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      Indian Americans Rapidly Climbing Political Ranks

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      In 2013, the House of Representatives had a single Indian American member. Fewer than 10 Indian Americans were serving in state legislatures. None had been elected to the Senate. None had run for president. Despite being one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States, Americans of Indian descent were barely represented in politics.Ten years later, the Congress sworn in last month includes five Indian Americans. Nearly 50 are in state legislatures. The vice president is Indian American. Nikki Haley’s campaign announcement this month makes 2024 the third consecutive cycle in which an Indian American has run for president, and Vivek Ramaswamy’s newly announced candidacy makes it the first cycle with two.In parts of the government, “we’ve gone literally from having no one to getting close to parity,” said Neil Makhija, the executive director of Impact, an Indian American advocacy group.Most Indian American voters are Democrats, and it is an open question how much of their support Ms. Haley might muster. In the past, when Indian Americans have run as Republicans, they have rarely talked much about their family histories, but Ms. Haley is emphasizing her background.Activists, analysts and current and former elected officials, including four of the five Indian Americans in Congress, described an array of forces that have bolstered the political influence of Indian Americans.Vice President Kamala Harris was first elected to the Senate in 2016, a watershed year for Indian Americans in federal office.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesIndians did not begin moving to the United States in large numbers until after a landmark 1965 immigration law. But a range of factors, such as the relative wealth of Indian immigrants and high education levels, have propelled a rapid political ascent for the second and third generations.Advocacy groups — including Impact and the AAPI Victory Fund — have mobilized to recruit and support them, and to direct politicians’ attention to the electoral heft of Indian Americans, whose populations in states including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Texas are large enough to help sway local, state and federal races.“It’s really all working in tandem,” said Raj Goyle, a former state lawmaker in Kansas who co-founded Impact. “There’s a natural trend, society is more accepting, and there is deliberate political strategy to make it happen.”When Mr. Goyle ran for the Kansas House in 2006 as a Democrat against a Republican incumbent, he was told that the incumbent’s reaction to learning she had a challenger had been, “Who is Rod Doyle?”Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.In New York: The state almost single-handedly cost Democrats their House majority in the midterms. Now, a leading Democratic group is hoping New York can deliver the party back to power.Blue-Collar Struggles: A new report from Democratic strategists found that the economy was a bigger problem than cultural issues for the party in the industrial Midwest. It also found hopeful signs for Democrats.Black Mayors: The Black mayors of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston have banded together as they confront violent crime, homelessness and other similar challenges.Wisconsin Supreme Court: Democratic turnout was high in the primary for the swing seat on the court, ahead of a general election that will decide the future of abortion rights and gerrymandered maps in the state.“It was inconceivable that someone named Raj Goyle — let alone Rajeev Goyle — would run for office in Wichita,” he said. Today, “the average voter’s a lot more familiar with an Indian American face on TV, in their examining room, in their classroom, at their university, leading their company.”In retrospect, the watershed appears to have been 2016, just after then-Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana became the first Indian American to run for president.Representative Pramila Jayapal speaking last year at a rally for Senator Raphael Warnock alongside two fellow representatives, Grace Meng and Raja Krishnamoorthi.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThat was also the year Representatives Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Ro Khanna of California and Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois were elected, bringing the number of Indian Americans in the House from one — Representative Ami Bera of California, elected in 2012 — to four. It was also the year Kamala Harris became the first Indian American elected to the Senate.Since then, the number in state legislatures has more than tripled. This January, the four House members — who call themselves the Samosa Caucus — were joined by Representative Shri Thanedar of Michigan.Political scientists have long found that representation begets representation, and that appears to have been true here.“Within the Indian American community, political involvement wasn’t really a high priority, because I think people were much more focused on establishing themselves economically and supporting their community endeavors,” said Mr. Krishnamoorthi, the Illinois congressman. “I think that once they started seeing people like us getting elected and seeing why it mattered, then political involvement became a part of their civic hygiene.”Notably, the increase in Indian American representation is not centered on districts where Indian Americans are a majority. Ms. Jayapal represents a Seattle-based district that is mostly white. Mr. Thanedar represents a district in and around Detroit, a majority-Black city, and defeated eight Black candidates in a Democratic primary last year.“This is quite a different kind of phenomenon than what we often are seeing from Latino and Black representation,” said Sara Sadhwani, an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College in Southern California and a senior researcher at AAPI Data, a group that provides information about Asian Americans. “It means they’re pulling a coalition of support behind them.”She and Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside, and the founder of AAPI Data, pointed to characteristics of Indian American communities that may have eased their movement into politics.Immigrants from India are often highly educated and, because of the legacy of British colonization, often speak English, “which lowers barriers to civic engagement,” Professor Ramakrishnan said.India is also a democracy, which Professor Ramakrishnan’s research has shown means Indian Americans are more likely to engage in the American democratic system than immigrants from autocratic countries.By and large, Indian Americans have been elected on the Democratic side of the aisle. All five Indian Americans in Congress, and almost all state legislators, are Democrats. Ms. Haley’s candidacy could be a case study in whether an embrace of Indian immigrant heritage can resonate among Republicans, too.Before Ms. Haley, the most prominent Indian American to seek office as a Republican was Mr. Jindal, who made a point of discussing his background as little as possible during his presidential run.“My dad and mom told my brother and me that we came to America to be Americans, not Indian Americans,” Mr. Jindal said in a speech in 2015. Representative Ro Khanna of California said young, highly educated Indian Americans were likely to be turned off by Republican stances on abortion and guns.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMr. Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire entrepreneur, author and “anti-woke” activist, has taken a similar tack so far, but Ms. Haley has not. Since her time as governor of South Carolina, she has repeatedly invoked her life experience as the daughter of a man who wore a turban and a woman who wore a sari. In the first line of her campaign announcement video, over images of her hometown, Bamberg, S.C., she told voters: “The railroad tracks divided the town by race. I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Not Black, not white. I was different.”Mr. Bera, the California congressman, called that “smart politics,” saying Ms. Haley seemed to be tapping into a desire for upward mobility among immigrant communities.It’s an approach Democrats have taken for some time.“I ran as an immigrant, South Asian American woman,” Ms. Jayapal said of her first campaign. “I really ran on my story, I ran on my experience, and even though I represent a district that is largely white, I think that that story is a big part of the reason that people elected me.”But whether Republican voters are interested is an open question, given the party’s criticism of discussions of race and ethnicity as “identity politics.”Vikram Mansharamani, a New Hampshire Republican who ran for Senate last year and recently hosted an event for Ms. Haley, said that Ms. Haley’s life story — being a child of working-class immigrants whose parents could never have imagined her success — reminded him of his own, and that this drew him to her. But he didn’t see representation as a goal to strive for.