lawyers crammed into a room at the bar association building in Dhaka in June. Many represent political prisoners. Syed Nazrul, a lawyer, inspecting documents for cases filed against a B.N.P. leader.Then the lawyers make their way through the narrow alley — buzzing with vendors selling anything from chicken to marigold to replacement teeth — that connects the bar association with the crowded courthouse.“The hearing takes, maximum, 20 minutes. All day is spent back and forth in this harassment,” Mr. Nazrul said.Even those fighting for causes beyond the bitter rivalry between the two political parties increasingly pay a heavy price.Didarul Bhuiyan, a computer engineer, returned to Dhaka after completing his studies in Australia. He set up a small software company, got married and raised three sons. But a question nagged at him: Had he made the right decision in returning?Mr. Bhuiyan became active in a civil society movement aimed at strengthening checks in the system, so his children would not be forced to pursue a life abroad. “Whenever someone gets to power, they go above the law,” he said.After Mr. Bhuiyan’s group criticized the management of relief funds during the pandemic, security forces in civilian clothes took him away in a van with tinted windows.Didarul Bhuiyan with his family in Dhaka in July. He spent five months in jail after criticizing the government’s management of Covid relief money. A woman and her relatives waving at people on a bus leaving court in Dhaka.“The incidents of disappearances were common; we worried about what could happen to him,” said his wife, Dilshad Ara Bhuiyan.As Ms. Bhuiyan went from court to court hoping to apply for bail for her husband, they refused to hear his case, even though the government had filed no charges against him. “The judge would see the name, the case, and say, ‘Sorry, I can’t,’” Mr. Bhuiyan said.After five months in jail, he got bail. The police did not file charges until about a year after his arrest, leveling vague accusations of treason and conspiracy against the state. As a central piece of evidence, the police submitted a Facebook post by Mr. Bhuiyan — which he had written months after his release. A time stamp marked a screenshot as having been taken three hours before.A fellow activist, Mushtaq Ahmed, who was detained around the same time as Mr. Bhuiyan, died in jail. A large portrait of Mr. Ahmed sits on a drawer in Mr. Bhuiyan’s home office.Mr. Bhuiyan called Mr. Ahmed’s death political murder.“Putting someone in jail for 10 months without any trial whatsoever is good enough to kill someone,” he said. More

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      Meet Fabian Nelson, Mississippi’s First Openly L.G.B.T.Q. Legislator

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      Mr. Nelson, 38, won a Democratic primary runoff on Tuesday in a blue district. He talked to The New York Times about the significance of being the first — but why he never focused on it on the trail.Only two states in the nation, Louisiana and Mississippi, have never elected an openly L.G.B.T.Q. lawmaker.Now, there will be only one.On Tuesday, Fabian Nelson won a Democratic primary runoff in Mississippi’s 66th state House district, southwest of Jackson, where Republicans have no candidate on the ballot.Mr. Nelson, 38, was raised in the Mississippi Delta by politically active parents. And while he said he believed having a gay man in the State Legislature was significant, the historic nature of his campaign was never his focus.When he campaigned in South Jackson, he talked about the city’s water crisis and about crime. When he campaigned in rural areas, he talked about broadband access and economic development.“You can’t sit in the Capitol and have the same conversations you were having before we were at the table,” Mr. Nelson said.Lucy Garrett for The New York TimesThe New York Times spoke with Mr. Nelson after his victory. The interview has been edited and condensed.Q. Tell me about yourself — your background, your family, what made you decide to run for office.A. I come from a very politically motivated family. My father is a leader in the community, and he worked with a lot of our elected officials.I remember going to the voting precinct with my mom any time she voted. I saw my parents every single day fighting to help people in the community, whether it was helping people pay their rent, helping people pay their light bills, donating food, donating clothes.When I was in fourth grade, we went to the Mississippi State Capitol, and I remember walking in the galley to look at the floor of the House. I saw these guys in suits and these big, old high-backed chairs. I remember looking down, and I told my teacher, “One of these days I am going to sit down there.”Q. This is your second time running for this seat. What was different this time?A. The first time, I ran in a special election, so I had about a month. I’ve done work in the community, but I’ve mostly done work behind the scenes, so a lot of people didn’t know who I was. Then the special election was right when Covid hit. We really couldn’t get out there, knock on doors, meet people — I wasn’t able to do anything other than social media and put signs up.I said this time I’m going to make sure I do every single thing to get in front of every single person that I possibly can get in front of. I’m going to become a household name. That’s not going to guarantee that people are going to vote for me, but everybody in this district is going to know who Fabian Nelson is.We knocked on everybody’s door five times. The first two times I went around, I was just introducing myself. The third time, that’s when I sat down and developed a