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    ¿Por qué a los demócratas les cuesta tanto vencer a Trump?

    El entorno político nacional no es tan propicio para una victoria de Harris como muchos podrían imaginar.Desde 2008, los demócratas han ocupado la Casa Blanca durante 12 de los 16 años. Vanessa Vick para The New York TimesPase lo que pase el martes, es justo decir que esta campaña no ha ido tan bien como esperaban los demócratas.Tras las elecciones intermedias, Donald Trump parecía estar acabado. Todavía puede perder, por supuesto, pero está claro que no ha quedado “descalificado” —como muchos esperaban— por el 6 de enero, por varias acusaciones penales o por la anulación de Roe contra Wade hecha por sus nombramientos para la Corte Suprema. Si los votantes descalificaron a algún candidato en 2024, fue al presidente en funciones, no al convicto que intentó anular las últimas elecciones.¿Cómo es que Trump sigue siendo tan competitivo? La respuesta más sencilla es que el entorno político nacional no es tan propicio para una victoria demócrata como muchos podrían imaginar.Los demócratas claramente se enfrentan a vientos en contra en estas elecciones. En la última encuesta del New York Times/Siena College, solo el 40 por ciento de los votantes aprobaba el desempeño del presidente Joe Biden, y solo el 28 por ciento decía que el país iba en la dirección correcta. Ningún partido ha conservado el control de la Casa Blanca cuando tantos estadounidenses estaban descontentos con el país o con el presidente.Las encuestas sugieren que el reto para los demócratas es aún más profundo. Por primera vez en décadas, los republicanos han igualado o superado la identificación partidista a nivel nacional. Las encuestas también muestran que los republicanos tienen ventaja en la mayoría de los temas clave, con la democracia y el aborto como excepciones significativas.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Harris, at Final Michigan Rally, Offers Forward-Looking Vision

    Vice President Kamala Harris made her final appeal to Michigan voters at an energetic rally on a college campus on Sunday, sounding notes of unity while drawing implicit contrasts with her opponent.The event at Michigan State University was her first rally since becoming a candidate in which she did not say former President Donald J. Trump’s name.Instead, in the final hours of the race, she argued that her candidacy was focused on the future.“Our campaign has not been about being against something, it is about being for something,” she said. “A fight for a future with freedom and opportunity and dignity for all Americans.”In substance and tone, the appearance marked an even sharper-than-usual contrast with Mr. Trump, who began his day declaring that he “shouldn’t have left” the White House at the end of his term, intensified his unfounded claims of voter fraud and said “I don’t mind” if reporters are shot at.Their appearances came as polls show a close race across the battleground states, including in Michigan.The state is home to many Arab American and Muslim voters who are angered by the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza. Some have said they plan to vote third-party — and in some cases, for Mr. Trump — in response, a significant political risk for Ms. Harris in a closely divided state.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    These Uncommitted Voters Finally Made Their Choice for President

    Over the last four months, these voters have struggled with their decision. Now, with time short, they explain who’s getting, or not getting, their vote.Over the last four months, The New York Times has been speaking with undecided voters after some of the most dramatic moments of the presidential campaign, to learn how those events were shaping their choice.The people we talked with live in states where the polling is tight, and voters like them will play an outsize role in determining the outcome. They are concerned about the cost of living, former President Donald J. Trump’s volatility and Vice President Kamala Harris’s vision for the country.They are sporadic voters, disaffected former partisans, Republicans and Democrats. Some of them shifted their decisions over the course of the campaign. Others will decide when they step into the booth.While a lot has happened over the last few months, poll numbers have remained largely stable. The vast majority of American voters have made up their minds, adding even more weight to what persuadable voters ultimately decide.Kristen Morris voted for Ms. Harris.In the spring, Kristen Morris, 60, a former Republican, was feeling deeply pessimistic about her two choices for president. She felt troubled by Mr. Biden, whom she had voted for in 2020: She worried about his cognitive abilities and was unhappy with his handling of the country’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. And she was stunned that Mr. Trump continued to express no remorse over the Jan. 6 riot.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    There Will Always Be a Trump. That’s Only Part of the Problem.

    Because we forget history, we forget that the American experiment cannot succeed without constant, courageous leadership. Our nation is not inherently good and our high ideals are often eclipsed by our baser nature. This has been true since our founding, and it is true now.We also know that if American ideals depend on a single party for their protection, then that effort is doomed to fail. It’s not that America is one election from extinction. Our nation is not that fragile. But it can regress. It can forsake its ideals. And millions of people can suffer as a result.I’m writing those words in the context of a presidential contest that already represents a national failure. Even if Kamala Harris wins on Tuesday, there should be relief, not lasting joy. The United States will have come within an eyelash of electing a man who tried to overturn an election to cling to power.While Donald Trump’s individual actions were unprecedented, the idea that a critical mass of Americans would embrace a demagogue should not be a surprise.Last week, I helped host a fireside chat with Susan Eisenhower, the founder and expert in residence at the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College. She’s also Dwight D. Eisenhower’s granddaughter. During our conversation, she told a story that I’d forgotten — one with direct relevance to the present moment.In the aftermath of World War II, there was intense interest in General Eisenhower’s potential political career. He’d never voted before he left the Army in 1948. Both parties courted him, but the Republican Party needed him.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump and Harris Have One Thing in Common: Power Shoulders

    This is an installment of Visual Studies, a series that explores how images move through and shape culture.In terms of personality and policy, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are starkly contrasting figures. Yet they’ve often had one thing in common: a silhouette that features powerfully padded shoulders.For 150 years, the size of a suit jacket’s shoulder pad — which exists today as a small, simple, triangular shaped piece of material stuffed with wadding — has fluctuated in response to fashion trends. But in this year’s election, the power shoulder has become a potent, multifaceted symbol.The complex history of the power shoulder means it can convey confidence, power and authority. But it can also conjure swagger, playful subversion and an outsider’s defiance of an established order. For both candidates, this strong silhouette offers the opportunity to shape a defining image: for Mr. Trump, as a billionaire who positions himself as anti-establishment; for Ms. Harris, as a formidable figure who more than belongs in a realm once reserved for men.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Sunday Read: ‘Their Son’s Death Was Devastating. Then Politics Made It Worse.’

