Presidential Election of 2024

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      The U.S. Lacks What Every Democracy Needs

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      The history of voting in the United States shows the high costs of living with an old Constitution, unevenly enforced by a reluctant Supreme Court.Unlike the constitutions of many other advanced democracies, the U.S. Constitution contains no affirmative right to vote. We have nothing like Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, providing that “every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein,” or like Article 38 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, which provides that when it comes to election of the Bundestag, “any person who has attained the age of 18 shall be entitled to vote.”As we enter yet another fraught election season, it’s easy to miss that many of the problems we have with voting and elections in the United States can be traced to this fundamental constitutional defect. Our problems are only going to get worse until we get constitutional change.The framers were skeptical of universal voting. The original U.S. Constitution provided for voting only for the House of Representatives, not for the Senate or the presidency, leaving voter qualifications for House elections to the states. Later amendments framed voting protections in the negative: If there’s going to be an election, a state may not discriminate on the basis of race (15th Amendment), gender (19th Amendment) or status as an 18-to-20-year old (26th Amendment).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      A Republican Pollster on Trump’s Undimmed Appeal

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      The fact that Donald Trump is the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination in 2024 has created a chasm in our politics. In the past, Democrats and Republicans at least understood why members of the other party liked their chosen candidates. Most conservatives weren’t confused why liberals liked Barack Obama, and vice versa for George W. Bush. But for a lot of Democrats, it feels impossible to imagine why anyone would cast a vote for Trump. And as a result, the two parties don’t just feel hostile toward each other; they feel increasingly unknowable.[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]Kristen Soltis Anderson is a veteran Republican pollster, a founding partner of the opinion research firm Echelon Insights and a CNN contributor. She spends her days trying to understand the thinking of Republican voters, including hosting focus groups for New York Times Opinion. So I wanted to get her insights on why Republicans like Trump so much — even after his 2020 electoral loss, the Jan. 6 insurrection and over 90 criminal charges. What really explains Trump’s enduring appeal?You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App, 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 will be available midday on the Times website.)Illustration by The New York Times; image courtesy of Kristen Soltis AndersonThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      Donald Trump Wins the Iowa GOP Caucuses

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      Donald J. Trump won the Iowa caucuses on Monday, a crucial first step in his bid to reclaim the Republican nomination for the third consecutive election as voters braved the bitter cold, looked past his mounting legal jeopardy and embraced his vision of vengeful disruption.The victory, called by The Associated Press on Monday night only 31 minutes after the caucuses had begun, accelerated Mr. Trump’s momentum toward a historic potential rematch in November with President Biden that could play out on both the campaign trail and in the courtroom.In a state that had rejected him in the caucuses eight years ago, Mr. Trump finished ahead of two of his main rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who were locked in a race for second place. It was unclear who had won second and who had won third. The result was a setback for both Republicans, who had spent as much time and money battling each other in Iowa as they had spent on the front-runner. Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, had previously predicted victory in Iowa, and both he and Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, have argued that a strong second-place finish would better position them as Mr. Trump’s chief rival going forward.Mr. Trump is the first former president in the modern era who has sought to return to the White House. On Monday, he was hoping to shatter the Republican record for the largest victory ever in a contested caucus, which was just under 13 percentage points. Despite the quick declaration of Mr. Trump as the winner, it was not yet clear if he would win an outright majority of more than 50 percent, a critical psychological barrier for those in the party still hoping to stop him.A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, Andrew Romeo, said in a statement that the early declaration of Mr. Trump’s victory was “absolutely outrageous.” He borrowed a phrase from Mr. Trump to accuse the news media of participating “in election interference by calling the race before tens of thousands of Iowans even had a chance to vote.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Un gran año electoral no debe distraer del deterioro democrático

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      Hay que prestar atención al declive institucional.No tengo idea de cómo llegué a mi oficina esta mañana. Quiero decir, sí lo sé: caminé a la estación del metro que está cerca de mi casa, me subí a un tren, unas paradas después transbordé a otro, me bajé cerca de mi oficina y luego entré al edificio, aunque antes fui rápido a una cafetería para comprar un sándwich para el desayuno.Pero esa lista de pasos describe el límite de mi conocimiento. No tengo ni idea de quién abrió la estación de metro ni de lo que se necesita para mantenerla en funcionamiento. (O, como fue el caso, por qué uno de los torniquetes estaba atascado a medio abrir y zumbaba a nadie en particular una quejumbrosa alarma sobre su situación). No sé conducir un tren y, desde luego, no sé cómo es su mantenimiento. Y estoy segura de que los londinenses están muy agradecidos de que yo nunca haya tenido que plantearme cómo excavar un túnel de metro o instalar una línea de tren.Y, sin embargo, si esas cosas no hubieran sucedido en el orden correcto, tal como las diseñaron los expertos y las llevaron a cabo los profesionales, Londres se paralizaría. De hecho, la semana pasada estuvo a punto de producirse ese colapso, debido a una huelga de transportes que se suspendió en el último momento.Lo mágico de las instituciones es esto: existen para que los procesos complejos puedan automatizarse, para que grandes grupos de personas puedan colaborar sin tener que crear nuevos sistemas para hacerlo y para que personas como yo podamos confiar en su pericia sin poseer ni un ápice de esa experiencia.Pero como las instituciones suelen funcionar en segundo plano, sin que se note, a veces es difícil determinar el momento en que empiezan a desmoronarse. Y, lo que es frustrante para mí, es que es aún más difícil escribir sobre el declive progresivo sin que suene tremendamente aburrido.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      How the Iowa Caucuses Work: A Guide to the Process