“Insofar as identity impacts experience, it’s relevant, but I would never lead with identity,” he said. Harmeet Dhillon, a former co-chair of the election-denying group Lawyers for Trump and a Republican National Committee member who recently lost a bruising battle to lead the committee, emphasized that Ms. Haley would be running on her track record as a popular governor of her home state and member of the Trump administration. “I think most Republican voters are not motivated by race or gender,” she said. Although Ms. Dhillon and her parents immigrated from India, she said she did not identify as Indian American.Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana receives applause from Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina at the Heritage Action Presidential Candidate Forum in fall 2015 in Greenville, S.C.Sean Rayford/Getty ImagesIndian American voters are overwhelmingly Democratic: 74 percent voted for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the 2020 presidential race, more than voters of other Asian backgrounds, according to a survey by AAPI Data, APIAVote and Asian Americans Advancing Justice. In primaries, that means fewer Indian American voters for Republicans to draw on. In general elections, it makes it harder for Republicans to tap into a base excited to promote its own representation.In a 2020 study, nearly 60 percent of Indian Americans did say they would be open to voting for an Indian American candidate “regardless of their party affiliation.”“Indian Americans really want to see more Indian Americans elected to office, and in the survey that we conducted, that was true even if it meant someone from another party,” said Professor Sadhwani, one of the 2020 study’s authors. “My sense is that there will be a lot of excitement amongst Indian Americans to see Nikki Haley stepping into this role.”But that willingness is not absolute — particularly if, to compete with former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Ms. Haley adopts more of their anti-immigration rhetoric.Experts and politicians said support for an easier immigration process, and opposition to nativism and xenophobia, were major factors in Indian Americans’ political preferences. Mr. Makhija said climate change and other scientific issues resonated, too.Raman Dhillon, chief executive of the North American Punjabi Trucking Association, said his interest in Ms. Haley had been piqued by the fact that her family is from the same city he is, in the northern Indian state of Punjab, where a significant portion of truckers in Canada and the United States trace their roots.But he had more important questions for politicians than ones about shared heritage: How will the government address a shortage of big-rig parking along Highway 99, a main artery through California’s agricultural heartland? What policies will improve driver retention?Ironically, the very increase in representation that Ms. Haley is part of could make her ethnicity less compelling to voters not convinced by her policies.“I do think that the more we have diversity, the more the actual ideological views will be paramount,” Ms. Jayapal said. “Once we’re not sort of wowed by the fact that there’s an Indian American woman running for whatever office it is, I think we’ll be able to focus more on the actual ideas. And that should be the way it is.” More

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      The Forces Tearing Us Apart Aren’t Quite What They Seem

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      A toxic combination of racial resentment and the sharp regional disparity in economic growth between urban and rural America is driving the class upheaval in American partisanship, with the Republican Party dominant in working class House districts and the Democratic Party winning a decisive majority of upscale House seats.Studies from across the left-right spectrum reveal these and other patterns: a nation politically divided by levels of diversity; the emergence of an ideologically consistent liberal Democratic Party matching the consistent conservatism of the Republican Party, for the first time in recent history; and a striking discrepancy in the median household income of white majority House districts held by Democrats and Republicans.Four scholars and political analysts have produced these studies: Michael Podhorzer, former political director of the AFL-CIO, in “The Congressional Class Reversal,” “Socioeconomic Polarization” and “Education Polarization”; Oscar Pocasangre and Lee Drutman, of New America, in “Understanding the Partisan Divide: How Demographics and Policy Views Shape Party Coalitions”; and Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory, in “Both White and Nonwhite Democrats are Moving Left.”Podhorzer’s analyses produce provocative conclusions.“Throughout the first half of the 20th century,” he writes in his class reversal essay, “Democrats were solidly the party of the bottom of the income distribution and Republicans were solidly the party of the top half of the income distribution.” In 1958, Podhorzer points out, “more than half of the members of the Democratic caucus represented the two least affluent quintiles of districts. Today, that is nearly the case for members of the Republican caucus.”The result? “In terms of income,” Podhorzer writes. “the respective caucuses have become mirror images of each other and of who they were from Reconstruction into the 1960s.”The shift is especially glaring when looking at majority-white congressional districts:From 1994 through 2008, Democrats did about equally well with each income group. But, beginning with the 2010 election, Democrats began doing much better with the top two quintiles and much worse with the bottom two quintiles. In 2020, the gap between the top two and the bottom two quintiles was 50 points. Since 2016, Democrats have been doing worse than average with the middle quintile as well.The income shift coincided with a deepening of the urban-rural partisan schism.“As recently as 2008,” Podhorzer writes, “40 percent of the Democratic caucus represented either rural or sparse suburban districts, and about a fifth of the Republican caucus represented majority-minority, urban or dense suburban districts. Now, the caucuses are sorted nearly perfectly.”As if that were not enough, divergent economic trends are compounding the urban-rural split.In his socioeconomic polarization essay, Podhorzer shows how median household income in white majority districts has changed.From 1996 to 2008, in majority white districts, there was virtually no difference in household income between districts represented by Republicans and Democrats. Since then, the two have diverged sharply, with median household income rising to $80,725 in 2020 in majority white districts represented by Democrats, well above the $62,163 in districts represented by Republicans.Podhorzer ranks congressional districts on five measures:1) Districts in the lowest or second lowest quintile (the bottom 40 percent) of both income and education; 2) districts in the lowest or second lowest quintile of income but in the middle quintile or better for education; 3) districts that are not in the other four measures; 4) districts that are either in the fourth quintile on both dimensions or are in the fourth for one and the fifth for the other; and 5) districts that are in the fifth quintile for both dimensions.Using this classification system, how have majority white districts changed over the past three decades?“For the entire period from 1996 through 2008,” Podhorzer writes,none of the white socioeconomic groups was more than 10 points more or less than average, although we can see the highest socioeconomic group trending more Democratic through that period. But everything changed dramatically after 2008, as the two highest socioeconomic groups rapidly became more Democratic while the lowest socioeconomic group became much less Democratic.In 1996, Democrats represented 30 percent of the majority white districts in the most educated and most affluent category; by 2020, they represented 86 percent. At the other end, in 1996, Democrats represented 38 and 42 percent of the districts in the bottom two categories; by 2020, those percentages fell to 12 and 18 percent.In examining these trends, political analysts have cited a growing educational divide, with better educated — and thus more affluent — white voters moving in a liberal Democratic direction, while whites without college have moved toward the right.Podhorzer does not dispute the existence of this trend, but argues strenuously that limiting the analysis to education levels masks the true driving force: racial tolerance and racial resentment. “This factor, racial resentment,” Podhorzer writes in the education polarization essay, “does a much, much better job of explaining our current political divisions than education polarization.”In support of his argument, Podhorzer provides data showing that from 2000 to 2020, the Democratic margin among whites with and without college degrees who score high on racial resentment scales has fallen from minus 26 percent to minus 62 percent for racially resentful non-college whites and from minus 14 percent to minus 53 percent among racially resentful college- educated whites.At the same time, the