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      The Ins and Outs of America’s Shrug at the Threat to Democracy

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      With voters distracted by other issues and election denial flourishing, the country has what academics call a legitimacy problem.One way to read the striking results of the New York Times/Siena College poll released this week is that democracy is not shaping up to be the driver of votes that many on the left hoped it would be.The obvious reason is that inflation is a far more immediate issue on the minds of most voters, who are watching their savings evaporate or struggling to pay their bills. That’s Abraham Maslow 101: Physiological needs of food and shelter will always take priority over abstractions.But another way to interpret the survey is as yet more confirmation that American democracy is indeed in trouble.In a Twitter Spaces conversation today with Ruth Igielnik, a staff editor for news surveys who worked on this week’s poll, and Nick Corasaniti, a national correspondent on the politics team, we unpacked why, even though 71 percent of voters agreed that democracy was at risk, only 7 percent said that democracy’s fragile state was the most important problem facing the country. You can listen to our discussion here.Ruth noted that voters’ responses to the question “What one or two words do you think summarize the current threat to democracy?” were all over the map.Some said “election deniers” or “Donald Trump,” while others said “Joe Biden,” “inflation and taxes” or “the one percent, a.k.a. Wall Street and hedge funds.” Another person said “our division” — that is, political polarization itself.Nick, who recently returned from a reporting trip in Michigan, added some texture from tagging along during voter canvassing in Detroit and its suburbs, as well as in Saginaw, a city of about 50,000 people in the center of the state. Biden carried Saginaw County by just a few hundred votes in 2020.“We encountered a ton of voters, and not a single one of them brought up any issues of democracy,” Nick said.He added that the organizers, as they prepared the canvassers for what they should expect to encounter, told them: “You’re going to hear about issues like, why are our wages so low when we’re a predominantly union town? Why are prescription drug prices so persistently high? Why are there potholes in the road? Why can’t I get a garbage can?”Lonna Atkeson, who studies political psychology at Florida State University, said voters were just thinking rationally. When it comes to protecting democracy, she noted, each side sees the other as the problem.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.In Minnesota: The race for attorney general in the light-blue state offers a pure test of which issue is likely to be more politically decisive: abortion rights or crime.“So there’s not really much to go on there other than to vote for your own party,” Atkeson said, “whereas the economy is a clear signal. It’s on your doorstep. You feel it every day. Maybe there’s something that can be done about that.”A legitimacy problemMost serious experts on democracy — academics who study governments around the world, and why they fall apart — would say that election deniers are the real danger.And the new Times/Siena poll shows that millions of them are out there, despite zero evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. As Nick wrote in an article explaining the poll results, “Twenty-eight percent of all voters, including 41 percent of Republicans, said they had little to no faith in the accuracy of this year’s midterm elections.”There’s an academic term for that: a legitimacy problem.Seymour Martin Lipset, a sociologist and political scientist who did seminal work on what makes democracies successful, published an influential paper in 1959 called “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.”At the time, he was trying to understand two main questions: why Europe veered toward extremist ideologies like fascism and communism after World War I, and whether the nascent democracies forged by fire and blood in World War II were sustainable.Lipset defined democracy this way: “a political system which supplies regular constitutional opportunities for changing the governing officials.”The United States still meets that pretty basic requirement. Despite Trump’s bellowing about a stolen election, and his efforts to whip up the mob that assaulted the Capitol, Biden duly assumed office in 2021 after a near-disastrous handover of power. The system held, albeit tenuously.But Lipset’s framework should alarm us today because, as the Times poll suggests, nearly half the country still doesn’t consider Biden the legitimate president.Many of Donald Trump’s supporters deny the legitimacy of the last presidential election.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesPretend the U.S. is a foreign country; how would we explain what is happening? Two years on, the fever that powered an attempt to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power has not broken, and it’s still being stoked every day by the loser of the previous election.As Lipset wrote, “If a political system is not characterized by a value system allowing the peaceful ‘play’ of power — the adherence by the ‘outs’ to decisions made by ‘ins’ and the recognition by ‘ins’ of the rights of the ‘outs’ — there can be no stable democracy.”Lipset also defined a stable democracy as the absence “of a major political movement opposed to the democratic ‘rules of the game’” — which required, he thought, that “no totalitarian movement, either Fascist or Communist, received 20 percent of the vote.”The one silver lining in the poll? Only 17 percent of the voters who saw democracy as threatened said there was a need to go “outside the law” to fix the problem. And of those voters, just 11 percent said the answer would be to “take up arms/violence/civil war.”Then again, maybe that’s no silver lining at all: By my math, that would still be over a million people. Buckle up.What to read on democracyA South