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      Abortion Is on the Ballot in Tuesday’s Elections, Giving a Preview for 2024

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      Elections in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia will give an early preview of how abortion will shape the political landscape in 2024, and the effectiveness of both parties’ approaches.Abortion has emerged as a defining fault line of this year’s elections, with consequential contests in several states on Tuesday offering fresh tests of the issue’s political potency nearly 18 months after the Supreme Court ended a federal right to an abortion.The decision overturning Roe v. Wade scrambled American politics in 2022, transforming a longstanding social conflict into an electoral battering ram that helped drive Democrats to critical victories in the midterm races. Now, as abortion restrictions and bans in red states have become reality, the issue is again on the ballot, both explicitly and implicitly, in races across the country.In Kentucky, Democrats are testing whether abortion can provide a political advantage even in a red state, as Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, has used the state’s near-total ban on abortions — which was triggered by the fall of Roe — to bludgeon his Republican opponent as an extremist. In Ohio, a socially conservative state, a ballot question that would enshrine abortion rights in the State Constitution will measure the extent of the country’s political pivot toward abortion rights.And in Virginia, the only Southern state without an abortion ban, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, is trying to flip the script in the state’s legislative elections, casting Democrats as “extreme” and saying his party supports a “common-sense position” — a 15-week ban.The contests give an early preview of how abortion will shape the political landscape in next year’s presidential and congressional elections — and the effectiveness of both parties’ approaches.Strategists across the political spectrum agree that abortion remains highly energizing for the Democratic coalition, particularly in states where Republicans could pass further restrictions. In Pennsylvania, where the parties are battling over a State Supreme Court seat, even a gun control advocacy group began ads backing the Democratic candidate by raising alarms about the future of abortion rights — a tacit nod to the issue’s resonance.“It’s still a very, very powerful issue to folks, both in terms of motivating Democrats to vote and as a very fruitful persuasion issue for swing voters,” said Angela Kuefler, a longtime Democratic pollster working on the proposed Ohio amendment.What remains less clear is how far into conservative areas Democrats’ arguments will be effective and whether Republicans can deflect some of the attacks.That’s what Republicans are trying to do in Virginia, where G.O.P. candidates like State Senator Siobhan Dunnavant, an OB-GYN running in one of the state’s most hotly contested races for a newly redrawn seat, have aired numerous ads on the issue.In one ad, she says, “I don’t support an abortion ban,” even though she supports a 15-week ban on the procedure with exceptions for rape, incest, the woman’s health and cases of several fetal anomalies. She argues that a 15-week restriction is not a ban but rather “legislation that reflects compassionate common sense.”“Every Republican in a swing district knows the Democrat playbook that’s going to be run against them,” said Liesl Hickey, a Republican strategist and ad maker working on the race. “The abortion issue can either define you, or you can define it in your campaign.”In Ohio, a red state with a history of opposition to abortion rights, Democrats are pushing a referendum that would enshrine abortion rights in the State Constitution.Julie Carr Smyth/Associated PressSince Roe was overturned, Democrats have prevailed in six out of six ballot measures that put the question of abortion straight to voters. This year, national groups backing both sides have poured tens of millions of dollars into the Ohio contest, transforming an off-year ballot measure into one of the most important races this fall.A victory in Ohio would provide further fuel for abortion rights efforts next year. That will be especially true in pivotal battleground states where campaigns are already underway, including Arizona, Florida and Missouri, said Amy Natoce, a spokeswoman for Protect Women Ohio, a group founded by national anti-abortion groups to oppose the amendment.“We know that all eyes are on Ohio right now,” she said. “States that are considering similar constitutional amendments are looking to us.”In Kentucky, Mr. Beshear is further testing the limits of where abortion can mobilize a Democratic coalition. Since Roe ended, the state has become engulfed in a political battle over how abortion should be regulated. A trigger law that took effect immediately after the decision banned abortion in nearly all circumstances, except to save the life of the woman or prevent severe injury. Efforts by abortion providers to block the ban in court were denied.Last fall, voters rejected a ballot measure that would have amended the state’s Constitution to ensure that no right to an abortion was in the document.In his campaign ads, Mr. Beshear has focused on how his Republican opponent, Daniel Cameron, supports a near-total ban.The Beshear campaign has aired some of the cycle’s most searing spots, including a straight-to-camera testimonial from a woman who was raped as a child by her stepfather. She says in the ad that Mr. Cameron would force child victims to carry the babies of their rapists.“We have the most extreme law in the country, where victims of rape and incest, some as young as 9 years old, have no options,” Mr. Beshear said this past week in Richmond, Ky. “The people of Kentucky have enough empathy to believe that those little girls ought to have options.”After the ad aired, Mr. Cameron, the state attorney general, flipped his position and said that he would support carving an exception in state law in instances of rape or incest. Even if Mr. Beshear wins re-election, he would most likely struggle to change the state’s abortion law because Republicans control the Legislature.Courtney Norris, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cameron, said in a statement, “Andy mischaracterizes and flat-out lies about Daniel’s position on a number of issues in an attempt to deflect attention away from his failures as governor and his extreme record on this issue.”Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat, has used the state’s near-total ban on abortions to paint his Republican opponent as an extremist.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesStill, not every Democrat running in a red state has embraced Mr. Beshear’s approach. Just as in the midterms, when abortion benefited Democrats most in states like Arizona and Michigan, where the right to the procedure was directly at risk, Democrats are leveraging the issue race by race.In Mississippi, Brandon Presley, the Democratic candidate for governor, has promoted his “pro-life” stance in television ads and has focused on issues like Medicaid expansion. And Shawn Wilson, a Democratic who lost the race for governor in Louisiana last month, said he was personally “pro-life.” Both are deeply conservative states where abortion is banned in almost all circumstances.In Virginia, where abortion remains legal through the second trimester, Republicans are the ones mitigating their approach. Mr. Youngkin has tried to be proactive in his messaging on abortion, promising to sign a 15-week ban if he and his Republican allies take over both chambers of the Legislature.Such a policy would have significant implications for the entire region, because Virginia has become a destination for patients across the South seeking the procedure. Currently, abortion remains legal in the state until nearly 27 weeks, and afterward if needed to save the life of the woman.Most doctors say there is no medical basis for an abortion cutoff at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Nor would it stop the vast majority of abortions, given that more than 93 percent happen before that stage in pregnancy, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But 15 weeks is the point at which many polls indicate that a majority of Americans would support restrictions.That’s one of the reasons Mr. Youngkin’s political committee has spent $1.4 million on ads pushing what the spots call a “reasonable” 15-week limit and accusing Democrats of disinformation as a heartbeat can be heard in the background. “Here’s the truth: There is no ban,” the narrator says.National Republican strategists have been pushing that message as well, urging their candidates to embrace a 15-week ban and exceptions in cases of rape, incest and risks to the physical health of the woman — all relatively popular positions with the general public.Zack Roday, a top political adviser to Mr. Youngkin, said Republicans were trying to reclaim and redirect the extremist label. He said Republicans needed to proactively neutralize that attack and create a “permission structure” for voters who are wary of G.O.P. candidates’ stances on abortion but like their approach to other issues.