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      To people accustomed to voting in primaries by walking into a polling site, privately completing a ballot and walking out — which is to say, most of the country — caucuses may seem bewildering.They certainly did to Mary Doyle when she went to her first caucus more than 20 years ago, after moving to Iowa from Illinois. “I had no clue what was going on,” she said. “It was all brand-new. These people get up and talk, and everybody’s talking, and I didn’t know anybody.”Like many Iowans, Ms. Doyle — who will be a precinct captain for former President Donald J. Trump at a caucus site in western Des Moines on Monday night — came to love the caucus process, with its open expression of candidate preferences and attempts at last-minute persuasion.Caucuses also have their critics, who note that the process makes voting inaccessible for some people and tends to lead to lower turnout than primaries. But love them or hate them, they are still happening. At 7 p.m. Central time, caucusgoers will gather — if they are not deterred by the bitter cold — in schools, community centers and other sites across the state.Here is a step-by-step guide to how the caucuses will work.ArrivalVoters will arrive at their designated caucus site and sign in. Workers will check each person’s ID and voter registration. While only registered Republicans can participate, people are allowed to register or change their party affiliation on the spot.If the campaigns are well organized, each candidate will have a captain on site at each precinct, and that captain may hand out stickers, hats or other swag to supporters as they arrive — a sort of visual display of the strength of that candidate’s support.MinglingAs people wait for the caucus to formally begin, caucusgoers can talk among themselves. Especially in small communities, many of them will know each other, and many of them will start discussing their candidate preferences. They may try to persuade one another if they see an opening.Cody Hoefert, a precinct captain in Rock Rapids for Ron DeSantis who has served as a captain in many election cycles and is a former co-chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said he would be striking up conversations, looking for people who were undecided or not firmly committed to their choice, and giving them his pitch for Mr. DeSantis.Proceedings beginThe caucus will be called to order, and the caucusgoers’ first order of official business will be to elect a chair to oversee the proceedings.SpeechesA representative for each candidate — generally, precinct captains chosen in advance by the campaigns — will have a chance to give a short speech. Time restrictions can vary from site to site, generally from two to five minutes.This is the part of the process that most distinguishes caucuses from primaries: Participants are, up until the very last moment, actively trying to recruit more people to their side. While most voters are likely to have made up their minds, some may wait to make a final decision until they hear the speeches, and — you never know — some may be leaning toward one candidate but be swayed by a particularly persuasive speech.VotingPaper ballots will be distributed, and people will cast their votes.The votes will be counted on-site right away. The captains will observe the counting process and flag any problems that they see, and regular caucusgoers are allowed to watch as well. The results will be announced out loud and then sent to the state party.The state party will tabulate results from all the precincts and release the statewide totals to the public. More

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      The Needle Returns for the Iowa Caucus. Here’s How It Works.

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      In addition to estimating the final result, our live election model will also look at who is likeliest to take second place.Once Iowa caucus results start coming in after 8 p.m. Eastern tonight, The Times will start publishing a live estimate of the final result, better known as the Needle.How to watch the Needle tonightWith Donald J. Trump leading in polls by a wide margin and with much of the focus on the race for second place, our results pages will feature graphics designed to help you understand how multiple candidates are faring rather than just having a single needle displaying who is most likely to win the race.This hypothetical chart below shows how our live estimates of the Iowa caucuses will work. Our best estimate for each candidate’s final vote share will be shown along with a range of estimates for where things might end up.  More

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      Pritzker Is Among Democrats Making Case for Biden in Iowa

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      All the political action in Iowa may be among Republicans, but President Biden’s campaign sought on Monday to get a piece of the action, sending three top surrogates to Des Moines to promote his agenda and trash his potential opponents.Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota and Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Hollywood megadonor and a campaign co-chairman, all made their case for re-electing Mr. Biden before a dozen TV cameras and a gaggle of journalists in a conference room at the Iowa Events Center.Mr. Pritzker said there was no difference between former President Donald J. Trump and his G.O.P. rivals, Ms. Smith warned that Republicans would ban abortion nationwide if they won back the White House and Mr. Katzenberg did a victory lap on the campaign’s latest fund-raising announcement.“Tonight’s contest is simply a contest of whether you like MAGA in its original packaging or in high heels or with lifts in their boots,” Mr. Pritzker said, jabbing at Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who quipped during a debate about wearing heels, and at Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has been suspected of wearing lifts in his shoes.Beyond cracks about the Republican candidates’ footwear, the Biden surrogates did not share much new information about the re-election campaign or the president’s thinking. Mr. Pritzker fended off questions about immigration policy and the Supreme Court case concerning Mr. Trump’s eligibility to be on the ballot, while Mr. Katzenberg declined to engage in a debate over whether the Biden campaign is too focused on coastal supporters.Instead, they sought to convey their argument that the future of the nation would be at risk if Mr. Trump were re-elected.“The campaign is running an operation like our democracy depends on it,” Mr. Katzenberg said. “Because in some respect it does.” More