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      How George Santos’s Campaign Spent Its Funds: Rent, Flights and Hotels

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      Representative-elect George Santos, under scrutiny after fabricating much of his résumé, also spent campaign funds on $40,000 worth of air travel.The company was called Cleaner 123, and over the course of four months, it received nearly $11,000 from the campaign of George Santos, the representative-elect from New York who appears to have invented whole swaths of his life story.The expenditures were listed as “apartment rental for staff” on Mr. Santos’s campaign disclosure forms and gave the address of a modest suburban house on Long Island. But one neighbor said Mr. Santos himself had been living there for months, and two others said that they had seen Mr. Santos and his husband coming and going, a possible violation of the rule prohibiting the use of campaign funds for personal expenses.The payments to Cleaner 123 were among a litany of unusual disbursements documented in Mr. Santos’s campaign filings that experts say could warrant further scrutiny. There are also dozens of expenses pegged at $199.99 — one cent below the threshold at which federal law requires receipts.The travel expenses include more than $40,000 for air travel, a number so exorbitant that it resembles the campaign filings of party leaders in Congress, as opposed to a newly elected congressman who is still introducing himself to local voters.It is not known if the spending was in fact illegal, or merely unusual. Federal and local prosecutors said this week that they would begin inquiries into Mr. Santos’s finances and background.Mr. Santos, a Republican, was elected in the Third Congressional District, a consequential swing district in Queens and Long Island, after a failed bid for the same seat in 2020. He has come under intense scrutiny after a New York Times investigation revealed that he misrepresented details of his education, work history and property ownership, along with a previously undisclosed criminal charge in Brazil.The story also raised questions about Mr. Santos’s financial circumstances, which disclosures show have improved drastically since 2020, when he reported earning just $55,000 a year.Mr. Santos has declined to be interviewed by The Times. But in the 10 days since The Times’s story was published, he has admitted to a stunning string of falsehoods. Earlier this week, he told The New York Post that he denied any criminal conduct, saying: “My sins here are embellishing my résumé.”Late Thursday, Joe Murray, a lawyer for Mr. Santos, said in a statement that there had been some money spent “unwisely” by a firm that had been fired by the campaign more than a year earlier, but he said that all expenditures were legal. The payments to Cleaner 123 were for legitimate expenses on behalf of staffers relocating to the district, he said, as were hotels booked to lodge staff members and people assisting the campaign.“Campaign expenditures for staff members including travel, lodging, and meals are normal expenses of any competent campaign. The suggestion that the Santos campaign engaged in any irresponsible spending of campaign funds is just ludicrous,” Mr. Murray said.The representative-elect is set to be sworn into Congress on Jan. 3, when Republicans begin a new term with a slim four-seat majority in the House. While local Republican leaders have condemned Mr. Santos’s dissembling, those in Washington have been largely silent.Robert Zimmerman, a Democrat who lost a congressional election to Mr. Santos this fall, spoke at a rally on Thursday, in which people criticized Mr. Santos over reports that he lied about his background. Dave Sanders for The New York TimesQuestions arose about Mr. Santos’s residence when a reporter attempted to reach him at the Whitestone, Queens, address listed on his voter registration. Mr. Santos’s former landlord there said that he had moved out in August.Mr. Santos told The Post that he was living in Huntington, on Long Island, at his sister’s home. But court documents, as well as interviews with neighbors and a doorman, show that she resides in Elmhurst, Queens.Campaign disclosures, however, show that Mr. Santos paid Cleaner 123, which lists the house in Huntington as its address, nearly $11,000 in rent and a deposit. When reached by phone, a representative from Cleaner 123 confirmed that it was a cleaning company, but hung up before answering why it had received rent payments from Mr. Santos.Many questions remain about Mr. Santos’s campaign expenditures: It is not clear which expenditures were made on behalf of staff, versus for the candidate himself. The Federal Election Commission regulations say that campaigns are not allowed to pay personal living expenses for their candidates, including rent or utilities. Several campaign finance experts said that paying rent for staff was unusual and could be a violation, though they said that the F.E.C. rarely took action in such cases.Mr. Santos’s campaign filings show other irregularities as well: He had listed a flood of expenses under $200 — more than 800 items in total — a number that far exceeded those of candidates for similar office. More than 30 of those payments came in just below the limit at $199.99, expenses listed for office supplies, restaurants and Ubers, among other things. While F.E.C. rules urge candidates to try to save receipts for purchases below $200, they are required to keep them for all expenditures above that threshold.Paul S. Ryan, an election law expert, said that the expenditures could be an effort to hide illegal use of campaign funds, given the leeway with reporting receipts below $200. If so, he said, Mr. Santos’s attempt to hide the pattern could put him in further legal trouble, adding: “I consider deployment of this tactic strong evidence that the violation of law was knowing and willful — and therefore meeting the requirement for criminal prosecution.”Unusually for a candidate who was relatively new to politics, Mr. Santos also appears to have used his campaign accounts to fund trips across the country, along with local hotel stays, according to a review of his campaign expenditures by The Times.Over the course of his campaign, Mr. Santos spent $30,000 on hotels, $40,000 on airfare and $14,000 on car services — and campaign records suggest he also retained a campaign vehicle.The spending was funded by a campaign war chest of more than $3 million amassed by four fund-raising committees during the 2022 campaign cycle. The money came from small-dollar donors, longtime Republican contributors on Long Island and elsewhere and the campaign committees of other Republican candidates. The biggest givers lavished Mr. Santos with the maximum allowable amounts, in some cases directly, in others via a Republican super PAC or the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.A hefty chunk of the total came in the form of a $700,000 loan from Mr. Santos himself.The source of Mr. Santos’s wealth has been surrounded by some mystery: He has said on financial disclosure statements that his company, the Devolder Organization, is worth more than a million dollars; the statements also show that he earned millions between salary and dividends over the past two years. But the disclosures do not name any of the clients who helped Mr. Santos earn such a fortune — an omission that could pose legal problems for Mr. Santos, campaign finance experts say.Two former aides, who requested to remain anonymous because they didn’t want to be publicly associated with Mr. Santos, described growing concern during the campaign that the candidate was too focused on spending money frivolously and not focused enough on the nuts and bolts of winning the election.One consultant described the spending as a part of a persona Mr. Santos sought to build: as a man whose success had let him trade his humble beginnings for a life of high-end travel and fine dining.Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, said the spending was atypical. “Usually a congressional candidate tries spending as little as possible for their own accommodations and travel, because they need that money for campaign purposes,” he said. “George Santos appears to be just living a lavish lifestyle for himself.”By way of comparison, Nick LaLota, the Republican representative-elect from the First Congressional District, in Long Island’s Suffolk County, spent roughly $900 on hotel stays, $3,000 on airfare and $900 on taxi services, according to his campaign filings. Sean Patrick Maloney, the outgoing head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who lost to a Republican in the Hudson Valley, spent just $8,000 on air travel, according to his filings.The $30,000 Mr. Santos’s campaign spent on hotels and Airbnb expenditures included stays in Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, Florida, California, Kansas, Michigan, Washington, D.C., New Jersey and in New York itself. Records indicate his campaign favored the Hyatt and Hilton hotel brands, expensing stays at Virginia’s Hilton Alexandria Old Town, Florida’s Hilton Melbourne, the Hilton West Palm Beach, the Hyatt Regency Orlando and the Hyatt Place West Palm Beach.In New York, his campaign booked hotel stays at the SoHo Grand in Manhattan and the Garden City Hotel and the Inn at Great Neck, both on Long Island.Mr. Santos’s campaign also paid for dozens of meals, including at high-end restaurants such as the Breakers in Palm Beach and the Capital Grille steakhouse in New York. He spent roughly $14,000 at an upscale Italian restaurant called Il Bacco, in the Little Neck neighborhood of Queens.The restaurant’s owner, Joe Oppedisano, who donated $6,500 to Mr. Santos’s campaign and related PACs and whose 2020 survival in a plane crash made tabloid headlines, was unavailable for comment, according to the woman who answered the phone at the restaurant on Thursday afternoon.Nate Schweber More

