Presidential Election of 2024

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      United Auto Workers Hold Off on Backing Biden, for Now

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      A memo by the union’s president underscores how some of President Biden’s moves to fight climate change could weaken some of his political support.The United Auto Workers, a politically potent labor union, is planning to withhold its endorsement of President Biden in the early stages of the 2024 race, according to an internal memo from its president to members on Tuesday.The memo, written by Shawn Fain, the Detroit-based union’s president, said the leadership of the United Auto Workers had traveled to Washington last week to meet with Biden administration officials and had expressed “our concerns with the electric vehicle transition” that the president has pursued.The memo underscores how some of Mr. Biden’s boldest moves to fight climate change, which animate his liberal base, could at the same time weaken his political support among another crucial constituency. The U.A.W. has shrunk in size in recent decades, but it still counts about 400,000 active members, with a robust presence in Michigan, a critical battleground state for Democrats.In April, the Biden administration proposed the nation’s most ambitious climate regulations yet, which would ensure that two-thirds of new passenger cars are all-electric by 2032 — up from just 5.8 percent today. The rules, if enacted, could sharply lower planet-warming pollution from vehicle tailpipes, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse emissions. But they come with costs for autoworkers, because it takes fewer than half the laborers to assemble an all-electric vehicle as it does to build a gasoline-powered car.In the memo, Mr. Fain provided “talking points” for members about why the union was not immediately lining up behind Mr. Biden, writing that if companies received federal subsidies, then workers “must be compensated with top wages and benefits.”“The EV transition is at serious risk of becoming a race to the bottom,” the memo reads, referring to electric vehicles. “We want to see national leadership have our back on this before we make any commitments.”Mr. Fain won the U.A.W. presidency as an insurgent candidate this year, toppling the incumbent, Ray Curry. Mr. Fain promised a more confrontational path ahead of contract talks. In the memo, he notes that 150,000 autoworkers are fighting for a new contract with the so-called Big Three auto companies in September, writing, “We’ll stand with whoever stands with our members in that fight.”Labor support is a key part of Mr. Biden’s political coalition and his portrayal of himself as a fighter for the middle class.Within hours of Mr. Biden’s formal entry into the 2024 race, a number of top labor unions backed Mr. Biden, including the Amalgamated Transit Union, the Service Employees International Union and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.“Several national unions were quick to endorse,” Mr. Fain wrote in his memo. “The United Auto Workers is not yet making an endorsement.”Mr. Biden’s campaign trumpeted his support from other labor unions in a news release. Notably, Mr. Biden’s first public appearance after announcing his re-election campaign last week was addressing a labor conference in the nation’s capital.“I’ve said many times: Wall Street didn’t build America,” he told the cheering union crowd last week. “The middle class built America, and unions built the middle class!”The United Auto Workers, which has historically endorsed Democrats and supported Mr. Biden in 2020, makes clear in the memo that it has no intent of backing the Republican front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump. Withholding a formal endorsement for now instead appears to be a bid for leverage or concessions from the administration.“Another Donald Trump presidency would be a disaster,” reads Mr. Fain’s memo, which was first reported by The Detroit News. “But our members need to see an alternative that delivers real results. We need to get our members organized behind a pro-worker, pro-climate, and pro-democracy political program that can deliver for the working class.”Mr. Biden has sought to accelerate the transition to all-electric vehicles as a centerpiece of his effort to tackle climate change. A 2021 report by the International Energy Agency found that nations would have to stop sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035 to avert the deadliest effects of a warming planet.To help reach that goal, Mr. Biden has pushed a fleet of policies designed to promote electric vehicles. The Biden administration’s proposed climate regulations announced in April are designed to add legal teeth to consumer incentives, compelling automakers to manufacture and sell more electric vehicles. The Environmental Protection Agency rules, however, are not yet final: They are open for public comment, and could still be weakened or otherwise changed before being completed next year.As the Biden administration prepared to unveil the new clean car rules last month, officials planned for Michael S. Regan, the head of the E.P.A., to announce the policies in Detroit, surrounded by American-made all-electric vehicles.But as auto executives and the United Auto Workers learned the details of the proposed regulations, some grew uneasy about publicly supporting it, according to two people familiar with their thinking. No one from the United Auto Workers attended the unveiling, according to the organization’s spokesman, although representatives from Ford, General Motors and Mercedes-Benz were there.And the setting was moved from Detroit to the E.P.A. headquarters in Washington. More

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      Trump Likely to Sit Out One or Both of First Two G.O.P. Debates