platform.Q. Mississippi is one of only two states that have never elected an openly L.G.B.T.Q. legislator. Did you know that when you started your campaign?A. Honestly, I thought Mississippi was the only one. I didn’t know that it was Mississippi and Louisiana. Mississippi, we’re always the last to do the right thing. I said, So we’ve got to beat Louisiana this time so we won’t be No. 50. Now I’m happy to say we’re No. 49.Q. What does it mean to you to be the first in Mississippi?A. I have talked to so many people that say: “We are now hopeful. We feel like we’re in a new place.”What I want people to understand is Mississippi now has somebody that’s going to fight for every single person. I’m going to fight for people in District 66 — those are the people I represent. The issues I’m going to fight for are my platform issues. However, when anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation comes up, which I know it will, I am going to fight that every single day.I’m not only going to the Capitol to fight against anti-L.G.B.T.Q. bills. But we cannot have any group discriminated against. It’s OK to disagree with a person, it’s OK to disagree with a person’s lifestyle, but it is not OK to impose on that person’s civil liberties and civil rights. If we look back in our African American community, slavery was pushed because it’s in the Bible. That’s what was used to keep my people oppressed. And so there’s no room for oppression of any group of people.Q. Politically, this is such a complicated time in that there’s this flood of anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation, and at the same time we’re seeing increased representation in government and public life. How do you navigate that?A. You’ve heard the saying that when you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re what’s for lunch. We’ve been for lunch for so long. The thing is, our politicians can come out and stand on the steps of the Capitol and say, “Oh, we love the community, we’re going to do everything we can to help you, we’re going to fight for you, love, love, love,” then go in the Capitol and close the door — you don’t know what they’re saying. And then the next thing you know, we’ve got a harmful piece of legislation coming out.Now that they have someone sitting at the table, they’re not going to be able to continue along that path. It makes it so much harder. Once we started getting African Americans elected into office, that’s when we started to see things change, because you can’t sit in the Capitol and have the same conversations you were having before we were at the table.Q. Did this come up when you were campaigning? Was it something you talked to people about?A. My campaign was strictly focused on the issues of District 66, because at the end of the day, I represent District 66, and I represent the issues that are germane to District 66. My platform wasn’t, “I’m the first openly gay guy,” because that doesn’t help anybody. It doesn’t make me a better lawmaker or a worse lawmaker. People voted on someone who had experience, people voted on someone who’s going to make a positive impact within our community, and people voted for a fighter.But I come from a family of firsts — my grandmother being the first African American nurse [at a hospital in Yazoo City, Miss.], my dad being one of the first African Americans to graduate dental school from Virginia Commonwealth University.And so I said, I have to raise the bar some type of way. My children are going to have to really raise the bar. More

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      A Resurgent Labour Party Sees Scotland as a Springboard to Power

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      As the Scottish nationalists stumble, a by-election near Glasgow this fall will test support for the opposition Labour party ahead of Britain’s coming general election.For Britain’s opposition Labour Party, the road to 10 Downing Street is likely to run through Scotland. And the first steps on that road lie in a cluster of commuter towns southeast of Glasgow, where Labour is trying to win over swing voters like Cara Scott, in a closely watched parliamentary vote that will test the party’s appeal ahead of a coming general election.Ms. Scott, 18, a geography student who studies in Edinburgh, enthusiastically supported the Scottish National Party in past ballots. But she is disillusioned by her latest S.N.P. representative, Margaret Ferrier, who was forced out of her seat on Aug. 1 after violating lockdown rules during the coronavirus pandemic.She also thinks the Labour Party has better proposals to cope with a grinding cost-of-living crisis that has left people fed up and exhausted. Ms. Scott signed a petition to recall Ms. Ferrier, which triggered this by-election, and now said she was “leaning slightly toward Labour, based on how proactive they’ve been.”“Their campaign has been brilliant,” said Ms. Scott, as she browsed in a slightly tattered shopping mall off the town’s high street. “Right from the get-go, they’ve been really trying to sway people’s voting opinions.”Cara Scott, 18, thinks the Labour Party has better proposals to cope with a grinding cost-of-living crisis that has left people fed up and exhausted. Emily Macinnes for The New York TimesIf the Labour Party can snatch back the seat, which it lost to the S.N.P. in 2019, it will be viewed as a harbinger of broader Labour gains across Scotland in the next general election, which the Conservative prime minister, Rishi Sunak, must call by January 2025.A Labour revival in Scotland could give the party the margin it needs to amass a majority in Parliament, even if — as most oddsmakers predict — its current double-digit lead in the polls over the Conservative Party narrows. A date for the election to fill the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat has not yet been set, but it’s expected to take place in early October.