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      Bad Feelings About the Economy Sour Arizona Voters on Biden

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      The White House has hailed new investments and new jobs, yet many voters in a battleground state are chafing at inflation and housing costs.If President Biden hopes to replicate his narrow victory in Arizona, he will need disillusioned voters like Alex Jumah. An immigrant from Iraq, Mr. Jumah leans conservative, but he said he voted for Mr. Biden because he could not stomach former President Trump’s anti-Muslim views.That was 2020. Since then, Mr. Jumah, 41, said, his economic fortunes cratered after he contracted Covid, missed two months of work as a trucking dispatcher, was evicted from his home and was forced to move in with his mother. He said he could no longer afford an apartment in Tucson, where rents have risen sharply since the pandemic. He is now planning to vote for Mr. Trump.“At first I was really happy with Biden,” he said. “We got rid of Trump, rid of the racism. And then I regretted it. We need a strong president to keep this country first.”His anger helps explain why Mr. Biden appears to be struggling in Arizona and other closely divided 2024 battleground states, according to a recent poll by The New York Times and Siena College.Surveys and interviews with Arizona voters find that they are sour on the economy, despite solid job growth in the state. The Biden administration also fails to get credit for a parade of new companies coming to Arizona that will produce lithium-ion batteries, electric vehicles and computer chips — investments that the White House hails as emblems of its push for a next generation of American manufacturing.Breanne Laird, 32, a doctoral student at Arizona State University and a Republican, said she sat out the 2020 elections in part because she never thought Arizona would turn blue. But after two years without any pay increases and after losing $170,000 trying to fix and flip a house she bought in suburban Phoenix, she said she was determined to vote next year, for Mr. Trump.She bought the investment property near the peak of the market last year, and said she watched its value slip as mortgage rates rose toward 8 percent. She said she had to max out credit cards, and her credit score fell.Arizona’s housing market fell farther than most parts of the country after the 2008 financial crisis, and it took longer to recover. Few economists are predicting a similar crash now, but even so, Ms. Laird said she felt frustrated, and was itching to return Mr. Trump to power.“I’m even further behind,” she said. “I see the value in voting, and plan to vote as much as possible.”Voters waited in line to cast their ballots at dawn in Guadalupe, Ariz., in 2020.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesA majority of Arizona voters in the recent New York Times/Siena survey rated the country’s economy as poor. Just 3 percent of voters said it was excellent.Arizona experienced some of the worst inflation in the country, largely because housing costs shot upward as people thronged to the state during the pandemic. Average monthly rents in Phoenix rose to $1,919 in September from $1,373 in early 2020, a 40 percent increase according to Zillow. Average rents across the country rose about 30 percent over the same period.Home prices and rents have fallen from their peaks this year, but even so, economists say that the state is increasingly unaffordable for middle-class families, whose migration to Arizona has powered decades of growth in the state.Arizona’s economy sprinted out of the pandemic, but economists said the speed of new hiring and consumer spending in the state has now eased. The state unemployment rate of 4 percent is about equal to the national average, and the quarterly Arizona Economic Outlook, published by the University of Arizona, predicts that the state will keep growing next year, though at a slower pace.Arizona has added 280,000 jobs since Mr. Biden took office, according to the federal Labor Department, compared with 150,000 during Mr. Trump’s term. Phoenix just hosted the Super Bowl, usually a high-profile boost to the local mood and economy.Barely a week goes by without Arizona’s first-term Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, visiting a groundbreaking or job-training event to talk up the state’s economy or the infrastructure money arriving from Washington.Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs on stage during the 2023 Inauguration Ceremony at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesMr. Biden was even farther behind Mr. Trump in another poll being released this week by the Phoenix-based firm Noble Predictive Insights. That survey of about 1,000 Arizona voters said Mr. Trump had an eight-point lead, a significant swing toward Republicans from this past winter, when Mr. Biden had a two-point edge.Mike Noble, the polling firm’s chief executive, said that Mr. Trump had built his lead in Arizona by consolidating support from Republicans and — for the moment — winning back independents. Respondents cited immigration and inflation as their top concerns.“Economists say, ‘Look at these indicators’ — People don’t care about that,” Mr. Noble said. “They care about their day-to-day lives.”Bill Ruiz, the business representative of Local 1912 of the Southwest Mountain States Carpenters Union, said the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill and CHIPS Act were bringing billions of dollars into Arizona, and helping to power an increase in union jobs and wages. Carpenters in his union were working 7 percent more hours than they were a year ago, and the union’s membership has doubled to 3,400 over the past five years.