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Koch Network Endorses Nikki Haley in Bid to Push GOP Past Trump
The support will give Ms. Haley more organizational strength in the field as she battles Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for the No. 2 spot in the Republican presidential race.The political network founded by the Koch brothers is endorsing Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary race, giving her organizational muscle and financial heft as she battles Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for second place in Iowa.The group announced its plans in a memo on Tuesday.The commitment by the network, Americans for Prosperity Action, bolsters Ms. Haley as the campaign enters the final seven weeks before the first nominating contest. Since the first Republican primary debate, Ms. Haley has steadily climbed in polls, even as Mr. DeSantis has slipped. Former President Donald J. Trump remains the dominant front-runner in the race.“In sharp contrast to recent elections that were dominated by the negative baggage of Donald Trump and in which good candidates lost races that should have been won, Nikki Haley, at the top of the ticket, would boost candidates up and down the ballot,” reads the memo from Emily Seidel, a senior adviser to Americans for Prosperity Action, who adds that Ms. Haley would win “the key independent and moderate voters that Trump has no chance to win.”The memo goes on to say that the country “is being ripped apart by extremes on both sides,” adding: “The moment we face requires a tested leader with the governing judgment and policy experience to pull our nation back from the brink. Nikki Haley is that leader.”The group laid out polling describing the shift in the race toward Ms. Haley in a separate memo.Ms. Haley, who has described Mr. Trump’s time as past, has gained support from donors and elite opinion-makers, many of whom describe her as the best alternative to Mr. Trump.But Ms. Haley’s campaign does not have the organizational strength that Mr. DeSantis does, thanks to work the super PAC affiliated with his campaign has been doing for much of the year.The endorsement from the super PAC established by David and Charles Koch could help change that. It will give her access to a direct-mail operation, field workers to knock on doors and people making phone calls to prospective voters in Iowa and beyond. The group has money to spend on television advertisements, as well.The network’s backing also helps fuel Ms. Haley’s momentum heading into the final weeks before voting begins.Americans for Prosperity Action has been among the country’s largest spenders on anti-Trump material this year, buying online ads and sending mailers to voters in several states, including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. All told, the group has spent more than $9 million in independent expenditures opposing Mr. Trump.One mailer in Iowa, paid for by the group, shows images of Mr. Trump and President Biden and reads, “You can stop Biden … by letting go of Trump.”But so far, none of that spending has benefited any of Mr. Trump’s rivals, who have been busy battling one another.The Koch network is well financed, raising more than $70 million for political races as of this summer.The group has been committed to opposing Mr. Trump’s return as leader of the Republican Party. In a memo in February, Ms. Seidel, who also serves as the president of Americans for Prosperity, the political network’s parent group, wrote: “We need to turn the page on the past. So the best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter.”Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, which has had upheaval in recent days, including the resignation of the chief executive of his super PAC, tried to throw cold water on the endorsement before it was even announced.“Every dollar spent on Nikki Haley’s candidacy should be reported as an in-kind to the Trump campaign,” Andrew Romeo, a DeSantis campaign spokesman, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, 30 minutes before Americans for Prosperity Action officials announced the endorsement on a press call.“No one has a stronger record of beating the establishment than Ron DeSantis, and this time will be no different,” he wrote. More
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Even Most Biden Voters Don’t See a Thriving Economy
A majority of those who backed President Biden in 2020 say today’s economy is fair or poor, ordinarily a bad omen for incumbents seeking re-election.Presidents seeking a second term have often found the public’s perception of the economy a pivotal issue. It was a boon to Ronald Reagan; it helped usher Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush out of the White House.Now, as President Biden looks toward a re-election campaign, there are warning signals on that front: With overall consumer sentiment at a low ebb despite solid economic data, even Democrats who supported Mr. Biden in 2020 say they’re not impressed with the economy.In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of voters in six battleground states, 62 percent of those voters think the economy is only “fair” or “poor” (compared with 97 percent for those who voted for Donald J. Trump).What the Economy Looks Like to Biden Voters in Swing StatesPercent of President Biden’s 2020 supporters who …