Democratic margin rose from plus 12 to 70 percent over those twenty years among non-college whites low in racial resentment; and from 50 to 82 percent among college-educated whites low in racial resentment.In other words, in contradiction to the education divide thesis, non-college whites who are not racially resentful have become more Democratic, while college-educated whites who are racially resentful have become more Republican, in contradiction to the education divide thesis.Podhorzer makes the case that “the unequal distribution of recovery after the economy crashed in 2008 has been profoundly overlooked,” interacting with and compounding divisions based on racial attitudes:Educational attainment was among the important characteristics associated with those increasingly prosperous places. Add to that mix, first, the election of a Black president, which sparked a backlash movement of grievance in those places left behind in the recovery, and, second, the election of a racist president, Donald Trump — who stoked those grievances. We are suffering from a polarization which provides an even more comprehensive explanation than the urban-rural divide.Changing racial attitudes are also a crucial element in Abramowitz’s analysis, “Both White and Nonwhite Democrats are Moving Left,” in which he argues that “Democrats are now as ideologically cohesive as Republicans, which is a big change from a decade ago, when Republicans were significantly more cohesive than Democrats.”Damon Winter/The New York TimesIn 1972, on a 1 to 7 scale used by American National Election Studies, Abramowitz writes,Supporters of the two parties were separated by an average of one unit. The mean score for Democratic voters was 3.7, just slightly to the left of center, while the mean score for Republican voters was 4.7, to the right. By 2020, the distance between supporters of the two parties had increased to an average of 2.6 units. The mean score for Democratic voters was 2.8 while the mean score for Republican voters was 5.5.The ideological gulf between Democrats and Republicans reached its highest point in 2020, Abramowitz observes, “since the ANES started asking the ideological identification question.”While the movement to the right among Republican voters has been relatively constant over this period, the Democratic shift in an increasingly liberal direction has been more recent and more rapid.“The divide between supporters of the two parties has increased considerably since 2012 and most of this increase was due to a sharp leftward shift among Democratic voters,” Abramowitz writes. “Between 2012 and 2020, the mean score for Democratic voters went from 3.3 to 2.9 while the mean score for Republican voters went from 5.4 to 5.5.”By far the most important shift to the left among Democrats, according to Abramowitz, was on the question “Should federal spending on aid to Blacks be increased, decreased or kept about the same?” From 2012 to 2020, the percentage of Democrats saying “increased” more than doubled, from 31.3 to 72.2 percent. The surge was higher among white Democrats, at 47.5 points, (from 24.6 to 72.1 percent), than among nonwhite Democrats, at 31.2 points, from 41.1 to 72.3 percent.The growing ideological congruence among Democrats has significant consequences for the strength of the party on Election Day. Abramowitz notes that “For many years, white Democrats have lagged behind nonwhite Democrats in loyalty to Democratic presidential candidates. In 2020, however, this gap almost disappeared with white Democratic identifiers almost as loyal as nonwhite Democratic identifiers.”The increase in loyalty among white Democratic identifiers, he continues, “is due largely to their increased liberalism because defections” to the right “among white Democrats”have been heavily concentrated among those with relatively conservative ideological orientations. This increased loyalty has also been apparent in other types of elections, including those for U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. In 2022, according to data from the American National Election Studies Pilot Survey, 96 percent of Democratic identifiers, including leaning independents, voted for Democratic candidates for U.S. House and U.S. Senate.In their paper, “Understanding the Partisan Divide,” Pocasangre and Drutman of New America focus on race and ethnicity from the vantage point of an analysis of voting patterns based on the level of diversity in a district or community.“Republican districts,” they write,are some of the least ethnically diverse districts. But voters within these districts have diverse policy views, particularly on economic issues. Democratic districts are some of the most ethnically diverse districts. But voters within these districts are mostly in agreement over their views of both social and economic issues.Pocasangre and Drutman’s study reinforces the widespread finding “That Republican districts are predominantly white and, for the most part, less affluent than the national average. In contrast, Democratic districts are less white than the average but tend to be more affluent than average.”Pocasangre and Drutman find that the household income differences between Democratic and Republican-held seats continues to widen. From 2020 to 2022, the income in Democratic districts rose from $95,000 to $100,000 while in Republican districts it grew from $77,000 to $80,000, so that the Democratic advantage rose from $18,000 to $20,000 in just two years.Republican districts, the two authors continue, are “conservative on both social and economic issues, with very few districts below the national average on either dimension.” Democratic districts, in contrast, areprogressive on both policy domains, but have quite a few districts that fall above the average on either the social or economic dimension. In particular, of the 229 Democratic districts in 2020, 14 percent were more conservative than the national average on social issues and 19 percent were more conservative than the national average on economic issues.On average, competitive districts tilt Republican, according to the authors:Very few competitive districts in 2020 were found on the progressive quadrants of social and economic issues. Instead, of the 27 competitive districts in 2020, 70 percent were more conservative than the national average on economic issues and 59 percent were more conservative than the national average on social issues.These battleground districtslean toward the progressive side when it comes to gun control, but they lean toward the conservative side on all the other social issues. Their views on structural discrimination — an index that captures responses to questions of whether Black people just need to try harder to get ahead and whether discrimination keeps them back — are the most conservative, followed by views toward abortion.In addition, a majority of competitive districts, 57 percent, are in Republican-leaning rural-suburban communities, along with another 13 percent in purely rural areas. Democratic districts, in contrast, are 17 percent in purely urban areas and 52 percent in urban-suburban communities, with 31 percent in rural-suburban or purely rural areas.I asked Pocasangre about this tilt, and he emailed back:For now, most swing districts go for Republicans. The challenge for Democrats right now is that most of these swing districts are in suburbs which demographically and ideologically look more like rural areas where Republicans have their strongholds. So, Democrats do face an uphill battle when trying to make inroads in these districts.But, Pocasangre continued, “majorities in Congress are so slim that control of the House could switch based on idiosyncratic factors, like exceptionally bad candidates on the other side, scandals, changes in turnout, etc. Democrats need to get lucky in the suburbs, but for Republicans, they are theirs to lose.”Pocasangre and Drutman classified districts as Democratic, Republican, or competitive, based on the ratings of the Cook Political Report in the 2020 and 2022 elections: “Competitive districts are those classified as toss ups for each cycle while the partisan districts are those rated as solid, likely, or lean Democratic or Republican.”The Cook Report analysis of 2024 House races lists 20 tossup seats, 11 held by Democrats, 9 by Republicans, one of which is held by the serial fabulist George Santos, whose threatened New York seat is classified as “lean Democratic.” Eight of the 11 Democratic toss-ups are in three states, four in North Carolina and two each in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Four of the nine Republican tossups are in New York, along with two in Arizona.The changing composition of both Democratic and Republican electorates and the demographics of the districts they represent is one of the reasons that governing has become so difficult. One result of the changing composition of the parties has been a shift in focus to social and cultural issues. These are issues that government is often not well equipped to address, but that propel political competition and escalate partisan hostility.Perhaps most important, however, is that there now is no economic cohesion holding either party together. Instead, both have conflicting wings. For the Republicans it’s a pro-business elite combined with a working class, largely white, often racially resentful base; for the Democrats, it’s a party dependent on the support of disproportionately low-income minorities, combined with a largely white, college-educated elite.One might question why all these cultural and social issues have come so much to the fore and what it might take for the dam to give.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Education Issues Vault to Top of the G.O.P.’s Presidential Race