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      In private comments to aides and confidants, Donald J. Trump has indicated he does not want to breathe life into his Republican challengers by sharing a debate stage with them.The leading Republican candidate for president, Donald J. Trump, is likely to skip at least one of the first two debates of the 2024 Republican presidential nominating contest, according to five people who have discussed the matter with the former president.Last month, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, announced that Fox News would host the first G.O.P. primary debate in Milwaukee in August. The second debate will be held in Southern California at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.In private comments to aides and confidants in recent weeks, Mr. Trump has made it clear that he does not want to breathe life into his Republican challengers by sharing the stage with them. Mr. Trump has led his nearest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, by around 30 percentage points in recent polls. All other contenders are polling in single digits.“I’m up by too many points,” one associate who spoke with Mr. Trump recalled him saying.One adviser stressed that the situation was fluid, particularly given how early it remains in the 2024 race and with Mr. DeSantis not yet even a declared candidate. Mr. Trump may find it hard to stay away from a stage where others are criticizing him, and some senior Republicans expect that he will ultimately join the debates. He has long credited the debates in the 2016 campaign, both in the primary and the general election, for his victories.Mr. Trump has long credited the debates in the 2016 campaign, both in the primary and the general election, for his victories. Sophie Park for The New York TimesStill, if Mr. Trump opts out of some primary campaign debates — as he did once before in 2016 — he will shrink the viewing audience and limit his rivals’ chances to seize a breakout moment on the debate stage. The visibility such moments offer is hard to come by in a race in which Mr. Trump almost monopolizes the news media’s attention.For Mr. Trump, denying his low-polling rivals access to a massive television audience is part of his calculations in potentially skipping the debates, according to the people who have discussed the matter with him. In 2015, Fox News drew an audience of 24 million for the first primary debate of the 2016 campaign. It was, at the time, the biggest viewership for a nonsports event in cable television history.“In his mind there’s not enough candidates who are polling close enough to him,” said a person familiar with Mr. Trump’s thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with the former president. “And that if he does a debate this early with candidates who are polling in the single digits, there’s no upside for him.”Another motivation for Mr. Trump is revenge: The former president has a history with the two institutions hosting the first two Republican candidate debates.Mr. Trump has told advisers that the second debate is a nonstarter for him because it will be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The chairman of the library’s board of trustees, Frederick J. Ryan Jr., also serves as the publisher and chief executive officer of The Washington Post, a fact that Mr. Trump regularly brings up.Mr. Trump is also sour that the Reagan library has invited numerous other leading Republicans to speak at its events over the past two years, including his presidential rival Mr. DeSantis, but has never extended an invitation to Mr. Trump, according to two people familiar with his thinking.The library started a speakers series in 2021 called “Time for Choosing,” and invitees have included Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina; Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador; and, more recently, Mr. DeSantis. A spokesperson for the library said no former president has been included in the series.One reason Mr. Trump may skip the first debate is its timing — he believes it’s too early, and has told aides he does not want to debate in August. Another reason is the host, Fox News.In 2015, Fox News drew an audience of 24 million for the first primary debate of the 2016 campaign. At the time it was the biggest viewership for a nonsports event in cable television history.John Taggart for The New York TimesMr. Trump has been warring with Fox News since the conservative network announced on election night in 2020 that Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the state of Arizona. While the former president maintains warm relationships with several prime-time hosts — especially Sean Hannity, a reliable Trump booster — Mr. Trump’s overall relationship with Rupert Murdoch’s television network has deteriorated as the network showered Mr. DeSantis with praise over the past two years while constricting its coverage of Mr. Trump.“Why would I have Bret Baier” question me, Mr. Trump told an associate, explaining a reason to skip the Fox News debate. Mr. Trump was furious with Mr. Baier, a Fox host, over his coverage of the 2020 election, in which Mr. Baier refuted many of the election-fraud claims made by the Trump team.Mr. Trump has also mentioned his previous skirmish with the former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in his private conversations with associates as a reason not to agree to a debate hosted by the network.In the first Republican debate of the 2016 campaign cycle, Ms. Kelly asked Mr. Trump about demeaning things he’d said about women. Mr. Trump viewed this as a declaration of war from Fox News’ management. He later attacked Ms. Kelly in crude and sexist terms.And Mr. Trump has obliquely raised a more specific issue in some other recent discussions about the upcoming debates, acknowledging that there will be questions about the charges filed against him in Manhattan — falsifying business records in connection with payments to a porn star — that could change the character of the debates.Mr. Trump has negotiated with CNN to hold a town hall-style event, the type of event the network has held with Mr. Biden and with former Vice President Mike Pence. For Mr. Trump, taking part in the CNN event is a shot at both Fox and Mr. DeSantis, who refuses to engage with the mainstream media. Even as Mr. Trump attacks mainstream media coverage and calls reporters the “enemy of the people,” the former fixture of New York City’s tabloids routinely invites a handful of mainstream reporters on board his private plane, where he holds court and provides fodder for news stories.A campaign official, speaking with anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the private deliberations, said Mr. Trump’s decision to leave the traditional Republican “comfort zone” was key to his victory in 2016 and contended that some candidates were now “afraid” to do anything other than Fox News.The Trump campaign had warned the Republican National Committee not to announce any debates before Labor Day, because Mr. Trump had no intention of debating before then, according to two people familiar with the conversations. But last month, Ms. McDaniel, the chairwoman, announced on “Fox and Friends” that the network would host the first debate in August. A campaign official insisted that despite the logistical issues, the Trump team has a good working relationship with the party chairwoman.For the party committee, operating outside of Mr. Trump’s demands and appearing neutral is seen as a positive development, according to a person familiar with Ms. McDaniel’s thinking. An R.N.C. official declined to comment.Ms. McDaniel also said that the R.N.C. would ask all debate participants to pledge they would support the party’s eventual nominee — no matter who that person is. Advisers to Mr. Trump were unsure whether he would agree to such a pledge.The Republican National Committee has not yet set the criteria for candidates to qualify for debates, but that criteria is expected to involve a combination of polling averages and total individual donors. The committee has also said that if specific conditions are not met, it wants the eventual nominee to sign a pledge saying the nominee will not participate in general-election debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The R.N.C. has been actively looking at alternative options.Shane Goldmacher More

