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      A Shift in Gerrymandering

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      The end of a Republican advantage. Republicans have been more successful than Democrats since 2010 at gerrymandering congressional districts to their advantage. But the Republican advantage may be about to fade because of a few court cases.In Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court forced officials to redraw the map to add one majority Black (and therefore Democratic-leaning) district. In New York, Democrats are trying to redraw the map to flip several seats. In Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, other legal challenges could help Democrats.If everything goes Democrats’ way, roughly 10 House seats could become meaningfully easier to win. Next year, the party needs to net only five seats to reclaim the House. New York alone could switch six seats from leaning Republican to leaning Democrat.Not every court case is hurting Republicans. In North Carolina, a ruling from the state’s Supreme Court will allow Republican lawmakers to redraw the map to move several seats their way. In South Carolina, liberal groups have taken the state’s Republican gerrymander to the U.S. Supreme Court; but the court’s conservative majority appears likely to side with Republicans, based on oral arguments last week.Still, the overall picture looks promising for Democrats. “The House map is pretty equitable now, certainly more so than it was 10 years ago,” David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report told me. If the cases go in Democrats’ favor, he added, “it could make the House map even a little bit bluer on balance than a random map would be.”In 2022, Republicans won about 51 percent of the popular vote in House elections nationwide — and about 51 percent of House seats. (My colleague Nate Cohn broke down those results.)Swinging backIn some ways, the recent gerrymandering developments are the pendulum swinging back.States typically update congressional maps once a decade, after each U.S. census. In 2010, Republicans swept state elections just in time for the redrawing of maps. They took full advantage, drawing congressional districts in their favor.After the 2020 census, Republicans remained in power in more states than Democrats. But after the gerrymanders of the 2010s, Republicans could not do much more to skew the maps.Meanwhile, legal challenges from liberal groups diminished the Republican gerrymanders. Some states, like Michigan, embraced independent redistricting commissions that drew more balanced maps. Democrats also used their control of some state governments, including in Illinois and Oregon, to aggressively redraw maps.“Republicans are not the only ones who gerrymander,” Claire Wofford, a political scientist at the College of Charleston, told me.Of course, Democrats will still need to win elections next year. The balance of gerrymandering is likely to determine control of the House only if the national vote is close.What’s nextHere are three major stories to watch in coming months:New York: The case moving through the courts would likely affect six seats, the most in any current dispute. A lower court already ruled in Democrats’ favor, and the state’s highest court is set to hear the case in November. Republicans now hold 11 of the state’s 26 congressional seats. North Carolina: Republicans are set to redraw the map in the next month, and could flip three or four seats in their favor. Republicans currently hold seven of the state’s 14 congressional seats.Time: If Republicans stall legal challenges for long enough, the maps may not change before the 2024 election. “There is more potential upside for Democrats right now than for Republicans,” said Stephen Wolf, an elections writer at Daily Kos, “but there are too many unresolved court cases to say yet what will likely happen.”More on 2024Donald Trump has entered October with nearly as much campaign cash as the rest of the Republican field combined.Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia, a debt-ridden coal magnate who has switched parties twice, is running for U.S. senate.Polls show few voters are aware of President Biden’s record on climate issues. One advocacy group plans to spend big to change that.ISRAEL-HAMAS WARThe LatestAn Israeli airstrike Sunday on Gaza City.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesIsrael and Hamas denied agreeing to a humanitarian cease-fire, and Israel continued to strike Gaza overnight.Western diplomats are negotiating to get emergency aid into Gaza and foreigners out through Egypt.Many Gazans are evacuating south as Israel prepares to invade the enclave. Hospital workers in the north said they weren’t able to move patients.Israel said Hamas had abducted at least 199 people, more than initially thought.Fighting has continued on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, and the U.S. is worried about a broader regional conflict. See maps of the fighting.Israelis are planning for a longer war despite having lost trust in their government and its intelligence services because of the Hamas attacks.International ResponsePresident Biden warned Israel not to reoccupy Gaza.A man in Chicago stabbed a 6-year-old boy to death because he was Muslim, the police said. The F.B.I. is tracking increased threats to Jewish and Muslim Americans.“Kidnapped”: In cities around the world, posters highlight the hostages abducted by Hamas.Many evangelical Christians are supporting Israel.Powerful donors, like Wall Street financiers, are pressuring U.S. schools to condemn student criticism of Israel.People upset about the attack by Hamas are leaving bad reviews on a Palestinian restaurant in Brooklyn.MORE NEWSPoliticsJim JordanKenny Holston/The New York TimesRepresentative Jim Jordan of Ohio is the current nominee for House speaker, but he’s short of the votes needed to be elected. Read what to expect in the speaker race this week.Donald Trump’s lawyers and federal prosecutors will argue today over whether a gag order should be imposed on him in a federal election case.Afghan EarthquakesTwo more powerful earthquakes struck northwestern Afghanistan, after recent quakes killed more than 1,000 people.Read about a man’s search for his son after the first of the tremors leveled his village.South American ElectionsA 35-year-old heir to a banana empire won Ecuador’s presidential election.The front-runner to be Argentina’s next president once called Pope Francis a “filthy leftist.” Some Argentines aren’t happy about it.More International NewsSatellite images suggest North Korea may be sending