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      There’s a Reason Trump Loves the Truckers

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      The truckers’ protest in Ottawa is the latest barrage from the world’s disaffected in the revolt that found expression in the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the 2017 Unite the Right march on Charlottesville, the rise of QAnon, and the Jan. 6 insurrection in the halls of Congress.One thing that stands out in the Canadian truckers’ protests against vaccination requirements specifically and the Trudeau government generally is the strong support they are getting from conservative political leaders and media figures in this country.“We want those great Canadian truckers to know that we are with them all the way,” Trump told rally-goers in Conroe, Texas on Jan. 29.“I see they have Trump signs all over the place and I’m proud that they do,” he added.On Feb. 12, Trump brought it home to America during a Fox News appearance: “That’s what happens, you can push people so far and our country is a tinderbox too, don’t kid yourself.”The former president is not alone.“I hope the truckers do come to America,” Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, told The Daily Signal, a conservative website. “Civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in our country, from slavery to civil rights, you name it. Peaceful protest, clog things up, make people think about the mandates.”Nor was all this confined to North America. “Ottawa truckers’ convoy galvanizes far right worldwide,” an article in Politico on Feb. 6 declared: “Leading Republicans, right-wing influencers and white supremacist groups have jumped at the chance to promote the standoff in Ottawa to a global audience.”In “Bowling for Fascism: Social Capital and the Rise of the Nazi Party,” by Shanker Satyanath of N.Y.U., Nico Voigtländer of U.C.L.A. and Hans-Joachim Voth of the University of Zurich offer a counterintuitive perspective on the spread of right-wing organizing in Canada, Hungary, Brazil, India, Poland, Austria and in the United States.The three authors argue that in the 1930s in EuropeDense networks of civic associations such as bowling clubs, choirs, and animal breeders went hand-in-hand with a more rapid rise of the Nazi Party. Towns with one standard deviation higher association density saw at least one-third faster entry. All types of associations — veteran associations and nonmilitary clubs, “bridging” and “bonding” associations — positively predict National Socialist Party entry. Party membership, in turn, predicts electoral success. These results suggest that social capital aided the rise of the Nazi movement that ultimately destroyed Germany’s first democracy.Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Neil Lee and Cornelius Lipp, all of the London School of Economics, pick up this argument in a November 2021 paper on the paradoxical role of social capital in fostering far right movements. Noting that the “positive view of social capital has, more recently, been challenged,” the three economic geographers write:The rise in votes for Trump was the result of long-term economic and population decline in areas with strong social capital. This hypothesis is confirmed by the econometric analysis conducted for US counties. Long-term declines in employment and population — rather than in earnings, salaries, or wages — in places with relatively strong social capital propelled Donald Trump to the presidency and almost secured his re-election.It is, the three authors continue,precisely the long-term economic and demographic decline of the places that still rely on a relatively strong social capital that is behind the rise of populism in the U.S. Strong, but declining communities in parts of the American Rustbelt, the Great Plains, and elsewhere, reacted at the ballot box to being ignored, neglected and being left behind.Translated to the present, in economic and culturally besieged communities, the remnants of social capital have been crucial to the mobilization of men and women — mostly men — who chanted “You will not replace us” and “blood and soil” in Charlottesville, who shot bear spray at police officers on Jan. 6 and who brought Ottawa to its knees for more than two weeks.In a separate paper, “The Rise of Populism and the Revenge of the Places,” Rodríguez-Pose argued:Populism is not the result of persistent poverty. Places that have been chronically poor are not the ones rebelling.” Instead, he continued, “the rise of populism is a tale of how the long-term decline of formerly prosperous places, disadvantaged by processes that have rendered them exposed and almost expendable, has triggered frustration and anger. In turn, voters in these so-called ‘places that don’t matter’ have sought their revenge at the ballot box.In an email, Rodríguez-Pose wrote:Social capital in the U.S. has been declining for a long time. Associationism and the feeling of community are no longer what they used to be and this has been documented many times. What my co-authors and I are saying is that in those places (counties) where social capital has declined less, long-term demographic and employment decline triggered a switch to Donald Trump. These communities have said “enough is enough” of a system that they feel bypasses them and voted for an anti-system candidate, who is willing to shake the foundations of the system.In a separate email, Lee noted that while most analysts view higher social capital as a healthy development in communities, it can also foster negative ethnic and racial solidarity: “Social capital can be a great thing when it is open and inclusive. But when everyone knows each other, this can result in in-group dynamics — particularly when people are led to be concerned about other groups.”The accompanying graphic, produced by the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, shows the geographic distribution of social capital by county in the United States as of 2018. Social capital is highest in yellow areas and lowest in dark blue regions. The variables used to measure social capital included levels of family unity, collective efficacy, institutional health and community health.Joint Economic CommitteeSocial capital correlated positively with the volunteer rate, the share of adults who made charitable contributions, the share married and the share who trust their neighbors. It correlated negatively with heavy television watching by children, the share of children living with a single parent and the share of births that were to unwed mothers.Regina Anne Bateson, a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa, wrote me in a Feb. 14 email: “The situation in Canada is often described as a truckers’ protest. However, it’s not just truckers who are participating, and this is not just a protest.”The situation in Ottawa quickly devolved, Bateson argues,into an illegal occupation, with heavy elements of extortion. Many people here describe it as a hostage situation. The convoy has deployed tactics intended to harm local residents, such as deafening horn-blowing, in an attempt to extract concessions from the government. More than 400 hate incidents have been reported to police, and there have been coordinated attacks on the 9-1-1 system, flooding it with calls so residents cannot get through.The occupation of Ottawa has become a “militia-like activity,” Bateson writes. “The convoy has resupply bases on the outskirts of town, as well as mobile squads of pickup trucks that rove around the city, delivering supplies and harassing local residents.” The protest organizers have “even been experimenting with governance, including providing services like snow and trash removal. Remarkably, they recently inaugurated a cohort of ‘peace officers,’ who are authorized to detain people if needed. Justin Ling, a journalist, reports that some of the convoy’s peace officers have subsequently tried to arrest Ottawa police.”Perhaps most important, Bateson described thesignificant international involvement, including political support, media coverage, and crowdfunding dollars from the United States. We are also seeing evidence of social media manipulation designed to increase polarization. The includes the use of fake and hijacked social media accounts, troll farms and bots, and inflammatory photos and messages being pumped out en masse.Asked what the potential consequences of the protests are, Bateson replied:There are many medium- and long-term consequences, including emboldened populist and extremist movements within Canada, increased international visibility for those groups (particularly in U.S. media outlets), new recruits to those movements, and the use of crowdfunding as a new form of grassroots foreign intervention. In areas directly affected by the convoy, such as Ottawa, there is also a profound sense of abandonment and loss of trust in the authorities, particularly the police. The convoy has undermined the rule of law in Canada, and they have upended the norms that govern social and political life here.In this context, I asked Rodríguez-Pose whether the truck protests in Canada are a harbinger of future right-wing populist protests, and he pointed to developments in France in his emailed reply:In France, the phenomenon of the “gilets jaunes” (or yellow vests) is clearly an example of the “revenge of the places that don’t matter.” This is a movement that emerged as a result of a severe hike in diesel taxes in order to pay for the green transition. But this was a decision that many people in small town and rural France felt imposed significant costs on them. These are people who had been encouraged just over a decade before to buy diesel cars and, in the meantime, had seen their public transport — mainly buses and rail lines — decline and/or disappear. Most of them felt this was a decision taken by what they consider an aloof Parisian elite that is, on average, far wealthier than they were and enjoys a world-class public transport system.The pitting of a populist rural America against a cosmopolitan urban America has deep economic and cultural roots, and this divide has become a staple of contemporary polarization.