Florida man became the first of 20 defendants ensnared in Gov. Ron DeSantis’s voter fraud dragnet to have charges dropped, ABC News reports.The midterm legal battles have already begun: The Democratic National Committee has filed a court motion to try to stop Republicans in Pennsylvania who want to disqualify mail-in ballots without handwritten dates on them.Tens of thousands of transgender people could be disenfranchised in the November elections because of strict voter ID laws and other rules in their states, according to Rolling Stone.Nonwhite voters were 30 percent more likely to have their vote-by-mail application or ballot rejected compared with white voters in Texas, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which analyzed data from the March primary.Election offices large and small across the country are contending with internal threats that could undermine the integrity of the midterms: election deniers holding positions of power in them, CNN reports.The head of a major federal union warned this week that demonization of the Internal Revenue Service by some Republicans could put the agency’s employees in danger.Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, is stepping up his courtship of right-wing fringe figures, including adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.viewfinderSupporters of Stacey Abrams at a campaign event in Athens, Ga.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesOn the trail in GeorgiaA couple of hundred people had gathered to wait for a glimpse of Stacey Abrams by the time her purple bus pulled up in College Square in Athens, Ga. Abrams’s supporters have often spoken to me about how inspiring it is for them to see her running for office when for so long Black women have organized politically behind the scenes.I crept to the center of the crowd for a photo of Abrams as she spoke. At one point, I turned around and captured this image of a group of racially diverse and multigenerational women. To me, it represented a key group of her supporters and their feelings about her candidacy and the future.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak Among Top Contenders to Replace UK Prime Minister

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      Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the man who helped oust him from his job, the former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, are seen as two of the top contenders within the governing Conservative Party.LONDON — The race to succeed Liz Truss as Britain’s prime minister was already gathering pace on Friday morning, potentially pitting the former prime minister, Boris Johnson, against the man who helped oust him from Downing Street just a little more than three months ago, the former finance minister, Rishi Sunak.Penny Mordaunt, now a senior minister, was also seen as a serious potential contender in an election that will be conducted within the governing Conservative Party, which controls the government and can select a prime minister without calling a general election.The next government leader faces a formidable task as Britain heads into an economic slowdown with inflation surging, borrowing costs rising and a winter likely to be dominated by labor strikes and worries about energy supplies.Ahead of what could be a head-on battle against Mr. Johnson, Mr. Sunak’s supporters are presenting him as the safe pair of hands, the man who can restore stability following the crisis precipitated by Ms. Truss’s government when it announced unfunded tax cuts last month, sending financial markets into a tailspin. The British pound plummeted and borrowing costs soared.Less than seven weeks after she took office, Ms. Truss resigned on Thursday — the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.This summer, after Mr. Johnson was forced to resign, Mr. Sunak ran to succeed him but lost out to Ms. Truss. During that leadership contest he gave a prophetic warning of the risks of her economic program, including the tax cuts that ended up rattling the markets.So the appointment of Mr. Sunak, an experienced former chancellor of the Exchequer, might reassure financial markets enough to give a new government more leeway when it comes up with a new budget plan.“Rishi is the experienced leader to sort the economy, lead effectively, get us back into political contention and unite the Party and country,” wrote Bim Afolami, a Conservative lawmaker, on Twitter.Rishi Sunak, one of the possible candidates for prime minister, meeting with supporters in August in Birmingham, England.Susannah Ireland/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the prospect of an extraordinary return for Mr. Johnson, who left Downing Street less than two months ago under a sizable cloud, has galvanized the looming contest.Reinstalling him would be a risk for the Conservative Party because he quit after a succession of ethics scandals and is still being investigated by a parliamentary committee over claims he misled lawmakers about lockdown-busting parties at his Downing Street office and residence.More on the Situation in BritainA Rapid Downfall: Liz Truss is about to become the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. How did she get there?Lifelong Allowance: The departing prime minister is eligible for a taxpayer-funded annual payout for the rest of her life. Some say she shouldn’t be allowed to receive it.Staging a Comeback?: When Boris Johnson left his role as prime minister in September, he hinted he might return. He is now being mentioned as a successor to Ms. Truss.Mr. Johnson has been on a Caribbean vacation. But his father, Stanley Johnson, did little to dispel the impression that his son was preparing a comeback attempt. He told Britain’s ITV television network on Friday: “I think he’s on a plane, as I understand it.”By the time he left office, Mr. Johnson, always a polarizing figure, was deeply unpopular with voters, according to opinion polls. He tarnished his party’s reputation and dozens of members of his government resigned.But since then, the Conservative Party’s support has collapsed. A