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      In Peru’s Presidential Election, the Most Popular Choice Is No One

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      Peruvians head to the polls at a moment that many are calling one of the lowest points in the country’s young democracy, and many plan to cast empty ballots.LIMA, Peru — Vicenta Escobar, 62, sells fruit from a stand on the streets in Peru’s capital, Lima. In every presidential election over the last four decades, she has chosen a candidate she believed in, in the hope that he or she would deliver change.Not this time, though. This Sunday, she plans to arrive at her polling station to vote — as is required by Peruvian law. But she will cast her ballot without making a single mark.“I’m planning on leaving it blank,” she said on Thursday afternoon. She was fed up, she said, with “all the lies and robberies.”Peruvians are voting on Sunday at a moment many are calling one of the lowest points in the country’s young democracy. Eighteen candidates are on the ballot, but about 15 percent of voters are expected to cast a blank vote, according to several recent polls, and no candidate has been able to garner much more than 10 percent support. The leading two candidates will advance to a runoff if no one captures more than half the vote.The election follows a tumultuous five-year period in which the country cycled through four presidents and two Congresses, and it comes amid growing frustration over corruption, the pandemic and a political system that many say has served the interests of corporations and officials — but not of regular people.Whoever is sworn in later this year is likely to have the weakest mandate of any elected president in recent history, and will be forced to deal with dual economic and health crises likely to shape the country for years to come.Peru has one of the highest coronavirus death rates in the world, and daily deaths climbed to new highs this month as the Brazilian variant of the virus spread through the country. Many Covid patients have died amid lack of access to oxygen or ventilators, working-class families are struggling to secure enough food, and school closures have pushed children into the labor force.The economy shrank 12 percent last year in the country’s worst recession in three decades — the second-worst downturn in Latin America, after Venezuela’s.Voters interviewed this month in Lima, the capital, appeared to coalesce around their shared frustration with the system.“We used to trust our leaders somewhat. But now no one believes any of them,” said Teresa Vásquez, 49, a housekeeper.Ms. Vásquez had supported one of the recent presidents, Martín Vizcarra, even as legislators impeached him amid corruption charges.Then she learned he had been secretly vaccinated last year with extra doses from a clinical trial in Peru that researchers distributed among political elites.This year, she had narrowed her options to two candidates who seemed clean. But with less than a week to go before the election, was still struggling to decide.“It’s the same with my whole family,” she said. “No one knows who to trust.”Opinion polls released before Sunday’s vote showed that any two of half a dozen candidates might move on to a likely June runoff.Among the candidates pulling in about 10 percent of the vote in recent polls are Pedro Castillo, a socially conservative union activist who has surged in the last week on promises to invest heavily in health care and education, and Keiko Fujimori, a right-wing opposition leader and the daughter of the former authoritarian president Alberto Fujimori, who has said she would end Covid lockdowns and crack down on crime with an “iron fist.”Residents of the Villa El Salvador neighborhood in Lima observed a campaign rally last week.Sebastian Castaneda/ReutersThis year’s election coincides with the 200th anniversary of Peru’s independence. But instead of celebrating, many Peruvians are questioning the validity of their democracy and their free-market economic model.Even before the pandemic threw the country into disarray, support for democracy in Peru had slipped to one of the lowest levels in the region, according to a 2018-2019 survey by the Latin American Public Opinion Project, with the military seen as the most trustworthy institution.Since the last general election produced a divided government five years ago, Peru has seen constant clashes between the legislative and executive branches, as opposition lawmakers have sought to impeach two presidents and Mr. Vizcarra dissolved Congress, calling new legislative elections to push through reforms.Three former presidents have spent time in jail during bribery investigations, including one candidate in this year’s election; a fourth killed himself to avoid arrest; and a fifth, Mr. Vizcarra, one of the most popular recent leaders, was impeached in November.His replacement, who lasted less than a week in office, is under investigation in connection with the fatal shootings of two young men at protests, which led to his resignation.One reason for the country’s endemic corruption is that political parties often barter their loyalties to presidential candidates in back-room deals, and are often captive to special interests.A soldier stands guard near voting booths in Lima, Peru on Saturday.Sebastian Castaneda/Reuters“Political parties are no longer a vehicle for representation of the citizenry,” said Adriana Urrutia, a political scientist who leads the pro-democracy organization Transparencia.“There are parties in the current Parliament that represent the interests of private universities facing penalties for failing to fulfill minimum requirements,” she added. “There are parties that represent the interests of illegal economies, like illegal logging and illegal mining.”Some candidates are tailoring their messages to appeal to the growing skepticism about democracy.Mr. Castillo, the union activist, has promised to replace the Constitutional Tribunal with a court elected “by popular mandate,” and said he would dissolve Congress if it blocked a proposal to replace the Constitution. Rafael López Aliaga, a businessman and a member of the ultraconservative Catholic group Opus Dei, has said Peru must stop a leftist “dictatorship” from consolidating power and has promised to jail corrupt officials for life.Ms. Fujimori has abandoned efforts to moderate her platform in her third presidential bid. She has promised to pardon her father, who is serving a sentence for human rights abuses and graft.The constant political turmoil has analysts worried for the country’s future.“I think the scenario that’s coming is really frightening,” said Patricia Zárate, the lead researcher for the Institute of Peruvian Studies, a polling organization. “Congress knows they can impeach the president easily and it’s also easy for the president to close Congress. Now it will be easier to do again. It’s dispiriting.”Reporting was contributed by More

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      Elecciones en Perú: los votantes van a las urnas sin candidato favorito