Notes: Respondents of other races were omitted because of low sample sizes. The figures may not add up to 100 percent because of rounding.Source: New York Times/Siena College polls of 3,662 registered voters conducted Oct. 22 to Nov. 3 in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and WisconsinBy The New York TimesThe demographics of Mr. Biden’s 2020 supporters may explain part of his challenge now: They were on balance younger, had lower incomes and were more racially diverse than Mr. Trump’s. Those groups tend to be hit hardest by inflation, which has yet to return to 2020 levels, and high interest rates, which have frustrated first-time home buyers and drained the finances of those dependent on credit.But if the election were held today, and the options were Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, it’s not clear whether voter perceptions of the economy would tip the balance.“The last midterm was an abortion election,” said Joshua Doss, an analyst at the public opinion research firm HIT Strategies, referring to the 2022 voting that followed the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling. “Most of the time, elections are about ‘it’s the economy, stupid.’ Republicans lost that because of Roe. So we’re definitely in uncharted territory.”There are things working in Mr. Biden’s favor. First, Mr. Doss said, the economic programs enacted under the Biden administration remain broadly popular, providing a political foundation for Mr. Biden to build on. And second, social issues — which lifted the Democrats in the midterms — remain a prominent concern.Take Oscar Nuñez, 27, a server at a restaurant in Las Vegas. Foot traffic has been much slower than usual for this time of year, eating into his tips. He’d like to start his own business, but with the rising cost of living, he and his wife — who works at home answering questions from independent contractors for her employer — haven’t managed to save much money. It’s also a tough jump to make when the economy feels shaky.Mr. Nuñez expected better from Mr. Biden when he voted blue in 2020, he said, but he wasn’t sure what specifically the president should have done better. And he is pretty sure another Trump term would be a disaster.“I’d prefer another option, but it seems like it will once again be my only option again,” Mr. Nuñez said of Mr. Biden. For him, immigrants’ rights and foreign policy concerns are more important. “That’s why I was picking him over Trump in the first place — because this guy’s going to do something that’s real dangerous at some point.”Mr. Nuñez isn’t alone in feeling dissatisfied with the economy but still bound to Mr. Biden by other priorities. Of those surveyed in the six battleground states who plan to vote for Mr. Biden in 2024, 47 percent say social issues are more important to them, while 42 percent say the economy is more important — but that’s a closer split than in the 2022 midterms, in which social issues decisively outweighed economic concerns among Democratic voters in several swing states. (Among likely Trump voters, 71 percent say they are most focused on the economy, while 15 percent favor social issues.)Kendra McDowell thinks President Biden is doing the best he can given the continuing challenges of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. “People are shopping — you know why? Because they’ve got jobs,” she said.Hannah Yoon for The New York TimesDour sentiment about the economy also isn’t limited to people who’ve been frustrated in their financial ambitions.Mackenzie Kiser, 20, and Lawson Millwood, 21, students at the University of North Georgia, managed to buy a house this year. Mr. Millwood’s income as an information-technology systems administrator at the university was enough to qualify, and they worried that affordability would only worsen if they waited because of rising interest rates and prices. Still, the experience left a bitter taste.“The housing market is absolutely insane,” said Ms. Kiser, who wasn’t old enough to vote in 2020 but leans progressive. “We paid the same for our one-story, one-bedroom cinder-block 1950s house as my mom paid for her three-story, four-bedroom house less than a decade ago.”Ms. Kiser doesn’t think Mr. Biden has done much to help the economy, and she worries he’s too old to be effective. But Mr. Trump isn’t more appealing on that front.“It’s not that I think that anybody of a different party could do better, but more that someone with their mental faculties who’s not retirement age could do a better job,” Ms. Kiser said. “Our choices are retirement age or retirement age, so it’s rock and a hard place right now.”Generally, voters don’t think Republicans are fixing the economy, either. In a poll conducted this month by the progressive-leaning Navigator Research, 70 percent of voters in battleground House districts, including a majority of Republicans, said they thought Republicans were more focused on issues other than the economy.The health of the economy is still a major variable leading up to the election. A downturn could fray what the president cites as a signal accomplishment of Bidenomics: low unemployment. A study of the 2016 election found that higher localized unemployment made Black voters, an overwhelmingly Democratic constituency, less likely to vote at all.“I think the likelihood that they would choose Trump is not the threat,” Mr. Doss said. “The threat is that they would choose the couch and stay home, and enough of them would stay home for an electoral college win for Trump.”But in the absence of a competitive Democratic primary, the campaigning — and television spots — have yet to commence in earnest. When they do, Mr. Doss has some ideas.So far, Mr. Biden’s messaging has focused on macroeconomic indicators like the unemployment rate and tackling inflation. “The truth is, that’s not the economy to most people,” Mr. Doss said. “The economy to most people is gas prices and food and whether or not they can afford to throw a birthday party for their kid.”Mr. Millwood supports a higher federal minimum wage, and is impatient with the bickering and finger pointing he hears about in Washington.Audra Melton for The New York TimesIt’s difficult for presidents to directly control inflation in the short term. But the White House has addressed a few specific costs that matter for families, by releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to contain surging oil prices in late 2022, for example. The Inflation Reduction Act reduced prescription drug prices under Medicare and capped the cost of insulin for people with diabetes. The administration is also going after what it calls “junk fees,” which inflate the prices of things like concert tickets, airline tickets and even birthday parties.The more the administration talks about its concrete efforts to lower prices, the more Mr. Biden will benefit, Mr. Doss said. At the same time, Mr. Biden can lessen the blowback from persistent inflation by deflecting blame — an out-of-control pandemic was the original cause, he could plausibly argue, and most other wealthy countries are worse off.That’s how it seems to Kendra McDowell, 44, an accountant and single mother of four in Harrisburg, Pa. She feels the sting of inflation every time she goes to the grocery store — she spent $1,000 on groceries this past month and didn’t even fill her deep freezer — and in the health of her clients’ balance sheets. Despite her judgment that the economy is poor, however, she still has enough confidence to start a business in home-based care, a field in greater demand since Covid-19 ripped through nursing homes.