“This will become the center of the political world in the U.K. for the next few weeks,” said Ian Murray, who holds the sole Labour seat from Scotland and serves as the party’s shadow secretary for the country.“If Labour wins the election in Rutherglen, you can say Keir Starmer is a prime minister-in-waiting,” he said, referring to the party’s leader, who campaigned in the district earlier this month. “It feels like the wind is at our back,” he added, “but if there’s any party that can fall over in the wind, it’s the Labour Party.”Labour has been reborn in Scotland by the same public distemper that is lifting it above the Tories south of the border (a Tory lawmaker, Nadine Dorries, quit last week in England with a venomous attack on Mr. Sunak, whom she described as leading a “zombie Parliament”). But this is also a story of the breathtaking decline of the Scottish National Party.Long the dominant player in Scottish politics, the S.N.P. has been brought low by scandal, infighting, and voter fatigue. Its formidable leader, Nicola Sturgeon, resigned in February and was later arrested by police in an investigation of the party’s finances (she was released and has not been charged).Children playing in Blantyre, as Labour Party supporters canvas the neighborhood in a campaign to win a Parliamentary seat this fall. Emily Macinnes for The New York TimesThe S.N.P.’s new leader, Humza Yousaf, has stumbled out of the gate, proving unpopular with voters, who have not rewarded him with the honeymoon in the polls that most new leaders get.Like the Tories, the Scottish nationalists, who have controlled Scotland’s devolved parliament since 2007, appear exhausted and internally divided. Their political north star — Scottish independence — seems more distant than ever after Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that the Scots cannot vote unilaterally to hold another referendum after voting against independence in 2014.While support for independence has stayed stable at around 47 percent, polls suggest it will no longer translate reliably into votes for the nationalist party. On a blustery, showery day, people in Rutherglen and the neighboring town of Blantyre said they worried more about the high cost of food and fuel, and long waiting times at hospitals — neither of which, they said, the S.N.P. government had remedied.“For me, independence takes a total back seat at the moment,” said James Dunsmore, 47, who was waiting for a haircut. The manager of the barbershop, Jewar Ali, said business had slowed because several of his cash strapped regulars were putting off haircuts to once a month.Jewar Ali, the barbershop manager, said business had slowed because several of his cash strapped regulars were putting off haircuts. Emily Macinnes for The New York TimesElizabeth Clark, 68, a retired nurse, expressed outrage at a recent newspaper report, based on credit-card receipts obtained and leaked by Labour officials, that said Scottish government officials spent public money on nail polish and yoga classes.“The S.N.P. has brought Scotland to its knees,” Ms. Clark said, her mood scarcely brightened by the flowers in her shopping cart.Feelings toward Ms. Ferrier are even more raw. After traveling by train despite testing positive for Covid — a breach of lockdown rules — in October 2020, she was suspended by the party but fought bitterly to hold on to her seat. The episode was especially embarrassing to the S.N.P. because Ms. Sturgeon had been widely praised for taking a more cautious approach to Covid than Boris Johnson did in England.“Other people were prosecuted” for breaking Covid rules in Britain, John Brown, 75, a mechanic, said over a breakfast sausage in Blantyre.“The S.N.P. has brought Scotland to its knees,” Elizabeth Clark, 68, said. Emily Macinnes for The New York TimesIn fact, Ms. Ferrier was charged with reckless conduct and sentenced to community service. After giving up her seat, she said: “I have always put my job and my constituents first, and I am disappointed that this will now come to an end.”In 2019, Ms. Ferrier was part of a wave of S.N.P. lawmakers who together won 48 seats in London’s parliament, while Labour won just one Scottish seat — Mr. Murray’s. Polls now show that the parties are virtually tied among voters, underscoring the dramatic collapse in support for the nationalist party, with the Conservatives trailing far behind. A poll last week projected that Labour was on track to win 24 seats next year, the same as the S.N.P.“It’s long been argued that unless the Labour Party can gain seats in Scotland, it will have a problem putting together a clear majority,” said John Curtice, a professor at the University of Strathclyde and one of Britain’s foremost pollsters. “It potentially significantly improves Keir Starmer’s chances of getting an outright majority.”He explained the math: With the S.N.P. maintaining its current number of seats in Parliament, Labour would need to beat the Tories by 12 percentage points just to eke out a single-seat majority (it is currently ahead by about 18 points, but Professor Curtice said that was likely to shrink). For every 12 seats that Labour wins in Scotland, it can give up two percentage points to the Tories and still gain a majority.Jackie Baillie, center, Scottish Labour party deputy leader, was among those knocking on doors on a recent afternoon. Emily Macinnes for The New York TimesGiven the peculiar circumstances of this by-election, it is Labour, not the S.N.P., that is feeling the pressure. The district has changed hands regularly since it was created in 2005; Labour won it in 2017 under the polarizing leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.