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      Los peruanos votarán en lo que muchos califican como el peor momento de su joven democracia. Numerosos electores se inclinan por el voto en blanco.LIMA, Perú — Vicenta Escobar, de 62 años, vende fruta en un puesto de las calles de Lima, la capital de Perú. En todas las elecciones presidenciales de las últimas cuatro décadas, ella ha votado a un candidato en el que creía, con la esperanza de que esa persona fuera a cambiar las cosas.Pero no en esta ocasión. Este domingo, piensa llegar a la casilla para votar, como lo exige la ley peruana. Pero dejará la boleta sin poner una sola marca.“Esta vez pienso marcar blanco”, comentó el jueves por la tarde. Dijo que estaba harta de “todos los engaños, los robos”.Los peruanos votan este domingo en un momento que muchos consideran uno de los peores en su joven democracia. En la boleta hay 18 candidatos, pero se calcula que el 15 por ciento de los electores anularán su voto, según diversas encuestas recientes; además, ningún candidato ha logrado reunir un apoyo de más del 10 por ciento. Los dos candidatos con más votos pasarán a una segunda vuelta si ninguno obtiene más de la mitad de los votos.Las elecciones se dan tras cinco años tumultuosos en los que el país pasó por cuatro presidentes y dos congresos, y en medio de una frustración creciente debido a la corrupción, la pandemia y un sistema político que muchos afirman que ha estado al servicio de los funcionarios y las corporaciones, pero no del pueblo.Es probable que cualquiera que asuma el cargo este año tenga el mandato más débil que ningún otro presidente electo en la historia reciente, y tendrá que lidiar con crisis en materia de salud y economía que muy probablemente afectarán al país en los años venideros.Perú tiene una de las tasas de muerte por coronavirus más altas del mundo, y las muertes diarias alcanzaron nuevos máximos este mes a medida que la variante brasileña del virus se extendía por el país. Muchos pacientes de COVID-19 han muerto por falta de acceso a oxígeno o respiradores, las familias de clase trabajadora luchan por conseguir alimentos y el cierre de escuelas ha provocado que los niños tengan que trabajar.El año pasado la economía se contrajo un 12 por ciento en la peor recesión del país en tres décadas, la segunda peor contracción en América Latina después de la de Venezuela.Los votantes a los que se entrevistó este mes en Lima, la capital del país, parecían coincidir en su frustración con el sistema.“Antes confiábamos algo en nuestros líderes, pero ya nadie confía en nadie”, expresó Teresa Vásquez, de 49 años, un ama de casa.Vásquez había apoyado a uno de los últimos presidentes, a Martín Vizcarra, incluso cuando los legisladores emprendían un juicio político contra él bajo cargos de corrupción.Pero se enteró de que el entonces presidente se había vacunado en secreto el año pasado con dosis extras de un ensayo clínico realizado en Perú, las cuales los investigadores distribuyeron entre las élites políticas.Este año, ya redujo sus opciones a dos candidatos que parecen impolutos, pero seguía teniendo dificultades para decidirse a menos de una semana de las elecciones.“Toda la familia está igual”, continuó. “Nadie sabe a quién creer”.Las encuestas de opinión publicadas antes de la votación del domingo mostraban que había seis candidatos con posibilidad de pasar a una probable segunda vuelta en junio.Entre los candidatos que obtienen alrededor del 10 por ciento de los votos en los últimos sondeos se encuentran Pedro Castillo, un activista sindical socialmente conservador que ha repuntado en la última semana gracias a sus promesas de invertir grandes cantidades de dinero en sanidad y educación, y Keiko Fujimori, una líder de la oposición de derecha e hija del antiguo líder autoritario Alberto Fujimori, la cual ha dicho que pondría fin a los confinamientos por la COVID-19 y reprimiría la delincuencia con “mano dura”.Vecinos de Villa el Salvador, un barrio de Lima, observaban un mitin electoral la semana pasada. Sebastián Castañeda/ReutersLa votación de este año cae en el 200.º aniversario de la independencia de Perú. Pero, en lugar de celebrar, muchos peruanos están cuestionando la validez de su democracia y su modelo económico de libre mercado.Incluso antes de que la pandemia sumiera al país en el caos, el apoyo a la democracia en Perú había caído a uno de los niveles más bajos de la región, según una encuesta de 2018-2019 realizada por el Proyecto de Opinión Pública de América Latina; los militares se consideraban la institución más confiable.Desde que la última elección general hace cinco años produjo un gobierno dividido, Perú ha tenido enfrentamientos constantes entre la rama legislativa y el poder ejecutivo, pues los legisladores de la oposición han intentado someter a juicio político a dos presidentes; asimismo, Vizcarra disolvió el Congreso y convocó nuevas elecciones legislativas para llevar a cabo reformas.Tres expresidentes han estado en la cárcel debido a investigaciones de cohecho en su contra, incluido uno que postula para las elecciones de este año; un cuarto se suicidó para evitar ser detenido; un quinto, Vizcarra, uno de los líderes más populares de los últimos años, fue destituido en noviembre.Su remplazo, que estuvo menos de una semana en el cargo, se encuentra bajo investigación debido a la muerte de dos jóvenes durante unas protestas, por lo cual tuvo que dimitir.Una de las razones que explica la corrupción endémica del país es que los partidos políticos suelen alquilar su apoyo a los candidatos presidenciales en acuerdos a puerta cerrada, y a menudo son presa de intereses particulares.Un soldado resguardaba las casetas de votación en Lima, la capital peruana el sábado.Sebastián Castañeda/Reuters“Los partidos políticos han dejado de ser un vehículo de representación ciudadana”, sostuvo Adriana Urrutia, politóloga que está a cargo de la organización prodemocrática Transparencia.“Hay partidos en el actual parlamento que representan intereses de las universidades privadas que están siendo sancionadas por no cumplir con los requisitos mínimos”, añadió. También “hay partidos que representan los intereses de las economías ilegales, como la tala ilegal o minería ilegal”.Algunos candidatos están apelando con sus mensajes al creciente escepticismo hacia la democracia.Castillo, el activista sindical, ha prometido remplazar el Tribunal Constitucional por un tribunal elegido “por mandato popular”, y ha dicho que disolverá el Congreso si este bloquea una propuesta para cambiar de Constitución. Rafael López Aliaga, empresario y miembro del grupo católico ultraconservador Opus Dei, ha dicho que Perú debe impedir que una “dictadura” de izquierda se consolide en el poder y ha prometido encarcelar de por vida a los funcionarios corruptos.Fujimori ha dejado de lado todo esfuerzo por moderar su plataforma en su tercera candidatura presidencial y ha prometido indultar a su padre, que cumple una condena por violaciones de los derechos humanos y corrupción.La turbulencia política incesante tiene a los analistas preocupados por el futuro del país.“El escenario que se nos viene es de verdad de terror”, dijo Patricia Zárate, investigadora principal de la organización de encuestas Instituto de Estudios Peruanos. “El Congreso sabe que puede vacar al presidente y es muy fácil y también es muy fácil cerrar el Congreso. Entonces ya vieron que se puede hacer y no hay problema”, añadió. “Es desesperanzador”.Julie Turkewitz More

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      Could Ron DeSantis Be Trump’s G.O.P. Heir? He’s Certainly Trying.

