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      N.Y. City Council Sees Historic Changes, and Republicans Gain Ground

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      Concerns over public safety and pandemic restrictions helped some Republicans win seats on the New York City Council, which will also be one of the city’s most diverse councils ever.Election Day was expected to be something of a historic moment for the New York City Council. The city’s legislative body was poised to welcome its first South Asian members, its first Korean American members, its first Muslim woman and its first out L.G.B.T.Q. Black women. For the first time, it would have more women than men.Most of that did happen on Tuesday, but not exactly in the way that was anticipated. At least two of the women newly elected to the Council were Republicans — part of a trend that saw the party unexpectedly gain seats for the first time since 2009.Though Democrats cruised to victories in the vast majority of races, Republicans defended the three City Council seats they held, including one that Democrats sought to flip. They also picked up a fourth and remained competitive in three other races that, with some ballots yet to be counted, remained too close to call on Wednesday night.Even in two races where incumbent Democrats were running for re-election on multiple party lines, they received more votes on the Republican ballot line than the Democratic one.The results reveal the extent to which Republicans were able to garner support in more moderate and conservative districts by focusing on a few salient issues — a dynamic that was also at play in races nationwide.Elected officials and strategists from both parties said that the competitive Council contests were largely shaped by similar issues: concern over public safety, frustration over pandemic-related guidelines including vaccine mandates, and alienation from a Democratic Party that some voters worry has left them behind as the left wing has ascended.“There is a lack of a clear message of what the Democratic Party stands for,” said Ken Sherrill, a professor emeritus of political science at Hunter College.Councilman Justin Brannan, a potential contender for Council speaker next year, was in a close race against his Republican rival, Brian Fox.Holly Pickett for The New York TimesOthers said that low turnout had likely been a factor, and that Democrats had to do more to draw voters to the polls.“We can’t take our electorate for granted and just assume that because we’re in a blue state that all voters will follow us,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, the New York State director of the left-leaning Working Families Party. “We have to always be fighting.”Still, the broader contours of the next City Council remain unchanged from expectations. As it has been for decades, the 51-member body will be dominated by Democrats, many of them new faces from the party’s left wing. The city is poised to have one of the most diverse councils in its history, with at least 30 women holding office.The showing from Republicans is unlikely to alter the city’s immediate political direction. If Republicans picked up the final three races, they would have seven seats — their largest faction since the mid-1990s, but likely not enough to pose a major threat to Democratic priorities. Eric Adams, the Democratic candidate, handily won his election for mayor, and four of the five borough presidents will also remain Democrats, with Staten Island, a conservative stronghold, the exception.Among the still undecided races was a re-election bid by Councilman Justin Brannan, a Democrat who is a contender to become City Council speaker next year and whose Brooklyn district includes Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst and Bath Beach. On Tuesday night, he was 255 votes behind his opponent, Brian Fox, though at least 1,456 returned absentee ballots, about 1,000 from registered Democrats, have yet to be counted.In an interview on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Brannan said that he believed that low turnout — about 24,000 people voted in person and 3,300 requested absentee ballots in a district where 105,000 are registered — was a factor in the tight margin of his race.But he also said the close race was demonstrative of the headwinds that Democrats had faced nationally and accused his opponent of trying to “harness these national culture wars” over hot-button issues like policing and vaccine mandates.During the campaign, Mr. Fox staunchly opposed vaccine mandates. His campaign also seized on the slogan “Justin Brannan defunded the police,” a reference to the budget negotiations last year in which city officials agreed to shift roughly $1 billion from the Police Department. Most council members, including Mr. Brannan, voted for that budget. He also voted for this year’s budget, which added $200 million back to the police budget.In Bay Ridge on Wednesday, Evan Chacker, 49, who owns an online education business, pointed to Mr. Brannan’s vote as a principal reason that the councilman lost his support.