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      Donald Trump and possible rivals, like Gov. Ron DeSantis, are making appeals to conservative voters on race and gender issues, but such messages had a mixed record in November’s midterm elections.With a presidential primary starting to stir, Republicans are returning with force to the education debates that mobilized their staunchest voters during the pandemic and set off a wave of conservative activism around how schools teach about racism in American history and tolerate gender fluidity.The messaging casts Republicans as defenders of parents who feel that schools have run amok with “wokeness.” Its loudest champion has been Gov. Ron DeSantis, who last week scored an apparent victory attacking the College Board’s curriculum on African American studies. Former President Donald J. Trump has sought to catch up with even hotter language, recently threatening “severe consequences” for educators who “suggest to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body.”Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor, who has used Twitter to preview her planned presidential campaign announcement this month, recently tweeted “CRT is un-American,” referring to critical race theory.Yet, in its appeal to voters, culture-war messaging concerning education has a decidedly mixed track record. While some Republicans believe that the issue can win over independents, especially suburban women, the 2022 midterms showed that attacks on school curriculums — specifically on critical race theory and so-called gender ideology — largely were a dud in the general election.While Mr. DeSantis won re-election handily, many other Republican candidates for governor who raised attacks on schools — against drag queen story hours, for example, or books that examine white privilege — went down in defeat, including in Kansas, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin.Democratic strategists, pointing to the midterm results and to polling, said voters viewed cultural issues in education as far less important than school funding, teacher shortages and school safety.Even the Republican National Committee advised candidates last year to appeal to swing voters by speaking broadly about parental control and quality schools, not critical race theory, the idea that racism is baked into American institutions.Still, Mr. Trump, the only declared Republican presidential candidate so far, and potential rivals, are putting cultural fights at the center of their education agendas. Strategists say the push is motivated by evidence that the issues have the power to elicit strong emotions in parents and at least some potential to cut across partisan lines.In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s victory in 2021 on a “parents’ rights” platform awakened Republicans to the political potency of education with swing voters. Mr. Youngkin, who remains popular in his state, began an investigation last month of whether Virginia high schools delayed telling some students that they had earned merit awards, which he has called “a maniacal focus” on equal outcomes.Mr. DeSantis, too, has framed his opposition to progressive values as an attempt to give parents control over what their children are taught.The Run-Up to the 2024 ElectionThe jockeying for the next presidential race is already underway.Taking Aim at Trump: The Koch brothers’ donor network is preparing to get involved in the Republican primaries, with the aim of turning “the page on the past”  — a thinly veiled rebuke of Donald J. Trump.Trump’s Support: Is Mr. Trump the front-runner to win the Republican nomination? Or is he an underdog against Ron DeSantis? The polls are divided, but higher-quality surveys point to an answer.Falling in Line: With the vulnerabilities of Mr. Trump’s campaign becoming evident, the bickering among Democrats about President Biden’s potential bid for re-election has subsided.Democrats’ Primary Calendar: Upending decades of political tradition, members of the Democratic National Committee voted to approve a sweeping overhaul of the party’s primary process.Last year, he signed the Parental Rights in Education Act, banning instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in early elementary grades.Democrats decried that and other education policies from the governor as censorship and as attacks on the civil rights of gay and transgender people. Critics called the Florida law “Don’t Say Gay.”Polling has shown strong support for a ban on L.G.B.T.Q. topics in elementary school. In a New York Times/Siena College poll last year, 70 percent of registered voters nationally opposed instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary grades.“The culture war issues are most potent among Republican primary voters, but that doesn’t mean that an education message can’t be effective with independent voters or the electorate as a whole,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, who worked for Mr. DeSantis during his first governor’s race in 2018.Gov. Glenn Youngkin made education during the pandemic a key part of his winning platform in blue Virginia.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis’s approach to education is a far stretch from traditional issues that Republicans used to line up behind, such as charter schools and merit pay for teachers who raise test scores. But it has had an impact.Last week, the College Board purged its Advanced Placement course on African American Studies after the DeSantis administration banned a pilot version, citing readings on queer theory and reparations for slavery. The College Board said the changes were not a bow to political pressure, and had been decided in December.Mr. DeSantis next rolled out an initiative to end diversity and equity programs in universities, to require courses in Western civilization and to weaken professors’ tenure protections.Mr. DeSantis’s communications staff did not respond to a request for comment.The current era of Republican culture-driven attacks on education began in 2020 during the pandemic with a tandem crusade against mask mandates in schools and the supposed influence of critical race theory.Yet, the political power of opposition to the critical race theory — which became a grab bag for conservative complaints about the teaching of American history and racial inequality — largely petered out by last year’s midterm general elections. A September polling memo by the Republican National Committee warned candidates that “focusing on C.R.T. and masks excites the G.O.P. base, but parental rights and quality education drive independents.”Of $9.3 million spent on campaign ads that mentioned critical race theory in 2022, in nearly 50 races for House, Senate and governor, almost all was spent during the primaries, according to an analysis by AdImpact. The issue was raised in only eight general election ads. The theme of “parents’ rights,” invoked in ads worth $9.8 million in 19 races, proved a more popular general election topic; it was used in 14 of those races.Conservative groups in 2022 also supported hundreds of candidates in local school board races with limited success. In nearly 1,800 races nationwide, conservative school board candidates who opposed discussions of race or gender in classrooms, or who opposed pandemic responses such as mask requirements, won just 30 percent of races, according to Ballotpedia, a site that tracks U.S. elections.“The Republicans do a great job of creating issues that aren’t issues,” said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster who has worked for President Biden. He predicted that, in 2024, education issues that are now being raised by potential Republican presidential candidates would figure in the primary but would turn off voters in the general election.“The big lesson of 2022 is that Republicans didn’t have an economic agenda,” Mr. Anzalone said. “All they talked about was incredibly extreme positions, like on abortion and guns. Will they also talk about only extreme positions on these other things?”Kristin Davison, a political adviser to Mr. Youngkin, said that his 2021 campaign in blue Virginia was successful in part because it delivered nuanced and tailored messages on education. The campaign micro-targeted messages to each segment, including voters most interested in school choice, those opposed to critical race theory and those concerned about safety, she said.The strategy aimed to reverse Democrats’ historical advantage on which party voters trust on education.