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      What Voters Want That Trump Seems to Have

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      So about that poll. You know the one: the Times/Siena poll showing Donald Trump with an edge over President Biden in five out of six swing states, and suggesting a softening of support for Mr. Biden among Black, Latino and young voters.The results have been met in Democratic and other anti-MAGA circles with horror, disbelief and panic. How could they not be? Whatever disappointment voters have with Mr. Biden, the idea that any of his 2020 backers would give his predecessor another shot at destroying democracy feels like pure lunacy.It is best to take horse-race polling this far out from Election Day with a boatload of salt. There are too many moving pieces. Too much that could happen. Too much of the public is not paying attention.But some of the data points to the unusual dynamics at play with a defeated president challenging the guy that America dumped him for. It isn’t just that Mr. Biden has weakness among less engaged voters, or that some respondents weren’t embracing Mr. Trump so much as rejecting Mr. Biden. What struck me is that despite his own raging unpopularity, Mr. Trump is positioned to serve as the repository for protest votes, nostalgia votes and change votes, a weird but potentially potent mash-up of support that could make up for a multitude of weaknesses. He could wind up beating Mr. Biden almost by default.A re-election campaign is fundamentally a referendum on the incumbent. And for all his accomplishments, Mr. Biden is presiding over a rough time. Inflation is still taking its bite out of people’s paychecks. The nation is still in a twitchy, sour mood post-pandemic. People are worried about crime and homelessness and the surge of migrants at the southern border. They are still dealing with the toll Covid took on their kids. And the broader mental health crisis. And the opioid scourge. And the two wars in which America is playing a supporting role. Of course a big chunk of the electorate sees the country as headed in the wrong direction.When Americans are feeling pessimistic, the president gets blamed. The degree to which Mr. Biden’s policies have helped or hurt does not much matter, especially on the economy. He owns it. And here’s the thing: You can’t argue with voters’ feelings. Even if you win the debate on points, you’re not going to convince people that they or the nation is actually doing swell. Trying, in fact, often just makes you look like a condescending, out-of-touch jerk.In such gloomy times, many voters start itching for change, for someone to come in and shake things up. This commonly means giving the out party a chance. Think Barack Obama in 2008, after eight enervating years of George W. and Dick Cheney.This time, instead of a fresh face, the Republican Party looks poised to offer a familiar one. This has its downsides. Mr. Trump’s defects are excruciatingly well known — and ever more so as the multiple cases against him wend their way through the courts. But no one denies that he likes to shake things up. And just as Mr. Biden sold himself in 2020 as a break from the chaos of Trumpism, Mr. Trump can now position himself as the change candidate. To borrow a cliché from Mr. Biden, Americans won’t be comparing Mr. Trump to the Almighty but to the alternative. And for many voters, the alternative in 2024 is a Biden status quo they consider unpalatable.It does not help Mr. Biden that he comes across as doddering and frail. This opens him up to one of Republicans’ favorite charges against Democrats: weakness. And political smears resonate more when they fit within an existing framework.At an even more basic level, Mr. Trump doesn’t have to promise positive change so much as the chance to stiff-arm the current leadership. Plenty of protest voters may not be looking to punish Mr. Biden for a particular action, or inaction, so much as for their inchoate disenchantment with the way things are. The economy should be better. Life should be better. The people in charge should be doing better.Some protest voters will turn out to support anyone running against the object of their distaste. This is what plenty of people did with Mr. Trump in 2016 to express their lack of love for Hillary Clinton. Others, especially inconstant voters, may simply decide to sit out the race. If this happens disproportionately among groups who went for Mr. Biden in 2020, such as young and nonwhite voters, it works to Mr. Trump’s benefit. This is the low-turnout specter keeping Democrats up at night.Then there is the nostalgia factor. Political nostalgia is a real and powerful thing. People are wired to romanticize the way things used to be and, by extension, the leaders at the time. Usually, voters dissatisfied with a president do not have the opening for such a direct do over. Rarely does a president who loses re-election attempt a comeback, and only one, Grover Cleveland, has ever done so successfully. But this election, rather than exchanging the incumbent for an unknown quantity, voters can choose to go back to a devil they know, who hails from a pre-Covid age of golden elevators and cheap mortgages.Now factor in thermostatic voting, the fancy name for a kind of generic buyers’ remorse you see as voters frequently veer toward the opposite party from the one they backed in the previous election. Virginia, for instance, picks its governor the year after a presidential election, and its voters typically go with the candidate whose party did not win the White House. You also see this nationally in midterm elections, in which voters often punish the president’s team.Mr. Trump has the added advantage of the economy having been humming before the pandemic upended his last year in office. Inflation was practically nonexistent. Unemployment was low. The nation wasn’t neck deep in scary, sticky wars. Sure, he was a supertoxic aspiring autocrat who tried to subvert democracy by overturning a free and fair election and who is now facing dozens of criminal charges, not to mention a civil suit for fraud. But if, come fall of 2024, he asks voters that most basic of political questions, “Weren’t you better off when I was president?” an awful lot may answer, “Hell, yeah.”Twelve months is several eternities in politics. And none of this is to downplay Mr. Trump’s glaring flaws — or his manifest unfitness for office. But there are some political fundamentals working in his favor that go beyond his specific pros and cons. Anyone who isn’t at least a little afraid isn’t paying attention.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      How Haley, DeSantis and Other Republicans Could Beat Trump