new opinion poll showed the party plunging to a new low in support of just 14 percent.Mr. Johnson’s supporters argue that because he won a landslide election victory in 2019, he has a mandate from the voters, and his brand of optimism could help rally the Conservatives.If he were to run, he would be seen as the clear favorite as he remains popular among party members who could make the ultimate decision.Boris Johnson on his last day in office in September.Leon Neal/Getty ImagesIt was they who, during the summer, rejected Mr. Sunak in favor of Ms. Truss when the two reached the final stages of the last leadership contest. One of the main reasons for his failure was the perception among party members that Mr. Sunak betrayed Mr. Johnson by resigning from his cabinet, prompting the crisis that destroyed his leadership.Even before formal declarations by any candidates, their allies were canvassing lawmakers, who in some cases offered their public support.Among those urging Mr. Johnson to run are Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, who wrote on Twitter that he was supporting the former prime minister under the hashtag #BORISorBUST. Nadine Dorries, another strong supporter in Parliament, described him as a “known winner.”More centrist lawmakers might also be tempted to support Mr. Johnson because of his history of success in elections before his recent ethics scandals. But his critics say he would struggle to unite his colleagues, and one Conservative lawmaker, Roger Gale, has said he would resign from the party if Mr. Johnson returned.Ms. Mordaunt, who finished third in the summer leadership contest, has good communication skills and has raised her profile in recent weeks, including this week when she appeared in Parliament to defend the government.She is relatively untested at the highest reaches of government. But her supporters argue that she has more experience than former prime ministers like Tony Blair and David Cameron who never held ministerial positions before taking power, having been in opposition.And Ms. Mordaunt might be the best placed of the possible contenders to manage a fractured Conservative Party.“Penny is the best candidate to unite our party and lead our great nation,” said Bob Seely, one of her supporters and a member of Parliament.Britain’s leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, is another potential candidate for prime minister. Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNone of the likely front-runners have yet declared, but by Monday afternoon, contenders must have nominations from at least 100 of the 357 Conservative lawmakers, a number intended to speed up the contest by limiting potential candidates to a maximum of three.If only one politician passes that threshold, he or she will become prime minister on Monday. If there are two or three, Conservative lawmakers will vote on Monday and the top two will then go for a final decision on Oct. 28 in a vote by about 170,000 Conservative Party members — unless one withdraws voluntarily.Other possible candidates include the home secretary, Suella Braverman, who was fired by Ms. Truss on Wednesday, and Kemi Badenoch, the international trade secretary. However, on the evidence of their performance in the summer leadership contest, neither is seen as likely to reach the threshold of 100 nominations.On Friday, the defense secretary, Ben Wallace, ruled himself out of the contest, and said he was leaning toward support for Mr. Johnson. More

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      There’s Been a ‘Regime Change’ in How Democrats Think About Elections

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      According to the conventional rules of politics, Democrats should be on track for electoral disaster this November. Joe Biden’s approval rating is stuck around 42 percent, inflation is still sky-high and midterms usually swing against the incumbent president’s party — a recipe for the kind of political wipeouts we saw in 2018, 2010 and 1994.But that’s not what the polls show. Currently, Democrats are on track to hold the Senate and lose narrowly in the House, which raises all kinds of questions: Why are Republicans failing to capitalize on such a favorable set of circumstances? How did Democrats get themselves into this situation — and can they get out of it? And should we even trust the polls giving us this information in the first place?[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]Matt Yglesias is a veteran journalist who writes the newsletter “Slow Boring” and co-hosts the podcast “Bad Takes.” And in recent years he’s become an outspoken critic of the Democratic Party’s political strategy: how Democrats communicate with the public, what they choose as their governing priorities and whom they ultimately listen to. In Yglesias’s view, Democrats have lost touch with the very voters they need to win close elections like this one, and should embrace a very different approach to politics if they want to defeat an increasingly anti-democratic G.O.P.We discuss why Yglesias thinks the 2022 polls are likely biased toward Democrats, how Republicans’ bizarre nominee choices are giving Democrats a fighting chance of winning the Senate, why Biden’s popular legislative agenda hasn’t translated into greater public support, the Biden administration’s “grab bag” approach to policymaking, why Yglesias thinks there’s been a “regime change” in how Democrats think about elections, how social media has transformed both parties’ political incentives, what the Democratic agenda should look like if the party retains both houses of Congress and more.You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.(A full transcript of the episode is available here.)The New York Times“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Original music by Isaac Jones. Mixing by Jeff Geld, Sonia Herrero and Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski. More

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      La derecha moviliza a las organizaciones de activistas que monitorean las elecciones en EE. UU.

