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      Are Democrats Actually Winning Older Voters?

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      Some intriguing signs that the party may be doing better among seniors than is commonly thought.Some polling suggests President Biden gained among seniors.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesIn the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, the polls showed something strange: Joe Biden was faring far better than expected among voters over age 65. Some polls showed him ahead by 10 points or more.It was a little hard to explain — and believe. Yes, the pandemic hit seniors hardest. Yes, Mr. Biden was old himself. Yes, the baby boomer generation was aging into the 65-and-older group, replacing somewhat more conservative voters. But could Mr. Biden really be winning older voters? When the final overall results came in far better for Donald J. Trump than the polls suggested, it appeared to offer an obvious answer: no.Three years later, I’m wondering whether there was more to Mr. Biden’s strength among older voters than it seemed. Maybe he didn’t win older voters by 10 points, but maybe he actually did come close to winning older voters or outright did so.My renewed interest boils down to this: The polling, which was accurate last year for the midterms, still shows Mr. Biden and Democrats doing quite well among older voters.Our own Times/Siena polls, for instance, were highly accurate. They did not overestimate Democrats. And yet the Times/Siena polls found the generic congressional ballot tied among seniors, at 45 percent support for each party. In a question asking how they voted in the 2020 presidential election, the polls still found Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump, 53 percent to 47 percent, among older voters.Could Mr. Biden really have done so well? Unfortunately, it’s very hard to be sure. The various post-election studies — like the exit polls or the data from the Democratic firm Catalist — still show Republicans winning the group in 2022. Worse, the hard election results don’t offer much additional evidence to help clarify the matter. Voters aren’t nearly as segregated by age as they are by race or education, making it difficult to find additional evidence in voting results to confirm whether the trends evident in the polls are ultimately borne out on Election Day.But there is one additional data point worth considering: our high-incentive mail study of Wisconsin. As you may recall, we promised Wisconsin voters up to $25 dollars in an effort to reach the kinds of people who don’t usually take political surveys. In the end, it achieved a response rate surpassing 20 percent (by contrast, only about 1 percent of our attempted phone calls yield a completed interview in a typical poll). The response rate among older Wisconsinites appeared to be much, much higher.Democrats fared better among older voters in the Wisconsin mail survey than in any other major election study. The mail survey found the Democrat Mandela Barnes beating the Republican incumbent senator, Ron Johnson, by 52-40 among older registered voters. In comparison, the concurrent Times/Siena poll — using our traditional live-interview methods — found Mr. Barnes up by 46-43 among that group, while the other election studies were even farther to the right. The exit polls found Mr. Johnson ahead by seven points with that group while AP/VoteCast found Mr. Johnson up by four points.The findings were just as extreme when voters were asked to recall how they voted in the 2020 presidential election. In the high-incentive mail survey, voters over 67 in 2022 (meaning over 65 in 2020) said they backed Mr. Biden by 55-38 over Mr. Trump. In contrast, the Times/Siena poll found Mr. Biden ahead, 48-43, among the same group. The exit polls and VoteCast data both found Mr. Trump winning seniors by a comfortable margin in 2020.To reiterate: There’s not much additional evidence to help corroborate these very different versions of what happened among older voters. But the mail survey in Wisconsin is intriguing evidence. It’s renewed my curiosity in the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Democrats are doing better among older voters than is commonly thought.If they are, it would help make sense of the party’s new strength in special elections — which tend to have very old electorates — and perhaps in last November’s midterm elections as well. More

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      Biden to Deliver Major Address on the Economy in Chicago

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      President Biden hopes to claim credit for what the White House describes as a record-breaking economic revival in America.President Biden’s attempt to earn a second term in the White House begins with a concerted campaign to claim credit for what he describes as a record-breaking economic revival in America.Mr. Biden will make that case in what his aides say is a “cornerstone” speech on Wednesday, using the backdrop of the Old Chicago Main Post Office to reassert the lasting benefits of “Bidenomics” as the 2024 campaign cycle heats up.He will argue that his willingness to plunge the American government more directly into supporting key industries like silicon chips has revitalized manufacturing. He will say investments in rebuilding crumbling infrastructure will pave the way for future growth. And he will insist that spending hundreds of millions of dollars on programs like student debt relief will let more people find their way to a comfortable, middle class life.“Since the president has taken office, 13 million jobs have been created,” Lael Brainard, Mr. Biden’s top economic adviser, said Tuesday. “The unemployment rate is near historic lows, below 4 percent for the longest stretch in nearly 50 years. And we’ve received record low unemployment for groups that too frequently have been left behind.”The boasting about Mr. Biden’s economic achievements is a calculated shift from the more cautious approach of his first two years, when millions of Americans were still struggling to recover from the devastating impact of the pandemic on their financial well-being.And the positive spin from the president and his advisers largely ignores the frustrations of many Americans who are still suffering from the effects of high inflation, interest rates that make borrowing more expensive, and the expense of everyday spending on necessities like health care, child care, groceries, gas and more.“While families suffer, the Biden administration is in a fantasy world, insisting their ‘policy has indeed worked,’” Tommy Pigott, a spokesman for the National Republican Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday. “Americans don’t want Biden to ‘finish the job.’”Mr. Pigott cited figures showing that the price of a gallon of gas remains about a dollar higher than it was when Mr. Biden took office, despite declines since the price shocks when Russia invaded Ukraine. He said numbers from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association show about 20 million Americans are behind on their utility bills.But administration officials are betting that with the pandemic largely in the rear view mirror, people will soon begin to appreciate the positive effect they say the president’s policies are having on their own lives.“I think people all across the United States of America are starting to see shovels in grounds in their communities,” said Olivia Dalton, the deputy White House press secretary. “As we get further into implementation, people are going to continue to feel that. They’re going to continue to see that and they’re going to continue to hear from this president about how we’re going to continue to make progress for them.”For now, most Americans have refused to give Mr. Biden the kind of credit that he and his advisers say he deserves. Polls show that about three-fourths of those surveyed believe the country under Mr. Biden’s leadership is on the wrong track. Only about a third say they approve of his handling of the economy.The president’s advisers say they believe it will take time for two things to happen: First, Americans must shake off the economic hangover from the pandemic. And second, they must begin feel the benefits of Mr. Biden’s policies in action.“People are just starting to see the impact of all of the successes of the last couple of years under this president’s economic agenda,” said Olivia Dalton, the deputy White House press secretary.Eventually, Mr. Biden will have to shift his focus to the future, and make specific promises to Americans about what kinds of new economic policies he would pursue in a second term.That could include making progress on the economic pledges he had to abandon as he made legislative compromises since taking office. He failed to win sufficient support for his proposals to roll back tax cuts implemented by former President Donald J. Trump. He also dropped proposals for universal preschool, free community college and heavily subsidized child care. More

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      Can DeSantis Break Trump’s Hold on New Hampshire?