weapons to Russia, The Washington Post reports.Dariush Mehrjui, an Iranian film pioneer, and his wife were killed in their home near Tehran.BusinessThe pharmacy chain Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy as it deals with billions in debt and more than a thousand lawsuits over opioid prescriptions.Goodwill is figuring out e-commerce to compete with sites like Etsy’s Depop.Other Big StoriesThe new Nepal airport.Rebecca Conway for The New York TimesChina won an expensive contract to build an airport in Nepal, extending its regional influence. But the project left Nepal in debt.The Covid lab-leak theory has led to a lack of funding for studying dangerous pathogens, scientists say.Suzanne Somers, known for playing Chrissy Snow on the sitcom “Three’s Company,” died at 76.The American Museum of Natural History will remove human bones from public display. Some belonged to Indigenous and enslaved people.OpinionsMayor Eric Adams of New York has asked a court to suspend the city’s mandate to shelter migrants. But even when the migrant crisis fades, a housing crisis will remain, Mara Gay writes.The central cause of Gaza’s misery is Hamas, and Hamas deserve the blame for the deaths in this war, Bret Stephens writes.Here are columns by Nicholas Kristof on Gaza and Ross Douthat on Ukraine and Israel.MORNING READSJim Lorge and supporters. Todd Heisler/The New York Times“I want to be forgiven”: Inside a meeting of the Minnesota Board of Pardons, where supplicants have 10 minutes to make their case.The Piccirillis: How six stone-carving Italian brothers shaped the story of New York through sculpture.Waiting: With much of Hollywood on strike, many actors have slid back into restaurant work.Metropolitan Diary: Worst. Whale watch. Ever.Lives Lived: Rudy Perez was a pioneer of postmodern dance who challenged notions of what dance is, and isn’t, through minimalist choreography. He died at 93.SPORTSSunday Night Football: The Buffalo Bills narrowly defeated the New York Giants, 14-9. The Bills’ running back, Damien Harris, sustained a neck injury in the second quarter.Around the N.F.L.: The league’s two unbeaten teams both lost. The San Francisco 49ers missed a last-minute field goal in their 19-17 loss to the Cleveland Browns, and the Philadelphia Eagles were stifled by the New York Jets defense, losing 20-14. Here are takeaways from the weekend.M.L.B. playoffs: The Texas Rangers are still undefeated in the postseason after beating defending-champions the Houston Astros, 2-0, in Game 1 of the A.L.C.S.W.N.B.A. finals: The New York Liberty fended off the Las Vegas Aces, 87-73, in Game 3 of the league finals, forcing a Game 4.ARTS AND IDEASThe National Museum of Women in the Arts.Niki Charitable Art Foundation/ARS, NY, ADAGP, Paris; Photo by Lexey Swall for The New York TimesNew beginning: The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., is set to reopen this week after a two-year, nearly $68 million renovation. The social context has shifted since the museum first opened in 1987, and women today are better represented in museums surveys and gallery shows. Is the museum, then, still relevant?“People in the art world always think we’re achieving parity faster than we are,” said Susan Fisher Sterling, the museum’s director since 2008. “We’re not even close to there.”More on cultureMadonna opened her global Celebration Tour — a spectacle of her hits across four decades — at a 20,000-capacity arena in London.“She understands her power”: Read a review from the critic Wesley Morris of Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” movie. (The Washington Post shows how much she has made from the tour.)THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …Kelly Marshall for The New York Times.Elevate a roasted vegetable salad with creamy coconut dressing.Wear cowboy boots without feeling like you’re in a costume.Bake on an inexpensive and durable baking sheet.Make smoothies in a blender that has been Wirecutter’s top pick for nearly a decade.Take our news quiz.GAMESHere is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was gravity.And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku and Connections.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — GermanSign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. More

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      The Plot Trump Lost

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      When was the last time you listened to Donald Trump for longer than 30 seconds? Longer than a clip sailing by in a tweet or a TikTok or packaged on the evening news? Lovers and haters alike seem filled to the brim with information about this man, unable to take in any more or alter their view of him.If you haven’t lately, he talks about the 2020 election a lot, still, but in ways that are a little different from before.Onstage, sometimes he refers to it with a certain subversive lightness, like another thing he’s not supposed to repeat but does, like a punchline. “You speak up a little bit about the election — ‘He’s an insurrectionist,’” he said in Waterloo, Iowa, this month, to laughs.But sometimes the 2020 election as Mr. Trump describes it sounds like a crisis he cannot move beyond. “Had the election not … turned out the way it did — I’ll try to be nice,” he began in Iowa. “Had it not turned out the way it did — you know when I say that, I mean,” he said, then with more emphasis, “had the election not been rigged.”What if, what if. He was in an open-air warehouse on a windy, 51-degree Saturday and would return to the hypothetical again that day — had the election not been rigged, if the election hadn’t been rigged. The enthused crowd sat; eight Secret Service agents stood, flanking an elevated Mr. Trump and staring off into crisscrossing directions under an arched ceiling. The overall effect of the event — standing security detail, a big American flag against a cinder-block wall, “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys playing and at least eight people in T-shirts with the Trump mug shot on them — was like a concentrate of a Trump rally. We’ve been doing this so long as a country, he and we have become more abstract, operating in shorthand and fragments of the past.Onstage, he seamlessly moved between prepared text to talking about whatever was on his mind, then back in disorienting intimations, suggestions, asides and loops. “Household incomes rose by a record $6,000 a year under Trump, right? I love that mug shot. I love that beautiful woman right there with the mug shot,” he said at another event that afternoon, in a hotel convention center in Cedar Rapids.He’ll