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      Florida Legislature Moves to Shield DeSantis’s Travel Records

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      The NewsThe Florida Legislature passed a bill on Tuesday that would shield the travel records of Gov. Ron DeSantis and other top elected officials from public view, a significant change to the state’s vaunted sunshine laws as Mr. DeSantis explores a potential presidential campaign.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has faced increasing scrutiny for his use of private chartered flights.Justin Ide/ReutersWhy It Matters: Who’s paying, and who else is flying?Though the law purports to shield Mr. DeSantis’s and other top officials’ travel records under the umbrella of increasing threats and operational security, it also includes a sweeping retroactive clause that would block the release of many records of trips already taken by Mr. DeSantis and other officials, as well as those taken by their families and staff members.Mr. DeSantis has been facing increasing scrutiny for his use of private chartered flights — including questions about who paid for the travel and who flew with him — especially as his presidential ambitions come into clearer focus and he travels the country more extensively.In years past, Florida’s expansive transparency laws have exposed officials’ abuses of state resources: In 2003, for example, Jim King, the president of the State Senate, was found to have used a state plane to fly home on the weekends.What’s Next: A target for other potential Republican contenders.The bill now heads to Mr. DeSantis’s desk. The governor has avoided directly commenting on the bill and has stated that he did not draft the initiative, but many Florida Republicans expect that he will sign it into law.“It’s not necessarily something that I came up with,” Mr. DeSantis said on Monday at an event in Titusville. He added that the legislation was “motivated by a security concern” and that he had been receiving a lot of threats.The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is led by a DeSantis appointee, has also expressed support for the bill, stating in April that releasing travel details “represents a risk not only to those we protect, but also F.D.L.E. agents and citizens attending events.”Critics of the bill, however, note that adding the retroactive clause does not fit with a security justification. “How is there a security issue for travel that’s already occurred?” said Barbara Petersen, the executive director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, after the bill first advanced out of committee in April.The proposed changes have drawn the attention of some of Mr. DeSantis’s potential Republican rivals for president.“In recent months, Governor DeSantis has used taxpayer dollars to travel around the country for his 2024 presidential campaign, including to the early voting states of Iowa and Nevada,” the campaign of Donald J. Trump said in a statement last month. “DeSantis’s gubernatorial office, however, refuses to tell reporters — and the public — how much taxpayer money has been spent to fund these travels, or how much DeSantis’s April globe-trotting will cost.” More

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      Trump Will Return to CNN, Ending a Long Boycott

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      Since leaving the White House, Donald J. Trump has favored more friendly, right-wing outlets. His decision to appear on CNN represents a shift in his media strategy ahead of the 2024 election.After a long hiatus, former President Donald J. Trump will return to CNN.Mr. Trump, who has openly feuded with CNN hosts and executives over the years, has not appeared on the network since his 2016 presidential campaign. But next Wednesday, May 10, he will appear at a town hall-style forum the network is hosting in New Hampshire.CNN said that its morning show co-host, Kaitlan Collins, would moderate, and that the former president would take questions from Republicans and independents.Mr. Trump’s decision to sit for questioning on a network he considers less than friendly represents a shift in his approach with the media. In his post-presidency, Mr. Trump has largely shunned mainstream networks like CNN, preferring to speak with conservative outlets and talk show hosts.And his on-again, off-again clashes with Fox News have meant he’s been absent from that network’s airwaves for months at a time. Though Fox helped introduce Mr. Trump to a conservative audience in the early 2010s and gave him a powerful platform from which to start his political career, it has also shunned him at times.He has attacked the network in turn — most recently, he criticized them for firing its star host, Tucker Carlson — and still holds a grudge over its projection on election night in 2020 that he would lose Arizona. Fox was the first network to do so.His decision to appear on a rival network, CNN, is a signal to Fox, which is a crucial pipeline to Republican primary voters: He doesn’t consider it the only game in town. The move is also a way of drawing a sharp contrast with one of his expected opponents in the race, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who largely shuts out the mainstream media.Lately, Mr. Trump has fumed about the release of private emails that show how Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Fox Corporation, expressed derision and contempt for him and his false claims of being cheated in the 2020 election. Those messages were released as part of the defamation lawsuit that Dominion Voting Systems filed against the network for amplifying conspiracy theories that Dominion machines were somehow involved in a plot to steal votes from him and flip them to President Biden.Mr. Trump lashed out at Mr. Murdoch and Fox for “aiding & abetting the DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA” on his social media platform, Truth Social.Mr. Trump also plans to skip at least one of the first two debates with his rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination, according to several people familiar with his plans. The first, scheduled for August in Milwaukee, is being hosted by Fox News. He has said he does not want to give the lower-polling G.O.P. candidates the oxygen that a nationally televised debate would provide.In recent weeks, however, Mr. Trump has started appearing more regularly on Fox News. He has done interviews with three Fox hosts since the end of March. And the network has aired coverage critical of the Manhattan district attorney’s decision to pursue criminal charges against him.In 2016, coverage of Mr. Trump by outlets outside of the conservative media bubble was crucial to his success. He sat for lengthy interviews with NBC News, The Washington Post, CNN and others. And despite his branding of the mainstream media as the “enemy of the people,” he has long cultivated relationships with a broad variety of reporters. More