“We’re making bigger gains and bigger paychecks,” he said. “It blows me away people don’t see that.”Political strategists say Mr. Biden could still win in Arizona next year, if Democrats can reassemble the just-big-enough coalition of moderate Republicans and suburban women, Latinos and younger voters who rejected Mr. Trump by 10,000 votes in 2020. It was the first time in more than two decades that a Democrat had carried Arizona and its 11 electoral votes.The same pattern was seen in last year’s midterm elections, when Arizona voters elected Democrats running on abortion rights and democracy for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, defeating a slate of Trump-endorsed hard-right Republicans.Abortion is still a powerful motivator and a winning issue for Democrats, but many Arizona voters now say their dominant concerns are immigration, inflation and what they feel is a faltering economy.Grant Cooper, 53, who retired from a career in medical sales, is the kind of disaffected Republican voter that Democrats hope to peel away next year. He supports abortion rights and limited government, and while he voted for Mr. Trump in 2020, he said he would not do so again.He said his personal finances and retirement investments were in decent shape, and he did not blame the president for the spike in gas prices in 2022. Still, he said he plans to vote for a third-party candidate next year, saying that both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump were out-of-touch relics of a two-party system that was failing to address long-term challenges.“They squibble and squabble about the dumbest things, rather than looking at things that could improve our economy,” he said. “The Republicans are fighting the Democrats. The Democrats are fighting the Republicans. And what gets done? Nothing.”David Martinez, 43, is emblematic of the demographic shift that has made Arizona such a battleground. He and his family moved back to Phoenix after 15 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he still works remotely in the tech industry. He voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, and said he was worried about the threat Mr. Trump poses to free elections, democracy and America’s future in NATO.His working-class friends and extended family don’t share the same concerns. These days, the political conversations with them usually begin and end with the price of gas (now falling) and eggs (still high).“It falls on deaf ears,” Mr. Martinez said of his arguments about democracy. “They feel down about Biden and inflation and his age. They’re open to giving Trump a second term or skipping the election entirely.”Camille Baker More

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      In Politics, There Are Worse Things Than Wishful Thinking

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      Bret Stephens: Gail, my attention these past few weeks has been devoted almost entirely to outrages and tragedies in the Middle East. But I couldn’t help smiling for a second when Nikki Haley called Vivek Ramaswamy “scum” at last week’s G.O.P. debate, after he raised the subject of her daughter’s use of TikTok.Aside from the deep truth of the remark — I wouldn’t have faulted her if she had thwacked him — it also made me think there’s life in this primary yet. Your thoughts on the G.O.P. race?Gail Collins: So glad to be back conversing every week, Bret. And you must be pleased that Haley, your Republican fave, was generally judged the winner of that debate.Bret: As she was of the first two debates.Gail: Not hard to make Ramaswamy look bad, but she certainly did a great job of it.Bret: Ramaswamy is like the human equivalent of HAL 9000 with an addiction to Red Bull.Gail: But what’s this going to do for her? Can you really imagine a path to the presidential nomination here?Bret: There was a great story last week in The Times by Natasha Frost, about an Australian man who freed himself from the jaws of a saltwater crocodile by biting its eyelid. Which is only believable because, well, it’s Australia. That’s about the situation in which the G.O.P. contenders find themselves with respect to Donald Trump.I know it’s a long shot, but at some point there will be just one person left standing against Trump, and I bet it will be Haley. She’s not just the best debater. She also comes across as the most tough-minded and well-rounded, given her experience both as a governor and a U.N. ambassador. She’s in second place in New Hampshire and in her home state of South Carolina, and her numbers have been moving up. As formidable as Trump’s own numbers look, it won’t be lost on centrist-minded G.O.P. voters that he’ll be campaigning while on bail.Now you’ll tell me that’s wishful thinking ….Gail: Hey, in our current political climate, there are worse things than wishful thinking. And we do have a likely Republican nominee who’s under indictment for virtually every nonviolent crime on the books except double parking.One thing I was wondering, looking at the debaters: Trump is going to have to find a new vice-presidential nominee. I keep thinking Tim Scott is campaigning hard for that job, although now he has suspended his campaign. You’ve got better Republican insight — see anybody on the stage you could imagine on Trump’s ticket?Bret: Good question. Trump will want someone with Mike Pence’s servility, minus the fidelity to the Constitution. Somehow I don’t think Scott fits that bill. I’m thinking of someone with more MAGA appeal, like Arizona’s Kari Lake or Ohio’s J.D. Vance.Gail: Ewww. Well then, I guess Scott’s sudden girlfriend reveal won’t do the trick.Bret: Only if the engagement were to Lauren Boebert.Gail: Last week’s election was a very, very good time for the Democrats. Big wins in Kentucky and Virginia, not to mention Ohio. I know a lot of it was attached to the very strong public support for abortion rights, but I can’t help but feel it was also a general Republican fizzle. You agree?Bret: It was a great antidote to that depressing Times/Siena poll, showing Biden’s political weakness against Trump in crucial swing states, which we talked about last week. My read on the results is this: Democrats win when they run with centrist candidates, like Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, who ran as a pragmatist, not an