talk about how the day he stopped calling Hillary Clinton “crooked” was a good one for her, she celebrated that night, now he calls her beautiful, because she’s a great beauty — then with no variation or substantive transition beyond the word “but,” he goes back to prepared stuff about how the 30-year mortgage rate recently hit a 23-year high. A long riff about what prosecutors aren’t doing to the radical left, straight back into “but we delivered record increases in real family income.”Amid these digressions and jokes and tales about negotiations with foreign leaders, he’ll bring back a menacing clarity of voice so that each precise word about the indictments against him is all you can hear or think: “People realize that they’re fake and phony and they’re political.”As he used to say, he once had a nice life, which he gave up for this. But Mr. Trump said it the other night in West Palm Beach with the added dimension that “instead, I sit it in courtrooms.” He talks about how all the cases against him are connected and how they’re really after you, the voter, and he’s just standing in the way — though each time he said this in Iowa, his heart didn’t seem quite in it.He brings a lot more emotion to tracing everything going wrong in the world back to: What if they hadn’t rigged the election? Then, in the dream sequences that pepper Mr. Trump’s speeches, there would be no inflation, no war in Ukraine, no bad Afghanistan withdrawal. Forget what we’ll do now or what we should have done then.The broad themes Mr. Trump is working with right now are that Mr. Biden picked economic policies that are crazy and because the Afghanistan withdrawal was so bad, the world has fallen apart — but with 2020 always lurking nearby. “All these things wouldn’t have happened if the election weren’t rigged,” he said in Cedar Rapids. “If the election weren’t rigged, you wouldn’t have Ukraine, you wouldn’t have had any of it. It’s so sad what they’ve done. There’s plenty of evidence. It’s all there. You know it.” In Florida last week, he added one to the mix: Hamas would never have attacked Israel. “You’re in a different world,” he said in West Palm Beach, “and it’s getting worse.”Being assigned to one of the juries in these pending Trump cases would change someone’s life — a dividing line between the past and future. “Don’t use your real names with each other,” the judge told jurors at the beginning of E. Jean Carroll’s defamation trial. “My advice to you is not to identify yourselves, not now and not for a long time,” he told them on the last day.“When I would get in my car, I was like, ‘I just left that, and I have to just go do my job now?’” one member of the Fulton County special grand jury told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I just know things that are hard to know.’”If people seem to be unable to take in more information about Mr. Trump and if the election is shaping up to be a familiar repeat, the year ahead will not be. He views the world as one of perception, to be worked over and over again until it bends. To serve as a juror in this random selected position of authority, tasked with assessing what happened, for it to be your responsibility to step outside yourself and whatever you think about Mr. Trump and make decisions about him and the law is a weight that only a few dozen people will know. The rest of us will be outside in the chaos of perception, trying to make sense of it.And he’ll be inside and outside, perhaps still revisiting the decisive moment of his defeat and linking it with anything that’s gone wrong. “We would have had a deal with Iran. We would have had no inflation. Russia would have never ever in a million years gone into Ukraine,” he said in Waterloo. His sense of what if, what if, can draw a listener back further, to think about how much “what if” still shapes politics.The entire Republican Party has, for nearly a decade now, operated on a dream sequence of the possibility of passive collapse. What if he just went away? When Joe Biden ran in 2020, his campaign looked to correct the decisive mistake of the past: Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016. That was not, Mr. Biden often suggested, who we were. The implicit promise was the restoration of morality and normality. What if the 2020 election could be a reset?It’s easy to follow all these dream sequences into another: What if Mr. Trump could just return to New York, had never run for president, were no longer talking in loops? What if the country didn’t have to live through a remix of the 2020 election or change people’s lives by putting them on juries or live in the unknown we have not yet really reckoned with of what it will be like to live through the trials of our former president?This election seems like the one before only on the surface. Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden and the rest of us keep getting older; everything and everyone seems a little fried. Eight years in, there’s nothing that weird about seeing people wearing T-shirts with his mug shot staring back at him while a Backstreet Boys song from 1999 plays, the entire Republican field sounding like echoes of Mr. Trump as he talks about Mrs. Clinton, moving in and out of the present and back in time sonically.Mr. Trump remembers what things used to be like. “A normal politician gets indicted, and we’ve seen it hundreds of times over the years,” he said in Iowa, though he’s done versions of this elsewhere, too.He described that guy’s approach after getting “the pink slip” and dropped his voice into a washed monotone. “‘Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce that I am going home to my family. I will fight, I will fight, fight, fight for the rest of my life.’”“Do you understand? This is standard,” he said. “With me, it’s different.”Katherine Miller is a staff writer and editor in Opinion.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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      DeSantis Will Participate in Nevada Caucuses Despite Criticizing Them