“They understand 40 weeks, no limits is extreme,” Mr. Roday said. “We’re trying to reclaim and bat that down. Because when you do, the voters will look at you more broadly.”Democrats say there are significant complications to Mr. Youngkin’s strategy. Polls show that a plurality of voters dislike the Republican approach to abortion rights. In private meetings and research memos, even some Republican strategists have urged their candidates to move away from the “pro-life” label, saying that many Americans now equate the term with support for a total ban.Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who worked for Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign in 2020, said that voters tended to see the issue of abortion as a fight over personal autonomy, and were less interested in litigating a number of weeks or specific exceptions.“Before Dobbs, people were very willing to entertain exceptions and restrictions,” she said. “Now they are much less open to that conversation because they just think there’s a bigger fundamental point here.”She added, “The fundamental freedom to an abortion has been taken away, and we want to guarantee that right.”State Senator Scott Surovell, the campaign chairman of the Virginia Senate’s Democratic caucus, said abortion remained the No. 1 issue driving people to vote.When Mr. Surovell first heard that Mr. Youngkin’s operation was planning to spend more than $1 million on abortion ads, he said he felt like what “the Union troops thought at Gettysburg,” when the Confederate army made a famously ill-fated charge.“You’re going to try to charge us here?” he said. “They’re going to try to attack us while we’re on the high ground here?”Reid J. Epstein More

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      The Democrats Are Their Own Worst Enemy

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      This should be the Democratic Party’s moment. Donald Trump’s stranglehold has lurched the G.O.P. toward the fringe. Republican congressional behavior echoes that of an intemperate toddler and the party’s intellectual and ideological foundations have become completely unmoored.But far from dominant, the Democratic Party seems disconnected from the priorities, needs and values of many Americans.Current polls show a 2024 rematch between Trump and Joe Biden too close for true comfort; the same is true should Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis be the Republican nominee. Many constituents who were once the Democratic Party’s reliable base — the working class, middle-class families, even Black and Latino Americans and other ethnic minorities — have veered toward the G.O.P. In a development that has baffled Democrats, a greater share of those groups voted for Republican candidates in recent elections.Something worrisome has happened to the party of the people.This worry isn’t entirely new. In 2004, Thomas Frank’s book asked, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” Why, Frank wondered, did working- and middle-class Americans vote Republican when Democratic policies were more attuned to their needs?The question to ask now is: Why isn’t the Democratic Party serving their needs either?John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, authors of 2002’s hugely influential “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” might seem like the last people to have an answer, given that book’s failed prophecy that America would be majority Democratic by 2010 given shifts in the electorate and the population.But in “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?” they give a pretty persuasive explanation — one that should be read as a warning.If the answer to Frank’s question was that cultural issues can trump issues of class in ways that favor Republicans, Judis’s and Teixeira’s answer looks doubly troubling to Democrats: Not only is the Democratic Party increasingly failing on matters of culture (despite its strength on abortion rights), it’s also seen as failing in matters of class. In a country that has become more overtly populist in its values and needs, Democrats are the ones who look like the party of out-of-touch elitists.“We’ve had this peculiar situation where the reigning power in the Democratic Party has been between progressive social organizations and the neoliberal business elite,” Judis told me when I spoke to him last week. The majority of Americans are feeling left behind.This bodes ill for Democrats. As he and Teixeira write in the book, “The Democratic Party has had its greatest success when it sought to represent the common man and woman against the rich and powerful, the people against the elite, and the plebians against the patricians.”When it comes to economics, the authors say, Democrats have too often pursued the interests of their own elites and donors. Since the 1990s, the party has pursued policies that worsen the economic plight of Americans who are not well off. President Bill Clinton, for example, supported NAFTA and China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, which undermined American manufacturing; the administration also endorsed the Banking Act of 1999, which accelerated the financialization of the American economy. While Barack Obama conveyed a populist message on the campaign trail, as president, they say, he became captive to neoliberal Washington.Much of the Democratic Party’s agenda has been set by what Judis and Teixeira call the “shadow party,” a mix of donors from Wall Street, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, wealthy foundations, activist groups, the media, lobbyists and scholars.Democratic leaders seem too willing to settle for a kind of cheap progressivism — a carbon-neutral, virtue-signaling, box-checking update on what was once called limousine liberalism. But the Democratic Party cannot win and America cannot flourish if it doesn’t prioritize the economic well-being of the American majority over the financial interests and cultural fixations of an elite minority.Biden has curtailed some of its shadow party’s economic agenda — less so its cultural and social policies. There, Judis and Teixeira argue, the party seems bent on imposing a narrow progressive stance on issues like race, “sexual creationism” (commonly known as gender ideology), immigration and climate, at the expense of more broadly shared beliefs within the electorate.The moral values may differ at each extreme of the two parties, but their efforts to moralize can sound an awful lot alike to many Americans. Even though Democrats themselves are adopting “a pretty aggressive way to change the culture,” Teixeira told me, the Democratic Party acts as if anyone who reacts against the assumptions of its progressive wing is completely off base.“There’s a certain amount of chutzpah among Democrats to assume that it’s only the other side pursuing a culture war,” he said.For too long, the Democratic Party depended on shifting demographics to shore up its side. Then it relied on the horror show of the G.O.P. to scare people onto its side. Both have been an effective and damaging distraction. As Judis and Teixeira put it, Democrats “need to look in the mirror and examine the extent to which their own failures contributed to the rise of the most toxic tendencies on the political right.”We can no longer afford to avoid the hard truths. If the Democratic Party doesn’t focus on what it can deliver to more Americans, it won’t have to wonder anymore where all the Democrats went.Source images by John McKeen and phanasitti/Getty ImagesThe 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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      Can a Democrat Running the Biden Playbook Win in Deep-Red Kentucky?

