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      If Roe Is Struck Down, Where Does the Anti-Abortion Movement Go Next?

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      The Supreme Court draft opinion signals a new era for the 50-year effort to end the constitutional right to abortion. Next goals include a national ban and, in some cases, classifying abortion as homicide.For nearly half a century, the anti-abortion movement has propelled itself toward a goal that at times seemed impossible, even to true believers: overturning Roe v. Wade.That single-minded mission meant coming to Washington every January for the March for Life to mark Roe’s anniversary. It required electing anti-abortion lawmakers and keeping the pressure on to pass state restrictions. It involved funding anti-abortion lobbying groups, praying and protesting outside clinics, and opening facilities to persuade women to keep their pregnancies. Then this week, the leaked draft of the Supreme Court opinion that would overturn the constitutional right to abortion revealed that anti-abortion activists’ dream of a post-Roe America appeared poised to come to pass.The court’s opinion is not final, but the draft immediately shifted the horizon by raising a new question: If Roe is struck down, where does the anti-abortion movement go next?Many leaders are redoubling state efforts, where they’ve already had success, with an eye toward more restrictive measures. Several prominent groups now say they would support a national abortion ban after as many as 15 weeks or as few as six, all lower than Roe’s standard of around 23 or 24. A vocal faction is talking about “abortion abolition,” proposing legislation to outlaw abortion after conception, with few if any exceptions in cases of rape or incest.The sprawling anti-abortion grass-roots campaign is rapidly approaching an entirely new era, one in which abortion would no longer be a nationally protected right to overcome, but a decision to be legislated by individual states. For many activists, overturning Roe would mark what they see as not the end, but a new beginning to limit abortion access even further. It also would present a test, as those who have long backed incremental change could clash with those who increasingly push to end legal abortion altogether.This week, many anti-abortion leaders were wary of celebrating before the court’s final ruling, expected this summer. They remembered Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, when they hoped the court would overturn Roe and it ultimately did not. But they said they have been preparing for this moment and its possibilities for decades.“If a dog catches a car, it doesn’t know what to do,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee. “We do.”The Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion political group, is planning a strategy involving state legislatures where it sees room to advance their cause or protect it. The National Right to Life is trying to support its affiliates in every state as it looks to lobby lawmakers. Both groups have been hoping to build support in Congress for a national abortion ban, even if it could take years, just as it did to gain momentum to undo Roe. Many Republicans have repeatedly tried to enact a ban at about 20 weeks, without success. Next week Democrats in the Senate are bringing a bill to codify abortion rights to a vote, but it is all but certain to be blocked by Republicans.Abortion rights advocates are using the moment to re-energize their own supporters, organize protests and mobilize for midterm elections in November. Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Emily’s List announced Monday, hours before the leaked draft appeared, that they would spend a collective $150 million on the midterm election cycle. Other groups are planning a nationwide “day of action” May 14, with marches in cities including New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles.The reality of the leaked draft shocked casual supporters of abortion rights who weren’t paying particularly close attention to the issue, or who had grown numb after decades of warnings about the end of Roe.An abortion opponent at the March for Life in Washington. Many leaders are doubling down on state fights, with an eye toward pushing for more restrictive measures in other parts of the country.Kenny Holston for The New York Times“People just couldn’t fathom losing a constitutional right that has been enshrined for nearly half a century,” said Kristin Ford, vice president of communications and research for NARAL Pro-Choice America. “To see it in such stark terms has really galvanized people.”Across the anti-abortion spectrum, everything is on the table, from instituting bans when fetal cardiac activity is detected, to pressing their case in Democratic strongholds. Some activists are prioritizing limiting medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of all abortions.From Opinion: A Challenge to Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Alison Block: Offering compassionate care is a core aspect of reproductive health. It might mean overcoming one’s own hesitation to provide procedures like second-trimester abortions. Patrick T. Brown: If Roe is overturned, those who worked toward that outcome will rightly celebrate. But a broader pro-family agenda should be their next goal. Jamelle Bouie: The leak proves that the Supreme Court is a political body, where horse-trading and influence campaigns are as much a part of the process as legal reasoning.Bret Stephens: Roe v. Wade was an ill-judged decision when it was handed down. But overturning it would do more to replicate its damage than to reverse it.Jay Kaspian Kang: There is no clear path toward a legislative solution to protect abortion rights. That’s precisely why people need to take to the streets.This week in Georgia, former Senator David Perdue, who is challenging Gov. Brian Kemp in the Republican primary for governor, called for a special session to “eliminate all of abortion” in the state, which already has an abortion ban at about six weeks on the books that would likely take effect if Roe is overturned.While many fighting for restrictions believe abortion to be murder, only a small fringe openly call for punishing a woman for procuring one.Lawmakers in Louisiana, however, advanced a bill on Wednesday that would classify abortion as homicide and make it possible for prosecutors to bring criminal cases against women who end a pregnancy.“If the fetus is a person, then we should protect them with the same homicide laws that protect born persons,” said Bradley Pierce, who helped draft the Louisiana legislation and leads the Foundation to Abolish Abortion. “That’s what equal protection means.”A more prominent anti-abortion group, Louisiana Right to Life, however, opposes the bill for going too far.For the more mainstream campaigners, a post-Roe landscape would mean the anti-abortion fight will become even broader, clearing the path to expand further into state politics. “It will be different work,” said Mallory Carroll, spokeswoman for the Susan B. Anthony List. If Roe is overturned, anti-abortion activists will be free to pass legislation without having to work around Roe’s limits. “Instead of just fighting for the right to pass pro-life laws, we will actually be able to pass and protect pro-life laws,” she said.On Monday, before the leak, a coalition led by Students for Life Action told Republican members of Congress in a letter that abortion restrictions even at 12 weeks of pregnancy were not sufficient but that what ultimately mattered was “whether the infant is a human being.”After the leaked draft of the Supreme Court opinion, activists on both sides of the abortion debate gathered in front of a federal courthouse in Indianapolis. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesUltimately, abortion opponents’ biggest goal extends beyond legislation. It is an effort to change broader American culture and get more people to see a fetus as a human person with an inherent right to life. Many activists talk about making abortion not merely illegal but “unthinkable.”Public opinion polls show that a majority of Americans say abortion should be legal in at least some cases. But anti-abortion activists say they see plenty of room for persuasion in the details. Polling also suggests most Americans are open to some restrictions. Thirty-four percent of Americans say abortion should be legal at 14 weeks of pregnancy — roughly the end of the first trimester — compared with 27 percent who say it should be illegal, according to a survey released Friday by the Pew Research Center. Another 22 percent say “it depends.”“We are prepared to not only create a legal landscape to protect life at the federal and state levels, but also to support a culture of life,” said Kristen Waggoner, general counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which supports Mississippi’s ban at 15 weeks that led to the Supreme Court case that could overturn Roe.Advocates on the left see the leaked draft laying out a playbook for a sweeping attempt to roll back other established rights. “There are some folks on the right saying they’re just turning back to the states, when in fact it’s very clear their agenda is much broader than that,” Ms. Ford of NARAL said. “It’s not just about abortion.”The State of Roe v. WadeCard 1 of 4What is Roe v. Wade? More