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      The state party enacted new rules that the Florida governor and his rivals say are designed to help former President Donald J. Trump.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida plans to participate in the Nevada Republican Party caucuses, his campaign said on Sunday, taking part in a system that he and his rivals have said was designed to benefit former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. DeSantis’s team had not said previously whether he would take part in the party’s Feb. 8 caucuses in the state, which Republican political officials structured to supersede the state’s primary election.“Ron DeSantis is committed to earning every single delegate available as he works to earn the Republican nomination for president, and Nevada is no exception,” said Andrew Romeo, the communications director for the DeSantis campaign.In a swipe at the state party, he added: “It is disappointing that the Nevada Republican Party changed the rules against the will of the people just to benefit one candidate. However, Ron DeSantis will fight to overcome these tactics.”A statement from the party’s press office about Mr. DeSantis’s concerns said that caucuses are almost exclusively how Nevada Republicans have selected their nominee for decades.“We are aware that the Never Back Down super PAC that is supporting Governor Desantis had concerns with rule changes,” the statement said. “However, his campaign never took action to influence these rules. All official campaigns were invited to the meeting where these common sense, RNC-supported rules changes were voted on, and passed by overwhelming majority.”Officials in Nevada had made a bipartisan move to put a primary in place instead of caucuses, trying to increase participation. But Republican Party officials refused to accept that, and decided to go ahead with caucuses of their own.The decision to deliver all of the state’s delegates through its caucuses instead of through its primary has been widely seen as helping Mr. Trump — he continues to have a strong hold on the party’s most animated voters, who typically turn out for such contests.It was influenced by Michael McDonald, the state party chairman and a Trump ally, who was a fake elector for Mr. Trump in the state when the former president tried to subvert the results of the 2020 election.Taking part in the primary — which will be held two days earlier on Feb. 6 — instead of the caucuses would mean a candidate would be passing up the chance to accrue delegates, which are necessary in order to be nominated at the Republican National Convention.The rules were also changed to bar super PACs from sending speakers or literature to caucus sites, after Mr. Trump’s team warned state parties about possible legal challenges to allowing the outside groups to have a role. Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has relied heavily on his super PAC, Never Back Down, so the rule also puts him at a disadvantage.Mr. Trump’s team has worked aggressively with allies to change rules in various states to be more beneficial to him in apportioning delegates.Though the caucuses are still months away, the decisions by the Nevada Republican Party have already caused some consternation for the rest of the field. Mr. DeSantis’s team had held off on committing to the caucuses, while former Vice President Mike Pence decided to skip the caucuses in favor of the primary.Mr. DeSantis’s team is trying to demonstrate that it still plans to fight on various fronts, even with Mr. Trump well ahead in public opinion polls of Republican primary voters. The goal, campaign officials said, is to make the Trump team fight as hard as possible for every delegate, and to stave off a sense of inevitability that Mr. Trump has projected for months.To that end, Mr. DeSantis qualified for the Virgin Islands caucuses and will headline a virtual event there tomorrow. He was the first of the candidates to qualify there for the caucuses, to be held on Feb. 8, 2024, party officials there said. He has also filed for the primaries in South Carolina, New Hampshire and Virginia, and his team is working to file full slates in states like Tennessee. More

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      DeSantis and Haley Diverge on Help for Gaza Refugees

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      The two Republican candidates appeared to diverge on attitudes toward civilians in the Gaza Strip who are bracing for an invasion by Israel.The deepening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip is driving a wedge between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, two of the leading Republican presidential candidates, who deviated sharply on Sunday over whether the United States should help Palestinian refugees from the region ahead of an expected Israeli invasion.In an appearance on the CBS morning show “Face the Nation,” Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, doubled down on remarks he had made one day earlier in Iowa, espousing a hard-line opposition toward helping civilians who have been thrust into the middle of the conflict.“They teach kids to hate Jews,” he said. “The textbooks do not have Israel even on the map. They prepare very young kids to commit terrorist attacks. So I think it’s a toxic culture.”Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador under President Donald J. Trump, pushed back against that view during a CNN interview on Sunday with Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”“America has always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists,” she said after being shown a clip of Mr. DeSantis’s initial comments on Saturday.Nearly one million people are grappling with shortages of food, clean water and shelter in Gaza, which is bracing for a land invasion by Israel in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks and the taking of hostages by Hamas, an Iran-backed militant group.Mr. DeSantis argued on Sunday that it would be detrimental to the United States to “import” large numbers of refugees and would fuel antisemitism, echoing comments he made about people in Gaza the day before that drew scrutiny.At a campaign event on Saturday, Mr. DeSantis said, “If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic. None of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.”He added: “The Arab states should be taking them. If you have refugees, you don’t fly people in and take them into the United States of America.”When the CBS anchor Margaret Brennan pointed out to Mr. DeSantis that Arabs are Semites and replayed his remarks, he stood by his words.Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor at the First in the Nation Leadersip Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire on Friday.John Tully for The New York TimesGovernor Ron DeSantis of Florida at the First in the Nation Leadership Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire on Friday.John Tully for The New York Times“There was a lot of celebrating of those attacks in the Gaza Strip by a lot of those folks who were not Hamas,” he said.Ms. Brennan suggested that it was a remote possibility that refugees from Gaza could resettle in the United States, saying that they could not even evacuate from their immediate area. Still, Republicans have used the broader conflict to frame their postures on military action and humanitarian aid.In the House, Representatives Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin and Andy Ogles of Tennessee, both Republicans, have announced that they plan to introduce a bill they say would block the Biden administration from issuing visas to Palestinian passport holders.Mr. DeSantis, who served in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps in Iraq, was also asked whether he would advise the Israeli military to stop their attacks on the infrastructure that provides water and electricity to Gaza.“I don’t think they’re under an obligation to be providing water and these utilities while the hostages are being held,” he said.Ms. Haley struck a more sympathetic chord earlier on Sunday, saying that large percentages of Palestinians and Iranians did not support the violence being perpetrated against one another.“There are so many of these people who want to be free from this terrorist rule,” she said.While the Republican candidates have expressed solidarity with Israel in the wake of the Hamas attacks, they have also clashed with each other over who is most loyal to Israel, America’s closest Middle East ally, and what the role of the United States should be in conflicts overseas.Ms. Haley on Sunday continued to condemn Mr. Trump, her former boss and the Republican front-runner, for referring to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, as “very smart” while criticizing Israel’s prime minister and Israeli intelligence. She accused Mr. Trump of emboldening U.S. adversaries and drawing attention to himself.“You don’t go and compliment any of them because what that does is that makes America look weak,” she said on CNN, adding: “This isn’t about Trump. It’s not about him.”A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.Ms. Haley also leveled fresh criticism toward President Biden, saying that he should never have agreed to free up $6 billion in frozen oil revenue money for Iran for humanitarian purposes as part of a hostage release deal that was announced in August.Facing blowback over the money’s release, the Biden administration and Qatar agreed last week to deny Iran access to the funds, which White House officials had said had not been spent.“You empowered Iran to go and strengthen Hamas, strengthen Hezbollah, strengthen the Houthis to spread their terrorist activity,” Ms. Haley said.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.Haley Johnson More

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      Jeff Landry, a Hard-Line Republican, Is Elected Governor of Louisiana

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      The victory by Mr. Landry, the state’s attorney general, secures Republican control of Louisiana after eight years of divided government.Jeff Landry, the Louisiana attorney general and a hard-line conservative, trounced a crowded field of candidates on Saturday to become the state’s next governor, cementing Republican control of Louisiana after eight years of divided government. Mr. Landry, a brash conservative who repeatedly fought Democratic policies in court as Louisiana’s top lawyer, will replace Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat limited to two terms. In Saturday’s “jungle primary,” which pits candidates of any political affiliation against one other, Mr. Landry stunned many political watchers by winning more than 50 percent of the vote and eliminating the need for a runoff. His victory guarantees a far-right government for Louisiana — a state where Republicans have controlled the Legislature for a decade but had faced resistance from Mr. Edwards, who vetoed several bills, including ones targeting L.G.B.T.Q. people. It comes at a moment when the state is confronting soaring insurance rates and dwindling population numbers. The wide field of more than a dozen candidates, which included Democrats, independents and rival Republicans, had set steep odds for Mr. Landry to win outright. Had no candidate secured a simple majority, the two top vote-getters would have faced off in a runoff election next month. But Mr. Landry won with 51.6 percent of the vote, followed by Shawn Wilson, a Democrat and the state’s former transportation secretary, who secured 25.9 percent of the vote. None of the other candidates — a group that included Stephen Waguespack, a top business lobbyist and aide to former Gov. Bobby Jindal; John Schroder, the state treasurer; and Sharon Hewitt, a state senator — reached double digits. Mr. Landry, a confrontational litigator and politician, had won over much of the Republican base by battling Mr. Edwards and the Biden administration in court over pandemic vaccine mandates, efforts to work with social media companies to limit the spread of misleading or false theories, and environmental regulations. He served as a sheriff’s deputy and two-term lawmaker in the House of Representatives as the Tea Party took hold in American government. But it was over the last eight years as attorney general where Mr. Landry flexed the power of a political office and his particular style of combative conservatism. During the coronavirus pandemic, he challenged vaccine and mask mandates on the local and national level for health care workers, students and federal workers, voicing skepticism even as the vaccines were proven to help stem the spread and toll of the virus. He has also helped lead lawsuits that resulted in a federal judge restricting the Biden administration from speaking with social media companies and saw the Supreme Court rein in the administration’s ability to reduce carbon emissions. And he has defended some of Louisiana’s more controversial decisions, including a congressional map that Black voters have challenged as a violation of a landmark civil rights law and its abortion law, one of the strictest in the nation. (At one point, Mr. Landry openly said that critics could leave the state.)During his campaign for governor, Mr. Landry vowed to address crime in the state, though critics observed that countering crime fell under the jurisdiction of the attorney general. He also pledged to stop the “woke agenda” in Louisiana schools and to support the rights of parents to make decisions for their children, a nod to a push he championed to restrict access to gender-affirming care for transgender children and literature deemed to be sexually explicit. More

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      Quinn Mitchell, Known for His Pointed Questions of Candidates, Ejected From GOP Event