“Urban residents are much more likely to have progressive values. This result applies across three categories of values: family values, gender equality, and immigration attitudes,” Davide Luca of Cambridge University, Javier Terrero-Davila and Neil Lee, both of the London School of Economics, and Jonas Stein of the Arctic University of Norway write in their January 2022 article, “Progressive Cities: Urban-rural polarization of social values and economic development around the world.”Luca and his colleagues emphasize the divisive role of what Ronald Inglehart, a political scientist at the University of Michigan who died last year, called the “silent revolution” and what Ron Lesthaeghe of the Free University of Brussels describes as the “second demographic transition.”Citing Inglehart, Luca and his co-authors write:when people are secure, they focus on postmaterialist goals such as “belonging, esteem and free choice.” The possibility of taking survival for granted “brings cultural changes that make individual autonomy, gender equality, and democracy increasingly likely, giving rise to a new type of society that promotes human emancipation on many fronts.”The urban-rural conflict between post-materialistic values (shorthand for autonomy, environmental protection, sexual freedom, gender equality) and more traditional values (family obligation, sexual restraint, church, community) is most acute in “high income countries,” they write. This suggests, they continue, “that only more advanced economies can provide cities with the material comfort, and probably the right institutional environment, to make progressive values relevant.”In an email, Luca elaborated:There is a strong correlation between my analyses (and similar lines of research) and trends highlighted in Second Demographic Transition theories. Some of the factors driving the second demographic transition are definitely linked to the development of “self-expression” values, especially among women.Cities, Luca argued, “are the catalysts for these changes to occur. In other words, cities are the loci where self-expression values can develop, in turn affecting reproductive behaviors and, hence, demographic patterns.”Social capital is by no means the only glue that holds right-wing movements together.The Rodríguez-Pose and Luca papers suggest that cultural conflict and regional economic discrepancies also generate powerful political momentum for those seeking to build a “coalition of resentment.” Since the 2016 election of Trump, the Republican Party has focused on that just that kind of Election Day alliance.Shannon M. Monnat and David L. Brown, sociologists at Syracuse and Cornell, have analyzed the economic and demographic characteristics of counties that sharply increased their vote for Trump in 2016 compared with their support for Mitt Romney in 2012.In their October 2017 paper “More than a rural revolt: Landscapes of despair and the 2016 Presidential election,” Monnat and Brown found that “Trump performed better in counties with more economic distress, worse health, higher drug, alcohol and suicide mortality rates, lower educational attainment, and higher marital separation/divorce rates.”The accompanying graphic demonstrates the pattern of Trump’s strength compared with Romney’s, the red bars showing characteristics of areas that voted more for Trump than Romney, the blue bars showing the characteristics of communities that cast more votes for Romney than for Trump.”More Than a Rural Revolt: Landscapes of Despair and the 2016 Presidential Election,” by Shannon M. Monnat and David L. BrownTrump’s populist message, Monnat and Brown write in their conclusion,may have been attractive to many long-term Democratic voters in these places who felt abandoned by a Democratic Party that has failed to articulate a strong pro-working class message, whose agendas often emphasize policies and programs to help the poor at what seems like the expense of the working-class, and who evidently believed it did not have to work very hard to earn votes from behind the “big blue wall.”In “Social Capital, Religion, Wal-Mart, and Hate Groups in America” a 2012 paper, Stephan J. Goetz of Penn State, Anil Rupasingha, a research economist at the Department of Agriculture, and Scott Loveridge of Michigan State University found that “Higher incomes, more income inequality, higher crime rates, and the presence of more Wal-Mart Stores and foreign-born populations are each associated with a more likely presence of one or more hate groups in the county.”The Wal-Mart effect, they wrote, likely results from the “economic turmoil” as communities “experience steep decline in their traditional downtown shopping districts.”Two factors work to lower the likelihood of hate group formation, they write: “a higher stock of social capital is associated with fewer hate groups” and “a greater share of mainline Protestant adherents is associated with fewer hate groups.”The opposite is true, Goetz, Rupasingha and Loveridge found, “for evangelical Protestant adherents,” writing that “for every 10 percent additional evangelical in a county, the number of hate groups in that county increases by 17 percent.”Regardless of the sources of discontent and regardless of the characteristic of those leading the assault on the liberal democratic state, there is no question that the trucker’s insurgency in Canada is catching fire abroad — currently in France, Britain, Belgium, New Zealand and Australia.“Canada’s ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests go global: Australia to Austria witness anti-COVID vaccine agitations,” read the Feb. 11 FirstPost headline on a story that described the following developments: “Police and anti-vaccine protesters clashed on the grounds of New Zealand’s parliament, with dozens arrested after demonstrators who laid siege to the legislature for three days were ordered to move on.”And: “Brussels authorities have banned an upcoming ‘freedom convoy’ protest from entering the Belgian capital.”And: “French police warned Thursday they would prevent so-called ‘Freedom Convoys’ from blockading Paris, as protesters against Covid rules began to drive towards the capital.”And: “Austria also announced a ban on any motor protests as several hundred vehicles were set to converge Friday in central Vienna, as well as near a major public park in the Austrian capital.”There will also be a test of the vitality of the trucker protest movement in the United States. “The People’s Convoy” has issued a call to “truckers and all freedom loving Americans” to join together at a rally March 4 and 5 at Coachella Valley in Indio, Calif, which is expected to then aim for Washington D.C.The organizers claim they will provide “fuel reimbursement upon arrival for all attending this event” and “the convoy will roll out of California following the rally. Convoy details will be forthcoming.”There are risks and opportunities on both sides. For Joe Biden, a protest that brings traffic and commerce to a standstill in the nation’s capital would test his skill as the country’s commander in chief, a test that could restore his faltering public image or send him on the road to defeat in 2024. For Trump and his allies on the right, such a protest could mobilize core voters going into the coming elections or it could reinforce the Jan. 6 image of unconstrained chaos, severely damaging Republican prospects.Non-college whites in the United States, like the protesting truckers in Canada, continue to face grim prospects, subordinated by meritocratic competition that rewards what they lack: advanced education and top scores on aptitude tests — accomplishments that feed the resource allocation, the status contests and the employment hierarchies that dominate contemporary life and leave those who cannot prevail out in the cold.As long as these voters remain on a downward trajectory, they will continue to be a disruptive force, not only in the political arena but in society at large.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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      in Elections

      Opposition Research Goes Hyperlocal