“Governor Youngkin started a movement in Virginia, standing with parents and going on offense on education,” she said.Republicans point to a May 2022 survey for the American Federation of Teachers union showing that voters in battleground states had slightly more confidence in Republicans than in Democrats, 39 percent to 38 percent, to handle education issues.Geoff Garin, whose firm, Hart Research, conducted that poll, said later surveys showed that Democrats had regained the advantage on education, a gain he attributed to Republicans’ focus on race being out of sync with parents.In a December survey by Hart for the teachers’ union, voters who were asked for the most important problems facing schools ranked teacher shortages and inadequate funding at the top. Critical race theory and “students being shamed over issues of race and racism” were near the bottom.“In addition to focusing on things that voters see as the wrong priorities, I expect that Republicans will deepen their problems with suburban voters by identifying so closely with book banning and whitewashing the treatment of race in schools and society,” Mr. Garin said.As Mr. DeSantis rolled out his latest plans last week to push Florida public universities to the right, he called universities’ diversity statements akin to “making people take a political oath.”Mr. DeSantis is believed to be weighing a presidential bid, but so far Donald Trump is the only declared candidate.USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters ConnectDays earlier, Mr. Trump presented an education agenda of his own in a scripted 4-minute, 33-second video. It attacked many of the same targets that have made Mr. DeSantis both an intensely disliked figure to national Democrats and a star of Republicans, many of them once Trump supporters.After spending the past two years focused on the lie of a stolen 2020 election, Mr. Trump is playing catch-up, starting with education proposals.In his video, the former president called to cut school funding for critical race theory as well as “inappropriate racial, sexual or political content.”He also proposed measures that seemed to echo those of Mr. Youngkin, including putting “parents back in charge” and investigating school districts for “race-based discrimination,” singling out “discrimination against Asian Americans.”Francis Rooney, a former Republican congressman from Florida and a Trump critic, said that the former president’s education proposals were an effort to become relevant on issues that drive conservative voters.“I think he’s becoming Mr. Me-Too,” he said of the former president. More

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      Crime Concerns Drove Asian Americans Away From New York Democrats

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      Worries about public safety, especially attacks against Asian Americans, caused some in the once-reliably Democratic bloc to vote Republican last year.Asian Americans have typically formed a crucial and reliable voting bloc for Democrats in recent years, helping the party maintain its political dominance in liberal states like New York.But Republicans shattered that presumption in November when they came within striking distance of winning the governor’s race in New York for the first time in 15 years, buoyed in part by a surge of support among Asian American voters in southern Brooklyn and eastern Queens.Now, Democrats are trying to determine how they can stem — and, if possible, reverse — the growing tide of Asian American voters drifting away from the party amid a feeling that their concerns are being overlooked.Interviews with more than 20 voters of Asian descent, many of them Chinese Americans who had historically voted for Democrats but did not in 2022, found that many went with the Republican candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin, even if begrudgingly, largely because of concerns about crime.One lifelong Democrat from Queens, Karen Wang, 48, who is Chinese American, said she had never felt as unsafe as she did these days. “Being Asian, I felt I had a bigger target on my back,” she said.“My vote,” she added, “was purely a message to Democrats: Don’t take my vote for granted.”Besides crime, Asian American voters expressed concern over a proposal by former Mayor Bill de Blasio to change the admissions process for the city’s specialized high schools.Democratic leaders, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, have acknowledged their party’s failure to offer an effective message about public safety to counter Republicans’ tough-on-crime platform, which resonated not just with Asian Americans, but with a constellation of voters statewide.In Flushing, Queens, home to one of New York City’s most vibrant Chinatowns, homespun leaflets posted on walls in English and Chinese encouraged passers-by to “Vote for Republicans” before the November election, blaming Democrats for illegal immigration and a rise in crime.One flier portrayed Ms. Hochul as anti-police and sought to link her to the death of Christina Yuna Lee, who was fatally stabbed more than 40 times by a homeless man inside her apartment in Manhattan’s Chinatown last February.Over Zoom, a group of 13 Chinese American friends, most of them retired union workers, met regularly to discuss the election before casting their ballots. A mix of Republicans, Democrats and political independents, they all voted for Mr. Zeldin.Gov. Kathy Hochul and other leading New York Democrats have acknowledged their party’s failure to offer an effective message about public safety.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesAlthough Mr. Zeldin lost, his support among Asian American voters helped lift other Republican candidates to surprise victories in down-ballot legislative races.In one of the southern Brooklyn districts with a majority of Asian American voters, Peter J. Abbate Jr., a 36-year Democratic incumbent, lost to Lester Chang, the first Asian American Republican to enter the State Legislature.Mr. Chang’s entrance, however, was clouded by questions about his legal residency, prompting the ruling Assembly Democrats to consider trying to expel him. They ultimately decided not to seek his expulsion, with one lawmaker, Assemblyman Ron Kim, noting that such a move would have provoked a “strong backlash from the Asian community.”For Democrats, repairing ties with Asian American voters, who account for about 15 percent of New York City’s population and make up the state’s fastest-growing ethnic group, may be a difficult yet critical challenge given the significant role such voters are poised to play in future elections.State Senator John Liu, a Queens Democrat, said that Mr. Zeldin’s campaign message on the crime issue “simply resonated better,” and that Democrats had to improve the way they communicated with Asian Americans, particularly on education policy.“Democrats can begin by understanding the Asian American perspective more deeply,” said Mr. Liu, who was born in Taiwan. “The broader issue is that many of the social justice issues in this country are still viewed from a Black and white lens, and Asian Americans are simply undetected by that lens and therefore feel completely marginalized.”Republicans performed well in parts of New York City with the largest Asian American populations, drawing voters who said they were concerned primarily with public safety, especially amid a spate of high-profile hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.In Assembly District 49 in Brooklyn, for example, which includes portions of Sunset Park and Dyker Heights, and is majority Asian, Mr. Zeldin won 61 percent of the vote, even though it appears white voters turned out to vote in higher numbers. Mr. Zeldin won by similar margins in a nearby Assembly district that is heavily Chinese and includes Bensonhurst and Gravesend.In Queens, Mr. Zeldin managed to obtain 51 percent of the vote in Assembly District 40, which includes Flushing and is about 70 percent Asian: mostly Chinese and Korean immigrants.Support for Mr. Zeldin, who came within six percentage points of beating Ms. Hochul, was palpable across those neighborhoods before Election Day, with much of the pro-Republican enthusiasm appearing to grow organically. And posts in support of Mr. Zeldin spread broadly across WeChat, a Chinese social media and messaging app widely used by Chinese Americans.Interviews with Asian American voters revealed that their discontent with the Democratic Party was, in many cases, deep-rooted and based on frustrations built over years. Many of them described becoming disillusioned with a party that they said had overlooked their support and veered too far to the left. They listed Democratic priorities related to education, criminal justice and illegal immigration as favoring other minority groups over Asian Americans, and blamed Democratic policies for a rise in certain crimes and for supporting safe injection sites.Voters traced their sense of betrayal in part to a divisive 2018 proposal by Mayor de Blasio, a Democrat, to alter the admissions process for the city’s elite high schools, several of which are dominated by Asian American students, to increase enrollment among Black and Hispanic students.The plan would have effectively reduced the number of Asian American students offered spots at the elite schools, which made some Asian Americans feel that Democrats were targeting them.Mayor Eric Adams, Mr. de Blasio’s successor, moved away from his predecessor’s plan to diversify the city’s top schools, but the effort galvanized Asian Americans politically, prompting parents to become more engaged and laying the groundwork for Republicans to make inroads among aggrieved voters. Indeed, one vocal political club that emerged from the education debate, the Asian Wave Alliance, actively campaigned for Mr. Zeldin.