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      Donald Trump is looking to the state as an early chance to clear a crowded field, while Ron DeSantis’s camp is banking on winnowing the Republican race to two.Former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are holding dueling events on Tuesday in New Hampshire, but from vastly different political positions: one as the dominant front-runner in the state, the other still seeking his footing.Strategists for both campaigns agree that the state will play a starring role in deciding who leads the Republican Party into the 2024 election against President Biden.Mr. Trump sees the first primary contest in New Hampshire as an early chance to clear the crowded field of rivals. And members of Team DeSantis — some of whom watched from losing sidelines, as Mr. Trump romped through the Granite State in 2016 on his way to the nomination — hope New Hampshire will be the primary that winnows the Republican field to two.“Iowa’s cornfields used to be where campaigns were killed off, and now New Hampshire is where campaigns go to die,” said Jeff Roe, who runs Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down. Mr. Roe retains agonizing memories from 2016, when he ran the presidential campaign of the last man standing against Mr. Trump: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.New Hampshire’s voters are known for being fickle and choosy, sometimes infuriatingly so. The joke is that when you ask a Granite Stater whom they’re voting for, they say, “I don’t know, I’ve only met the candidate three times.”Mr. DeSantis is campaigning in Iowa, another early-voting state.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesYet midway through 2023, the state — more secular than Iowa and with a libertarian streak — appears frozen in place. Mr. Trump, now twice indicted and twice impeached, is nowhere near as dominant with Republicans as he was in 2020, but he is stronger than he was in 2016, and his closest challenger is well behind him.In 2016, Mr. Trump won New Hampshire with a blunt and incendiary message, fanning flames about terrorist threats and without doing any of the retail politicking that’s traditionally required. But local operatives and officials believe that Mr. Trump, with his decades-long celebrity status, is the only politician who could get away with this.“It’s definitely not going to be something that someone like Ron DeSantis can pull off,” said Jason Osborne, the New Hampshire House majority leader who endorsed the Florida governor for president. “He’s got to do the drill just like everybody else.”Polls suggest there is an opening for a Trump alternative. But to be that person, Mr. DeSantis has miles of ground to make up.As recently as January, Mr. DeSantis was leading Mr. Trump in the state by a healthy margin, according to a poll by the University of New Hampshire. But Mr. DeSantis has slipped considerably, with recent polling that suggests his support is in the teens and more than 25 percentage points behind Mr. Trump.In a move that some saw as ominous, Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, went off the airwaves in New Hampshire in mid-May and has not included the state in its latest bookings, which cover only Iowa and South Carolina.DeSantis allies insist the move was intended to husband resources in the Boston market, which they said was an expensive and inefficient way to reach primary voters. And they said Mr. DeSantis would maintain an aggressive schedule in the state.“We are confident that the governor’s message will resonate with voters in New Hampshire as he continues to visit the Granite State and detail his solutions to Joe Biden’s failures,” Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, said in a statement.Still, so much of Mr. DeSantis’s early moves seem aimed at Iowa and its caucuses that are dominated by the most conservative activists, many of whom are evangelical. In contrast, New Hampshire has an open primary that will allow independents, who tend to skew more moderate, to cast ballots. And without a competitive Democratic primary in 2024 they could be a particularly sizable share of the G.O.P. primary vote.Iowa is where Mr. DeSantis held his first event and where his super PAC has based its $100 million door-knocking operation.Mr. DeSantis’s signing of a six-week abortion ban is unlikely to prove popular in New Hampshire, where even the state’s Republican governor has described himself as “pro-choice.” Trump supporters at a DeSantis event in Manchester, N.H., this month. David Degner for The New York TimesThe clashing Trump and DeSantis events this week have jangled the nerves of local officials. Mr. DeSantis’s decision to schedule a town hall in Hollis on Tuesday at the same time that the influential New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women is hosting Mr. Trump at its Lilac Luncheon has prompted a backlash. The group’s events director, Christine Peters, said that to “have a candidate come in and distract” from the group’s event was “unprecedented.”Mr. DeSantis’s town hall will mark his fourth visit to New Hampshire this year and his second since announcing his campaign in May.Mr. DeSantis did collect chits in April when he helped the New Hampshire Republican Party raise a record sum at a fund-raising dinner. And he has gathered more than 50 endorsements from state representatives. But before the town hall on Tuesday, he had not taken questions from New Hampshire voters in a traditional setting.During his last trip to the state — a four-stop tour on June 1 — Mr. DeSantis snapped at a reporter who pressed him on why he hadn’t taken questions from voters.“What are you talking about?” Mr. DeSantis said. “Are you blind?”New Hampshire’s governor, Chris Sununu, said in an interview that there was “a lot of interest” in Mr. DeSantis from voters who had seen him on television but wanted to vet him up close.“Can he hold up under our scrutiny?” Mr. Sununu said. “I think he’s personally going to do pretty well here,” he added, but “the biggest thing” on voters’ minds is “what’s he going to be like when he knocks on my door.”New Hampshire’s voters will indeed be subjected to thousands of DeSantis door-knocks — but not from the man himself. He has outsourced his ground game to Never Back Down, which is expected to have more than $200 million at its disposal. The group has already knocked on more than 75,000 doors in New Hampshire, according to a super PAC official, an extraordinary figure this early in the race.But Mr. DeSantis still faces daunting challenges.Mr. Trump remains popular among Republicans, and even more so after his indictments. And he is not taking the state for granted. Unlike in 2016, his operation has been hard at work in the state for months, with influential figures like the former Republican state party chairman Stephen Stepanek working on Mr. Trump’s behalf.Mr. Trump’s super PAC has hammered Mr. DeSantis with television ads that cite his past support for a sales tax to replace the federal income tax — a message tailored to provoke residents of the proudly anti-tax state. The large field in the Republican race is a key challenge for Mr. DeSantis, as he seeks Republican voters looking for a Trump alternative.Sophie Park for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis’s biggest problem is the size of the field. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, camped out in the state in 2016 and appeared to be making headway in consolidating some of the anti-Trump vote in recent polls.The entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has already spent around 20 days campaigning in the state, according to his adviser Tricia McLaughlin. Former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina is another frequent visitor. Both have events in the state on Tuesday. Additionally, the campaign of Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has already spent around $2 million in New Hampshire.If these candidates stay in the race through early next year, a repeat of 2016 may be inevitable. In a crowded field, Mr. Trump won the state with over 35 percent of the vote. In the meantime, Mr. DeSantis needs “a defining message that gets beyond the small base he has,” said Tom Rath, a veteran of New Hampshire politics who has advised the presidential campaigns of Republican nominees including Mitt Romney and George W. Bush. “He needs to do real retail, and so far there is no indication that he can do that.”Ruth Igielnik More