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      En la víspera de una segunda vuelta de elecciones primarias en junio, un candidato republicano a secretario de Estado de Carolina del Sur envió un mensaje a sus partidarios.“Para todos los del equipo que van a monitorear las urnas mañana, buena caza”, escribió Keith Blandford, un candidato que en Telegram, la aplicación de redes sociales, promovió la falacia de que se le robó la victoria a Donald Trump en las elecciones de 2020. “Ya saben lo que tienen que buscar. Ahora que el enemigo está a la defensiva, refuercen el ataque”.Al día siguiente, activistas se dispersaron por las casillas electorales en Charleston, Carolina del Sur, y exigieron inspeccionar el equipo de votación y tomar fotografías y video. Cuando los trabajadores electorales rechazaron sus peticiones, algunos regresaron con agentes de policía para denunciar sellos rotos o extraviados en las máquinas de votación, según correos electrónicos que fueron enviados por funcionarios locales a la comisión electoral estatal. No había ningún sello roto ni extraviado.Luego de que Blandford perdió, los activistas publicaron en línea una lista de más de 60 “anomalías” que observaron, suficientes para haber cambiado el resultado de la contienda, afirmaban. Se refirieron al operativo como un “programa piloto”.El episodio es uno de muchos que tienen a los funcionarios electorales en alerta ahora que inician las votaciones para las elecciones de mitad de mandato, la prueba más importante que ha enfrentado el sistema electoral estadounidense desde que las mentiras de Trump sobre los resultados de 2020 instigaron un ataque contra el proceso democrático.En los dos años transcurridos desde entonces, grupos de activistas de derecha se han aliado para difundir afirmaciones falsas sobre fraude electoral generalizado y mala praxis. Ahora, esos activistas se están inmiscuyendo en el conteo de votos, en un esfuerzo amplio y agresivo para monitorear la votación en busca de evidencia que confirme sus teorías. Muchos activistas han sido movilizados por las mismas personas que trataron de revocar la derrota de Trump en 2020.Sus tácticas en las elecciones primarias han hecho que los funcionarios se preparen para una nueva gama de disputas, como observadores y trabajadores electorales alborotadores, estrategias judiciales agresivas, impugnación de votantes y papeletas y patrullajes parapoliciales en busca de fraude.Muchos activistas electorales han sido movilizados por las mismas personas que intentaron revertir la derrota de Donald Trump en 2020.Tamir Kalifa para The New York TimesFuncionarios electorales, tanto republicanos como demócratas, concuerdan en que es poco probable que estas iniciativas generen un desorden generalizado. Afirman que están preparados para contar con precisión las decenas de millones de votos que esperan recibir en las próximas semanas. Pero situaciones como la de Carolina del Sur conllevan consecuencias, pues engendran desinformación y propagan dudas acerca de los resultados, sobre todo en las contiendas cerradas.“De cierto modo, es la manifestación de una profecía autorrealizada”, dijo Tammy Patrick, quien trabaja con funcionarios electorales como asesora principal en el Fondo para la Democracia. Los activistas que están preparados para detectar la falta de ética profesional son más propensos a exagerar los pequeños errores y causar disturbios “que no harán más que apuntalar sus denuncias”, explicó.Entrevistas con funcionarios electorales y activistas, análisis de documentos públicos y correos electrónicos de planificación obtenidos por The New York Times muestran que la amplia red de organizadores incluye a funcionarios del Partido Republicano, grupos conservadores populares y los elementos más conspirativos del movimiento de negación electoral.Al parecer, los grupos recurren a las tácticas que se utilizaron hace dos años: recopilar testimonios de funcionarios de casilla aliados del Partido Republicano, los empleados temporales que supervisan los centros de votación y observadores electorales, los voluntarios que monitorean las operaciones, con el fin de respaldar impugnaciones y rebatir resultados.“Ahora estamos 100 veces más preparados”, dijo en una entrevista Stephen K. Bannon, exasesor de Trump que participó en los intentos de anular la elección de 2020. Bannon es presentador de un pódcast que se ha convertido en una cámara de compensación para los activistas electorales de la derecha. “Vamos a adjudicar la victoria en cada batalla. Esa es la diferencia”.En julio, Bannon fue declarado culpable por desacato al Congreso por no cooperar con el comité de la Cámara de Representantes, responsable de investigar el ataque del 6 de enero de 2021. El lunes, los fiscales recomendaron una sentencia de seis meses en prisión, mientras que Bannon sostuvo que no debía pasar tiempo en la cárcel.Desde hace tiempo, tanto demócratas como republicanos han reclutado a observadores y trabajadores electorales para supervisar las votaciones y anticiparse a disputas. Pero este año, los funcionarios están contemplando la posibilidad de que esos esfuerzos puedan quedar en manos de activistas que difunden teorías fantásticas o desacreditadas.Los funcionarios vieron pruebas de estos nuevos operativos en las elecciones primarias. En Míchigan, un trabajador de casilla fue acusado de manipular una computadora de votación. En Texas, unos activistas siguieron a funcionarios electorales hasta sus oficinas y trataron de entrar en áreas restringidas. En Alabama, activistas intentaron insertar papeletas falsas en una máquina durante una prueba pública.En Kansas, los activistas financiaron un recuento de una medida electoral sobre el derecho al aborto que requería que el condado de Johnson contara a mano un cuarto de millón de votos, a pesar de que la medida fracasó por 18 puntos porcentuales. Fred Sherman, el jefe electoral del condado, dijo que algunos trabajadores involucrados parecían negar las elecciones. Dijo que tuvo que llamar a la policía para sacar a uno que violó la seguridad. El recuento transcurrió sin problemas, agregó, pero fue “aterrador”.Empleados que la semana pasada clasificaban las boletas enviadas por correo que fueron hechas recientemente.Rebecca Noble para The New York Times“Debemos tener en cuenta que es posible que existan personas que no tengan las mejores intenciones desde el punto de vista de la integridad electoral”, dijo Sherman.Los funcionarios electorales se han preparado durante meses para estos retos. Algunos han participado en ejercicios organizados por el FBI sobre cómo lidiar con amenazas, incluso agresiones físicas contra trabajadores electorales. Han ofrecido a su personal capacitación para la “reducción de hostilidades”. Algunos han cambiado sus oficinas, pues han añadido cercas y otras barreras.