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      GOP Voters Show Appetite for Calls to Use Military Force Against Mexican Cartels

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      G.O.P. candidates on the trail have used the idea as both an effective applause line and a solution for what many Republicans see as an unchecked border.Iowa is more than 1,000 miles from the U.S. border with Mexico. But Republican primary voters in the Midwestern state have embraced what has become almost orthodoxy among the G.O.P. candidates vying for their votes: deploying military forces to fight drug cartels and secure the border.Just years after former President Donald Trump mused about it in the Oval Office, the idea of using the country’s military might at the border — without the consent of the Mexican government — has made its way into barns, diners and other haunts along the campaign trail. The Times reported Tuesday on Mr. Trump’s plans to make the idea a reality in 2025 should he ultimately win the White House.At a Pizza Ranch restaurant in Orange City, Iowa, last month, Vivek Ramaswamy suggested that the United States should “use our own military to secure our own southern border.” He drew cheers before he finished the line: “and if necessary, our northern border, too.”Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina received claps for his border policy pronouncements at the Iowa State Fair in August, during which he said, “We have to crush the cartels.” He added that the United States had “the available military-grade technology to stop the fentanyl flow across our borders.”And one of the most reliable applause lines for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — who frequently promises military strikes against Mexican drug cartels and deadly force against people crossing the border — has involved a declaration that his administration would leave drug traffickers “stone-cold dead.”A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that around two-thirds of Republicans support the idea of military intervention to take on cartels, though that percentage dropped when respondents were asked whether the United States should do so without Mexico’s permission.Unilaterally sending U.S. troops into Mexico is a nonstarter for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who said the move would constitute “an offense to the people of Mexico.” Policy experts and even senior aides in the Trump administration also decried the prospect as an extreme escalation.But that hasn’t stopped G.O.P. presidential candidates from using the threat of taking out cartel members abroad through military force as both an effective rallying cry and a solution for what many Republicans see as an unchecked border and an opioid epidemic, even if promises of military intervention may prove difficult to keep.The line has received a warm welcome in other early voting states, too. Nikki Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, often pledges to send special military operations “to take out the cartels in Mexico.”At an event in Hampton, New Hampshire, last month, it really landed. “If Mexico is not going to do it, we will do it,” she told a crowd outside a cozy bed-and-breakfast, who began clapping before she finished her delivery. The small state has been ravaged by fentanyl. Few candidates have offered alternate thoughts. Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who once led the Drug Enforcement Administration, has rebutted the idea of military intervention — a response that might partly explain why Mr. Hutchinson did not even make the G.O.P. debate stage last week.“It doesn’t make sense, as some candidates say, that we ought to start dropping bombs or invade Mexico,” Mr. Hutchinson said at a Republican tailgate for an Iowa-Iowa State football game in September. “Mexico is still a friendly country to the United States and economic partner, and you don’t invade another country.”The crowd didn’t seem convinced: Many resumed chatting or searched for refreshments during his remarks.Nicholas Nehamas More

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      Kevin McCarthy Surprised Us All

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      Gail Collins: I didn’t think I’d be saying this, Bret, but we’ve dodged a shutdown. It’s a stupendous moment for Kevin McCarthy. Now if he gets tossed out as House speaker by the right wing, he’ll go down in history as the guy who sacrificed his career for the common good. As opposed to the best-possible previous scenario: the boring career pol who was too scared to keep the government running.What’s your reaction?Bret Stephens: Cutting billions in funding for Ukraine was a shame, but I’m guessing the aid will be restored to Kyiv pretty soon. Otherwise, it’s a vast relief that the government will stay open. And, of course, watching someone like Matt Gaetz get politically humiliated is always pleasing.Gail: And there was Gaetz, on cue, announcing Sunday that he would try to remove McCarthy from the speakership. Lord knows it’s been a long trek, listening to the Republicans’ constant yelping about deficit spending. Is it fair to point out that the national debt rose $7.8 trillion during the Trump administration?Bret Stephens: Not fair at all, Gail. Everything that happened when Trump was president was so perfect, so beautiful.OK, I’m kidding. One of my many laments about Trump is that he spent like a sailor on land and governed like a drunk at sea. I wish this would count against him with G.O.P. primary voters, but the truth is that the average Republican isn’t all that eager to really slash government spending, even if they say they don’t like the government. I think Trump intuitively understood this, which is why attacks from Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley aren’t making a dent in Trump’s poll numbers.Which reminds me: Your thoughts on last week’s Republican presidential debate? Whom did you dislike the least?Gail: I suspect this is a setup to get me to praise your fave, Nikki Haley.Bret: Not a setup. An … invitation.Gail: And hey, I can’t argue that she wasn’t the sanest of the group. Along with Chris Christie, the Republican Republicans love to hate.Haley