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      Black Voters’ Shift to Trump Is a Warning Sign for Biden, Strategists Say

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      New York Times/Siena College polling painted a worrisome picture of the president’s standing with a crucial constituency. Democratic strategists warned that the erosion could threaten his re-election.Black voters are more disconnected from the Democratic Party than they have been in decades, frustrated with what many see as inaction on their political priorities and unhappy with President Biden, a candidate they helped lift to the White House just three years ago.New polls by The New York Times and Siena College found that 22 percent of Black voters in six of the most important battleground states said they would support former President Donald J. Trump in next year’s election, and 71 percent would back Mr. Biden.The drift in support is striking, given that Mr. Trump won just 8 percent of Black voters nationally in 2020 and 6 percent in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. A Republican presidential candidate has not won more than 12 percent of the Black vote in nearly half a century.Mr. Biden has a year to shore up his standing, but if numbers like these held up across the country in November 2024, they would amount to a historic shift: No Democratic presidential candidate since the civil rights era has earned less than 80 percent of the Black vote.The new polling offers an early warning sign about the erosion of Mr. Biden’s coalition, Democratic strategists said, cautioning that the president will probably lose his re-election bid if he cannot increase his support from this pivotal voting bloc.A number of Democratic strategists acknowledged that the downbeat numbers in battleground states extended beyond Black voters to the party’s core constituencies, warning that the Biden campaign had to take steps to improve its standing, particularly with Black, Latino and younger voters. The Times/Siena polls surveyed registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster for Mr. Biden’s campaign in 2020, said the president’s political operation had not been “present enough” for Black Americans and younger voters.“I don’t think we’ve been voicing what we delivered to the African American community and particularly among younger African American men,” she said. “We have to get the numbers up and we have to get African American voters out to vote, and we have to get the numbers up with young people and we have to get them out to vote.”Mr. Biden’s numbers in the polling were particularly low among Black men. Twenty-seven percent of Black men supported Mr. Trump, compared with 17 percent of Black women.Still, there are signs that Democrats’ hurdles with Black voters, however alarming for the party, leave room for improvement. About a quarter of Black voters who said they planned to support Mr. Trump said there was some chance they would end up backing Mr. Biden.Cornell Belcher, who worked as a pollster for former President Barack Obama, said he doubted that many Black voters would switch their support to Mr. Trump. His bigger fear, he said, is that they might not vote at all.“I’m not worried about Trump doubling his support with Black and brown voters,” said Mr. Belcher, who focuses particularly on surveying voters of color. “What I am worried about is turnout.”He added: “But that’s what campaigns are for. We build a campaign to solve for that problem.”Karen Wright, a business consultant in McDonough, Ga., who immigrated to the United States from Jamaica in 1982, said she had always voted for Democrats, seeing them as the best option for younger immigrants, particularly those from predominantly Black countries like hers.Now, though, she believes Mr. Biden has not followed through on his campaign promises on immigration, worries that Democrats have gone too far in their embrace of L.G.B.T.Q. issues and faults them for books used in public education that she believes are too sexually explicit.Next year, Ms. Wright, 53, said that she planned to support Republicans up and down the ballot — and that she was not alone.“My clients are mostly Black,” she said. “They voted Democrat last year and they all said next election they’re going to vote Republican.”Angela Lang, the executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, a group that aims to mobilize Black voters in Milwaukee, said canvassers who worked with her organization had encountered an overwhelming number of Black voters who did not want to vote or did not see the value in turning out again.“People are like: ‘Why should I vote? I don’t feel like voting. Voting doesn’t do anything. My life hasn’t changed,’” she said, adding that the group had found that high prices and housing instability had fed people’s pessimism. “If your basic needs aren’t being met, it’s difficult to pay attention to politics and it’s difficult to have faith in that system when you voted before but you’re still struggling day to day.”Still, Cliff Albright, a veteran progressive organizer and a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said Democrats had time to get back on track. Black voters, he said, are responding to the same fears about economic and global uncertainty that many Americans are confronting.