“In a by-election, you’d expect the government of the day to get a kicking,” said Nicola McEwen, a professor of public policy at the University of Glasgow. “If they don’t win this seat, Starmer has bigger problems than he thinks he has.”Labour has left little to chance, mobilizing canvassers to carpet the district with leaflets for its candidate, Michael Shanks. Jackie Baillie, the party’s deputy leader, was among those knocking on doors on a recent afternoon. She played up Mr. Shanks’ roots in the community as a schoolteacher. But party officials did not make him available for an interview, suggesting they are protecting their lead.S.N.P.’s campaign office for candidate Katy Loudon, in Rutherglen.Emily Macinnes for The New York Times“It’s clearly been a difficult few months for us,” Ms. Loudon said.Emily Macinnes for The New York TimesFor the S.N.P.’s candidate, Katy Loudon, standing on doorsteps means getting the occasional tough question about Margaret Ferrier or Nicola Sturgeon. She insisted it happens less than one might expect.“It’s clearly been a difficult few months for us,” Ms. Loudon said. “But we’re in this to win. Our message is a positive one. It is not harking back to the past.” More

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      After Jacksonville, Tensions Flare Between DeSantis and Black Floridians

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      At a vigil for the shooting victims, Mr. DeSantis had to speak over loud boos from a largely Black crowd. His agenda in Florida has earned him few Black allies.Days after being sworn in as Florida’s governor in 2019, Ron DeSantis pardoned the Groveland Four, a group of Black men who had been wrongfully accused of sexually assaulting a white woman decades earlier.At the time, Mr. DeSantis’s decision seemed like it could serve as a vital olive branch to Florida’s wary African American community. Accusations of racism had trailed him throughout a bruising general election, which he had begun by warning voters not to “monkey this up” by voting for his Democratic opponent, who was Black. The case of the Groveland Four, who all died before having their names cleared, had received national attention, and Mr. DeSantis said their treatment represented a “miscarriage of justice.”Four years later, Mr. DeSantis’s relationship with Black Floridians could hardly be worse. As he moved increasingly to the right ahead of his run for president, Mr. DeSantis pushed an agenda that cemented his status as a rising conservative star nationally but that has outraged many Black voters and leaders in his home state.Those policies include changing how slavery is taught in schools, cutting funding for diversity and inclusion initiatives and redistricting a Black-led congressional district in northern Florida out of existence. Some Black professional groups have stopped holding conferences in the state, while several Black leaders have condemned Florida — and Mr. DeSantis — as an example of racism in policymaking.Now, a racially motivated shooting in Jacksonville that killed three Black people over the weekend has escalated those tensions to new heights.At a vigil on Sunday for the victims, Mr. DeSantis had to speak over loud boos from the largely Black crowd. He condemned the murders and called the killer, a white man who the authorities said intentionally targeted Black people before killing himself, “a major-league scumbag.”Mr. DeSantis was confronted with loud boos at the vigil for the shooting victims.John Raoux/Associated PressJeffrey Rumlin, a pastor who spoke after Mr. DeSantis, offered a correction. “Respect for the governor,” Mr. Rumlin, who is Black, told the crowd, but “he was not a scumbag. He was a racist.”Shevrin Jones, a state senator from South Florida, said Mr. DeSantis’s reception at the vigil was telling.“The response from Jacksonville’s Black community was the response from the Black community across the state of Florida,” said Mr. Jones, a Black Democrat. “We’ve never had a relationship with the governor.”Mr. DeSantis’s office, which is preparing for a major hurricane, did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did his campaign.Kiyan Michael, a Republican state representative from the Jacksonville area, defended Mr. DeSantis. Far from being racist, she said, his support for policies like universal school choice and efforts to crack down on the employment of undocumented immigrants, had helped African Americans. The governor made modest gains with Black voters in his re-election last year, according to an Associated Press analysis.Ms. Michael, who is Black, also praised Mr. DeSantis for attending the Jacksonville vigil.