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      Florida’s governor has elbowed his way to the front of the line of 2024 Republican hopefuls by leveraging a brand of “competent Trumpism” (as one ally put it) and hitting back at critics of his pandemic leadership.MIAMI — No one had to tell Ron DeSantis that his mock debates had bordered on disastrous. His answers rambled. He seemed uninspired.By the time he got to the greenroom of the biggest political stage of his career, a Republican primary debate for Florida governor in June 2018, he had made a risky decision.“I thought about everything we did in debate practice,” his campaign manager, Brad Herold, recalled Mr. DeSantis’s telling him. “I’m going to throw it out and do my own thing.”At the debate’s start, the audience applauded louder for his better-known opponent, Adam Putnam. By its end — after he had cast Mr. Putnam as a vestige of old Republicanism and delivered a rat-a-tat of one-liners — Mr. DeSantis had taken command of the crowd.Nearly three years and a pandemic later, Mr. DeSantis’s inclination to keep his own counsel and drive hard at reopening Florida has made him perhaps the most recognizable Republican governor in the country and a favorite of the party faithful. In turn, he has become a polarizing leader in the resistance to lengthy pandemic lockdowns, ignoring the advice of some public health experts in ways that have left his state’s residents bitterly divided over the costs and benefits of his actions.Now, with Florida defying many of the gloomy projections of early 2020 and feeling closer to normal as the pandemic continues to dictate daily life in many other big states, Mr. DeSantis, 42, has positioned himself as the head of “the free state of Florida” and as a political heir to former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. DeSantis owes a mightier debt than most in his party to Mr. Trump, who blessed his candidacy when he was a nobody congressman taking on the staid Florida Republican Party.Mr. DeSantis’s political maneuvering and extensive national donor network have allowed him to emerge as a top Republican candidate to succeed Mr. Trump on the ballot in 2024 if the former president does not run again. The governor’s brand of libertarianism — or “competent Trumpism,” as one ally called it — is on the ascent. Seizing on conservative issues du jour like opposition to social media “censorship” and vaccine passports, he has forged strong connections with his party’s base.In February, Mr. DeSantis had a prominent speaking appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, another high-profile gathering of Republicans in his home state. Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAnd his bonds with Republican leaders may be deepening: Mr. DeSantis has a plum speaking spot on Saturday night at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s resort and political base in Palm Beach, Fla., for the Republican National Committee’s spring retreat. Other possible 2024 rivals, like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Senator Marco Rubio, were relegated to appearances a night earlier.The governor has also taken steps to shore up his political standing around his handling of the pandemic, summoning reporters to the State Capitol on Wednesday to blast — complete with a slide-show presentation titled “FACTS VS. SMEARS” — a report in CBS News’s “60 Minutes” that did not have sufficient evidence to prove a pay-to-play dynamic between Mr. DeSantis’s administration and Covid-19 vaccine distribution for white and wealthy Floridians.His record on the virus is, in fact, mixed. By some measures, Florida has had an average performance in a pandemic that is not yet over. Yet his decisions helped keep hospitals from becoming overwhelmed with coronavirus patients. He highlights that he helped businesses survive and allowed children to go to school.What his critics cannot forget, however, is how he resisted some key public health guidelines. An op-ed article endorsing masks that his staff drafted under his name in mid-July was never approved by the governor for publication. The restrictions he now dismisses as ineffective, such as local mask mandates and curfews, which experts say in fact worked, were imposed in most cases by Democratic mayors with whom he hardly speaks.Given the ways people admire or despise him, however, the nuances seem beside the point.He infuriates passionate critics who believe he operates shrewdly to tend to his own interests. They fear that approach contributed to confusing public health messages, vaccine favoritism for the wealthy and the deaths of about 34,000 Floridians. “DeathSantis,” they call him. (Mr. DeSantis declined repeated interview requests for this article.)But at almost every turn, Mr. DeSantis has seized the criticism as an opportunity to become an avatar for national conservatives who relish the governor’s combativeness. He can score points that his potential Republican rivals in the minority in Washington, including Mr. Rubio and Senator Rick Scott, his predecessor as governor, cannot.“He’s taken the wrong approach on some of our most critical issues, Covid being first and foremost, yet within Republican political circles, he is considered to be the front-runner for the White House,” said former Representative David Jolly, an ex-Republican who is flirting with a possible run for governor. “He’s worked his hand perfectly.”Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump appeared together at a campaign rally in Tampa in 2018. The former president’s endorsement of Mr. DeSantis helped him win the Republican primary in the governor’s race that year.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. DeSantis has raised his profile despite lacking the gregarious personality that might be associated with an aspiring Trump successor. Unlike the former president, no one would describe the publicly unemotional and not especially eloquent Mr. DeSantis as a showman. (After a record day of coronavirus deaths in July, he offered, “These are tough, tough things to see.”) People close to him describe an un-Trump-like fondness for poring over articles in scientific journals.And, they say, do not underestimate the intellect and instinct that have repeatedly defied expectations and propelled Mr. DeSantis from Little Leaguer in middle-class Dunedin, Fla., to potential presidential contender.“He has a set of skills and traits that are ideal for the times,” said former Representative Carlos Curbelo, a Republican who served in the House with Mr. DeSantis. “Today, it would be very difficult to defeat him.”A long athletic, military and political résuméHe pronounces his last name “DEE-san-tis.” On the baseball field, he went simply by “D.”His team from Dunedin, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, made it to the Little League World Series in 1991. He was a 12-year-old known to be serious and competitive.Mr. DeSantis playing for Yale’s baseball team.Yale Athletics His father installed Nielsen TV-ratings boxes. His mother was a nurse. When he went to Yale, the Florida native — he was born in Jacksonville — arrived on campus in cutoff denim shorts.“One of the reasons we got along is we weren’t the traditional, Ivy-League-mold students,” said Nick Sinatra, a former Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity housemate. “He always talked politics. I’m a conservative, and at a place like that, that’s not common.”A history major, Mr. DeSantis lugged around a backpack full of books. He studied for both academics and athletics, scrutinizing ballplayers on TV. The Yale baseball team elected him captain.His résumé got only more sterling. He spent a year teaching history at a Georgia prep school before landing at Harvard Law. He received a commission in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps, where he served at Guantánamo Bay (“not as a detainee, as an officer,” he has quipped) and in Iraq. For two years, he worked as a federal prosecutor before winning a congressional seat near Jacksonville in 2012. His 2011 book, “Dreams From Our Founding Fathers,” which laid out a stridently conservative ideology, made him popular among Florida Tea Party Republicans.Mr. DeSantis and his wife greeted supporters after he won Florida’s election for governor in 2018, narrowly defeating Andrew Gillum, then considered a Democratic rising star.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesTwo years earlier, he had married Casey Black, a local television anchor he met on a driving range. Ms. DeSantis would become one of her husband’s closest advisers and biggest political assets, with an office at the State Capitol. They have three children under the age of 5; the youngest was born in March 2020. Mr. DeSantis said he was not in the delivery room so as to avoid using up precious personal protective equipment.The most memorable part of Mr. DeSantis’s six years in Congress might be the platform they gave him to heighten his profile on Fox News, where he frequently represented the hard-line Freedom Caucus. Later, he would staunchly defend Mr. Trump over the Russia investigation.“He was a policy wonk with an ability to really identify a few areas within his committees, responsibilities which he knew would give him the political opportunity to get on television,” said Scott Parkinson, who was Mr. DeSantis’s chief of staff in 2018. Mr. DeSantis was appearing on cable TV multiple times a day, Mr. Parkinson recalled.Mr. DeSantis often slept in his office and walked the Capitol halls wearing headphones, avoiding unwanted interactions. He made few friends and struck other lawmakers as aloof.A brief Senate run in 2016 proved critical: It exposed him to a national network of wealthy donors he would later tap in his long-shot bid for governor.Mr. DeSantis speaking at a rally in Orlando in 2018. After winning the governor’s office, he pursued a broadly conservative agenda but made moves to appeal to moderates, and his approval ratings rose.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis barely defeated Andrew Gillum, at the time considered one of the Democrats’ brightest stars, after a bruising campaign laced with accusations of racism. Determined to show his independence in his first months in office, he appointed a chief science officer and pledged billions for the Everglades. He pardoned four wrongfully accused Black men. He lifted a ban on medical marijuana in smokable form.He was hardly a moderate: Mr. DeSantis also gutted a voter-approved measure meant to restore felons’ right to vote. He allowed some teachers to carry guns in schools. He banned so-called sanctuary cities in a state where there were none.But the mix pleased voters, and his approval ratings surged. Might the man who had shown his diaper-age daughter building a wall in a campaign ad actually be a pragmatist?Then came the pandemic.Defiant leadership during a crisisIn a state where political consultants often become synonymous with their clients over time, Mr. DeSantis has cycled quickly through advisers. A close friend and transition deputy was Representative Matt Gaetz, who is now embroiled in a scandalous federal investigation.Mr. DeSantis centralized power in his office early in the pandemic, ceding little of the spotlight to public health officials. The state Department of Health’s weekly Covid-19 recaps are titled “Updates on Florida’s Vaccination Efforts Under Governor DeSantis’ Leadership.”Mr. DeSantis’s slowness in locking down the state last year hurt his approval ratings. So did a deadly summer surge of the virus. But then, far earlier than most other governors, he pledged that schools would open in the fall and life would start returning to normal.Young people crowded the beaches in Fort Lauderdale on March 11 last year, as the coronavirus spread rapidly throughout the United States. Mr. DeSantis was slow to lock down Florida, which had a deadly summer surge.Saul Martinez for The New York Times“His policies were contrarian, and he was defiant,” said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster who has tracked Mr. DeSantis’s popularity and saw it rebound beginning last summer. “The more he stands his ground, the more he speaks his mind, the more the affinity grows for him.”His critics see the governor as stubborn and unwilling to hear dissent.“The governor we have today is the governor we anticipated after the election,” said Nikki Fried, Florida’s agriculture commissioner and the only Democrat elected statewide, who looks likely to run against Mr. DeSantis.“He surprised everybody in 2019,” she added, “but obviously that is not truly who he is.”In some ways, Mr. DeSantis has filled the void left by Mr. Trump, minus the tweets. He remains a Fox News regular. He counts among his scientific advisers Dr. Scott W. Atlas, the former Trump adviser who has promoted dubious theories. Mr. DeSantis’s office said he had received a vaccine last week but not in public, reminiscent of Mr. Trump, who was given the shot behind closed doors.Mr. DeSantis spoke at a news conference in January about the opening of a coronavirus vaccination site at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. Vaccine access in the state has been slower for Black, Latino and poorer communities.Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesAnd the governor’s favorite foes are the “corporate media,” against whom he has scored political points.His recent tangle with “60 Minutes” centered on the extent to which political connections have helped white, wealthy Floridians get vaccinated.Local news outlets have chronicled how vaccine access has been slower for Black, Latino and poorer communities. Some pop-up vaccination sites were opened in neighborhoods that had many older residents — and that also had ties to DeSantis campaign donors.But “60 Minutes” focused on how Publix supermarket pharmacies received doses and left out relevant details, including an extended response from the governor at a news conference.On Wednesday, in Mr. DeSantis’s words, he “hit them back right between the eyes,” accusing “60 Minutes” of pursuing a malicious narrative.He left without taking questions.Research was contributed by More

