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      Have a Question About the Times/Siena 2024 Poll? Ask It Here

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      Times reporters will answer readers’ questions about new polling on next year’s presidential race.New polling by The New York Times and Siena College finds former President Donald J. Trump leading President Biden in five of six crucial swing states one year ahead of the 2024 presidential election.If you have a question about details of the polls’ findings or about the implications for next year’s elections, submit them below. Our reporters will answer them in the coming days. More

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      Why Biden Is Behind, and How He Could Come Back

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      A polling deficit against Trump across six key states is mainly about younger, nonwhite and less engaged voters. Kamala Harris performs slightly better.Four years ago, Joe Biden was the electability candidate — the broadly appealing, moderate Democrat from Scranton who promised to win the white working-class voters who elected Donald J. Trump.There are few signs of that electoral strength today. More

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      Trump Leads Biden in Nearly Every Battleground State, New Poll Finds

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      Voters in battleground states said they trusted Donald J. Trump over President Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration, as Mr. Biden’s multiracial base shows signs of fraying.President Biden is trailing Donald J. Trump in five of the six most important battleground states one year before the 2024 election, suffering from enormous doubts about his age and deep dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and a host of other issues, new polls by The New York Times and Siena College have found.The results show Mr. Biden losing to Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican rival, by margins of three to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden is ahead only in Wisconsin, by two percentage points, the poll found.Trump Is Ahead in Five of Six Swing StatesMargins are calculated using unrounded figures. More

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      DeSantis and Trump Bring Their Campaign Battle Home to Florida