“Why should I support Democrats who discriminate against me?” said Lailing Yu, 59, a mother from Hong Kong whose son graduated from a specialized high school in 2018. “We see Democrats are working for the interest of African Americans and Latino communities against Asian communities.”After years as a registered Democrat, Ms. Lu switched her party registration to Republican last year and voted for Mr. Zeldin. She ticked off a litany of recent instances of street violence — including one involving a stranger who spit at her while she was taking out her trash — that she said made her feel less safe now than when she arrived in the United States 50 years ago.“I think what upset me to see Asian Americans veer right is that they were swayed by fear and fear alone,” said Representative Grace Meng, a Queens Democrat of Taiwanese descent. “It’s important that we are working with the Asian American community, but also with our leaders up and down the ballot to make sure they’re listening and responsive to our concerns, which is not just substance, but outreach, especially during campaigns.”Sam Ni at his Sunset Park computer store. He said his shift to the Republican Party was prompted by a proposal to alter the admissions process for the city’s specialized high schools. Janice Chung for The New York TimesSam Ni, a father of two high school students, began shifting to the right after the debate over high school admissions. He described the city’s diversification effort as an attempt to “punish” Asian American students.Mr. Ni said fears over subway crime had disrupted his daily life and further estranged him from the Democratic Party. His wife, he said, recently began to drive the couple’s son to school from southern Brooklyn to Upper Manhattan, forcing her to spend hours in traffic instead of working at the computer store the family owns in Sunset Park.“If I told my son to go to the subway, we will worry about it,” said Mr. Ni, 45, who was a Democrat since immigrating to the United States from China in 2001 but who switched parties and voted for President Donald J. Trump in 2020.This year, Mr. Ni decided to play an active role in getting other Asian Americans to the polls: He helped organize an effort that raised about $12,000 to print get-out-the-vote banners, fliers and bags in English and Chinese.“If you don’t vote, don’t complain,” read the signs, a slogan that also spread on WeChat and other social media platforms. The message did not explicitly urge voters to back Mr. Zeldin, whom Mr. Ni voted for, but the materials were passed out primarily at rallies for Mr. Zeldin in the city’s Chinese neighborhoods.Mr. Ni helped organize an effort that raised money to print banners and other materials in Chinese and English encouraging people to vote. Janice Chung for The New York TimesThere were also larger forces at play.A week before the election, Asian American voters in New York City received mailings that appeared to be race-based. They accused the Biden administration and left-wing officials of embracing policies related to job qualifications and college admissions that “engaged in widespread racial discrimination against white and Asian Americans.”The mailings, part of a national Republican-aligned campaign targeting Asian American voters, were distributed by America First Legal, a group founded by Stephen Miller, a former top adviser to Mr. Trump who helped craft the president’s hard-line immigration policies.Democratic officials said they believed that many Asian Americans that voted Republican tended to be East Asian, particularly Chinese voters who may be more culturally conservative. Republicans may have also found success among first-generation immigrants who may not be as attuned to the history of racial inequity that has led Democrats to enact policies that Republicans have targeted, such as reforms to New York’s bail laws.Mr. Zeldin also made a point of meeting with, and raising money from, Asian American leaders and activists. The approach helped him win — and, in some cases, run up the vote — in many districts dominated by Asian American voters and enabled him to chip into Ms. Hochul’s overwhelming support in the rest of the city.Even so, some Asian American leaders noted that Mr. Zeldin’s near singular focus on crime — his campaign framed the election in existential terms: “Vote like your life depends on it, because it does” — allowed him to run up his numbers across many voting groups, including white and suburban voters, not just Asian Americans.Mr. Zeldin at a campaign rally shortly before Election Day. His near-singular focus on the issue of crime won over many Asian American voters. Dave Sanders for The New York TimesMany Democratic officials noted Ms. Hochul’s effort to rally Asian American voters in the campaign’s closing weeks, but characterized the push as too little, too late.After the election, the governor acknowledged that Democrats had fallen short in communicating their message about public safety to Asian American voters, saying that “more could have been done to make sure that people know that this was a high priority of ours.”“Obviously, that was not successful in certain communities who were hearing other voices and seeing other messaging and seeing other advertising with a contrary message about our priorities,” Ms. Hochul said in November after signing two bills aimed at curbing hate crimes. More

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      George Santos, the Falsehoods and the Facts

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      More from our inbox:Sam Bankman-Fried’s Release on BondHarmful Stereotypes About AfricaWhy Fewer Women Become TeachersCuba’s DepopulationPhoto illustration by The New York Times; photograph by Caroline Brehman/EPA, via ShutterstockTo the Editor:Re “Santos Admits to a Long List of Falsehoods” (front page, Dec. 27):Representative-elect George Santos told The New York Post that he was “embellishing my résumé.” No. They were lies!As a constituent of the Third Congressional District, I don’t want Mr. Santos representing me. We don’t need a deadbeat liar who has not answered where the $700,000 donation that he made to his campaign came from. We need to see the paperwork. We don’t need another politician who promises to release his return after the audit.He’s worse than a joke. Have we no respect for the truth and a little integrity?Robert DetorPort Washington, N.Y.To the Editor:I am grateful to George Santos for redefining lying as a “poor choice of words.” For the past few years, I’d been confined to explaining eye-opening statements as “alternate facts.” I can finally bid farewell to Kellyanne Conway’s creativity and move on to the new standard for political opportunism without consequences.Michael EmmerBrooklynTo the Editor:Re “How Opposition Research Really Works,” by Tyson Brody (Opinion guest essay, Dec. 26), about opposition research on George Santos:After 40 years of working with my late husband, who delved into the background of dozens of high-level candidates, I do know this: It’s a serious job that requires diligent work and professional skills.The real work is in following up. It’s the legwork — hours searching paper land records, visiting residences, interviewing people — that makes the real difference. A candidate cannot simply rely on computer research or popular websites to get the job done.Once the information is found the opposition researcher works directly with reporters with whom they have developed a relationship and whom they trust. Reporters often don’t have time or resources to do all the legwork. Nor can a candidate rely on political party committees.Persistence, attention to detail, legwork, and an honest relationship with the press and professional campaign staff are often the key to winning an election.Otherwise, the voters may have the kind of buyer’s remorse that so many of Mr. Santos’s new constituents are now experiencing.Sandy CheitenNew YorkTo the Editor:Tyson Brody describes the process behind the Democrats’ failure to expose George Santos’s multiple misrepresentations about his life. He explains that “a junior researcher” documented some of the issues, which appeared “in small sections interspersed through a nearly 90-page document.”As a corporate investigator who has spent more than 30 years supervising hundreds of researchers producing thousands of reports, I always insist on executive summaries covering the key points in the report. I have, on countless occasions, repeated the admonition, “Don’t bury the lede.”Ernest BrodNew YorkThe writer is president of Brod Global Intelligence.Sam Bankman-Fried’s Release on BondSam Bankman-Fried, founder of the crypto firm FTX, leaving Federal District Court in Manhattan after being released on a $250 million bond.