“When I talk about the economy, it’s just inflation, and to me inflation is systemic and coming from the Trump administration,” Ms. McDowell said. If the pandemic had been contained quickly, she reasoned, supply chains and labor disruptions wouldn’t have sent prices soaring in the first place.Moreover, she sees the situation healing itself, and thinks Mr. Biden is doing the best he can given the challenges of the wars in Ukraine and now Gaza. “People are shopping — you know why? Because they’ve got jobs,” Ms. McDowell said. “God forbid, today or tomorrow, if I had to go find a job, it’s easier than it was before.”Ms. McDowell is what’s known in public opinion research as a high-information voter. Polls have shown that those less apt to stay up on the news tend to change their views when provided with more background on what the Biden administration has both accomplished and attempted.Ms. McDowell, a mother of four, said that she felt the sting of inflation every time she went to the grocery store, but that she didn’t blame Mr. Biden.Hannah Yoon for The New York TimesThe 15-month-old Inflation Reduction Act is still little known, for example. But this past March, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that 68 percent of respondents supported it when filled in on its main components.A frequent theme of conversations with Democratic voters who see the economy as poor is that large corporations have too much power and that the middle class is being squeezed.Mr. Millwood, Ms. Kiser’s partner, said that he was concerned that society had grown more unequal in recent years, and that he didn’t see Mr. Biden doing much about it.“From what I see, it really doesn’t look like the working class is benefiting from many things recently,” said Mr. Millwood, who supports a higher federal minimum wage and is impatient with the bickering and finger pointing he hears about in Washington.After the phone conversation ended, Mr. Millwood texted to say that upon reflection, he would also like to see Mr. Biden push to lower taxes for low-income families and make it more difficult for the wealthiest to dodge them. After being sent news articles about Mr. Biden’s support for the extension of the now-expired Child Tax Credit and the appropriation of $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service, in part to pursue tax evaders, he seemed surprised.“That is absolutely what I had in mind,” Mr. Millwood texted. “It’s been so noisy in the media lately I haven’t seen much that is covering things like that,” adding, “Biden doesn’t seem so bad after all haha.”Ruth Igielnik More
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Why Biden’s Weakness Among Young Voters Should Be Taken Seriously
Almost all the polling shows the same pattern. Could the coming campaign restore Democrats’ usual advantage?A solid youth vote edge could be in doubt for Democrats in 2024. Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York TimesCould President Biden and Donald J. Trump really be locked in a close race among young voters — a group Democrats typically carry by double digits — as the recent Times/Siena polls suggest?To many of our readers and others, it’s a little hard to believe — so hard to believe that it seems to them the polls are flat-out wrong.Of course, it’s always possible that the polls are wrong. I’ve thought our own polling might be wrong before, and I would be very apprehensive if it were just our poll out on a limb. But this isn’t about one Times/Siena poll: Virtually every poll shows a close race between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump among young voters.When dozens of polls all say the same thing, it’s worth taking the polling seriously. It’s easy to remember that the polling can be wrong, but it can be easy to forget that the polling is usually in the ballpark. It’s a losing game to dismiss all polling simply because it doesn’t comport with expectations.Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with those who question whether the final election results will look like recent polls. Personally, I’m skeptical the final results will look quite like these polls. But even if you think the final results will be very different, it does not mean that the polls are “wrong” today.In fact, the belief that Mr. Biden will ultimately win young voters handily next year does nothing to distinguish two very different explanations for what we see in the polling:The polls are mostly wrong. They’re biased. For whatever reason, they fail to reach the Democratic-leaning young voters who propelled Mr. Biden to victory in 2020.The polls are mostly right. They’re reaching the young voters who backed Mr. Biden. But for now, these voters don’t support him. Over the next year, things could change.When it comes to the Times/Siena poll, we’ve put forward a lot of evidence consistent with the theory that the polling is mostly right, but that things might change.By the measures at our disposal, the voters 18 to 29 in our survey “look” right. They say they backed Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump in the last presidential election by a wide margin, 57-35, right in line with our expectations. They “look” right by other measures of partisanship as well. In the states with party registration, for instance, the Times/Siena young voters were registered Democrats by a 13-point margin, 35 percent to 22 percent. That’s almost exactly in line with their actual 13-point registration advantage, 36 percent to 23 percent.It’s important to emphasize that just because the polls “look” right doesn’t mean they are right. Our polls looked “right” by these kind of indicators in 2020. They were still wrong in important ways (though they were right about plenty as well, including racial and generational depolarization). But these data points nonetheless raise the burden on those who assert that the issue