lightly criticized Trump’s performance as president, and after the debate was over, he called her a “birdbrain.”You know, I have this tiny hope that the New Hampshire Republican voters will exercise a little independence and give her the top primary vote and an early lift. But kinda worried Christie will be in there too, dividing the sanity caucus.Bret: A great point. Christie should get out now and throw his support behind Haley. The only reason he got in the race in the first place was to chuck spears at Trump. It hit the wrong Donald — Duck, not Trump — and now all Christie is doing is dividing the anti-Trump field. I also wish Mike Pence would recognize reality and tuck back into bed with his wife of 38 years. That would give Haley a fighting chance to further destroy Vivek Ramaswamy and replace DeSantis as the most plausible Republican alternative to Trump. But I have to admit, my hopes of Trump not being the nominee are dwindling fast.Gail: OK, New Hampshire Republicans, are you listening? Counting on you for a primary miracle.Bret: Speaking of Trump crushing his opponents, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw that Washington Post-ABC News poll last week, giving Trump a 10-point lead over Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup. I realize it might be an outlier, but I don’t understand why no serious Democrat is willing to challenge Biden for the nomination. Help me out here.Gail: The poll, if accurate, is a cry of crankiness from middle-of-the-roaders who wanted a more exciting candidate. Still, the only reason for a loyal Democrat to oppose Biden’s nomination is that he’s too old. I think he’s been a darned good president. And while I do wish he had stepped aside, I’m certainly not going to have any trouble whatsoever arguing he’s the better option.This is when I get to point out that Trump is 77 and in worse physical condition than Biden. And has been saying some very weird things lately — even for him.Bret: Biden’s main problem isn’t that he’s too old. There are plenty of sharp, fit and healthy 80-year-olds. His problem is that he looks and sounds feeble. Trump may be awful and insane and nearly as old as Biden, but one thing he isn’t is low energy. And even if you think Biden is the best president since F.D.R., or Abe Lincoln for that matter, he’s got a 41.5 percent approval rating, a vice president who’s even more unpopular than he is and major political liabilities on immigration, crime and inflation. Also now Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is hinting that he’ll run as a third-party candidate in the general election, which would be on top of Biden’s Cornel West problem.Gail: Thank you for giving me a chance to howl about third-party candidates, who have no possibility of winning but every possibility of screwing up the majority’s right to choose.Bret: I suppose that, in theory, Kennedy could subtract a lot of votes from Trump, since both of them draw from the same well of looney-tune conspiracy theories. But my guess is that, as a Democrat, Biden would be the bigger loser from an independent Kennedy campaign. And if West persists in running, drawing progressive and Black voters away from Biden, then the chances of a Trump victory grow even larger.Gail: But we were talking about President Joe …Bret: If you see Biden jumping out of the political hole he’s in, please tell me how.Gail: Just being sane, not under multitudinous indictments or facing a stupendous financial collapse is … going to help. This is not going to be one of those sunny remember-when election victories like Barack Obama’s or I guess for Republicans, Ronald Reagan’s. But given the Donald’s multiple upcoming trials, I think it’ll be a wow-what-a-crazy-year episode that ends with the majority rationally rejecting the worst possible option.Bret: If a second Trump administration is the national nightmare you and I think it will be, then Democrats need a better political strategy than getting angry at third-party candidates while hoping that Trump goes to jail before he returns to the White House. The passing of California’s Dianne Feinstein is a sad event, and there’s a lot to celebrate in her long and distinguished career, but it was hubris on her part to run for re-election in 2018, just like it was hubris for Ruth Bader Ginsburg not to step down while Obama was still president. Although, in Feinstein’s defense, at least she could be reasonably sure that a Democratic governor would choose her successor.Gail: Yeah, when you’ve got a great job in the spotlight, it’s hard to just let it go.Bret: Which maybe explains the guy in the White House. Sorry, go on.Gail: I thought Feinstein should have resigned when she became incapacitated. And Ginsburg diminished a great legacy by hanging onto her job when she was sick and close to death, thereby paving the way for Trump to complete his takeover of the Supreme Court.We have to celebrate the people who surrender the spotlight voluntarily, like Nancy Pelosi, who is still serving the country as a member of Congress, but gave up her party’s House leadership to let the next generation be in the center of attention.Hey — a positive thought! Any good news you want to share?Bret: I don’t know if this is good news per se, but I was delighted to hear Mark Milley, the retiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dismiss Trump as a “wannabe dictator” after his former boss suggested the general’s actions with regard to China would have once been punishable by death. Milley emphasized the military’s fidelity to the Constitution, which is yet another reminder that Democrats should put aside their 50 years of misgivings about the Defense Department and embrace its vital role in defending democracy at home and abroad.Hoping for agreement …Gail: Total agreement about the Defense Department having a vital role. Not so much about the Defense Department having an efficient operation. Way too much waste, which mostly comes from members of Congress lobbying to keep job-creating military facilities in their districts, and pressure to pick up wasteful contracts because they’re supported by, um, members of Congress.Bret: I’ll make a modest bet that, in another few years, Democrats will be the