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      in Elections

      Trump’s Latino Support Was More Widespread Than Thought, Report Finds

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      While Latinos played a major role in Democratic victories last year, Donald Trump’s outreach to them proved successful in states around the country, not just in certain geographic areas.Even as Latino voters played a meaningful role in tipping the Senate and the presidency to the Democrats last year, former President Donald J. Trump succeeded in peeling away significant amounts of Latino support, and not just in conservative-leaning geographic areas, according to a post-mortem analysis of the election that was released on Friday.Conducted by the Democratically aligned research firm Equis Labs, the report found that certain demographics within the Latino electorate had proved increasingly willing to embrace Mr. Trump as the 2020 campaign went on, including conservative Latinas and those with a relatively low level of political engagement.Using data from Equis Labs’ polls in a number of swing states, as well as focus groups, the study found that within those groups, there was a shift toward Mr. Trump across the country, not solely in areas like Miami or the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where the growth in Mr. Trump’s Latino support has been widely reported.“In 2020, a segment of Latino voters demonstrated that they are more ‘swing’ than commonly assumed,” the report stated.Ultimately, Mr. Trump outperformed his 2016 showing among Latino voters, earning the support of about one in three nationwide, even as Joseph R. Biden Jr. won those voters by a roughly two-to-one margin over all, according to exit polls.All told, close to 17 million Latino voters turned out in the general election, according to a separate analysis published in January by the U.C.L.A. Latino Policy & Politics Initiative. That represented an uptick of more than 30 percent from 2016 — and the highest level of Latino participation in history.With the coronavirus pandemic and the related economic downturn taking center stage on the campaign trail, Equis Labs found that many Latino voters — particularly conservatives — had focused more heavily on economic issues than they had four years earlier. This helped Mr. Trump by putting the spotlight on an issue that was seen as one of his strong suits and by drawing some attention away from his anti-immigrant language.In focus groups, Equis Labs’ interviewers noticed that Mr. Trump’s history as a businessman was seen as a positive attribute by many Latino voters, who viewed him as well positioned to guide the economy through the pandemic-driven recession. Partly as a result, the analysis found, many conservative Latino voters who had been hanging back at the start of the campaign came around to supporting him.Driving up turnout among low-propensity voters — something that Senator Bernie Sanders had sought to do during his campaign for the Democratic nomination — did not necessarily translate into gains for Democrats in the general election, the study found. People who were likely to vote generally grew more negative on Mr. Trump’s job performance over the course of 2020, but among those who reported being less likely to participate in the election, his job approval rose.This finding is likely to fuel hand-wringing among Democratic strategists who worried that Mr. Biden had not done enough to court skeptical Latino voters ahead of November.The movement toward Mr. Trump appeared mostly “to be among those with the lowest partisan formation,” the analysts wrote. “We know enough to say these look like true swing voters. Neither party should assume that a Hispanic voter who cast a ballot for Trump in 2020 is locked in as a Republican going forward. Nor can we assume this shift was exclusive to Trump and will revert back on its own.”Chuck Coughlin, a Republican pollster in Arizona, said he was unsurprised by the results of the Equis Labs report, given what he said had been a concerted effort by the Trump campaign to win Latino support.“You saw it in the rallies out here,” he said. “They did a rally down in Yuma. They did a rally at the Honeywell plant out here. All of those featured Hispanic small-business owners. They were working that crowd.”He said the Trump campaign’s messaging on economic and social issues had resonated for many Latino voters, particularly older ones. “They’re pro-business, they’re pro-gun, they don’t like higher taxes, they don’t trust the government,” he said. “It’s the same constituency that you see among Anglo Trump voters.”While the report didn’t closely analyze voters by their nations of origin, it did demonstrate that Mr. Trump’s relative success among Latino voters compared with four years earlier was not limited to areas with large populations of Cuban-Americans, Venezuelan-Americans and other demographics that have typically trended more conservative.Carmen Peláez, a playwright and filmmaker in Miami who helped lead the campaign group Cubanos con Biden, said that after the election, many observers had sought to ascribe Mr. Trump’s improvement among Florida Latinos to a shift among Cuban-Americans in the southern part of the state.The findings from Equis Labs validated her experience last year, she said, which showed that Latinos of all nationalities had been targeted online with advertisements and messages that scared them away from Democrats.“People love blaming the Cubans, but you can’t just blame the Cubans,” she said. “There is a cancer in our community, and it’s disinformation, and it’s hitting all of us.”Ms. Peláez said Democrats had habitually taken Latino voters for granted by mistakenly assuming that they knew those voters’ political habits and attitudes. Cuban-Americans, for example, are often painted with a broad brush as conservative.“It was assumed all Latinos would be pro-immigration or they were taken for granted because they were assumed to be a lost vote,” she said. “There’s never a lost vote if you are really willing to engage. But willing to engage means setting aside your own prejudices.” More

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      in Elections

      California’s Governor Was Tested by the Pandemic. Now a Recall Looms.