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      George Santos Admits to Lying About College and Work History

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      The congressman-elect confirmed The New York Times’s findings that he had not graduated from college or worked at two major Wall Street companies, as he had claimed.Ending a weeklong silence, Representative-elect George Santos admitted on Monday to a sizable list of misrepresentations about his professional background, educational history, business experience and property ownership. But he said he was determined to take the oath of office on Jan. 3 and join the House majority.Mr. Santos, a New York Republican who was elected in November to represent parts of northern Long Island and northeast Queens, confirmed some of the key findings of a New York Times investigation into his background, but sought to minimize the falsehoods.“My sins here are embellishing my résumé,” Mr. Santos told The New York Post in one of two interviews he granted on Monday.Mr. Santos admitted to lying about graduating from college and making misleading claims that he worked for Citigroup or Goldman Sachs. He once said he had a family-owned real estate portfolio of 13 properties; on Monday, he admitted he was not a landlord.Mr. Santos, the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat as a non-incumbent, also acknowledged owing thousands in unpaid rent and a yearslong marriage he had never disclosed.“I dated women in the past. I married a woman. It’s personal stuff,” he said to The Post, adding that he was “OK with my sexuality. People change.”In the interviews, Mr. Santos also firmly rejected having committed a crime anywhere in the world, despite the existence of Brazilian court records that show he admitted to committing check fraud there.“I am not a criminal here — not here or in Brazil or any jurisdiction in the world,” he told The Post. “Absolutely not. That didn’t happen.”The admissions by Mr. Santos added a new wrinkle to one of the more astonishing examples of an incoming congressman falsifying key biographical elements of his background — with Mr. Santos maintaining the falsehoods through two consecutive bids for Congress, the first of which he lost.In both interviews, Mr. Santos also denounced reporting by both CNN and The Forward, a Jewish publication, that he may have misled voters about his account of his Jewish ancestry, including that his maternal grandparents were born in Europe and emigrated to Brazil during the Holocaust.The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      George Santos’s Early Life: Odd Jobs, Bad Debts and Lawsuits