strong-on-defense party, just as they were in the days of Jack Kennedy. It’s part of the great ideological switcheroo taking place right now between the parties: Republicans sound a lot like Democrats of yesteryear — working-class values, quasi-isolationist in their foreign policy, indifferent to the moral character of their leaders — while Democrats have become the party of college-educated managerial types who want to stand up to Russia and uphold moral integrity in political leadership.Gail: Well, we’ll see. At least we’re ending on a consensus of sorts: that Trump is going to be doing something awful soon. Granted, that’s not the toughest prediction to make. So before we go, give me one of your great quotes to celebrate the arrival of October.Bret: Not really a celebration, but a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem I love:Márgarét, áre you gríevingOver Goldengrove unleaving?Leáves like the things of man, youWith your fresh thoughts care for, can you?Ah! ás the heart grows olderIt will come to such sights colderBy and by, nor spare a sighThough worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;And yet you wíll weep and know why.Now no matter, child, the name:Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressedWhat heart heard of, ghost guessed:It ís the blight man was born for,It is Margaret you mourn for.I memorized it many years ago, thanks to my teacher and friend, Dr. Peter Bach. He, better than anyone, knows its meaning.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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      Power of Older Women? Extinct G.O.P. Moderates? It’s Time for the Mailbag.

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      We’re answering reader questions on polling and elections, including the underexplored area of longevity.Women live longer than men on average, meaning they can vote more often on average. Arin Yoon for The New York TimesWatch out: Women outlive menI’m 79, and women my age remember when abortion was illegal. Many of us either had a back-alley abortion, or had friends who had one. We are determined that neither our daughters nor our granddaughters have to experience this. Many of the elderly men I know still vote for Republicans. But watch out: We outlive you! — Mary LeonhardtYou may be partly joking, Mary, but this is probably a minor reason Democrats do a bit better among older voters than people might guess!Why? American women, who tend to support Democrats, live almost six years longer on average than men. Women make up 55 percent of registered voters over age 65 — including 58 percent of those over age 80 — according to data from L2, a political data firm. In comparison, women are 52 percent of registered voters under 65.I know all of this is a little morbid, but longevity strikes me as an underexplored dimension of electoral trends nowadays. We know higher life expectancy is correlated with socioeconomic status and tends to be higher in Democratic-leaning areas. Could this be a factor in why Democrats are performing better among older voters than usually thought? I think so.Are you sure these people exist?“You refer to ‘relatively moderate, highly educated Republicans.’ You could have listed all of them … it wouldn’t have been a long list. — Jeff DavisIt would be a longer list than you might think. More than 20 million people with a college degree voted for Donald J. Trump in 2020. In our last New York Times/Siena College poll, 13 percent of likely Republican primary voters were self-identified moderates or liberals with a college degree.There’s a bigger lesson here: A small percentage of a huge group can still yield a large number of people. To take another example: There are more Republicans in California than in any other state. There are more Republicans in Brooklyn than in Wyoming, the state where Mr. Trump fared best.If not Biden, who?Pundits keep saying people don’t want Biden. Who do they want? — R. GribbonWell, they’re not sure. In an open-ended survey question, no alternative candidate earns any meaningful amount of support from Democratic voters. And I don’t think that’s entirely unreasonable, given there aren’t any mainstream Democrats running against President Biden.To me, the interesting question is whether many of these voters would wind up preferring Mr. Biden if alternatives like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan or Gov. Gavin Newsom of California actually ran. It seems quite possible.Just forget about national polling?I find national polling to be particularly misleading. Please focus on state-by-state polling. I’ll be watching PA, WI, MN, GA, AZ, VA, and NV. — Tim OliverI’m sympathetic to the general sentiment here, Tim. Over the years, we’ve done many more Times/Siena polls in the battleground states than nationwide.But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that national polling is misleading. The difference between the national vote and the battleground states isn’t that large — and might even be shrinking.There are advantages to national polling as well. There are more historical questions for comparison. It’s much less expensive than battleground polling: It might take six state polls to get a decent picture. And there are plenty of cases — say, a Republican presidential primary or a battle for control of the House — where the national picture is much more relevant than the core battlegrounds.Polling and nonbinary peopleI was wondering about the inclusivity of the demographic charts. I noticed that the gender category was very binary, with someone only being able to select male or female. Were there any nonbinary people interviewed in this poll, or did someone have to select male or female? As a nonbinary person, I would love to advocate for queer folx to be able to fully participate in these polls. Thank you so much. — Melissa DaileyIt’s worth adding some historical context. First, most pollsters typically asked whether someone was male or female — which is to say someone’s “sex,” not gender. That’s what the Census Bureau does as well, and pollsters generally find it advantageous to have their questions align with the census for comparison or even statistical adjustment. And as someone who loves