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      Gov. Andy Beshear, the popular incumbent, is campaigning for re-election on abortion rights, the economy and infrastructure — but distancing himself from the unpopular president.Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky is conducting one of this year’s most intriguing political experiments: What happens when an incumbent Democrat campaigns on President Biden’s record and agenda, but never mentions the party’s unpopular leader by name?Mr. Beshear is running for re-election in his deep-red state as a generic version of Mr. Biden, promoting himself as having led Kentucky through dark times to emerge with a strong post-Covid economy.Like Mr. Biden, he is counting on voters’ distaste for aggressive Republican opposition to abortion, which is banned in almost all circumstances in Kentucky, as well as those with good will toward his stewardship during crises like natural and climate disasters.Yet he is doing whatever he can to separate himself from Mr. Biden, whose approval ratings remain mired around 40 percent nationally and are much lower in Kentucky.“This race is about Kentucky,” Mr. Beshear said on Monday in Richmond, Ky. “It’s about what’s going on in our houses, not about what’s going on in the White House.”Mr. Beshear is among the most popular governors in the country, and Democrats are cautiously optimistic about his prospects in Tuesday’s elections, even though former President Donald J. Trump won the state by about 26 percentage points in 2020.As in-person early voting begins on Thursday, officials in both parties in Kentucky say that every private poll of the race has shown Mr. Beshear leading his Republican challenger, Daniel Cameron, the attorney general. That could suggest the continuation of a national political environment that has been favorable to Democrats since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson in June 2022 ended the federal right to abortion.Daniel Cameron, the Republican challenger for governor and the state’s attorney general, acknowledges in his TV ads that Mr. Beshear is “a nice guy.”Timothy D. Easley/Associated PressBut Mr. Biden remains toxic in the state: A poll released Tuesday by Morning Consult found that 68 percent of Kentuckians disapproved of him, while 60 percent — including 43 percent of Republicans — approved of Mr. Beshear.Since Mr. Beshear won the governor’s race in 2019, the number of registered Democrats in Kentucky has fallen while the number of Republicans has increased. And local Republicans believe they’ll outperform polling after surveys underestimated support for Mr. Trump in 2020.Kentucky’s voters have a knack for providing a preview of national trends. The state’s last six elections for governor have forecast presidential election results a year later.On the campaign trail in counties that Mr. Trump carried — which is 118 of Kentucky’s 120 — Mr. Beshear tries to extricate the Biden from Bidenomics, the tagline much heralded by the president’s campaign. Mr. Beshear celebrates record-low unemployment rates, a major bridge project paid for by Mr. Biden’s infrastructure law and what he says are the “two best years for economic development in our history.”No new business development is too small. At a Monday morning stop in Richmond, Ky., Mr. Beshear cited the recent opening of a truck stop just outside town. “We even brought a Buc-ee’s to Madison County,” he said, referring to the franchise’s first outpost in the state and a point of local pride.Left unmentioned in Mr. Beshear’s pitch to voters is the Biden administration’s significant role in his résumé. Mr. Biden’s infrastructure law has directed $5.2 billion to at least 220 Kentucky projects, including $1.1 billion for high-speed internet and $1.6 billion for the rebuilding of the Brent Spence Bridge, which connects Cincinnati to its Kentucky suburbs. It’s a long-awaited project that Mr. Beshear mentions in his closing TV ad.Democrats on the Kentucky ballot with Mr. Beshear on Tuesday have all gotten the message about Mr. Biden.Kim Reeder, the Democrat running for state auditor, laughed when asked if she had ever said the words “Joe Biden” out loud, then requested to go off the record when asked what she thought of his performance in office. Sierra Enlow, the party’s candidate for agriculture commissioner — whose Republican opponent is pledging in television ads to “stop Biden and save Kentucky” — said she responded by “talking about what voters need to hear and what this office actually does.”Kim Reeder, left, a Democrat running for state auditor, with a supporter at a brewery in Richmond, Ky. Jon Cherry for The New York TimesAnd Pam Stevenson, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, said she didn’t talk about Mr. Biden “because for the last year, no one’s asked me about him.”Kentucky Republicans acknowledge that Mr. Beshear is popular and leading even in their polling. Mr. Cameron, who is a protégé of Senator Mitch McConnell, acknowledges in his TV ads that Mr. Beshear is “a nice guy.”The most popular topics in TV ads aired by Mr. Cameron and his Republican allies are crime, opposition to Mr. Biden, Mr. Cameron’s endorsement from Mr. Trump, opposition to L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and jobs, according to AdImpact, a media tracking firm.Mac Brown, the chairman of the Republican Party of Kentucky, said Mr. Beshear’s popularity was a remnant of the billions directed to the state from the Biden administration. Crime is the foremost concern, said Mr. Brown, whose home in the Louisville suburbs was vandalized and burned last year.“When you sit down and look at it, he’s very good at taking credit for what other people do,” Mr. Brown said. “That’s probably the easiest way to say it.”As with Mr. Biden and other Democrats, the most potent political weapon for Mr. Beshear is abortion rights. With Republican supermajorities in the Kentucky Legislature, there’s little Mr. Beshear can do to change the state’s near-total ban on the procedure. The building in downtown Louisville that housed one of Kentucky’s last abortion clinics is now for sale.Pam Stevenson, the Democrat running for attorney general, said she didn’t talk about Mr. Biden “because for the last year, no one’s asked me about him.”Jon Cherry for The New York TimesMr. Beshear’s campaigning is a reversal of decades of red-state Democratic reticence on abortion politics. Where Democrats have in the past avoided the issue or watered down their support for abortion rights, Mr. Beshear has blasted Mr. Cameron for his anti-abortion stance and attacked Kentucky Republicans for passing the abortion ban. He is airing striking ads that feature a woman who speaks of being raped by her stepfather when she was 12 years old.Mr. Cameron, who has defended the state’s abortion ban in court, now says he would sign legislation to allow some exceptions if elected.“There’s no ads saying, ‘Don’t elect the pro-abortion guy,’” said Trey Grayson, a Republican who served as Kentucky secretary of state in the 2000s.Last November, voters rejected an effort to write an abortion prohibition into the Kentucky Constitution. Now the Beshear campaign has found in its polling that just 12 percent of Kentuckians favor the state’s abortion ban. Mr. Beshear said he was trying to change the political language surrounding abortion away from the old binary between choice and life.“Those terms were from a Roe v. Wade world that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said in Richmond this week. “In the Dobbs world, we have the most draconian, restrictive law in the country. This race is about whether you think that victims of rape and incest should have options, that the couples that have a nonviable pregnancy should have to carry it to term even though that child is going to die.”Steve Beshear, who is Mr. Beshear’s father and a former governor of the state, was more succinct about where the abortion debate stood in Kentucky.“It’s totally changed from a Republican issue to a Democratic issue,” he said.Steve Beshear, Mr. Beshear’s father and a former Kentucky governor, said abortion politics in the state now favored Democrats.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesJust as Mr. Biden’s fate is likely to be determined by his performance in the counties that ring Atlanta, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, Mr. Beshear has concentrated on the suburban areas near Cincinnati, Lexington and Louisville. In 2019, he won Madison County, a Lexington suburb that includes Richmond, before Mr. Trump won it by about 27 points in 2020.Jimmy Cornelison, a Democrat who is the elected coroner of Madison County, said people there appreciated that the state had far fewer deaths from the coronavirus pandemic because Mr. Beshear had put in place aggressive policies to restrict public gatherings and require masks in indoor spaces. But that doesn’t mean such Kentuckians share Mr. Beshear’s party identification.