ideologue. Also, Republicans remain deeply vulnerable, mainly thanks to their abortion extremism. That second fact should, well, abort Ron DeSantis’s campaign. The first fact suggests Democrats can win and win big — with a younger candidate, from a purple state, with a record of governing from the center.Speaking of which, any feelings about Joe Manchin’s decision not to run for re-election? Are you going to miss him?Gail: Well, I’m gonna miss having a Democratic senator from West Virginia. Never found any of his standing-on-my-own shutting-all-progress-down antics to be all that endearing.Bret: Loved them. Democrats won’t easily hold the Senate without him.Gail: What worries me is the possibility that Manchin’s going to run as a third-party candidate for president. As our readers know, I hate, hate, hate the idea of people who could never win a major-party nomination jumping into the general election on their own lines. It has a terrific potential to mess things up. Speaking also to you, Jill Stein, another new entrant, via the Green Party. And Bret, to your pal Joe Lieberman’s shenanigans with No Labels.Bret: To say nothing of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West. Both of whom, I think, are bigger political threats to Biden than they would be to the Republican nominee. But none of them would be anything but an afterthought if Biden weren’t such a weak candidate.On the other hand, we have Trump and his trials. Do you think any of these many cases against him are going to do any lasting political damage?Gail: Really wondering. On the one hand, good Lord — 91 felony counts and a civil suit in New York that might just wipe out any semblance of proof that he really has the money he always claims to have. Who could possibly win an election with that kind of record?Bret: Well, Trump could.I haven’t delved too deeply into the particulars of the civil suit filed by Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, but I have my doubts about the strength of a case that rests on the theory that it’s unlawful for a real-estate developer to overstate the value of his assets. The market value of any asset is only determined at the point of sale, and real estate is often a classic “Veblen good,” in which demand increases as the price goes up.Gail: None of this can possibly be a surprise to his die-hard supporters, and they’re still with him. They just see it all as persecution. But once the campaign is really underway and voters keep hearing Biden ads reminding them Trump is a crooked underachiever, do you think the swing voters could keep ignoring it?Bret: Hillary Clinton ran on precisely that in 2016. She lost because she came across as the entitled representative of a self-dealing system, and he won because he came across as a disrupter of that system. That’s exactly the scenario Democrats risk repeating now.Would you mind if we switched to a more local topic? Wondering what you think of the mounting legal jeopardy of your mayor, Eric Adams.Gail: Well, Bret, New Yorkers are not unaccustomed to seeing our mayors skating around some corruption pond. But I have to admit this one is pretty mind-boggling. We’re engulfed in a crisis over the enormous influx of migrants, and now we’re engulfed with stories about Adams’s relationships with Turkish leaders … who are, surprise surprise, into Manhattan real estate.Bret: The question that always hovered over Adams’s mayoralty was whether it would send him to greater heights or to jail.Gail: And meanwhile the F.B.I. raided the home of his chief campaign fund-raiser, Brianna Suggs. We will be hearing a lot more about this, I’m sure. But the immediate reaction was, she’s 25 and she’s his chief campaign fund-raiser?Bret: Ageism. Just terrible.Gail: My prediction: More trouble to come. Your thoughts?Bret: Sounds bad for Adams, for which I’m sorry since I still think that he was the best of the lot in the last mayoral election. But it’s also worth remembering that the F.B.I. has a very mixed record of going after prominent political figures. Remember when Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman, was going to be charged with sex trafficking? Gaetz is an otherwise despicable person, but that case was a travesty and ultimately collapsed. Or the way the F.B.I. went after Ted Stevens, the Alaska senator, destroying his political career shortly before his death? That was another travesty, in which prosecutors hid exculpatory evidence and engaged in “reckless professional misconduct,” according to a Justice Department report. The F.B.I. was just as bad in its investigations of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.Which is all to say: Innocent until proven guilty.Gail: Yipes, I’m not going to argue that one. Did you note that one of the City Council winners here in New York is Yusef Salaam, one of the Central Park Five, who spent nearly seven years in jail for a sexual assault that he didn’t commit?Bret: I hadn’t. I need to start paying attention to New York City politics. They’re getting interesting again.Gail: Now looking forward, what’s your bet on Congress achieving its very basic-minimal job of passing a budget before we’re … budget-less? Think the dreaded new House speaker, Mike Johnson, can make the grade?Bret: Burn-it-all-down conservatism is much easier to practice from the bleachers than from the field. Johnson will have to come up with a budget, he’ll have to learn how to compromise, and he’ll have to learn, like Kevin McCarthy before him, that the price of being a political grown-up is bending to realities that don’t bend toward you.Most of us learn that lesson pretty early in life. Speaker Johnson is only 51, so he still has time.Gail: Ah, if only we didn’t have to be stuck in his classes.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      A Trump-Biden Rematch Is the Election We Need