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      In California, both Republicans and Democrats say the threat of a recall election has shaped Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent responses to the coronavirus pandemic.SACRAMENTO — Things have been looking up in California. Vaccines will soon be available to everyone over 16. Los Angeles schools are about to bring hundreds of thousands of students back to classrooms. Disneyland, dark for a year, will throw open its gates in just a few weeks.At the state capital, however, the coronavirus pandemic still clouds Gov. Gavin Newsom’s horizon. Soon, the secretary of state is expected to announce that a campaign to recall him has officially qualified for a special election.Led by Trump stalwarts, amplified by Republican National Committee money and fueled during the pandemic by Mr. Newsom’s own political missteps, the recall initiative is widely regarded as a long shot. Putting it on the ballot requires roughly 1.5 million signatures from disgruntled voters, a drop in the Democrat-dominated bucket of 40 million residents.But even if Mr. Newsom prevails, the pandemic has both tested and tarnished him politically.The tall, telegenic heir to the “fifth-largest economy in the world,” as his predecessor Jerry Brown routinely boasted, Mr. Newsom has lost some of the benefit of California’s doubt. His approval rating has dropped by more than 10 points since May, when 65 percent of Californians trusted his handling of the pandemic. Critics even within his own party have questioned whether his recent decisions have been motivated by public health or the recall attempt.The campaign against Mr. Newsom has highlighted the differences between the powerhouse California that elected him and the virus-battered California he now governs. Longtime political analysts see hidden weaknesses in his polling: The state may not want to recall him, they say, but his popularity has suffered, and his political fortunes are linked more closely than ever to the ebb and flow of the virus in his state.“When you’re evaluating an executive — be it a mayor, a governor, a president, whatever — there are really only a couple of basic questions,” said Mike Madrid, a former political director of the state Republican Party and a co-founder of the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project.“Are the lights on? Are the trains running on time? And in this case, how have you managed the global pandemic?”At the moment, Mr. Newsom’s report card is mixed.California has record budget reserves, one of the nation’s lowest rates of new virus cases and a vaccine rollout that, after a rocky start, has started to gain steam. But the state also has lagged behind the nation in school reopenings and has the third-highest unemployment rate.A mobile coronavirus vaccination site in the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. Mr. Newsom’s future is largely tied to California’s ability to control the coronavirus.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesEpidemiologists have warned that the virus may return as the state reopens, but right now, cases are at levels not seen since mid-October. More than 30 percent of the population has received at least one vaccine dose and 30 percent have survived an infection and developed some level of natural immunity.[See how experts graded California’s vaccine rollout.]Barring a fresh surge or a runaway variant, the pandemic could soon be in California’s rearview mirror. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that three-quarters of Californians believe that the worst of the crisis is behind them, and 56 percent of likely voters would oppose a recall if an election were held now.“In the face of an unprecedented global health crisis, Governor Newsom has followed the science and moved aggressively to keep California safe,” said Nathan Click, one of the governor’s advisers. “His actions saved countless lives and have earned him the trust of Californians.”Recall attempts are common in California and typically fail. The governor’s defenders say this one would never have met the signature threshold had a judge not granted an extension because of the state’s shutdown, one of many ways the recall and the pandemic are inextricably linked.On Thursday, Mr. Newsom received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in Los Angeles in a livestreamed event after his administration expanded eligibility to all Californians age 50 and older. Mr. Newsom, 53, showed not one iota of worry about the recall, never mentioning the subject and, after taking off his suit jacket to receive the shot, flexing his muscles in his dark T-shirt.“It has been an extraordinarily challenging year — so much fear, so much anxiety,” Mr. Newsom told reporters. “But now, growing optimism, not only here in Southern California, but throughout our state.”Yet critics and political allies alike said the threat of the recall had indeed loomed large, and had appeared to shape the governor’s pandemic response.In early March, as Los Angeles was just recovering from a brutal winter surge, Mr. Newsom tried to accelerate the reopening of classrooms with sweeping legislation and critical tweaks in the state’s health rules. Then he delivered his annual State of the State address from an empty Dodger Stadium, as if it were a campaign speech.Mr. Newsom gave his State of the State address inside an empty Dodger Stadium.Etienne Laurent/EPA, via ShutterstockHe cited the millions of vaccines the state had administered and the billions of dollars in pandemic aid that he was directing to small businesses. But his language channeled the California labor groups and progressives on whom the state’s Democrats rely to mobilize voters.“When this pandemic ends — and it will end soon — we’re not going back to normal. Normal was never good enough,” the governor said. “Normal accepts inequity.”Days later, after the recall proponents publicly estimated they would exceed 2 million signatures from voters favoring his ouster, he announced that California would be changing its notoriously complex, color-coded system of health restrictions. When the system was devised, life without the threat of Covid-19 seemed so remote that the state’s least-strict designation was caution-tape yellow. But now, the governor said, he was adding a hopeful new “green tier,” a sudden move his critics tied to the recall effort.“Before the threat of a recall the governor told us there was no green because we could never be normal again,” tweeted Jon Fleischman, a former executive director of the California Republican Party. “It’s funny how his science turned out to be political science.”Similar accusations have arisen from some would-be allies.Dr. Jeffrey V. Smith, the Santa Clara County executive, took issue with the governor’s plan to dedicate 40 percent of first vaccine doses to vulnerable, poorer communities as determined by a state index.Mr. Newsom presented the plan last month as proof of his determination to ensure that rich Californians did not crowd the poor out of access to scarce vaccinations. But the policy change also helped Mr. Newsom politically.A new tweak in the system for determining health restrictions let a county move into a lower tier once a critical mass of vaccinations had been administered in disadvantaged ZIP codes. Many of those targeted ZIP codes were in Los Angeles, where teachers’ unions were refusing to return to classrooms until the county was out of the strictest level of health rules. Parent groups, meanwhile, were demanding in-person instruction.Dr. Smith — whose Bay Area county has plenty of poor people but virtually none of the targeted ZIP codes — said the vaccine targets were part of a “fake equity plan,” based less on fairness than on Mr. Newsom’s desire to open up Los Angeles.“What’s really going on has nothing to do with distribution,” said Dr. Smith, who serves in a nonpartisan position but said he identifies as a Democrat. “It has to do with the governor’s desire to buy himself out of the recall election by reopening Southern California as fast as he can.”It is unclear how much voters will care about Mr. Newsom’s mix of motivations. Californians, who overwhelmingly opposed former President Donald J. Trump in the last election, are unlikely to replace a Democratic governor if their main alternatives are limited to the current challengers, who are Republican supporters of Mr. Trump.Conservative activists in Pasadena gathered some of the roughly 1.5 million signatures needed to trigger the recall election.David Mcnew/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIf a recall is placed on the ballot in a special election that most likely would be held in the fall, voters will be asked two questions: Whether Mr. Newsom should be recalled, and if so, who should finish the 14 months or so remaining in his term. So far, no Democrats have stepped up as an alternative, and party leaders from progressives such as Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont to centrists such as President Biden have sought to maintain that united front.The politicking to come is expected to be expensive, national and corrosive. Recall proponents and their allies say they have raised about $4.1 million, including large contributions from major Republican donors, the state Republican Party and potential candidates such as John Cox, a San Diego businessman who lost to Mr. Newsom in 2018.The governor’s team has reported about $3 million in contributions, including about $400,000 from the state Democratic Party, $250,000 from a union representing state government engineers, $125,000 each from the agricultural magnates Stewart and Lynda Resnick and more than $500,000 in small-dollar online donations in the 48 hours after the governor started a website called Stop the Republican Recall.Supporters of Mr. Newsom portray the initiative as the work of Republican extremists. The leader, the governor has said, believes that the government should “microchip migrants.”Orrin Heatlie, the retired Northern California sheriff’s sergeant who is the recall’s lead proponent, wrote a 2019 Facebook post that read: “Microchip all illegal immigrants. It works! Just ask Animal control.”Mr. Heatlie acknowledged in an interview that he wrote the post, but he said that it was not meant to be taken literally and that he intended it as a “conversation starter.”He said Mr. Newsom brought the recall on himself by imposing too many restrictions early in the pandemic and dining at an elite wine country restaurant while asking Californians to quarantine last fall.Darry Sragow, a longtime Democratic strategist, predicts that Mr. Newsom will survive the recall. But he added that the governor’s numbers indicate that his troubles with voters are not over.Last month, pollsters at Emerson College and Nexstar Media Group asked Californians about the 2022 election. If they could, would they vote again for Mr. Newsom?More than 58 percent of registered voters said they preferred someone new.Shawn Hubler More