“There were a lot of people elected Democrats in this county that aren’t Democrats now,” Mr. Cornelison said. “I’m the sole survivor.”Voters who came to Mr. Beshear’s campaign rallies this week spoke of his nightly coronavirus updates in 2020, his relentless travel schedule and a general satisfaction about how the state is doing. While Mr. Biden speaks of restoring “the soul of America,” Mr. Beshear has invited the entire state to join him on “Team Kentucky.”“People disagree with Washington, you know, but they like what’s going on in Kentucky,” said Ralph Hoskins, a Democratic retired school superintendent from Oneida, Ky., who drove through the rain to see Mr. Beshear speak under a tent in the parking lot of an abandoned supermarket in London, Ky.Nearby, Jean Marie Durham, a Democrat who is a retired state employee from East Bernstadt, Ky., showed off a poem she had written about Mr. Beshear during the early days of the pandemic.“He cares about our protection from death and despair; He diligently considers our safety and personal care!” she wrote.Ms. Durham also had handy the response Mr. Beshear had sent her. He called her “a very talented writer” and wrote that he had displayed the poem in his office in Frankfort, the capital.“He’s one of us,” Ms. Durham said of Mr. Beshear, “even though his dad was governor.” More

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      Trump critica la edad de Biden. Sus deslices podrían perjudicarlo

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      El expresidente ha experimentado una serie de confusiones que van más allá de su naturaleza discursiva habitual, y sus rivales republicanos han comenzado a señalarlas como signos de declive en su desempeño.Una de las nuevas rutinas cómicas de Donald Trump en sus mítines consiste en imitar al actual presidente de una forma exageradamente caricaturesca, burlándose de la edad de Joe Biden.Con los párpados caídos y la boca abierta, Trump tartamudea y balbucea. Entrecierra los ojos. Agita sus brazos. Arrastra los pies y deambula por el escenario. La multitud explota en risas y aplausos mientras Trump finge confusión, volteando y señalando a seguidores invisibles, como si no se diera cuenta de que les está dando la espalda.Sin embargo, el expresidente también ha cometido deslices en sus recientes eventos de campaña. Trump ha experimentado una serie de confusiones y desarticulaciones generales que van más allá de su naturaleza discursiva habitual, y sus rivales republicanos han comenzado a señalarlas como signos de declive en su desempeño.El domingo, en Sioux City, Iowa, Trump agradeció erróneamente a los seguidores de Sioux Falls, una ciudad de Dakota del Sur ubicada a unos 120 kilómetros de allí, y solo corrigió cuando lo llamaron a un lado del escenario y le informaron del error.La situación fue notablemente similar a una escena ficticia que Trump había representado a principios de este mes, en la que imitó a Biden confundiendo Iowa con Idaho y requiriendo de un asistente para aclarar el error.En las últimas semanas, Trump también les ha dicho a sus seguidores que no voten y afirmó haber derrotado al presidente Barack Obama en unas elecciones. Ha elogiado el intelecto colectivo de un grupo militante respaldado por Irán que históricamente ha sidoenemigo tanto de Israel como de Estados Unidos, y en repetidas ocasiones ha pronunciado mal el nombre del grupo armado que gobierna la Franja de Gaza.“Este es un Donald Trump distinto al de 2015 y 2016: perdió el control de su bola rápida”, afirmó el gobernador de Florida, Ron DeSantis, a los periodistas la semana pasada mientras hacía campaña en Nuevo Hampshire.“En 2016, era espontáneo, arrasaba por todo el país”, agregó DeSantis. “Ahora es simplemente un tipo diferente. Y es algo triste de ver”.No se sabe con certeza si los recientes deslices de Trump están relacionados con su edad. Durante mucho tiempo se ha valido de un estilo poco ortodoxo al hablar que le ha servido como una de sus principales ventajas políticas porque lo ha establecido, contra todo pronóstico, como uno de los comunicadores más eficaces de la política estadounidense.Pero, a medida que se intensifica la contienda por la Casa Blanca en 2024, los errores verbales cada vez más frecuentes de Trump amenazan con socavar una de las vías de ataque más potentes de los republicanos, y el objetivo central de su pantomima en el escenario: el argumento de que Biden es demasiado viejo para ser presidente.Biden, abuelo de siete, tiene 80 años. Trump, que tiene 10 nietos, tiene 77.Aunque solo unos pocos años separan a los dos hombres de edad avanzada, los votantes perciben su vigor de manera diferente. Encuestas recientes han revelado que aproximadamente dos de cada tres votantes afirman que Biden es demasiado mayor como para cumplir otro periodo de cuatro años, mientras que solo alrededor de la mitad dice lo mismo sobre Trump.Si esa brecha comienza a reducirse, es Trump quien tiene mucho más que perder en un enfrentamiento electoral presidencial.Trump y el presidente Biden son los favoritos para la nominación de cada partido, estableciendo la probabilidad de una revancha de las elecciones de 2020Michelle Gustafson para The New York TimesSegún un hallazgo no reportado previamente de una encuesta de agosto realizada por The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, el 43 por ciento de los votantes estadounidenses dijeron que ambos hombres eran “demasiado mayores para cumplir de manera eficiente otro mandato de cuatro años como presidente”. Entre esos votantes, el 61 por ciento afirmó que planeaba votar por Biden, en comparación con el 13 por ciento que dijo lo mismo sobre Trump.La semana pasada, un sondeo del Franklin & Marshall College entre votantes registrados de Pensilvania, uno de estados más disputados de cara a 2024, arrojó resultados similares.Según la encuesta, el 43 por ciento de los habitantes de Pensilvania dijo que ambos hombres eran “demasiado viejos para ejercer otro mandato”. Un análisis de esos datos para The New York Times mostró que Biden aventajaba a Trump entre esos votantes por 66 por ciento a 11 por ciento. Entre todos los votantes del estado, los dos estaban en un empate estadístico.Berwood Yost, el director de la encuesta de Franklin & Marshall, dijo que la amplia ventaja de Biden entre los votantes que estaban preocupados por la edad de ambos candidatos podría explicarse en parte por el hecho de que los demócratas son mucho más propensos que los republicanos a identificar la edad como un problema para el líder de su partido.“Si a Trump comienzan a relacionarlo con el tema de la edad, como sucede con Biden, realmente puede verse perjudicado”, dijo Yost.Steven Cheung, portavoz de la campaña de Trump, señaló que el expresidente mantenía una ventaja dominante en las encuestas sobre las primarias republicanas y que, en las elecciones generales, varias encuestas recientes habían mostrado que tenía una ligera ventaja sobre Biden.“Ninguna de estas falsas narrativas ha cambiado la dinámica de la contienda: el expresidente Trump sigue dominando, porque la gente sabe que es el candidato más fuerte”, señaló Cheung. “El contraste es que Biden se cae sobre el escenario, balbucea durante un discurso, no sabe por dónde caminar y tropieza con los escalones del Air Force One. Eso no se puede corregir y quedará grabado en la mente de los votantes”.Durante mucho tiempo, las habilidades retóricas de Trump se han basado en una mezcla de fuerza bruta y un instinto aparentemente natural para la imprecisión. Esa seductora combinación, perfeccionada tras toda una vida de negociaciones inmobiliarias, escándalos en los tabloides neoyorquinos y el estrellato de un programa de telerrealidad en horario de máxima audiencia, a menudo hace que los votantes oigan lo que quieren oír.El estilo de hablar de Trump ha hecho que sus partidarios, o los votantes que están dispuestos a apoyarlo, a menudo oigan lo que quieren oír.Jordan Gale para The New York TimesLos partidarios de Trump salen de sus discursos llenos de energía. Los votantes indecisos que están abiertos a su mensaje pueden encontrar lo que buscan en su discurso. Los opositores se enfurecen, y cuando le acusan furiosamente de algo que han oído pero que no ha dicho exactamente, Trump convierte la crítica en un dato de que está siendo perseguido, y todo el ciclo vuelve a empezar.Pero los últimos pasos en falso de Trump no pueden clasificarse como vaguedades calculadas.Durante un discurso del 15 de septiembre en Washington, poco después de declarar a Biden como alguien “con problemas cognitivos, incapaz de liderar”, el expresidente advirtió que Estados Unidos estaba al borde de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la cual terminó en 1945.En el mismo discurso, Trump se jactó de que las encuestas presidenciales lo posicionan por delante de Obama quien, de hecho, no se está postulando para un tercer periodo porque, entre otras cosas, sería ilegal. Volvió a referirse erróneamente a Obama durante una anécdota sobre su victoria en la contienda presidencial de 2016.