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      At a state party summit, Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald J. Trump both argued that Florida was their turf. For the crowd, Mr. Trump’s assertion seemed to ring truer.When Gov. Ron DeSantis took the stage at a state Republican Party event in Kissimmee, Fla., on Saturday, he strode in front of a giant screen that proclaimed “Florida Is DeSantis Country.”Hours later, when it was former President Donald J. Trump’s turn, the backdrop instead broadcast a forceful rebuttal: “Florida Is Trump Country.”Both men were well received. But by the end of the night, Mr. Trump’s slogan rang truer.During his speech, Mr. Trump, the front-runner in the Republican presidential primary, aggressively attacked Mr. DeSantis, who once seemed like his most formidable rival. He called Mr. DeSantis names and described him as weak and disloyal to a crowd that laughed at a popular governor who once appeared infallible in his home state.Yet Mr. DeSantis had not even mentioned the former president in his own speech, even after questioning Mr. Trump’s manhood on a conservative news network this week. Instead, he shied away from his recent outspokenness against his rival and returned to the veiled swipes that characterized the race’s early months.Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have circled each other on the campaign trail for months but have rarely appeared on the same stage. Saturday’s event, the Florida Freedom Summit, brought their political tussle into full view.It also emphasized a dynamic that has become one of Mr. DeSantis’s largest political hurdles. Even as his rivalry with Mr. Trump has defined the Republican primary for months, the former president’s grip on the party has not loosened, while Mr. DeSantis has been losing ground.Mr. DeSantis’s reluctance to single out Mr. Trump on Saturday was all the more striking because the other candidates who spoke throughout the day were willing to do so.Vivek Ramaswamy, 38, said he was better positioned than Mr. Trump to reach younger voters. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said that Republicans had underperformed in multiple elections under Mr. Trump’s leadership.Mr. Scott also took aim at Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, saying that the governor had entered the race as a “historically strong candidate with all the advantages” but had drastically bled support.Mr. DeSantis’s falling stature was made evident earlier in the day when six Republican state lawmakers said that they would shift their endorsements from Mr. DeSantis to Mr. Trump, a move first reported by The Messenger.The defections came days after Senator Rick Scott of Florida, Mr. DeSantis’s predecessor with whom he has a frosty relationship, said that he would back Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis dismissed the significance of the legislators’ about-face.“Look, this happens in these things,” he told reporters on Saturday after signing the paperwork to file for the Florida primary. “We’ve had flips the other way in other states. It’s a dynamic thing. I mean, politicians do what they’re going to do.”But Mr. Trump made a point of bringing his new supporters onstage early in his speech, emphasizing how he was chipping away at Mr. DeSantis’s core base.He also portrayed Mr. DeSantis as having desperately sought his endorsement in 2018, saying that Mr. DeSantis had come to him with “tears flowing from his eyes,” and took credit for his political rise. Mr. Trump has made such attacks a mainstay of his stump speech.“It’s so disloyal,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. DeSantis’s decision to enter the 2024 race. And voters, he said, “care about loyalty.” The crowd whooped in affirmation.The crowd seemed to be on Mr. DeSantis’s side only when Mr. Trump discussed the coronavirus pandemic. As he rattled off the states whose Republican governors he believed best handled Covid-19, he conspicuously left out one.Members of the crowd filled in the blank: “Florida,” they shouted. Mr. Trump simply smirked and shrugged.During his time onstage earlier in the afternoon, Mr. DeSantis at times appeared to be operating within an alternate reality. He did not acknowledge Mr. Trump’s position in the race. His claim that Florida is “DeSantis Country” — certainly accurate when he won re-election by nearly 20 percentage points last year — ignored polling averages that show Mr. Trump 35 points ahead of him in the state.And while Mr. DeSantis opened his speech by joking that he did not need a teleprompter, a jab at President Biden, he frequently looked down at his notes as he spoke.Mr. Trump’s hold on Republicans in Florida was evident at the summit. The audience responded with booming cheers as he rattled off his accomplishments and attacked Mr. Biden. No other candidate received such resounding support.Mark Spowage, 73, said he had considered Mr. DeSantis a Republican “golden boy” after he received Mr. Trump’s endorsement as governor. But his opinion of Mr. DeSantis plummeted when he announced that he was challenging Mr. Trump — a shift shared by many of Mr. Trump’s loyal followers.“How does he think he has the right to do that?” Mr. Spowage, a software engineer, asked of Mr. DeSantis. “Because from my position, Trump was ordained, like someone that God has anointed to somehow take responsibility. For him to stand up to Trump, wow.”Many Republicans in the state have been privately whispering that Mr. DeSantis seems weaker at home than ever before, and Mr. Trump’s allies have said they are recruiting more defectors.Mr. DeSantis is now regularly ridiculed by his onetime ally, Mr. Trump. Memes poke fun at his unfortunate moments on the campaign trail, includinga controversy over whether Mr. DeSantis wears lifts in his boots. (He says he does not.)A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis’s campaign pointed out that he still has many more endorsements from state legislators in Florida, as well as in New Hampshire and Iowa, the first nominating states.Mr. Trump, however, remains widely popular with voters in those states. And though Mr. DeSantis has staked his campaign on a strong showing in Iowa, a recent survey found him tied there with Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. She has edged him out in polls in New Hampshire as well.Ms. Haley was originally scheduled to speak at Saturday’s summit but did not attend. Her campaign did not answer questions about her absence.Mr. Trump will again try to overshadow Mr. DeSantis on Wednesday, when the governor and other G.O.P. rivals take part in the third Republican debate in Miami. The former president, who has announced that he will instead hold a rally in Hialeah, Fla., is skipping the debate once again, a decision Mr. DeSantis sharply criticized earlier this week but did not mention on Saturday.“If Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate, I’ll wear a boot on my head,” Mr. DeSantis said in an interview on Newsmax on Thursday.But the crowd at the summit was clearly in no mood to hear any digs at the former president, and candidates who criticized Mr. Trump were heckled. When former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas said that he believed Mr. Trump would probably be found guilty in one of the criminal cases he was facing, the boos were ferocious.And Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who has become an outspoken Trump critic, was jeered immediately after he took the stage.Mr. Christie was not dissuaded, firing back at the crowd, “Your anger against the truth is reprehensible.”Jazmine Ulloa More

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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