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      The liberal group American Bridge is launching a new project to collect information for campaigns against Republicans running for state and local offices.Some of the loudest Stop the Steal voices on the right are actually far removed from the levers of America’s election machinery. When a member of Congress makes false claims about hacked voting machines or stolen ballots, he or she has little authority to do much about it.Across the United States, however, there are tens of thousands of state, county and local officials who do have that power. They will set and enforce the rules on voting, then go about counting and reporting the votes in the elections to come.To the alarm of independent experts, allies of Donald Trump have been targeting these once-anonymous offices, seeking to fill them with hard-core partisans all the way down to the level of precinct captain.Now, the Democratic organization American Bridge, known primarily for its opposition research into Republicans, has launched what it says is a $10 million campaign to influence the races for election administration in a dozen key states. The local elections project is part of a $100 million paid media campaign that American Bridge announced a year ago.The group has hired 22 researchers to scrub the records and public statements of candidates and officials running for statewide offices involved in election administration, along with the sort of races unlikely to garner attention outside of their communities: county boards of supervisors, boards of canvassers, local judges and state legislators. They plan to dig up dirt on officials and candidates to ruin their chances of getting elected or re-elected.“It’s about how do we take what we’ve already been expert at and expose the behavior of Republican candidates and officeholders and take it down ballot to these secretaries of state races, the attorneys general races, as well as on down the ballot to the county level,” said Jessica Floyd, the American Bridge president.The sheer scale of America’s decentralized election system presents a formidable challenge to anyone seeking to influence it. In Wisconsin alone, there are 1,850 municipal clerks who administer voting, with rules set by a bipartisan six-member state commission, whose members are appointed by state legislators and the governor.Rick Hasen, the author of several books about elections and democracy, said the use of such hardball political tactics in local elections was “probably a necessary evil.” He added: “Efforts to subvert elections can happen in lots of places.”The Democrats are starting from behind in this effort. There is plenty of evidence that Republicans — more than half of whom remain convinced of Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was marred by fraud — are more motivated than Democrats by concerns about the voting system. And there has been a Republican financial advantage.In 2021, the Republican State Leadership Committee, which invests in state legislative and secretary of state races, raised $33 million, a record for a year in which most states didn’t hold state elections. The Democratic counterpart, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, took in $21 million, which it too crowed was the most ever in an off-year, but well behind the Republicans.‘You want to win these elections’Floyd, who worked for a handful of Washington’s major Democratic organizations and was an aide to Representative Gabrielle Giffords, said their tactics will help motivate base Democrats. But she added that the American Bridge researchers are in search of information that they believe voters will use to disqualify Republicans from winning local elections.In some communities, she said, that might be a commissioner who didn’t pay property taxes. Elsewhere, it might mean amplifying an untoward statement from a local radio station that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. For statewide candidates, American Bridge plans to hire “trackers” to follow them with cameras.“We’re not making an assumption that voters are going to be paying attention to how a race impacts the future of American democracy, because that’s not necessarily how people are treating the ballot box,” Floyd said. “You want to win these elections. We’re figuring out what’s the information that we have and how to disseminate that information in order to win as many elections as possible.”Kari Lake, a Republican, campaigning for governor in Florence, Ariz., last month.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesSome of what American Bridge finds will be handed to news organizations, sometimes with and sometimes without the organization’s fingerprints attached. Kari Lake, a Trump-endorsed candidate for Arizona governor, called on school districts to install cameras to monitor teachers in classrooms in a local radio interview. The group took credit for the story being reported in the Arizona Republic and other local outlets.But more and more, American Bridge has been pushing its research on its own. One of its more prolific researchers maintains a Twitter account devoted to monitoring every local radio interview and television appearance by Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Republican Senate candidates.“We should be exposing bad behavior,” Floyd said.What to read Jennifer Medina and Lisa Lerer profile Josh Mandel, a Republican Senate candidate of Ohio, and his political journey to the far right.U.S. officials are using creative methods to try to understand the thinking of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s enigmatic leader, report David E. Sanger, Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt.The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol issued a fresh batch of subpoenas, Luke Broadwater reports, including of two top Trump campaign officials and several state legislators.Charlie Savage explains a mysterious filing by John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel who has been investigating the federal probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.FrameworkJim Lamon, an Arizona Republican, starred in a gunslinging Super Bowl ad.Jim Lamon for U.S. SenatePrimary matchups at the Super BowlIt’s nothing new for politicians to use the Super Bowl to gain exposure. But on Sunday, two ads that went after the president pushed the boundaries of anti-Biden rhetoric. One repeated a phrase that has become code for a slur against President Biden, and the other showed a candidate shooting at him.The two Republicans behind the ads are running for Senate.Dave McCormick, a Pennsylvania Republican, aired an ad that repeated a crowd chanting the “Let’s Go Brandon” anti-Biden phrase for nearly the entire 30-second spot. Jim Lamon, a candidate in Arizona, aired a Wild-West-themed ad in which he shoots at Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Senator Mark Kelly, who is up for re-election this year. In the ad, the three Democrats are armed and prepared to duel, but Lamon shoots down their weapons. In what seems to be an effort at slapstick humor, the trio runs away, unscathed and disarmed. Lamon had previously aired another “Let’s Go Brandon” ad.Robert Robb, a columnist for The Arizona Republic, pointed out what was the dual audience that Lamon was speaking to — Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters and Trump himself. It’s an expensive way, in other words, to get the former president’s attention and his possible endorsement.“The people running for Senate in Arizona are all trying to win the Trump primary, not necessarily the Republican Party primary,” Robb told us.It cost the Lamon campaign $25,000 to place an ad in Tucson, Ariz., during the Super Bowl, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks television ad spending. McCormick’s campaign spent $70,000 to place the ad in the Pittsburgh media market.Both ads employed rhetoric that appeals to a smaller segment of the electorate, the most fervent Republican primary voters, even though a much more expansive audience actually watched it.There’s a chance that ads like these end up backfiring on the Republican candidates during the general election. Both Lamon and McCormick ran in states that Biden won in 2020. And, in Arizona, the Trump presidency coincided with Republicans losing both U.S. Senate seats and only narrowly preserving their majority in the State Legislature.Trump drove record turnout in Arizona, Robb said, but it wasn’t just his supporters who came out in record numbers. His opponents turned out as well.Lamon tried to show that he’s wealthy enough to afford a Super Bowl ad to “communicate this very narrow reach message,” Robb said. “But it does alienate the majority of the Arizona electorate.”Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      in Elections

      How Josh Mandel, Son of Suburban Ohio, Became a Right-Wing Warrior