is partisan nonresponse bias, in which young Democrats simply aren’t answering their cellphones (99.8 percent of our young respondents were reached by cellphone).We see no evidence of that. In our polling, the problem for Mr. Biden isn’t too few young Democrats. It’s that many young Democrats don’t like him. Mr. Biden has just a 76-20 lead among young voters either registered as Democrats or who have previously voted in a Democratic primary. It’s just a 69-24 lead among young nonwhite Democrats. The dissent exists among self-identified Democrats, Democratic-leaners, Biden ’20 voters, and so on.This kind of intraparty dissent is rare but not without precedent in our polling. I’ve seen it in our congressional polls of highly educated suburbs full of Romney-Clinton voters. And I’ve seen it once before in a statewide presidential race: our final polls in 2016, when Mr. Trump suddenly surged to obtain 30 percent of white working-class registered Democrats. It was hard to believe, but it was fairly easy to explain and it raised the serious possibility of a Trump win.Similarly, I think it’s fairly straightforward to explain Mr. Biden’s weakness among young voters today, much as it was easy to explain Mrs. Clinton’s among white working-class voters in 2016. Young voters are by far the likeliest to say he’s just too old to be an effective president. Many are upset about his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. And all of this is against the backdrop of Mr. Biden’s longstanding weakness among young voters, who weren’t enthusiastic about him in 2020, and Mr. Trump’s gains among nonwhite voters, who are disproportionately young.But even if you don’t buy these explanations, that’s mostly just a reason to believe the numbers will shift over the next year, not a reason to dismiss the polling.After all, these polls do not depict the usual, stable basis for vote choice that we’ve become accustomed to in our polarized country. This is not an election where almost all voters like their own party’s candidate while disliking the opposing party’s candidate and disagreeing with them on the issues. Instead, we have an unstable arrangement: Millions of voters dislike both candidates, entertain minor-party candidates and when pressed often say they would vote for someone from the other major political party whom they disagree with on many important issues. These are the textbook conditions for volatility, and it’s entirely reasonable to doubt whether the arrangement will last once the campaign gets underway.We tried to illustrate the abstract possibility that “things can change” more concretely through an article in which we called back the Kamala-not-Joe voters — the young voters who back Vice President Kamala Harris over Mr. Trump but not Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump. It’s worth noting that these are the kinds of voters we would expect to find in the data if Mr. Biden really were performing this badly among an otherwise typical sample of young voters — much as the 2016 polling featured plenty of white working-class Trump voters who approved of Barack Obama and who said they voted for him in 2012.There’s one other way the results might end up “normal,” even with today’s polling: a low youth turnout. Almost all of the polls nowadays are among registered voters, not likely voters, and most of Mr. Biden’s weakness is among disengaged voters on the periphery of the electorate. In the latest Times/Siena polling, Mr. Biden leads by 15 points among young voters who turned out in the midterms, while he trails by three points among young voters who didn’t turn out. If these irregular, disaffected voters simply choose not to vote, Mr. Biden will most likely have a healthy lead with young voters.There are countless other reasons the polls today may not ultimately align with the final result. For one, Mr. Trump could be convicted of federal crimes in six months. But just because the polls aren’t necessarily “predictive” of the final outcome does not mean they’re wrong. It doesn’t mean they’re not worth taking seriously, either. For the campaigns, taking the numbers seriously today may wind up being exactly what changes the numbers tomorrow. More
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Rusia se prepara para las elecciones presidenciales de marzo
En caso de que Putin se postule, hay pocas dudas sobre el resultado. Sin embargo, los comicios de marzo tienen una mayor importancia debido a las incertidumbres de la guerra.La semana pasada, cuando le preguntaron qué tipo de líder debería remplazar al presidente ruso Vladimir Putin, su portavoz de mucho tiempo dio una respuesta rápida y sencilla: “El mismo”.“O diferente, pero el mismo”, le respondió el portavoz, Dmitry Peskov, a una red de televisión rusa, a lo que añadió que estaba seguro de que, si Putin se postula, ganará las elecciones “sin duda” y seguirá siendo “nuestro presidente”.Pocos dudan que Putin se postulará para ganar otro periodo presidencial en las elecciones programadas para marzo. La expectativa generalizada es que haga el anuncio oficial de su candidatura el mes próximo.También hay pocas dudas acerca del resultado de esas elecciones; en el autoritario sistema político de Rusia, siempre se han reportado las victorias de Putin como aplastantes. Ha estado al frente de Rusia, bien sea como presidente o primer ministro, desde 1999.Sin embargo, las próximas elecciones presidenciales son más significativas; se trata de las primeras que se celebrarán después de la invasión rusa a gran escala en Ucrania en febrero de 2022, la decisión más relevante de Putin desde que cruzó por primera vez los muros del Kremlin como dirigente del país hace dos décadas.Además, las elecciones influyen de manera directa en la estrategia de guerra de Putin para 2024; en concreto, si ordenará o no una nueva movilización de soldados, lo que podría ser una medida impopular en el país, después de ganar su quinto mandato como líder de Rusia.