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      Yang and Adams Clash, Councilman Exits: 5 Takeaways From N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race

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      The campaigns of Andrew Yang and Eric Adams exchanged harsh attacks, and Carlos Menchaca, a city councilman from Brooklyn, dropped out of the race.For much of the 2021 New York City mayoral campaign, the major Democratic candidates have been polite and collegial, with few flash points of tension.Those days are over.The two leading candidates, Andrew Yang and Eric Adams, have gone from the occasional tepid squabble to a full boil.In recent days, Mr. Adams inaccurately said “people like Andrew Yang,” the former presidential hopeful, have never held a job. Mr. Yang’s campaign responded by accusing Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, of making “false and reprehensible attacks.”The Adams campaign shot back with a statement claiming the Yang campaign was “attempting to mislead people of color.”The attacks were a reflection of how the race seemed to be narrowing as the June 22 primary draws closer; indeed, the field grew thinner last week, as a council member from Brooklyn dropped out of the race.Here is what you need to know:The Adams-Yang rivalry comes into focusAlthough many voters are still undecided in the mayor’s race, one dynamic in the contest has become increasingly clear: the growing tension between Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang.Mr. Yang, with his high name recognition, celebrity status and intense in-person campaign schedule, has topped the sparse public polling, as well as some private polling; even detractors privately acknowledge he has injected energy into the race.Mr. Adams, with a Brooklyn base, several major union endorsements and strong ties to a range of key constituencies, has come in second — by varying margins — in several surveys.In the last week, the two campaigns engaged in their most significant clashes to date.The Eric Adams camp accused Mr. Yang of abandoning the city at “its darkest moment” during the pandemic.John Minchillo/Associated PressMr. Adams and his campaign ripped into Mr. Yang’s résumé and accused him of abandoning the city at “its darkest moment” during the pandemic, referring to Mr. Yang’s decision to relocate his family to the Hudson Valley for long stretches of last year.Mr. Yang’s campaign accused the Adams camp of launching attacks laced with “hate-filled vitriol” and sought to elevate Mr. Adams’s record on stop-and-frisk policing tactics as an issue in the race. Both campaigns suggested the other was acting in bad faith.The exchanges signaled just how personal, and ugly, the race could become — and offered a clear sign that the competition is intensifying.“I think it’s too early to say it’s a two-person race,” said Chris Coffey, a co-campaign manager for Mr. Yang, in a briefing with reporters on Friday. But, he went on, “Right now, I’d rather be Andrew and then I’d rather be Eric than anyone else.”Who has the most signatures to get on the ballot?Polls and fund-raising are not the only indicators of enthusiasm for candidates — there are also petition hauls required to get on the ballot.A mayoral candidate only needs 2,250 signatures to be on the ballot, but most garner far more, as a cushion to guard against invalidated signatures and for bragging rights.Mr. Yang arrived at the Board of Elections office in Lower Manhattan last week to file his 9,000 signatures, belting out his own petition-themed lyrics to the song “Seasons of Love” from the Broadway musical “Rent.”“How many signatures could you get in a year? Through Covid and clipboards and winter and cups of coffee,” he sang before trailing off.Mr. Adams’s campaign said it filed more than 20,000 signatures. Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, claimed 25,000.Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, said she had collected 13,000 signatures. In an email, her campaign thanked her purple-clad volunteers, including some who created colorful shoes in her honor reading “Mayorales” and “DM4NYC.”Menchaca exits the raceCarlos Menchaca’s moment of truth came in mid-March, when he looked at his comparatively meager fund-raising numbers and realized he would not become New York City’s next mayor after all.Mr. Menchaca, a councilman from Brooklyn, had by that point raised just $87,000 in a race featuring several multimillion-dollar campaign war chests and two super PACs dedicated to other candidates.And so on Wednesday, he announced on Twitter his decision to suspend his campaign.In an interview, Mr. Menchaca said he would rededicate himself to serving out his final year in the City Council, focusing on the same New Yorkers who were at the center of his campaign: essential workers, many of them immigrants.In particular, he wants to give noncitizens the power to vote in municipal elections, a position embraced by several of his competitors.Mr. Menchaca also plans to endorse a candidate in the mayoral race but has not identified his choice. At this point, he believes the race is wide open.“New Yorkers have yet to truly engage,” Mr. Menchaca said. That belief is supported by a recent poll finding half of likely Democratic voters have yet to decide on a mayoral candidate.Nor, he noted, have his allies in the progressive world coalesced behind a particular candidate. By not doing so, they have lost an opportunity to wield influence in city government, in his view.“The more time goes by, the less ability the noncandidate energy is going to have to impact the race,” he said.Will the next mayor expand preschool for all?Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week that he is expanding a 3-K program for 3-year-olds — the sequel to universal prekindergarten, his signature mayoral achievement — to roughly 40,000 total seats.This year’s candidates for mayor have their own education proposals, but how would they treat the prekindergarten program?At the mayor’s news conference, Laurie Cumbo, the majority leader of the City Council, said the next mayor should expand the program to 2-K for 2-year-olds. Most of the candidates agree, though they have different plans for doing it. Some want to focus on less wealthy families.Mr. Stringer said he supported the idea and pointed to his “NYC Under 3” plan to subsidize child-care costs for families making less than $100,000.“As mayor, I have a plan to go even bolder and ensure that every family has access to quality child care starting at birth,” he said.Mr. Yang said his family had benefited from universal prekindergarten.“We should not only expand existing 3-K services, but also work to create 2-K programs in the coming years,” he said in a statement.Mr. Adams’s campaign said his plan focuses on subsidies and tax breaks for parents and providing free space to child-care providers to bring down their costs.Others who support a 2-K expansion include Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive,; Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mr. de Blasio; Shaun Donovan, a former Obama administration official; and Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner. Ms. Garcia’s child-care plan focuses on families making less than $70,000 a year.Yang is criticized for ditching a forum focused on povertyRunning for mayor in the middle of a pandemic has meant a constant stream of virtual forums for the top-tier candidates, who sometimes attend multiple online events in the same day.Mr. Yang, citing forum fatigue, pulled out of a candidates’ forum last week focused on economic and housing security for poor and working-class New Yorkers — a move that disappointed the organizers, given that Mr. Yang is probably best known for proposing a universal basic income as a tool to fight poverty.“This was a forum that brought together groups who advocate on behalf of low-income New Yorkers and the working poor,” said Jeff Maclin, vice president for governmental and public relations for the Community Service Society, one of the forum’s sponsors. “We were a little surprised that he was passing up an opportunity to deliver a message to this community.”Several other top mayoral contenders attended the forum.Sasha Ahuja, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign manager, said in a statement that he attended three forums last week and had also participated in a Community Service Society forum on health care in January. Mr. Yang also spent time with The Amsterdam News, a co-sponsor of the forum, for a profile recently, “but there are far too many forums and we can’t do each one,” Ms. Ahuja said.Elinor R. Tatum, the editor in chief and publisher of The Amsterdam News, a New York-based Black newspaper, moderated the forum. She said Mr. Yang’s decision to not attend might hurt him among her readers.“He’s got a lot of name recognition, but our community doesn’t know him,” said Ms. Tatum. “We know him as a presidential candidate in name only. We know him from talking about national issues. We don’t know him as a New Yorker.” More