“We have law enforcement in the family,” he said. “He voted to defund the police.”In the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, the “defund the police” movement drove some voters away from Democratic candidates like Councilman Justin Brannan.Anna Watts for The New York TimesVincent Dardanello, the owner of a Sicilian cafe called Amuni, said that taxes and public safety were top issues for him, and that he had voted for Mr. Fox out of party loyalty, even though he knew and liked Mr. Brannan.“I’m a Republican, pretty much straight through,” Mr. Dardanello, 45, said.The debates were similar in other districts where Republicans won or exhibited strong showings, including in District 32 in Queens, the last Republican-controlled seat in that borough.During the campaign, which attracted spending from outside groups, Joann Ariola, the head of the Queens Republican Party, touted her support for the police, her commitment to protecting and improving the city schools’ gifted and talented program, and her focus on quality-of-life issues.Her Democratic opponent, Felicia Singh, a former teacher backed by left-leaning groups, kept her focus on education, the environment and the need for resources for often-underserved communities. Ms. Ariola, who sought to portray Ms. Singh as too left wing, won easily, by thousands of votes.Joann Ariola won her bid for a open Council seat in southeast Queens, in a race to replace the departing Republican, Eric Ulrich.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesThe race to fill the seat in District 48 in southern Brooklyn, home to many Orthodox Jews and Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, reflected some changing political winds in parts of the city.Voters in the district have gradually shifted to the right, and the area favored former President Donald J. Trump in 2020. Inna Vernikov, a lawyer who decried vaccine mandates and to whom Donald Trump Jr. lent support, defeated Steven Saperstein there, giving Republicans a fourth seat on the Council.Races remained close in District 19 in Queens, where Vickie Paladino, a Republican community activist, leads Tony Avella, a former Democratic state senator and councilman. The Democratic candidate in District 47 in Brooklyn, Ari Kagan, was ahead of his Republican opponent, Mark Szuszkiewicz, by just 283 votes. Many absentee votes remain outstanding in both races.The winners of those races will join a City Council stuffed with Democrats who won easy victories in their races. Among them are five Asian Americans, the most in the body’s history, including Julie Won and Linda Lee in Queens, who are the Council’s first Korean American members; Shahana Hanif in Brooklyn and Shekar Krishnan in Queens, the first South Asian members; and Sandra Ung in Queens, who is Cambodian American. Ms. Hanif will also be the first Muslim woman to serve on the Council.The incoming council members come from across the liberal spectrum. They include moderate incumbents like Francisco Moya, as well as a number of former left-wing activists with no previous ties to City Hall like Tiffany Cabán and Kristin Richardson Jordan, an activist who, with Crystal Hudson, is one of the first two Black L.G.B.T.Q. women on the Council.Kristin Richardson Jordan will become one of the first two Black L.G.B.T.Q. women on the City Council. Rainmaker Photos/MediaPunch/IPX, via Associated PressMs. Jordan, who narrowly won victory in her primary, said on Wednesday that her win reflected the priorities of voters in her Upper Manhattan district: affordable housing, criminal justice reform and equality in education. Those differ from the chief concerns stated by voters in districts where Republicans were more competitive.Christina Greer, a political scientist at Fordham University, said that as a whole, the Council results highlighted what has long been true: that while conservatives have been muted in the city’s political discourse, they have always been something of a force.Ms. Greer also said that the results illustrated the difficulty of characterizing the city’s electorate in broad strokes.“We have to recognize that there’s several shades of blue in New York City,” she said.Julianne McShane More