“La guerra y la movilización son cada vez menos populares”, afirmó Andrei Pertsev, analista de política rusa para Meduza, sitio web de noticias rusas con oficinas en Riga, Letonia. “Hacen que la gente se sienta ansiosa”.Los críticos cuestionan el propósito de unas elecciones presidenciales en un país en guerra donde la mayoría de los líderes de oposición están encarcelados o han sido forzados a huir al exilio, y la maquinaria electoral controlada por el Kremlin determina quién puede postularse y quién no, además, la mayoría de los medios noticiosos populares solo alaban a quien está en el poder.Reclutas en la Catedral Principal de las Fuerzas Armadas Rusas, dedicada a “las hazañas militares del pueblo ruso”.Nanna Heitmann para The New York TimesGrigorii Golosov, profesor de ciencias políticas en la Universidad Europea en San Petersburgo, Rusia, indicó que Putin quiere asegurarse de que nadie pueda poner en duda su legitimidad al mando del Estado ruso, sobre todo distintos grupos dentro de la clase gobernante del país.“Tanto la población en general como la clase gobernante rusa están conscientes de que no ha existido ninguna rivalidad política real en Rusia desde hace muchos años”, explicó. “Pero no hay una gran diferencia entre la legitimidad real y su imitación”.Golosov señaló que incluso la apariencia de legitimidad electoral ayudaría a Putin a superar una crisis nacional, si acaso ocurriera, y citó como posible ejemplo la rebelión fallida en junio de Yevgeny Prigozhin, jefe de un grupo de mercenarios.“Situaciones similares podrían presentarse en el futuro”, aseveró Golosov.Serán las primeras elecciones que se celebren tras la actualización hecha a la Constitución de Rusia que, de hecho, le permite a Putin competir por quinta vez porque puede argumentar que se reinició el conteo para el límite de su mandato.Se espera que muchos otros candidatos participen en la contienda, incluidos representantes de dos partidos políticos (el Partido Comunista y el Partido Liberal-Demócrata de tendencia nacionalista) que han sido rivales estratégicos convenientes durante las campañas previas de Putin. Como ocurrió durante las dos elecciones previas, es posible que el Kremlin también le permita participar a un candidato liberal, aunque algunos expertos opinan que todavía no hay nada seguro porque lo más probable es que un candidato de esa ideología adopte una postura de campaña contra la guerra en Ucrania.Por ejemplo, Boris Nadezhdin, uno de los pocos políticos rusos que ha anunciado su intención de postularse, calificó la guerra —u operación militar especial, como la llamó— un “error fatal” de Putin y declaró que ponerle fin sería su prioridad número 1.Boris Nadezhdin, a la derecha, en Moscú en 2011. Es uno de los pocos políticos rusos que ha anunciado su intención de postularse a las elecciones presidenciales de marzo.Sergey Ponomarev/Associated Press“Putin está arrastrando a Rusia al pasado”, dijo Nadezhdin en una entrevista con Zhivoy Gvozd, un medio de noticias ruso en YouTube, este mes. “El principal problema es que Putin está destruyendo las instituciones clave de un Estado moderno”.Para poder registrarse formalmente como candidato, Nadezhdin necesitaría recolectar 100.000 firmas de todo el país. La Comisión Electoral Central tendría que examinarlos, un proceso que, según los analistas, le permite al Kremlin filtrar a contendientes no deseados.“Creo que la probabilidad de que logre registrarse es prácticamente ínfima”, dijo Golosov, el analista político.En el extremo opuesto del espectro político, Igor Girkin anunció su intención de postularse y unir a todas las fuerzas pro guerra bajo su bandera. Girkin, también conocido bajo su nombre de guerra Strelkov, avivó el nacionalismo ruso como señor de la guerra y bloguero militar en Ucrania, pero también criticó ocasionalmente al Kremlin.Girkin está en prisión acusado de extremismo por criticar la forma en que Putin desplegó la guerra, diciendo que el líder ruso fue “demasiado amable” con sus adversarios.Es poco probable que tanto a Nadezhdin como a Girkin se les permita unirse a la contienda presidencial.Igor Girkin, encarcelado por cargos de extremismo, anunció su intención de postularse y unir bajo su bandera a todas las fuerzas pro guerra.Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated PressNo obstante, las elecciones podrían darle problemas al Kremlin, según algunos expertos. Aunque los resultados son inevitables, las elecciones in Rusia en algunas ocasiones han representado un punto de inflexión significativo cuando el sistema político ha estado más vulnerable que de costumbre. A finales de 2011, por ejemplo, decenas de miles de rusos abarrotaron las plazas centrales de Moscú y otras grandes ciudades rusas en protesta de unas elecciones parlamentarias que consideraron amañadas.Este año, la guerra en Ucrania le suma un nuevo elemento de incertidumbre, en opinión de varios analistas. Si bien Rusia ha podido contener la contraofensiva ucraniana y está organizando sus propios ataques, está sacrificando a decenas de miles de soldados sin conseguir ningún logro significativo ni obligar a Kiev a negociar.Y en tanto se prolongue la guerra, los rusos seguirán ansiosos ante la posibilidad de que sea necesaria otra ronda de movilización de hombres para combatir. El Kremlin ordenó un reclutamiento en el otoño de 2022, pero no ha anunciado ningún otro, pues le preocupa que la respuesta sea negativa a nivel nacional. Esperar hasta que pasen las elecciones eliminaría al menos parte del riesgo político.Una encuesta realizada por la empresa de investigación rusa Field, organización apartidista con oficinas en Moscú, reveló que, por primera vez desde que inició la guerra, más rusos dijeron que apoyan la opción de sostener negociaciones por encima de que continuar el combate armado. Casi dos terceras partes de las personas contactadas por teléfono respondieron que apoyarían un acuerdo de paz en Ucrania si se firmara mañana.La encuesta se realizó con 1611 participantes y 6403 se negaron a tomar parte, lo que subraya la dificultad de realizar encuestas en Rusia.La empresa independiente Levada descubrió cambios similares en su encuesta dada a conocer a finales de octubre, en la que el 55 por ciento de los encuestados indicaron que preferirían conversaciones de paz a que continúe la guerra.Asistentes a una manifestación en Moscú en febrero, dos días antes del aniversario de la invasión rusa a Ucrania.Nanna Heitmann para The New York TimesEl Kremlin está consciente de este cambio en el ánimo, señaló Pertsev de Meduza. Aunque Putin todavía tiene gran interés en la situación militar, Pertsev comentó que el Kremlin ha alejado visiblemente su agenda de la guerra y la ha acercado a problemas mucho más mundanos, como el desarrollo de infraestructura para el país.El lunes, por ejemplo, Putin lideró una ceremonia para la entrega de 570 autobuses a 12 regiones rusas.