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      The ‘Woke Mind Virus’ Is Eating Away at Republicans’ Brains

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      There are a few reasons to think that President Biden might lose his bid for re-election next year, even if Donald Trump is once more — for the third straight time — the Republican nominee.There’s the Electoral College, which could still favor the Republican Party just enough to give Trump 270 electoral votes, even if he doesn’t win a popular majority. There’s Biden’s overall standing — around 43 percent of Americans approve of his job performance — which doesn’t compare favorably with past incumbents who did win re-election. There’s the economy, which may hit a downturn between now and next November. And even if it doesn’t, Biden will still have presided over the highest inflation rate since the 1980s. Last, there’s Biden himself. The oldest person ever elected president, next year he will be — at 81 — the oldest president to ever stand for re-election. Biden’s age is a real risk that could suddenly become a liability.If Biden has potential weaknesses, however, it is also true that he doesn’t lack for real advantages. Along with low unemployment, there’s been meaningful economic growth, and he can point to significant legislative accomplishments. The Democratic Party is behind him; he has no serious rivals for the nomination.But Biden’s biggest advantage has to do with the opposition — the Republican Party has gotten weird. It’s not just that Republican policies are well outside the mainstream, but that the party itself has tipped over into something very strange.I had this thought while watching a clip of Ron DeSantis speak from a lectern to an audience we can’t see. In the video, which his press team highlighted on Twitter, DeSantis decries the “woke mind virus,” which he calls “a form of cultural Marxism that tries to divide us based on identity politics.”Now, I can follow this as a professional internet user and political observer. I know that “woke mind virus” is a term of art for the (condescending and misguided) idea that progressive views on race and gender are an outside contagion threatening the minds of young people who might otherwise reject structural explanations of racial inequality and embrace a traditional vision of the gender binary. I know that “cultural Marxism” is a right-wing buzzword meant to sound scary and imposing.To a normal person, on the other hand, this language is borderline unintelligible. It doesn’t tell you anything; it doesn’t obviously mean anything; and it’s quite likely to be far afield of your interests and concerns.DeSantis is a regular offender when it comes to speaking in the jargon of culture war-obsessed conservatives, but he’s not the only one. And it’s not just a problem of jargon. Republican politicians — from presidential contenders to anonymous state legislators — are monomaniacally focused on banning books, fighting “wokeness” and harassing transgender people. Some Republicans are even still denying the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, doubling down on the election-related conspiracies that hobbled many Republican candidates in the midterms.Not only do Americans not care about the various Republican obsessions — in a recent Fox News poll 1 percent of respondents said “wokeness” was “the most important issue facing the country today” — but a large majority say that those obsessions have gone too far. According to Fox, 60 percent of Americans said “book banning by school boards” was a major problem. Fifty-seven percent said the same for political attacks on families with transgender children.It is not for nothing that in Biden’s first TV ad of the 2024 campaign, he took specific aim at conservative book bans as a threat to freedom and American democracy.And yet there’s no sign that Republicans will relent and shift focus. Just the opposite, in fact; the party is poised to lurch even farther down the road of its alienating preoccupations. On abortion, for example, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, says candidates need to address the issue “head-on” in 2024 — that they can’t be “uncomfortable” on the issue and need to say “I’m proud to be pro-life.”But the Republican Party has veered quite far from most Americans on abortion rights, and in a contested race for the presidential nomination, a “head-on” focus will possibly mean a fight over which candidate can claim the most draconian abortion views and policy aims.There’s more: DeSantis is in the midst of a legal battle with Disney, one of the most beloved companies on the planet, and House Republicans are threatening the global economy in order to pass a set of deeply unpopular spending cuts to widely used assistance programs.Taken together, it’s as if the Republican Party has committed itself to being as off-putting as possible to as many Americans as possible. That doesn’t mean the party is doomed, of course. But as of this moment, it is hard to say it’s on the road to political success.As for Joe Biden? The current state of the Republican Party only strengthens his most important political asset — his normalcy. He promised, in 2020, that he would be a normal president. And he is promising, for 2024, to continue to serve as a normal president. Normal isn’t fun and normal isn’t exciting. But normal has already won one election, and I won’t be surprised if it wins another.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: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Estos son los colaboradores de Biden que lo ayudarán en su campaña por la reelección