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      The Senate candidate was a rising Republican when he abandoned his moderate roots. Now, those who have watched his transformation wonder if his rhetoric reflects who he really is.BEACHWOOD, Ohio — In the fall of 2016, Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign was pressing Ohio’s young state treasurer, Josh Mandel, to step it up. A former Marine, he held some sway with Republican voters, and Trump aides wanted him doing more public events.But Mr. Mandel couldn’t quite find the time. He just had so many scheduling conflicts, he joked over breakfast with Matt Cox, a Republican lobbyist and, at the time, a friend. Mr. Cox recalled Mr. Mandel rattling off the excuses he used to avoid being too closely linked to a candidate he wasn’t sold on: Running after his three children, other political commitments, his observance of all those Jewish holidays.Once Mr. Trump won, any reluctance from Mr. Mandel fell away fast. Within weeks, he spoke at the president-elect’s first victory rally, slamming those who were “avoiding Trump” during the election. Five days after the rally, he launched his second bid for Senate, borrowing Mr. Trump’s catchphrases of a “rigged system” and “drain the swamp” for his announcement video.Mr. Mandel has not looked back. As he runs for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, the 44-year-old politician has become one of the nation’s most strident crusaders for Trumpism, melding conspiracy theories and white grievance politics to amass a following that has made him a leading contender for the G.O.P. nomination in this Republican-leaning state.His political evolution — from a son of suburban Cleveland to warrior for the Make America Great Again movement — isn’t unique. Across the country, rising stars of the pre-Trump era have shed the traditional Republicanism of their past to follow Mr. Trump’s far-right brand of politics, cementing the former president’s influence over the next generation of the party’s leaders.Mr. Mandel with a supporter at the Faith and Freedom Rally in Troy, Ohio, last month.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesBut Mr. Mandel’s transformation has been particularly striking. Friends, strategists and supporters who powered his start in public life say that Mr. Mandel has so thoroughly rejected his political roots in Cleveland’s liberal-leaning suburbs that he is nearly unrecognizable to them. Some are convinced that his shift began as a clear political calculation — following his party to the right. But with his recent entrenchment on the fringe, many now wonder if it is not just Mr. Mandel’s public identity that has changed, but also his beliefs.“He’s twisting himself into something he wasn’t, just to win an election.” said Mr. Cox, who is not a Trump supporter and has donated to Mr. Mandel’s opponents. “Telling obvious lies,” he said, “is not part of the game. It’s intentional. And you have to believe that, if you say it that often.”Mr. Mandel has burned protective masks and blamed the “deep state” for the pandemic and has claimed that former President Barack Obama runs the current White House. He has rejected the separation of church and state and said that he wants to “shut down government schools and put schools in churches and synagogues.” The grandson of Holocaust survivors who were aided by resettlement organizations, he has compared a federal vaccine-or-testing mandate to the actions of the Gestapo, and today’s Afghan refugees to “alligators.”And he denies that President Biden was legitimately elected. “He is my president,” Mr. Mandel said recently in a video, pointing to a Trump sign in an Ohio cornfield.How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.“I want to believe that this is a character he is playing,” said Rob Zimmerman, a Democrat and former city councilman from Shaker Heights, Ohio. Mr. Zimmerman spent hours advising and fund-raising for Mr. Mandel, viewing him as a politician who could bridge partisan divides. “It is jaw-droppingly different. The Josh Mandel of 2003 — of 2016, even — would not recognize the Josh Mandel of 2021.”“This,” Mr. Zimmerman added, “has broken my heart.”Since launching this campaign, his third for the Senate, Mr. Mandel has largely spoken through conservative media outlets and his active Twitter account.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesMr. Mandel declined to be interviewed for this article. Since launching this campaign, his third for the Senate, he has largely spoken through conservative media outlets and his active Twitter feed, which was restricted last year for violating the platform’s rules on “hateful conduct.” (Mr. Mandel created a poll asking which “illegals” — either “Muslim Terrorists” or “Mexican Gangbangers” — would commit more crimes.)When a reporter for The New York Times attended a campaign event on Jan. 25 at a church in Troy, Ohio, Mr. Mandel singled him out and denounced the newspaper in Trump-like terms, calling it “the enemy of the people” and “evil.”Elsewhere, Mr. Mandel has disputed that his politics have changed, arguing instead that he is in sync with the people he hopes to represent. “The voters in Ohio in the past two presidential elections have made it very clear, they don’t want a moderate running Ohio or running America,” he told a local cable news station after announcing his candidacy last year. “I’m the opposite of a moderate.”Other Republicans challenge Mr. Mandel’s assessment of what most Ohio voters want. Brad Kastan, a Republican donor who has known Mr. Mandel for two decades, said he worried that the candidate was “painting himself into a corner so far out that he can’t win” in a general election.In a state that has moved to the right, backing Mr. Trump by eight percentage points in 2020, Mr. Mandel has been polling ahead of his primary rivals, including Jane Timken, a former head of the Ohio Republican Party, and J.D. Vance, an author made famous by his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” Much of the primary has revolved around winning Mr. Trump’s endorsement.Last spring, when summoned along with other candidates to Mar-a-Lago to jockey for Mr. Trump’s support, Mr. Mandel promised to hold nothing back to win the seat, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting who asked for anonymity to reveal a private conversation.Mr. Mandel’s stridency has surprised some in Beachwood, an affluent, predominantly Democratic suburb dotted with synagogues, where Mr. Mandel was a quarterback for his high school football team and then married into a wealthy Cleveland family.Mr. Mandel showed an early talent for standing out in a crowd at Ohio State, where he erected a 30-foot inflatable King Kong on the campus green to draw attention to his run for student government and won the presidency, twice.Shortly after graduating from the School of Law at Case Western Reserve, he won a City Council seat in Lyndhurst, a Cleveland suburb, drawing on support from his tight-knit community. When Albert Ratner, a major real estate developer and Ohio power broker, hosted a fund-raiser for Mr. Mandel, the candidate made a point of downplaying his Republican affiliation: “I really don’t care about partisanship,” he said, according to several people who recounted the gathering.Mr. Mandel attended just one City Council meeting before deploying to Iraq as an intelligence specialist in the Marine Corps Reserve. On his return trip home, his re-entry into U.S. airspace was announced at a high school football game to a cheering crowd.Mr. Mandel played quarterback for Beachwood High School’s football team and served in Iraq with the Marine Reserve Corps.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesAt 29, he won a seat in the Ohio Legislature, where he showed a keen understanding of the conservative causes that energized party activists. At one point, he took on the State House speaker, a fellow Republican, over a policy requiring ministers who led prayers in the chamber to submit their remarks in advance. The rationale was to avoid proselytizing in the Legislature. Mr. Mandel declared it an affront to religious liberty.“You know who fought the battle for our religious freedom? A 28-year-old Jewish guy,” said Lori Viars, an abortion-rights opponent who supports Mr. Mandel’s Senate bid. “I was so pleased to see him standing up when really no others did.”Running for state treasurer in 2010, Mr. Mandel was accused of trafficking in Muslim stereotypes after a campaign ad falsely implied that Kevin Boyce, the Democratic incumbent and Black man, was a Muslim.But Mr. Mandel’s reaction to the criticism cuts a contrast with the “fighter” image that he projects today. His campaign pulled the ad and he expressed regret, both publicly and privately to Mr. Boyce.“I think he had a sense of what’s right and what’s wrong, and I think he knew that wasn’t a right ad,” said Mr. Boyce, whom Mr. Mandel defeated. “He had a very strong reputation then as a moderate Republican and he seemed a little more reasonable.”Mr. Mandel had pledged to serve a full four-year term as treasurer. But he took the first steps toward a Senate campaign just five months after winning the job.He won the 2012 primary by courting Tea Party activists, but ran in the general election against Senator Sherrod Brown, the incumbent Democrat, as a business-friendly Republican. Campaigning that year for Mitt Romney, the G.O.P. presidential nominee, Mr. Mandel said he believed that Ohio voters rejected “hyperpartisanship” and wanted leaders who would “rise above it all to do the right thing.”(Mr. Mandel’s appraisal of Mr. Romney, now a senator and Trump critic, has curdled. “Mitt Romney is a loser,” he said last year.)Mr. Mandel had initially endorsed Marco Rubio in the 2016 presidential race, but he later backed Donald J. Trump. Andrew Harnik/Associated PressMr. Mandel’s sharpest political pivot came after the 2016 presidential race. He had endorsed Marco Rubio, then fell in behind Mr. Trump after he captured the nomination, though he privately expressed doubts about Mr. Trump’s credibility and business acumen and sometimes gave excuses when asked to stump for him, according to friends and former Trump campaign aides.After the October release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Mr. Trump was heard making vulgar comments about women, Mr. Mandel condemned the remarks but affirmed his support for Trump, saying he would be better than Democrats on issues like gun rights, religious liberty and the Supreme Court.Within weeks after Mr. Trump’s victory, Mr. Mandel was matching Mr. Trump in rhetoric and tone.At the postelection Trump rally in Cincinnati, he said Ohio’s cities would become so-called sanctuary cities “over my dead body,” over chants of “Build the wall!”Today, he calls himself Mr. Trump’s “number one ally” in Ohio.Mr. Mandel’s second Senate campaign ended in his withdrawal from the race in January 2018, citing his wife’s health. The two later divorced. The Cincinnati Enquirer is suing to unseal his divorce records. A campaign worker now involved in a relationship with Mr. Mandel has been cited in local news reports as having driven other employees to quit.In Beachwood, discussions of Mr. Mandel’s politics can be as emotionally intense as a family feud. More than a dozen people approached in the affluent suburb declined to be interviewed, some saying they did not want to have to avert their eyes when they saw his relatives at the local coffee shop or the Beechmont Country Club.Some friends and former supporters said that in more recent encounters with Mr. Mandel they had searched for signs of the young man they once supported or even pleaded with him to cease his drift into far-right-wing politics.The criticism, they said, didn’t seem to register.