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      Biden’s Unpopularity

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      Covid helps explain it.Shortly after taking office, President Biden called on the government to do better. “We have to prove democracy still works,” he told Congress. “That our government still works — and we can deliver for our people.”Most Americans seem to believe Biden has not done so: 42 percent of Americans approve of his job performance, while 53 percent disapprove, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls.In today’s newsletter, I want to use Covid as a case study for how Biden failed to persuade Americans that the government delivered and instead cemented perceptions that it cannot.Polling suggests that Covid — not the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan — jump-started Biden’s political problems. His approval rating began to drop in July, weeks before the withdrawal.Source: FiveThirtyEightThat timing coincides with the rise of the Delta variant and reports that vaccine protection against infection was not holding up. Both came after Biden suggested for months that an “Independence Day” from Covid was near, setting up Americans for disappointment as it became clear that his administration would not fulfill arguably its biggest promise.The Covid exampleAt first, the Biden administration’s pandemic response helped highlight how government can solve a big problem. Millions of Americans were receiving shots a day — a campaign that Biden compared to wartime mobilization.But then things went awry, culminating in the disappointment many Americans now feel toward Biden’s handling of Covid.Biden’s administration gave mixed messages on boosters and masks that at times appeared to contradict data and experts. As we have covered before, U.S. officials often have not trusted the public with the truth about Covid and precautions.Getting a booster in Jackson, Ala., last year.Charity Rachelle for The New York TimesCongress also lagged behind, with pandemic funding caught in intraparty squabbles and partisan fights — the kind of gridlock that has often prevented lawmakers from getting things done in recent years.“American government is fairly slow and very incremental,” said Julia Azari, a political scientist at Marquette University. “That makes it very difficult to be responsive.”Perhaps Biden’s biggest mistake was, as Azari put it, “overpromising.” He spent early last summer suggesting that vaccines would soon make Covid a concern of the past — a view some experts shared at the time, too.Biden could not control what followed, as the virus persisted. But he could have set more realistic expectations for how a notoriously unpredictable pandemic would unfold.Another problem preceded Biden’s presidency: the political polarization of the pandemic. It made vaccines a red-versus-blue issue, with many Republicans refusing to get shots. Yet the vaccines remain the single best weapon against Covid.Given the high polarization, Biden’s options against Covid are now limited. His support for vaccines can even turn Republicans against the shots, one study found.“There is more that could be done, but the impact would probably only be at the margins, rather than transformative,” said Jen Kates of the Kaiser Family Foundation.Even if Biden cannot do much, the public will likely hold him responsible for future Covid surges; voters expect presidents to solve difficult issues. “People blame the administration for problems that are largely outside its control,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College.Lost trustBiden framed his call to deliver as a test for American democracy. He drew comparisons to the 1930s — “another era when our democracy was tested,” then by the threat of fascism. He pointed to new threats: Donald Trump challenging the legitimacy of U.S. elections and China’s president, Xi Jinping, betting that “democracy cannot keep up with him.”There is a historical factor, too. Since the Vietnam War and Watergate, Americans’ trust in their government has fallen. If Biden had succeeded, he could have helped reverse this trend.But Covid, and the government’s response to it, did the opposite. Trust in the C.D.C. fell throughout the pandemic: from 69 percent in April 2020 to 44 percent in January, according to NBC News.Distrust in government can turn into a vicious cycle. The government needs the public’s trust to get things done — like, say, a mass vaccination campaign. Without that support, government efforts will be less successful. And as the government is less successful, the public will lose more faith in it.Given the polarization surrounding Covid and the government’s mixed record, skepticism seems a more likely outcome than the renaissance of trust that Biden called for.THE LATEST NEWSWar in UkraineThe Russian ship Moskva off Havana in 2013.Adalberto Roque/AFP via Getty ImagesThe U.S. provided intelligence that helped Ukraine sink the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.Russia intensified its attacks in the eastern regions of Ukraine, hoping for a victory by Monday. But it is difficult to evaluate how the actual fighting is going.Ukrainian forces, mounting a highly mobile defense, regained ground elsewhere in the east.An operation to evacuate 200 remaining civilians from a steel factory in Mariupol was underway this morning. Russia bombed the complex overnight.Here’s what the war looks like on Russian TV, where the goal is often to leave viewers confused.The VirusA mass cremation for Covid victims in New Delhi last year.Atul Loke for The New York TimesThe pandemic’s true toll: nearly 15 million excess deaths — including 4.7 million in India, nearly 10 times its official total.The F.D.A. further limited the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, citing concerns over a rare clotting disorder.PoliticsKarine Jean-Pierre will take over from Jen Psaki.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesKarine Jean-Pierre will become the first Black woman and first openly gay person to serve as White House press secretary.As president, Trump proposed launching missiles into Mexico to destroy drug labs and cartels, his defense secretary writes in a memoir.The White House hosted labor organizers who have unionized workplaces at Amazon, Starbucks and elsewhere.Texas plans to challenge a Supreme Court ruling requiring public schools to educate undocumented immigrants.Other Big StoriesTwo assailants, at least one armed with an ax, killed at least three people in an Israeli town.The next front in the fight over abortion rights: pills.Amber Heard accused Johnny Depp, her ex-husband, of sexual assault, seeking to counter Depp’s testimony that she had been the aggressor.The stock market had its best day in over a year on Wednesday. Then it fell sharply yesterday.New York City’s rent panel backed the largest increase since 2013, affecting more than two million people.OpinionsThe end of Roe v. Wade will worsen America’s cultural wars, Michelle Goldberg argues.Biden should cancel student debt — but only for those in precarious situations, says David Brooks.The Supreme Court lost its legitimacy long before the draft abortion ruling leaked, Jamelle Bouie writes.NFTs and cryptocurrencies were meant to liberate the internet. Instead, they’re polluting it with scams, Farhad Manjoo writes.MORNING READSHandle with care: Peek into Bob Dylan’s archive, including notebooks and fan mail.Ancient relic: Goodwill sold a Roman bust for $34.99. Its 2,000-year journey to Texas remains a mystery.Great gowns: They’re the dry cleaners to the stars.Modern Love: For a family scattered by war, a group chat is everything.A Times classic: How gender stereotypes are changing.Advice from Wirecutter: The best anti-mosquito gear.Lives Lived: Marcus Leatherdale captured downtown Manhattan in the AIDS-darkened 1980s, photographing Andy Warhol, Madonna and others. Leatherdale died at 69.ARTS AND IDEAS Products from the show “CoComelon.”Alexander Coggin for The New York TimesParents dread it. Kids love it.With vivid colors, ear-worm songs and simple animation, the cartoon series “CoComelon” has an almost hypnotic effect on toddlers. The show is the second-largest channel on YouTube and holds a firm spot on Netflix’s top 10.This is all by design — “CoComelon” is a production of Moonbug Entertainment, a London company that produces several of the world’s most popular online kids’ shows.Moonbug treats children’s shows like a science, where every aesthetic choice or potential plot point is data-driven and rigorously tested with its target audience. Should the music be louder or more mellow? Should the bus be yellow or red? The answer is yellow — infants are apparently drawn to yellow buses, as well as minor injuries and stuff covered in dirt.