“La guerra solo empeora todo para la campaña presidencial”, afirmó Pertsev en una entrevista. “Le recuerda a la gente las dificultades”.En vísperas del inicio de la campaña, el Estado ruso organizó una enorme exposición sobre Rossiya en Moscú. Ahí, las personas atraviesan un videotúnel de 150 metros que ilustra los distintos logros del país al mando de Putin, como la construcción de edificios residenciales y carreteras. No se menciona en absoluto la guerra.Pertsev sostiene que la exposición se diseñó para crear un “fondo teatral” para la campaña de Putin. El Kremlin también organizó un concurso en el que las familias pueden ganar certificados de apartamentos nuevos o viajes por Rusia. El periodo del concurso coincide con el de las elecciones.“La estructura vertical de poder de Rusia aprovecha las elecciones para demostrar una vez más que todo va bien y que Occidente no ha acabado con Rusia”, explicó Pertsev. Otro factor importante para realizar las elecciones, en su opinión, es que a Putin “le gusta que su trabajo y el amor de la gente por él se demuestren públicamente”.“Mientras más envejece, más le gusta”, concluyó.Un cartel de reclutamiento militar que ofrece 550.000 rublos en Ovsyanka, Rusia.Nanna Heitmann para The New York TimesIvan Nechepurenko ha sido reportero de la oficina de Moscú desde 2015, donde ha cubierto política, economía, deportes y cultura en Rusia y las exrepúblicas soviéticas. Nació y creció en San Petersburgo, Rusia y en Piatykhatky, Ucrania. Más de Ivan Nechepurenko More
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Dutch Election Results Deliver a Turn to the Far Right
In an election result that sent shock waves across Europe, Geert Wilders, a longtime far-right provocateur, is closer than ever to becoming prime minister.The Netherlands, long regarded as one of Europe’s most socially liberal countries, woke up to a drastically changed political landscape on Thursday after a far-right party swept national elections in a result that has reverberated throughout Europe.Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom, which advocates banning the Quran, closing Islamic schools and entirely halting the acceptance of asylum seekers, won 37 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, making it by far the biggest party, in a clear rebuke of the country’s political establishment.The results, tabulated overnight after Wednesday’s voting, give Mr. Wilders enough support to try to form a governing coalition. Centrist and center-right parties long wary of the firebrand have left the door ajar to a possible partnership, giving Mr. Wilders a chance to become the Netherlands’ first far-right prime minister.While people across the political spectrum expressed surprise at the election outcome, and the Dutch reputation of liberalism persists, experts say that Mr. Wilders succeeded by tapping into a discontent with government that dates back at least two decades.“It’s not suddenly out of nowhere,” said Janka Stoker, a professor of leadership and organizational change at the University of Groningen.Mr. Wilders’s party has previously drawn more support in opinion polls than in the voting booth. This time the trend was reversed. Peter Dejong/Associated PressMr. Wilders has been a persistent political presence in the Netherlands through those years, and now it seemed his time had come.A career politician, Mr. Wilders has served as a member of the Dutch House of Representatives since 1998. In 2004, he split from the party headed by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, forming the Party for Freedom two years later.Exceptionally, Mr. Wilders’s party is not based on a membership structure, making him the sole decision maker and synonymous with his party.He is close ideologically to Marine Le Pen of France, the far-right National Rally leader, and received hearty congratulations from Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister who has become another icon of the far right.At times Mr. Wilders has also been compared to former President Donald J. Trump, for his penchant to say things in the most direct and divisive of ways. Many of Mr. Wilders’s supporters say they feel buoyed and relieved that he is willing to give voice to what they cannot say, or feel they are not supposed to say.Yet Mr. Wilders’s provocations have required him to move through life with a security detail, and he has said that days can go by during which he does not see the daylight.Because of the need for security over the apparent threats against him, not much is known about Mr. Wilders’s isolated private life. He has been married since 1992 to a Hungarian diplomat, Krisztina. His rare public appearances guarantee that every time he ventures out he attracts a media circus.Mr. Wilders told the Dutch magazine Panorama in March that as part of his security, the windows to his study are blacked out, making it impossible to see outside. He also told the magazine that he had not been able to drive in his own car since 2004, saying it was a “symbol of freedom that I crave, but that I don’t have anymore.”A protester greeting Mr. Wilders at a 2017 campaign stop with a sign reading “Don’t Give Hate And Fear a Vote.” He lives with tight security, rarely appearing in public.Peter Dejong/Associated PressMr. Wilders’s political talk has been so divisive that his own brother Paul has publicly spoken out against him.Over the years, Mr. Wilders’s comments about Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands have gotten widespread media attention. They have also landed him in court.In 2014, Mr. Wilders asked his supporters whether they wanted more or fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands, which resulted in a crowd chanting, “Fewer! Fewer!”A Dutch court convicted Mr. Wilders of insulting a group with the anti-Moroccan chant, but he avoided punishment.At a campaign event in 2017, Mr. Wilders referred to Moroccan immigrants as “scum.”During the current campaign he ran on a “Dutch First” platform, though in the final days of the race he moderated some of his anti-Islam vitriol, saying there were “more important priorities.”He also said that his proposals “would be within the law and Constitution,” in an effort to court other parties to govern with him.But while his language may have softened, his party platform did not. “The Netherlands is not an Islamic country: no Islamic schools, Qurans and mosques,” it says.