historical data, I’m also always loath to lose a consistent measurement of something over time.Second, you might be surprised to learn that many telephone pollsters haven’t actually been asking about the sex or gender of respondents. Instead, many have relied on the interviewer to record the respondent’s sex or gender based on voice. That might seem strange, but many respondents find it strange or even offensive to be asked if they’re a man or a woman.Nonetheless, this is an area where survey research is evolving. In the last decade or so, many pollsters have started asking about gender. A smaller number of pollsters have offered respondents options beyond “male” or “female” or “man” or “woman,” though this is complicated in its own right. Respondents could identify in any number of ways, whether as transgender, non-cisgender, nonbinary, gender fluid, queer or something else. They could identify as a “man” or a “woman” to reflect a gender that does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth.There’s another issue with adding small categories: measurement error. If one in every 300 respondents is trolling, or if one in 300 interviewers mistakenly clicks the wrong gender button, this mismeasured 0.3 percent of the sample will have no discernible effect on our results among men and women. But it could make up a huge share of the tiny number of transgender respondents.In our most recent Times/Siena poll, “male” and “female” were the only explicitly listed options when we asked about gender. But if respondents said they identified in some other way, the interviewer would record it. In the end, we had three respondents who said they were transgender or nonbinary. This sample was too small for us to report. I’m not sure whether we — or anyone else — is handling this exactly right; I expect the industry to continue to experiment and evolve.Woe WisconsinI am a Wisconsin voter who is a Democrat. However, we do not have to declare a party. How did you fit that into your analysis? — Nancy EschenburgIf you’re looking for a niche explanation for recent polling errors in Wisconsin, this is an interesting place to start.Unlike with most states, pollsters have very little data on the partisanship of Wisconsin respondents, making it much harder to ensure an unbiased sample.The absence of party registration is the best example, but the issue runs deeper. We don’t have data on whether our respondents participated in a partisan primary (like voting in a Republican presidential race). In most of the states without party registration, this primary participation data is a decent alternative.The results by precinct aren’t very helpful, either. Outside of Madison and Milwaukee, very few voters live in overwhelmingly blue or red precincts. Even the most Republican counties in Wisconsin aren’t so Republican that we can be especially confident that an individual respondent will be a Trump supporter.One of our major goals in recently collecting more data in Wisconsin was to improve our ability to estimate whether someone was a Democrat or a Republican, based on the relatively limited data at our disposal. I wouldn’t say we’ve found anything revolutionary: There’s just no substitute for knowing whether someone is registered as a Democrat or a Republican.Don’t forget ArizonaHere in very hot Arizona we will have some very “hot” political races. Of course we are a critical presidential swing state. Biden vs. Trump (or another Republican) will be very close again.And our U.S. Senate race (with Senator Sinema now an independent) will be fascinating. Ruben Gallego & Kari Lake & perhaps Sinema — that will be very entertaining. And the race will be critical regarding Senate control.So I plead with you to increase your polling in Arizona. We are just as important as other swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. — Chris HerstamChris, I think we deserve a little bit of credit! In 2020, Arizona was one of our core six battleground states in Times/Siena polling. We surveyed it five times during the cycle, tied for the most of any state. We surveyed it in 2018 and 2022 as well, something that can be said only of Arizona and Nevada.Heading into 2024, Arizona remains in the top tier. We’ll poll it just as much as Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia.Six kinds of Democrats?Loved your “Six Kinds of Republicans.” Please do the same with Dems. — Walter B. ShurdenI’d like to see the same article written about Democrats … We all know there is a big difference between a conservative Democrat and someone like A.O.C. — Craig WilsonYou’ll most likely have to wait until 2028! In the meantime, consider reading our breakdown of Democratic voters from 2019. There were five types of Democrats in that analysis, based on data from the Hidden Tribes project: progressive activists, traditional liberals, passive liberals, moderates and the politically disengaged.Another option to get you through until the next Democratic primary: Pew Research’s 2021 typology, which identified four Democratic-leaning groups: progressive left, establishment liberals, Democratic mainstays and the outsider left. More

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      In Poland, Supporters of Opposition March in Warsaw Ahead of Key Election

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      The fate of democracy and aid for Ukraine undergird the October vote, which will decide whether the governing Law and Justice party secures an unprecedented third term in a row.Huge crowds marched through Poland’s capital, Warsaw, on Sunday, converging around a giant flag commemorating a 1944 uprising against Nazi Germany, as opponents of the governing party sought to rally voters for a critical general election that they see as the last chance to save the country’s hard-won democratic freedoms.The Warsaw city government, which is controlled by the opposition, put the crowd at a million people at its peak. But state-controlled television, which mostly ignored the event, instead broadcasting a pre-election convention by the governing Law and Justice party, estimated fewer than 100,000 had turned out, citing police sources.The march was the biggest display of antigovernment sentiment since