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      Quinn Mitchell, an aspiring journalist from New Hampshire, was escorted out of a G.O.P. candidate summit on Friday, though he was later allowed to return.It was the type of tough question a Republican presidential candidate might get on a Sunday morning talk show, only the person asking it was 15: Quinn Mitchell wanted to know if Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida believed that former President Donald J. Trump had violated the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021.Video of the uncomfortable exchange at a June 27 town hall in Hollis, N.H., for Mr. DeSantis, who dodged the question, ricocheted online. So did the pair’s next encounter at a July 4 parade in Merrimack, N.H., where a video showed Quinn, an aspiring journalist, being shooed away by a handler for the Florida governor.But the teenager said he was not prepared for what happened on Friday, when he was briefly ejected by police officers from the First in the Nation Leadership Summit, a candidate showcase organized by the New Hampshire Republican Party. The two-day event in Nashua, N.H., featured Mr. DeSantis and most of the G.O.P. field, but not Mr. Trump.“They said, ‘We know who you are,’” Quinn, who has his own political blog and podcast, said in a phone interview on Saturday from his home in Walpole, N.H., referring to the organizers of the summit.Quinn, who received a guest credential for the summit from the state’s G.O.P., said a person associated with the event had told him that he had a history of being disruptive and had accused him of being a tracker, a type of political operative who records rival candidates.The next thing he knew, Quinn said, he was being led to a private room and was then ushered out of the Sheraton Nashua hotel by local police officers. His ejection was first reported by The Boston Globe.Jimmy Thompson, a spokesman for the New Hampshire Republican Party, said in a text message on Saturday that the teen’s removal had been a mistake.“During the course of the two-day event, an overzealous volunteer mistakenly made the decision to have Quinn removed from the event, thinking he was a Democrat tracker,” Mr. Thompson wrote. “Once the incident came to our staff’s attention, NHGOP let him back into the event, where he was free to enjoy the rest of the summit.”Quinn met Vivek Ramaswamy at a Republican event in Newport, N.H., last month. Mr. DeSantis isn’t the only candidate who has faced his direct questions.Sophie Park for The New York TimesA spokesman for the DeSantis campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.A public information officer for the Nashua Police Department also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.According to his website, Quinn has attended more than 80 presidential campaign events since he was 10, taking advantage of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status in the nominating process to pose questions to candidates.He said he wanted to hear former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey speak on Friday, along with the businessman Perry Johnson, a long-shot candidate.At a town hall featuring Mr. Christie in April, Quinn had asked another pointed question: Would Hillary Clinton have been better than Mr. Trump as president?Mr. Christie, the former president’s loudest critic in the G.O.P. field, answered that he still would have chosen Mr. Trump in the 2016 election, describing the contest as “the biggest hold-your-nose-and-vote choice” the American people ever had.About two months later, it was Mr. DeSantis’s turn to field a question from Quinn, this one about Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6.“Are you in high school? said Mr. DeSantis, who has faced criticism as a candidate for not being fluid when interacting with voters and journalists, a dynamic that has made for some awkward exchanges on the campaign trail.The Florida governor pivoted, arguing that if the 2024 election focused on “relitigating things that happened two, three years ago, we’re going to lose.”Quinn said that it did not seem like a coincidence that he was kicked out of the event on Friday before Mr. DeSantis’s remarks, which he had planned to skip.“They know the story between me and DeSantis,” he said.By the time he was allowed to return to the event, Quinn said he was able to catch Mr. DeSantis’s remarks. But when the governor opened it up for a question, Quinn left.“OK, one quick question, what do you got?” Mr. DeSantis asked an audience member.Nicholas Nehamas More

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      Who Else Should Run for President?

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      Here is a second round of readers’ choices beyond the announced candidates.To the Editor:Re “More Hats in the Ring?” (Letters, Sept. 29):I’d like to see Gavin Newsom enter the presidential race.He’s intelligent and experienced, governing the most populous state in the country and one of the largest economies in the world.As governor of California, he’s aware of the important issues facing our country today: unchecked immigration, climate change, homelessness, polarization of society, etc.He’s young and charismatic, and presents an air of confidence and stability that our country and our allies desperately need.He would be an interesting and exciting candidate who could motivate voters. He could win the presidency, and many Americans would breathe a sigh of relief and have hope for the future.Mary Ellen RamirezHoffman Estates, Ill.To the Editor:If Caroline Kennedy joined the presidential race, she would receive my support. Unlike the current Kennedy who is vying for the presidency (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.), she is not mired in controversy and conspiracy theories.She served as the U.S. ambassador to Japan during President Barack Obama’s administration and is now the ambassador to Australia, showcasing her experience in diplomacy and politics. She has spent her life devoted to politics, educational reform and charitable work. She has continued her father’s legacy with class.Ms. Kennedy has never been driven by the spotlight, which proves that she would not be interested in boasting about accomplishments or putting personal interests ahead of the needs of the country.We have yet to elect a woman as president in this country. If we were to find Camelot again, Caroline Kennedy would be our leader.Kristina HopperHolland, Mich.To the Editor:Our commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, has exceptional credentials to appeal to the electorate