“We’re a year out from the election,” Mr. Albright said. “If you ask the very same people the same question a year from now, when the choice is very clear, the same 22 percent might have a very different answer.”He added: “Is there work to be done? Yes. But is the sky falling? No.”Black voters have long powered Democratic presidential victories. Their support in South Carolina in 2020 set Mr. Biden on the path to becoming the nominee. During the general election, Black voters were again crucial to his victory.Officials with Mr. Biden’s campaign acknowledge that they have work to do to shore up the president’s standing with Black voters. Erin Schaff for The New York TimesBiden campaign officials now say they recognize they have work to do with Black voters, and they and their allies have begun multimillion-dollar engagement campaigns targeting them.Last month, the Biden campaign started an organizing program in Black neighborhoods in Milwaukee. The campaign has dispatched top surrogates to hold events aimed at Black voters and has bought advertising on Black radio programs that promotes the “real difference for Black America” his policies have made. “President Biden is getting it done,” a narrator says. “For us. And that’s the facts.”Quentin Fulks, the deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden, said, “We know we have to get to work and we have to communicate with these voters and we have to do it earlier than ever before.”In interviews, Black voters said they had seen little progress from the Biden administration on some of their top priorities, including student loan debt relief, affordable housing and accountability for the police.Some worried that Mr. Biden was more focused on foreign policy than on domestic issues like inflation. In the Times/Siena poll, 80 percent of Black voters rated the economy as “only fair” or “poor.”A few said that their openness to supporting Mr. Trump, despite his offensive comments about Black communities and the 91 felony charges he faces in several criminal cases, reflected their disaffection with Mr. Biden and his party more than any real affinity for the former president.Keyon Reynolds-Martin, a father of one in Milwaukee, praised what he saw as Mr. Trump’s prioritizing of the economy and domestic policy, recalling the stimulus checks he received during the pandemic. Mr. Trump initially did not support the relief checks, which were spearheaded by Democrats. He later affixed his signature to them, representing the first time a president’s name had appeared on an Internal Revenue Service disbursement.Mr. Reynolds-Martin, 25, said he planned to vote for Mr. Trump next fall, when he casts his first ballot ever.Of Mr. Biden, he said, “He’s not giving money to help the United States, but he’s giving money to other countries,” adding, “At least Donald Trump was trying to help the United States.”Talitha McLaren, 45, a home health aide in Philadelphia, said she was undecided about whether to vote in 2024.She worries about a total erosion of democracy under a second Trump administration, but she is also frustrated with Mr. Biden and his party for failing to tackle rising costs that have not kept pace with her income and for not providing help with her student loan debt. On Tuesday, she plans to vote for the Democrat running for mayor of her hometown.“Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to support the Democrats,” she said. “But they haven’t won me over yet on what they’re trying to do for the country. Because what they’re doing now ain’t working.”Alyce McFadden More

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      Times/Siena College Polls: Methodology and How We Conducted Them

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      The Times/Siena College battleground polls released on Sunday and Monday were conducted over the past week in six swing states that are likely to decide the election: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Five of the states were won by Donald J. Trump in 2016 and then flipped by Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020. Nevada, which has always been a close state, came down to less than one percentage point in the 2022 U.S. Senate election.These states also contain some of the coalitions that will be crucial next fall: younger, more diverse voters in states like Arizona, Georgia and Nevada; and white working-class voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin who helped swing the election to Trump in 2016, and were central to Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory. They also provide some geographic diversity.We interviewed 600 respondents in each state to ensure we had a large enough sample to speak to specific subgroups of voters within these states, including age, race and ethnicity, income, education level, and party affiliation. Taken together, these 3,600 respondents represent our largest sample size of swing state voters to date. This also includes more than 700 undecided voters, a group that will be even more consequential within these crucial states.This is not the first time we have focused on swing states this early in an election cycle. In 2019, the poll explored a similar set of states, reflecting the battleground at the time. The political moment was slightly different, with Democrats in the thick of a nominating contest that split the party between liberals like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and a moderate in Mr. Biden — and Mr. Trump was the incumbent president to beat.However, the goals of that poll were similar to this one. As Americans in key states across the political spectrum weigh their options, these polls shed light on the issues driving the election and voters’ appetites for the leading candidates. More