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      A Rough Election Night for the Democrats

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      Asthaa Chaturvedi, Neena Pathak, Diana Nguyen and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherAt first, most of the attention on a major night of elections across the United States on Tuesday was on an unexpectedly close contest in the Virginia governor’s race.Once it became clear that the Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, had successfully faced down Terry McAuliffe, a Democratic former governor, the focus switched to problems for the Democrats elsewhere.As the night went on, it became clear that the contest in Virginia was not a singular event — Republicans were doing well in several unlikely places.What do the results tell us about the current direction of American politics?On today’s episodeAlexander Burns, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate and former Virginian governor, lost his contest against the Republican’s Glenn Youngkin.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBackground readingReeling from a barrage of unexpected losses, an array of Democrats have pleaded with President Biden and his party’s lawmakers to address the quality-of-life issues that plagued their candidates in Tuesday’s elections.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.Transcripts of each episode are available by the next workday. You can find them at the top of the page.Alexander Burns contributed reporting.The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Austin Mitchell, Neena Pathak, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Daniel Guillemette, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Kaitlin Roberts, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Soraya Shockley, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie and Rowan Niemisto.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Cliff Levy, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Sofia Milan, Desiree Ibekwe, Erica Futterman, Wendy Dorr, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda and Maddy Masiello. More