Poland’s Solidarity trade union movement rallied against communism in the 1980s. It set the stage for the final stretch of an increasingly nasty election campaign. Poland, bitterly polarized on everything from relations with the rest of Europe to abortion rights, will hold a general election on Oct. 15 that will decide whether the conservative Law and Justice party secures an unprecedented third term in a row in government.In a speech peppered with references to Poland’s past struggles for liberty, Donald Tusk, the main opposition leader, appealed for patriots to cast out a right-wing nationalist government that he said was pitting Poles against Poles, defiling the legacy of national heroes who had resisted foreign occupation.He promised to end what he called “the Polish-Polish war” stoked by the governing party’s denunciation as traitors Poles who deviate from traditional Catholic values or look to the European Union for help against discrimination and government meddling in the judiciary.“Change for the better is inevitable,” he said.Billed as “the march of a million hearts,” the event featured Polish and E.U. flags, as well as a few American ones waved by Poles with family in the United States. Before leading a huge crowd in singing the Polish national anthem, which starts with the words “Poland has not yet perished,” Mr. Tusk said the opening line “has never had such a strong and authentic ring as it does today.”Seeking to reclaim patriotism from Law and Justice, which presents itself as a protector of Polish values and sovereignty against E.U. bureaucrats in Brussels and accuses Mr. Tusk of being a stooge for Germany or Russia or at times both countries, the opposition leader said: “They are not Poland. We are Poland!”Donald Tusk, the leader of opposition Civic Coalition, attended the march in Warsaw on Sunday.Omar Marques/Getty ImagesSpeaking to his own supporters at a pre-election party convention in the southern city of Katowice, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Law and Justice’s chairman and Poland’s de facto leader, mocked Mr. Tusk as “such an idiot” whose victory would lead to the country’s enslavement by foreign powers.He claimed that Mr. Tusk’s term as prime minister, from 2007 to 2014, had made “Poland subordinate to external forces,” especially Germany and Russia. Law and Justice, he said, needed “mobilization, faith, determination and work” to “ensure that Tusk’s system does not return to Poland.”Recent opinion polls give Law and Justice around 38 percent of the vote, compared with 30 percent for Mr. Tusk’s Civic Coalition, an alliance of centrist and center-left forces, with smaller left and far-right parties trailing far behind. The gap narrowed sharply over the summer, but after a full-throated media campaign demonizing Mr. Tusk and his supporters as enemies of the Roman Catholic Church, Law and Justice picked up support, particularly in areas that rely on the party-controlled state broadcasting system.No single party is expected to win a majority in the vote, and the shape of the next government will depend on which of the front-runners — Law and Justice or Civic Coalition — can find allies to form a coalition.As Mr. Tusk spoke to supporters in Warsaw, Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, addressed the Law and Justice convention in southern Poland, hammering the party’s favorite theme that the opposition serves German and Russian interests.“Tusk was their handmaiden,” he claimed, referring to energy deals struck between Berlin and Moscow while Mr. Tusk was Poland’s prime minister before taking a job in Brussels as president of the European Council — another strike against him, in the governing party’s view.Worried about competition from Konfederacja, a far-right group that has been vocal about reducing Poland’s assistance to Ukraine, Law and Justice has sent mixed messages in recent weeks about its policy toward Kyiv. It has insisted that it would not do anything to reduce the flow of weapons to fight Russia’s invading forces, while suggesting recently that it might do just that.Less than two weeks ago, Mr. Morawiecki told a national broadcaster that Poland was “no longer transferring any weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming ourselves with the most modern weapons.” Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, later walked back Mr. Morawiecki’s remarks, clearly made for electoral reasons but still unsettling for Poland’s foreign partners.Desperate to hang on to voters in rural areas, an important base of support, Law and Justice has vowed to halt the import of cheap Ukrainian grain and protect Polish farmers from the damage this has caused to their income. The grain was meant to just transit through Poland, but some of it was siphoned off for sale on the domestic market.Pre-election promises by the Polish government, along with those of Slovakia and Hungary, to halt all deliveries of Ukrainian grain did not stop the leader of a Polish farm lobbying group, Agrounia, from speaking on Sunday in support of the opposition.Law and Justice’s pre-election shifts and maneuvers have confused and annoyed fellow European countries that previously viewed Poland as a solid anchor of the West’s support for Ukraine, particularly those like Germany that Warsaw has repeatedly chided for not being steadfast enough in helping Kyiv.Janusz Michalak, 71, a retired logistics manager who joined the march with his wife, Alicija, said he had lived through communism and worried that Law and Justice — through cynical maneuvers to win support, the tight control of state broadcasting and the demonization of its political foes — want “us silent under their boot like the communists did.”“If we don’t change this government, democracy dies in Poland,” he added.Anatol Magdziarz More

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      Robert Kennedy Jr. Hints Strongly at Third-Party Presidential Bid