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      Trump May Not Need a Coup This Time

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      Gail Collins: Bret, I know you’re busy writing about your reporting trip to Israel, and I am looking forward to reading all your thoughts. But, gee, can we talk about the Times-Siena poll on the presidential race that came out on Sunday? Donald Trump is ahead in almost all the critical states.Yow. Pardon me while I pour myself a drink.Bret Stephens: Nice to be home. Please pour me one while you’re at it.For readers who don’t know the gory details of the poll, here they are: Across six battleground states, Trump leads President Biden 48 percent to 44 percent among registered voters. In the crucial swing states that Biden won last time, Trump is ahead in five — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania — while Biden leads only in Wisconsin. Biden is losing support from young voters, Hispanic voters, Black voters — constituencies Democrats have depended on for decades to overcome the longstanding Republican advantage among whites.Women voters favor Biden by eight percentage points, 50 percent to 42 percent, but men favor Trump by a far wider 18-point spread: 55 percent to 37 percent. (I guess that’s another definition for the term “manspreading.”) On the economy, voters prefer Trump over Biden by a 22-point margin. And a whopping 71 percent think Biden is too old to be president, as opposed to just 39 percent for Trump.Gail: Whimper, whimper.Bret: Basically, this poll is to Biden’s second-term ambitions what sunlight is to morning fog. Isn’t it time for him to bow out gracefully and focus his remaining energies on the crises of the moment, particularly Ukraine and the Middle East, instead of gearing up for a punishing campaign while setting the country up for Trump’s catastrophic comeback?Gail: Well, you and I both hoped he wouldn’t run for re-election. But he did, and he is — and as I’ve said nine million times, he’s only three years older than Donald Trump and appears to be in much better physical condition.Bret: For all we know, Biden may be physically fitter than Alex Honnold and mentally sharper than Garry Kasparov, even if he’s hiding it well. But this poll is pretty much voters yelling, “We don’t think so.” Ignore it at your peril.How about putting in a good word for Dean Phillips, the Minnesota representative challenging Biden? Or at least urging the Biden team to lose Kamala Harris in favor of a veep pick more Americans would feel confident about as a potential president, like Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary?Gail: I’m not gonna argue about perfect-world scenarios. Harris might not be your ideal potential president — or mine — but dumping her from the ticket would suggest some historic degree of bad performance. And she really hasn’t done anything wrong.Bret: Harris could well be the best vice president ever, though she’s also hiding it well. But the point here is that voters are underwhelmed, and her presence on the ticket compounds Biden’s already abysmal numbers.Gail: I’m tormented by this whole national vision of Biden as an aging dolt while Trump plays the energetic orator. As our colleagues Michael Bender and Michael Gold pointed out recently, Trump’s had “a string of unforced gaffes, garble and general disjointedness” in his speeches lately.Bret: Trump has always been the Tsar Bomba of idiocy. But too many people seem more impressed by his rhetorical force than appalled by his moral and ideological destructiveness.Gail: Why does Biden have this terrible image while Trump’s his old, fun-under-multiple-indictments self?Bret: That’s a great question. As a matter of law, I think Trump belongs in jail. The political problem is that the indictments help him, because they play to his outlaw appeal. He wants to cast himself as the Josey Wales of American politics. His entire argument is that “the system” — particularly the Justice Department — is broken, biased and corrupt, so anything the system does against him is proof of its corruption rather than of his. And tens of millions of people agree with him.Gail: This is the world that grew up around us when The Riddler was more fun than Batman.Bret: Perfectly said. The good news in the Times-Siena poll is that Trump’s negatives are also very high. They’re just not as high as Biden’s. Which means Democrats could easily hold the White House with another candidate. But you seem reluctant to push the idea.Gail: Yeah, since Biden is very, very definitely running, I don’t see any point in whining about the fact that I wish he wasn’t. He’d still be 10 times a better president than Trump.Bret: I just refuse to believe Biden’s candidacy is inevitable. Democrats seem to have talked themselves into thinking that any primary challenge to Biden just guarantees an eventual Republican victory, since that’s what tends to happen to incumbent presidents, like George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. But the alternative is to watch Biden risk his single greatest accomplishment — defeating an incumbent Trump in the first place — by heedlessly running in the face of overwhelming public skepticism.Gail: What’s so frustrating is — Biden has a really fine record. The economy has picked up. He’s gotten a huge program passed for infrastructure projects like better roads and bridges. He’s always got the fight against global warming on his agenda. He stands up firmly for social issues most Americans support, like abortion rights.Bret: All the more reason for him to rest on his laurels and pass the baton to a younger generation. I can think of a half-dozen Democrats, particularly governors, who would trounce Trump in a general election just by showing up to the debate with a pulse and a brain. Let me just start with four: Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Jared Polis, Wes Moore ….Gail: I know Trump appears more energetic, but he’s really only a whole lot louder. Either way his multitudinous defects in character and policy really should make the difference.Bret: Hope you’re right. Fear you’re not.Gail: Sigh. Let’s change the subject. You’re in charge of Republicans — what’s your party going to do about the dreaded Senator Tommy Tuberville?Bret: For the record, I quit the G.O.P. more than five years ago.As for Tuberville, who is holding some 370 senior military promotions hostage because he objects to Pentagon policies on abortion, I suggest he should have a look at what just happened in Israel. The country just paid a dreadful price in lives in part because far-right politicians ignored the degradation of the country’s military readiness while they pursued their ideological fixations. I hope defense hawks like Lindsey Graham join forces with the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to change Senate rules and move the nominations to a vote.Speaking of Congress, your thoughts on the effort to censure Representative Rashida Tlaib over some of her rhetoric?Gail: Well, Representative Tlaib accused Israel of committing genocide. She’s also said that President Biden “supported” genocide of the Palestinians, a comment that was offensive to Biden while also, I think, hurting the Palestinian cause. But I wouldn’t want to see members of Congress distracted from the deeply serious issues at hand with a squabble about censorship, particularly one championed by folks like the dreaded Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.Bret: Readers won’t be surprised to know that I find Tlaib’s views wrong and repellent. Like Taylor Greene, she’s an embarrassment to her party and the House. But that’s exactly the reason I oppose efforts to censure her. One of the things that distinguishes free societies like America and Israel from dictatorships like Hamas’s in Gaza is that we stand for freedom of speech as a matter of course, while they suppress it. The right censure for Tlaib would be to get voted out of office, not muzzled by her colleagues.Gail: But let’s get back to that poll for a minute. I was fascinated by the fact that only 6 percent of the respondents identified themselves as union members. I think the unions have done great things for the working class and middle class in this country and I’m very much saddened by their dwindling influence.Bret: I’ve always been pro-union. They’re a powerful force for greater automation and an argument for free trade.Gail: Hissss …Bret: OK, that was my inner Alex P. Keaton speaking. But union leaders should at least stop to ask themselves why, if they’re so terrific, so many American workers are reluctant to join them. I feel that way about certain other self-regarding institutions, including much of the news media, that are so full of their own wonderfulness that they can’t figure out why people keep fleeing in droves.Gail: Bret, we’ve entered the November holiday season — really did enjoy the trick-or-treaters last week and was pleased to notice that the popular costumes in our neighborhood seemed to go more toward skeletons and ghosts than celebrities and pop culture heroes. On to Thanksgiving and then I’m gonna challenge you to come up with a list of things in the public world you’re thankful for.Bret: Pumpkin-spice lattes. Just kidding.Gail: Meanwhile, this is Republican debate week, featuring several people nobody’s really heard of and an absent Donald Trump. I guess your fave Nikki Haley is near the head of the pack, such as it is. Think she still has a whisper of a chance?Bret: Not sure. But you’ve somehow reminded me of a lovely poem by Adrienne Rich, which seems to capture both Haley’s candidacy and my daily struggles with coherent prose.You see a mantrying to think.You want to sayto everything:Keep off! Give him room!But you only watch,terrifiedthe old consolationswill get him at lastlike a fishhalf-dead from floppingand almost crawlingacross the shingle,almost breathingthe raw, agonizingairtill a wavepulls it back blind into the triumphantsea.It’s called “Ghost of a Chance.” Here’s me hoping Haley’s got more than that.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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      Voters Aren’t Believing in Bidenomics

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      A new Times/Sienna poll shows the president behind in five of six key states. Voters cite his economic track record, indicators notwithstanding.President Biden’s poll numbers are sagging in key states, a new Times/Siena poll shows. Voters are especially dissatisfied with his track record on the economy.