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      Republicans Pounce on Schools as a Wedge Issue to Unite the Party

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      Rallying around what it calls “parental rights,” the party is pushing to build on its victories this week by stoking white resentment and tapping into broader anger at the education system.After an unexpectedly strong showing on Tuesday night, Republicans are heading into the 2022 midterm elections with what they believe will be a highly effective political strategy capitalizing on the frustrations of suburban parents still reeling from the devastating fallout of pandemic-era schooling.Seizing on education as a newly potent wedge issue, Republicans have moved to galvanize crucial groups of voters around what the party calls “parental rights” issues in public schools, a hodgepodge of conservative causes ranging from eradicating mask mandates to demanding changes to the way children are taught about racism.Yet it is the free-floating sense of rage from parents, many of whom felt abandoned by the government during the worst months of the pandemic, that arose from the off-year elections as one of the most powerful drivers for Republican candidates.Across the country, Democrats lost significant ground in crucial suburban and exurban areas — the kinds of communities that are sought out for their well-funded public schools — that helped give the party control of Congress and the White House. In Virginia, where Republicans made schools central to their pitch, education rocketed to the top of voter concerns in the final weeks of the race, narrowly edging out the economy.The message worked on two frequencies. Pushing a mantra of greater parental control, Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, stoked the resentment and fear of some white voters, who were alarmed by efforts to teach a more critical history of racism in America. He attacked critical race theory, a graduate school framework that has become a loose shorthand for a contentious debate on how to address race. And he released an ad that was a throwback to the days of banning books, highlighting objections by a white mother and her high-school-age son to “Beloved,” the canonical novel about slavery by the Black Nobel laureate Toni Morrison.But at the same time, Mr. Youngkin and other Republicans tapped into broader dissatisfaction among moderate voters about teachers’ unions, unresponsive school boards, quarantine policies and the instruction parents saw firsthand during months of remote learning. In his stump speeches, Mr. Youngkin promised to never again close Virginia schools.While Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee, and his party allies eagerly condemned the ugliest attacks by their opponents, they seemed unprepared to counter the wider outpouring of anger over schools.Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s governor-elect, pushed a message on education that stoked the resentment of white voters while speaking to broader frustrations with schools.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesFor weeks before the Virginia election, Republicans pointed to the school strategy as a possible template for the entire party. Mr. Youngkin’s narrow but decisive victory on Tuesday confirmed for Republicans that they had an issue capable of uniting diverse groups of voters. The trend was most evident in Mr. Youngkin’s improvement over former President Donald J. Trump’s performance in the Washington suburbs, which include a mix of communities with large Asian, Hispanic and Black populations.Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader, listed education as a main plank of his party’s plan to reclaim power, with promises to introduce a “Parents’ Bill of Rights.”“If the Virginia results showed us anything, it is that parents are demanding more control and accountability in the classroom,” he wrote in an election-night letter to his caucus.Steven Law, the president of American Crossroads, one of the most active outside groups working to elect Republicans to the House and Senate, said the strategy was ripe for replicating in races across the country.“It’s always possible to overdo something,” he added, cautioning that Republicans would be unwise to pursue attacks that appear hostile to teachers themselves. “But very clearly there’s a high level of concern among parents over political and social experimentation in schools that transcends ideology.”While the conservative news media and Republican candidates stirred the stew of anxieties and racial resentments that animate the party’s base — thundering about equity initiatives, books with sexual content and transgender students on sports teams — they largely avoided offering specific plans to tackle thornier issues like budget cuts and deepening educational inequalities.But the election results suggested that Republicans had spoken about education in ways that resonated with a broader cross-section of voters.In Virginia, the Youngkin campaign appealed to Asian parents worried about progressive efforts to make admissions processes in gifted programs less restrictive; Black parents upset over the opposition of teachers’ unions to charter schools; and suburban mothers of all races who were generally on edge about having to juggle so much at home over the last year and a half.“This isn’t partisan,” said Jeff Roe, the Youngkin campaign’s chief strategist. “It’s everyone.”Democrats largely declined to engage deeply with such charged concerns, instead focusing on plans to pump billions into education funding, expand pre-K programs and raise teacher pay.In Virginia and New Jersey, the Democratic candidates for governor adopted the approach of Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who faced a recall challenge that exploited similar lines of attack but beat it back by leaning into vaccination and mask mandates in schools. Ahead of the midterms, many of the educational issues are sure to linger.Already, the effects of remote learning on parents have been severe: School closures drove millions of parents out of the work force, led to an increase in mental health problems among children and worsened existing educational inequalities. Many of those effects were borne most heavily by key parts of the Democratic base, including women and Black and Latino families.Strategists, activists and officials urged Democrats to prepare for the Republican attacks to be echoed by G.O.P. candidates up and down the ticket.Virginia was among the East Coast states that were slowest to reopen their schools. Some parents supported the cautious approach, but others became angry.Kenny Holston/Getty ImagesGeoff Garin, a top Democratic pollster, said the party’s candidates needed to expand their message beyond their long-running policy goals like reducing class sizes and expanding pre-K education.Takeaways From the 2021 ElectionsCard 1 of 5A G.O.P. pathway in Virginia. More