and to lead our nation.She earned a B.A. degree in economics at Harvard while graduating magna cum laude (and played rugby, an ideal foundation for politics, she says). She then became a Rhodes scholar, got a law degree from Yale Law School and worked as a venture capitalist.As general treasurer of Rhode Island, she reformed the state’s pension system. From there she became governor of Rhode Island, and cut taxes every year and removed thousands of pages of regulations. She is now the nation’s commerce secretary.Gina Raimondo has an excellent educational foundation, solid business qualifications and experience on the federal level as a cabinet member. Gina Raimondo checks a lot of boxes.David PastoreMountainside, N.J.To the Editor:There are numerous plain-speaking, pragmatic governors who eschew divisive culture wars and focus on results-oriented governance, job creation and fiscal responsibility. What distinguishes Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia is not only his courageous stand against Donald Trump’s election denialism, but his attention to re-establishing Republican Party unity.Only a Republican governor who can attract support from conservative Republicans, crossover Democrats and independent voters can realistically hope to build the gridlock-busting coalition the nation so desperately needs at this time. That makes Governor Kemp a most attractive presidential candidate in 2024.John R. LeopoldStoney Beach, Md.To the Editor:The best choice for another Democratic presidential candidate is Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a progressive Democrat focusing on health care, universal pre-K and infrastructure.Ms. Whitmer knows what voters want. Her campaign to “fix the damn roads” in cold hilly Michigan helped get her elected governor. She is fearless against insurrectionists and homegrown militias, and did not back down about her government’s pandemic restrictions. She spooks Donald Trump, who calls her “that woman from Michigan.” She knows how to kick the G.O.P.’s butt, winning the governorship with an over 10-point margin and inspiring voters to elect a Democratic-controlled House and Senate.Ms. Whitmer is smart and energetic, and projects a down-to-earth Midwestern sensibility.Big Gretch for the win!Karla JenningsDecatur, Ga.To the Editor:I hereby nominate Gen. Mark Milley for the presidency. Just retired from his post as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley is well qualified to become commander in chief.His 43-year Army career, during which he served in command positions across the globe, was exemplary. He is well versed in the functioning of government and in the politics of Washington. He holds degrees from Princeton and Columbia.His reverence for the American system of government is unwavering — perhaps most tellingly in a speech following the 2020 election, when our system of government hung in the balance. “We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual,” he said. “We take an oath to the Constitution.”Arguably his biggest mistake was following President Donald Trump to St. John’s Church in Washington after protesters objecting to the killing of George Floyd were cleared from the area. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics,” he later acknowledged. “It was a mistake that I have learned from.” How refreshing, a public figure apologizing. We could use more of that.Henry Von KohornPrinceton, N.J.To the Editor:I would like to see Nikki Haley be the Republican candidate against a female Democrat — Amy Klobuchar, Gina Raimondo or Gretchen Whitmer. All are qualified. We would have our first woman president regardless of which party won.Arleen BestArdsley, N.Y.To the Editor:Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado.He’s engaged, honest, eloquent, passionate and cut from a cloth that might not even exist anymore. His biggest flaw is that he’s not flashy or dramatic, but he knows policy, can come up with solutions, and is in touch with the real problems facing our nation. He is the moderate and principled human being that this country needs.Ken RizzoNew YorkTo the Editor:I like President Biden’s policies and his accomplishments, but I think he’s too old. So I’d like to see Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio run for the Democratic Party nomination.Mr. Brown is a progressive, F.D.R.-style Democrat who has focused on economic policies that have improved the lives of working-class Americans. He is pro-union and helped President Biden pass the CHIPS and Science Act, which had broad labor support.He’s also principled: He was the second Senate Democrat to call for the resignation of the disgraced senator Bob Menendez. And he’s been able to win, and keep, his Senate seat in swing-state Ohio, which the Democrats will need to win in 2024.I’m not from Ohio and I’ve never met Sherrod Brown, but every time I see him interviewed I think, “Why doesn’t this guy run for president?” I think he’d stop the slide of working-class Americans away from the Democratic Party, and as president, he’d continue to advance the successful Biden economic agenda.He could definitely beat Donald Trump. And if he’s not at the top of the ticket, I think he’d make an excellent V.P. choice for Gretchen Whitmer.Charles McLeanDenverTo the Editor:Tom Hanks.We’ve had actors before as president (aren’t they all?), but none as talented, well respected, intelligent, multidimensional, centered, compassionate and, well, genuine. He projects steel when necessary and is nobody’s fool — politically astute and cross-party electable.Bob CarrChicagoTo the Editor:I believe that Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut should consider running. He has vast experience in both domestic issues and foreign policy. His passion for classic, progressive issues is based on a concern that all Americans have a high quality of life.His bipartisan efforts, especially on gun control, are impressive. Age, eloquence and demeanor matter a great deal on a world stage; he is young, composed, thoughtful and articulate.Christopher NilsonChandler, Ariz.To the Editor:For the Democrats: Jared Polis, governor of Colorado, is the first name that comes to my mind. He’s an intelligent, honest, hard-working moderate.For the Republicans: No name comes to me, but I could support anyone who’s intelligent, honest and has the courage to stop being a fearful apologist for Donald Trump.The fact that I see no one fitting that bill makes me worry for the fate of my country.Jim HollestelleLouisville, Colo. More

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      Has Support for Ukraine Peaked? Some Fear So.