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      Representative-elect George Santos, who is under scrutiny over potentially misrepresenting key parts of his campaign biography, had other undisclosed troubles in his early career.The polite young customer service agent at the Dish Network call center in Queens could speak English and Portuguese, so when Brazilian immigrants had trouble with their billing or their satellite dish, their calls would be routed his way.It was around 2012, and the man was George Santos, a son of Brazilian immigrants who, more than a decade later, would win a crucial election to Congress.But on the campaign trail, Mr. Santos told a different story about his life: that around the same time that Dish Network records show he was working there, he was rising through the ranks at Citigroup in the first step of an extensive and lucrative Wall Street career that also included a stint at Goldman Sachs.Neither Citigroup nor Goldman Sachs could locate any record of Mr. Santos’s employment, The New York Times reported on Monday. The Times’s findings — which include a criminal charge in Brazil and potential omissions or misrepresentations in his financial disclosure — raise questions about the life and dealings of the new Republican congressman.Mr. Santos has declined to directly address The Times’s reporting or provide a detailed résumé that could help verify his past jobs, calling the effort an attempt to “smear his good name.”On Thursday, with many Democrats and even some Republicans calling for answers, Mr. Santos said on Twitter, “I have my story to tell and it will be told next week.” He promised his constituents he would “address your questions.” (His lawyer later declined to answer a list of questions from The Times.)But interviews with former friends and co-workers, and additional records reviewed by The Times, offer a fuller picture of Mr. Santos’s life, with new details that were not disclosed on his campaign biography.Former friends recalled an ambitious young man with fine taste, whose lavish descriptions of real estate owned in Brazil, Nantucket and New York seemed vastly disconnected from the rented apartments in Queens he lived in, including one he shared with his sister and his mother, who was employed as a domestic worker.John Rijo, who said he had worked at the Dish Network center in College Point for roughly a decade, said that Mr. Santos had taken calls in English and Portuguese. Mr. Santos worked there from October 2011 to July 2012, doing “customer care work,” according to the company.The agents’ hourly pay, Mr. Rijo said, was at most, he thought, $15 an hour, with an extra dollar or two for foreign language expertise. Mr. Santos’s employment at Dish was also reported by the local news site Patch.What to Know About George SantosThe Republican congressman-elect from New York has been the subject of intense scrutiny since The Times raised questions about his background.A Résumé With Big Holes: George Santos says he’s the “embodiment of the American dream.” But he seems to have misrepresented a number of his career highlights.Reactions: In the aftermath of the Times report, Democratic House leaders stopped short of calling for Mr. Santos to resign, while House Republicans and state party leaders were largely silent.Lies About His Jewish Heritage?: The Forward, a Jewish publication based in New York City, reported that Mr. Santos may have misled voters about having Jewish ancestry.At the same time, friends recall, Mr. Santos was living modestly in Queens, occasionally taking on extra roommates to make rent. Gregory Morey-Parker was one of those roommates, briefly. From early on, he said, there were incongruities between the way that Mr. Santos talked about himself and the life he led. Mr. Santos bragged about family wealth and business success — even a home on Nantucket — which Mr. Morey-Parker said had seemed at odds with the ordinary life the family led.“You’re sitting here bragging about all this money you’re making,” Mr. Morey-Parker said. “Then why is your mother a housekeeper?”Peter Hamilton met Mr. Santos near the start of 2014, he said. He recalled how Mr. Santos, who claimed to be an N.Y.U. graduate, had not recognized the name of the business school he said he had attended. Nonetheless, Mr. Hamilton found him charismatic and intelligent. “He seems to know what to say, and how to say it to people,” Mr. Hamilton recalled in an interview.He did not hesitate when Mr. Santos said that he needed to borrow several thousand dollars to move in with his boyfriend, and lent him the money in September 2014, court documents show. Not long afterward, Mr. Hamilton said, Mr. Santos stopped responding to his texts and calls.Mr. Hamilton filed a case in small claims court in Queens to seek repayment in 2015. In October of that year, Mr. Santos responded, saying that the money had been repaid and that it was not a loan but a favor. A judge agreed with Mr. Hamilton, however, and issued a judgment of $5,000 plus interest. In an interview, Mr. Hamilton said that while he would love to be repaid, he was past worrying over old debts. “I have regrets that I didn’t come forward before the actual election,” he said, adding later, “At this point, it’s like, he’s defrauding the public.”Mr. Santos built his political campaign in part on the notion that he wanted to parlay a successful career on Wall Street into public service. Jackie Molloy/BloombergCourt records show that Mr. Santos’s financial struggles extended beyond debts to friends. The same year that he was in court with Mr. Hamilton, a landlord in Queens filed an eviction case against him, saying he owed her $2,250 in rent.Less than two years later, he faced another eviction lawsuit in a different apartment, when a landlord in the Sunnyside neighborhood in Queens said Mr. Santos owed months of rent and a fee for a bounced check. He was ultimately ordered to pay more than $12,000.The next year, in December 2018, Discover Bank won a default judgment against Mr. Santos for $1,927.45 in credit card debt, court records show. His last payment had been made in February of that year, for just $34.In 2019, as Mr. Santos was preparing to start his first campaign for Congress, court records show that he was back in court in Queens for another matter: a divorce case.City clerk records obtained by the nonprofit group Reclaim the Records show that Mr. Santos was married in 2012 in Manhattan. His former wife filed for divorce in June 2019, which Mr. Santos did not contest.The circumstances of their marriage are unclear: Divorce cases are sealed, and attempts to reach Mr. Santos’s ex-wife in New Jersey were unsuccessful. But the divorce was concluded that fall, court records show. In November, Mr. Santos declared his candidacy in New York’s Third Congressional District in northeast Queens and northern Long Island.Early during that first campaign, Mr. Santos listed his address as an apartment in the Elmhurst section of Queens. That residence, which was outside the district he was running to represent, appeared on an official candidate list compiled by New York City’s Board of Elections in 2020 and on federal campaign finance documents.Mr. Santos later moved to a rowhouse in the Whitestone neighborhood where he is currently registered to vote, but no longer lives.The house’s owner, Nancy Pothos, said that Mr. Santos and his husband had moved there in July 2020. The couple rented the two-bedroom, two-floor apartment for $2,600 a month, she said, while Ms. Pothos lived below.Mr. Santos, right, campaigning in Glen Cove, N.Y., in November.Mary Altaffer/Associated PressThe apartment drew attention after Mr. Santos claimed it had been vandalized in January 2021, after he and his husband returned from a New Year’s Eve gala in Florida at former President Donald J. Trump’s private club, Mar-a-Lago. Instagram photos that Mr. Santos posted of himself at the event were linked to a Times article about guests’ forgoing masks despite coronavirus-related restrictions.Mr. Santos asserted on Twitter that stones and eggs had been thrown at his house and that he had spent four and a half hours filing reports with the police and insurance companies.Ms. Pothos, 72, said that she did not recall any such incident. The New York Police Department, when asked if it had reports of violence, vandalism or disputes at the Whitestone address for early that January, said it had a report of an incident there in October 2021. It did not respond when asked to clarify if that was the only reported incident at the address that year.Mr. Santos told Newsday in March 2022 that he had left the Whitestone home, purportedly because of the vandalism, though he refused to share a new address. But Ms. Pothos said that Mr. Santos had not moved out until August and asserted that she had to spend $17,000 to repair severe damage left behind.Where Mr. Santos currently lives remains unclear, in part because he has offered conflicting accounts. In October, he suggested on Twitter that he still lived in Ms. Pothos’s apartment, citing a robbery “two blocks away from my home in Whitestone.”Mr. Santos had also told Newsday that he would eventually move to Oyster Bay, N.Y. Instead, he appears to have settled in a house in Huntington, a town just outside his district’s boundaries. (Members of Congress are only required to live in the state they represent, not the district.)On Wednesday, three neighbors said that they had seen Mr. Santos or his husband at the house in Huntington, in a hilly neighborhood full of attractive, middle-class houses, some of which have been turned into rentals. One man who lived across the street said that Mr. Santos had moved in some time in August.Neither Mr. Santos nor his husband is listed on property records for the home, and the house’s owner did not respond to a phone call or social media messages seeking more information.Reporting was contributed by More