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      McAuliffe Showed How You Lose Gracefully in Virginia

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      Glenn Youngkin’s victory over Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race surprised many people in a state that has been trending blue for years. Republican candidates also won the other top races in the state, for lieutenant governor and attorney general.All three races were high-profile, closely fought affairs. Yet there were no claims of fraud by the losers, no conspiracy theories about Venezuelan despots rigging voting machines, no spurious lawsuits demanding recounts. As of Wednesday afternoon, at least, the State Capitol in Richmond stands untouched.How refreshing to see adults accepting defeat with grace.And the stakes were plenty high. Democrats across the country had grown increasingly anxious over the polls coming out of Virginia, and for good reason. It’s considered a bellwether for the midterm elections, and Tuesday’s vote served as the first major referendum on the Biden era.The McAuliffe campaign’s reaction to his crushing loss? Gird yourselves. “Congratulations to Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin on his victory,” Mr. McAuliffe said in a statement Wednesday morning. “I hope Virginians will join me in wishing the best to him and his family.”Come again? Republican turnout was way up in key precincts; surely Mr. McAuliffe was teeing up to make some wild accusation about partisan operatives stuffing ballot boxes. “While last night we came up short, I am proud that we spent this campaign fighting for the values we so deeply believe in,” the statement said.It’s almost like listening to a foreign language, isn’t it? Over the past year, Americans have been subjected to an endless temper tantrum by one of the country’s two major political parties — a party now led by people who have apparently lost the capacity to admit defeat. One year to the day since the polls closed in 2020, Donald Trump still hasn’t formally conceded that election. He couldn’t even muster the dignity and decorum to hand over the presidency to Joe Biden in person, skipping town on Inauguration Day like a crook on the lam.This can’t-accept-defeat mentality began in earnest before the 2016 election, which Mr. Trump said was rigged even after he won, and it has set the tone for all that has come since. It emboldened the absurd and dangerous campaign of lies about election fraud in 2020, which notably focused on the big cities where larger numbers of Black voters live. It led directly to the deadly Jan. 6 riot that Mr. Trump incited at the U.S. Capitol. And it continues to infect the party 10 months later, as top Republicans still refuse to acknowledge Mr. Biden as the legitimately elected president and Republican-led states pass laws to make it easier for their legislatures to overturn the will of the voters if they don’t like the result.Speaking of election fraud, Republicans have been strangely quiet on the topic this time around. Interesting how that works: When a Democrat wins, it’s ipso facto proof of fraud. When a Republican wins — presto! — the election is on the level. This is how so many top Republicans managed to keep a straight face in 2020 as they argued that votes for Mr. Biden were fraudulent even while votes for winning Republican candidates farther down the same ballot were magically untainted.Hey, Republicans! This does not have to be so hard. All you have to do is value American democracy more than you value your own party’s hold on power. I guarantee that Democrats want to win just as badly as you do, and yet they take their lumps like grown-ups.Here are some examples to learn from: In 2016, Hillary Clinton conceded less than a day after polls closed, even though she was running neck and neck with Mr. Trump in key swing states and was sitting on a popular-vote lead that would eventually swell to nearly three million votes. President Obama called Mr. Trump in the middle of the night to congratulate him; this is the most basic stuff of peaceful democratic transitions, and yet Mr. Trump could never bring himself to do it.Or recall what Vice President Al Gore did on Dec. 13, 2000, conceding one of the closest elections in more than a century after the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 to stop the vote counting in Florida. “I accept the finality of this outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession,” Mr. Gore said in a nationally televised address that should stand as one of the most important moments in American history.Alas, Republicans these days seem more intent on deflecting criticism than on hearing it. Cue the references to Stacey Abrams, who refused to concede the 2018 Georgia governor’s race after losing to her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp. Agreed, that wasn’t good. It also wasn’t good that Mr. Kemp, as the secretary of state at the time, was in charge of running the election in which he was a candidate. After her defeat, she and others accused him of suppressing turnout by purging Georgia’s rolls of more than 1.4 million inactive voters. It’s worth noting that Ms. Abrams was not the incumbent and that no major Democratic figures publicly supported her refusal to concede.Losing is hard. It happens to everybody. But a concession is not just a symbolic gesture. It is the sine qua non of representative democracy — a literal enactment of the loser’s acceptance of the legitimacy of his or her opponent. When a single candidate refuses to concede, it’s corrosive. When a sitting president and much of his party refuse to, it can turn deadly, as the world saw on Jan. 6.I’m no fan of Mr. Youngkin, but he won fair and square, just as Mr. Biden did a year ago. Maybe Mr. Youngkin’s victory will remind his party that it can still prevail in closely fought elections and accept the ones they lose. Meanwhile, Republicans should read Mr. McAuliffe’s statement and remember why it’s so important to lose gracefully.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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      New Jersey’s Governor’s Race is Too Close to Call