“The trifecta for a kid would be a dirty yellow bus that has a boo-boo,” a Moonbug exec said during a company story session. “Broken fender, broken wheel, little grimace on its face.”Read more from inside one of the pitch sessions for a kids’ show juggernaut. — Sanam Yar, a Morning writerPLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDane Tashima for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.This veggie burger uses cabbage and mushrooms for crunch.ProfileHe has sampled Fergie in his music, vacationed with Drake and has been co-signed by Kendrick Lamar. Meet Jack Harlow.Spring CleaningMarie Kondo is here to help you tidy up your pandemic clutter.Late NightTrevor Noah has thoughts on interest rates.Take the News QuizHow well did you follow the headlines this week?Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was offhanded. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.Here’s today’s Wordle. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and a clue: Bagel variety (five letters).If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.P.S. The Times’s Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns discussed their reporting about Jan. 6 on NPR’s “Fresh Air.”Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about anti-abortion activists. Still Processing” is about “Fatal Attraction.”Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Democrats’ Mystery: How to Brighten a Presidency and a National Mood

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      LAKEWOOD, Ohio — At a Whole Foods in one moderate Cleveland suburb, shoppers recently worried about war, inflation, a “scary” political climate — and a Democratic Party some saw as slow to address the nation’s burning problems.At a house party for a left-wing congressional candidate across town, attendees fretted over the high cost of living and exorbitant student loan debt as they weighed their choices in Ohio’s primary elections on Tuesday.And at a campaign event for Representative Shontel Brown here in Lakewood, a liberal city near Cleveland, not everyone seemed impressed by President Biden.“He’s OK,” allowed Yolanda Pace-Owens, 46, who works in security. She said that she had voted for Mr. Biden and still admired him, but that she was alarmed by a pandemic-era rise in violent crime. “We just got to do better,” she said.Nearly six months before the midterm elections, Mr. Biden and the Democrats face staggering challenges and signs of dampened enthusiasm among nearly every constituency that powered their 2020 presidential and 2018 midterm victories, according to polls and more than two dozen interviews with voters, elected officials and party strategists across the country.Yet Democrats are still struggling with how to even discuss the nation’s greatest challenges — much less reach a consensus on how to right the ship.The party’s problems run deep, as Mr. Biden’s lead pollster has privately warned the White House for months. Independent voters backed Mr. Biden in 2020, but his approval rating with independents now hovers in the 30s. He has underperformed with voters of color in some surveys. Warning signs have emerged among suburban voters. And Mr. Biden’s approval rating has deteriorated with young people even though he won them overwhelmingly in 2020.Yolanda Pace-Owens said that she admired Mr. Biden but that “we just got to do better.” Dustin Franz for The New York TimesIn a midterm environment heavily shaped by the president’s approval rating, all of those numbers are gravely worrying for Democratic candidates, who are left with tough questions about how to engage unsettled voters and reinvigorate their base.How much time should they spend trying to show voters they grasp the pain of inflation, compared with efforts to remind them of low unemployment? Should they pursue ambitious policies that show Democrats are fighters, or is it enough to hope for more modest victories while emphasizing all that the party has passed already?A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The 2022 election season is underway. See the full primary calendar and a detailed state-by-state breakdown.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.And even when candidates try to tell that story, is anyone listening?“Voters hear us, but I don’t know that we have convinced voters as to how these things will affect them on a personal level,” Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking House Democrat, said in a recent interview. “We’re not connecting with the voters on the level that they can connect with.”As Mr. Biden confronts the lingering pandemic, war in Ukraine and historical headwinds — the president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections — he has acknowledged his party’s messaging challenges, worrying recently that amid crises, “we haven’t sold the American people what we’ve actually done.”The president, a consummate retail politician who some Democrats had hoped would be more visible, is now pursuing a more robust travel schedule to sell his party’s agenda and accomplishments, and he is highlighting some contrasts with Republicans.Consumers across the country are seeing a rise in the price of everyday items, like $8.29 for a gallon of milk at a Whole Foods grocery store in Rocky River, Ohio.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesHao Pham of Cleveland filling his S.U.V. with gas, the price of which has increased.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesAllies and some voters note that polling is partially driven by anger over extraordinary events, including the war’s impact on gas prices, that the White House could not fully control. But Mr. Biden’s advisers say that the president is working to demonstrate that Democrats understand voters’ struggles and are moving to fix them, as the party’s lawmakers make a fresh push for a range of legislative priorities, especially concerning prices. On Thursday, Mr. Biden also said that he was considering wiping out some student loan debt.A new Washington Post-ABC poll also showed some positive signs for Mr. Biden and the Democrats, though Republicans retained significant advantages on issues including inflation, the economy and crime.“While President Biden and Democrats work to lower costs and continue the historic economic recovery made possible by the American Rescue Plan, Republicans have done everything they can to try to stand in the way,” Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.Yet months of national polls show that Americans have a vastly different perception of the party in power. Even in overwhelmingly liberal Los Angeles, private Democratic polling in April found Mr. Biden’s favorability rating at only 58 percent, according to a person with direct knowledge of the data.Democratic tensions over messaging have been on display in Ohio, where candidates in this week’s primaries reflect the full spectrum of competing views.Ms. Brown, who faces a contested primary in a safely Democratic seat and was endorsed by Mr. Biden, is running hard on the bipartisan infrastructure law.She echoed other House Democrats in promoting the message that “Democrats have been delivering.”But Biden advisers have privately indicated that pitch tests poorly as a party slogan. And at another Ohio event in late April, Nina Turner, a former state senator who is challenging Ms. Brown from the left in a rematch, suggested that Democrats had not delivered nearly enough.She urged, among other priorities, universal cancellation of student debt — or, at a minimum, canceling $10,000 in federal student debt per borrower (Ms. Brown also supports some student debt forgiveness measures). Mr. Biden, who endorsed the $10,000 goal in 2020, has postponed payments, and significant student debt has been erased during his tenure, but some have called on him to do much more. He may take further action, and there is still time to make more progress on the Democratic agenda.But for now, many on the left are disappointed that Democrats, despite controlling Washington, have run aground in the divided Senate on priorities like the climate and voting rights.“People can forgive you, even if you can’t get something done,” Ms. Turner said. “What they don’t like is when you’re not fighting. And we need to see more of a fighting spirit among the Democratic Party.”Nina Turner, a progressive House candidate in Ohio, held a gathering with supporters to talk about issues they prioritized.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesOn the other end of the party’s ideological spectrum is Representative Tim Ryan, a moderate Ohio Democrat running for Senate in a state that has veered rightward. He is casting himself as a fighter for the working class and highlighting measures like the infrastructure law, while seeking some cultural and political distance from many others in his party.In an interview, Mr. Ryan cheered a ruling to eliminate mask mandates on airlines and public transportation, which is now being challenged. “Masks suck,” he said. “I think we’re all tired of it.”Asked which national Democratic surrogates he would welcome, he cited Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Senator Jon Tester of Montana and Senator Gary Peters of Michigan — but asked specifically about Mr. Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Ryan said: “This is my race. I’m going to be the face of this.” (Biden advisers noted that the president has recently appeared with Democrats in competitive races.)And as of Friday, Mr. Ryan was one of seven Democratic candidates who have run ads this year that mentioned inflation, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. By contrast, dozens of Republican candidates and allied groups have done the same. In polls, Americans have cited inflation as a top issue.“Burying your head in the sand,” Mr. Ryan said, “is not the way to approach it.” Asked about the biggest challenges facing his party, he replied, “A response to the inflation piece is a big hurdle.”He also cited “a national brand that is not seen as connected to the working-class people, whether they’re white or Black or brown.”Representative Tim Ryan, center right, and Michael S. Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, met in April at a home in Youngstown, Ohio, where lead pipes are set to be replaced thanks to new federal funding.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesLou McMahon, a registered Democrat who said he did not vote in the last two presidential elections because he did not like his choices, sounded open to Mr. Ryan in an interview at Ms. Brown’s event. But asked to assess Democrats in Washington generally, he replied, “Promise, but not delivered,” citing both stalled legislative ambitions and Mr. Biden’s pledge to help heal partisan divisions.“The targets and the aspirations were maybe beyond the reach,” said Mr. McMahon, 58, an environmental lawyer. “The reuniting that was so much of the promise hasn’t played out in reality quite that way.”Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic strategist and a pollster on Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign, said that “there’s nobody in America more deeply disappointed in how divided America is than Joe Biden.”“He does communicate it, but I think it helps a lot when he’s on the road,” she said.Republicans face their own midterm difficulties. Many candidates have adopted former President Donald J. Trump’s relentless focus on the false notion of a stolen 2020 election, a stance that swing voters may dismiss as extreme. In some primaries, the party runs the risk of nominating seriously flawed general-election candidates.Democratic officials hope their prospects will brighten as primary contests are settled and candidates draw sharper direct contrasts with their opponents — and they are already trying to define that choice.On one side, they say, are bomb-throwing Republicans who are caught up in cultural battles, fealty to Trumpism and a controversial tax and social safety net proposal. On the other, Democrats argue, is a party that passed major infrastructure and pandemic relief measures, and spearheaded the confirmation of the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. Mr. Biden has also moved to combat gun violence, confronting Republican efforts to portray Democrats as weak on crime.Many Democratic candidates are also raising vast sums of money, a sign of voter engagement.“Our members have a great record of results, and the other side is offering nothing except anger and fear,” said Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the chair of the House Democratic campaign arm. “My message is: We’re getting good things done. We’re part of the solution. Give us a little more time.”Time indeed remains, and Democrats could reverse their fortunes in an unpredictable environment — but it is also possible that in the fall, the outlook will be largely unchanged.“The problem with midterm elections is, they’re not really a choice,” said David Axelrod, who served as a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama. “They tend to be a referendum on the party that controls the White House.” More

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      How DeSantis Transformed Florida’s Political Identity

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      The state has become an unlikely laboratory for right-wing policy, pushed by a governor with presidential ambitions.MIAMI — Florida feels like a state running a fever, its very identity changing at a frenetic pace.Once the biggest traditional presidential battleground, it has suddenly turned into a laboratory of possibility for the political right.Discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity prohibited in early elementary school. Math textbooks rejected en masse for what the state called “indoctrination.” Schools and employers limited in what they can teach about racism and other aspects of history. Tenured professors in public universities subjected to new reviews. Abortions banned after 15 weeks. The creation of a law enforcement office to investigate election crimes. A congressional map redrawn to give Republicans an even bigger advantage.And, perhaps most stunning of all, Disney, long an untouchable corporate giant, stripped of the ability to govern itself for the first time in more than half a century, in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. conversations with young schoolchildren.“It does have this feeling of, ‘Oh, what the hell just happened?’” said Kristen Arnett, a novelist and Orlando native who now lives in Miami. “It’s overwhelming.”Florida has transformed over the past two years as Gov. Ron DeSantis has increased and flexed his power to remarkable effect, embracing policies that once seemed unthinkable. That has made the Republican governor a favorite of the party’s Fox News-viewing base and turned him into a possible presidential contender.Mr. DeSantis displayed the signed Parental Rights in Education law, known by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay,” while flanked by elementary school students.Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times, via Associated PressMr. DeSantis has demurred on the question of whether he will seek the White House in 2024 even if former President Donald J. Trump runs again. Mr. Trump has retired — for now — to his Palm Beach estate of Mar-a-Lago and looms as his party’s king or kingmaker. Yet it is Mr. DeSantis who has kept Florida in the national spotlight — relentlessly.Bob Buckhorn, the former Democratic mayor of Tampa, blamed a combination of factors for Florida’s sudden turn: Mr. DeSantis’s ambition, national culture wars and Mr. Trump, for having “given voice to all of the ugliness and the demons that inhabit Americans.”“It’s just an unholy alliance of circumstances that have come together that allow this type of politics to occur,” Mr. Buckhorn said.Not long ago, such a shift would have seemed out of the question in a state notorious for its tight election margins and nail-biting recounts. Mr. DeSantis won the governorship by about 32,000 votes in 2018, hardly a mandate. His aloof personality did not exactly sparkle.Read More on Florida’s Fight With DisneyWhat to Know: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney, the state’s largest private employer, are clashing over a new education law.‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill: In a move seen as retaliation for the company’s criticism of the legislation, Florida lawmakers revoked Disney World’s special tax status.Facing the Real World: Disney spent decades avoiding controversy. But it has increasingly been drawn into the partisan political fray.A G.O.P. Shift: The battle in Florida showed how combative Republicans have grown toward corporations that take a stand on political issues.But beginning in 2020, a politically attuned Mr. DeSantis seized on discontent with coronavirus pandemic policies, betting that economic prosperity and individual liberties would matter more to voters in the long run than protecting public health. More than 73,000 Floridians have died of Covid-19, yet public opinion polls have shown that Mr. DeSantis and many of his policies remain quite popular.Parents, especially, who cheered the governor’s opposition to Covid-19 restrictions in schools, have remained active on issues of curriculum and culture.