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      Joe Biden versus Donald Trump is not the choice America wants. But it is the choice we need to face.Yes, both men are unpopular, remarkably so. Only a third of Americans view President Biden favorably, and two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters want to nominate someone else for the presidency (no one in particular, just someone else, please). Trump is the overwhelming favorite to become the Republican nominee for the third consecutive time, but his overall approval rating is lower than Biden’s. And while 60 percent of voters don’t want to put Trump back in the White House, 65 percent don’t want to hand Biden a second term, either. The one thing on which Americans seem to agree is that we find a Biden-Trump 2024 rematch entirely disagreeable.This disdain may reflect the standard gripes about the candidates. (One is too old, the other too Trump.) But it also may signal an underlying reluctance to acknowledge the meaning of their standoff and the inescapability of our decision. A contest between Biden and Trump would compel Americans to either reaffirm or discard basic democratic and governing principles. More so than any other pairing, Biden versus Trump forces us to decide, or at least to clarify, who we think we are and what we strive to be.Trump is running as an overtly authoritarian candidate — the illusion of pivots, of adults in the room, of a man molded by the office, is long gone. He is dismissive of the law, except when he can harness it for his benefit; of open expression, except when it fawns all over him; and of free elections, except when they produce victories he likes. He has called for the “termination” of the Constitution based on his persistent claims of 2020 electoral fraud, and according to The Washington Post, in a new term he would use the Justice Department as an instrument of vengeance against political opponents. We know who Trump is and what he offers.Biden’s case to the electorate — for 2020, 2022 and 2024 — has been premised on the preservation of American democratic traditions. In the video announcing his 2020 campaign, he asserted that “our very democracy” was at stake in the race against Trump. In a speech two months before the midterm vote last year, he asserted that Trump and his allies “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundation of our Republic.” And the video kicking off his 2024 re-election bid featured multiple scenes of the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “The question we are facing,” Biden said, “is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom.” That is our choice in 2024.Like so many others, I also wish we could avoid that choice or at least defer it. As the journalist Amy Walter has put it, “Swing voters would rather eat a bowl of glass than have to choose between Trump and Biden again.” Well, it may be time to grab a spoon and unroll the gauze. When half the country believes democracy isn’t working well, when calls for political violence have become commonplace, when the speaker of the House is an election denier, it is time to face what we risk becoming and to accept or reject it. We have no choice but to choose.Even if some combination of poor health and legal proceedings somehow pushed Biden and Trump aside — and some blandly likable generic candidates took their places — we could not simply rewind the past eight years and return to our regularly scheduled programming. America would still face the choices and temptations that Biden and Trump have come to represent; the choice would not change, even if the faces did.A recent New York Times/Siena College poll that shows Trump leading Biden in five battleground states also asked registered voters which candidate they trust on key questions. Trump won on the economy, immigration and national security; Biden received higher marks on just two issues. The first was abortion, a core priority among Democratic voters and one that proved powerful in last year’s midterms and the off-year elections and ballot initiatives last Tuesday in states like Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia.The second issue on which Biden commands greater trust? By a slim margin, it is democracy. This advantage is pronounced among Black voters, who trust Biden over Trump by 77 to 16 percent on democracy, and Hispanic voters, who prefer Biden by 53 to 38 percent. (White voters, by contrast, sided with Trump 50 to 44 percent on that issue.) The protection of American democracy offers a potentially resonant message for Biden, precisely among parts of the Democratic coalition that he can ill afford to lose.Oddly, even as the electorate seems to want little to do with either of these two candidates — let alone with both at the same time — Biden and Trump seem to need each other. Biden’s case for saving American democracy loses some urgency if Trump is not in the race; I can’t imagine, say, a Nikki Haley nomination eliciting as much soul-of-America drama from the president. Similarly, Trump’s persecution complex, always robust, is strengthened with Biden as his opponent; the former president can make the case that his indictments and trials represent the efforts of the incumbent administration — and Trump’s political rival — to keep him down. After all, neither Gretchen Whitmer nor Gavin Newsom runs the Department of Justice.Of course, we already faced this choice — and made it — in 2020. Why insist on a do-over? Because a country approaching its 250th birthday does not have the luxury of calling itself an experiment forever; this is the moment to assess the results of that experiment. Because Jan. 6 was not the final offensive by those who would overrun the will of voters. Because a lone Trump victory in 2016 could conceivably be remembered as an aberration if it were followed by two consecutive defeats, but a Trump restoration in 2024 would confirm America’s slide toward authoritarian rule and would render Biden’s lone term an interregnum, a blip in history’s turn. And we must choose again because the fever did not break; instead, it threatens to break us.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Should Joe Manchin Run for President?