“Cuando la gente ve que todos trabajamos duro y con ética hacia la misma meta, ¿quién querría alterar eso?”, preguntó Stephen Richer, registrador del condado de Maricopa en Arizona.Los activistas afirman que están tratando de garantizar que todas las reglas sean acatadas y que solo los votantes que cumplen los requisitos tengan acceso al sufragio.“Tenemos a personas capacitadas que conocen la ley, por lo que pueden observar, documentar y reportar cuando las cosas no se realizan conforme dicta la ley”, dijo hace poco en el pódcast de Bannon Cleta Mitchell, organizadora de uno de los grupos nacionales que capacitan activistas y abogada que ayudó a Trump en sus impugnaciones vanas de 2020. Mitchell comentó que su red había capacitado a más de 20.000 personas para formar lo que ella describió como una “agencia de detectives ciudadanos”.Mitchell no respondió a las solicitudes para que ofreciera comentarios.En muchos lugares, los partidos políticos influyen de manera directa en el reclutamiento de trabajadores y observadores electorales. El Comité Nacional Republicano declaró que había desplegado a más de 56.000 trabajadores y vigilantes en las elecciones primarias y especiales este año y esperaba aumentar ese número en las elecciones generales. En varios estados bisagra, el comité también contrató lo que llamó funcionarios de “integridad electoral”.El Comité Nacional Demócrata considera sus esfuerzos como una “protección a los votantes” y ha contratado a 25 directores y 129 miembros de personal en todo el país. El comité no reveló la cifra total de trabajadores ni observadores electorales que reclutó.El pódcast de Stephen Bannon se ha convertido en un centro de intercambio de información sobre el activismo electoral.Kenny Holston para The New York TimesLos observadores veían cómo los votantes sufragaban en Rancho High School el día de las elecciones en Las Vegas en 2020.Bridget Bennett para The New York TimesTanto demócratas como republicanos han lanzado un bombardeo anticipado de litigios electorales: 96 demandas, según Democracy Docket, un grupo jurídico electoral de izquierda. El recuento está distribuido con bastante equilibrio entre ambos bandos.Es una situación que recuerda a lo que sucedió en 2020 porque muchas de las disputas se enfocan en la votación en ausencia: más de la mitad de las demandas interpuestas por grupos de afiliación republicana están relacionadas con las normas de voto por correspondencia, por ejemplo, cómo enmendar errores en una papeleta, según Democracy Docket.Algunos defensores del derecho al voto y grupos demócratas afirman que están alertas ante otra similitud con 2020, cuando Trump y sus aliados impidieron que se certificaran los resultados.“Existe la preocupación subyacente de que, en algunos de estos lugares donde los políticos certifican la elección, quizá no la certifiquen y se desate una crisis”, dijo Jonathan Greenbaum, abogado jefe de Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, un grupo jurídico apartidista por los derechos civiles.Algunas de las personas involucradas en las disputas de 2020 ahora son organizadores líderes.Patrick Byrne, exdirector ejecutivo de Overstock.com y activista que impulsa teorías de conspiración electoral, está reclutando personas a través de su grupo, Proyecto América. Michael Flynn, el primer asesor de seguridad nacional de Trump, es cofundador y asesora a esa organización. (Ambos hombres asistieron a una reunión de diciembre de 2020 en la Casa Blanca donde Flynn instó a Trump a apoderarse de las máquinas de votación).En Míchigan, un funcionario estatal del partido se identifica en los documentos como el director estatal de la estrategia de Proyecto América, llamada Operación Eagles Wings. Ese funcionario también se coordina con la Red de Integridad Electoral de Mitchell, que organiza llamadas estratégicas y capacitación, según los correos electrónicos obtenidos por el Times.En su pódcast War Room, Bannon le dice a su audiencia que los demócratas solo ganarán las elecciones si las roban. Él y sus aliados pueden impedir esto al “tomar el control del aparato electoral”, comentó en su programa este mes.Boletas por correspondencia recién impresas en PhoenixRebecca Noble para The New York TimesUn observador electoral voluntario en Wilkes-Barre, Pensilvania, en 2020Robert Nickelsberg para The New York TimesBannon ha estado dirigiendo a sus seguidores a sitios web que motivan una especie de vigilancia clandestina de las elecciones. The Gateway Pundit, un sitio web de derecha, insta a los activistas para que exijan que a los observadores se les permita supervisar mientras las papeletas se suben a los camiones en las oficinas postales e insistir en acercarse más al conteo de papeletas de lo permitido por las normas.Bannon también ha incitado a su audiencia a abordar a los partidos locales, que en algunos estados están a cargo de seleccionar a los trabajadores de casilla.En el condado de El Paso, Colorado, la directora local del Partido Republicano, que coincide con figuras influyentes del movimiento de negación electoral, le pidió al secretario del condado que depusiera a varios trabajadores electorales que habían servido desde hace años a quienes describió en un correo electrónico como “desleales” al partido. El secretario, Chuck Broerman, dijo que cumplió la petición muy a su pesar, ya que estaba obligado por la ley.Un partidario de Trump sostiene un cartel que pide elecciones justas afuera del Capitolio del estado de Arizona en Phoenix en 