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      The war in the Middle East, anxiety about the commitment of the U.S., and divisions in Europe are worrying Kyiv that aid from the West may wane.Clearly anxious, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine went in person this week to see NATO defense ministers in Brussels, worried that the war between Israel and Hamas will divert attention — and needed weapons — from Ukraine’s long and bloody struggle against the Russian invasion.American and NATO officials moved to reassure Mr. Zelensky, pledging another $2 billion in immediate military aid. But even before the war in the Mideast began last week, there was a strong sense in Europe, watching Washington, that the world had reached “peak Ukraine” — that support for Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s invasion would never again be as high as it was a few months ago.The new run for the White House by former President Donald J. Trump is shaking confidence that Washington will continue large-scale support for Ukraine. But the concern, Europeans say, is larger than Mr. Trump and extends to much of his Republican Party, which has made cutting support for Ukraine a litmus test of conservative credibility.Even in Europe, Ukraine is an increasingly divisive issue. Voters in Slovakia handed a victory to Robert Fico, a former prime minister sympathetic to Russia. A vicious election campaign in Poland, one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, has emphasized strains with Kyiv. A far right opposed to aiding Ukraine’s war effort has surged in Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz is struggling to win voters over to his call for a stronger military.“I’m pessimistic,” said Yelyzaveta Yasko, a Ukrainian member of Parliament who is on the foreign affairs committee. “There are many questions now — weapons production, security infrastructure, economic aid, the future of NATO,” she said, but noted that answers to those questions had a timeline of at least five years.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, right, talking with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Wednesday at a NATO meeting in Brussels.Olivier Matthys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have been fighting for 600 days,” she added, “and I don’t see the leadership and planning that is required to take real action — not just statements — in support of Ukraine.”Even more depressing, Ms. Yasko said at a recent security forum in Warsaw, is the way domestic politics are “instrumentalizing Ukraine.”“Opinion polls show the people still support Ukraine,” she said, “but politicians start to use Ukraine as a topic to fight each other, and Ukraine becomes a victim.”“I’m worried,” she continued. “I don’t like the way my country is used as a tool.”The previous bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States no longer seems to hold. “There’s less pushback against the anti-Ukrainian stuff already out there,” said Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, mentioning the Republican right wing and influential voices like Elon Musk. “It’s dangerous.”Should Washington cut its aid to Ukraine, deciding that it is not worth the cost, top European officials, including the European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, openly acknowledge that Europe cannot fill the gap.He was in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, when Congress excluded support from Ukraine in its temporary budget deal. “That was certainly not expected, and certainly not good news,” Mr. Borrell told a summit meeting of E.U. leaders this month in Spain.European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, right, with Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, this month in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via EPA, via Shutterstock“Europe cannot replace the United States,” he said, even as it proposes more aid. “Certainly, we can do more, but the United States is something indispensable for the support to Ukraine.” That same day, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that without Western aid, Ukraine could not survive more than a week.European leaders have pledged to send more air-defense systems to Ukraine to help fend off a possible new Russian air campaign targeting energy infrastructure as winter looms. Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Friday that his country would send additional Patriot missiles, which have proved effective in defending the skies over Kyiv, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office.At the same time, European vows to supply one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March are falling short, with countries supplying only 250,000 shells from stocks — a little more than one month of Ukraine’s current rate of fire — and factories still gearing up for more production.Adm. Rob Bauer, who is the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said in Warsaw that Europe’s military industry had geared up too slowly and still needed to pick up the pace.“We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe” to aid Ukraine, he said, “and therefore the bottom of the barrel is now visible.”Even before the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East, a senior NATO official said that the mood about Ukraine was gloomy. Still, the official said that the Europeans were spending more on the military and that he expected Congress to continue aid to Ukraine, even if not the $43 billion authorized previously.Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense research institution, said a key issue now is Ukrainian will and resources in what has become a war of attrition. “It’s not really about us anymore, it’s about them,” he said. “The issue is Ukrainian resilience.”Ukrainians will quietly admit to difficulties with morale as the war grinds on, but they see no option other than to continue the fight, whatever happens in the West.Soldiers with the 128th Brigade repairing a broken down Carnation, a self-propelled artillery piece, before taking it back to the front line in September in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesBut some say that they are fearful that President Biden, facing what could be a difficult re-election campaign against Mr. Trump, will try to push Kyiv to get into negotiations for a cease-fire with Russia by next summer, to show that he is committed to peace.That worry is likely to be exaggerated, American officials suggest, given Mr. Biden’s continuing strong support for Ukraine, which is echoed in American opinion polls. But there remains confusion about any end goal that does not foresee Ukraine pushing all Russian troops out of sovereign Ukraine, or any clear path to negotiations with a Russia that shows no interest in talking.As Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, said at the Warsaw security forum, the mantra “as long as it takes” fails to define “it,” let alone “long.” For him, “it” should mean driving the invading Russians out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.In private, at least, other European officials consider that highly unlikely.Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, suggested that NATO’s 75th anniversary summit meeting next summer in Washington will be tense because of Ukraine, as it will come at the height of the American presidential campaign. Any invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is likely to help Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate, Mr. Bildt said.But while many worry about the possibility of declining American support for Ukraine, the potential for backsliding is not limited to the United States, as the costs of the war are more deeply felt in Europe.In its campaign in Poland, for elections this weekend, the governing Law and Justice Party has complained angrily that Ukrainian grain exports are flooding the Polish market, damaging the farmers who are a key element of the party’s support and underlining the implications for Polish agriculture should Ukraine join the European Union.Mr. Zelensky responded that “it is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater — making a thriller from the grain.”Grain stored in Leszczany, Poland, in April.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesThe Polish government, fighting for votes with parties farther to the right, then said it would cease military aid to Ukraine, even though it has already provided an enormous amount early in the war.Anti-Russian sentiment is a given in Poland, but the animosity toward Germany, an E.U. and NATO ally, was striking, too, said Slawomir Debski, the director the of Polish Institute of International Affairs.He described the campaign as “very dirty,” with wild accusations playing on strong anti-German, anti-Russian, anti-European Union sentiments, combined with growing tensions with Ukraine.It was all a sharp contrast to Poland’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees and important early provision of tanks, fighter jets and ammunition just last year.“I warned many people, including the Americans, that this government is being accused of doing too much for Ukraine, so be careful,” Mr. Debski said.Michal Baranowski, a Pole who is the managing director for the German Marshall Fund East, said he was “disheartened because Polish political leaders know we need to stay the course in Ukraine, but they are letting emotions and politics get the better of them.”Polish division, however political, does not stay in Poland, Mr. Baranowski warned. “The effect of this on the United States and the Republican Party is terrible,” he said.Constant Méheut More