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEconomic perceptions are hurting Biden more than everThere was little good news for President Biden in the latest Times/Siena poll of 2024 battlegrounds, which found him trailing Donald Trump in five of six key states one year before voters head to the polls. (That’s despite Trump being nearly as unpopular and fighting multiple legal battles; he is taking the stand on Monday in one of them. And, on PredictIt, which is watched by political experts, Biden holds a six-point lead on Trump.)A glaring weakness for Biden remains the economy, despite signs that it’s doing well and efforts by the White House to promote its accomplishments. Experts say it’s still possible for the president to make a comeback — but when it comes to economic issues, that’s a tough task.Just 2 percent of voters said the economy was excellent, the poll found. Worryingly for Biden, that discontent is being reflected in demographics crucial to his re-election: 48 percent of Black voters in the Times/Siena poll rated the economy as poor, as did 59 percent of voters under 30. Zero respondents in that age group in Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin rated the economy as excellent.Biden’s struggles are Trump’s gain. Likely voters trust the former president on the economy more than the current one by wide margins: 57 percent of those under 30 prefer Trump, as do 55 percent of Hispanics, 52 percent of women and a majority of people in every income bracket.Voters’ discontent comes despite numerous indicators that the economy is healthy, including a huge gain in third-quarter G.D.P. growth. And while Friday’s jobs data came in below expectations, the latest stats show that employers have been on a nearly three-year hiring spree.But inflation remains a sticking point. While the Fed isn’t likely to raise borrowing costs at its next rate-setting meeting in December, its policymakers haven’t closed the door to future hikes. (Some commentators have written that the studiously apolitical central bank could end up helping Trump get re-elected.)It’s unclear how Biden can turn around his fortunes. Multiple wars and global economic malaise are unlikely to stop weighing on the U.S. economy anytime soon. And voters appear to have soured on Biden himself, with an unnamed generic Democrat beating Trump by eight points.The poll prompted David Axelrod, the former Obama adviser, to openly muse about whether Biden should run for re-election. While conceding that it’s late for Democrats to change candidates, he wrote of Biden, “What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”A reminder: The DealBook Summit is on Nov. 29. Guests will include Elon Musk, who this weekend announced the launch of Grok, the first chatbot from his start-up xAI, which will draw on data from the X social network. You can apply to attend here.HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Here’s what to watch this week. Corporate earnings return to the fore after last week’s big gains for stocks and bonds. Wednesday will see results from the chip designer Arm and the media giants Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery; SoftBank, the Japanese tech investor, reports Thursday. Meanwhile, on Friday the University of Michigan will publish its latest consumer sentiment report, a key inflation signpost.Striking Hollywood actors weigh a new contract proposal by big studios. The SAG-AFTRA union said it had received a “last, best and final” offer that includes a substantial pay increase and more residual payments from streaming shows, The Times reports. South Korean stocks jump as short-selling is banned again. Stocks on the Kospi, Seoul’s biggest index, gained nearly 6 percent on Monday after the country reimposed a ban on betting against share prices to earn a profit. Critics said the eight-month prohibition, seemingly tied to elections next year, could deter overseas investors from buying Korean stocks.Berkshire Hathaway’s war chest reaches a record. Warren Buffett’s industrial conglomerate revealed in its latest earnings report that its cash balance now stands at $157 billion, giving the company ample financial ammunition for a big deal or more stock buybacks. But Berkshire also reported its first loss in a year as the paper value of stock holdings, including those in Apple, declined.Donors keep up pressure on universities over antisemitism The fight between Wall Street titans and universities over their handling of antisemitism on campus following last month’s Hamas attacks on Israel shows little sign of abating. The hedge fund manager Bill Ackman this weekend ramped up his criticism of Harvard, his alma mater, and donors continued to step back from the University of Pennsylvania.Ackman published an excoriating open letter to Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay. “Four weeks after the barbaric terrorist attacks of October 7th, I have lost confidence that you and the university will do what is required,” he wrote. Ackman said he had met with Harvard students and faculty last week, and wrote that “Jewish students are being bullied, physically intimidated, spat on” and assaulted.He called on the university to suspend those behind the abuse, even though the incidents have been referred to the police and the F.B.I.Gay has spoken out against the attacks and the abuse on campus. Last week, she appointed a group of advisers to determine how to counter antisemitism at Harvard. But Ackman sees these actions as insufficient. The university didn’t engage directly with Ackman’s latest criticism, referring instead to previous statements.Harvard’s diversity, equality and inclusion policy is also under scrutiny. Ackman pointed out that Harvard’s doesn’t explicitly include Jews, tapping into a growing argument on campuses and beyond. Adam Neufeld, a senior vice president at the Anti-Defamation League, told The Times last year that D.E.I. policies that don’t recognize Jews as a minority group reinforce the view that “Jews are not vulnerable.”Meanwhile, more donors