“I think the governor is more popular than Disney — I think the governor is more popular than the former president,” said Anthony Pedicini, a Republican strategist in Tampa. “If you’re running for office as a Republican in Florida and you aren’t toeing the DeSantis mantra, you will not win.”The question now for Mr. DeSantis — and virtually everyone else in Florida — is whether the rightward lurch will stop, either by court intervention, corporate backlash or, come November, electoral rebuke. But given Florida’s trends in recent years, the more likely outcome could be a sustained campaign toward a new, more rigid conservative orthodoxy, one that voters could very well ratify this fall.The state’s swift and unexpected rightward tilt has happened as Florida has swelled with new residents. Between July 2020 and July 2021, about 260,000 more people arrived than left, a net migration higher than any other state. The trend began before the pandemic but appeared to accelerate as remote workers sought warm weather, low taxes and few public health restrictions.Culturally, Floridians have been less conservative than their leaders. They have voted by large margins to legalize medical marijuana, prohibit gerrymandering and restore felons’ voting rights. (Last year, Republican lawmakers passed limits on the use of such citizen-led ballot initiatives.) So the recent rash of legislation has been met with trepidation in the state’s big cities, which are almost all run by Democrats.“I’m not exactly sure what DeSantis is trying to prove,” Brian Hill, an energy consultant, said on a sun-swept morning this week in downtown Orlando’s Lake Eola Park, near the Walt Disney Amphitheater, which is painted in rainbow colors in celebration of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.In 2016, a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 others at Pulse, a gay nightclub in town. The amphitheater, Mr. Hill said, is “a symbol of how far we’ve come.” He contrasted it with the law restricting sexual orientation and gender identity discussions through third grade, a measure that supporters said promoted parental rights but critics called “Don’t Say Gay.”“The bill is taking schools back to the ’80s, to be honest,” said Mr. Hill, 52, who has lived in Orlando for two years. “It’s not realistic with today’s society.”Mr. DeSantis has demurred on the question of whether he will seek the White House in 2024 even if former President Donald J. Trump runs again.Doug Mills/The New York TimesGoing after Disney seemed doubly strange to some Orlando residents, considering how Mr. DeSantis fought to keep businesses open during the pandemic, a boon to tourism and theme parks. “The magic is back!” his Twitter account proclaimed in August 2020 after a Disney vice president took part in one of his events.Even some residents who generally like the governor worry that his battle with Disney has gone too far. One DeSantis supporter interviewed outside a sports club in the Orlando suburbs declined to give his name but said revoking Disney’s special tax status was “cancel culture-esque.” (Disney told investors this week that its tax district cannot be dissolved unless the state assumes its existing bond debt, the Orlando NBC News affiliate WESH reported.)May von Scherrer, 35, came to Florida from Puerto Rico in 2017 and said she had found it “thrilling” to support the Black Lives Matter movement in marches during the summer of 2020. That time now feels very distant.“I’ve never felt more like those sci-fi dystopian futures,” she said. “That’s what’s happening now. We’re living in them.”But few political observers expect distaste with Mr. DeSantis and his policies to translate into robust opposition come Election Day. Florida Democrats lack the organization, funding and leadership required to mount a vast and expensive campaign. They have also lost their edge in voter registrations; Republicans now hold a narrow advantage.“People who love DeSantis are super jazzed,” said Nate Monroe, metro columnist for The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville and a frequent DeSantis critic. “People who don’t — and there are a considerable number of people who don’t in the state — are just kind of like, ‘Eh, it’s hopeless, why even bother at this point.’”Mr. DeSantis holds near daily public events in which he bashes President Biden while supporters lavish him with unmitigated praise. He exerts such dominance over Florida Republicans that a candidate for agriculture commissioner dropped out after the governor endorsed his opponent on Twitter. And he has raised more than $100 million, an extraordinary sum, from donors all over the country.Last Friday, Mr. DeSantis signed into law the restrictions on how racism and other aspects of history can be taught in schools and workplaces, known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” in an elaborate ceremony in which supporters described him as brave and bold.Among those present were parents who opposed school closures, quarantines and mask mandates during the pandemic — and then remained engaged on other education matters. Mr. DeSantis has repeatedly featured those voices to cast his policies as common sense.Christine Chaparro said she would be pulling her children out of the Broward County public schools after her son brought home language arts workbooks that cited the co-author of an antiracism book and mentioned Black Lives Matter and Stacey Abrams’s voter suppression claims in the 2018 Georgia governor’s race.“I disagree that what is in my kids’ benchmark assessment workbooks is accurate history or a lens that belongs in an elementary school classroom,” she said.A day earlier, Democrats had briefly shut down a special legislative session to protest the passage of the new congressional map. Mr. DeSantis had demanded the redrawing of two districts held by Black Democrats, and Republicans had acquiesced. Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor.State Representatives Travaris McCurdy and Angie Nixon protest a redistricting proposal pushed by the governor and approved last week. Phil Sears/Associated Press“You can only hold people down for so long before they will do anything that it takes to make their voices heard,” State Representative Fentrice Driskell, Democrat of Tampa, said. “The governor has interfered in this process, and it’s wrong.”Meantime, parts of Florida remain unaffordable, especially for its many low-wage workers. Property insurance rates rose 25 percent on average in 2021, compared with 4 percent nationally, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Another special session has been called for May to address the crisis.Despite all the charged rhetoric and national headlines, Ms. Arnett, the novelist, said her daily life was not much different from before.“If you put on the TV or you look at the news at what’s going on, it seems like Florida is a conservative hellhole,” she said. “When you’re living in Florida and interacting with people and moving through your day-to-day life, it doesn’t feel that way at all.”The challenge, she added, is understanding what the changes in the state mean and what to do about them.“Every day, every other day, something is happening, so you don’t have time to address and solve a problem,” she said. “It’s like warp speed on all of this stuff.”Eric Adelson More

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      The Unsettling Warning in France’s Election

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      A record number of abstentions, and a strictly binary choice for voters — many of whom said they were picking the lesser of two evils — are trouble signs even within a mature democracy.You should know at least two crucial facts about the French presidential election, whose final round was held last Sunday.The first is that Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate known for her warm relationship with Vladimir Putin and her hostility toward the European Union and immigrants, lost the election — but with the best showing that her party has ever had, carrying 41.5 percent of the second-round vote.The second is that Emmanuel Macron, the incumbent president from the center-right En Marche party, won the election — but with the lowest share of registered voters of any candidate since 1969, because of historically low turnout and high numbers of votes that were cast blank or spoiled in a show of protest.Of those two facts, the first has garnered the most attention. But the second may be more important.Vote, or hostage negotiation?In the first round of the presidential election, Macron came in first, but with nowhere close to a majority. He got barely more than a quarter of the total votes, with 27.85 percent. Le Pen came next with 23.15 percent, and the leftist candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, got 21.95 percent. The rest of the votes were divided between smaller parties.That’s actually pretty common: Today, in many mature democracies, it’s uncommon for any party or ideological faction to get more than about a third of the votes. In the German federal election last year, the center-left party came first, but with only 25.7 percent of the vote — strikingly similar to the numbers for Macron in the first round. In multiparty parliamentary systems, that results in coalition governments in which two or more parties work together — take Germany, again, where a three-party coalition now governs.Ms. Le Pen had a strong showing in both rounds of the 2022 French presidential election.