“He made the decision that ‘My path here is to be all-in on Trump,’” said Alan Melamed, a Democratic political consultant who first met Mr. Mandel decades ago. “Since then, he has been going down the path of ‘How far to the right can I go, and how outrageous can I be?’”“People can change,” Mr. Melamed added. “And he did.”Mr. Mandel denies that President Biden was legitimately elected, and has referred to Trump as his president.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesKevin Williams More

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      2020 Election Denier Will Run for Top Elections Position in Colorado

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      Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk, has been stripped of her county election oversight but is seeking to oversee her state’s elections as secretary of state.A Republican county clerk in Colorado who was stripped of her responsibility of overseeing county elections is joining a growing movement of people throughout the country who spread false claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election and want to oversee the next one.Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk, who is facing accusations that she breached the security of voting machines, announced on Monday that she would run to be the top elections official in Colorado.At least three Republican challengers are already running to unseat the current Colorado secretary of state, Jena Griswold, a Democrat.Colorado is a purple state that President Biden won with 55 percent of the vote in 2020. The state’s primary is on June 28, and Colorado is one of 27 states whose top elections official will be on the ballot this year.In 2020, when former President Donald J. Trump and his allies sought to undo the results of the election, they focused their pressure campaign on these relatively little-known officeholders.“I am the wall between your vote and nationalized elections,” Ms. Peters said during an appearance Monday on a podcast hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, the embattled former top aide to Mr. Trump. “They are coming after me because I am standing in their way — of truth, transparency and elections held closest to the people.”Ms. Griswold, who is also the head of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said in a statement on Monday that Ms. Peters was “unfit to be secretary of state and a danger to Colorado elections,” citing Ms. Peters’s attempts to discredit the results of the 2020 presidential election.Ms. Peters did not immediately respond to telephone and email messages on Monday seeking comment.Elected in 2018, Ms. Peters took office as clerk and recorder of Mesa County, in far western Colorado, in 2019. By late 2021 a Mesa County Court judge had upheld Ms. Griswold’s removing Ms. Peters from overseeing elections in the county and replacing her with an appointee.In May of last year, Ms. Peters and two other people entered a secure area of a warehouse in Mesa County where crucial election information was stored. They copied hard drives and election-management software from voting machines, the authorities said.In early August, the conservative website Gateway Pundit posted passwords for the county’s election machines. In October Ms. Peters spoke at a gathering in South Dakota of people determined to show that the 2020 election had been stolen from Mr. Trump.The gathering also featured a large screen that, at one point, showed the software from the election machines in Mesa County.Ms. Griswold said her office had concluded that the passwords leaked out when Ms. Peters enlisted a staff member to accompany her to surreptitiously record a routine voting-machine maintenance procedure. State and county officials announced last month that a grand jury was looking into allegations of tampering with Mesa County election equipment and “official misconduct.”More recently, Ms. Peters was briefly detained by the police when she obstructed efforts by officials with the local district attorney to serve a search warrant for her iPad. Ms. Peters may have used the iPad to record a court proceeding related to one of her deputies, according to Stephanie Reecy, a spokeswoman for the county.In video of the Feb. 8 encounter, taken by a bystander and posted on Twitter, Ms. Peters can be heard repeatedly saying, “Let go of me,” as officers seek to detain her. “It hurts. Let go of me,” she says, before bending her leg and raising her foot toward the officer standing behind her.An officer responds, “Do not kick,” according to body camera video posted by KJCT News 8, a local station. “Do you understand?”Ms. Peters was charged with obstructing a peace officer and obstructing government operations, according to the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office. She turned herself in to the authorities on Thursday, posted $500 bond and was released, according to county officials.“I still have the bruises on my arm where they manhandled me,” Ms. Peters told Mr. Bannon on Monday. Later she said: “I just want to say I love the people. That’s why I’m doing this.”Mr. Bannon said Ms. Peters had been targeted because of her fight against “this globalist apparatus.”“Thank you,” Ms. Peters told the host. “I’ll work hard for you guys.” More

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      Quick Fix to Help Overwhelmed Border Officials Has Left Migrants in Limbo

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      Republicans say the policy helps undocumented immigrants disappear; many immigrants say it has prevented them from following the government’s instructions.WASHINGTON — A Haitian couple and their young son were among thousands of undocumented immigrants whom U.S. officials decided to allow entry through the southwest border last summer — part of a record-setting surge in unauthorized crossings over the past year.Beginning last spring, immigration officials were so overwhelmed that they admitted tens of thousands of migrants while issuing them a new document that did not include the typical hearing dates or identification numbers recognized in the immigration court system. The change sped up the process of releasing them into the country, but also made it much harder for the new arrivals to start applying for asylum — and for the government to track them.Months later, the government has not been able to complete the processing started at the border, showing how ill prepared the system was for the surge and creating a practical and political quagmire for the Biden administration.President Biden pledged as a candidate to fix the country’s broken immigration system, a campaign mantra that resonated with many voters after the harsh policies of President Donald J. Trump. But over Mr. Biden’s first year in office, his administration’s response to the surge in migration has consisted largely of crisis-driven reactions — including the faster entry process.Migrants were caught crossing the southwest border illegally more than 2 million times between December 2020 and December 2021, the largest number since at least 1960. They came not just from Central America and the Caribbean but from around the world, many fleeing persecution and economic hardship with the expectation that Mr. Biden would be more welcoming than Mr. Trump.Although migrants were expelled in a little more than half the cases, more than 400,000 of them were released into the country for a variety of reasons during Mr. Biden’s first year in office. Of those, more than 94,000 were released through the sped-up process — a streamlined version of a longtime practice that critics call “catch and release,” in which those who are apprehended at the border are released from custody pending their immigration court proceedings. These migrants were instructed to register with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement within 60 days to complete the process the border officials started. But in some parts of the country, local ICE offices were overwhelmed and unable to give them appointments. So the Haitian family and other new arrivals have spent months trying in vain to check in with ICE and initiate their court cases. “It was a quick fix — ‘Deal with them later,’” said Evangeline Chan, an immigration lawyer in New York. “But they have not been able to.”Human rights advocates say the change has made it harder for those seeking asylum to get by while they wait to be officially recognized in the immigration system. Republicans, in the meantime, have pounced on the Biden administration for releasing undocumented immigrants into the country with even less ability to keep track of them.