“Lo hicimos con Obama”, declaró Trump. “Ganamos una elección que todo el mundo decía que no se podía ganar, vencimos a…” Hizo una pausa mientras parecía darse cuenta de su error. “Hillary Clinton”.En un mitin en Florida, el 11 de octubre, días después de un brutal ataque terrorista que dejó sin vida a cientos de israelíes, Trump criticó al país por no estar preparado y arremetió contra su primer ministro, Benjamín Netanyahu. Trump parece haberse enojado con Netanyahu, quien solía ser un aliado cercano, después de que el líder israelí felicitó a Biden por ganar las elecciones de 2020.En el mismo discurso, Trump recurrió una cronología errada de los acontecimientos en Medio Oriente para criticar el manejo de Biden de los asuntos exteriores y, en el proceso, atrajo titulares por elogiar a Hizbulá, el grupo militante respaldado por Irán.La semana pasada, en un mitin celebrado en New Hampshire, Trump elogió a Viktor Orban, el primer ministro húngaro, pero se refirió a él como “el líder de Turquía”, un país localizado a cientos de kilómetros de distancia. Con rapidez, corrigió su error.En otro momento del mismo discurso, Trump lució confundido al decirles a sus partidarios: “Ustedes no tienen que votar, no se preocupen por la votación”. Luego agregó: “Tenemos un montón de votos”.Cheung, el portavoz de la campaña de Trump, dijo que el expresidente “claramente estaba hablando de la integridad electoral y asegurarse de que solo se cuenten los votos legales”.Con Trump, el Partido Republicano ha sufrido una serie de derrotas electorales desde 2016.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEn un discurso del sábado, Trump sonó como si estuviera hablando de hummus cuando pronunció mal “Hamás”, el nombre del grupo islamista que gobierna la Franja de Gaza y que el 7 de octubre ejecutó uno de los mayores ataques contra Israel en décadas.La pronunciación del expresidente llamó la atención del comando de campaña de Biden, que publicó el video en las redes sociales y señaló que Trump sonaba “confundido”.Pero incluso sus rivales republicanos han percibido una oportunidad en el tema de la edad contra Trump, quien ha mantenido un control inquebrantable sobre el partido a pesar de un historial político que en años anteriores habría obligado a los conservadores a considerar otro abanderado. Trump perdió el control del Congreso siendo presidente; fue expulsado a votos de la Casa Blanca; no logró contribuir a generar una “ola roja” de victorias en las elecciones de medio mandato del año pasado y, este año, recibió 91 cargos por delitos graves en cuatro casos penales.Este año, Nikki Haley, de 51 años y exgobernadora de Carolina del Sur, inició su candidatura presidencial pidiendo que los candidatos mayores de 75 años pasaran pruebas de competencia mental, una iniciativa que ha renovado en las últimas semanas.El sábado, Haley atacó a Trump por sus comentarios sobre Netanyahu y Hizbulá, al dar a entender en un discurso ante donantes judíos en Las Vegas que el expresidente no tenía las facultades necesarias para regresar a la Casa Blanca.“Déjenme recordarles una cosa”, añadió con una pequeña sonrisa. “Con todo respeto, yo no me confundo”.Jazmine Ulloa More

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      Christian Nationalism ‘Is No Longer Operating Beneath the Surface’

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      Mike Johnson is the first person to become speaker of the House who can be fairly described as a Christian nationalist, a major development in American history in and of itself. Equally important, however, his ascension reflects the strength of white evangelical voters’ influence in the House Republican caucus, voters who are determined to use the power of government to roll back the civil rights, women’s rights and sexual revolutions.“Johnson is a clear rebuttal to the overall liberal societal drift that’s happening in the United States,” Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University, wrote by email in response to my query. “His views are far out of step with the average American and even with a significant number of Republicans.”“Yet, he was chosen as speaker,” continued Burge, who is also a pastor in the American Baptist Church. “If anything, it shows us that white evangelicals still have a very strong hold on the modern Republican Party. They are losing overall market share in the larger culture, but they are certainly taking on an outsized role in Republican politics.”Burge provided The Times with data on the changing religious composition of the Republican electorate. In the 1970s, mainline Protestants dominated at 46 percent, compared with evangelical Protestants at 24 percent and Catholics at 19 percent. By the decade of the 2010s, evangelical Protestants were a commanding 38 percent of Republicans, mainline Protestants had fallen to 17 percent, and Catholics had grown to 25 percent.Robert Jones, the president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute, described Johnson in an email as “the embodiment of white Christian nationalism in a tailored suit.”What is Christian nationalism? Christianity Today described it as the “belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way. Popularly, Christian nationalists assert that America is and must remain a ‘Christian nation’ — not merely as an observation about American history, but as a prescriptive program for what America must continue to be in the future.”Johnson’s election as speaker, Jones went on to say, “is one more confirmation that the Republican Party — a party that is 68 percent white and Christian in a country that is 42 percent white and Christian — has embraced its role as the party of white Christian nationalism.”Jones argued that “while Johnson is more polished than other right-wing leaders of the G.O.P. who support this worldview, his record and previous public statements indicate that he’s a near textbook example of white Christian nationalism — the belief that God intended America to be a new promised land for European Christians.”In a long and data-filled analysis posted on Substack on Oct. 29, “Hiding in Plain Sight: The Sources of MAGA Madness,” Michael Podhorzer, a former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., argued that the election of Johnson reflects the success of the Christian right in a long-term struggle to wrest control from traditional Republican elites, in battles fought out in Republican primary elections.Over the past two decades, Podhorzer wrote, “the political might of organized right-wing Christianity was successfully redeployed against establishment Republicans.”The decimation of moderate and centrist members of the House was most striking over the election cycles from 2010 to the present, according to Podhorzer: “From 2010 through 2022, a historically high number of House Republicans were defeated in primaries, with the vast majority of successful challenges happening in the most evangelical districts.”The result: When House districts are ranked by the percentage of voters who are white evangelicals, the top quintile is represented by 81 Republicans and 6 Democrats and the second quintile by 68 Republicans and 19 Democrats. The bottom three quintiles are represented by 188 Democrats and 73 Republicans.Not only do Republicans overwhelmingly represent the districts with the most white evangelicals, but those Republicans are deeply entrenched, with little or no danger of losing the general election to a Democrat:“Republicans represent 98 percent of the most evangelical safe districts and 82 percent of the remaining above-median evangelical safe districts,” Podhorzer wrote. “These two categories elected just shy of three-quarters of the Republican Caucus in safe districts.”The MAGA movement, in Podhorzer’s view, was unleashed with the Tea Party movement in 2010, well before Donald Trump emerged as a dominant political figure, and the elevation of Johnson marks the most recent high point in the movement’s acquisition of power: “Mike Johnson becoming speaker is better understood in terms of the ongoing white Christian nationalist takeover of the American government through MAGA,” he writes.White Christian nationalists, Podhorzer contended, “were once reliable votes and loyal foot soldiers for almost any Republican candidate since the 1970s,” but