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut in direct presidential systems, the winner takes all. And for many voters, that means that elections are less a matter of who they want to support than of who they most want to oppose.So when Le Pen made the second round runoff of the French election, the contest took on the tenor of a hostage negotiation. Macron argued that Le Pen was an existential threat to France, and called for all other candidates’ supporters to unite behind him in order to prevent her from winning the presidency. Mélenchon, the leftist candidate, made a similar plea to his supporters. “We know who we will never vote for,” he said on April 10. “We must not give a single vote for Madame Le Pen.”In the end, enough voters aligned behind Macron to keep the far right out of the presidency. And it seems that many heeded the calls to hold their noses and vote for Macron, despite their aversion to him, in order to protect the country from the far right: According to one poll, about 45 percent of those who voted for him did so only to oppose Le Pen.But the same poll found that the opposite was also true: About 45 percent of Le Pen voters were more interested in opposing Macron than in supporting the far right. Other data bears that out: The overseas French territories Martinique and Guadeloupe supported Mélenchon in the first round, but then gave a majority to Le Pen in the second.Others withdrew entirely. Abstentions and blank ballots hit record highs in this election — a notable development in France, where turnout has historically been around 80 percent.A warning from historyExperts who study France’s history of revolutions and democratic collapse see signs of danger in a system that pushes a wide spectrum of voters into a binary choice between what some see as the lesser of two evils.So how do you tell the difference between normal political anger that can work itself out through a series of elections without leading to serious instability, and something dangerous enough to require structural change to the system itself?A woman voting at a polling station in Saint Denis, in the suburbs of Paris. The election saw a high level of voter abstentions.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“That’s the question of French history, right?” Terrence Peterson, a political historian at Florida International University, told me. “Historians have been asking that question about France for a long time, given its history of repeated revolutions.”He saw particular cause for concern in the rising levels of abstentions. “When voters express that they feel disenfranchised, if a majority of them do, then that’s a clear sign” of serious trouble, he said.Some in France have begun to call for an overhaul of the Constitution to make the system more representative. Mélenchon has called for a new Constitution to be drafted via a people’s constituent assembly. In an editorial last week in the French newspaper Le Monde, Frederic Sawicki, a political scientist at Pantheon-Sorbonne University, argued that the lack of proportional representation had brought the far right “to the gates of power” in France.Camille Robcis, a Columbia University historian who studies 20th-century French politics and institutions, said that she was not surprised to hear such calls. “You have a kind of disconnect between the representatives and the popular vote, the electorate,” she said. “The result is that these disenchanted, disenfranchised voters are moving to the extremes.”How am I doing?I’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to interpreter@nytimes.com. You can also follow me on Twitter.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Convincing Victory Disguises Challenges for France’s Macron

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      France’s runoff election was marked by a record level of abstention, and many cast a ballot only to keep the far right from power — a testament to a growing disillusionment.ROYE, France — There is no doubt that President Emmanuel Macron of France won a convincing re-election over Marine Le Pen, his far-right challenger, on Sunday. Mr. Macron scored a thumping 17 point margin of victory, becoming the first French leader to be re-elected to a second term in 20 years.In the view of many, the electoral system worked as it was intended to, with nearly 60 percent of those who voted joining together to defend against a xenophobic and nationalist far right widely regarded as a threat to French democracy.That is, perhaps, unless you are a supporter of Ms. Le Pen, who was blocked in the final round for a second consecutive time.“I think we’re heading into five more years of crisis, probably worse, because people are just fed up,” Sébastien Denneulin, 46, a Le Pen supporter, said on Monday morning in Roye, a northern far-right stronghold.Even as Ms. Le Pen has edged her party into the mainstream, ensconcing it firmly in the political establishment, her supporters say they are growing frustrated with a lack of representation in the political system.In the far-right stronghold of Roye, in northern France, two out of three voters backed Marine Le Pen in the runoff.James Hill for The New York TimesThe far right enjoyed its strongest ever showing at the ballot box on Sunday, as Ms. Le Pen widened her appeal with pocketbook issues important in parts of the country like this northern region, where in the past two generations voters have shifted to the far right from the political left along with deindustrialization.The challenge now for Mr. Macron will be how to lure back into the political fold the 41.5 percent of voters who cast ballots for Ms. Le Pen — and the roughly 28 percent who opted not to vote at all. Despite the president’s clear victory, the election results disguised myriad challenges that could make his next five years in office even more tumultuous than the last.As French news media organizations drew up maps of the nationwide breakdown of the runoff vote, they showed a widening and deepening fracture along the French equivalent of American blue and red states.In the reddest areas of France, there was frustration that Ms. Le Pen had been defeated once again and a strong sentiment that her supporters were continuing to be shut out of the political system.Supporters of Ms. Le Pen in Paris on Sunday. In the reddest areas of France, there is a strong feeling among them that they are being shut out of the political system.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesIn Roye, some people gathered at the QG brasserie voiced anger when they learned of the results on their smartphones on Sunday evening. One man set fire to his voter’s card.Tony Rochon, 39, a roofer, said he had voted for a Le Pen — either Marine or her father, Jean-Marie — all of his life. But each time, he said, other political parties had united to deny a Le Pen victory in the presidential race. Then the same thing had happened in legislative elections — also a two-round system — effectively marginalizing Ms. Le Pen’s influence in Parliament.In 2017, for instance, while Ms. Le Pen garnered 34 percent of the vote in the presidential election, her party secured only eight seats in Parliament — not even enough to form a parliamentary group.That year, Mr. Macron promised to introduce proportional representation in Parliament, which experts say would better reflect the population’s political beliefs. But he failed to fulfill his pledge.“That’s why the only option for us is to take to the streets,” said Mr. Rochon, who joined the Yellow Vest anti-government protests in Paris. “Macron has no legitimacy.”Tony Rochon, center right, holding his daughter, reached in frustration for his friend’s phone as news of Mr. Macron’s victory came in. He had voted for a Le Pen his whole life.James Hill for The New York TimesHe and his wife, Adelaide Rochon, 33, a dental assistant who has also always voted for Ms. Le Pen’s party, said they believed that the vote had been rigged.“We don’t know a single person around us who voted for Macron,” Ms. Rochon said. “It’s impossible that he won.”Not impossible, actually.In Roye, a town of 6,000 people, two out of three voters backed Ms. Le Pen in the runoff. But nationwide Mr. Macron drew many votes — 47 percent, according to one poll — not necessarily because people endorsed him, but because they joined the so-called Republican front against the far right, whose politics remain anathema to a majority of French despite Ms. Le Pen’s persistent efforts to remake and soften her image.For others, like Madeleine Rosier, a member of the leftist France Unbowed, a choice between Mr. Macron and what she deemed an unacceptable far-right candidate was no choice at all. She did not cast a ballot on Sunday after voting for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the veteran leftist who came in third place in the first round.“I didn’t want to grant Emmanuel Macron legitimacy,” she said.The abstention rate — the highest in a runoff since 1969 — reflected the widespread disillusionment with the political system that sent protesters from towns like Roye to the Champs-Élysées in Paris as part of the anti-government Yellow Vest movement in 2018, the biggest political crisis of Mr. Macron’s first term.Madeleine Rosier, a member of France Unbowed, did not vote on Sunday because she “didn’t want to grant Emmanuel Macron legitimacy.”James Hill for The New York TimesThat anger persists in many pockets of the country. In another measure of political disillusionment, more than three million people cast blank or null-and-void ballots — and that does not include the 13.7 million who opted not to vote at all.