“Those who cross our border illegally should be detained and deported, not released into the interior of our country on an unenforceable promise to reappear,” 80 Republican House members wrote in a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this month. “It is nothing short of reckless.”Migrants in Del Rio, Texas, in 2020. Under a Trump administration policy, many asylum seekers had to wait in Mexico until U.S. immigration judges ruled on their cases.Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York TimesA ‘huge mess’Mr. Trump’s policy was to restrict the flow of asylum seekers at the southwest border by making it harder to qualify and by making some people wait in Mexico before they could enter the country to apply. In some cases, applicants had to stay in Mexico until U.S. immigration judges ruled on their cases.The most restrictive policy, however, came at the beginning of the pandemic when the federal government started using an obscure public health rule known as Title 42 to turn migrants away at the border, including those seeking asylum.Even so, hundreds of thousands have been allowed into the country for a variety of reasons including a lack of detention space because of pandemic precautions. The Biden administration has also made exceptions for humanitarian reasons, particularly for families and children.Mr. Biden’s stated goal is to reverse Mr. Trump’s harshest immigration policies and be more welcoming to immigrants, but so far, immigration and human rights advocates say he has not come through, in large part because he has kept the public health order in place. Without it, Mr. Biden would have to make the tough choice of releasing even more undocumented immigrants into the country to await proceedings or detaining them..A record number of migrants were caught illegally crossing the southern U.S. border in President Biden’s first year in office, putting his administration in crisis-reaction mode. Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesAs of the end of January, nearly 33,000 immigrants who were issued documents without court dates and the typical identification number had missed their deadline to check in and start their proceedings in immigration court, according to an ICE official speaking on condition of anonymity. It is impossible to know how many have tried to check in with ICE to get court cases started and how many have chosen not to.Hopeful that immigration will prove a potent campaign issue, Republicans are blaming Mr. Biden for the sharp increase in migrants at the border because of his campaign promise that his administration would be more welcoming than the last. His response to the surge, they say, has only made things worse.“D.H.S. was forced to deal with an unmitigated disaster, and notices to report was one of the desperate policies it implemented trying to cope,” Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, said in a statement. The streamlined document, known as a notice to report, he added, “just exacerbated the problem.”Some immigration advocates agree.“This N.T.R. situation is a huge mess that everyone is trying to navigate right now,” Emily Haverkamp, an immigration lawyer and expert on asylum policies, said.The potential for complications with the expedited processing was not lost on some members of the Biden administration, according to several current and former administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal debate. But some officials in the Department of Homeland Security argued that border officials could not have handled the surge of migrants without the expedited option to release them into the country.Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, head to request asylum in El Paso, Texas. Border officials have been overwhelmed by the surge in illegal crossings.Jose Luis Gonzalez/ReutersA ‘vicious cycle’After setting off last June on a treacherous journey from Chile — where they had relocated to years earlier — the Haitian family made it to Texas in August, where border officials released them without a court summons and told them to report to an immigration office once they reached Miami, their destination.When they did so, the office was closed, operating on a reduced schedule because of the pandemic. When they tried to register online, they were told they would not get an appointment to finish their paperwork and receive official identification numbers, known as alien numbers, until 2032. When they wrote to an ICE email address, the automated response said the agency needed the family’s alien numbers.“It’s a vicious cycle,” the husband said through a translator.The delays have been felt most acutely in Miami, New York, Houston and Los Angeles, where many of the recent immigrants have settled. Miami appears to have the biggest backlog, and the Homeland Security Department said it is in the process of sending more staff to there to help address it.Once people are officially entered into the immigration court system — now facing its greatest backlog in history — the average wait for an initial court appearance is nearly five years, according to data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.The Haitian couple, like most new immigrants, are not authorized to work, making it impossible to earn an honest living; they are residing with other Haitian immigrants in the Miami region. They tried for months to enroll their son in kindergarten, facing bureaucratic roadblocks at every turn. They cannot afford a lawyer to help them find a way to comply with the government.Some of their challenges are standard for people stuck in the broken immigration system; other challenges are new, resulting from the fact that they were released without being enrolled in immigration court proceedings.“You’re more under the radar and you’re more in the shadows,” Ruby Powers, an immigration lawyer in Texas, said.Stuck in this gray area, immigrants have to wait even longer to apply for a work permit. Once they have the work permit, immigrants can apply for a Social Security Number, which makes it possible to start settling in. With a Social Security Number, an asylum-seeking immigrant can apply for a driver’s license in many states, open a bank account, enter a contract for a cellular phone, and more.In the past, families willing to house new immigrants could count on them eventually getting permission to work, said Leonie Hermantin, the director of development, communications and strategic planning at the Sant La Haitian Community Center in North Miami.Leonie Hermantin of the Sant La Haitian Community Center in North Miami, speaking with a Haitian family who had recently arrived in the U.S.Scott McIntyre for The New York Times“Now you have people who are stuck staying at people’s houses who are getting increasingly inhospitable,” she said, adding that some will soon face homelessness. “They are in this state of limbo. We at social service agencies — we just don’t know what to do.” More

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      The Conservative Case for Reforming the Electoral Count Act

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      The clear and present danger to our democracy now is that former President Donald Trump and his political allies appear prepared to exploit the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the law governing the counting of votes for president and vice president, to seize the presidency in 2024 if Mr. Trump or his anointed candidate is not elected by the American people.The convoluted language in the law gives Congress the power to determine the presidency if it concludes that Electoral College slates representing the winning candidate were not “lawfully certified” or “regularly given” — vague and undefined terms — regardless of whether there is proof of illegal vote tampering. After the 2020 election, Republican senators like Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri tried to capitalize on those ambiguities in the law to do Mr. Trump’s bidding, mounting a case for overturning the results in some Biden-won states on little more than a wish. Looking ahead to the next presidential election, Mr. Trump is once again counting on a sympathetic and malleable Congress and willing states to use the Electoral Count Act to his advantage.He confirmed as much in a twisted admission of both his past and future intent earlier this month, claiming that congressional efforts to reform the Electoral Count Act actually prove that Mike Pence had the power to overturn the 2020 presidential election because of the alleged “irregularities.” The former vice president pushed back forcefully, calling Mr. Trump “wrong.”The back-and-forth repudiations by Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence lay bare two very different visions for the Republican Party. Mr. Trump and his allies insist that the 2020 election was “stolen,” a product of fraudulent voting and certifications of electors who were not properly selected. Over a year after the election, they continue to cling to these disproved allegations, claiming that these “irregularities” were all the evidence Mr. Pence needed to overturn the results, and demanding that the rest of the G.O.P. embrace their lies. The balance of the Republican Party, mystifyingly stymied by Mr. Trump, rejects these lies, but, as if they have fallen through the rabbit hole into Alice’s Wonderland, they are confused as to exactly how to move on