they “rebelled when John McCain and other establishment Republicans treated Obama’s win as legitimate.”From 2010 forward, Podhorzer wrote, “the political muscle provided by white Christian nationalism’s extensive church-based infrastructure in congressional districts, and its national reach through Christian broadcasting and national organizations, has turned MAGA into a ruthlessly successful RINO-hunting machine.”It should not be surprising, Podhorzer said, “to see an election-denying evangelical Christian who favors a national abortion ban, Bible courses in public schools, and ‘covenant marriage,’ and who believes that L.G.B.T.Q. people are living an ‘inherently unnatural’ and ‘dangerous lifestyle’ elevated to the speakership.”There is a strong correlation between election from a district with a high share of white evangelical voters, Podhorzer found, and election denial: “More than three-quarters of those representing the most evangelical districts are election deniers, compared to just half of those in the remaining districts. Fully three-quarters of the deniers in the caucus hail from evangelical districts.”The most recent P.R.R.I. American Values Survey, conducted in late August, “Threats to American Democracy Ahead of an Unprecedented Presidential Election,” further illuminated the priorities of the contemporary Republican electorate.The survey asked respondents whether they would “prefer a presidential candidate who can best manage the economy” or a candidate who will “protect and preserve American culture and the American way of life.”Democrats chose a candidate who can manage the economy 57 to 40, a view shared by independents by a smaller margin, 53 to 45. Republican voters, in contrast, preferred a candidate who will preserve American culture, by 58 to 40 percent.A different P.R.R.I. survey, released on Feb. 8, “A Christian Nation? Understanding the Threat of Christian Nationalism to American Democracy and Culture,” measured support for Christian nationalism based on responses to five statements:The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation.U.S. laws should be based on Christian values.If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore.Being Christian is an important part of being truly American.God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.On the basis of the responses, P.R.R.I. created four categories:Christian nationalism adherents: the 10 percent of Americans who overwhelmingly either agree or completely agree with the five statements above.Christian nationalism sympathizers: the 19 percent of Americans who agree with these statements but are less likely to say they “completely agree.”Christian nationalism skeptics: the 39 percent of Americans who disagree with the statements but are less likely to completely disagree.Christian nationalism rejecters: the 29 percent of Americans who completely disagree with all five statements in the scale.Among Democrats, the survey found that 15 percent were either adherents (5 percent) or sympathizers (10 percent). Among independents, 23 percent were adherents (6 percent) or sympathizers (17 percent).Among Republican voters, 54 percent were either adherents (21 percent) or sympathizers (33 percent).In a series of questions on racial issues and immigration, Christian nationalist adherents were well to the right of Americans as a whole.Asked whether “discrimination against white Americans has become as big a problem as discrimination against Black Americans and other minorities,” 85 percent of Christian nationalist adherents agreed, compared with 41 percent of all those surveyed.Asked whether they agree or disagree with the statement “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background,” 81 percent of Christian nationalist adherents agreed.Philip Gorski, a sociologist at Yale who has written extensively about Christian nationalism, replied by email to my inquiry about Johnson’s election:He says out loud what most others just feel: that America was founded as a Christian nation, that the founders were “evangelical” Christians, that the founding documents were based on “biblical principles,” that God has entrusted America with a divine mission, that he has blessed America with unique power and prosperity and that those blessings will be withdrawn if America strays off the straight and narrow path of Christian morality. And that it is every good Christian’s duty to make America Christian again.Christian nationalism, in Gorski’s view,is no longer operating beneath the surface or in the background. It’s now front and center at commanding heights of power. It will now be much harder for right-wing Christian activists to claim that Christian nationalism is a fringe phenomenon or a left-wing smear job. In 2021, it was still hard to find an avowed Christian nationalist in the top ranks of the G.O.P. Not anymore.Gorski wrote that Johnsonlikes to say that the United States is a “republic” and not a “democracy.” By this, he means that the majority does not and should not get its way. That would be democracy. A republic means rule by the virtuous, not the majority. And the virtuous are of course conservative Christians like him.Eric Schickler, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, stressed in an email his view that Johnson’s election as speaker demonstrated once again the weakness of the centrist wing of the House Republican caucus, writing that the elevation of the Louisiana Republicanreinforces the message that the most conservative voices in the Republican Party have decisive influence on the party in the House of Representatives. Less conservative members from swing districts have repeatedly made noises, suggesting that they were willing to wield power to ensure that leaders would reflect their needs — but once again, when push came to shove, they gave in despite having the numbers to hold the balance of power in the House.In addition, the “entire episode” — from the ousting of Kevin McCarthy on Oct. 3 to the election of Johnson on Oct. 25 — reflects the collapse of the unwritten rule that “majority party members would stick together on the floor in speakership contests.” There is no way, Schickler added, that “the Freedom Caucus would have voted for a member seen as distant from them on key issues.”Does Johnson’s election as speaker improve Democrats’ chances to retake the House in 2024? I asked.Schickler: “It is hard to know. Johnson starts with such a low profile, it is not clear whether Democrats will be able to make him a target.”Johnson’s relative anonymity in the House served him well in his bid for the speakership, insulating him from acrimony. More recently, however, some of Johnson’s out-of-the-mainstream views and alliances have begun to surface.In a July 20, 2005, opinion essay for The Shreveport Times, Johnson argued:All of us should acknowledge the real emotion and strife of the homosexual lifestyle and should certainly treat all people with dignity, love and respect. But our government can never provide its stamp of approval or special legal sanction for behavior patterns that are proven to be destructive to individuals, to families and to society at large. Your race, creed and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do.“We must always remember,” Johnson concluded, “that it is not bigotry to make moral distinctions.”A year earlier, Johnson wrote, in another opinion essay:The state and its citizens have a compelling interest in preserving the integrity of the marital union by making opposite sex marriage the exclusive form of family relationship endorsed by government. Loss of this status will de-emphasize the importance of traditional marriage to society, weaken it, and place our entire democratic system in jeopardy by eroding its foundation.It would be difficult to overestimate the dangers Johnson foresaw. “Society,” he wrote,cannot give its stamp of approval to such a dangerous lifestyle. If we change marriage for this tiny, modern minority, we will have to do it for every deviant group. Polygamists, polyamorists, pedophiles and others will be next in line to claim equal protection. They already are. There will be no legal basis to deny a bisexual the right to marry a partner of each sex, or a person to marry his pet. If everyone does what is right in his own eyes, chaos and sexual anarchy will result. And make no mistake, the extremists who seek to redefine marriage also want to deny you the right to object to immoral behavior. Our precious religious freedom hangs in the balance.In an Oct. 26 interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News after he was elected to the leadership post, Johnson described his faith in the Bible as his exclusive guide in life:What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun? Go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview. That’s what I believe.On Oct. 27, my Times colleagues Annie Karni, Ruth Graham and Steve Eder reported on a 2006 essay that Johnson posted on Townhall, a right-wing website.In it, they wrote, “Johnson railed against ‘the earnest advocates of atheism and sexual perversion’. He also decried ‘This sprawling alliance of anti-God enthusiasts’ that ‘has proven frighteningly efficient at remaking America in their own brutal, dehumanizing image.’”