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      Rara vez conceden entrevistas oficiales y solo dos tienen Twitter. Pero serán la fuerza principal de la estrategia política del presidente.Cuando el presidente Joe Biden anunció esta semana su campaña de reelección y a los dos principales miembros de su equipo, no se incluyeron los nombres de sus asesores más cercanos que durante mucho tiempo han trabajado a su lado.Un pequeño círculo de altos funcionarios, algunos de los cuales conocen a Biden desde hace más tiempo del que llevan vivos muchos de los miembros de la campaña que pronto serán contratados, guiará la estrategia política del presidente, tanto en la Casa Blanca como en la campaña electoral.Ninguno de ellos tiene una imagen pública significativa. De los seis, solo Jennifer O’Malley Dillon y Jeff Zients, jefe de gabinete de la Casa Blanca, tienen cuentas activas en Twitter. Pero los miembros de este grupo fueron quienes empezaron a hacer llamadas telefónicas el pasado fin de semana para ofrecer puestos en la campaña de Biden, de los que ya se anunciaron algunos integrantes.Funcionarios de la Casa Blanca y de su reciente campaña insisten en que la directora de campaña, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, estará facultada para dirigir la reelección de Biden. Pero una serie de funcionarios demócratas que han participado en la preparación de su estrategia electoral para 2024 han dejado claro que muchas decisiones importantes seguirán en manos del grupo de asesores principales del presidente.Según dos asesores de Biden, los miembros del personal de la Casa Blanca que han participado en el despliegue de la campaña son O’Malley Dillon, Zients, Anita Dunn, Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti y Bruce Reed.A continuación analizamos quiénes son las personas que están en el centro del universo político del presidente y que ayudarán a guiar su proyecto de reelección.Jeff ZientsBiden nombró a Zients su segundo jefe de gabinete en enero después de que este supervisó el programa de vacunación de COVID-19. Ha estado encargado de que el ala oeste reciba con regularidad los panecillos de Call Your Mother, una cadena de Washington de la que fue copropietario (a cuatro días del inicio de su presidencia, Biden ordenó a su comitiva que se detuviera en una de las tiendas para que su hijo Hunter pudiera recoger un pedido).Jeff Zients cuando era el encargado de supervisar el programa de vacunación contra la covid de la administración Biden.Pete Marovich para The New York TimesZients ha asistido a entrevistas y deliberaciones sobre posibles miembros del personal de campaña y de manera regular se reúne con Biden para hablar de política.Cuando se convirtió en jefe de gabinete, Zients tenía la reputación de ser uno de los principales solucionadores demócratas de problemas en Washington. Fue convocado por el gobierno de Obama para resolver el problema del sitio web de salud después de que presentó fallas técnicas generalizadas en 2013. En 2021, Biden lo llamó para que se encargara de la respuesta al coronavirus.Anita DunnEn 2020, cuando Biden tuvo dificultades para llegar al cuarto puesto en Iowa (y estuvo a días de quedar quinto en Nuevo Hampshire), cedió el control de su campaña a Dunn, una veterana operadora de Washington que comenzó su carrera como becaria en el gobierno del presidente Jimmy Carter y ascendió hasta convertirse en la principal asesora de comunicaciones de Biden.Anita Dunn, una operadora con experiencia de Washington, ayudó a fundar SKDK, una importante empresa de asuntos públicos y consultoría política.Stefani Reynolds para The New York TimesDunn también ha desempeñado cargos de responsabilidad con líderes demócratas como el presidente Barack Obama. Y ayudó a fundar SKDK, una importante empresa de asuntos públicos y consultoría política que emplea a un grupo de operadores demócratas (a lo largo de los años ha sido cuestionada por la intersección de su trabajo gubernamental y los negocios de la empresa).Está casada con el prestigioso abogado Bob Bauer, una relación que hizo que, en 2009, Newsweek los calificara como la nueva pareja poderosa de Washington. Bauer también es un asesor cercano de Biden y ha sido su abogado personal.“El valor natural de Anita es la acción”, dijo Jennifer Palmieri, quien fue directora de comunicaciones de la Casa Blanca durante la presidencia de Obama. “En un partido de gente que suele preocuparse por todo, como suelen ser los demócratas, ella tiene un estilo de liderazgo único que ayuda a impulsar el movimiento”.Steve RicchettiRicchetti, quien trabajó como jefe de gabinete del vicepresidente, desde hace mucho tiempo es una de las personas de confianza de Biden.En varias ocasiones ha manejado la relación entre Biden, los donantes y los miembros del Congreso (poco después de que Biden asumió el cargo, el hermano de Ricchetti fue objeto de escrutinio por su trabajo como cabildero; Ricchetti también ha desempeñado ese rol).