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      Can Bidenomics Revive Biden’s 2024 Presidential Bid?

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      The president plans to extol his economic achievements in a big campaign-style speech. But inflation and recession fears could overshadow the message.President Biden heads to Chicago tomorrow to hail his economic record.John Minchillo/Associated PressBidenomics gets a reboot President Biden plans to double down on his economic record in a big campaign-style speech on Wednesday. He will hail the country’s record job growth, along with the administration’s signature policy wins aimed at expanding manufacturing, reinvesting in aging infrastructure and reorienting the economy for a clean-energy future.Yet despite the good news, Mr. Biden hasn’t seen a big jump in his popularity, and he trails his Republican rivals, according to some polls. High inflation and recession fears are dragging down his approval ratings, and the Biden administration is rethinking its messaging to try to convince Americans they should vote for him next November.“Bidenomics” will be at the heart of the president’s message. In a memo shared with journalists this week, two top Biden advisers, Anita Dunn and Mike Donilon, use the term repeatedly to frame the president’s accomplishments. They credit Bidenomics with helping the country bounce back from the pandemic “more quickly than most experts thought possible.” But as The Times’ Michael D. Shear reports, voters appear skeptical.What is Bidenomics? The president himself joked that the messaging is a work in progress. “I don’t know what the hell that is,” he told a rally this month. “But it’s working.” The Donilon-Dunn memo tries to give the messaging around Bidenomics a reboot. They point to how, for example, the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure law are creating jobs in the high-tech, manufacturing and green sectors.The numbers behind Bidenomics look impressive. Employers have added 13 million jobs during his presidency. And the unemployment rates of Black and Hispanic Americans are at or near a historic low. The White House also averted a potentially disastrous debt-default standoff with the Republican-controlled House, a victory that largely registered as a nonevent with voters.Those successes aren’t translating into an uptick in support. According to a Pew Research Center survey, Biden’s approval ratings fell to the lowest level of his presidency this month.Mr. Biden’s reboot will compete with a contrasting message from the Fed. Hours before the president steps to the microphone in Chicago, the Fed chair Jay Powell will engage with other central bankers in a panel discussion in Portugal on a topic that’s been weighing on the markets: how further interest rate increases are probably needed to bring down stubbornly high inflation.At the same gathering in Portugal yesterday, Gita Gopinath, the International Monetary Fund’s deputy managing director, warned central banks not to ease up in their inflation fight. “Monetary policy should continue to tighten and then remain in restrictive territory until core inflation is on a clear downward path,” she said.For now, the boosterism of Bidenomics may get overshadowed a by a hawkish Fed.HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Goldman Sachs plans to add an ally of David Solomon to the board. Tom Montag, who led trading at the firm before joining Bank of America as a senior executive, is set to return as a director. DealBook hears that the move is seen by some internally as a message from the board that Mr. Solomon, Goldman’s embattled C.E.O., isn’t going anywhere soon.KPMG plans to lay off 5 percent of its U.S. employees. The accounting giant, which had 39,000 workers in the United States last year, cited “economic headwinds” in announcing the move. It’s the latest sign of how a slowing economy is battering a wider array of businesses, including white-collar industries.Janet Yellen reportedly plans to travel to China next month. The Treasury secretary is arranging a meeting with her new Chinese counterpart, according to Bloomberg, in another effort to lower tensions between Washington and Beijing. But China’s premier, Li Qiang, chastised Western countries today for trying to limit ties to Chinese businesses.Could Saudi money disrupt tennis’s pay-equity goals?The WTA, the women’s pro tennis tour, will commit on Tuesday to bringing prize money for its tournaments in line with that of men’s competitions, in what’s meant to be a major step toward pay equity in the sport.But the question looms: How will Saudi Arabia greet the effort? The kingdom has poured billions into pro sports as part of a global campaign to expand its soft power, and is keen to bring its deep pockets to the ATP men’s tour, potentially aggravating the sport’s already sizable pay divide.The WTA’s effort is set to ramp up over the course of a decade, to allow the tour to raise the revenue necessary to bring its payouts in line with those of men’s competitions. (While men and women receive equal prize money for Grand Slam tournaments, the campaign is focused on the two tiers of competitions below that.)Saudi Arabia’s plans for tennis complicate the matter. As the kingdom has dug into sports like soccer and golf, its playbook has involved flooding competitions with cash to attract top-flight players. It may now do so for tennis, where it already hosts a lucrative men’s exhibition event, is bidding to host the ATP Next Gen Finals and has plans to launch a similar women’s event.But the WTA hasn’t committed to that plan — or to holding any competitions in Saudi Arabia, which only recently gave women the right to drive, and which faces criticism over its human rights record. The WTA has taken stances on human rights before, notably by suspending operations in China for 18 months over the country’s treatment of the former player Peng Shuai.Things could change, given that the WTA has held talks with Saudi officials. But it’s