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      Gov. Philip D. Murphy pulled ahead of his Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, on Wednesday in the race for governor of New Jersey, a contest that was still too close to call and was emboldening national Republicans. Mr. Murphy, a Democrat in his first term, trailed by more than 50,000 votes at one point after the polls closed on Tuesday night, an unexpected deficit in a race that a recent Monmouth University poll had him leading by 11 points. But Mr. Ciattarelli’s once significant lead had evaporated as results trickled in from Democratic strongholds, especially those in northern New Jersey like Essex County, which includes Newark. With 88 percent of the expected vote counted, Mr. Murphy led by 1,408 votes as of 10 a.m. on Wednesday, according to tallies reported by The Associated Press.By dawn on Wednesday, Democrats expressed optimism that Mr. Murphy would survive once all the votes were counted.Representative Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey, predicted that Mr. Murphy would win during an appearance Wednesday on CNN while acknowledging the restlessness of voters.“My takeaway overall in this election is that people want action,” Mr. Gottheimer said. “They want results, and they deserve results.”At about 12:30 a.m., both candidates took the stages at their election-night parties to tell supporters that the results of the contest would not be clear until all provisional and vote-by-mail ballots were counted.“We’re all sorry that tonight could not yet be the celebration that we wanted it to be,” said Mr. Murphy, surrounded by his family in Asbury Park’s Convention Hall. “But as I said: When every vote is counted — and every vote will be counted — we hope to have a celebration again.”Mr. Ciattarelli, 59, said much the same thing, but appeared far more relaxed after outperforming every public opinion poll conducted during the campaign in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 1.1 million voters.“We have sent a message to the entire country,” Mr. Ciattarelli told supporters gathered in Bridgewater. “But this is what I love about this state, if you study its history: Every single time it’s gone too far off track, the people of this state have pushed, pulled and prodded it right back to where it needs to be.”At 4 a.m., the candidates remained in a statistical dead heat, with about 12 percent of votes still uncounted.Regardless of who wins, the razor-thin margin has made clear just how divided voters are about the tough policies Mr. Murphy imposed to control the spread of the coronavirus, and his liberal agenda on taxation, climate change and racial equity.Mr. Murphy, a wealthy former Goldman Sachs executive and ambassador to Germany, had campaigned on the unabashedly left-leaning agenda he pushed through during this first term.But the defining issue of the campaign was the pandemic, which has killed about 28,000 residents, hobbled much of the region’s economy and disrupted the education of 1.3 million public school students.Mr. Murphy was one of the last governors to repeal an indoor mask mandate and among the first to require teachers to be vaccinated or submit to regular testingMr. Ciattarelli, a former assemblyman, made Mr. Murphy’s strict pandemic edicts a centerpiece of his campaign. The Republican opposed Covid-19 vaccine mandates and mandatory masking in schools, and he blamed Mr. Murphy’s early lockdown orders for hurting small businesses and keeping students out of school for too long.Kevin Armstrong and Lauren Hard contributed reporting. More

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      When Will We Know Election Results?

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      Expect it to be a late night in Virginia. And possibly a long week.In 2020, President Biden won the state by 10 percentage points, and the race wasn’t called until well after midnight. No one expects the margin of victory for either Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate, or Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate, to reach double digits, meaning a large percentage of the vote total will likely need to be counted before it is clear who won.If the margin is fewer than 10,000 votes, Virginians may have to wait a few days. The state requires that all mail ballots postmarked by Election Day be counted if they are received by the following Friday at noon. In 2020, the count included 10,901 ballots that fell in that post-Election Day window.And as voters navigate the relatively new early voting process, both campaigns expect an uptick in provisional ballots, which also can take days to be counted.The state has made some improvements since the 2020 election.Counties are now required to prepare their early absentee ballots for processing, meaning the ballots can be opened, checked for eligibility and scanned up to a week before Election Day. That is likely to help alleviate the type of bottlenecks in tabulating absentee votes that delayed the 2020 vote count.So while it may take time for results to be counted, Virginia is not expected to repeat what happened in Pennsylvania in 2020, when election officials were restricted by law from getting a head start on processing early votes, leading to a delay in counting.New YorkIn New York City, voters will likely not have to wait long at all. Eric Adams, the Democratic candidate, is the overwhelming favorite in the race to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio, and the election is expected to be called early in the night.But for City Council seats and other closer races, the results could take some time. The New York City Board of Elections has not had a recent history of timely results or orderly counting. It took weeks for the agency to release certified election results in nearly all the races after the primary in June.New JerseyNew Jersey expanded early voting this year and can expect an election night as swift as the one in New York. Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat, has been maintaining a double-digit lead in his re-election bid for most of the year. Though that lead has waned slightly, there has not been any major swings to indicate a shift in support.The state has also seen steady early voting, with nearly 500,000 people voting by mail as of Thursday. All those votes can be prepared and ready for tabulation on Election Day.AtlantaIn Atlanta, the race to replace Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms — who decided not to seek re-election — is almost certainly headed to a runoff election. It may take late into the night to learn which candidates make it to the runoff.BostonThe race that will give Boston its first female mayor appears headed to an early night. Michelle Wu has maintained a large lead over her opponent, Annissa Essaibi George, with recent polling from Suffolk University showing Ms. Wu with a 32-point advantage. More

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

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