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      The Places in New York City Where Republicans Still Stand a Chance

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      In some New York City Council races, supporting former President Donald Trump is seen as a positive by voters.For most Democratic candidates running in New York City, criticizing former President Donald J. Trump hardly requires making a studied campaign strategy decision — it’s already a given.But in one of the few competitive races in New York City this year, the Democratic candidate for City Council will not even say how he voted for president, insisting that at the local level, voters in his Brooklyn district still care more about municipal matters. That candidate, Steven Saperstein, is running in one of the few Trump-friendly districts in the city, and as he campaigned down a breezy stretch of boardwalk in Brighton Beach last Sunday, not far from the Trump Village housing complex where he grew up, he couldn’t seem to escape partisan politics.“I’m Republican,” one woman declared.“One hundred and twenty percent,” another proclaimed, before allowing that she would consider Mr. Saperstein anyway.“They’re trying to make it about the presidential election,” Mr. Saperstein said of his Republican opponent, Inna Vernikov, for whom Donald Trump Jr. has recorded a robocall. “People in this district understand and they know that national elections are one thing, but on the local level you have to vote for the person.”Steven Saperstein insists that voters in his district are more concerned about local matters than last year’s presidential election.Nate Palmer for The New York TimesIndeed, for years, New York City voters who favored Republicans for president often still elected Democrats in local races. But in the final days of the fall campaign, Republicans are working to change that in the 48th Council District of Brooklyn, which is home to many Orthodox Jews and Russian and Ukrainian immigrants.If they succeed, that victory will offer one more example of just how polarized, and nationalized, even ultra-local American politics has become.That seat is one of a smattering of City Council districts where there is evidence of Republican life in an otherwise overwhelmingly Democratic city — and it is not the only one attracting attention from major national figures. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate majority leader, was slated to campaign on Sunday for a fellow Democrat, Felicia Singh, who is seeking to flip the last Republican-held Council seat in Queens (though the event was pulled following a security threat, Ms. Singh’s campaign manager said).The Republican candidates in New York’s competitive races differ from one another in tone, experience and the local issues that reflect their distinctive districts. But all of those contests, party officials and strategists say, are shaped by the continued salience of public safety in the minds of voters, discussion of education matters like the gifted and talented program that Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to phase out, and intense feelings over vaccine mandates. Some Republicans even argue that the challenging national environment that Democrats appear to be facing may be evident in a handful of city races, too.“This has a lot of likenesses to 2009, when Obama came in on hope and change and then fell flat,” said Nick Langworthy, the chairman of the New York Republican State Committee. “In 2009 we had great gains at the local level, and then had a cataclysm in 2010. Are we facing that, or is there going to be flatness all the way around?”Whatever the turnout, Republicans are virtually certain to be shut out of citywide offices. Indeed, by nearly every metric, the Republican Party has been decimated in the nation’s largest city. They are vastly outnumbered in voter registration and have struggled to field credible candidates for major offices. At the City Council level, Republican hopes boil down to a matter of margins.The most optimistic Republican assessment, barring extraordinary developments, is that they could increase their presence to five from three on the 51-seat City Council, as they did in 2009. But even that would require a surprise outcome in a sleeper race — and it is possible they retain only one seat (setting aside the candidates who are running on multiple party lines).Officials on both sides of the aisle believe a more realistic target for the Republicans is three or four seats, a number that could still affect the brewing City Council speaker’s race and may indicate pockets of discontent with the direction of the city.The most high-profile of those contests is the last Republican-held seat in Queens.Ms. Singh, a teacher who is endorsed by the left-wing Working Families Party, is running against Joann Ariola, the chairwoman of the Queens Republican Party. The race has stirred considerable interest from the left and the right and attracted spending from outside groups.Democrats argue that Ms. Singh’s focus on education, the environment and resources for often-underserved communities best reflects working-class and immigrant families like her own who have changed the makeup of the district.Felicia Singh, center, who is running for City Council, canvasing in her hometown of Ozone Park, Queens.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesMs. Singh has called Ms. Ariola a Trump Republican and noted her past ties to a district leader who was charged with participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol. Ms. Ariola has said she condemns the insurrection and that no one “should be guilty by association.”Ms. Ariola is pressing a message of strong support for the police, protecting and improving the gifted and talented program, and emphasizing quality-of-life issues.She is casting Ms. Singh as too radical for a district that has been dotted in parts with Blue Lives Matter signage, and she has noted that some of the area’s moderate Democratic officials have stayed on the sidelines — which will surely be a source of tension among Democrats if Ms. Singh loses narrowly.“The strategy has to be to pull out every single Democrat, knowing there are some Democrats that will shift the other way as well, but I think she’s still in a good position,” said Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president and a Democrat.The other race widely seen as competitive is for a seat currently held by the Republican minority leader, Steven Matteo, on Staten Island.David Carr, Mr. Matteo’s chief of staff, is the Republican nominee; Sal F. Albanese, once a Brooklyn city councilman who has run unsuccessfully for mayor several times, is the Democratic nominee; George Wonica, a real estate agent, is running on the Conservative Party line.Unlike in Queens, where there is a clear ideological contrast, the candidates on Staten Island largely agree on several issues roiling New York, including city vaccine mandates, which they oppose. They have also competed vigorously over who is the true law-and-order candidate.Beyond those clearly competitive races, a number of Democrats are running aggressive campaigns even in presumably safe seats. Councilman Justin Brannan of Brooklyn, a candidate for City Council speaker who won his Bay Ridge-area district narrowly in 2017, has maintained an intense pace. Just this weekend he campaigned with Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor; Letitia James, the state attorney general, who is now running for governor; and Mr. Schumer.“Low-turnout elections are always where surprises happen, and we’ve had a bunch of those in the past few years,” said Kevin Elkins, the political director for the New York City District Council of Carpenters, which is largely supporting Democratic candidates, as well as Ms. Ariola. “Most of the elected officials and candidates who have run before have no interest in being next on that list.”A few districts away from Mr. Brannan’s, Ms. Vernikov was in a heavily Orthodox Jewish part of Midwood recently, meeting with volunteers.Inna Vernikov, a Republican, said voters were more receptive to her when she told them her party affiliation. Nate Palmer for The New York TimesShe has been a registered Democrat and a Republican, and the better-funded Mr. Saperstein has previously run for office as a Republican, further scrambling the political dynamics of the race.But in an interview, Ms. Vernikov said she sometimes found voters to be more receptive when she mentioned her current party affiliation.“When you tell people you’re a Republican in this district, it just changes the tone,” especially with the many voters in the district who fled the former Soviet Union, she said. “They see the Democratic Party moving this country in a very bad direction.”Back in Brighton Beach, Mr. Saperstein wanted to talk about parks, the relationships he has with the Police Department, and cleaning up the boardwalk.That last point was a compelling one for Lidiya Skverchak, a 64-year-old Trump voter. She was slated to receive her next dose of the Moderna vaccine on Election Day and was uncertain whether she would vote, she said. But if she does vote, she will still vote “Democrat, of course Democrat,” in the city elections. Asked about her biggest issue in the race, she, like Mr. Saperstein, kept her focus local.“For this area, there should be more trees,” she said. More