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      In the movie “Back to the Future II,” Michael J. Fox’s character, Marty McFly, is transported to the fall of 2015 and encounters a world of self-tying shoes and hoverboards. He finds himself trying to make sense of how people behave and the choices they make.Lately, I too feel like I’ve been transported to autumn 2015.That fall, Republican Party officials, donors and operatives were brimming with hope that the field of presidential contenders facing Donald Trump would shrink, clearing the way for a one-on-one matchup between the then-unthinkable Mr. Trump and a more conventional nominee, like the senators Ted Cruz of Texas or Marco Rubio of Florida. As one Michigan donor put it, “Just like everyone else, I’m waiting for this field to consolidate, and it doesn’t seem to be consolidating.” Arguments ensued over which candidates should take the hint. If only the field were smaller, the thinking went, surely Mr. Trump would be defeated.If only, if only, if only. This line of thinking became an excuse for candidates who didn’t want to take any real swings at Mr. Trump. It was the field — not Mr. Trump — that was the problem. No top contender took him on aggressively. No one really hammered away at his weaknesses in the kind of sustained, nimble assault they would have needed to topple him from his position as the front-runner. And even as Mr. Trump’s opponents dropped out, some of their voters wound up drifting to Mr. Trump as a second choice, keeping him at the head of the pack.Something similar is happening today. From the Republican debates to the campaign trail, the other candidates aren’t making a real attempt to dent the front-runner’s lead; instead, they are sniping at one another, pleading with donors and engaging in magical thinking. While there is some truth that having more candidates helps Mr. Trump win the nomination, consolidating the field alone is not likely sufficient to defeat him.In Iowa, late October polling from NBC News, The Des Moines Register and Mediacom showed Mr. Trump at 43 percent among likely G.O.P. caucusgoers, and an analysis of those voters’ second-choice shows that a sizable number of Ron DeSantis’s voters would simply go to Mr. Trump were the Florida governor to withdraw from the race. And though the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has seen her fortunes improve dramatically since her first debate, she still trails Mr. Trump by a wide margin in her home state of South Carolina, according to the latest CNN polling.Mr. DeSantis is hoping for some fresh momentum in Iowa this week with the endorsement of the state’s governor, Kim Reynolds. But without bold new arguments from Mr. DeSantis, Ms. Haley or other rivals, it seems as though Donald Trump is increasingly inevitable as the Republican nominee. A shame, too; there is a sizable portion of the Republican electorate that likes Mr. Trump but claims to be open to a new direction. In early states like Iowa and New Hampshire, CBS News polling recently found that less than a quarter of primary voters are “Trump only” voters. The vast majority are “Trump and …” voters — people who are considering the former president but also alternatives.However, these voters aren’t hearing anyone clearly lay out the case for why a new direction is so critical — and they need to on Wednesday night in the third G.O.P. primary debate.To defeat Mr. Trump, something significant must change. Toughness is required. The math is clear. Mr. Trump’s opponents must take some of his voters from him. Republican candidates must make the case that Mr. Trump is also not the best that voters can do. That means directing at least as much fire at the front-runner as they do at their other adversaries. Mr. Trump’s strongest rivals have not compellingly answered this question: “If you support Donald Trump’s policies so much, why are you running against him?” It’s time they start giving an answer to voters.Candidates have avoided doing so because striking the right tone in this campaign is incredibly challenging. An attack that is too scathing can inspire a sort of antibody response in Republican voters, backfiring by activating the instinct to defend Mr. Trump. Chris Christie was booed at the Florida Freedom Summit last weekend and hasn’t gained traction in the polls because Republican voters are not looking for a candidate whose primary message is that they have been duped and that Donald Trump is a bad man.At the same time, the rest of the field has treated Mr. Trump far too gently. Speeches like one Mr. DeSantis gave on Saturday, which try to draw a contrast with Mr. Trump without saying his name, haven’t yet moved the needle. Vague platitudes about “fresh leadership” and “someone who can win” have not yet been paired with an effective explanation of why Mr. Trump is neither of those things, and as a result Republican voters don’t believe either is true.To beat Mr. Trump, the strategy can’t be weak or astringent. It should not scold, and certainly not demean the majority of Republican voters who do like Trump. It should take a tone more akin to “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed” — and lay out why, in a sustained and convincing way every week from now through the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses.Critically, it must echo and amplify the things that I’ve heard Trump voters who are still shopping around say to each other:But his mouth, they’ll say.“I don’t like when he makes things like a circus.”