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Disgraced FTX Co-Founder Freed on $250 Million Bond” (Business, Dec. 23):So, Sam Bankman-Fried, the Bernie Madoff of his generation, is freed on bond less than two weeks after his arrest at a luxury apartment complex in the Bahamas. How lovely for him that his parents were willing and able to secure this bond, risking their own home — and perhaps, their reputations — in the process.It took years of vigorous advocacy for New York State to enact some form of cash bail reform for nonviolent offenders who so often languished at Rikers Island because they couldn’t raise even the minimal funds they needed to be released pending trial.It strikes me as obscene that Mr. Bankman-Fried, whose treachery and cheating have ruined so many lives, spent virtually no time in jail. Even with a firmly affixed ankle bracelet, he will clearly be living a pretty comfortable life safely ensconced in his parents’ home.One can only hope that he will eventually receive the punishment he so richly deserves.Carol NadellNew YorkHarmful Stereotypes About AfricaMauricio Lima for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Putin Wants Loyalty, and He’s Found It in Africa” (front page, Dec. 25):I was disappointed in The Times’s portrayal of Russian involvement in the Central African Republic. On what basis is the relationship between Russia and the Central African Republic characterized as one of African fealty and passive subjugation — of “master” and “vassal”?African states, and countries in the Global South more generally, continue to be inaccurately portrayed as lacking agency in how they conduct their foreign relations. We can certainly debate and inquire into the motives of the leaders of the Central African Republic in partnering with Russia. We can also debate the wisdom of this decision or how likely Russia is to be a good partner to smaller, weaker countries (just as we can question how good of a partner the West is to these same countries).However, it perpetuates harmful stereotypes to presume that the leaders and citizens of African states are merely passive recipients of the desires of foreign actors or to suggest that Western governments know what is best for them.Katherine BeallPrinceton, N.J.The writer is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University.Why Fewer Women Become TeachersCalla Kessler/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “There’s a Reason There Aren’t Enough Teachers in America. Many Reasons, Actually,” by Thomas B. Edsall (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Dec. 14):The enormous drop in the number of college students graduating with degrees in education (from 176,307 in 1970-71 to 104,008 in 2010-11) coincides perfectly with the rise of the feminist movement, which gave women a far greater range of employment opportunities than earlier, when teacher, nurse and secretary were the predominant jobs for female college graduates.Without denigrating the many excellent K-12 teachers, I think it is safe to say that many women who would have been teachers a generation earlier chose different career paths with higher salaries and, often, prestige.Ellen T. BrownSt. Paul, Minn.Cuba’s DepopulationEliana Aponte Tobar for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Largest Exodus Imperils Future of Ailing Cuba” (front page, Dec. 11):Cuba has had many mass migrations since 1959. In fact, the exodus has never stopped, only waxed and waned as the government alternatively cracked down on or encouraged emigration, or as the means to escape became more, or less, easy.In the nearly 64 years of communist rule, one of every six Cubans has left the island. More than 10,000 have drowned or disappeared in the Florida Straits, trying to reach the freedom of the U.S. Scores have been murdered by the regime’s security forces trying to escape.This depopulation is not because of U.S. sanctions; it is because of political repression and Marxist economics. Fidel Castro himself, while alive and the sole ruler, ridiculed the embargo, because he was receiving ample economic aid from the Soviets. It was only when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 that Castro began blaming the U.S. for the problems communism had created.Otto J. ReichFalls Church, Va.The writer is the president of the Center for a Free Cuba and a former diplomat in the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations. More

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      In Georgia, a Heated Senate Race Stirs Mixed Emotions in Black Voters

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      The contest might have been a showcase of Black political power in the Deep South. But many Black voters say Herschel Walker’s turbulent campaign has marred the moment.ATLANTA — The line of voters circled around the East Point Library on a recent Thursday evening, giving Dacia Davis, a 45-year-old human resources coordinator braced against the chill, plenty of time to contemplate the historic significance of the ballot waiting for her inside.Two African American men — Herschel Walker, a Republican, and Raphael Warnock, the Democratic incumbent — are vying for a Senate seat in the Deep South, in a runoff contest, a process designed decades ago to thwart Black candidates. The winner in Tuesday’s election will serve in an institution that has been overwhelmingly white throughout its history: Nearly 2,000 people have served in the U.S. Senate, and only 11 of them have been Black.But a race that may seem like a triumph for Black political power has stirred a complicated mix of emotions for Ms. Davis and many other Black Georgians. Mr. Walker’s troubled candidacy has clouded their pride with suspicions, dismay, offense and even embarrassment.In conversations with more than two dozen Black voters across Georgia, many said they did not see Mr. Walker, who has taken a conciliatory approach to matters of race, as representing the interests of Black people. Far more than a victory for racial representation, they cast the election in terms of now-familiar political stakes: a chance to keep a Republican backed by Donald Trump from gaining power and working to reverse policies they care about.“It is a very historic moment,” said Ms. Davis, a supporter of Mr. Warnock. “But it is sort of like a bittersweet moment.” Sure, two Black men are running for Senate, she added, but many Black voters disagree with how Mr. Walker “views the nation and also other African American people.”Dacia Davis says the Senate race between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock has been “bittersweet.”Nicole Craine for The New York TimesPolls suggest Ms. Davis’s views are widely held. A CNN poll released on Friday found Mr. Walker winning just 3 percent of Black voters, who make up about one-third of Georgia’s electorate. That is less support than Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, won when he defeated Stacey Abrams in the governor’s race last month, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of Georgia voters.Those numbers do not spell the end of Mr. Walker’s bid. Mr. Warnock led Mr. Walker only narrowly among all voters in the CNN survey. A strong turnout among white Republicans across the state could lift Mr. Walker to victory. Still, Republicans had hoped Mr. Walker would make inroads with Black Georgians. Encouraged by signs that Black voters, particularly Black men, have been softening to Republican messages in recent years, the party has made attempts to speak more directly to Black voters and recruit Black candidates. Mr. Walker looked to some like the best possible shot of taking back a seat Mr. Warnock won in a stunning Democratic surge just two years ago.It became a matchup layered with meaning: Mr. Walker and Mr. Warnock both earned acclaim by succeeding in fields central to Southern Black culture. They represent what were, for the longest time, two of the few paths for Black men to gain social status and financial security in America: religion and athletics. Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon.Senator Warnock is the pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, preaching from the same pulpit Martin Luther King Jr. once occupied.In the 1980s, Mr. Walker led the University of Georgia football team to a national championship and won the Heisman Trophy before embarking on a professional football career.Mr. Walker, center, with supporters in Peachtree City, Ga., last month.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesBut skepticism of Mr. Walker — and the motives of those, including Mr. Trump, who backed his bid — seemed to override the power of football fandom, even in Georgia.What to Know About Georgia’s Senate RunoffCard 1 of 6Another runoff in Georgia. More

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      When Law Schools Snub the Rankings