unclear how the kingdom’s plans for tennis will affect the effort by the women’s tour to more tightly integrate with the ATP.In other Saudi sports news, a five-page pact between the PGA Tour and Saudi-sponsored LIV Golf shows the two sides have agreed on ending their litigation — but it lacks details of their planned alliance.A new shield for pregnant workersA new federal law will go into effect on Tuesday that provides protections for pregnant workers. More than a decade in the making and passed in December with bipartisan support, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is meant to help close loopholes in existing rules that left millions of women subject to discrimination, The Times’s Alisha Gupta writes for DealBook.What the act requires: Companies with more than 15 employees, including hourly workers, must provide “reasonable accommodations” for pregnancy, childbirth and related medical events like fertility treatments, abortion and pregnancy loss.Left intentionally undefined, reasonable accommodations can include a stool to sit on during long shifts, a flexible schedule to accommodate morning sickness or time off to recover from childbirth complications. But companies aren’t expected to suffer “undue hardship” in their business.It’s an effort to stop pregnancy discrimination. Advocates say that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 was riddled with ambiguity. That has had disastrous consequences for many women:Twenty-three percent of mothers have considered leaving their jobs because of a lack of accommodations or fear of discrimination, according to a poll last year by the Bipartisan Policy Center.At least a third of the more than 2,000 pregnancy discrimination complaints that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received last year were about companies that failed to accommodate pregnant workers.The law signals growing recognition of pregnancy discrimination’s economic toll. The Fairness Act helps ensure that women no longer have to choose between “maintaining a healthy pregnancy or a safe recovery from childbirth and a paycheck,” said Dina Bakst, the co-president of the advocacy group A Better Balance, which helped Congress draft the new law.$377 million — The medical costs associated with pickleball injuries in the United States this year, according to a new research report by UBS analysts.Remembering Jim CrownJames Crown, the billionaire financier who was a longtime board member of JPMorgan Chase and General Dynamics, died on Sunday, The Times’s Emily Flitter writes for DealBook. He was 70.The scion of a Chicago industrialist family, Mr. Crown became a major figure in business, philanthropy and political giving. He died on his birthday in Aspen, Colo., when a vehicle he was driving crashed into a barrier on a racetrack, according to the Pitkin County coroner’s office.Mr. Crown was C.E.O. of Henry Crown and Company, which managed the fortune built up by his grandfather Henry by investing in an array of real estate and corporate investments. He joined the firm after working for Salomon Brothers.Mr. Crown was also a prominent corporate director. He had served on the board of what became JPMorgan Chase since 1991: His family had owned a major stake in Chicago’s Bank One, where he was a director and helped recruit Jamie Dimon as C.E.O. In 2004, Bank One merged with J.P. Morgan.“He has been a trusted adviser to me for nearly 20 years, playing a key role in helping our company navigate numerous business and economic challenges,” Mr. Dimon wrote to employees on Monday.Mr. Crown was also the lead director of General Dynamics, the aerospace giant that bought his grandfather’s Material Service Corporation in 1959.He also played a role beyond corporate America. Mr. Crown split his time between Chicago and Aspen, where he once served as chair of the Aspen Institute, which is holding its annual Ideas Festival now. As managing director of the Aspen Skiing Company, he played a big role in the American skiing industry.Mr. Crown was also a major Democratic donor, and he attended last week’s state dinner for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. “Jim represented America at its best — industrious, big-hearted and always looking out for each other,” President Biden said in a statement.THE SPEED READ DealsLordstown Motors, the embattled electric truck maker, filed for bankruptcy protection and sued the electronics giant Foxconn over its failure to invest in the company. (Reuters)Group Black, a Black-owned media investment firm, is reportedly in talks to buy control of the publisher of Sports Illustrated. (WSJ)Despite companies’ concerns about universal proxy, which makes it easier for investors to vote for board candidates from different slates, the policy had a muted impact in proxy fights this year. (Kirkland & Ellis)PolicyPresident Biden announced a $42 billion initiative to expand access to high-speed internet to all American households by 2030. (CNBC)Federal efforts to help develop next-generation vaccines are running into bureaucratic hurdles that may hamper efforts to fight future pandemics. (NYT)The wife of Justice Samuel Alito leased a 160-acre plot of land in Oklahoma to an oil company, as the Supreme Court justice weighed in on cases involving the E.P.A. (The Intercept)Best of the restHow the North Sea, long one of Europe’s biggest hubs for oil and gas production, may pivot to wind power. (NYT)“Will Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’ Become the First $1 Billion Tour?” (WSJ)Richard Ravitch, the developer and public servant who helped rescue New York City from financial collapse in the 1970s, died on Sunday. He was 89. (NYT)The New York Mets may have the biggest payroll in the major leagues and a deep-pocketed owner in Steve Cohen — but that hasn’t translated into success on the field. (NYT)We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. More

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      Biden Expresses Confidence on the Economy. Voters May Be Skeptical.