“In the space of a few decades,” Johnson added, “they have managed to entrench abortion and homosexual behavior, objectify children into sexual objects, criminalize Christianity in the popular culture, and promote guilt and self-doubt as the foremost qualities of our national character.”In lectures, Karni, Graham and Eder wrote, “Johnson has lamented that ‘There’s no transcendent principles anymore. There’s no eternal judge. There’s no absolute standards of right and wrong. All this is exactly the opposite of the way we were founded as a country.’”David Corn, the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones, reported in an Oct. 28 article that in a series of seminars Johnson and his wife, Kelly, a Christian counselor, conducted — “Answers for Our Times” — the couple addressed such questions as:What is happening in America and how do we fix it? Can our heritage as a Christian Nation be preserved? How should Christians respond to the changing culture? What does the Bible say about today’s problems and issues?In May 2019, Johnson described the goal of the seminars to the Louisiana Baptist Message: “Our nation is entering one of the most challenging seasons in its history, and there is an urgent need for God’s people to be armed and ready with the truth.”For Johnson, the obligation “to be armed and ready with the truth” led him to become a leader of the election denial movement. In December 2020 he recruited 125 fellow House Republicans to sign on to his lawsuit seeking to persuade the Supreme Court to overturn the election results.He told his colleagues that “the initiative had been personally blessed by Mr. Trump, and that the former president was ‘anxiously awaiting’ to see who in Congress would defend him,” The Times reported.In the Supreme Court brief that Johnson filed on Dec. 10, 2020, he argued that the election hadbeen riddled with an unprecedented number of serious allegations of fraud and irregularities. National polls indicate a large percentage of Americans now have serious doubts about not just the outcome of the presidential contest, but also the future reliability of our election system itself. Amici respectfully aver it is the solemn duty of this Court to provide an objective review of these anomalies and to determine for the people if indeed the Constitution has been followed and the rule of law maintained.On Dec. 11, in a brief unsigned order, the Supreme Court dismissed the suit, but Johnson won recognition from his fellow Republicans in the House for his fealty to Trump.Asked shortly after he was elected speaker whether he continued to believe that the 2020 election was stolen, Johnson told a Washington Post reporter: “We’re not talking about any issues today,” adding only, “My position is very well known.”In theory, at least, it is difficult to understand how Johnson can justify his support for Trump, whom Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum and a contributing writer for Times Opinion, described this way in The Atlantic in 2020:A man whose lifestyle is more closely aligned with hedonism than with Christianity, Trump clearly sees white evangelicals as a means to an end, people to be used, suckers to be played. He had absolutely no interest in evangelicals before his entry into politics and he will have absolutely no interest in them after his exit. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a person who has less affinity for authentic Christianity — for the teachings of Jesus, from the Sermon on the Mount to the parable of the good Samaritan — than Donald Trump.Johnson’s ascent to the top job in the House also raises a larger, more encompassing question: Will voters care in 2024 (and beyond) that one of America’s two major political parties has been taken over by an alliance of MAGA forces and their white evangelical allies, who have clearly indicated their willingness to abandon democratic norms — that is, democracy itself — in the pursuit of power?Polling suggests that this is a far from settled question.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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      How Germany’s Green Party Lost Its Luster

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      The party was riding high when it entered the government two years ago. Now it is stumbling, blamed for driving voters to the far right.Germany’s Green Party entered the government in 2021 with the best election showing of its history, establishing itself for the first time as a true mainstream party with the potential of one day even yielding a chancellor.It won five cabinet positions in the three-party coalition, including the powerful economy and foreign ministries. It seemed to have a strong mandate to advance the country’s economic transition toward a greener future.What a difference two years make. And a Russian invasion of Ukraine. And rising energy costs. And a host of missteps that some even within the party concede has stalled the Greens’ momentum.Today the Greens are widely viewed as a drag on the government of the Social Democratic chancellor, Olaf Scholz, which one poll gave a mere 19 percent approval rating. The Greens have drawn withering attacks from even their own coalition partners. To their opponents, the Greens have overreached on their agenda and become the face of an out-of-touch environmental elitism that has alienated many voters, sending droves to the far right.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      Trump’s Verbal Slips Could Weaken His Attacks on Biden’s Age

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      Donald Trump, 77, has relentlessly attacked President Biden, 80, as too old for office. But the former president himself has had a series of gaffes that go beyond his usual freewheeling style.One of Donald J. Trump’s new comedic bits at his rallies features him impersonating the current commander in chief with an over-the-top caricature mocking President Biden’s age.With droopy eyelids and mouth agape, Mr. Trump stammers and mumbles. He squints. His arms flap. He shuffles his feet and wanders laggardly across the stage. A burst of laughter and applause erupts from the crowd as he feigns confusion by turning and pointing to invisible supporters, as if he does not realize his back is to them.But his recent campaign events have also featured less deliberate stumbles. Mr. Trump has had a string of unforced gaffes, garble and general disjointedness that go beyond his usual discursive nature, and that his Republican rivals are pointing to as signs of his declining performance.On Sunday in Sioux City, Iowa, Mr. Trump wrongly thanked supporters of Sioux Falls, a South Dakota town about 75 miles away, correcting himself only after being pulled aside onstage and informed of the error.It was strikingly similar to a fictional scene that Mr. Trump acted out earlier this month, pretending to be Mr. Biden mistaking Iowa for Idaho and needing an aide to straighten him out.In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has also told supporters not to vote, and claimed to have defeated President Barack Obama in an election. He has praised the collective intellect of an Iranian-backed militant group that has long been an enemy of both Israel and the United States, and repeatedly mispronounced the name of the armed group that rules Gaza.“This is a different Donald Trump than 2015 and ’16 — lost the zip on his fastball,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida told reporters last week while campaigning in New Hampshire.