    Listen and follow ‘The Daily’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadioWarning: This episode contains racist language.A sheriff’s deputy arrived at Nathan and Danielle Clark’s front door on the outskirts of Springfield, Ohio, in September with the latest memento of what their son’s death had become. “I’m sorry that I have to show you this,” she said and handed them a flier with a picture of Aiden, 11, smiling at the camera after his last baseball game. It was the same image the Clarks had chosen for his funeral program and then made into Christmas ornaments for his classmates, but this time the photograph was printed alongside threats and racial slurs.“Killed by a Haitian invader,” the flier read. “They didn’t care about Aiden. They don’t care about you. They are pieces of human trash that deserve not your sympathy, but utter scorn. Give it to them … and then some.”“They have no right to speak for him like this,” Danielle said. “It’s making me sick. There must be some way to stop it.”This was the version of the country the Clarks and their two teenage children had encountered during the last year, ever since Aiden died in a school bus crash in August 2023 on the way to his first day of sixth grade. The crash was ruled an accident, caused by a legally registered Haitian immigrant who veered into the bus while driving without a valid license. But as the presidential campaign intensified, former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, began to tell a different story.There are a lot of ways to listen to ‘The Daily.’ Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on X: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, Frannie Carr Toth and Krish Seenivasan. More

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    Where Do Nikki Haley Voters Turn?

    For Kamala Harris to win, are there enough Nikki Haley voters and other disaffected Republicans who will vote for her or sit this one out?It’s kind of incredible that it might all come down to this group. The Haley voter obviously isn’t the whole story of the election; there are all kinds of voters moving in and out of the edges of the two parties now, from the people red-pilled by the Covid era to those voting first on Israel and Gaza. But if Donald Trump loses again, maybe it will be due to the same problem that has been there for him from the beginning — the Republicans who didn’t like him in the first place, those in the suburbs, the more moderate women.Under the category of the Haley voter there are stability-minded, Constitution-focused traditionalists who can’t really get past Jan. 6, temperamental moderates who care about character and dislike chaos, for whom Mr. Trump has always been a tough sell, and — probably these people more than anything — just the kinds of voters, women especially, who voted a lot for Republicans before but on some deep, cellular level blanch at government now deciding abortion policy and the broader health complications that can be involved, regardless of how they feel about abortion itself.Those voters, in particular, might be described as having a conservatism organized around privacy and intentions, specifically not trusting the government in a world where Texas passes a law that allows a neighbor to sue another for abetting an abortion or a politician can’t seem to understand why a 50-something woman would still care about reproductive rights.What does some data tell us about Haley voters? In one of its weekly releases, Blueprint, a Democratic strategy firm, profiled the Haley voter based on a survey of nearly 800 Republicans and independents who voted for her in the primaries. It’s a small but notable group of people, with 59 percent who said they voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 but only 45 percent who said they would do so again in 2024. That slice of voters could decide a narrow election, and that’s not even taking into account the need for Ms. Harris to retain the Republicans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 or the ones who are similarly inclined but didn’t bother voting in the Republican primaries this year.Blueprint found that one of the “most persuasive” criticisms of the Republican Party for this group of voters was that it “opposes abortion too much” (with 42 percent saying that described the party “very well”). They cared about the economy, immigration and national security; they were worried that Ms. Harris would be too extreme and Mr. Trump too erratic. In Blueprint’s polling, Haley voters had a lot of remaining favor for George W. Bush and John McCain and liked Dick Cheney more than Liz Cheney, whose support was underwater with the group.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Women Are Dying in Post-Roe America, and Your Vote Matters

    Over 20 years ago, I had an experience that will be familiar to many women. I had a series of miscarriages, including one for which I needed a medical procedure to protect me from infection — which is to say, to protect me from possible death.If the circumstances had been just slightly different, and if Roe v. Wade had not been the law of the land then, I could have died. Or more specifically, I could have been allowed to die by doctors who refused to intervene for fear of prosecution and imprisonment. I grew up in Tennessee, where almost all abortions are banned now. And when you ban abortion, you don’t just affect women seeking abortions — you make so much basic reproductive medical care riskier than it should be.My story was both wrenching for my family and also commonplace. These things happen to women’s bodies, requiring routine health care. All of it has become politicized — and much more dangerous as a result. I fear that under a Trump presidency the situation will get much worse.It was February 2002 when my unborn daughter’s heart stopped beating. I was almost 29 weeks pregnant, with a 2-year-old son at home. At the hospital, the doctor gave me and my husband two options. I could be induced, go home and wait for my water to break and deliver naturally, or I could have an immediate cesarean section.My husband and I were beyond distraught and trusted our doctor to help us make the right decision. She told us that if we waited the risk of infection would grow, and might affect my ability to have children in the future or even endanger my life. We knew the best option both medically and emotionally was surgery. An hour or so later, we held our precious daughter Graça for the first and last time. A couple of days later I was able to return home to our son, to recover and to grieve our loss.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More