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      In the emotional life of the liberal mediasphere, there was so little space between the release of the New York Times/Siena poll showing President Biden losing to Donald Trump handily across a range of swing states (doom! doom!) and the Democratic overperformance in Tuesday’s elections (sweet relief!) that one of the striking features of the polling passed with relatively little comment.This was the remarkably strong showing for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent candidacy. When added to the swing-state polls, Kennedy claimed 24 percent of registered voters against 35 percent for Trump and 33 percent for Biden.That number is notable along two dimensions. First, for showing Kennedy drawing close to equally from both likely nominees rather than obviously spoiling the race for one or the other. Second, for its sheer Ross Perotian magnitude, its striking-distance closeness to the major party candidates.Yet I don’t see a lot of people entertaining the “Kennedy wins!” scenario just yet, and for good reasons: Most notable third-party candidates eventually diminish, he may be artificially inflated by his famous name, and his crankishness is so overt (whereas Perot’s was gradually revealed) that many voters currently supporting him in protest of a Biden-Trump rematch may well abandon him after a light Googling.The world being strange, we shouldn’t take this conventional wisdom as gospel. But if we assume that Kennedy’s 24 percent is mostly about people seeking a third option rather than explicitly supporting his worldview, the immediate question is whether someone else should try to fill that space.Someone like, say, Joe Manchin, the West Virginia senator who spiced up his announcement bowing out of a re-election bid with some talk about “traveling the country” for a movement to “mobilize the middle.”There is already a potential vehicle for a Manchin candidacy in the No Labels movement, along with an effort to draft Manchin and Mitt Romney to run together, with Romney at the top of the ticket.But the ideal ticket would probably lead with Manchin. For an independent run, his branding as a moderate with strong ideological differences with the left seems stronger than Romney’s branding as a conservative with strong moral differences with Trump.When elites pine for a third-party candidate, they usually imagine someone like Michael Bloomberg, a fiscal conservative and social liberal. But the sweet spot for a third-party candidate has always been slightly left of center on economics and moderate to conservative on cultural issues — and that describes Manchin better than it does most American politicians. (It arguably described Biden once but not as he’s evolved in the past decade.)The West Virginian could run, authentically, as an unwoke supporter of universal health care, fiscal restraint and a middle ground on guns and abortion. That’s a better basis for a run than Bloombergism or Kennedy’s courtship of the fringes, with a chance of claiming votes from Never Trumpers and the center left.But is it worth the effort? Stipulate that Kennedy will remain in the race and hold on to some share of the vote that might otherwise be available to a third-party moderate. Then the question becomes whether both Trump and Biden could fall below their 35 and 33 percent levels in the Times/Siena poll, giving Manchin a plurality of the popular vote and a chance at an Electoral College win (because merely deadlocking the Electoral College would just send the race to the House, where — pending the results in 2024 — Trump would probably prevail).In a polarized landscape, that kind of mutual G.O.P. and Democratic collapse seems unlikely. But if you were drawing up a scenario for it to happen, it might resemble the one we’re facing — in which one candidate seems manifestly too old for the job and the other might be tried and convicted before the general election. Such a landscape seems as if it should summon forth a responsible alternative. Confronting the American people with a Trump-Biden-Kennedy choice would be a remarkable dereliction by our political elites.But comes the response from anxious liberals: Isn’t an even greater dereliction for a Democrat — however ornery and moderate — to embark on a run that could help re-elevate Trump to the White House?Let’s allow that it might be, but then let’s also allow that, if current polling holds, it’s not running an alternative to Biden that seems most likely to put Trump back in the presidency.That Trump-friendly polling may change. But it’s entirely possible to begin an independent candidacy and then suspend it (just ask Perot) if the situation looks entirely unpropitious. Which is what I’d advise Manchin to consider, if the donors and infrastructure are there: a patriotic attempt, to be abandoned if it’s going nowhere, but to be seen through if enough of the country desires a different choice.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

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      For Both Trudeau and Biden, Polls Suggest an Uphill Political Path

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      The economy, and particularly inflation, has soured voters on both leaders, polls indicate, though well in advance of upcoming votes.When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Biden next meet, they will have something to commiserate over: their dismal standings in polls.President Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have seen their poll ratings slump.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesFor months now, Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party has been rapidly sinking in public opinion surveys, while more recent polls suggest that the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre would win any election held now.Similarly, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found that Mr. Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states.[Read: Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds][The detailed Times/Siena Poll data]Comparing the political situations in Canada and the United States is a fraught business because of a variety of differences between the countries and their political systems. And, of course, Americans don’t vote for another year, and Canada’s next federal election is likely to be two years off.But disaffected voters in both countries share a major concern: inflation, and the economy in general.