“Steve es el mejor cuando se trata de manejar relaciones y escuchar a mucha gente”, comentó el exrepresentante de Luisiana Cedric Richmond, quien fue asesor principal de Biden en la Casa Blanca y copresidente nacional de su campaña en 2020. “Stevie sabe cómo son las interacciones entre el Congreso y la Casa Blanca”.Cuando se le preguntó si podía comparar a algún alto asesor de Biden con personajes de la serie de televisión El ala oeste de la Casa Blanca, Richmond señaló que Josh Lyman, el personaje de la serie que era el jefe adjunto de gabinete de la Casa Blanca, que hablaba rápido y era muy duro, “sabía lo que hacían todos”.“Quizá Stevie es como Josh”, dijo. “No se le va una”.Mike DonilonAdemás de la hermana de Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, y de la primera dama, Jill Biden, Donilon es una de las personas que ha trabajado con Biden durante más tiempo, en comparación con cualquier otro colaborador de su círculo más cercano.Donilon, discreto asesor de Biden desde principios de la década de 1980, es una presencia habitual en los partidos de baloncesto de la Universidad de Georgetown, incluso durante la mala racha del equipo en los últimos años (nacido en Rhode Island, Donilon tiene dos títulos de la Universidad de Washington).Proviene de una familia de políticos. Uno de sus hermanos, Tom Donilon, trabajó en los gobiernos de Clinton y Obama. Otro, Terrence Donilon, es vocero principal de la arquidiócesis de Boston. La cuñada de Mike Donilon, Catherine Russell, fue jefa de personal de Jill Biden cuando Joe Biden era vicepresidente.Donilon, quien fue el estratega jefe de Biden durante la campaña de 2020, ahora es su asesor principal y viaja con frecuencia con el presidente.“Son personas muy cercanas al presidente y son la razón por la que es presidente”, dijo Cristóbal Alex, un veterano de la campaña de Biden en 2020 y de la Casa Blanca, sobre Donilon y otros asesores principales de Biden. “Ese tipo de liderazgo central jugará un papel increíblemente importante en su elección”.Jennifer O’Malley DillonO’Malley Dillon, un miembro relativamente tardío del círculo cercano a Biden, tuvo una participación importante en la campaña a la presidencia y la reelección de Obama y fue directora de campaña de la candidatura de Beto O’Rourke a la Casa Blanca en 2020, antes de que Dunn la reclutara para se encargara de lo que en ese entonces era la modesta campaña presidencial de Biden.O’Malley Dillon se convirtió en directora de campaña justo cuando se produjo la pandemia. Fue responsable de transformar una operación incipiente en un aparato serio para las elecciones generales, y lo hizo mientras el mundo se quedaba encerrado, por lo que terminó gestionando la postulación de un candidato septuagenario que pasaría gran parte del resto de la campaña fuera de los escenarios.“Jen tiene un gran instinto político y nunca he visto a nadie que logre que los autobuses y los trenes lleguen a tiempo como lo hace ella”, comentó Richmond.Conocida por sus habilidades como organizadora política y porque durante la campaña tenía el hábito de responder llamadas telefónicas nocturnas, mientras pedaleaba en su bicicleta estática Peloton, O’Malley Dillon se convirtió en la primera mujer en dirigir una campaña presidencial demócrata ganadora y ahora es jefa adjunta de gabinete de la Casa Blanca.Bruce ReedAl igual que Biden, Reed ha pasado la mayor parte de su carrera como un centrista demócrata en Washington. Durante algunos años trabajó para el Consejo de Liderazgo Demócrata, cuyo objetivo era fijar al partido en el centro político y tuvo una influencia significativa durante el gobierno de Clinton.Coescribió un libro con Rahm Emanuel y fue autor de una columna diaria para Slate (en 2009, pidió que el Salón de la Fama del Béisbol “incluya en la lista de no elegibles permanentes a todos los jugadores que hayan consumido esteroides”), Reed trabajó para Al Gore y Bill Clinton antes de convertirse en jefe de gabinete de Biden, durante la presidencia de Obama.Nativo de Idaho, cuyo afecto por su estado natal se extiende a su correo electrónico personal, Reed es el principal asesor político de Biden y lo acompaña en viajes nacionales.Reid J. Epstein cubre campañas y elecciones desde Washington. Antes de unirse al Times en 2019, trabajó en The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday y The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.Katie Glueck es reportera de política nacional. Anteriormente, fue corresponsal política jefa de la sección Metro y reportera principal del Times que cubría la campaña de Biden. También cubrió política para la oficina de Washington de McClatchy y para Politico. @katieglueck More