are expressing their anger at Penn’s handling of antisemitism. They include Neuberger Berman’s Steve Eisman, a longtime benefactor, who told CNBC that he had asked that his family’s name be removed from a scholarship he had established at his alma mater. “I do not want my family’s name associated with the University of Pennsylvania, ever,” he said. The university newspaper reported that dozens more benefactors no longer want to be associated with the school.In related news: The authorities have opened a hate crime investigation after an Arab Muslim student was injured in a reported hit-and-run attack at Stanford; Israeli businesses are feeling the strain of the war.An epic new antitrust fight for GoogleGoogle is waging antitrust fights on many fronts, including a battle against the Justice Department over its dominance of online search.On Monday, the tech giant will square off in a San Francisco courtroom to defend its app store strategy against a familiar face in Silicon Valley antitrust circles: Epic Games, the publisher of Fortnite.Epic argues that Google is unfairly forcing Android users into its Play Store, where it collects a cut from in-app subscriptions and purchases. Most developers generally pay a roughly 15 percent surcharge on such purchases, though big ones like Epic pay the maximum 30 percent.Google “is using its size to do evil upon competitors, innovators, customers and users in a slew of markets it has grown to monopolize,” Epic says in its complaint. (Google counters that “Epic wants all the benefits of Android and Google Play without having to pay for them.”)Witnesses are set to include Sundar Pichai, Google’s C.E.O., and Tim Sweeney, Epic’s chief.It’s a similar case to Epic’s unsuccessful fight with Apple — but with key differences. Google, unlike Apple, allows phone makers to include alternative app stores on their devices and users to download apps directly. And it is testing a program to let developers use other payment systems in their apps for a smaller fee.And unlike the Apple case, which was decided by a judge, the Google lawsuit will be heard by a jury, adding a greater level of unpredictability.Epic is hoping things go better this time. The 2021 trial over its Apple claims ended with the game maker losing on most of its accusations, a decision that a federal appeals court backed this year. Meanwhile, Google has also reached settlements over the app store issue with both a group of state attorneys general and the dating app developer Match Group.“Big Finance is the problem” As climate activists increase pressure on oil majors to halt new fossil-fuel exploration and rein in production, they’re increasingly looking to enlist support from another industry: Big Finance.But it is a thorny problem, writes Vivienne Walt for DealBook, given that large asset managers have roundly rejected resolutions from climate-activist shareholders this year. “Big Oil is not the problem. Big Finance is the problem,” Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This, a shareholder activist group, told DealBook. “They tell oil companies, ‘Please continue with oil and gas as long as possible. We have your back.’”Wall Street has rebuffed climate measures at a record clip. On Monday, Follow This released its annual tally of proxy climate votes. It showed the biggest U.S. asset management firms — including BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity — siding with Big Oil on resolutions by activists that pushed the supermajors to commit to Paris accord emission reduction goals. The only (partial) support came from European investors including UBS and Allianz.It’s a sharp departure from a few years ago. Larry Fink, the C.E.O. of BlackRock, said in 2020 that climate change would be “the defining factor” in his firm’s investment decisions. A year later, BlackRock helped lead a board revolt at Exxon over what critics called a lackluster climate plan. This year, the world’s biggest asset manager rejected climate resolutions targeting the oil majors, including at Exxon. “Our role is not to replace the judgment of management and the board,” it said.The oil boom has been good business. With oil prices surging and a deal frenzy expected in the oil patch, Wall Street looks to reap billions in fees. It’s also backing new projects. Reclaim Finance, a French climate organization, notes that Citigroup and Bank of America funded tens of billions worth of oil exploration after they joined the U.N.-created Net Zero Banking Alliance in 2021. “We want them to stop giving new capital,” said Agathe Masson, the group’s stewardship campaigner in Paris.Lobbying continues behind the scenes. The Rev. Kirsten Spalding, vice president of the investor network for Ceres, a Boston-based climate organization, said financial firms are still being tough on Big Oil. “I’m hearing a lot about capital expenditure: How much are they moving into climate solutions? How are they accounting for emissions?” she said. THE SPEED READ DealsTelecom Italia agreed to sell its landline telephone network to KKR for $23.6 billion, a deal that may draw a legal challenge by the Italian company’s biggest shareholder, Vivendi. (Bloomberg)Saudi Arabia reportedly could buy a $5 billion stake in the Indian Premier League cricket competition at a $30 billion valuation. (Bloomberg)LVMH said it will buy the Los Angeles-based eyewear maker Barton Perreira, reportedly for about $80 million. (WSJ)PolicyWill the Treasury Department’s decision to increase the size of longer-term debt by less than expected prove a turning point for markets? (WSJ)“More Semiconductors, Less Housing: China’s New Economic Plan” (NYT)Best of the rest“The New Headache for Bosses: Employees Aren’t Quitting” (WSJ)How corporate America is adjusting to a world of higher rates after years of piling up on cheap debt. (FT)We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. More