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      President Biden believes that focusing on the economy will help his campaign for a second term, despite inflation and high interest rates.President Biden has grown confident enough in the economy he leads — despite continuing inflation and high interest rates — that he is campaigning for re-election by eagerly attaching the name “Bidenomics” to his approach.“Folks, here’s the bottom line,” Mr. Biden said as he began a three-week, administration-wide effort to focus on the economy. “By investing in America, we are delivering results. More than 13 million jobs created since I took office.”In a memo to reporters, two of the president’s top advisers, Anita Dunn and Mike Donilon, credited “Bidenomics” with helping the country bounce back from the pandemic, saying the economy “has recovered more quickly than most experts thought possible.”The pair repeated the phrase “Bidenomics” nine other times in the three-and-a-half-page memo — a sign that the president’s strategists believe that focusing on the economy will help his campaign for a second term.In their memo, Mr. Donilon and Ms. Dunn cited polling that shows Americans broadly support some of the president’s key economic policies. But that analysis ignores some dark signs for the president as the 2024 election begins to heat up.Independent polls show that large majorities of the country do not believe that the president’s economic policies have set the country in the right direction. In an NBC poll released on Sunday, 74 percent of Americans said the nation was on the wrong track.Previous polls have shown that much of the concern centers on the president’s economic policies. One Associated Press survey in May found that only 33 percent of adults approved of his handling of the economy.On Monday, Mr. Biden tried to show that his policies have tangible results. He said more than $40 billion would be distributed nationwide to expand high-speed internet lines — a program he compared to efforts by Franklin D. Roosevelt to bring electricity to rural parts of the country almost 100 years ago.The disconnect between Mr. Biden’s enthusiasm for his accomplishments and the poll numbers about America’s feelings on the subject may prove to be the biggest test for the new White House strategy.Asked on Monday whether the president and his top aides were confident that they could change the public’s perception of the economy — and his handling of it — Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, gave a blunt answer.“We’re going to try,” she told reporters.To that end, Mr. Biden’s team has collected data that focuses squarely on the positive. One chart distributed by the White House on Monday shows significant improvement from before the pandemic: a higher household net worth and disposable income, lower credit card delinquency and fewer bankruptcies, and a decline in the number of uninsured and those with debt in third-party collection.Mr. Biden’s advisers — both inside the White House and at the small but growing campaign operation — are quick to offer examples of how things have gotten better: for manufacturing businesses, people who order insulin regularly and local governments struggling with aging infrastructure.Mr. Biden’s aides are also happy to accept comparisons to “Reaganomics,” which has for decades been used to describe the economic policies of former President Ronald Reagan. The president’s advisers argue that Mr. Biden’s rejection of tax cuts and his focus on policies that help the middle class are a good contrast with Reagan.White House officials said that Vice President Kamala Harris and many of the president’s top cabinet officials would travel across the country over the next three weeks to deliver similar remarks on the president’s economic record. On Wednesday, Mr. Biden will deliver what aides are calling a “cornerstone” speech in Chicago meant to broadly explain his economic approach.Now, the challenge for the president and his team is to find a way for their message to break through with the American people.On the one hand, the president arguably has one of the biggest megaphones in the world, and his advisers intend to use it. But his message is competing with a war raging in Europe and the political and legal chaos surrounding former President Donald J. Trump as the government pursues legal action against him.Will giving his economic approach a catchy name — “Bidenomics” — help? Ms. Jean-Pierre said she believed it would.“I think it’s pretty clever,” she told reporters. More

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      Biden Warns That Republicans Are Not Finished on Abortion

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      A year after the end of Roe v. Wade, Biden administration officials are working with a limited set of tools, including executive orders and the bully pulpit, to galvanize supporters on abortion rights.Minutes after the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade last summer, a group of West Wing aides raced to the Oval Office to brief President Biden on the decision. As they drafted a speech, Mr. Biden was the first person in the room to say what has been his administration’s rallying cry ever since.Passing federal legislation, he told the group, was “the only thing that will actually restore the rights that were just taken away,” recalled Jen Klein, the director of the White House Gender Policy Council.But if the prospect of codifying Roe’s protections in Congress seemed like a long shot a year ago, it is all but impossible to imagine now, with an ascendant far-right bloc in the House and a slim Democratic majority in the Senate.Instead, with the battle over abortion rights turning to individual states, officials in the Biden administration are working with a limited set of tools, including executive orders and the galvanizing power of the presidency, to argue that Republicans running in next year’s elections would impose even further restrictions on abortion.