“He could have sent somebody in his place. He didn’t,” she said. “He knew that he was going into a hornet’s nest, but he came himself to show his heart, his concern, his compassion.”The list of policies that Mr. DeSantis’s critics describe as harmful to African Americans is long, and many have been challenged in court.As governor, Mr. DeSantis sought to restrict enacting a popular referendum to restore the voting rights of many felons. After the George Floyd rallies, he signed legislation that many civil rights activists said criminalized political protests, as well as laws eliminating diversity and inclusion spending from state universities and restricting the teaching of the academic framework known as critical race theory. He also set up a new state police force to enforce election laws that arrested mainly Black people in a high-profile sweep and has seen many of its cases stumble in court. And he removed two elected state attorneys from office. Both were Democrats who supported criminal justice reform. One was Black.Perhaps the biggest backlash was early this year, when Florida education officials rejected an Advanced Placement course on African American studies and subsequently adopted new standards that said students should be taught how enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” The line was widely denounced, with a number of Black conservatives, including Mr. DeSantis’s 2024 rival Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, criticizing its inclusion.In the presidential race, Mr. DeSantis has leaned on his “war on woke,” aiming to eliminate liberal viewpoints on race and gender from many parts of public life.Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald, via Associated PressA backlash came when Florida education officials said students should be taught how enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat, via Associated PressMr. DeSantis defended the changes, saying on Fox News this month that the standards overwhelmingly showed the “injustices of slavery,” while also demonstrating that “people acquired skills in spite of slavery, not because of it, and then they used those when they achieved their freedom.”As a young man, Mr. DeSantis taught American history at a private boarding school in Georgia. There, The New York Times previously reported, some students said he offered lessons on the Civil War that seemed slanted, factually wrong and sometimes presented in ways that sounded like attempts to justify slavery.On the campaign trail, Mr. DeSantis has leaned on his record leading Florida, particularly his “war on woke,” which seeks to eliminate liberal viewpoints on race and gender from many parts of public life. Republican primary voters have generally responded well, although Mr. DeSantis is still polling far behind the front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump.A general election, however, could be a different story. Mr. DeSantis’s status as a lightning rod for racial issues could galvanize Black turnout against him. Black voters are a key part of the Democratic electorate and their participation at the polls is vital. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost to Mr. Trump as Black turnout declined in a presidential election for the first time in 20 years, according to the Pew Research Center. Four years later, Joseph R. Biden Jr. won as Black voters came back to the polls in higher numbers.Angie Nixon, a Democratic state representative from Jacksonville, said in an interview that the harms of Mr. DeSantis’s policies were not just limited to Black voters.“He attacks marginalized communities in general because his base doesn’t like them,” Ms. Nixon said. “Because that’s low-hanging fruit for him to gain even more points politically among a base of voters. That’s all he’s ever done — is to try to appeal to a base of people.”Black leaders in Florida described their relationship with Mr. DeSantis as strained at best. In his five years as governor, Mr. DeSantis has held no formal meetings with the state’s legislative Black caucus, according to its members. In contrast, his predecessor, Rick Scott, did sit down with the Black legislators, although the meetings grew contentious and were eventually canceled after the caucus members said they were not being listened to.“I worked with Jeb Bush. I worked with Martinez. I worked with Rick Scott,” said the former congressman Al Lawson, referring to several past Republican Florida governors, including Bob Martinez. “None of them disenfranchised Blacks as much as this governor, DeSantis.”Mr. Lawson’s former district — once heavily Black and Democratic — is now held by a Republican, a product of a redistricting process in which Mr. DeSantis took the unusual step of putting forth his own maps, rather than leaving it entirely to the Legislature, where he enjoys significant support with G.O.P. supermajorities. (A legal challenge asserting that the changes harmed Black voters could restore Mr. Lawson’s district.)This summer, Black national organizations have shunned the state or encouraged their members to travel elsewhere. The National Association of Black Engineers said it would move its 2024 convention, originally set for Orlando, to Atlanta. Alpha Phi Alpha, the nation’s oldest Black fraternity, said it would no longer hold its 2025 convention in Orlando. Both organizations cited recent policies in Florida that they felt posed a threat to Black Americans.In May, the N.A.A.C.P. released a travel advisory to Black Americans considering visiting Florida, calling the state “openly hostile” to members of racial minorities and L.G.B.T.Q. people.Carol Greenlee, 73, pushed for decades for the pardon and eventual exoneration of her father, Charles Greenlee, one of the Groveland Four, over the 1949 crime in Central Florida. She saw the pardon as a moment of hope and reconciliation, especially after the previous governor, Mr. Scott, had declined to take up the case, despite the urging of the Legislature.“It felt like we were moving forward,” she said. “It felt like the pendulum was swinging toward justice.”Ms. Greenlee, who lives in Tennessee but has followed Mr. DeSantis’s path as governor, said his subsequent actions had left her baffled and angry.“I have to shake my head and wonder what happened with some of the stances he has taken,” she said. “It’s almost like a 180-degree turnaround.” More

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      The Object of Ukraine’s Desire: F-16s From the West. But It’s Tricky.