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      The political scion, whose long-shot Democratic primary challenge has faltered, released a video teasing a third-party candidacy that would put Democrats on high alert.Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hinted strongly on Friday that he would run for president on a third-party ticket instead of continuing his long-shot Democratic primary challenge to President Biden, a move that would set off alarms among Democrats worried about its potential to cause chaos in November 2024.Mr. Kennedy, in a video released by his campaign, teased a “major announcement” in Philadelphia on Oct. 9, promising to speak about “a sea change in American politics” and dropping clues that he would be continuing his presidential campaign outside the Democratic Party.“How are we going to win against the established Washington interests?” Mr. Kennedy says in the video. “It’s not through playing the game by the corrupt rules that the corrupt powers and the vested interests have rigged to keep us all in their thrall. Instead, we’re going to have to rewrite the assumptions and change the habits of American politics.”“What I’ve come to understand after six months of campaigning: There is a path to victory,” he declares at another point, saying that the more he sees the inherent goodness of the American people, “the more the path to victory becomes visible.”Mr. Kennedy’s top aides declined to elaborate about his intentions. But his supporters have expressed frustration with the Democratic National Committee’s primary process, which has been geared toward backing Mr. Biden’s re-election bid.“It’s kind of obvious,” said Lincoln Chafee, the former Rhode Island governor and senator, who is backing Mr. Kennedy. “The primaries are so rigged, there’s no debates.”Mr. Kennedy, he added, “has to look at his options.”Democrats have watched Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy nervously since it began in April. They fear that any third-party candidacy could siphon off crucial votes from Mr. Biden, ultimately helping former President Donald J. Trump, the current favorite to be the Republican nominee.Mr. Kennedy, 69, an environmental lawyer and prominent purveyor of conspiracy theories whose family has symbolized Democratic politics for decades, has built a following among Silicon Valley tech executives, disaffected voters in both parties and skeptics of the medical and scientific establishments.After some polls in the late spring showed him with up to 20 percent of Democratic support, Mr. Kennedy’s fortunes fell as more attention was paid to his panoply of views on the coronavirus pandemic, immigration and vaccines that are well outside the party’s mainstream.By late summer, surveys showed Mr. Kennedy polling in the low single digits. With his campaign roiled by news coverage of recordings of bigoted remarks he made at a New York dinner, he no longer appeared to be a threat to Mr. Biden.In recent months, Mr. Kennedy has dropped hints about continuing his campaign as a third-party candidate. He met in July with the Libertarian Party chairwoman and suggested on a podcast that he could leave the Democratic Party.As the reality set in for Mr. Kennedy that Mr. Biden would not debate him, he began using his platform to become more critical of the party and its presidential election process.This month, he published an open letter to Jaime Harrison, the D.N.C. chairman, and party members pleading for accommodations.“The D.N.C. is not supposed to favor one candidate over another,” Mr. Kennedy wrote.The Biden campaign and its allies at the D.N.C. have summarily dismissed Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy. .The fact that some Republicans believe it would be advantageous to Mr. Trump if Mr. Kennedy embarks on a third-party run has raised questions about whether anyone in the former president’s world has encouraged it.But Mr. Kennedy has in recent months become far more popular with Republicans than he is with Democrats. His campaign in the Democratic primary has been supported by Republicans: David Sacks, a donor for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, hosted a fund-raiser for him in June.While Democrats are nervous that any third-party options would hurt Mr. Biden, it’s not clear from whom Mr. Kennedy would draw more votes if he qualified for the ballot in key battleground states.Over the years, third-party candidacies have been a focus of Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump’s longest-serving political adviser.“I predict #RFK abandons the rigged Democrat nominating process and runs as an Independent,” Mr. Stone wrote on Sept. 24 on X, the website formerly known as Twitter.In a brief interview on Friday, Mr. Stone said he had no involvement in Mr. Kennedy’s effort. “I’m supporting Donald Trump,” he said.Corey Lewandowski, an ally of Mr. Trump who served as his campaign manager during the 2016 election, wrote on X in response to an article about Mr. Kennedy’s possible move, “If true the race is over for @JoeBiden⁩!”Despite Mr. Kennedy’s earlier flirtation with the Libertarian Party, Brian McWilliams, a spokesman for the party, said there had been no recent conversations between Mr. Kennedy and its leadership.Placing himself on the ballot as a candidate of a newly established third party would be an onerous and expensive proposition for Mr. Kennedy, who would have to navigate ballot access laws in enough states to be a serious presidential candidate.Maggie Haberman More

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      We Need to Talk About Joe Biden

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      Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicIn 2020, Joe Biden handily beat Donald Trump in a race that was never particularly close. But now that the twice-impeached and four-times-indicted former president may once again be the Republican nominee, polls suggest they might be even, at best. Why isn’t Biden doing better? Has his presidency really gone so poorly?This week on “Matter of Opinion,” the hosts discuss the uphill battle Biden is facing heading into 2024 and debate what kind of leader Americans really want.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Illustration by The New York Times; Photograph by Evan Vucci/Associated PressMentioned in this episode:“Reagan Should Not Seek Second Term, Majority Believes,” by Barry Sussman in The Washington PostThoughts? Email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com.Follow our hosts on Twitter: Michelle Cottle (@mcottle), Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT), Carlos Lozada (@CarlosNYT) and Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen).“Matter of Opinion” is produced by Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Phoebe Lett and Derek Arthur. It is edited by Stephanie Joyce. Mixing by Pat McCusker. Original music by Isaac Jones, Efim Shapiro, Carole Sabouraud and Pat McCusker. Our fact-checking team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Annie-Rose Strasser. More