“Make no mistake, this election is about freedom on the ballot,” Mr. Biden said Friday at a Democratic National Committee event, where he collected the endorsements of several abortion rights groups.On Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris was set to deliver a speech in North Carolina marking the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years. Ms. Klein, who recalled refreshing news websites on the day the decision came down last June, said that she was “shocked but not surprised” by the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.She added that “efforts to really take extreme action do not represent the majority of opinion of where people are on this.”The White House has argued that Mr. Biden is reaching the legal limits of his powers through executive actions. On Friday, his latest executive action in response to the Dobbs decision ordered federal agencies to look for ways to ensure and expand access to birth control.Mr. Biden previously has issued a memorandum to protect access to abortion medication at pharmacies and taken action to protect patients who cross state lines to seek care. The Justice Department has taken legal action against some states restricting abortion. And the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion-pill drug mifepristone was quickly challenged in the courts. (In April, the Supreme Court issued an order to preserve access to the pill as litigation continues.)The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee will make abortion a primary focus of the president’s re-election effort.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesAs the White House has clarified its message around abortion rights, framing the fight as one in support of privacy, safety and civil rights, so has the president. Mr. Biden, a Catholic who attends mass almost every week, has struggled throughout his career with defending abortion rights. Since Roe was overturned, he has grown more outspoken.“I think that he is somebody who really has his own personal views, and has also been quite clear that Roe v. Wade was rightly decided,” Ms. Klein said.Recent polling shows that a majority of Americans may feel similarly. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll conducted earlier this month found that one in four Americans said that restrictive abortion bans enacted at the state level have made them more supportive of abortion rights. Another poll, conducted by PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist, said that 61 percent of American adults support abortion rights.Some activists suspect that some Republican presidential candidates are paying attention to the polling. Mike Pence, the former vice president and presidential candidate, said on Friday that he would support a 15-week national ban on the procedure. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has also backed such a ban.Other candidates have avoided a definitive stance. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a six-week abortion ban into law in his state, though he has not said whether he would support a national ban.“It was the right thing to do,” Mr. DeSantis said Friday of signing the law.The G.O.P. primary front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, takes credit for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, but he has so far also resisted embracing a federal ban.As the G.O.P. field assembles, the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee will make abortion a primary focus of the president’s re-election effort. Earlier this month, the Biden campaign launched an advertisement campaign focused on battleground states, including the funding of billboards in Times Square that will highlight Republican efforts to restrict abortion access.The Democratic National Committee is also encouraging local Democrats to press Republicans to specify what their position is on national bans, believing it will help contrast Mr. Biden’s approach with extremist positions, according to a D.N.C. official.Inside the White House, Ms. Klein said officials are tracking court cases in individual states and bringing abortion-rights activists together to compare notes on which policies have succeeded.Still, activists are wary that court victories can be short-lived and do not take away the threat of a wider abortion ban the way legislation would.In recent months, administration officials have regularly highlighted the stories of women who have been denied emergency medical care when suffering pregnancy loss.Ms. Harris, who has made several trips and delivered speeches in defense of abortion rights, has frequently introduced medical care providers at her events to bolster the argument that the decision to end a pregnancy is a private one and not to be toyed with by local politicians.Vice President Kamala Harris, displaying a map showing abortion access, has emerged as a strong voice in the administration on abortion rights.Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesJill Biden, the first lady, has also been enlisted in the effort. On Tuesday, she hosted a group of women in the Blue Room of the White House and asked them to share their stories. One of the women, Dr. Austin Dennard, a physician in Texas, said she was forced to travel out of state for an abortion when her fetus was diagnosed with anencephaly, a condition that causes a baby to be born without parts of the brain and skull.Another, a Houston-based Democratic campaign worker named Elizabeth Weller, had gone into labor at 18 weeks and was directed to go home until she developed an infection so severe that a hospital ethics panel allowed a doctor to end the pregnancy.“Joe is doing everything he can do,” the first lady told the group.Mini Timmaraju, the president of the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, agreed that the Biden administration is “doing everything they can,” but she said the limitations are real.“We have to give them a pro-choice majority Congress,” she said. “That’s it. They’ve done everything they can up until that point, but without the support of Congress, they are limited and we are limited in what we can do.” More