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      More from our inbox:Libraries Changed Our Lives. Let’s Support Them.The Black-Jewish RelationshipChristine McVie’s MagicElection Liars, Not Deniers Vanessa Leroy for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “In Growing Movement, More Top Law Schools Will Boycott Rankings” (news article, Nov. 19):​As a law professor for more than 25 years, I applaud the recent boycott of the U.S. News & World Report rankings. The rankings serve only the periodical itself and deans adept at prioritizing favored metrics, especially test scores.More insidiously, the rankings harm students. In addition to motivating deans to award scholarships to students with the highest test scores instead of students with true financial need, and discouraging public interest work, at best the rankings provide students a one-dimensional picture.Law school is a significant investment. Especially below the Top 10, a student choosing among law schools should consider many factors, including the cultural nuances of the institution, which only old-fashioned due diligence can unearth. It breaks my heart when students, lured by rankings, later discover they could have chosen a better fit.I hope the remaining Top 10 deans quickly follow suit and embolden the top 25 law schools to call out the U.S. News rankings as the sham they truly are.Susan Pace HamillTuscaloosa, Ala.The writer is a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law.To the Editor:“In Growing Movement, More Top Law Schools Will Boycott Rankings” describes the scramble to enter the vaunted “T14” — the top 14 law schools as ranked by U.S. News.“At No. 15,” the article declares, “U.C.L.A. is tantalizingly close to the T14.” The difference between ranking 14th and 15th is presented as clear-cut and consequential, illustrating the absurdity of reducing the many facets of legal education to a single number.The article cites a study that found graduates from the T14 to have higher salaries and more “prestigious careers” — on average. Yes, the law schools in the T14 are excellent, but there is no magic to the number 14, and the U.S. News algorithm includes as much “noise” as “signal.”Moreover, the remaining 185 law schools reflect a wide range of approaches and cannot be lumped together. As the dean of an outstanding law school with strong placement in the kind of prestigious jobs the article refers to, I know that many schools provide superb student outcomes, a fact erased by the cited study and obscured by U.S. News’s opaque numbers.Prospective students miss out when they substitute reliance on U.S. News rankings for their own research into which law schools are a good fit for them, given their academic records, interests, career goals and financial situations.Matthew DillerNew YorkThe writer is dean of Fordham Law School.Libraries Changed Our Lives. Let’s Support Them. Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Thankful for Libraries,” by Charles M. Blow (column, Nov. 26):Thanks to Mr. Blow for his column about the importance of libraries in his life. His experience touched me personally.I grew up in a home lacking books. The public library was an oasis for me. Little did I know that when I later attended college and supported myself partly by working in a public library system that I would become a librarian.The recent attacks on public and school libraries are so misguided. Libraries have always done their very best to serve their communities by representing many points of view. They deserve our support.Sam SimonNyack, N.Y.To the Editor:Like many people, I have had a lifelong love affair with libraries — from the time my dad took me to our local library to get my first library card when I was 6.The librarian at my elementary school was Mrs. Moreland, mother of my good friend Stevie. She introduced me to wonderful books as a third grader that led to my becoming a reader for life.As a somewhat nerdy high school student, I would head after school to our local library, part of the Houston Public Library system, spending half my time on the children’s side of the library and the other half on the adult side. My parents never tried to restrict what I could read. When I came to New York, one of the first things I did was to get my library card.Libraries and the devoted librarians who work in them have been my friends for these many years. It pains me to read about the harassment that many librarians have had to endure at the encouragement from certain politicians.Reading is empowering. No wonder that those who want to tell the rest of us what to do fear libraries and books.Jacqueline LowryNew YorkThe writer is a retired teacher of reading, math and science in an elementary-school gifted and talented program.The Black-Jewish Relationship Illustration by Sam Whitney/The New York Times; photograph by Ronald Martinez, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Blacks and Jews, Again,” by Michael Eric Dyson (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 27):Professor Dyson’s illuminating and refreshingly honest essay about the historically fraught, ambivalent relationship between African American and Jewish communities is a gift for both of them. If they are to transcend this relationship and unequivocally condemn antisemitism or racism when it arises in their respective communities, they need to learn each other’s histories.Both groups are survivors of institutionalized terror and traumatic violence of historic proportions, perpetrated by bigots. Thus, both groups know prejudicial hatred when they see it, and both know how dangerous it is.As Mr. Dyson implies, knowing each other’s histories will allow African Americans and Jews to identify with each other, to understand, for example, how the suffering of the Jewish people “inspired the sorrow songs” of African Americans (e.g., “Go Down, Moses”) more than a century ago.African Americans and Jews should also remember who benefits from promulgating antisemitic or racist tropes. It must be incredibly gratifying for white supremacist organizations when African Americans and Jews channel the same antisemitism and racism, respectively, as those who would banish them from the country. ​Paul SiegelNew York​​​The writer is a professor of psychology at Purchase College and Westchester Community College, SUNY.Christine McVie’s MagicChristine McVie of Fleetwood Mac in performance at Madison Square Garden in 2014. Her commercial potency was on full display on Fleetwood Mac’s “Greatest Hits” anthology: She either wrote or co-wrote half of its 16 tracks.Charles Sykes/Invision, via Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Christine McVie, Wellspring of Soulful Hits for Fleetwood Mac, Dies at 79” (obituary, Dec. 1):I mourned the death of Christine McVie this week. What a loss. As I listened at bedtime to Fleetwood Mac’s hits, I reflected on the sadness that arose.When we mourn our fallen generational culture icons, especially musicians (because music and memory are entwined), we are mourning the loss of our youth, with its exuberance, dreams and open promises for the future. We are mourning ourselves.Steve GellmanGrosse Pointe Park, Mich.Election Liars, Not DeniersTo the Editor:I do wish the media would stop calling certain politicians election deniers.None of them are likely to really believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.They are not deniers; they are election liars. Cold, cynical, opportunistic, sociopathic liars.They lie solely to gather their base’s votes, and the heck with democracy.Charlie PhillipsPortland, Ore. More

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      Black Turnout in Midterms Was One of the Low Points for Democrats

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      But the effects of the decrease wound up being muted.The Democratic Wisconsin Senate candidate, Mandela Barnes, on Nov. 4. He lost by one percentage point. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThere was a lot of good news — or at least news that felt good — for Democrats this election cycle, from holding the Senate to remaining stubbornly competitive in the House.But as more data becomes final, it’s clear that Black turnout is not one of those feel-good stories for the party.We won’t get conclusive numbers on this for months, but the evidence so far raises the distinct possibility that the Black share of the electorate sank to its lowest level since 2006. It certainly did in states like Georgia and North Carolina, where authoritative data is already available.The relatively low turnout numbers aren’t necessarily a surprise. After all, this was not supposed to be a good year for Democrats. Perhaps this is one of the things that went about as expected, with no reason to think it portends catastrophe for Democrats in the years ahead.Still, relatively low Black turnout is becoming an unmistakable trend in the post-Obama era, raising important — if yet unanswered — questions about how Democrats can revitalize the enthusiasm of their strongest group of supporters.Is it simply a return to the pre-Obama norm? Is it yet another symptom of eroding Democratic strength among working-class voters of all races and ethnicities? Or is it a byproduct of something more specific to Black voters, like the rise of a more progressive, activist — and pessimistic — Black left that doubts whether the Democratic Party can combat white supremacy?Whatever the answer, it is clear that the relatively low Black turnout was not exactly disastrous electorally for Democrats in 2022. With the possible exception of the Wisconsin Senate race, it’s hard to identify a high-profile election where Democrats might have prevailed if the Black share of the electorate had stayed at 2014 or 2018 levels.The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More