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      N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race Is Up For Grabs, Poll Suggests

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      Fifty percent of likely Democratic voters still don’t know whom they want to be the next mayor of New York, a poll found.The primary for the New York City mayor’s race, poised to be the most consequential contest in a generation, is fewer than 100 days away.But for many voters, that reality has not yet sunk in.A slate of major debate matchups does not begin until May. Few of the candidates have the resources to advertise on television yet. Traditional campaign methods — greeting subway riders, for example — have limited reach as fewer New Yorkers use public transit. And while city residents were often preoccupied by the challenges of life in a pandemic, the crowded field of mayoral candidates spent the winter in one Zoom forum after another, often in front of sparse online audiences.These extraordinary circumstances have made an always-fluid citywide race even more unpredictable this year, compressing the contest into a three-month springtime sprint for candidates eager to sway undecided voters before the June 22 primary that is likely to decide who will be the next mayor.Their work will be cut out for them: Half of likely Democratic voters are still undecided about their choice to lead the city, according to a poll released on Wednesday.The poll, from Fontas Advisors and Core Decision Analytics, offered a vivid illustration of the uncertain nature of the race.“There is no front-runner,” said George Fontas, the founder of Fontas Advisors, who sponsored the poll and said that he is not affiliated with any campaign in the race. “It’s an open race. We have no idea what’s going to happen in the next three months, and if history shows us anything, it’s that three months is an eternity in a New York City election.”The poll did show some early leaders. Only two candidates registered double-digit support: Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, at 16 percent, and Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, at 10 percent. Both have done more in-person campaigning than others in the field.Maya D. Wiley, a former MSNBC analyst and ex-counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, was at 6 percent; Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, got 5 percent; a former Citi executive, Raymond J. McGuire, received 4 percent; and Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary; Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner; and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, each got 2 percent.New York mayoral races have broken late in other years — three months ahead of the 2013 mayoral primary, Mayor Bill de Blasio was something of an afterthought — and many campaigns and strategists expect the contest to accelerate in earnest in late spring, when more candidates, and possibly independent expenditure committees, start spending on television ads.Certainly, candidates have ramped up their campaigning in recent weeks. And as voters increasingly tune in, they are discovering that in addition to deciding on their favorite candidate, they must also think through the new ranked-choice voting system, which enables them to express a preference for up to five candidates.“When you have that many candidates, it’s hard to know what to do, and then, of course, ranked-choice voting,” said Gale A. Brewer, the Manhattan borough president. “I think they’re very confused about trying to do the right thing. The people I talk to want to do the right thing, they feel the city needs a lot of good leadership.”Neighbors, she said, have asked her, “‘If I’m doing this person first, who should I do second? Who should I do third?’ In their head, they’re all trying to figure this out.”There are also many voters who have been consumed by national politics and the controversies surrounding Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in Albany, but have not yet turned their attention closer to home.“You have D.C. and all of its machinations that have kept people more than engaged, and then you have Albany, which is taking up a tremendous amount of voters’ brain space,” said Christine C. Quinn, the former City Council speaker who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2013.She also noted that some voters, accustomed to September primaries, are still adjusting to the June time frame.“It was hard to get people to vote in September, it’s going to be harder to get them to vote in June,” she said. “They’re not used to it. And you add in ranked-choice voting, and it’s a lot of confusion. So campaigns are really going to have to do outstanding get-out-the-vote if they really want to win.”There is limited credible public polling in the mayor’s race. But a number of both public and private surveys suggest that Mr. Yang is the early poll leader — by varying margins — typically followed by Mr. Adams. Mr. Yang on Wednesday released an internal poll that showed him at 25 percent of first-choice votes, followed by Mr. Adams at 15 percent.Reflecting a growing rivalry, Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang’s campaign managers traded notably sharp attacks on Wednesday, with Mr. Adams wrongly claiming that “people like Andrew Yang never held a job in his entire life.” Mr. Yang’s campaign managers charged that Mr. Adams “crossed a line with his false and reprehensible attacks. The timing of his hate-filled vitriol towards Andrew should not be lost on anyone.”Those two contenders, along with Mr. Stringer, had the highest name recognition in the Fontas survey as well. They all have significant fund-raising coffers.Ms. Wiley has also appeared to gain some traction in recent weeks with a spate of new endorsements. Mr. McGuire and Mr. Donovan have already started pressing their messages on television.The next mayor will confront a series of staggering challenges concerning the economy, education, inequality and a range of other problems exacerbated by the pandemic. “Who becomes the next mayor is probably one of the most important political decisions this city will ever make, ever,” said Keith L.T. Wright, the leader of the New York County Democrats.But Mr. Wright acknowledged that many voters have had more immediate concerns in mind than electoral politics. “People are concerned about eating, let’s be clear. They’re concerned about whether they’re going to get their stimulus check.”“The first one who’s able to break through and get the attention of those undecideds,” Mr. Wright said, “probably becomes the winner.”The poll was the result of 800 live telephone interviews of New York City Democratic primary likely voters. It was conducted March 15-18, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 percentage points. More

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      We See the Left. We See the Right. Can Anyone See the ‘Exhausted Majority’?