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      Greek Youths, Shaped by Debt Crisis, Plan to Vote for Stability

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      Many children of Greece’s traumatic years of economic collapse have opted for pragmatism over radicalism and say they will back a conservative on Sunday.Days before this Sunday’s election in Greece, three young women with piercings and ironic T-shirts who sat outside a hipster coffee shop in an Athens neighborhood best known as a hub of anarchist fervor said they wanted stability.“Money is important — you can’t live without money,” said Mara Katsitou, 22, a student who grew up during the country’s disastrous financial crisis and one day hoped to open a pharmacy. “There’s nothing that matters to someone more than the economy.”As a result, she said, she would cast her vote for Kyriakos Mitsotakis, 55, the square, conservative prime minister who graduated from Harvard, who is fond of riding his bike and who, polls suggest, will win convincingly on Sunday in a second national election. With Mr. Mitsotakis — who is also the son of a former prime minister — Ms. Katsitou said, she had “definitely a better chance.” About a third of young voters like her feel the same, polls indicate.After spending impressionable years amid so much panic, desperation and humiliation during the decade-long financial crisis that erupted in 2010 — and which collapsed the Greek economy — many of Greece’s depression-era children have grown up to say they have no interest in ever turning back.In many quarters, youthful radicalism has given way to unexpected pragmatism, a yearning for prosperity and a steady hand, and an inclination to overlook or at least mute outrage over any number of scandals that have dogged Mr. Mitsotakis.Young Greeks have expressed no interest in going back to the realities of the 2010s. At the peak of the crisis, nearly one in three Greeks were jobless, and many struggled to buy food and pay bills.Byron Smith for The New York TimesIn recent days, a shipwreck that killed possibly more than 600 migrants has raised new questions about the Mitsotakis government’s hard-line measures to curb arrivals of migrants. The wiretapping of an opposition leader by the state’s intelligence service and Mr. Mitsotakis’s consolidation of Greek media has prompted concerns about the erosion of democratic norms. A train crash that killed 57 people in February revealed the shabby state of key Greek infrastructure, for which he apologized.But for Greeks, including an increasing number of younger Greeks, polls show that all of those issues pale in comparison to the country’s economic stability and fortunes.Mr. Mitsotakis’s government has spurred growth at twice the eurozone average by cutting taxes and debt, and by increasing digitization, minimum wages and pensions. Big multinational corporations are investing in the country. Tourism is skyrocketing. The country is paying back creditors ahead of schedule, increasing the chances of rating agencies lifting Greece’s bonds out of junk status.“It’s all about jobs, about, you know, raising disposable income and bringing in a lot of investment and about growing the economy much faster,” Mr. Mitsotakis said in a recent interview. “This was always my bet, and I think that we delivered, if you look at the numbers.”A bus stop with a campaign poster for Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this month in Athens.Byron Smith for The New York TimesGreece’s 2010 debt crisis was a searing national catastrophe. Humiliating bailouts connected to seemingly endless austerity measures slashed household incomes by a third and sent unemployment skyrocketing as hundreds of thousands of businesses collapsed.At the peak of the crisis, in 2013, nearly one in three Greeks were jobless, and many were disheartened after years of violent protests, in which demonstrators clashed with the police in the streets of Athens and other cities in clouds of tear gas. Scenes of the most desperate people trawling through bins for food — once unheard-of — shocked the majority of Greeks who struggled to make ends meet.“We still have a deep sort of legacy of 10 years of a crisis,” Mr. Mitsotakis acknowledged in the interview. “Not many people appreciated how painful the crisis was — we lost 25 percent of our” gross domestic product.Mr. Mitsotakis, the standard-bearer for the New Democracy party, has won over a sizable share of the generation that grew up in that time, increasing his support among voters aged 17 to 24 by three points, to 33 percent.Just as telling, support among young voters for his leftist opponent, former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the Syriza party, has collapsed, falling to 24 percent from 38 percent since the 2019 elections, when Mr. Mitsotakis defeated him.In an initial election in May, Mr. Mitsotakis’s party thrashed Syriza by 20 points, but it was not enough of a majority to lead a one-party government. Instead of cobbling together a coalition, Mr. Mitsotakis opted for another election. With a new, more favorable election law that gives a bonus of seats to the leading vote-getter, he now hopes to win a landslide victory that will allow him to govern alone.Overall, Mr. Tsipras is trailing Mr. Mitsotakis by more than 20 points.Support for Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the left-wing Syriza party, among young voters has fallen since he was defeated by Mr. Mitsotakis in the 2019 elections.Byron Smith for The New York TimesThat is despite his efforts to depict Mr. Mitsotakis as an undemocratic, arrogant and unaccountable strongman who he says has overseen a “massive redistribution of wealth from the many to the few” in his four years in power.Not all young voters, of course, are behind Mr. Mitsotakis. Many complain that the prosperity that is supposed to kick-start their lives is making things so costly that they cannot move out of their homes.Not all of the economic indicators are good, either. Greece still has the European Union’s highest national debt, and it is the second-poorest nation in the European Union, after Bulgaria. Tax evasion is still common.Mr. Tsipras has tried to convince young voters that, in fact, he, not Mr. Mitsotakis, is not only the true agent of change, but also of stability. He has promised financial relief, including better health benefits, though it remains unclear how those would be funded.“We’ll fight so that hope for justice and prosperity for all is not lost in this country, for a fair society and prosperity for everyone,” Mr. Tsipras said this week at a campaign event in the western city of Patra.Some voters, suffering under rising prices and exponentially increasing rents, support him.“The crisis isn’t over; it’s still here,” said Grigoris Varsamis, 46, who said his record shop’s electric bills were through the roof and that he would vote for Mr. Tsipras.An information booth for former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras this month in Athens.Byron Smith for The New York TimesBut there is little doubt that Mr. Tsipras, a former Communist firebrand who governed in the latter years of the financial crisis, has been tainted by a lasting association with the pain of that era.In 2015, under his leadership, Greeks voted to reject Europe’s draconian aid package, and Greece was nearly ejected from the eurozone. Social unrest returned and talk of “Grexit,” referring to Greece exiting the eurozone, mounted. Many young Greeks who grew up during that time feel scarred by the Syriza experience.Grigoris Kikis, 26, an award-winning chef at the restaurant Upon in Athens, remembers that the financial crisis coincided with his trying to break into the world of restaurants as a 13-year-old volunteering in kitchens after school.As restaurants closed and his father fretted about paying his workers, the chefs around him worried about the budgets for produce, meat, plates and glasses. When they wanted to try out a new dish, they could afford to test it only once.Today, Mr. Kikis runs a popular bistro in Athens with a 300-label wine list, in-house coffee-roasting machines and an eclectic menu with plates tried 25 times before they make the cut.“The restaurant is full every day,” he said, explaining that he would vote for Mr. Mitsotakis to keep it that way. “Many people my age care most about the economy. They say there is more opportunity and higher salaries, and maybe people will come from abroad and want to work in Greece because things changed for the better.”Grigoris Kikis, a chef in Athens, said people his age felt strongly about the future of their country’s economy.Byron Smith for The New York TimesThe same is true for Nikos Therapos, 29, a sustainability consultant. When he was 16, he said, the drastic cutting of the public budgets cost his mother, a kindergarten teacher, her job. His father’s company, in the hard-hit construction industry, shrank, too.“I remember very clearly about not being so optimistic about my professional career,” he said.In 2015, when he was studying business in Brussels, Greece was embroiled in intense political and social upheaval, and, Mr. Therapos recalled, his fellow students shunned him in working groups.“I was regarded as the lazy Greek, even though they didn’t know anything about me,” he said. “It was really unfair for me and my generation.”But in the past four years, Mr. Therapos said, there had been a change.“I cannot say we are back to normality for the simple reason that I have never known normality,” he said. But for the first time, he said, he felt “confident in our future.”Many of his more leftist friends had also shifted to Mr. Mitsotakis, Mr. Therapos said, because they want a “stable and sustainable economic system.”Unsurprisingly, Mr. Mitsotakis agreed.“At the end of the day,” he said, “Greece is no longer a problem for the eurozone. I think this offers a lot of people relief.” More