from the 2020 election when their putative leader remains bewilderingly intent on driving the wedge between the believers in his lies and the disbelievers.This political fissure in the Republican Party was bound to intensify sooner or later, and now it has, presenting an existential threat to the party in 2024. If these festering divisions cost the Republicans in the midterm elections and jeopardize their chances of reclaiming the presidency in 2024, which they well could, the believers and disbelievers alike will suffer.While the Republicans are transfixed by their own political predicaments, and the Democrats by theirs, the right course is for both parties to set aside their partisan interests and reform the Electoral Count Act, which ought not be a partisan undertaking.Democrats, for their part, should regard reform of the Electoral Count Act as a victory — essential to shore up our faltering democracy and to prevent another attack like the one at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. These are actually the worthiest of objectives.Republicans should want to reform the law for these same reasons, and more. Of course, some may never support reform of the Electoral Count Act simply because the former president has voiced his opposition to the efforts to revise it. But there are consequential reasons of constitutional and political principle for the large remainder of Republicans to favor reform in spite of the former president’s opposition.Republicans are proponents of limited federal government. They oppose aggregation of power in Washington and want it dispersed to the states. It should be anathema to them that Congress has the power to overturn the will of the American people in an election that, by constitutional prescription, is administered by the states, not Washington. If the Democrats are willing to divest themselves of the power to decide the presidency that the 49th Congress wrongly assumed 135 years ago, then it would be the height of political hypocrisy for the Republicans to refuse to divest theirs.Constitutional conservatives, especially, should want Electoral Count Act reform, because they should be the first to understand that the law is plainly unconstitutional. Nothing in the Constitution empowers Congress to decide the validity of the electoral slates submitted by the states. In fact, the Constitution gives Congress no role whatsoever in choosing the president, save in the circumstance where no presidential candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes cast.Trump acolytes like Mr. Cruz and Mr. Hawley should appreciate the need to reform this unconstitutional law. They are also politically smart enough to understand that however likely it is that the Republican presidential candidate will lose in 2024, it is just as likely that he or she will win. Attempts to time reform based on handicapping the quadrennial presidential election are futile, and no Republican should want to be an accessory to any successful attempt to overturn the next election — including an effort by Democrats to exploit the law.If the Republicans want to prevent the Electoral Count Act from being exploited in 2024, several fundamental reforms are needed. First, Congress should formally give the federal courts, up to and including the Supreme Court, the power to resolve disputes over state electors and to ensure compliance with the established procedures for selecting presidential electors — and require the judiciary’s expeditious resolution of these disputes. Congress should then require itself to count the votes of electors that the federal courts have determined to be properly certified under state law.Congress should also increase the number of members required both to voice an objection and to sustain one to as high a number as politically palatable. At the moment, only one member of each chamber is necessary to send an objection to the Senate and House for debate and resolution — an exceedingly low threshold that proved a deadly disservice to the country and the American people during the last election.Currently, Congress has the power under Article II and the Necessary and Proper Clause to prevent states from changing the manner by which their electors are appointed after the election, but it has not clearly exercised that authority to prevent such postelection changes. It should do so.Finally, the vice president’s important, but largely ministerial, role in the joint session where the electoral votes are counted should once and for all be clarified.It is hardly overstatement to say that the future of our democracy depends on reform of the Electoral Count Act. Republicans and Democrats need to put aside their partisan differences long enough to fix this law before it enables the political equivalent of a civil war three years hence. The law is offensive to Republicans in constitutional and political principle, officiously aggrandizing unto Congress the constitutional prerogatives of the states. It is offensive to Democrats because it legislatively epitomizes a profound threat in waiting to America’s democracy. The needed changes, which would meet the political objections of both parties, should command broad bipartisan support in any responsible Congress. For Republicans in particular, these changes are idiomatic sleeves off their vests.Come to think of it, the only members in Congress who might not want to reform this menacing law are those planning its imminent exploitation to overturn the next presidential election.J. Michael Luttig (@judgeluttig) was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006.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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      How New York’s Redistricting Hurt the G.O.P. and Vax Daddy

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      Democrats could potentially expand the veto-proof majorities they already have in both the Assembly and Senate, further solidifying New York’s leftward shift.ALBANY, N.Y. — When Huge Ma, better known in New York as Vax Daddy, shut down the website he built last year to help city residents make appointments to get a coronavirus vaccine, he realized there were other more established types of public service to pursue.So Mr. Ma, a Democrat, decided to run for State Assembly, building off the folk hero status he achieved during the pandemic, with a campaign centered on policy issues he cared about, including transportation and the climate crisis.But an unexpected twist led Mr. Ma to end his nascent campaign this month just as it was getting underway: When the state’s once-in-a-decade redistricting process was complete, his home was outside the Queens district he hoped to represent.“While I currently feel a great sense of disappointment,” Mr. Ma wrote on Twitter. “I remain open to representing my community in the future.”Mr. Ma’s race was just one of many that were shaken up by the State Legislature, which Democrats control, when it approved new legislative maps that will shape the balance of power in Albany for the next decade at least.The new district lines, which were approved last week, could help fortify Democratic dominance in the statehouse for years to come. They significantly increase the odds that Democrats will protect, and potentially expand, the veto-proof majorities they already command in both the Assembly and Senate, further solidifying New York’s leftward shift.Republicans contend that Democrats effectively engaged in partisan gerrymandering to keep their grip on power. The state legislative lines, along with new congressional maps, have been challenged in court by a group of voters organized by Republicans.Rob Ortt, the Republican leader in the State Senate, said in a statement that Democrats had drawn maps “behind closed doors, without considering input from thousands of communities of interest or holding a single public hearing.”“It is clear they are only concerned with holding onto their political power and cementing the disastrous one-party rule that has made New York less safe, less affordable and less populated,” he said.Robert Ortt, the Republican Senate minority leader, accused Democratic legislative leaders of partisan gerrymandering.Hans Pennink/Associated PressState Senator Michael Gianaris, a Democrat who helped lead redistricting efforts in the legislature, has argued that the maps are fair, legal and, in practice, unraveled the results of previous gerrymandering by Republicans.What to Know About Redistricting and GerrymanderingRedistricting, Explained: Answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.New York: Democrats’ aggressive reconfiguration of the state’s congressional map is one of the most consequential in the nation.Legal Battles: State supreme courts in North Carolina and Ohio struck down maps drawn by Republicans, while the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily restored Alabama’s map.