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      Ukraine’s sense of urgency in obtaining the fighter jet reflects concerns about the war against Russia, but also the political calendar in the West. But training pilots and support crew is a lengthy process.The F-16 fighter jets would not be delivered to Ukraine until next year, but that did not dissuade President Volodymyr Zelensky from hopping into one last week in the Netherlands — one stop on a European tour to collect commitments to donate the warplane as quickly as possible.There he was in Denmark, praising the government for “helping Ukraine to become invincible” with its pledge to send 19 jets. In Athens, he said Greece’s offer to train Ukrainian pilots would “help us fight for our freedom.” Within days of returning to Kyiv, Mr. Zelensky had secured promises from a half-dozen countries to either donate the jets — potentially more than 60 — or provide training for pilots and support crew.“It is important and necessary,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store of Norway told Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv, announcing that his government would provide an undetermined number of the jets — probably 10 or fewer — in the future.It was a remarkable victory lap for a sophisticated attack aircraft that even Ukraine’s defense minister has acknowledged is unlikely to perform in combat until next spring — and then only for the few pilots who can understand English well enough to fly it. With Ukraine’s counteroffensive grinding ahead slowly this summer, Mr. Zelensky’s airy announcements of securing the F-16s signal a tacit acknowledgment that the 18-month war in Ukraine will likely endure for years to come.They were also a palpable signal of Mr. Zelensky’s fixation on a fighter jet that is faster, more powerful and more versatile than existing Ukrainian aircraft, but that has spurred debate over how substantially it can advance Kyiv’s immediate war effort. The F-16 has both offensive and defensive capabilities — it can be launched within minutes and is equipped to shoot down incoming missiles and enemy aircraft.People gathered outside the Danish Parliament during a visit by Mr. Zelensky. Mads Claus Rasmussen/EPA, via ShutterstockUkraine has adamantly insisted the planes would make a significant difference, though American officials have long maintained that tanks, ammunition and most of all, well trained ground troops are far more important in what is, right now, primarily a ground war. The Western warplanes are costly and it could take years to train and field enough pilots to provide sufficient air cover.As it presses for the fighter jets, Ukraine also senses a ticking political clock, current and former officials in Kyiv and Washington said. Mr. Zelensky appears driven to get as many of the F-16s as possible delivered before elections in Europe and the United States, which could bring a change of heart in the governments that have promised the planes.The Netherlands, for example, has pledged to give Ukraine as many as 42 F-16s it is phasing out of its air force; it will hold parliamentary elections this November. The larger concern, though, is the United States, where Republican support for sending tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine is dropping. Former President Donald J. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, said in July he would push Mr. Zelensky into peace agreements by telling him “no more — you got to make a deal.”“The American political uncertainties are very much on the minds of Ukrainians, and all of Europe,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who met with Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv just as the Ukrainian president was returning from his F-16 tour last week. “One of the objectives here, clearly, is to lock in commitments as clearly and unequivocally as possible.”Mr. Zelensky, left, met with Senators (from left) Richard Blumenthal, Elizabeth Warren and Lindsey Graham in Kyiv earlier this month. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/via ReutersHe said Mr. Zelensky did not directly discuss next year’s U.S. elections during their meeting, which also included Senators Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and was held in an underground room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kyiv immediately after an air raid alarm. But, he said in a telephone interview, the more that can be delivered before November 2024, “the more that air support is not threatened by the vagaries of American politics.”So far, the Biden administration has not committed to sending Ukraine any F-16s from its own fleet, although it announced last week that it would train pilots at air bases in Texas and Arizona starting in September.It is expected to take at least four months to train Ukraine’s pilots on aircraft more advanced than what they are used to flying, and on tactics and weapons they are not used to employing. It could take even longer to teach them enough English to understand training manuals and to communicate with air traffic controllers and instructors. The avionics on the planes, including the buttons, are in English.There is another wrinkle in plans to deliver the planes. The United States must give approval before other countries can send American-made jets to Ukraine. The Biden administration has signaled to Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands that it will allow the transfers, but a new president could reverse those case-by-case agreements if delivery has not yet been completed, according to a U.S. official.Several officials cited in this article spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.A former senior Biden administration official said that Mr. Zelensky’s spate of F-16 announcements was also likely intended to lock in Western commitments in the event that a sluggish counteroffensive erodes political support among allies.Ukrainians firing on Russian positions from an infantry fighting vehicle. Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesMr. Zelensky’s sense of urgency has been unmistakable. In addition to his diplomatic forays, he mentioned the F-16s at least eight times during his nightly addresses in August, predicting that their presence in Ukrainian skies will vanquish Russian forces. Officials in Kyiv have even used the death last week of one of their famed pilots in a training accident to underscore that Ukraine needs the jets to win. Part of the jets’ appeal is that they are in plentiful supply. Many European air forces have F-16s and are getting rid of them to transition to the even more advanced F-35. So they exist in ample numbers with a built-in Western repair and supply chain, and training programs that can support them years into the future.However, the immediate hurdle to fielding the F-16s that have been pledged is not the actual jets, but the shortage of trained English-speaking Ukrainian pilots and support crew to fly and maintain them.A former senior U.S. Air Force officer said it takes between 8 to 14 support personnel to maintain, fuel and support each F-16, depending on how many bases the jets operate from. It will take roughly as long to train the support crews as the pilots, the officer said.So far, American officials have said, only eight Ukrainian pilots are sufficiently fluent in English and experienced in flying combat aircraft to have started training on the F-16s in Denmark. At least 20 other pilots are starting English-language instruction in Britain. Even Ukrainian pilots skilled at flying the Soviet-era MiG-29 jets that make up much of Kyiv’s current fleet would have to learn to navigate the F-16s’ “hands-on throttle and stick” or “HOTAS” technology; that’s a system that would let them shift from bombing targets on the ground to engaging in air-to-air combat without taking their hands off the controls.The system makes it easier to navigate between the two targets than on a MiG-29, but it still takes time to learn.“That all is going to take time and that probably is not going to happen before the end of the year,” Gen. James B. Hecker, the top U.S. air commander in Europe, told reporters at George Washington University’s Defense Writers Group on Aug. 18.One U.S. adviser said Ukraine will probably deploy the initial F-16s as soon as the pilots are certified to fly, in a range of defensive and offensive combat missions. Given the advanced weapons the F-16s will carry, just having them deployed, even in a niche capacity, could force Russia to dedicate valuable resources to monitor and counter them, the adviser said.Pro-Ukraine demonstrators called on President Joe Biden to send F-16 jets to Ukraine in a protest outside the hotel where he stayed in Warsaw in February. Aleksandra Szmigiel/ReutersStill, their effectiveness would still be limited by Russian air defenses and advanced fighters developed to specifically combat NATO aircraft such as the F-16.“In the short term they’ll help a little bit, but it’s not the silver bullet,” General Hecker said.U.S. officials say the F-16s are important for other reasons. Their arrival will boost Ukrainian morale and signal the shift of Ukraine’s air force to a NATO-caliber fleet. That sends an important deterrent message to Russia, to stave off future attacks from Moscow once this war is over, U.S. officials say.U.S. officials have repeatedly stated that providing Ukraine with F-16s is more about the future than the present.“Putin’s strategy is clearly to outlast, or out-wait, America and count on it lacking the will or the arms to continue,” Mr. Blumenthal said.He added: “There is a kind of gap, so to speak, between the victory lap of accepting the planes and the actual delivery. But the goal is to close that gap as quickly as possible and get F-16s on the battlefield.” More

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      DeSantis Confronts Jacksonville Shooting and Storm Idalia in Florida

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      A racially motivated shooting and an impending storm provide the most serious tests of Mr. DeSantis’s leadership since he began running for president in May.For the first time since declaring his bid for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is facing a crisis in his home state.Well, not one crisis, but two.On Saturday, a gunman motivated by racial hatred killed three people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville. All the victims were Black. The shooter was white. And on Wednesday, a major storm is projected to strike somewhere along Florida’s Gulf coast, the first to hit the state during the 2023 hurricane season.After the shooting, Mr. DeSantis flew back to Tallahassee from a campaign trip to Iowa. He then canceled a visit to South Carolina scheduled for Monday, citing the storm and sending his wife, Casey DeSantis, in his place. He has said he will stay in Florida for the storm’s duration and aftermath.“This is going to be our sole focus,” Mr. DeSantis said on Monday at a news conference at the state’s emergency operation center in Tallahassee.The twin crises provide the most serious tests of Mr. DeSantis’s leadership since he began running for president in May. On the stump, he often cites his track record as governor as his biggest advantage over his rivals, almost none of whom hold executive office. He has also criticized President Biden for his response to the wildfires that devastated Maui.But the emergencies have pulled Mr. DeSantis off the trail at a time when his campaign had seemed to stabilize after weeks of layoffs and upheaval among his staff, as well as a debate performance that drew strong reviews from many Republican voters.Both the shooting and the storm could further spotlight criticisms that rival candidates have made of Mr. DeSantis’s stewardship of Florida since being elected as governor in 2018. After clashes on a number of race-related issues, including the way African American history is taught in schools, his relationship with Florida’s Black community is so strained that he was loudly booed when he appeared at a vigil for the shooting victims in Jacksonville on Sunday.