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      And Then There Was One: G.O.P. Defends Its Last Seat in Queens

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      The party struggles to hold on in an increasingly diverse borough, even as it fights its own internal battles.In heavily Democratic Queens, Councilman Eric Ulrich is a political oddity: He’s the only Republican elected to public office in the borough, and one of the only ones remaining in New York City outside of Staten Island.“One is the loneliest number,” Mr. Ulrich said.A white moderate, Mr. Ulrich has won four elections over his 12-year term representing District 32 in southern Queens. But because of term limits, he cannot run for re-election, making the race to replace him something of a last stand for Republicans in the borough.While Queens has long leaned Democratic, its Republican Party has for decades maintained a presence in citywide party politics, and up until less than a decade ago kept a grip on a handful of public offices.But waves of immigrants have transformed Queens into one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the nation, while a steady progressive shift in the borough’s politics has all but banished Republicans from elected office.The county party still has a base, in absolute terms: There are roughly 140,000 registered Republicans in Queens, the most of any borough in the city and more than in many large American cities. Those voters have helped two Republican mayors win five elections over the last 30 years in a city that is overwhelmingly Democratic.But the Queens Republican Party has been hampered by long-running feuds that have driven members out and hindered its ability to embrace those waves of immigrant voters, even though many of them espouse conservative values, said Tom Long, chairman of the Queens County Conservative Party, which endorses many Republicans in Queen races. And the party has suffered a series of public embarrassments, most recently in February when Philip Grillo, a district leader, was arrested for participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots in Washington, D.C. Mr. Grillo retains his position while his case is adjudicated.“The division is killing the Republican Party,” Mr. Long said. “The average person gets disgusted and walks away.”Such discord has provided an opening for Democrats to eliminate Queens Republicans entirely from public office this year. There are several Democratic candidates vying in the June 22 primary for the chance to claim Mr. Ulrich’s seat in the November general election.District 32 is demographically and ideologically split: The northern portion voted heavily for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020 and has seen the kind of influx of immigrants — including Latino, Indo-Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Punjabi — that has made Queens a model of diversity. To the south, Blue Lives Matter flags and bumper stickers are ubiquitous in neighborhoods like the Rockaways and Breezy Point, a gated community at the southwestern tip of the district that is an enclave of white conservatism. It is one of the few areas in the city that voted overwhelmingly for Donald J. Trump in 2020. Despite the large number of Republicans in Queens, registered Democrats still outnumber them roughly by three to one in District 32, though that difference is much narrower than the seven-to-one edge that Democrats enjoy boroughwide. Democrats say it is time to replace Mr. Ulrich with a leader who better reflects the immigrants and voters of color who have largely replaced white voters in the district’s northern stretches.Felicia Singh and her opponents in the Democratic primary for a city council seat say it is time for a council member who better represents their district in southern Queens.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesTo win, they have to defeat Joann Ariola, 62, who is both the chairwoman of the Queens Republican Party and its candidate to save the District 32 seat. “Being the Republican, there’s pressure on me,” she said, “But I have lot of support in the district.”Ms. Ariola, a longtime civic leader in Howard Beach, a mostly white, Republican-leaning neighborhood, is running partly on a tough-on-crime platform that she hopes resonates with voters frustrated with liberal city leaders like Mayor Bill de Blasio, who she says has mismanaged the city and implemented policies that have helped lead to a rise in violent crime.“Right now, the city is off the track,” she said. “It is absolutely a derailed train and needs to be brought back to the center.”She said cuts in police funding and bail-reform measures have helped turn the city into “a blood-soaked shooting gallery” that is driving New Yorkers away. She also opposes the mayor’s plan to close Rikers Island and build smaller jails across the five boroughs.Mr. Ulrich said he was supporting Ms. Ariola, and that he believed she could win in November.