Étienne Ollion, a sociologist and professor at the Polytechnique engineering school, said the importance of such voters and those who reluctantly backed Mr. Macron to keep Ms. Le Pen from power, as well as the level of abstention give Mr. Macron “a relatively limited legitimacy.”The election results underscored a growing sense of “democratic fatigue and democratic fracture” in France, Mr. Ollion said.Given Mr. Macron’s unfulfilled pledge to reform Parliament, Chloé Morin, a political scientist at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, a Paris-based think tank, said there were doubts about Mr. Macron’s “capacity to take into account this extremely divided political landscape and opposition parties that will inevitably, in all logic, be little represented” in Parliament.Daniel Cohn-Bendit, an ally of Mr. Macron and a former Green member of the European Parliament, said in an interview that “an unfair French electoral system” had led to governing that ignores the political opposition and various actors of society.“To have a Parliament where someone who gets 42 percent of the votes only has about 20 lawmakers, that’s unacceptable,” he said, referring to Ms. Le Pen.Shortly after Mr. Macron was re-elected on Sunday, there were immediate signs that discontent surrounding French democracy would mark his second term.Demonstrators in Lyon, France, after Mr. Macron’s re-election on Sunday. The sign reads, “Down with Macron, the Robin of the bourgeoisie,” referring to Robin Hood.Laurent Cipriani/Associated PressHundreds of protesters gathered in Paris and other big cities to oppose Mr. Macron’s second term. The protests were marred by violent clashes with the police, who fired tear gas in Paris to disperse the crowd.Protesters in Paris converged from the city center to the large Place de la République, chanting a song originating from the Yellow Vest movement, “We are here, even if Macron doesn’t want it, we are here!”By midnight, the police had cleared the Place de la République of protesters. But they had scrawled, in red, a warning on the large statue of Marianne, an emblem of the French Republic, in the middle of the square: “Beware of revenge when all the poor people stand up.”Norimitsu Onishi More

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      American Voters Haven’t Been Afraid Like This in a Long Time

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      In a rare convergence, America’s voters are not merely unhappy with their political leadership, but awash in fears about economic security, border security, international security and even physical security. Without a U-turn by the Biden administration, this fear will generate a wave election like those in 1994 and 2010, setting off a chain reaction that could flip the House and the Senate to Republican control in November, and ultimately the presidency in 2024.Take the economy, so often the harbinger of election results. From late 2017 until the pandemic, a majority of Americans believed that the economy was strong, and from 2014 until the pandemic at least a plurality believed their personal economic situation was improving. Covid-19 cut sharply into that feeling of well-being; this was initially seen as temporary, though, and trillions of dollars flowed into keeping people afloat. But then near-double-digit inflation hit consumers for the first time in 40 years; 60 percent of voters now see the economy as weak and 48 percent say their financial situation is worsening, according to a Harris Poll conducted April 20-21. Many Americans under 60 have relatively little experience with anything but comparatively low fuel costs, negligible interest rates and stable prices. Virtually overnight these assumptions have been shaken. Only 35 percent approve of President Biden’s handling of inflation.These economic blows are just one element in a cascading set of problems all hitting at the same time. It combines the nuclear anxieties of the 1950s and ’60s with the inflation threat of the ’70s, the crime wave of the ’80s and ’90s and the tensions over illegal immigration in the 2000s and beyond. This electorate is not experiencing a malaise, as President Jimmy Carter was once apocryphally said to have proclaimed, but has instead formed into a deep national fissure ready to blow like a geyser in the next election if leadership does not move to relieve the pressure.The return of fear about crime is especially worrisome for Democrats, who spent years trying to take over Republican ground on the issue. In 1991, the homicide rate was 9.71 per hundred thousand. Mr. Biden, when he was a senator, penned the key federal bipartisan anti-crime bill widely credited then with reducing violence in America, but under criticism today by those who argue it led to inequitable rates of incarceration, particularly in communities of color. The homicide rate would decline to a low of 4.44 per 100,000 in 2014. Worries about walking the streets and riding the subway were less acute among new generations, and yet today those same streets and mass transit are once again hobbled by fear; even the head of the New York-area Metropolitan Transportation Authority argued that fear of crime and homelessness were behind a 36 percent drop in ridership between December 2021 and January 2022.Immigration was used effectively by President Donald Trump as a wedge issue to win working class voters. According to the April Harris poll, under Mr. Biden, 59 percent of voters believe that we have “effectively” open borders and, looking back, many even support some of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies. Mr. Biden receives only 38 percent approval for his immigration policy, a troublingly low rating for a Democrat (President Barack Obama was at 29 percent approval on immigration policy before the 2010 midterm wipeout).Migrants seeking asylum in the U.S., standing near the border fence while waiting to be processed after crossing the border from Mexico at Yuma, Arizona.Go Nakamura/ReutersNational security had become less salient for most Americans compared to the years of the Cold War and after 9/11. Foreign policy was barely discussed in the limited presidential debates of 2020. Today, fear of a great power conflict and nuclear weapons has emerged in ways not seen since the Cold War. With the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, fresh ballistic missile tests, and Mr. Putin’s explicit reference to the use of nuclear weapons and “unpredictable” consequences of opposing him, fear of nuclear weapons has been thrust front and center, as a recent focus group of Americans by Times Opinion found as well. Fear of nuclear weapons now ranks second in issues that worry voters, behind the effects of inflation.To combat the drag that fear has on the electorate — what I call a “fear index” — Mr. Biden will have to move in some big and bold ways. Faced with runaway spending in the 1990s, President Bill Clinton proposed a balanced budget, a policy still favored by 80 percent of the electorate, according to April’s Harris poll, but he did it in a way that still managed to finance entitlements like Social Security. Pushing a big, seven-year policy plan like that would mean finding budget cuts elsewhere to pay for a permanent child tax credit, rather than raising taxes, and deficit spending, which would most likely cause costs to fall on the average American through inflation. Balancing the budget would change the conversation about the economy and show Americans that Mr. Biden was serious about getting our fiscal house in order.Continuing to let gas prices surge will hurt Democrats on the ballot in the fall; the party needs a new, tempered energy policy that includes a more gradual transition to alternative fuels and an appreciation of energy independence. In the presidential debates, Mr. Biden promised a “transition” to “renewable energy over time,” though noting he would not attempt to ban fracking. But in his first flurry of executive orders, Biden gave the public the impression he was far more aggressive in favoring climate change policies, though he has since angered activists by reversing a promise to prevent new drilling on public lands. He will need to shift to an “all of the above” energy approach and green-light the Keystone pipeline, which is currently favored by nearly 80 percent of the electorate, according to the Harris Poll.The Biden administration is also losing in swing areas on immigration, as evidenced by the nine Senate Democrats and the House’s bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus that have expressed reservations about its plan to lift Title 42, the Trump administration’s Covid-era policy of intercepting and returning migrants without due process. The