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      Trump Indictments Haven’t Sunk His Campaign, but a Conviction Might

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      For Donald J. Trump, a new set of New York Times/Siena College polls captures a stunning, seemingly contradictory picture.His 91 felony charges in four different jurisdictions have not significantly hurt him among voters in battleground states. Yet he remains weaker than at least one of his Republican rivals, and if he’s convicted and sentenced in any of his cases, some voters appear ready to turn on him — to the point where he could lose the 2024 election.Mr. Trump leads President Biden in five key battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, according to the Times/Siena polls. He has eaten significantly into Mr. Biden’s advantages among younger, Black and Hispanic voters, many of whom retain positive views of the policies Mr. Trump enacted as president. And Mr. Trump appears to have room to grow, as more voters say they are open to supporting the former president than they are to backing Mr. Biden, with large shares of voters saying they trust Mr. Trump on the economy and national security. More

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      Israel’s ‘Large Attack’ on Gaza, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes.The Israeli military announced that its forces had fully encircled Gaza City and were carrying out “a significant operation” in the Gaza Strip late on Sunday.Mohammed Saber/EPA, via ShutterstockOn Today’s Episode:Israel Announces “Large Attack” as Communications Blackout Cuts Off GazaBlinken Meets With Palestinian and Iraqi Leaders in Bid to Contain Gaza WarTrump’s Credibility, Coherence and Control Face Test on Witness StandTrump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll FindsEmily Lang More

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      Swing State Voters Are Souring on Biden

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      Mooj Zadie and Marc Georges and Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicIn a major new campaign poll from The New York Times and Siena College, former President Donald J. Trump leads President Biden in five of the six battleground states likeliest to decide the 2024 presidential race. Widespread discontent with the state of the country and growing doubts about Biden’s ability to perform his job as president threaten to unravel the diverse coalition that elected him in 2020.Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, explains why the results are less a reflection of Trump’s growing strength than they are of Biden’s growing weaknesses.On today’s episodeNate Cohn, The New York Times’s chief political analyst.In contrast with four years ago, the poll finds a disengaged, disaffected and dissatisfied electorate, setting the stage for a potentially volatile campaign.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesBackground readingIn the Times/Siena poll, voters in battleground states said they trusted Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration.Here are detailed tables from the poll.Less engaged voters are Biden’s biggest problem.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Nate Cohn More

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      in Elections

      Democrats Express Deep Anxiety as Polls Show Biden Trailing Trump

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      President Biden’s team emphasized that polls have failed to predict the results of elections when taken a year ahead of time.White House officials on Sunday shrugged off weekend polling that showed President Biden trailing former President Donald J. Trump, even as Democrats said they were increasingly worried about Mr. Biden’s chances in 2024.The new polling from The New York Times and Siena College found Mr. Biden losing in one-on-one matchups with former President Donald J. Trump in five critical swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden is ahead by two percentage points in Wisconsin.Although the polling is worrisome for the president, Mr. Biden still has a year to campaign, which his team emphasized on Sunday. They noted that polls have historically failed to predict the results of elections when taken a year ahead of time.“Gallup predicted an eight-point loss for President Obama only for him to win handily a year later,” said Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for Mr. Biden’s campaign. “We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll.”Still, the results of the poll, and other recent surveys showing similar results, are prompting public declarations of doubts by Democrats.David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist who has expressed concerns about Mr. Biden before, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the new polling “will send tremors of doubt” through the party.“Only @JoeBiden can make this decision,” Axelrod wrote, referring to whether the president would drop out of the race. “If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”In a follow-up interview, Mr. Axelrod said he believed Mr. Biden, 80, had achieved a lot during the past three years but was rapidly losing support largely because of concern about how his age affects his performance.