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      After Trump Pushed Independent Voters to Biden, He Will Need Them Again in ’24

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      In Arizona, where independents are a crucial voting bloc, there might not be the same sense of urgency for a Biden-Trump rematch. And some voters might look elsewhere.Although Donald J. Trump has been out of office more than two years, receding as an all-consuming figure to many Americans, to Margot Copeland, a political independent, he looms as overwhelmingly as ever. She would just as urgently oppose Mr. Trump in a 2024 rematch with President Biden as she did the last time.“I’ll get to the polls and get everybody out to the polls too,” said Ms. Copeland, a 67-year-old retiree who said she was aghast at the possible return to office of the 45th president. “It’s very important that Trump does not get back in.”At the same time, Andrew Dickey, also a political independent who supported Mr. Biden in 2020, said he was disappointed with the current president’s record, particularly his failure to wipe out student debt. (The Supreme Court is considering Mr. Biden’s debt forgiveness program, but appeared skeptical during a hearing.) Mr. Dickey, a chef, owes $20,000 for his culinary training.“I think I would possibly vote third party,” Mr. Dickey, 35, said of a Trump-Biden rematch. “There’s been a lot of things said on Biden’s end that haven’t been met. It was the normal smoke screen of the Democrats promising all this stuff, and then nothing.”In Maricopa County in Arizona, the most crucial county in one of the most important states on the 2024 electoral map, voters like Ms. Copeland and Mr. Dickey illustrate the electoral upside — and potential pitfalls — for Mr. Biden as he begins his bid for a second term, which he announced last week.The prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024 is Democrats’ greatest get-out-the-vote advantage. But the yearning by some past Biden voters for an alternative, including a third-party candidate, poses a threat to the president.Democrats have found electoral success in Arizona in recent years — but the state is still closely divided and will be key to the 2024 race.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesMr. Biden’s extremely narrow win in Arizona in 2020 was driven by independent voters, a bloc he flipped and carried by 11 percentage points, after Mr. Trump won independents in 2016 by three points, according to exit polls.In Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and accounts for 60 percent of Arizona’s votes, independents outnumber registered Democrats and Republicans.In interviews last week with independents who voted for Mr. Biden, most praised his accomplishments and supported his re-election, some enthusiastically.But there was a share of 2020 Biden voters who were disappointed and looking elsewhere.“I think we have bigger problems than just Trump being re-elected,” said Richard Mocny, a retiree who switched his registration from Republican to independent after the rise of Mr. Trump, and who voted in 2020 for Mr. Biden. “Polarization in this country is just fierce,” he said. “I believe in looking at some of the new third parties popping up.”Recently, the group No Labels, which has not disclosed its financial backers, qualified to be on the Arizona ballot, and has raised concerns among some Democrats that it could field a spoiler candidate who would pull votes from Mr. Biden.Arizona’s independent voters, a sampling of whom were interviewed after having participated in an earlier New York Times/Siena College poll, are sure to be just as essential to Mr. Biden next year as they were in 2020. His 10,500-vote margin in Arizona, less than one percentage point, was his narrowest of any state. The Electoral College map of states likely to be the most contested in 2024 has narrowed to a smaller handful than usual: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.After supporting Mr. Biden in 2020, Richard Mocny is open to a third-party candidate. “Polarization in this country is just fierce,” he said.Cassidy Araiza for The New York TimesIndependent Biden voters in Arizona said that the economy was certainly a concern, including $5 local gasoline prices and in some cases their own stressed finances. But most Biden voters did not blame the president for persistently high inflation, which they said was largely beyond White House control.Many passionately agreed with Mr. Biden, as he said in his kickoff re-election video, that the Republican Party has been taken over by the far-right, or as Mr. Biden labeled them “MAGA extremists.”“The entire Republican Party went so far to the right,” said Sheri Schreckengost, 61, a legal assistant and political middle-of-the-roader, who in the past sometimes voted for Republicans. “Donald Trump changed all that for me,” she said. “The way things are now, there’s no way I’d vote for a Republican.”Mr. Biden’s victory in Arizona was only the second by a Democrat for president since 1948. Maricopa County was the key to his victory. Mr. Biden flipped 60 precincts that had voted for Mr. Trump in 2016. Most of the swing precincts are in suburbs north and southeast of Phoenix, in an arc roughly described by a beltway route known as Loop 101.Former President Trump lost 60 precincts in Maricopa County that he had won in 2016. The county is one of the most important in the country to the 2024 campaign.Sophie Park for The New York TimesMany suburban residents are newcomers to Arizona and they have transformed the former base of Barry Goldwater and John McCain, both Republican presidential nominees, into a purple state. There are the same concerns about Mr. Biden’s age as there are elsewhere in the country.In Mesa, a suburb with several precincts that Mr. Biden flipped, Maren Hunt, 48, an independent voter who works as a librarian, said of the president, as she entered a Trader Joe’s one evening, “I think he’s done a lot of good, but, you know, how much more does he have left in him?”Mr. Biden, the oldest person ever to occupy the Oval Office, would be 82 on Inauguration Day of a second term. Still, if it came down to a contest between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, who is just four years younger than the president, Ms. Hunt did not hesitate about how she’d vote. “I’ll make sure to mail in my ballot early, very early,” she said.Similarly, Dlorah Conover, who would prefer a Democratic candidate in the mold of Bernie Sanders — the Vermont progressive, who declined to run again for president in 2024 after two unsuccessful campaigns — said that in a Trump-Biden showdown, it would be no contest.Dlorah Conover said that if the 2024 race came down to Biden-Trump, she would have a clear choice.Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times“This is a despicable human being,” Ms. Conover, 38, who plans to enter community college this month, said of Mr. Trump. “Biden would win hands down with me.”Mr. Trump has plenty of support in Arizona. A poll of registered voters in the state in April by Public Opinion Strategies found Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump by only 1 point in a hypothetical matchup.Despite the former president’s two impeachments, a civil suit accusing him of rape and defamation, and an indictment related to claims he paid hush money to a porn star, Mr. Trump’s core supporters are dug in.Lately, he has had increased support among Republicans against his chief rival for the nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. In a Trump-Biden rematch, Americans’ entrenched partisanship means that Mr. Trump could gain as much as Mr. Biden from an impulse to rally behind the nominee.Barry Forbes, 75, an independent who leans Republican, would prefer Mr. DeSantis as the nominee, but he said he would back Mr. Trump, in part because of Mr. Biden’s costly aid to Ukraine in its defense against Russian invaders — “a war we had no business getting involved in,” he said outside the Trader Joe’s.Much of Mr. Biden’s 2020 pitch to voters was that he would shrink the deep divisions among Americans, which Mr. Trump had expressly exploited for political gain. Voters seem poised to judge him on the progress he has made.“I think he’s done wonders on bringing our country back together after the number Trump did tearing us apart,” said Jenifer Schuerman, 39, an independent voter and a fifth-generation Arizonan.Jenifer Schuerman pointed to Mr. Biden’s record and his efforts to unify the country.Cassidy Araiza for The New York TimesAnother independent who voted for Mr. Biden, Joel Uliassi, a 22-year-old student at Arizona State University, was less impressed. “Biden ran on the idea he’d heal the divide,” he said. “He was going to bring us back together. From what I’ve seen we’ve gotten more divided and separated.”Mr. Uliassi, a music student who plays the trumpet, said he became discouraged about Mr. Biden during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, which was when approval ratings of the president first dipped below the share of voters who disapproved, a trend that endures.“I had hoped this election would not be a repeat of the last election, but it looks like it’s ramping up to be that,” Mr. Uliassi said. “If it was another Trump-Biden rematch, I would consider both candidates more this time.” More