“People in this district vote for the person, not the party,” he said. “They are willing to vote for a moderate Republican when the Democrat is too liberal.”But not all Queen Republicans agree. Ms. Ariola’s campaign has already been affected by the kind of vitriolic infighting that has divided borough Republicans for years.The Queens Republican Patriots, a splinter faction within the county party, backed a local businessman, Steve Sirgiovanni, to run against Ms. Ariola in the primary. Her team responded by getting him ousted from the ballot over his petition filings, a ruling his campaign is appealing.Joe Concannon, who founded the Queens Republican Patriots in 2018, said party leaders have become more fixated on battling fellow Republicans than on battling Democrats. The focus, he said, should be on building the party through fund-raising, enrollment and recruiting moderate Democrats frustrated with the leftward drift of their party.For decades, handfuls of Queens Republicans managed to win elections in the borough despite its demographic and political shifts. But in 2012, Councilman Peter Koo, a Republican, switched parties to the Democrats, citing excessive Republican infighting. In 2013, Republican Councilman Dan Halloran, whose belief in Paganism had already made him a controversial figure, left office after becoming embroiled in a bribery scheme to sell a spot on the Republican ballot.Mr. Concannon complained that the county organization has come under the stranglehold of Bart and John Haggerty, two brothers from Forest Hills who are its vice chairman and executive director. (John Haggerty was convicted in 2011 of stealing $1.1 million in funds from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign. Released in 2015, he has since resumed a leadership role.)Mr. Concannon said the brothers helped install Ms. Ariola in 2017 as a figurehead, while retaining the real power in the party.Bart Haggerty denied Mr. Concannon’s accusation. “Joann Ariola runs the Queens Republican Party,” he said, and referred further questions to Ms. Ariola. Ms. Ariola likewise pushed back, calling Mr. Concannon and his supporters “a group of incompetent people” without standing in the party. “They’re squawking loudly from the sidelines but that’s exactly where they are, on the sidelines,” she said. “They’re not in the game.”Despite the infighting, Queens Republicans remain largely united behind their ongoing support for Mr. Trump, and county Democratic leaders see the District 32 race as an opportunity for borough voters to effectively rebuke the county’s pro-Trump voters, said Representative Gregory Meeks, a Queens congressman who heads the borough’s Democratic Party.Of course, discord is common within political organizations. Queens Democratic Party leaders have been criticized by more progressive members as remaining too moderate. In a Democratic primary for a City Council seat in Flushing, several candidates recently formed a coalition against Sandra Ung, the candidate backed by county party leaders, as a show of force against the party.Michael Reich, the executive secretary of the Queens Democratic Party, said it would make a “full court press” for the primary victor, including campaign volunteers, help from local Democratic clubs and appearances by local elected Democratic officials.County Democratic leaders opted not to endorse a candidate in the primary because local district leaders could not agree on a favorite and because it was difficult to isolate a front-runner, given the vagaries of the city’s new ranked-choice voting rules, which will allow voters to select their top five candidates.There are several moderate Democrats in the primary, including Kaled Alamarie, 52, a city planner; Helal Sheikh, 41, a former city schoolteacher; Bella Matias, a founder of an education nonprofit; and Mike Scala, 38, a lawyer and activist from Howard Beach who won the Democratic primary for the council seat in 2017 before losing to Mr. Ulrich.Ms. Singh campaigned in a garment shop in Ozone Park.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesAnother candidate, Felicia Singh, 32, a former teacher, hopes to ride a progressive political wave that has swept much of Queens in recent years, most notably with the 2018 election of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes parts of Queens and the Bronx.Changing demographics are palpable in Ozone Park, a large part of the district’s northern section that in the 1990s was still an Italian stronghold where the mobster John Gotti once had his clubhouse and threw mammoth Fourth of July parties. Today, Bengali, Guyanese and Indian immigrants have moved in, Punjabi music blasts from passing cars and cricket games can be seen in schoolyards.Ms. Singh, campaigning outside the sari and pizza shops along 101st Street in Ozone Park, promised voters a “revolution of change.”Some Democrats believe that November could see not just a defeat for the Queens Republicans, but the election of the district’s first nonwhite council member.Thanks to ranked-choice voting, like-minded groups of voters now have a greater chance of electing a candidate who reflects their preferences — even if he or she is not their first choice — rather than splitting their vote among multiple candidates, said Evan Stavisky, a Democratic political strategist.In one scenario, voters of color could split their votes among multiple candidates of color — as most of the Democratic candidates are — and wind up essentially “agreeing” on a candidate who may not be their top choice. Ms. Singh said she would tackle issues that affect working-class immigrants, like her father, a 66-year-old Indian immigrant who became a victim of the taxi medallion crisis after declaring bankruptcy on his loan, leaving him in danger of losing the family’s Ozone Park house.“Now you have candidates of color who are ready to represent a community that has been neglected,” she said. More