“The borders are wide open and everyone who comes in wants a living space,” it adds, while advocating a “zero tolerance” policy to rein in what it calls “street terrorists” and promising funding for 10,000 extra police officers.“The police need to be in charge in the street again,” according to the platform. “Criminals have to be arrested immediately and put in prison for a long time.”An election poster for Mr. Wilders outside the Dutch Parliament building in The Hague. His standing appeared to rise in the final days of the campaign.Yves Herman/ReutersMr. Wilders — as well as other politicians, including Pieter Omtzigt, a centrist who had hoped to upend the election — had linked an increase in migrants to a shortage of housing, which was among the biggest issues for Dutch voters.But it was Mr. Wilders who ultimately spoke to a discontent that experts said could be traced back at least to the rise of Pim Fortuyn, a right-wing populist who was assassinated a week before elections in which he had led the opinion polls. Mr. Fortuyn, who hoped to become the Netherlands’ first gay prime minister, ran on a strong anti-immigrant platform more than 20 years ago.Voter dissatisfaction was also evident in more recent elections: Regional votes this year and in 2019, which decide the makeup of the Dutch Senate, saw big victories by populist newcomers.Last year, 60 percent of Dutch people said they were unhappy with how politics was done in the country, according to the Netherlands Institute for Social Research.Elections are often a reaction to what happened previously, Ms. Stoker said, referring to Mr. Rutte’s record-breaking 13-year tenure as prime minister. The Rutte government collapsed in July over disputes on immigration policy, precipitating Wednesday’s election.While Mr. Rutte has been a stalwart of Dutch politics, several scandals plagued his leadership which added to an erosion in trust in the government, according to Dutch political experts. Mr. Rutte will stay on as caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed.Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands, who has served a record 13 years in the role, will stay on until a new government is formed.Justin Lane/EPA, via ShutterstockIn the final days of the campaign, Mr. Wilders started inching up in the polls partly helped by what many people regarded as strong performances in televised debates, a stronger media focus on him and a slight softening of some of his extreme positions on Islam.But the margin of victory was unexpected. Mr. Wilders’s party has often performed better in opinion polls than in elections. This time, the trend reversed.“These were the most volatile elections ever — never before have so many seats changed hands,” said Tom van der Meer, a professor in political science at the University of Amsterdam.Mr. Rutte had long said that he would not govern with Mr. Wilders. But Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, Mr. Rutte’s successor as the lead candidate for the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, had left open the door to forming a coalition with Mr. Wilders.That softening appears to have bolstered Mr. Wilders’s performance — long a protest candidate with little hope of real power, this time he could present himself to Dutch voters as a strategic choice: a viable governing partner, even a potential prime minister.Still, it will be complicated for Mr. Wilders to move from the opposition into a stable coalition in a country where politics rests on the art of compromise.In 2010, he had an informal liaison with the mainstream conservative party’s coalition, but he bolted when it wanted to cut back pension benefits. More
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Putin Eyes Another Term as President, With War as Backdrop
There is little doubt about the outcome, should he run, but the election in March carries more significance as the first one since the invasion of Ukraine.When asked last week what kind of leader should replace President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, his longtime spokesman gave a quick and simple answer: “the same.”“Or different, but the same,” the spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told a Russian television network, adding that he was confident that should Mr. Putin run, he would win the election “without doubt” and would remain “our president.”Few doubt that Mr. Putin will seek another presidential term in an election scheduled for March. He is widely expected to formally announce his candidacy next month.There is little question about the outcome, too; in Russia’s authoritarian political system, Mr. Putin is always reported to have won in a landslide. He has led Russia as either president or prime minister since 1999.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please More
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Dutch Election: Unpredictable Vote May Elevate a Centrist
Unusually, a protest vote may be coalescing around a centrist, Pieter Omtzigt, as the Dutch vote in national elections on Wednesday.After 13 years with Mark Rutte as their prime minister, the Dutch will cast their ballots on Wednesday in a national election that is expected to scatter votes across the spectrum. But there is one man who has emerged as the campaign’s chief protagonist.It is Pieter Omtzigt, a longtime parliamentarian and founder of a new party, who says he wants to overhaul the Dutch political system from the political center — appealing to voters increasingly disillusioned with the establishment yet wary of extremes.Mr. Omtzigt, 49, has offered voters a novel mix of left-leaning economic policies and right-leaning migration policies, packaged in a party he created this summer, called New Social Contract.