“Give me his record and chop 10 to 15 years off, I’d be really confident,” Mr. Axelrod said. “People judge him on his public performance. That’s what people see. That’s where the erosion has been. It lends itself to Republican messaging.”Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday that he was concerned “before these polls.”“And I’m concerned now,” he said.“These presidential races over the last couple of terms have been very tight,” he said. “No one is going to have a runaway election here. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, concentration, resources.”Donna Brazile, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee and a supporter of Mr. Biden, said, “don’t count out Joe Biden” on ABC’s “This Week” program. But she added that Democrats should be mindful of the polling from The Times.“I would say a wake-up call once again for Democrats to be reminded that they have to go back out there, pull the coalition that allowed Joe Biden to break new ground in 2020, especially in Arizona and Georgia, but more importantly to bring back that coalition,” she said. “Without that coalition, it’s going to be a very, very difficult race.”Mr. Munoz declined to comment on the specifics of the Times/Siena poll.Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, said in a memo released on Friday — before the Times poll was public — that it would be “crucial” for Mr. Biden to show strength among key parts of his coalition in order to win.The weekend poll results, including a 10-point deficit behind Mr. Trump in Nevada, strike at the heart of the argument the president’s campaign advisers have been making for a year: that voters will back Mr. Biden once they are presented with a clear choice between him and his predecessor.In her memo, Ms. Rodríguez said “voters will choose between the extremism, divisiveness and incompetence that extreme MAGA Republicans are demonstrating — and President Biden’s historic record of accomplishment.“The American people are on our side when it comes to that choice,” she wrote.Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, left, said in a memo released on Friday that it would be “crucial” for Mr. Biden to show strength among key parts of his coalition in order to win.Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times, via Getty ImagesThe Times polls presented voters with that choice, and many of them, including Democrats, said they would pick Mr. Trump if the election were held today.Already, there were signs that the campaign is scrambling to address the vulnerabilities on display in the poll among young, Black and Hispanic voters.Last month, the campaign quietly started two pilot programs aimed at bolstering support among Democrats in two key states, Arizona and Wisconsin. In each state, the campaign has hired 12 full-time staff members to test their assumptions about how Mr. Biden is viewed by particular groups and what he needs to do to earn their votes.In Arizona, the new staff members in two offices in Maricopa County will focus on Latino and female voters in that state. In Wisconsin, staff members will work out of an office in Milwaukee to evaluate the president’s message for Black and young voters in the state.Campaign officials say the idea is to use the next several months to test new ways of communicating to those voters. Those include the use of “microinfluencers” who are popular on social media platforms, and “relational” campaigning, in which the campaign reaches out to voters through their network of friends rather than impersonal ads.One of the central arguments of the Biden campaign is a belief that polls taken now, by definition, do not take into account the robust campaign that will unfold during the course of the next year.Mr. Biden has already generated a significant campaign war chest. The president and Vice President Kamala Harris have $91 million in cash on hand and are expected to raise hundreds of millions more for use during the general election campaign that will begin in earnest next summer.The president’s campaign aides say they are confident the polls will shift in Mr. Biden’s direction once that money is put to use attacking Mr. Trump (or another Republican, if Mr. Trump loses the nomination) and reaching out to voters.That is similar to the argument that Mr. Axelrod made in September 2011, when Mr. Obama was trailing badly in the polls.“The president remains ahead or in a dead heat with the Republican candidates in the battleground states that will decide the election in 2012,” Mr. Axelrod said at the time. “And ultimately it is in those battleground states where voters will choose, 14 months from now, between two candidates, their records, and their visions for the country.”But Mr. Axelrod said he believed Mr. Biden is further behind now than his candidate was in 2011.He said he believed Mr. Biden would continue to run for re-election, and would likely end up facing Mr. Trump again next year. He urged Mr. Biden and those around him to begin attacking Mr. Trump politically to make it clearer what a Trump victory in 2024 would mean for the country.That kind of “competitive frame” is more important now, Mr. Axelrod said, than trying to tell people about the accomplishments that Mr. Biden has made.“I think he’ll run,” Mr. Axelrod said. “I think he will be the nominee. If so, they need to throw the entire campaign into a very, very tough competitive frame very quickly.” More