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      Queens Man Wanted ‘Execution’ of Schumer and Ocasio-Cortez, U.S. Says

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutLatest UpdatesInside the SiegeVisual TimelineNotable ArrestsCapitol Police in CrisisAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyQueens Man Wanted ‘Execution’ of Schumer and Ocasio-Cortez, U.S. SaysBrendan Hunt, a fervent supporter of President Trump, is also accused of urging the killing of members of Congress before Inauguration Day.Brendan Hunt in a picture from his BitChute account.Credit…  Jan. 20, 2021Updated 8:53 a.m. ETFor years, Brendan Hunt had posted wild conspiracy theories on social media platforms and his own website, asserting, among other things, that the rock star Kurt Cobain was murdered and that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax.A decade ago, he took part in the Occupy Wall Street protests against income inequality. More recently, he was a fervent supporter of President Trump, posting several videos in support of Mr. Trump’s false claims that the election had been rigged against him through vote fraud.On Tuesday, it became clear that Mr. Hunt’s online statements had gotten the authorities’ attention. He was arrested on federal charges of making death threats against prominent Democratic politicians, including Senator Chuck Schumer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.Not only did Mr. Hunt, 37, an assistant analyst for New York’s court system, call last month for the “public execution” of Democratic leaders, he also urged Mr. Trump’s supporters to massacre members of Congress before Inauguration Day, according to a criminal complaint.He was arrested at his home in Ridgewood, Queens, early Tuesday. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.Since the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, many people with histories of posting vitriolic threats against public figures with relative impunity have come under greater scrutiny from the federal authorities.Although Mr. Hunt did not participate in the attack on the Capitol, his arrest underscored the scope of the federal government’s crackdown on social media comments that incite violence. Several people who posted on social media during the Jan. 6 riot are among the dozens who have been charged by federal authorities with taking part in the violent rampage.Last week, the authorities arrested another Queens man, Eduard Florea, who was not in Washington on Jan. 6 but who posted threatening messages on the social network Parler. Among the messages that caused concern was one in which he suggested that the Rev. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who was recently elected to the U.S. Senate, should be killed.Mr. Florea, who had a previous weapons conviction, was charged with illegally possessing ammunition after the authorities found thousands of rounds of rifle ammunition and a stockpile of knives at this home in Middle Village, Queens.Mr. Hunt’s threats included one posted on Facebook on Dec. 6 in which he said that Mr. Trump’s supporters “want actual revenge on democrats” and urged the president to execute Mr. Schumer, Ms. Pelosi and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, according to the complaint.“And if you dont do it, the citizenry will,” Mr. Hunt wrote, the complaint says. “We’re not voting in another rigged election. Start up the firing squads, mow down these commies, and lets take america back!”In a second post, he said the three Democrats were the sort of “high value targets” that Mr. Trump’s supporters should attack. “They really need to be put down,” he wrote, according to the complaint. “These commies will see death before they see us surrender!”Mr. Hunt made his first appearance in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Tuesday at a hearing conducted remotely.“These threats would be grave under any circumstances, but they’re even more so in the volatile environment we find ourselves in today leading up to the inauguration,” David Kessler, a federal prosecutor, said at the hearing.Arguing for Mr. Hunt to be released on bail, Mr. Hunt’s lawyer, Leticia Olivera, said he did not have a criminal record, was not a member of a militia or paramilitary group and did not plan on harming federal officials in Washington.“The allegations in the complaint do not suggest anything other than a plan to make outlandish posts online from inside his home,” Ms. Olivera said.The federal magistrate judge hearing the matter, Ramon Reyes Jr., ordered that Mr. Hunt be held without bail until trial..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cs27wo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cs27wo{padding:20px;}}.css-1cs27wo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the state court system, said Mr. Hunt had been suspended without pay from his $57,800-a-year position as an assistant court analyst in the Attorney Registration Unit.Before retiring, Mr. Hunt’s father was a family court judge in Queens, Mr. Chalfen said. Mr. Hunt is the second person with ties to the state judiciary to be arrested this month. Aaron Mostofsky, whose father is a judge in Brooklyn, was charged this month with taking part in the Capitol riot.Mr. Hunt has dabbled in acting and filmmaking and has often used the alias X-ray Ultra on social media, the authorities said. A website for “X-ray Ultra Studios” includes photographs of Mr. Hunt and links to his many social media accounts.Two days after the Washington riot, Mr. Hunt posted an 88-second video titled “KILL YOUR SENATORS” on BitChute, a video-sharing platform, the complaint says. In the video, he spoke directly to the camera.“We need to go back to the U.S. Capitol when all of the Senators and a lot of the Representatives are back there,” he said, according to the complaint. “And this time we have to show up with our guns. And we need to slaughter these” people, using an expletive for emphasis.“If anybody has a gun, give me it, I’ll go there myself and shoot them and kill them,” he said, according to the complaint.The video was not available on X-ray Ultra’s BitChute channel on Tuesday, but several other videos about the Capitol riot and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories were.Mr. Hunt also posted threats on Parler, which gained popularity among right-wing users and which went dark after Amazon shut off its service because of violent content, the complaint says.A Parler account with Mr. Hunt’s name and the user name “@xrayultra” included the message “lets go, jan 20, bring your guns #millionmilitiamarch,” the complaint says.Mr. Hunt’s YouTube channel lists several videos with the title “STOP THE STEAL = ELECTION 2020.” The videos have thumbnail illustrations that depict Mr. Trump as a king, as the Marvel Comics villain Thanos and as the movie character Rambo.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Surprising Places in NYC Where Trump’s Support Grew