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      South Carolina Democrats Elect First Black Woman to Run State Party

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      The NewsSouth Carolina Democrats elected Christale Spain, the former executive director of the state Democratic Party, as state party chair at their convention on Saturday. She ran with the backing of the party’s top brass, including Representative James E. Clyburn, and will be the first Black woman to lead the state party.Christale Spain, who was elected Saturday as chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, was backed by the party establishment.Sean Rayford for The New York TimesWhy It Matters: Clyburn and Old Guard Still RuleA longtime organizer in Palmetto State politics, Ms. Spain was widely considered the front-runner in the race, a usually sleepy contest that saw more candidates run than it has in more than 25 years. Her biggest competitor, Brandon Upson, the state Black caucus chair, painted her as an establishment candidate whose connections to the old guard would stymie the party’s progress in an all-important election year.Democrats who supported Mr. Upson were seeking to overhaul a state party they felt had long been dominated by Mr. Clyburn — who helped President Biden win the state primary in 2020 — ahead of South Carolina’s debut as the party’s first presidential primary state in 2024 and in the wake of a down cycle in the 2022 midterm elections.Still, it was Ms. Spain’s connections, paired with her campaign strategy — characterized by social media blasts and regular visits to county party meetings and cattle calls — that ultimately delivered her the victory. She won with the support of nearly 700 of the party’s roughly 1,000 state delegates in a standing vote. Before delegates for Mr. Upson could stand up to vote for him, he conceded to Ms. Spain in a short speech calling for party unity.What’s Next: Primary Prep and Party RepairAs the next chair, Ms. Spain will be responsible for preparing the state party for its moment in prime time: voting first in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary election. She will also have to rebuild a party in turmoil. Democrats lost several safe State House and Senate seats and had low voter turnout during the 2022 midterms, a year that was otherwise considered positive for the party nationally. Ms. Spain’s leadership will offer Palmetto State Democrats a chance to make up those losses and get ready for the national stage.In a news conference after her victory, Ms. Spain offered a message to the South Carolina voters waiting for more meaningful change from the Democratic Party.“Wait no longer,” she said, vowing to focus on year-round voter engagement efforts. “We know who our voters are. We’re going back after them and we’re going to turn them out, plus more.” More