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      Does Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 represent the last gasp of an exhausted moderate tradition or does a potentially powerful center lie dormant in our embattled political system?Morris Fiorina, a political scientist at Stanford, argues in a series of essays and a book, “Unstable Majorities,” that it is the structure of the two-party system that prevents the center — the moderate majority of American voters — from asserting their dominion over national politics:Given multiple dimensions of political conflict — economic, cultural, international — it is simply impossible for two internally homogeneous parties to represent the variety of viewpoints present in a large heterogeneous democracy.Inevitably, Fiorina writes,Each party bundles issue positions in a way that conflicts with the views of many citizens — most commonly citizens who are economic conservatives and culturally liberal, or economically liberal and culturally conservative, but also internationalist or isolationist-leaning positions layered on top of other divisions.Fiorina is addressing one of the most important questions in America today: Is there a viable center and can such a center be mobilized to enact widely backed legislative goals with bipartisan support?This issue is the subject of intense dispute among strategists, scholars and pollsters.In Fiorina’s view, polarization has been concentrated among “the political class: officeseekers, party officials, donors, activists, partisan media commentators. These are the people who blabber on TV /vent on Facebook/vilify on Twitter/etc.”This process effectively leaves out “the general public (a.k.a. normal people)” who are “inattentive, uncertain, ambivalent, uninvolved politically, concerned with bread-and-butter issues.”In support of his position, Fiorina has marshaled data showing that there are large numbers of voters who say that neither party reflects their views; that many of the most polarizing issues — including gay rights, gender equality, abortion and racial equality — rank 19 to 52 points below voters’ top priorities, which are the economy, health care, jobs and Medicare; and that the share of voters who describe themselves as moderate has remained constant since 1974.In addition, Fiorina cites two studies.The first, “A Not So Divided America,” conducted by the Center on Policy Attitudes and the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland for a centrist group, Voice of the People. It found that if you compare “the views of people who live in red Congressional districts or states to those of people who live in blue Congressional districts or states,” on “only 3.6 percent of the questions — 14 out of 388 — did a majority or plurality of those living in red congressional districts/states take a position opposed to that of a majority or plurality of those living in blue districts/states.”Of those 14, according to the Voice of the People study, 11 concerned “ ‘hot-button’ topics that are famously controversial — gay and lesbian issues, abortion and Second Amendment issues relating to gun ownership.”The second study, “Hidden Tribes,” was conducted for “More In Common,” another group that supports centrist policies.According to the study,In talking to everyday Americans, we have found a large segment of the population whose voices are rarely heard above the shouts of the partisan tribes. These are people who believe that Americans have more in common than that which divides them. They believe that compromise is necessary in politics, as in other parts of life, and want to see the country come together and solve its problems.In practice, the study found that polarization is driven in large part by the left flank of the Democratic Party and the right flank of the Republican Party, which together make up roughly a third of the electorate.The remaining two thirds areconsiderably more ideologically flexible than members of other groups. While members of the ‘wing’ groups (on both the left and the right) tend to hold strong and consistent views across a range of political issues, those in the Exhausted Majority tend to deviate significantly in their views from issue to issue.Not only that,the wing groups, which often dominate the national conversation, are in fact in considerable isolation in their views on certain topics. For instance, 82 percent of Americans agree that hate speech is a problem in America today, and 80 percent also view political correctness as an issue. By contrast, only 30 percent of Progressive Activists believe political correctness is a problem.Fiorina has many allies and many critics in the academic community.Those in general agreement include Jeannie Suk Gersen, a law professor at Harvard and a contributing writer to The New Yorker, who wrote in an email:The fact that Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee and won the presidency in 2020, when there were many great candidates left of him, is evidence that a political center is not only viable but desired by the public.For a centrist candidate, Gersen argued, “the main principle is compromise rather than all or nothing.” In the case of abortion, for example, the principle of compromise recognizes thatthe majority of Americans favor keeping abortion legal, but also favor some limits on abortion. Retaining a core right of abortion that respects both autonomy of adult individuals to make reproductive decisions and the value of potential fetal life is the approach that will seem acceptable to the majority of Americans and consistent with the Constitution.John Shattuck, a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, notes that surveys and reports he has overseen affirm the strong presence of a middle ground in American politics:Polarization is pushed by the political extremes. The great majority of Americans, however, are not at the extremes and common ground exists among them on seemingly polarized issues.Instead, Shattuck wrote in an email, “Americans are fed up with polarization.” His data shows that71 percent believe Americans “have more in common with each other than many people think,” including 78 percent of Republicans, 74 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of Independents.There is, Shattuck argues, a powerful consensus on rights and freedoms that underpins American democracy:Bipartisan majorities consider the following to be “essential rights important to being an American today”: ‘“clean air and water” (93 percent); “a quality education” (92 percent); “affordable health care” (89 percent); and the “right to a job” (85 percent). These high levels of demand for economic and social rights are similar to the support for more traditional civil liberties and civil rights like rights of free speech (94 percent), privacy (94 percent) and equal opportunity (93 percent).There is another aspect to the debate.In most countries, Thomas Carothers and Andrew O’Donohue, both of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, write in their 2019 essay. “How Americans Were Driven to Extremes”:Polarization grows out of one primary identity division — usually either ethnic, religious, or ideological. In Kenya, for instance, polarization feeds off fierce competition between ethnic groups. In India, it reflects the divide between secular and Hindu nationalist visions of the country. But in the United States, all three kinds of division are involved.As a result:This powerful alignment of ideology, race, and religion with partisanship renders America’s divisions unusually encompassing and profound. It is hard to find another example of polarization in the world that fuses all three major types of identity divisions in a similar way.Bill McInturff, a founder of the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, cast doubt in an email on the prospects for a new centrism:I am not sanguine about a national campaign that tries to find a middle ground on major cultural issues as being viable. We are in a “no compromise” era and that’s not changing any time soon.Similarly, Richard Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, wrote in an email:Could Joe Biden end up being the last centrist Democrat in the way that George W. Bush might have turned out to be the last centrist Republican? I was never a fan of W, but looking back, you can see how the party was shifting away from the center inexorably toward the cultural and economic populism Trump catalyzed. I wonder if we look back a decade from now if Biden turns out to be the last of a kind. Is the future one where Republicans look more like Trump, and the Democrats tilt away from Biden’s center toward the more culturally progressive wing, one which might drive more centrist voters away?Surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center provide scant optimism for proponents of less divisive politics.In a postelection report, Michael Dimock, Pew’s president, and Richard Wike, its director of global research, wrote that among both Biden and Trump voters, roughly 80 percentsaid their differences with the other side were about core American values, and roughly nine-in-ten — again in both camps — worried that a victory by the other would lead to “lasting harm” to the United States.From 1994 to 2019, Pew tracked the percentage point difference between Republican and Democratic responses to 10 policy positions, including “the economic system in this country unfairly favors powerful interests,” “the growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens traditional American customs and values,” and “white people benefit from advantages in society that Black people don’t have.” More