2020.Adriana Zehbrauskas para The New York Times“Los individuos que están desplazando han sido republicanos trabajadores y dedicados desde hace mucho”, dijo Broerman, quien también fue presidente del partido en el condado.En Carolina del Norte, un grupo de derecha dedicado a la “integridad electoral” dijo que capacitó a 1000 observadores electorales en el estado, con la ayuda de la red de Mitchell. Algunos fueron objeto de decenas de quejas durante las primarias.En el condado de Pasquotank, uno estaba “intimidando a los trabajadores electorales porque salió varias veces del recinto para ‘reportarse con su cuartel general’”, según las denuncias obtenidas por el Times.Para abordar las quejas, el estado redactó una propuesta de cambios que habrían facilitado la destitución de un observador electoral por mala conducta. La comisión de reglas controlada por los republicanos las rechazó después de un torrente de correos electrónicos y testimonios públicos de activistas locales.Mitchell fue una de las personas que intervino. Los cambios estaban tratando de frenar “el interés entusiasta” que los ciudadanos tenían en el proceso electoral, dijo.Alexandra Berzon es una reportera de investigación ganadora del Premio Pulitzer para la sección de Política, que se enfoca en los sistemas electorales y la votación. Antes fue reportera de investigación en The Wall Street Journal y cubrió la industria de las apuestas y la seguridad en el lugar de trabajo. @alexandraberzonNick Corasaniti cubre la política nacional. Fue uno de los principales reporteros que cubrieron la campaña presidencial de Donald Trump en 2016 y ha estado escribiendo sobre las campañas presidenciales, del Congreso, de gobernadores y alcaldías para el Times desde 2011. @NYTnickc • Facebook More

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      Reader Mailbag: Answering Questions About Not Answering Phones

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      A lot of you had ideas on how we might do a little better in reaching people for our surveys.Ryan CarlWe’re already in the field with our penultimate wave of New York Times/Siena polls — this time focused on four or five key House races — so let’s go to the mail and answer readers’ questions about our surveys.This week, our inbox was full of replies to our recent note on the grim reality of telephone polling: Less than 1 percent of dials yield a response. A lot of you had ideas on how we might do a little better.Maybe the most frequent suggestion was some version of this:I think some of us who no longer answer calls from unknown phone numbers might answer if the call identified itself as from a polling firm. — Deb MMy mom also suggested this last weekend. It would certainly make the poll cheaper. But as I told her, I think this might be a mistake. We want a representative sample. I don’t think the way we want to increase our response rates is by further attracting the kinds of politically engaged folks who would be excited to take a political poll. We already have many highly engaged voters as is.Another question came from someone who is no stranger to survey research:Why doesn’t The Times move to an online probability sample? — Cliff Zukin, a former president of the American Association for Public Opinion ResearchBefore I answer, I just want to flag a key word in this question: probability. A “probability sample” is one in which every person has a known probability of being selected for the survey. To take an example: If we randomly dial telephone numbers, everyone with a telephone number (basically everyone) has a chance of participating; thus, it’s a probability sample.Many online polls, however, are not probability samples — think Morning Consult or YouGov. These polls survey only people who previously signed up to participate in an online panel. It is very challenging to craft a representative survey with the idiosyncratic folks who decide to join an online panel after clicking on a random banner ad.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.In Minnesota: The race for attorney general in the light-blue state offers a pure test of which issue is likely to be more politically decisive: abortion rights or crime.An online probability sample, on the other hand, would have the rigor of a telephone poll. The most common way to pull it off is to mail people an invitation to participate in a poll online. In many cases, the respondents are recruited to join a longer-term panel, where the pollster can contact them over and over. A lot of firms now use these kinds of online probability samples: Pew Research, Associated Press/NORC, Ipsos/KnowledgePanel and now CNN with SSRS, to name just a few.If we stipulate for a moment that this would be cheaper — and it may not be, by the way — there’s an argument this could work for The Times in certain cases. But there’s one big limitation for us: It’s hard to conduct an online probability sample by state or district, and most of our polls are state or district polls.We couldn’t build a large enough panel in all the states (let alone districts) where we might want to conduct a survey. Without a panel that we can recontact on-demand, we’re stuck with a one-off mail-to-web poll in which we mail people letters inviting them to participate in an online poll. It can take a long time.The last CNN/SSRS mail-to-web poll, for instance, was fielded over the course of 32 days — from Sept. 3 to Oct. 5 — and released on Oct. 13. They probably wrapped up the questionnaire well before Sept. 3, given the need to print and mail questionnaires. I’m glad CNN is trying this, but personally the result felt stale to me.That said, I do think there’s room for something like this to be part of our portfolio. It might be useful far from an election. Or if the data is of especially high quality, perhaps it can be used to calibrate cheaper surveys.To that point, here’s an idea: cold, hard cash:By your own account you have to pay a substantial amount of money for one completed phone interview. Two hours of salary and miscellaneous expenses. Why not pay the interviewee for his or her time and trouble? For $20 or so, a reasonable number of people would talk to you. — Tom HillThat’s a good thought. In fact, it’s such a good thought that we’re trying this in a large mail-based study of a key battleground state, right now! More on this in a few weeks. More