“There’s ample evidence that inflation is destructive to an incumbent government’s performance and how people feel about it,” David Coletto, the chairman and chief executive of Abacus Data, told me.Mr. Coletto’s latest poll found that 39 percent of committed voters would vote for the Conservatives and 26 percent would vote Liberal, while the New Democrats were backed by 18 percent of those voters. (In Quebec, the Bloc Québécois was supported by 34 percent of committed voters.)That is a long way down for Mr. Trudeau from his early days as prime minister, when his leadership approval ratings hit an eye-watering 73 percent in one poll. The current Abacus poll found that 53 percent of respondents had a negative view of Mr. Trudeau, with just 29 percent holding a favorable view.Many factors, Mr. Coletto said, contribute to that dissatisfaction, but inflation, higher interest rates, housing costs and a general feeling of ennui about the economy are at the top.Voters polled in the Times/Siena survey, by a 59 percent to 37 percent margin — the largest gap relating to any issue in the survey — said they had more trust in Mr. Trump than Mr. Biden on the economy.Some of the criticism of Mr. Trudeau’s economic record, Mr. Coletto said, is based on perceptions that don’t match reality. In an earlier Abacus survey, Mr. Coletto found that most Canadians incorrectly believed that inflation was higher in Canada than in other countries. International Monetary Fund statistics for October show that Canada’s 3.6 percent rate is well below Germany’s 6.3 percent or France’s 5.6. Similarly, Mr. Biden gets little or no credit for the significant job creation under his watch.“But it doesn’t calm nerves to say, ‘Folks, things are good here relatively speaking,’ when relative to where they were five years ago, things are not better,” Mr. Coletto said. “And that’s how people evaluate their situation because people don’t live in those other countries where inflation still remains very high.”High housing prices, inflation and interest rates are all weighing down Mr. Trudeau’s poll numbers.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressThe other big factor for Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Coletto said, is simply that many voters are tiring of a leader like him, who has been around since 2015 and led his party through three successful elections. Mr. Biden may only be in his first term as president, but he has been a national political figure since first being elected to the Senate 50 years ago.Mr. Biden’s age, 80, is also an issue. In the Times/Siena survey, 71 percent of respondents said he was “too old” to be effective as president. Only 39 percent thought that of Mr. Trump, who is 77.“Inflation kills governments plus time kills governments,” Mr. Coletto said.While the standing of Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal government has never before dipped this low in the polls, there have been other periods when his popularity has ebbed, only to recover. And relatively few Liberals have publicly suggested it might be time for the prime minister to step aside despite his repeated vow to fight the next election. Similarly, calls for Mr. Biden to retire from prominent Democrats remain limited.“Is the prime minister going to stay, or go?” Mr. Coletto said. “I have no idea. But where his leadership is today is a very different place than it was five months ago.”Trans CanadaNew Zealand’s curling team is living in the Chartwell Colonel Belcher Retirement Residence while it trains in Canada.Todd Korol for The New York TimesThe latest, and youngest, residents of the Chartwell Colonel Belcher Retirement Residence in Calgary are the members of New Zealand’s curling team, who have come to Canada to hone their skills.The trial of David DePape, who the police say broke into Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and bludgeoned her husband in 2022, when she was still speaker of the House, is underway. Mr. DePape, a Canadian, was living illegally in the United States at the time. His lawyer is not contesting prosecutors’ evidence.Following its bankruptcy filing, WeWork closed four Canadian locations. A Canadian real estate investor told The New York Times that the bankruptcy signified the end of projections that flexible office space would one day account for a significant portion of commercial office rentals.Marcel Dzama, the Winnipeg-born artist, spoke with Julia Halperin about his collection of 250 handmade masks.Kathleen Mansfield, a Toronto pharmacist, is among a group of people who told The Times Magazine about why they wanted space to be their final resting place.A first-class dinner menu from the Titanic dated April 11, 1912, which was found in a photo album from the 1960s that once belonged to a community historian in Dominion, Nova Scotia, is expected to sell for upward of $86,000 at auction.A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.How are we doing?We’re eager to have your thoughts about this newsletter and events in Canada in general. Please send them to nytcanada@nytimes.com.Like this email?Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up here. More

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      Ohio Voted to Protect Abortion Rights. Could Florida Be Next?

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      A coalition of groups collecting petition signatures for a ballot protecting abortion rights says its fund-raising got a boost after the Ohio results.Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, campaigns to protect abortion rights have galvanized voters in state after state. It has become Democrats’ most successful issue ahead of an uncertain 2024 election cycle — and their biggest hope, especially after voters in Ohio approved on Tuesday a measure to enshrine abortion rights in the State Constitution.That triumphant streak has propelled campaigns for similar abortion measures in swing, or potentially swing, states, including Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania. But none might be as tantalizing a prize as Florida, which has moved increasingly out of Democrats’ grasp in electoral contests.But getting a question on next year’s ballot in the state is hardly guaranteed.Like in Ohio, Florida’s government is controlled by Republicans. Also like Ohio, Florida has put in place a six-week abortion ban, with its enactment pending approval by the state’s Supreme Court. (That case centers on Florida’s existing 15-week ban, but affirming that restriction would then trigger the six-week ban approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis in April.)Abortion rights supporters reacted after the ballot measure in Ohio passed. Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe parallels between the two states give Florida organizers hope for success, despite steep obstacles that include a court review of the proposed ballot measure and a costly petition-gathering process. If voters in Florida get to weigh in on the abortion question, organizers say, they too are likely to want to protect their rights.“Florida has always been a deeply libertarian state,” said Anna Hochkammer, executive director of the Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition. “‘Find your tribe, find your people, live your life — we’ll leave you alone.’ It’s part of Floridian culture. And Floridians reject outright that the government should be involved in these decisions. It is deeply offensive to Floridians’ sense of independence and freedom.”Since June 2022, when Roe was overturned, states have given voters a direct say on abortion access, either to protect abortion rights, weaken them or explicitly exclude them from state constitutions. Kansas, Kentucky and Michigan all voted to expand or maintain abortion rights.In Florida, a coalition of groups under the umbrella organization of Floridians Protecting Freedom, including Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, has collected a little more than half of the nearly 900,000 petition signatures it needs for a ballot measure that aims to limit “government interference with abortion” before a fetus is considered viable, which is often around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion was legal up to 24 weeks in Florida until last year.The coalition had collected about $9 million by the end of September but says its next report will show that more than $12 million has been raised. Most donations have come from Florida, with limited interest so far from the out-of-state donors who propelled campaigns in Ohio and elsewhere.The coalition raised more than $300,000 on Wednesday after the Ohio victory, Ms. Hochkammer said, with more people clicking through the group’s fund-raising emails or taking calls.State Senator Lori Berman of Florida speaking at a news conference in March to voice her opposition to the state’s near total abortion ban.Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat, via Associated Press“The phones started ringing, and pledges started coming in,” she said. “I think that there were a lot of people that were sitting on their money, waiting to see what happened in Ohio. And we had a great day.”Among the places where volunteers and paid petition-gatherers have found eager supporters are screenings of the “Barbie” movie and the Taylor Swift Eras Tour movie, both of which have feminism as a key theme and strong female leads, said Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates.The coalition still needs to collect — and the state must validate — about 400,000 more signatures by Feb. 1, a difficult and expensive task.The ballot language must also be approved by the conservative-leaning Florida Supreme Court. The state’s Republican attorney general, Ashley Moody, announced a challenge to the measure last month.She and several groups that oppose abortion have argued that the measure is too broad, vague and misleading. Florida requires that ballot questions be clear and limited to a single subject.“This effort to hoodwink the Florida electorate should be rebuffed,” Ms. Moody wrote in a legal brief filed Oct. 31.The ballot question, which would include a summary of the amendment that would be added to the State Constitution if the initiative passes, would read in part, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.” The question does not adequately define “viability”; whether “the patient’s health” would include mental health; and who would be considered a “health care provider,” Ms. Moody argued.“It’s abortion on demand for any reason,” said John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, a conservative Christian group. “It’s not only extreme, but it’s deceptive — and that’s a problem.”Mr. Stemberger said there was “a very good chance” that the State Supreme Court, whose ideological balance has shifted from liberal to conservative, could strike down the amendment. If not, his organization and others have already formed a political committee, Florida Voters Against Extremism, to prepare for a campaign.“Ohio is just a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We have to go back to the drawing board and explain to people why unborn children are valuable, why adoption is always the better option.”Unlike in Ohio, where protecting abortion rights passed with about 57 percent of the vote, Florida requires citizen-led ballot initiatives to obtain more than 60 percent of the vote to pass. A University of North Florida poll found last year that 60 percent of residents opposed the 15-week ban after they were told that it does not include exceptions for rape or incest.Ms. Hochkammer said the coalition’s polling suggested that more than 70 percent of Floridians supported the abortion rights measure, including 64 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of voters who supported former President Donald J. Trump.Florida voters have tended to support ballot measures championing liberal causes, even while also electing Republican leaders who in many cases later watered down or undermined the implementation of those measures once in office.Until recently, Florida was considered the nation’s largest presidential battleground, with elections decided by tiny margins and former President Barack Obama winning the state twice. But Republicans have been making gains: Mr. Trump won by more than three percentage points in 2020, and Governor DeSantis by 19 points, a landslide, last year.Still, significant citizen-led constitutional measures have done well once they have overcome the hurdles to make it onto the ballot.In 2020, voters backed a $15 hourly minimum wage — and Mr. Trump. In 2018, they voted to restore felons’ voting rights — and for Mr. DeSantis. In 2016, they voted to legalize medical marijuana — and for Mr. Trump.“We are not a deeply conservative, extremist state,” Ms. Hochkammer said. “We are a deeply gerrymandered state, and the fact that our divided election results have been skewing a certain way should not mislead people about what the political appetite is in Florida.” More

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      As Haley Rises, the Clock Is Ticking on Taking Down Trump

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      Nikki Haley has had three solid debates, has ample cash and has climbed in the polls. She’s still banking on a breakthrough to catch up to the front-runner.In the Republican nomination contest, even five-inch stilettos might not be enough to overcome the towering figure of Donald J. Trump.For a third time on Wednesday night, Nikki Haley won praise for her deft performance on a Republican primary debate stage.Over the course of the two-hour face-off, Ms. Haley displayed her foreign policy credentials, parried attacks on her record and even transformed her shoes into a campaign weapon. When Vivek Ramaswamy, Ms. Haley’s most aggressive antagonist, derided her as “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels,” Ms. Haley was ready to rise above.Literally, at least, if not figuratively.“They’re five-inch heels,” she said, standing tall in her spiky black shoes. “And they’re not for a fashion statement. They’re for ammunition.”Still, months of campaigning, a series of strong debate performances, healthy campaign accounts and rising numbers in surveys of early voting states haven’t been enough to put Ms. Haley within striking distance of Mr. Trump, who remains the dominant front-runner. While Ms. Haley’s support has increased, particularly in Iowa, voters have yet to flock to her candidacy in overwhelming numbers. A number of megadonors have taken a wait-and-see approach, keeping an eye on Ms. Haley but remaining on the sidelines.Now, a little less than 10 weeks before Iowa voters cast the first ballots in the caucuses there, the clock is ticking.