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida was booed and heckled when he spoke at a vigil for three people killed in an attack where officials say a white gunman targeted Black people inside a Jacksonville, Fla., store.John Raoux/Associated PressMr. DeSantis has also struggled with the state’s property insurance market, a long-running problem that the governor has repeatedly tried to address with legislation. The market has been so battered by high costs that Mr. DeSantis said in July that he would “knock on wood” for no big storm to hit Florida this year.Mr. DeSantis’s opponents, including former President Donald J. Trump and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, have used the issues to criticize him.A spokesman for the DeSantis campaign said the governor’s response to the shooting and the storm demonstrated “the strong leadership in times of crisis that Americans can expect from a President DeSantis.”“In the face of the tragedy in Jacksonville and the impending major hurricane, Ron DeSantis is focused on leading his state through these challenging moments,” Bryan Griffin, the campaign’s press secretary, said in a statement. “He’s now at the helm of Florida’s hurricane response and is working with local officials across the state to do everything necessary to ensure Florida is fully prepared.”Mr. DeSantis said in an afternoon news conference that he had spoken to Mr. Biden and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.Partly because of extreme weather, Florida homeowners have seen their property insurance costs rise more than those in any other state since 2015. Some major insurers have pulled out of the market, although smaller ones have entered. Last year, Mr. DeSantis called a special legislative session to address property insurance. But he has warned that fixing the troubled market will take time.Last month, Mr. Trump urged the governor to leave the campaign trail and “get home and take care of insurance.”Hurricanes traditionally provide an opportunity for Florida governors to demonstrate their strength and leadership. Mr. DeSantis has faced several major storms, as well as the fatal collapse of a condominium in Surfside, since taking office.Last year, Hurricane Ian killed 150 people in Florida, making it the state’s most deadly hurricane in decades and raising questions about why local officials had not issued evacuation orders earlier. On the trail, Mr. DeSantis frequently talks about his efforts to rebuild the state after the storm, including quickly repairing bridges and causeways to islands that had been cut off.On Sunday, Mr. DeSantis received a starkly negative reception when he attended a vigil for the victims of the shooting in Jacksonville, which has a large African American population.His administration has come under repeated fire for rejecting the curriculum of an Advanced Placement African American studies class and rewriting African American history courses, something that Mr. Scott, who is Black, has criticized.After the crowd in Jacksonville booed Mr. DeSantis when he tried to speak, a city councilwoman stepped in and asked people to listen. He was booed again when he finished.On Monday, Mr. DeSantis announced that he would award $1 million through the Volunteer Florida Foundation to bolster campus security at Edward Waters University, the historically Black university near the Dollar General store that the gunman attacked. He also said that the foundation, a tax-exempt state commission focused on community service projects, would donate $100,000 to the families of the victims.State Representative Angie Nixon, who represents Jacksonville, called the shooting “a stark reminder of the dangerous consequences of unchecked racism” and criticized Mr. DeSantis for “empty gestures” and “publicity stunts.”“Our historically Black institutions have faced an uphill battle for decades, and I invite DeSantis to go back through unfilled budget requests and line-item vetoes to begin to provide the funding they’ve needed for years. For it to take murder for him to dig in his overflowing coffers for support is appalling,” she said.In April, Mr. DeSantis was faulted for not visiting Fort Lauderdale, which strongly leans Democratic, after damaging flooding there. Since officially announcing his 2024 bid in May, Mr. DeSantis has spent several days per week out of Florida, usually meeting voters in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, or attending closed-door fund-raisers with donors.Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has seemed to steady in recent days thanks in part to his performance in the first Republican primary debate last week in Milwaukee that Mr. Trump, the front-runner who is leading Mr. DeSantis by double digits, did not attend. The DeSantis campaign said it raised more than $1 million the next day and a snap poll of Republican voters by the Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight and Ipsos declared him the winner.On his weekend bus tour through northwest Iowa, many Republican voters said they had been impressed, particularly by how Mr. DeSantis talked about his record as governor.“DeSantis was the one who broke through,” said Cody Hoefert, a former co-chair of the Republican Party of Iowa who endorsed the governor immediately after the debate. “I want somebody who is going to lead and deliver results.” More