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      font-family: nyt-franklin, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;
      display: flex;
      width: auto;
      list-style: none;
      padding-left: 1em;
      flex-shrink: 0;
      align-items: baseline;
      justify-content: center;
      }

      .nytslm_li {
      margin-right: 1.4em;
      flex-shrink: 0;
      font-size: 0.8125rem;
      line-height: 0.8125rem;
      font-weight: 600;
      padding: 1em 0;
      }

      #nytslm .nytslm_li a {
      color: #121212;
      text-decoration: none;
      }

      #nytslm .nytsmenu_li_current,
      #nytslm .nytslm_li a:hover,
      #nytslm .nytslm_li a:active,
      #nytslm .nytslm_li a:focus {
      color: #121212;
      border-bottom: 2px solid #121212;
      padding-bottom: 2px;
      }

      .nytslm_li_live_loud:after {
      content: ‘LIVE’
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      .nytslm_li_live_loud {
      background-color: #d0021b;
      color: white;
      border-radius: 3px;
      padding: 4px 6px 2px 6px;
      margin-right: 2px;
      display: inline-block;
      letter-spacing: 0.03rem;
      font-weight: 700;
      }

      .nytslm_li_upcoming_loud {
      border: 1px solid #d0021b;
      color: #d0021b;
      border-radius: 3px;
      padding: 4px 6px 2px 6px;
      margin-right: 2px;
      display: inline-block;
      letter-spacing: 0.03rem;
      font-weight: 700;
      }

      .nytslm_li_upcoming_loud:before {
      content: ‘Upcoming’
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      .nytslm_li_loud a:hover,
      .nytslm_li_loud a:active,
      .nytslm_li_loud a:focus {
      border-bottom: 2px solid;
      padding-bottom: 2px;
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      .nytslm_li_updated {
      color: #777;
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      #masthead-bar-one {
      display: none;
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      .electionNavbar__logoSvg {
      width: 80px;
      align-self: center;
      display: flex;
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      @media(min-width: 600px) {
      .electionNavbar__logoSvg {
      width: 100px;
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      .nytslm_notification {
      border-left: 1px solid #ccc;
      font-family: nyt-franklin, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;
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      .nytslm_notification_label {
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      text-transform: uppercase;
      font-weight: 700;
      font-size: 0.6875rem;
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      .nytslm_notification_link {
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      .nytslm_notification_headline {
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      .nytslm_notification_image_wrapper {
      position: relative;
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      flex-shrink: 0;
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      .nytslm_notification_image {
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      .nytslm_notification_image_live_bug {
      position: absolute;
      text-transform: uppercase;
      bottom: 7px;
      left: 2px;

      font-size: 0.5rem;
      background-color: #d0021b;
      color: white;
      border-radius: 3px;
      padding: 4px 4px 2px 4px;
      font-weight: 700;
      margin-right: 2px;
      letter-spacing: 0.03rem;
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      /* No hover state on in app */
      .Hybrid .nytslm_li a:hover,
      .Hybrid .nytslm_li_loud a:hover {
      border-bottom: none;
      padding-bottom: 0;
      }

      .Hybrid #TOP_BANNER_REGION {
      display: none;
      }

      .nytslm_st0 {
      fill: #f4564a;
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      .nytslm_st1 {
      fill: #ffffff;
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      .nytslm_st2 {
      fill: #2b8ad8;
      }

      Electoral College Results

      Election Disinformation

      Full Results

      Biden Transition Updates

      “),e+=””+b+””,e+=””,d&&(e+=””,e+=””,e+=”Live”,e+=””),e+=””,e}function getVariant(){var a=window.NYTD&&window.NYTD.Abra&&window.NYTD.Abra.getAbraSync&&window.NYTD.Abra.getAbraSync(“STYLN_elections_notifications”);// Only actually have control situation in prd and stg
      return[“www.nytimes.com”,”www.stg.nytimes.com”].includes(window.location.hostname)||(a=”STYLN_elections_notifications”),a||”0_control”}function reportData(){if(window.dataLayer){var a;try{a=dataLayer.find(function(a){return!!a.user}).user}catch(a){}var b={abtest:{test:”styln-elections-notifications”,variant:getVariant()},module:{name:”styln-elections-notifications”,label:getVariant(),region:”TOP_BANNER”},user:a};window.dataLayer.push(Object.assign({},b,{event:”ab-alloc”})),window.dataLayer.push(Object.assign({},b,{event:”ab-expose”})),window.dataLayer.push(Object.assign({},b,{event:”impression”}))}}function insertNotification(a,b){// Bail here if the user is in control
      if(reportData(),”0_control”!==getVariant()){// Remove menu bar items or previous notification
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      if(currentNotificationContents!==a.text&&window.localStorage.getItem(“stylnelecs”)!==a.timestamp)// Do not show if user has interacted with this link
      // if (Cookie.get(‘stylnelecs’) === data.timestamp) return;
      {expireLocalStorage(“stylnelecs”),currentNotificationContents=a.text;// Construct URL for tracking
      var b=a.link.split(“#”),c=b[0]+”?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-elections-notifications&variant=1_election_notifications&region=TOP_BANNER&context=Menu#”+b[1],d=formatNotification(c,a.text,a.kicker,a.image);insertNotification(d,function(){var b=document.querySelector(“.nytslm_notification_link”);return b?void(b.onclick=function(){window.localStorage.setItem(“stylnelecs”,a.timestamp)}):null})}})}(function(){navigator.userAgent.includes(“nytios”)||navigator.userAgent.includes(“nyt_android”)||window.stylnelecsHasLoaded||(// setInterval(getUpdate, 5000);
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