“You can’t sit here and say we were wrong, but leave the maps as they are right now,” he said on the Senate floor last week. “That just enshrines that bad behavior into the maps forever. If we’re going to fix the things that you did that were wrong, we have to fix them.”The maps will also play a pivotal role in Democratic primaries, with the new district lines benefiting some incumbents that left-wing hopefuls had seen as too moderate or entrenched in the party establishment.That appeared to be the case in Mr. Ma’s district, which is now represented by Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, a high-ranking Democrat who has served for nearly four decades. The new lines for her district carved out parts of the Long Island City waterfront where some of her most likely challengers, including Mr. Ma, reside.Political observers said the new district lines could have benefited her in a primary, even though the revamped district includes portions of neighborhoods that might favor a more progressive candidate.But the race was again upended on Friday when Ms. Nolan, who was diagnosed with cancer last year, announced she would not seek re-election. The seat is now up for grabs, with a number of left-leaning candidates showing interest.“This obviously locks in the supermajorities, and means that the crux of New York State politics — for interest groups, for labor, for everyone — is going to be the ideological fight among Democrats in a primary,” said Matt Rey, a partner at the political consulting firm Red Horse Strategies. “New York is now moving to the California model.”Elsewhere in the 150-seat Assembly, which Democrats have controlled since 1975, some of the redrawn lines appear to offer additional protection for other incumbent party members. Others seemed to ensure that tossup races in key suburban areas — including Long Island’s North Shore, the Capitol Region and near Syracuse — remained competitive.The biggest changes, however, involve the State Senate, where Democrats controlled the redistricting process for the first time in decades after regaining a majority in the chamber in 2018.The new maps appear to improve Democrats’ chances of flipping at least three Republican-held Senate seats. In a reflection of New York City’s population growth and demographic changes, lawmakers shifted two upstate Senate districts to Brooklyn and Queens. Both are expected to be safe seats for Democrats.The new lines also give slight edges to Democratic incumbents in highly competitive districts, including on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, before the November election, when all legislative seats will be on the ballot.Even so, Democrats’ recent gains in Albany are bound to be tested in significant ways this year, with Republicans — helped by President Biden’s flagging approval ratings and concerns about crime and inflation — poised to perform well in the congressional midterm elections and, potentially, in down-ballot races.In justifying the new maps, Mr. Gianaris and other Senate Democrats say the lines merely restore the proper balance of power after decades of Republicans drawing maps that maximize their waning influence in an increasingly Democratic state.The Senate minority leader, Michael Gianaris, left, said the new district lines corrected partisan lines drawn by Republicans.Hans Pennink/Associated PressSenate Democrats insist that their maps more closely follow the spirit of the law, creating districts with more uniform populations after a longstanding practice among Republicans of drawing fewer, highly populous districts downstate for Democrats, and more sparse ones in parts of the state where Republicans could be competitive.Democrats say another main objective was to unify and strengthen the voting power of so-called communities of interest — ethnic, racial or cultural groups with shared concerns — that they said Republicans had divided over decades to dilute Democrats’ power in the State Senate.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? 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      Shredded, Flushed or Removed: The Trump Papers

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      More from our inbox:Moving Toward a ‘Republican Autocracy’Why Does the Postal Service Have to Make a Profit?Protesters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Call Logs From Jan. 6 Have Gaps, Panel Finds” (front page, Feb. 11):Shredded documents, records improperly taken to Mar-a-Lago, papers flushed down the toilet, plans to seize voting machines, and now gaps in the official Oval Office call record from Jan. 6. Does this sound like a former president who has done nothing improper or illegal? Hardly! They seem like an archetypal example of the “res ipsa loquitur” legal doctrine — “the thing speaks for itself.”I eagerly await the Jan. 6 committee’s final report. Unpacking more fully these facts and many more, a well-documented and clear story will be told. I suspect that at least some of the committee’s findings will be referred to the Justice Department for investigation.The only question is: Will Donald Trump once again escape legal accountability?Richard CherwitzAustin, TexasThe writer is professor emeritus at the Moody College of Communication, the University of Texas at Austin.To the Editor:Re “Trump Turns Documents Over to U.S. Archives” (news article, Feb. 8):You report that, at the end of his term in office, Donald Trump unlawfully removed 15 cartons of documents and other items from the White House. There has long been a federal statute that makes it illegal to remove papers or documents from a public office. The offense is punishable by up to three years in prison, and the person is “disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”I know this because, in 1970, I was prosecuted for this crime when I burglarized the Selective Service complex in Providence, R.I., and carried off a bit over 15 cartons of papers and documents to destroy later at my leisure. I held a news conference about the burglary. I was duly prosecuted, convicted and sentenced (and, I believe, was the only convicted felon in my graduating class at Harvard Law School).Donald Trump should also be prosecuted for this offense.Jerry ElmerProvidence, R.I.To the Editor:Re “Trump Is Said to Have Taken Possible Classified Material With Him” (news article, Feb. 10):Is the irony lost on anyone that one of the most critical events contributing to Donald Trump’s 2016 victory was Hillary Clinton’s supposed mishandling of classified emails and James Comey’s investigation? Can Donald Trump plead ignorance on his reported destruction or removal of documents, some of which may have been classified, from the White House after reveling in the Clinton email investigation?Let us hope that Republicans don’t deliver up yet another double-standard response to this even more egregious misconduct by Mr. Trump.Larry LobertGrosse Pointe Park, Mich.To the Editor:So wads of paper were stuffed down the White House toilets. Well, remember how hard it was to get toilet paper during the early days of the pandemic?Mary GarripoliLos AngelesMoving Toward a ‘Republican Autocracy’“They’re the two most important leaders in the Republican Party,” said one lobbyist.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “As Trump Re-emerges, His Base Shows Fractures” (front page, Feb. 1) and “How DeSantis Gamed the Media as He Rose” (news article, Feb. 1):Former President Donald Trump was the catalyst for transforming the Republican Party from a policy-based party to one now focused on replacing our pluralistic democracy with one-party authoritarianism. But while Mr. Trump may be the titular leader of the Republican Party, he is not the future. He will serve only as the figurehead for the future revolution.Others such as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are the emerging leaders, and they are building a one-party autocratic government. For their vision of America look at how Mr. DeSantis successfully enacted voter suppression legislation, is proposing ballot police to intimidate voters, has signed legislation to suppress political demonstrations and has suppressed academic speech at a state university.The Trump Republicans have a national vision of taking the House and the Senate in 2022, and the presidency in 2024. When that is accomplished all three branches of government will effectively be in Trump Republican autocratic control, and the American experiment in constitutional democracy will be brought to an end.Michael AbelsDeLand, Fla.To the Editor:I can’t believe people still don’t get it. Or if they do, they can’t admit it. The G.O.P. and Donald Trump are one and the same. Reporters try to prod Republican politicians to refute Mr. Trump’s latest madman rant. It won’t happen. Not because they are “afraid” of the base. Because the Republican Party started this coup years ago, before Mr. Trump was elected in 2016.The Republicans are not interested in democracy or this country’s promised ideals. They are interested in total control, a permanent Republican autocracy, power and wealth. And if they have to get in bed with a vengeful, hate-filled wannabe king to bring their coup to a successful conclusion, so be it.They got oh so close. They won’t stop now. Take off the blinders, shake off the wishful thinking. They’re feeding the divisions; they’re dismantling our democratic institutions.Olivia KoppellBrookline, Mass.Why Does the Postal Service Have to Make a Profit?  Desiree Rios for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Lawmakers Vote to Avert Postal Insolvency” (news article, Feb. 9):You write, “Despite being a popular mainstay of American life, the Postal Service regularly fails to turn a profit, with 2020 marking the 14th consecutive year it incurred a net annual loss.”The police, the firefighters, the Army and the Navy all fail to turn a profit. These are responsibilities we expect our government to fulfill regardless of cost.Holding the Postal Service to a standard of profitability is unreasonable and plays into the hands of those who want to eliminate it for private gain.Tamar SingerNew York More