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      Why Republicans Are Surging

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      Democrats had a golden summer. The Dobbs decision led to a surge of voter registrations. Voters handed Democrats a string of sweet victories in unlikely places — Alaska and Kansas, and good news in upstate New York.The momentum didn’t survive the fall.Over the past month or so, there’s been a rumbling across the land, and the news is not good for Team Blue. In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll 49 percent of likely voters said they planned to vote for a Republican for Congress, and 45 percent said they planned to vote for a Democrat. Democrats held a one-point lead last month.The poll contained some eye-popping numbers. Democrats were counting on abortion rights to be a big issue, gaining them broad support among female voters. It doesn’t seem to be working. Over the past month, the gender gap, which used to favor Democrats, has evaporated. In September, women who identified as independent voters favored Democrats by 14 points. Now they favor Republicans by 18 percentage points.Republicans lead among independents overall by 10 points.To understand how the parties think the campaign is going, look at where they are spending their money. As Henry Olsen noted in The Washington Post last week, Democrats are pouring money into House districts that should be safe — places that Joe Biden won by double digits in 2020. Politico’s election forecast, for example, now rates the races in California’s 13th District and Oregon’s Sixth District as tossups. Two years ago, according to Politico, he won those areas by 11 and 14 points.If Republicans are competitive in places like that, we’re probably looking at a red wave election that will enable them to easily take back the House and maybe the Senate.So how should Democrats interpret these trends? There’s a minimalist interpretation: Midterms are usually hard for the president’s party, and this one was bound to be doubly hard because of global inflation.I take a more medium to maximalist view. I’d say recent events have exposed some serious weaknesses in the party’s political approach:It’s hard to win consistently if voters don’t trust you on the top issue. In a recent AP-NORC poll, voters trust Republicans to do a better job handling the economy, by 39 percent to 29 percent. Over the past two years, Democrats have tried to build a compelling economic platform by making massive federal investments in technology, infrastructure and child welfare. But those policies do not seem to be moving voters. As The Times’s Jim Tankersley has reported, Democratic candidates in competitive Senate races are barely talking about the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which included direct payments to citizens.I thought the child tax credit expansion would be massively popular and could help create a Democratic governing majority. It turned out to be less popular than many anticipated, and there was little hue and cry when it expired. Maybe voters have a built-in uneasiness about income redistribution and federal spending.Democrats have a crime problem. More than three-quarters of voters say that violent crime is a major problem in the United States, according to a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll. Back in the 1990s, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden worked hard to give the Democrats credibility on this issue. Many Democrats have walked away from policies the party embraced then, often for good reasons. But they need to find another set of policies that will make the streets safer.Democrats have not won back Hispanics. In 2016, Donald Trump won 28 percent of the Hispanic vote. In 2020, it was up to 38 percent. This year, as William A. Galston noted in The Wall Street Journal, recent surveys suggest that Republicans will once again win about 34 to 38 percent of the Hispanic vote. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is leading the Democrat Charlie Crist by 16 points among Hispanics likely to vote.The Jan. 6 committee and the warnings about MAGA fascism didn’t change minds. That committee’s work has been morally and legally important. But Trump’s favorability rating is pretty much where it was at the committee’s first public hearing. In the Times poll, Trump is roughly tied with Biden in a theoretical 2024 rematch. According to Politico, less than 2 percent of broadcast TV spending in House races has been devoted to Jan. 6 ads.It could be that voters are overwhelmed by immediate concerns, like food prices. It could be that voters have become so cynical and polarized that scandal and corruption just don’t move people much anymore. This year Herschel Walker set some kind of record for the most scandals in one political season. He is still in a competitive race with Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia.The Republicans may just have a clearer narrative. The Trumpified G.O.P. deserves to be a marginalized and disgraced force in American life. But I’ve been watching the campaign speeches by people like Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona. G.O.P. candidates are telling a very clear class/culture/status war narrative in which common-sense Americans are being assaulted by elite progressives who let the homeless take over the streets, teach sex ed to 5-year-olds, manufacture fake news, run woke corporations, open the border and refuse to do anything about fentanyl deaths and the sorts of things that affect regular people.In other words, candidates like Lake wrap a dozen different issues into one coherent class war story. And it seems to be working. In late July she was trailing her opponent by seven points. Now she’s up by about half a point.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      What Happened With Liz Truss in Britain? A Guide to the Basics.