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      The Politics of Class

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      We’re covering the class inversion in American politics, severe weather in Texas and the Indian prime minister’s visit to the U.S.The class inversion in American politics — Republicans’ struggles with college graduates and Democrats’ struggles with the working class — is a running theme of this newsletter. To help make sense of it, I asked four Times Opinion writers to join me in an exchange this morning. They are Michelle Cottle, Carlos Lozada, Lydia Polgreen and Ross Douthat, and they’re also the hosts of a new podcast, “Matter of Opinion.”David: Democrats are nearly shut out of statewide office in almost 20 states, largely because of their weakness with working-class voters. And in the past five years, the party has lost ground with working-class voters of color. How can Democrats do better?Michelle: There are concrete issues on which some Democrats stumbled too far to the left, crime being notable. But I don’t think the main problem is with the party’s policies so much as its overall vibe. Dems need to relearn how to talk to working-class voters — to sound less condescending and scoldy. Too many Democrats radiate an aura of, If only voters understood what was good for them, they would back us.Carlos: Dispensing political strategy is not my comfort zone, so all I’ll say is that it seems a bit shortsighted when politicians talk to Latino voters as if the only thing they care about is immigration and the border, or when they address Black voters as if all that animates them is policing reform or racial discrimination. Don’t try to woo large and varied voting groups with narrow appeals. It’s pandering, it’s obvious and it’s dismissive.Lydia: As Michelle hinted at, the Democrats have become the party of officious technocracy, which makes so many things they propose sound, well, ridiculous. A classic for me was Kamala Harris’s student loan forgiveness plan from the 2020 race: You had to be a Pell Grant recipient, start a business in a disadvantaged community and keep that business going for three years. That’s no “Make America Great Again.” They should talk about big, bold and simple ways you will improve people’s lives.Michelle: “Officious technocracy” is my new favorite term, Lydia! I’m officially — and officiously — appropriating it.Carlos: The irony of the Democrats’ officious technocracy is that, in some cases, it misrepresented how science works. Admonishing people to “follow the science” on Covid can be counterproductive when recommendations should change as new data comes in. Science is a method of inquiry, not a set of off-the-shelf solutions.Ross: Talking about working people’s material interests in language that doesn’t sound like it was lifted from a glossary of progressive-activist terminology is the right path for Democrats. Right now, though, I think they have a lot to gain by treating the Covidian and George Floyd-era breakdown in public order as their major political problem — treating homicide rates, drug abuse, school discipline and border security as key issues where they need to separate themselves from their own activist class, which has a tendency to act like living with disorder is an essential part of left-wing tolerance.Remember Kamala Harris the prosecuting attorney, once disdained by the left? The Democrats could use a leader like that.Brian Kemp, Georgia’s governor.Audra Melton for The New York TimesCraziness and chaosDavid: What about the other side of the class inversion? Republicans used to win white-collar professionals. Not anymore.Ross: The G.O.P. has multiplied the reasons for college graduates to turn against them: The craziness and chaos of the Trumpist style cost them with one group; the fact that they can now legislate against abortion costs them with another.I think you can see in the success of Brian Kemp in Georgia a model for how they can advance pro-life legislation without suffering dramatic losses. But the Kemp model requires a rigorous reasonability, a studied outreach to suburbanites, a moderate and competent affect, none of which a Trump 2024 candidacy is likely to offer, and the effort to defeat Donald Trump may push Ron DeSantis from the Kempian sweet spot as well.Lydia: I think it’s brave to take a principled stand on a defining moral question like abortion, electoral consequences be damned! Just ask the Democrats what embracing civil rights cost them. Maybe there is something for the G.O.P. to learn from Bill Clinton, who was able to triangulate his way into the Oval Office by undercutting the critiques of liberal overreach.Michelle: It goes beyond the Trumpian crazy. Republicans have, for a while now, been spinning up their voters by painting every issue as an existential crisis such that compromise, triangulation and moderation are anathema. College-grad-moderate-swing-voter-suburban types find it unsettling.Carlos: Maybe the thing to remember is that “rigorous reasonability,” as Ross calls for, is relative, and the G.O.P. could benefit from the soft bigotry of low expectations. It might not take all that much for college grads turned off by Trumpism but still wary of the activist left to consider a Republican who combines populist policy impulses with a more sober governing style. In his book, DeSantis brags that his administration in Florida was “substantively consequential.”Michelle: I like your optimism, Carlos. But I’d venture that DeSantis’s nerdier approach is a key reason he’s getting his booty stomped in polls by the MAGA king. Not juicy enough and way too wonky/jargony at times.Listen to the latest episode of “Matter of Opinion” — about America’s place in the world and the significance of this week’s visit to the U.S. by Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister.THE LATEST NEWSPoliticsRepresentative Adam Schiff, right.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesThe Republican-led House voted to censure Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat, for his role leading investigations into Trump.Justice Samuel Alito took a vacation with a billionaire who frequently has cases before the Supreme Court, ProPublica reported. Alito sought to rebut the report ahead of time with a Wall Street Journal op-ed.A federal judge sentenced a rioter who assaulted an officer on Jan. 6 to more than 12 years in prison.Modi’s U.S. VisitPresident Biden is welcoming Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, today, hoping to woo the country at a time of conflict with Russia and rising tension with China.By staying neutral in the war in Ukraine, India has profited: It has emerged as a primary buyer of Russia’s crude oil, which it refines and exports.Severe WeatherA storm barreled through a Texas town with about 600 residents, killing at least three people.Extreme heat is stalled over Oklahoma and Texas and could linger until the Fourth of July, straining the power grid.Other Big StoriesA superyacht helped rescue 100 migrants thrown overboard in a deadly wreck in the Mediterranean, reflecting a new inequality of the seas.The search for the missing submersible continues in the North Atlantic. The vessel’s oxygen could run out today.Math and reading scores for 13-year-olds in the U.S. hit their lowest levels in decades.The U.S. approved the production and sale of laboratory-grown chicken meat.A Florida county is trying to contain an invasive species of giant snail that can grow as big as a fist.OpinionsAs Modi visits the U.S., President Biden should promote shared democratic values with an increasingly autocratic ally, The Times’s editorial board writes.Here are columns by Tressie McMillan Cottom on a Black rodeo in Portland, Ore., and Zeynep Tufekci on the lab-leak theory.MORNING READSThe New York headquarters of Salesforce.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesReturn to office: Bosses have reached the desperation phase.Beauty: The salon where a corporation tries to understand Black women’s hair.The Ethicist: “My wife lives in a nursing home. Can I take a lover?”Lives Lived: Haim Roet survived the Holocaust by hiding in a Dutch village. At a protest in 1989, he read out the names of people murdered by the Nazis, starting a practice that has become a part of memorial ceremonies around the world. He died at 90.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICN.B.A. blockbuster: Kristaps Porzingis is heading to Boston and Marcus Smart to Memphis in a three-team swap.Wunderkind: Meet Ness Mugrabi, the N.F.L.’s youngest agent.Scrutiny: Leaders of the PGA Tour, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the LIV Tour were invited to testify in front of a congressional committee.ARTS AND IDEAS Clive, a prince, is out for revenge in this new incarnation of the Final Fantasy franchise.Square EnixRole-playing games: The Final Fantasy video game series has been around for more than three decades. Recently, as its creators worked on the next entry, Final Fantasy XVI, they confronted what The Times’s Brian X. Chen calls the “Star Wars” problem: Can a long-running franchise reinvent itself to win over new audiences without losing longtime fans who crave nostalgia?Final Fantasy XVI is out today, and Corey Plante writes at Kotaku that it successfully threads the needle: “It just may be the best the series has been in more than 20 years.”More on cultureThe second season of “And Just Like That …” premieres today. Catch up.Six writers selected essential works of queer literature.THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.Broil miso-honey chicken.Exercise your body and mind with tai chi.Visit the site where Caesar was killed.Upgrade your bath towels.Skip the silicone baking mats.GAMESHere are today’s Spelling Bee and the Bee Buddy, which helps you find remaining words. Yesterday’s pangrams were autocracy and carryout.And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidP.S. The Society for News Design named The Times best-designed newspaper.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. More