“The momentum is clearly there, but momentum is a very elusive thing,” said Kevin Madden, a former Republican operative who worked on Mitt Romney’s 2012 and 2008 presidential campaigns. “How does she turn it into an avalanche — 1,236 delegates to secure the nomination at the convention? The blueprint for that has yet to be unveiled.”Ms. Haley’s backers say that Wednesday’s performance should help her continue to make inroads — drawing major donors and gaining support among voters eager for an alternative to Mr. Trump.Fred Zeidman, a Texas businessman who has been one of Ms. Haley’s biggest fund-raisers since the start, said he fielded calls on Wednesday night from people who were “ready to get out their checkbooks.”Onstage, she showed her “substantive” knowledge on policy issues and kept her cool “even when her mettle was tested by Vivek,” he said.Beyond her confrontations with Mr. Ramaswamy, Ms. Haley seized opportunities to demonstrate her foreign policy experience and political acumen and continue making her general election pitch. While her male opponents tried to soften their tone on abortion — the debate came a day after Democrats successfully leveraged the issue against Republican candidates in the off-year elections this week — Ms. Haley simply repeated the conciliatory message of compassion she has been pushing for months.And when it came to international affairs, she offered a rejoinder that none of her rivals could match. When Mr. DeSantis said that as president, he “would be telling” Benjamin Netanyahu to eliminate Hamas after the horrific Oct. 7 attack, Ms. Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, immediately made it clear she had already delivered the message to the Israeli prime minister.“The first thing I said to him when it happened was I said, ‘Finish them,’” Haley said.Yet Ms. Haley faces a significant climb. One recent poll of Iowa had Ms. Haley tied at 16 percent support with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — with Mr. Trump 27 points ahead. Part of her challenge is the crowded field, which has made it more difficult for any single candidate to consolidate support. And plenty of donors, of course, have stuck with Mr. Trump: On Thursday, Bernie Marcus, the Home Depot founder, who had not committed to matching his previous financial support for the former president, announced he would be backing his third presidential bid.Ms. Haley’s supporters say that the race remains fluid and that there is still time for the field to winnow into a Haley-Trump matchup in South Carolina, her home state and the third on the nominating calendar. They believe that Ms. Haley can emerge as the central alternative to Mr. Trump, even if her main primary rival — Mr. DeSantis — remains in the race.A close second-place finish — or even capturing the biggest vote share in Iowa after Mr. Trump — could catapult Ms. Haley into New Hampshire and the contests that follow, attracting fresh support and prompting some rivals to bow out, argue her aides and surrogates.Ms. Haley’s team has been trying to leverage her unique profile. The only woman on the stage, she stands out by definition.Campaign aides and surrogates describe women as some of her most critical enthusiastic boosters, donors and volunteers. “Women for Nikki” groups have been expanding across the country since her campaign began in February, largely based on word-of-mouth and friends reaching out to friends, campaign aides and volunteers said. They now include spinoffs for young mothers, students and military spouses.“This is being driven by a momentum because of who she is and how she connects with people,” said Jennifer Nassour, a regional co-chairwoman of the “Women for Nikki” coalition. On the campaign trail, both men and women are quick to cite their excitement for the possibility of the first female president, but they argue that Ms. Haley’s qualifications, competence and projection of calmness in the face of chaos are driving their support.“I want to see a woman that will fight for our country and put our country first, and that’s what she did when she was at the U.N., and I believe that’s what she will do,” said Noel Searles, 75, a retired sales manager who recently listened to her speak at a diner in Londonderry, N.H.Yet, in some ways, Ms. Haley has been caught in a circular cycle. Some of the Republican Party’s largest donors have been cautious, expressing interest but wanting to see if she can capture enough support among primary voters to make a serious run at Mr. Trump. Supporters of Ms. Haley argue that the backing of major party donors could help her consolidate support by nudging some rivals toward the exits.As the race heads toward Iowa, one advantage Ms. Haley has is money. Between July 1 and the end of September — the most recent numbers available in federal campaign finance filings — she raised $11 million across her political committees, a steady increase over the two previous quarters.What’s more, her campaign has kept costs low: In the third quarter, her campaign spent $3.5 million, about 43 cents of every dollar it took in. That is a marked contrast with Senator Tim Scott’s presidential campaign, which spent $2.70 of every dollar it received, and Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, whose spending slowed over the quarter but still leveled out spending nearly every dollar it took in.As of Thursday, the campaign had not itself bought any advertising time. (A super PAC backing Ms. Haley has spent more than $22 million on advertising in early primary states, according to an analysis by AdImpact, a media-tracking firm.)There are some signs major donors are turning their attention to her. Harlan Crow, a wealthy real estate developer, hosted a fund-raiser for her in October with well-connected real estate and oil and gas donors in attendance. Former Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois, a top giver to Mr. DeSantis, transferred his allegiance to Ms. Haley after the first debate. Last week, one of former Vice President Mike Pence’s top donors — the Arkansas poultry magnate Ron Cameron — said he would back her, after Mr. Pence dropped out of the race.Arun Agarwal, a Haley donor and textiles executive in Dallas, expressed optimism more key backers would follow. He said he received several texts from major Texas donors as the debate progressed asking what they could do to help. Mr. Agarwal added that he had seen this slow and steady rise before: He first reached out to Ms. Haley sometime around 2004 when he came across a news article of her long-shot bid for the South Carolina State House. To his surprise, she won that race.There were such “high expectations going into last night and she met them,” he said. “We need to get off the sidelines and start supporting what we believe in.” More