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      Republican Group Running Anti-Trump Ads Finds Little Is Working

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      With over 40 ads and $6 million spent, a group tied to the Club for Growth is no closer to an answer, a memo to donors says. Some ads even gave Donald Trump a boost.A well-funded group of anti-Trump conservatives has sent its donors a remarkably candid memo that reveals how resilient former President Donald J. Trump has been against millions of dollars of negative ads the group deployed against him in two early-voting states.The political action committee, called Win It Back, has close ties to the influential fiscally conservative group Club for Growth. It has already spent more than $4 million trying to lower Mr. Trump’s support among Republican voters in Iowa and nearly $2 million more trying to damage him in South Carolina.But in the memo — dated Thursday and obtained by The New York Times — the head of Win It Back PAC, David McIntosh, acknowledges to donors that after extensive testing of more than 40 anti-Trump television ads, “all attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective.”The memo will provide little reassurance to the rest of the field of Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals that there is any elusive message out there that can work to deflate his support.“Even when you show video to Republican primary voters — with complete context — of President Trump saying something otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it,” Mr. McIntosh states in the “key learnings” section of the memo.“Every traditional postproduction ad attacking President Trump either backfired or produced no impact on his ballot support and favorability,” Mr. McIntosh adds. “This includes ads that primarily feature video of him saying liberal or stupid comments from his own mouth.”For the polling underpinning its analysis, Win It Back used WPA Intelligence — a firm that also works for the super PAC supporting Mr. Trump’s chief rival in the race for the presidential nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Examples of “failed” ads cited in the memo included attacks on Mr. Trump’s “handling of the pandemic, promotion of vaccines, praise of Dr. Fauci, insane government spending, failure to build the wall, recent attacks on pro-life legislation, refusal to fight woke issues, openness to gun control, and many others.” (Dr. Anthony S. Fauci led the national response to the Covid pandemic.)The list of failed attacks is notable because it includes many of the arguments that Mr. DeSantis has tried against Mr. Trump. The former president leads Mr. DeSantis by more than 40 points in national polls and by around 30 points in Iowa, where Mr. DeSantis’s team believes he has the best shot of defeating Mr. Trump.Mr. McIntosh, a former Indiana congressman who co-founded the Club for Growth and the Federalist Society, makes it clear in the memo that any anti-Trump messages need to be delivered with kid gloves. That might explain why Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down, has treated Mr. Trump gingerly, even in ads meant to contrast his character and his record unfavorably against Mr. DeSantis’s accomplishments.“Broadly acceptable messages against President Trump with Republican primary voters that do not produce a meaningful backlash include sharing concerns about his ability to beat President Biden, expressions of Trump fatigue due to the distractions he creates and the polarization of the country, as well as his pattern of attacking conservative leaders for self-interested reasons,” Mr. McIntosh writes in the memo.“It is essential to disarm the viewer at the opening of the ad by establishing that the person being interviewed on camera is a Republican who previously supported President Trump,” he adds, “otherwise, the viewer will automatically put their guard up, assuming the messenger is just another Trump-hater whose opinion should be summarily dismissed.”The polling conducted for Win It Back showed diminishing returns for the anti-Trump messaging and emphasized that Mr. Trump benefited from the fact that his rivals were still dividing up the non-Trump vote.In Iowa, Win It Back observed that in the areas where it ran ads, Mr. Trump’s likely share of the Republican vote fell by four percentage points. In the areas where the group did not advertise, Mr. Trump’s support grew by five points.Mr. DeSantis has made his handling of the pandemic a centerpiece of his campaign. But the analysis suggests that this strategy leads to a dead end.The memo says this of Win It Back’s most promising pandemic-themed ad: “This ad was our best creative on the pandemic and vaccines that we tested in focus group settings, but it still produced a backlash in our online randomized controlled experiment — improving President Trump’s ballot support by four points and net favorability by 11 points.”Win It Back did not bother running ads focused on Mr. Trump as an instigator of political violence or as a threat to democracy. The group tested in a focus group and online panel an ad called “Risk,” narrated by former Representative Liz Cheney, that focused on Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021. But the group found that the Cheney ad helped Mr. Trump with the Republican voters, according to Mr. McIntosh.In a section of the memo titled “next steps,” Mr. McIntosh concludes, “We plan to continue developing and testing ads to deploy when there are signs of consolidation.” More

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      DeSantis Clears a Debate Hurdle. Will It Be Enough to Build On?