answer is to keep in place the Covid-related border restrictions and revive trying to find a real compromise with at least 10 Republican senators on immigration that would adopt tougher barrier and enforcement measures to close the border, but also open up legal immigration and a path to citizenship for at least DACA recipients.With rising crime as an issue, the favorable rating of the Department of Justice has sunk to just 51 percent under Merrick Garland, according to the Harris Poll. Mr. Biden needs to shake up his top law-enforcement officials and back legislation that combines police reform with funding for hundreds of thousands of new community police officers, greater federal involvement in stopping violent crime syndicates and gangs, and wider discretion for judges to take violent criminals off the streets. The administration needs to consider interceding on behalf of victims in circumstances in which district attorneys are not prosecuting violent criminals to the full extent of the law, especially when they waive “enhancements” for gang-related crimes. One of our first campaign ads in 1996 established President Clinton as both against assault-weapons and for more cops and crime-fighting measures; he kept that message up during his re-election bid, and Republicans never effectively stoked fears about crime.Finally, Mr. Biden cannot let Mr. Putin win in Ukraine, and needs to continue to send whatever weapons are necessary, including jets, to prevent such a victory. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan precipitated a decline in his administration’s approval rates. Ukraine’s loss would compound the view among some voters that he is too weak.According to reports, Mr. Biden now says he is running for re-election in 2024. But he is facing limited enthusiasm in his own party for a second run and loses even to Mr. Trump in hypothetical matchups, according to the Harris Poll. Sticking to the high-priced Build Back Better legislation or variants of it on the basis of narrow party-line votes has not been successful.People are afraid of being walloped financially, being injured or menaced by criminals, being in a country without strong borders or Covid protections for immigrants, and being under threat of nuclear weapons. If Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders cannot effectively address these fears, the wave election will hit them in November, and the president will then face a sobering choice of either passing the baton to another candidate in 2024 or finding the bold leadership necessary to reconcile his drive for more progressive policies with the realities of economics, politics and a more dangerous world.Mark Penn was a pollster and adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton from 1995 to 2008. He is chairman of the Harris Poll and C.E.O. of Stagwell Inc.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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      Inside Le Pen Territory as France Votes in a Runoff Election

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      Whatever happens in the runoff election on Sunday, France has changed, and the winner may face a turbulent season.ST. RÉMY-SUR-AVRE, France — Eternal France, its villages gathered around church spires, its fields etched in a bright patchwork of green and rapeseed yellow, unfolds as if to offer reassurance in troubled times that some things do not change. But the presidential election on Sunday, an earthquake whatever its outcome, suggests otherwise.France has changed. It has eviscerated the center-left and center-right parties that were the chief vehicles of its postwar politics. It has split into three blocs: the hard left, an amorphous center gathered around President Emmanuel Macron, and the extreme right of Marine Le Pen.Above all, with Ms. Le Pen likely to get some 45 percent of the vote, it has buried a tenacious taboo. In a country that for four wartime years lived under the racist Nazi-puppet Vichy government, no xenophobic, nationalist leader would be allowed into the political mainstream, let alone be able to claim the highest office in the land.Unlikely to win, but well within the zone of a potential surprise, Ms. Le Pen has shattered all of that. She is no outlier. She is the new French normal. If Mr. Macron does edge to victory, as polls suggest, he will face a restive, fractured country, where hatred of him is not uncommon. The old nostrum that France is ungovernable may be tested again.In St. Rémy-sur-Avre, Ms. Le Pen took 37.2 percent of the vote in the first round of the election, pushing Mr. Macron into a distant second with 23.6 percent.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesSt. Rémy-sur-Avre, a small town of some 4,000 inhabitants about 60 miles west of Paris, is Le Pen territory. In the Maryland cafe, named for a cigarette brand that is no more, the prevailing view is that something has to give in a France that has lost its way under a president too privileged and remote to know anything of the burden of struggle.Customers buy lottery tickets, or bet on the harness racing on television, in the hope of unlikely relief from hardship. A kir, white wine with a little black current liqueur, is a popular morning drink. The streets are deserted; most stores have disappeared, crushed by the hypermarkets out on the highway. In this town, Ms. Le Pen took 37.2 percent of the vote in the first round of the election on April 10, pushing Mr. Macron into a distant second with 23.6 percent.Jean-Michel Gérard, 66, one of the kir drinkers, worked in the meat business from age 15, as a butcher, in slaughterhouses, or as a trucker hauling beef carcasses. But he had to stop at 60, when his knees gave out from regularly carrying several tons of meat a day on his back, the record being a single 465-pound rear of a bull.“Now we have a generation of slackers,” he said. “When I was young, if you did not work, you did not eat.”The old France of solidarity and fraternity had disappeared, he lamented, gone like the horse butchers where he started work and replaced by a new France of individualism, jealousy and indulgence.The old France of solidarity and fraternity has disappeared and been replaced by a new France of individualism, jealousy and indulgence, said Jean-Michel Gérard, who worked in the meat industry until a few years ago.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesHe voted for the left until François Mitterrand, the former Socialist president, imposed limits on work hours, and then switched his allegiance to the far-right National Front party, now Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally. What infuriated him, he said, was foreigners collecting social benefits and handouts without working.“We didn’t want to work less, we wanted to work more to earn more. What’s the use of free time without money?” he asked. “If foreigners work, they have their place. If not, no.”Mr. Gérard gazed out at the church. That jogged a memory. The other day, he said, he saw a young man from the Maghreb urinating on the church wall. He shouted at the man, who looked about 17. “What would you do if I urinated on a mosque?”The fraught relationship between France and Islam — in the country with the largest Muslim population in Western Europe and a recent history of terrorist attacks — has been one of the themes of the election campaign. Mr. Macron has called Ms. Le Pen’s program racist for wanting to make head scarves illegal on the grounds that they constitute a threatening “Islamist uniform” — on the face of it, an extraordinary claim, given that an overwhelming majority of Muslims in France just want to live peacefully.Muslims attending Friday Prayer this week at a mosque in an eastern suburb of Paris. The fraught relationship between France and Islam has been one of the themes of the election campaign.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times“If women are wearing them just for their religion, OK,” Mr. Gérard said, “but I think in general it’s a provocation.”Maryvonne Duché, another firm supporter of Ms. Le Pen, was seated at a table close by. She started work at 14 as a sales clerk, before spending 34 years on the production line at a nearby Philips electronics factory, which closed 12 years ago.“Apart from two pregnancies, I worked nonstop from age 14 to 60, and now I have a pension of 1,160 euros a month,” she said — or about $1,250. “It’s pathetic, with almost half going in rent, but Macron doesn’t care.”And Ms. Le Pen? “I don’t love her, but I will vote for her to get rid of Macron.”The view of Mr. Macron in this town was of near-universal disdain: a man with no respect for French people, removed from reality, so cerebral he has no idea of “real life,” insensitive to the everyday problems of many people, from a class that has “never changed a kid’s diaper,” in Mr. Gérard’s words.Ms. Le Pen, by contrast, is seen as someone who will protect people from the disruptive onslaught of the modern world.What to Know About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 4Heading to a runoff. More