“In 2016, he was freewheeling, he’s out there barnstorming the country,” Mr. DeSantis added. “Now, it’s just a different guy. And it’s sad to see.”It is unclear if Mr. Trump’s recent slips are connected to his age. He has long relied on an unorthodox speaking style that has served as one of his chief political assets, establishing him, improbably, among the most effective communicators in American politics.But as the 2024 race for the White House heats up, Mr. Trump’s increased verbal blunders threaten to undermine one of Republicans’ most potent avenues of attack, and the entire point of his onstage pantomime: the argument that Mr. Biden is too old to be president.Mr. Biden, a grandfather of seven, is 80. Mr. Trump, who has 10 grandchildren, is 77.Even though only a few years separate the two men in their golden years, voters view their vigor differently. Recent polls have found that roughly two out of three voters say Mr. Biden is too old to serve another four-year term, while only about half say the same about Mr. Trump.If that gap starts to narrow, it’s Mr. Trump who has far more to lose in a general-election matchup.Mr. Trump and President Biden are the front-runners for each party’s nomination, setting up the likelihood of a 2020 rematch. Michelle Gustafson for The New York TimesAccording to a previously unreported finding in an August survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 43 percent of U.S. voters said both men were “too old to effectively serve another four-year term as president.” Among those voters, 61 percent said they planned to vote for Mr. Biden, compared with 13 percent who said the same about Mr. Trump.Last week, similar findings emerged in a Franklin & Marshall College poll of registered voters in Pennsylvania, one of the most closely watched 2024 battlegrounds.According to the poll, 43 percent of Pennsylvanians said both men were “too old to serve another term.” An analysis of that data for The New York Times showed that Mr. Biden led Mr. Trump among those voters by 66 percent to 11 percent. Among all voters in the state, the two men were in a statistical tie.Berwood Yost, the director of the Franklin & Marshall poll, said that Mr. Biden’s wide lead among voters who were worried about both candidates’ ages could be explained partly by the fact that Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to identify age as a problem for their party’s leader. “The age issue is one that if Trump gets tarred with the same brush as Biden, it really hurts him,” Mr. Yost said.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, noted that the former president maintained a commanding lead in Republican primary polls and that in the general election, several recent polls had shown Mr. Trump with slight leads over Mr. Biden.“None of these false narratives has changed the dynamics of the race at all — President Trump still dominates, because people know he’s the strongest candidate,” Mr. Cheung said. “The contrast is that Biden is falling onstage, mumbling his way through a speech, being confused on where to walk, and tripping on the steps of Air Force One. There’s no correcting that, and that will be seared into voter’s minds.”Mr. Trump’s rhetorical skills have long relied on a mix of brute force and a seemingly preternatural instinct for the imprecise. That beguiling combination — honed from a lifetime of real estate negotiations, New York tabloid backbiting and prime-time reality TV stardom — often means that voters hear what they want to hear from him.Mr. Trump’s speaking style has often meant that his supporters, or voters who are open to backing him, hear what they want to hear from him. Jordan Gale for The New York TimesTrump supporters leave his speeches energized. Undecided voters who are open to his message can find what they’re looking for in his pitch. Opponents are riled, and when they furiously accuse him of something they heard but that he didn’t quite precisely say, Mr. Trump turns the criticism into a data point that he’s unfairly persecuted — and the entire cycle begins anew.But Mr. Trump’s latest missteps aren’t easily classified as calculated vagueness.During a Sept. 15 speech in Washington, a moment after declaring Mr. Biden “cognitively impaired, in no condition to lead,” the former president warned that America was on the verge of World War II, which ended in 1945.In the same speech, he boasted about presidential polls showing him leading Mr. Obama, who is not, in fact, running for an illegal third term in office. He erroneously referred to Mr. Obama again during an anecdote about winning the 2016 presidential race.“We did it with Obama,” Mr. Trump said. “We won an election that everybody said couldn’t be won, we beat …” He paused for a beat as he seemed to realize his mistake. “Hillary Clinton.”At a Florida rally on Oct. 11, days after a brutal terrorist attack that killed hundreds of Israelis, Mr. Trump criticized the country for being unprepared, lashing out at its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Trump appears to have soured on Mr. Netanyahu, once a close ally, after the Israeli leader congratulated Mr. Biden for winning the 2020 election.In the same speech, Mr. Trump relied on an inaccurate timeline of events in the Middle East to criticize Mr. Biden’s handling of foreign affairs and, in the process, drew headlines for praising Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group.Last week, while speaking to supporters at a rally in New Hampshire, Mr. Trump praised Viktor Orban, the strongman prime minister of Hungary, but referred to him as “the leader of Turkey,” a country hundreds of miles away. He quickly corrected himself.At another point in the same speech, Mr. Trump jumped into a confusing riff that ended with him telling supporters, “You don’t have to vote — don’t worry about voting,” adding, “We’ve got plenty of votes.”Mr. Cheung, the Trump campaign spokesman, said the former president was “clearly talking about election integrity and making sure only legal votes are counted.”Under Mr. Trump, the Republican Party has been dealt a series of electoral defeats since 2016. Doug Mills/The New York TimesIn a speech on Saturday, Mr. Trump sounded as if he were talking about hummus when he mispronounced Hamas (huh-maas), the Islamist group that governs the Gaza Strip and carried out one of the largest attacks on Israel in decades on Oct. 7.The former president’s pronunciation drew the attention of the Biden campaign, which posted the video clip on social media, noting that Mr. Trump sounded “confused.”But even Republican rivals have sensed an opening on the age issue against Mr. Trump, who has maintained an unshakable hold on the party despite a political record that would in years past have compelled conservatives to consider another standard-bearer. Mr. Trump lost control of Congress as president; was voted out of the White House; failed to help deliver a “red wave” of victories in the midterm elections last year; and, this year, drew 91 felony charges over four criminal cases.Nikki Haley, the 51-year-old former governor of South Carolina, opened her presidential bid this year by calling for candidates 75 or older to pass mental competency tests, a push she has renewed in recent weeks.On Saturday, Ms. Haley attacked Mr. Trump over his comments about Mr. Netanyahu and Hezbollah, suggesting in a speech to Jewish donors in Las Vegas that the former president did not have the faculties to return to the White House.“Let me remind you,” she added with a small smile. “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.”Jazmine Ulloa More

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      Trump Is Still Far Ahead in Iowa Poll, With Haley Matching DeSantis for 2nd

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      Former President Donald J. Trump leads his closest competitors by 27 percentage points in a new Des Moines Register poll, but Nikki Haley has surged to tie Ron DeSantis.Former President Donald J. Trump still has a huge lead in Iowa, according to a poll released Monday, but Nikki Haley has surged to tie Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for a distant second place.Mr. Trump has the support of 43 percent of voters likely to participate in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation Republican caucuses in January, the new Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll found — about the same as the 42 percent he had in the same poll in August.Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former United Nations ambassador, are tied at 16 percent. That is a decline of three percentage points for Mr. DeSantis and an increase of 10 points for Ms. Haley, driven in part by increasing support for Ms. Haley among independent voters.The poll was conducted by J. Ann Selzer and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.Behind Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis are Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina at 7 percent, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey at 4 percent, and Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota at 3 percent. None of those candidates have moved significantly since the August poll.The new survey was conducted before former Vice President Mike Pence dropped out of the race on Saturday. He had only 2 percent support — down from 6 percent in August — and his supporters were redistributed to their second-choice candidates in the final results. More