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      The Florida governor projected confidence onstage, but time is running out to stop his slide in the polls and convince voters he’s the best Trump alternative.At a time when his standing in the polls has slid — and Republican donors have talked about finding another candidate to stop Donald J. Trump from cruising to the nomination — Gov. Ron DeSantis acted like the former president’s leading challenger at the second Republican presidential debate.Standing center stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday night, he deployed a newly assertive tone against the absent Mr. Trump, using criticisms he has been honing in recent weeks at the urging of his allies. He drew attacks from rivals who did show up, but none seemed to land a killer blow. And despite not saying a word until 15 minutes in, he ultimately imposed himself on the proceedings, speaking more than any other candidate.“Donald Trump is missing in action,” Mr. DeSantis said during his first remarks of the debate. “He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt.”The question is whether the performance will be enough now to stop him from losing ground and to build momentum. Time is running out to convince both skeptical voters and skittish donors that he is still the most competitive challenger to Mr. Trump than anyone else in the field. Mr. Trump’s standing in the race has only risen since the first debate in August, which he also skipped, and national surveys show him leading Mr. DeSantis by roughly 40 percentage points But as his rivals onstage Wednesday night clamored for airtime, conscious of their fading window, the Florida governor projected an air of confidence.“This is a two-man race,” Andrew Romeo, Mr. DeSantis’s communications director, told reporters in the spin room following the debate.Still, it was not exactly a breakout showing, and the debate may be best remembered for the seven candidates chaotically shouting over each other as the moderators tried to regain control. Even Mr. DeSantis conceded in an interview with Fox News after the debate that, had he been watching as a viewer, he would have “changed the channel.”Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said that Mr. DeSantis had “embarrassed” himself in front of the entire country, a seeming confirmation that the former president’s team still sees him as enough of a threat. (Mr. Trump’s team also sent out an email blast assailing Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and former ambassador to the United Nations.)Over the summer, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign strategy crystallized into one clear imperative: beat Mr. Trump in Iowa, the first state to vote in the Republican primary. Such a victory would pierce the sheen of the former president’s invincibility and potentially force some of the other candidates to drop out, his supporters say, allowing Mr. DeSantis to consolidate support.Having poured his resources into Iowa, and seen Mr. Trump attack the state’s popular governor and anger its influential anti-abortion activists, a win there seems more plausible for Mr. DeSantis than it did ahead of the first debate in Milwaukee. At that encounter, the other candidates avoided criticizing Mr. DeSantis, even as they could have taken advantage of his reputation as prickly and awkward when attacked.By the second debate on Wednesday night, however, their calculations had changed, and Mr. DeSantis was squarely in the cross hairs.Former Vice President Mike Pence went after him over increased government spending in Florida, as well as the Parkland school shooter’s not receiving the death penalty (a decision by a jury that was not in Mr. DeSantis’s control and to which he responded by signing a bill making it easier to execute people). Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina sparred with the governor over how slavery is taught in Florida schools, a frequent topic of dispute between the two men.Ms. Haley attacked him for opposing offshore drilling and fracking in Florida as governor while pushing for more oil and gas extraction in the United States as a presidential candidate. Of all the barbs, that one seemed to cut the sharpest. As Ms. Haley talked, Mr. DeSantis theatrically and somewhat uncomfortably laughed, saying that she was “entirely wrong,” although the thrust of her criticism was largely accurate.The attacks helped make Mr. DeSantis the center of attention in a way he was not in Milwaukee. And rather than starting fights of his own, and allowing other candidates to take back the spotlight, Mr. DeSantis generally stuck to his talking points on immigration, China and the economy while criticizing President Biden and Democrats.He even led the other candidates in a mini-revolt against the moderators, refusing to engage in a gimmicky attempt to have those onstage write down the name of the rival they thought should drop out of the race.Still, the bulk of Mr. DeSantis’s attention clearly remains on Mr. Trump.After the debate, he told the Fox News host Sean Hannity that he wanted to face Mr. Trump one-on-one.“I think he owes it to our voters to come and make the case,” Mr. DeSantis said. More