“It’s a protest party in the political middle,” said Tom Louwerse, a political scientist at Leiden University who created a website that combines and summarizes polls.Yet it is one that does not pit the elite against the common man in the way populist parties often do, political analysts said. While anti-establishment votes in many European countries have often gone to right-wing parties, Mr. Omtzigt’s presence seems to have provided an alternative to Dutch voters who don’t feel quite at home in the far right.The Dutch election is shaping up as one of the most significant and competitive in years. It is being held two years ahead of schedule, after Mr. Rutte’s government collapsed in July when the parties in his coalition failed to reach an agreement on migration policy.Mr. Rutte, who is serving as caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed, was considered a mainstay of Dutch politics. But trust in the leader who was nicknamed “Teflon Mark” has suffered because of several scandals, including a lack of action by his government after earthquakes caused by decades-long gas production in the northern province of Groningen damaged thousands of homes.Mr. Rutte was also a strong voice for fiscal restraint inside the European Union, especially after the British exit, allowing the Netherlands to punch above its weight on E.U. budget matters.Those are big political shoes to fill, and the race remains unpredictable, analysts said, with three or four parties closely jockeying near the top of polls in the homestretch.In recent days, the far-right Party for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders, has inched up at the expense of Mr. Omtzigt’s party. The other contenders include a Green-Labor coalition on the left led by Frans Timmermans, a former European Union climate czar; and Mr. Rutte’s party, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy.No one party is expected to win an outright majority, making it likely that whoever comes out on top will have to govern in a coalition, which could take weeks or months to hammer out.Mr. Omtzigt has been somewhat coy as to whether he would serve as prime minister, but he has emerged as the campaign’s most popular figure, said Asher van der Schelde, a researcher for I&O Research, an independent Dutch polling organization.“He is considered by Dutch people as a man with integrity who can enact change,” Mr. van der Schelde said. “The campaign really revolves around him.”Even as he runs as a change agent, Mr. Omtzigt is also regarded as a safe pair of hands. A former member of the center-right Christian party, he spent the better part of the past two decades in the House of Representatives in The Hague. The familiarity may be reassuring for a relatively conservative country that is looking for change but also security after Mr. Rutte’s long tenure.Mr. Omtzigt, right, during a debate last Thursday with opponents including Geert Wilders, center, whose far-right Party for Freedom has been gaining in recent polls.Koen Van Weel/EPA, via ShutterstockIn recent years, Mr. Omtzigt has built a reputation for holding those in power accountable. He rose to prominence in 2021 after he played a pivotal role in uncovering a systemic failure by Mr. Rutte’s government to protect thousands of families from overzealous tax inspectors.As a result of that scandal, Mr. Rutte’s government resigned in 2021, only to be easily re-elected. The scandal added to a growing distrust of the Dutch government, experts say.“There’s a lack of checks and balances in the Dutch political system,” Mr. Omtzigt said in a phone interview. Among the changes he is proposing is the creation of a constitutional court that would perform a role similar to the Supreme Court in the United States, adjudicating whether laws jibe the Constitution.“His style, compared to hard-core populists, is a bit more intellectual,” said Gerrit Voerman, a professor at the University of Groningen who is an expert in the Dutch and European party system.“You could say that the sentiment of distrust in the government has reached the political center,” Professor Voerman said. “Criticism of the government isn’t specifically left wing or right wing.”But even as he has promised “a new way of doing politics,” Mr. Omtzigt is himself very much part of the establishment. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Exeter in England.The way the government is run doesn’t work for many people, Mr. Omtzigt said. He also said that many politicians were out of touch with what citizens were worried about.Migration is one of the major issues in this election. Dutch citizens across the political spectrum are in favor of curtailing migration to some degree, pollsters say, including in some cases the number of labor migrants and foreign students.But immigration is not the first issue on Dutch voters’ minds — it’s the country’s housing crisis, which Mr. Omtzigt has linked to an influx of migrants who are competing with Dutch citizens for living spaces.Demonstrators calling for affordable housing during a march in Amsterdam last February.Robin Utrecht/EPA, via Shutterstock“Everyone’s talking about the rights of migrants,” Mr. Omtzigt told a Dutch political podcast this month. “Nobody is talking about the rights to a secure livelihood for those 390,000 households that don’t have a home in the Netherlands.”New Social Contract says it wants a “conscious, active and selective migration policy,” and proposes a maximum migration balance of 50,000 people per year. (In 2022, that number — the difference between people emigrating and immigrating — was roughly 224,000, according to Statistics Netherlands.)“It seems that some politicians are out of sync with citizens’ concerns,” Mr. Omtzigt said.The lack of clarity about whether Mr. Omtzigt wants to become prime minister or serve as his party’s leader in the House of Representatives has hurt his popularity over the final days of the campaign, pollsters say. But on Sunday, he told Dutch television that he would be open to leading the country under certain circumstances.Mr. Rutte’s successor as the lead candidate of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, has criticized Mr. Omtzigt for his lack of decisiveness.“Leadership is making decisions,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in a thinly veiled criticism of Mr. Omtzigt. “If you don’t want to be prime minister, fine, but just say so.” More