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      A little over six weeks into her leadership, the British prime minister said she would resign.LONDON — The rapid political collapse of Liz Truss ended as she announced her resignation on Thursday, a little more than six weeks after she became Britain’s leader. Her agenda had floundered, her own party had turned on her and commentators widely speculated on whether she could outlast a head of lettuce. She couldn’t.She had pledged to shoulder through the turmoil despite widespread calls for her resignation. But minute by minute the heat on her grew until there was no path out.If you need to get caught up, here is a guide to the basics.Who is Liz Truss and how did she become prime minister?Ms. Truss was anointed on Sept. 6 to replace Boris Johnson, who was elected by voters in 2019 but who flamed out in spectacular fashion after a series of scandals, forcing him to step down in July.The general public did not elect Ms. Truss — instead, she won a leadership contest among members of her Conservative Party. To replace Mr. Johnson, the party’s members of Parliament narrowed a field of candidates to two, who were then put up to a vote by about 160,000 dues-paying party members. (They’re an unrepresentative group of the nation’s 67 million residents, far more likely to be male, older, middle-class and white.)Ms. Truss, 47, had been Mr. Johnson’s hawkish foreign secretary, a free-market champion and eventual supporter of Brexit (after she changed her mind), winning over the right flank of the party despite her more moderate past. (Before joining the Conservative Party, she was a member of the centrist Liberal Democrats when she was a student at Oxford University.)How did it start to come undone?She was never going to have it easy. As Ms. Truss entered office, the nation was staring down a calamitous economic picture, highlighted by energy bills that were predicted to jump 80 percent in October and jump again in January. It threatened to send millions of Britons, already reeling from inflation and other challenges, spiraling into destitution, unable to heat or power their homes.So it was unwelcome news when her signature economic plans immediately made things worse.Her announced plans for tax cuts, deregulation and borrowing so alarmed global investors that the value of the British pound sank to a record low against the U.S. dollar. The Bank of England stepped in to prop up government bonds, an extraordinary intervention to calm the markets.The response left no doubt that her free-market ambitions were untenable. In a humiliating reversal, she was forced to reverse virtually all of the tax cuts this week, including a much-criticized one on high earners. She fired Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor of the Exchequer who was the architect of the plan and a close ally, and adopted economic policies favored by the opposition Labour party.“You cannot engage in the sort of U-turn that she has engaged in and retain your political credibility,” said Jon Tonge, a professor of politics at the University of Liverpool.How did her tenure come under threat?Her concessions did little to mollify a growing rebellion from within her own party, which had the power to topple her in much the same way it toppled Mr. Johnson.The Conservatives — also known as Tories — had seen their popularity decline in public opinion polls after Mr. Johnson’s scandals, and their numbers cratered to staggering new lows as Ms. Truss stumbled. A Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll this week revealed the lowest approval rating it had ever recorded for a prime minister, with 70 percent disapproving of Ms. Truss, including 67 percent of Conservatives.If a general election were held today, 56 percent would vote for Labour while 20 percent would vote Conservative, the poll found.The Conservative Party’s discontent with Ms. Truss crescendoed in turn, and she was enveloped with a palpable sense of crisis. On Wednesday, it boiled into a frantic fight for her survival — “I’m a fighter and not a quitter,” she said while being grilled by members of Parliament.Then even more chaos broke out. Suella Braverman, Britain’s interior minister, stepped down after an email breach, but took a swipe at Ms. Truss in her resignation letter, saying she had “concerns about the direction of this government.” A vote on fracking in Parliament turned into a reported scene of bullying, shouting, physical manhandling and tears. More Conservative members of Parliament openly called for Ms. Truss to step down. Rumors swirled of high-profile resignations. It was difficult to keep up.“In short, it is total, absolute, abject chaos,” a news announcer said on iTV. Charles Walker, a Conservative lawmaker, did not hold back in an interview on BBC.On Thursday, she said she had handed her resignation to the king, with a new leadership election planned within a week.What comes next?Ms. Truss will remain prime minister until her successor is chosen. (Here are the likely front-runners.) In her resignation remarks, Ms. Truss said a leadership election would be completed in the next week, bringing Britain its second unelected leader in a row.The next general election — when the entire public can participate, and the next opportunity for Labour to take control — is not scheduled until January 2025 at the latest. A Conservative leader could call for one earlier, but they would have little reason to do so imminently since polls indicate the party would be wiped out by Labour.Mr. Tonge said one advantage Conservatives have is time — the party could theoretically regain credibility if the economy recovers in the following years, he said.“I don’t think that changing the leader will necessarily save the Conservatives,” he said. “But you can engage in damage limitation by doing so.” More

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      Why Republicans Are Winning Swing Voters

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      Rachelle Bonja and Patricia Willens and Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherAfter a summer of news that favored Democrats and with just two weeks until the midterms, a major new poll from The Times has found that swing voters are suddenly turning to the Republicans.The Times’s Nate Cohn explains what is behind the trend and what it could mean for Election Day.On today’s episodeNate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The New York Times.Mail-in ballots in Phoenix. Polling suggests that Republicans enter the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress with a narrow but distinct advantage.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesBackground readingAccording to the Times/Siena College poll, American voters see democracy in peril, but saving it isn’t a priority.Despite Democrats’ focus on abortion rights, disapproval of President Biden seems to be hurting his party.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Nate Cohn contributed reporting.The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Sofia Milan, Ben Calhoun and Susan Lee.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Cliff Levy, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Desiree Ibekwe, Wendy Dorr, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello and Nell Gallogly. More