“It’s just tiring.”These are not attacks from the right flank on policy, nor attacks from centrists on his legal woes — these are truths that many of Mr. Trump’s own supporters will acknowledge in private conversation.Mr. Trump’s opponents should not shy away from pointing out how things were far from perfect during his presidency. As one Trump voter acknowledged in one of our recent Times Opinion focus groups, “He always said everything is wonderful and everything is beautiful and everything is amazing. Come on.”In Wednesday’s debate, even with Mr. Trump absent from the stage, he is looming over his rivals, and it is past the hour for them to act like it. They can try to raise more money, but they cannot raise more time.Take Ms. Haley. She can, for instance, make a strong case for her actions defending Israel during her tenure as U.N. ambassador, noting that while the world may have felt safer under Mr. Trump, his own personal drama with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blinded him to the importance of supporting one of our most critical allies — and that this kind of self-interested behavior will keep Mr. Trump from doing what is necessary to support our friends and go after our enemies on the world stage in a second term. Based on new polling from The Times and Siena College, she can now also make a clear electability case that has thus far eluded Mr. DeSantis, and note that she is the safer, stronger bet against Mr. Biden in 2024.Taking Mr. Trump on directly is no easy task in a party that would vastly prefer him to be in the White House today. But avoiding the hard road has thus far put his adversaries on the path to defeat. At this stage of the primary, with the lead Mr. Trump holds, there is no longer an excuse for candidates to dance around the question of “Why you … and not Donald Trump?”Kristen Soltis Anderson is a Republican pollster and a moderator of the Times Opinion focus group series.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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      A Report Card for Bidenomics

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      Voters’ negative perceptions about the economy are weighing on President Biden’s poll numbers. Here’s what his economic policies have, and haven’t, accomplished.President Biden is finding it hard to sell Americans on his economic track record.Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesWhere the economy is working (and where it isn’t) With a year to go before Election Day, polls increasingly show that American voters believe next year will be a rematch between President Biden and Donald Trump — with the former president in the lead in key battleground states despite his legal troubles (more on that below).Biden’s troubles stem in large part from negative perceptions about the economy, even as several indications show that it is performing strongly. Here’s a deeper look at what “Bidenomics” has, and hasn’t, accomplished.On the positive side: jobs. Since Biden took office, employers have created 14 million jobs, and the unemployment rate has been hovering around a 50-year-low for months.The president has also been talking up signature economic accomplishments like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which he argues have helped rebuild rural America and invigorated the economy. “Bidenomics is just another way of saying the American dream,” he said in a speech. It’s not a stretch. The economy grew last quarter at nearly 5 percent, belying a global slowdown.On the negative side: inflation. Wages have been growing slowly, but they’ve been offset by rising prices, Biden’s Achilles’ heel. Republicans have blamed the White House’s economic policies for soaring consumer prices, which hit a 40-year high in the summer of 2022.Many economists say global factors are probably more to blame. But the perception of Biden’s culpability here is hurting him.A partial win: the markets. Investors tend to give high marks to presidents whose tenures coincide with strong investment returns. The S&P 500 has gained nearly 15 percent since Biden’s inauguration, weathering much of the slump set off by the Fed’s historic rates-tightening policy. (The bond market has gone in the opposite direction.)That’s decent, but pales in comparison with the Trump years, when the benchmark index climbed more than 65 percent.Biden has been touring the country — on Monday, he was in Delaware to promote federal money flowing to Amtrak, the rail operator — to refocus the public’s perceptions of his economic achievements. Meanwhile, questions swirl over whether Biden can eventually overtake Trump.A reminder: The DealBook Summit is on Nov. 29. Among the guests are Bob Iger of Disney; Lina Khan of the F.T.C.; and David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery. You can apply to attend here.HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Uber’s latest earnings miss expectations. The ride-hailing giant said on Tuesday that it had earned 10 cents per share in the third quarter, below the 12 cents that analysts had forecast. But the company argued that its business showed strong growth in its core mobility division.OpenAI seeks to build on its runaway success. The Microsoft-backed A.I. start-up said that its chatbot, ChatGPT, now had over 100 million weekly active users, giving it a formidable lead in the race to capture artificial intelligence customers. The company also introduced an online store that will let users build customized chatbots.Striking Hollywood actors push back on studios’ latest contract offer. The SAG-AFTRA union said that the “last, best and final” bid still fell short on key issues like the use of A.I., making it unclear when its nearly four-month strike will end. In other labor news, Starbucks will raise the average salary of hourly workers by at least 3 percent.Trump puts his legal liabilities on displayDonald Trump may be handily leading the 2024 election polls. But his appearance in court on Monday, testifying in a civil fraud lawsuit filed by New York State, appeared to do him no favors in efforts to hold onto his business empire.It was a reminder that, while he’s riding high in the presidential race, the former president still faces a thicket of legal battles that could cost him financially and, perhaps, politically.Here are some notable moments from Trump’s testimony:Trump conceded that he had played a role in valuing his company’s properties, an issue at the heart of the case. (New York prosecutors argue that Trump illicitly inflated his net worth to defraud banks and insurers.) Of the company’s financial statements, he said, “I would look at them, I would see them, and I would maybe on occasion have some suggestions.”But Trump also sought to underplay the importance of those statements, saying they were so riddled with disclaimers that they were “worthless.” He promised, unprompted, that some of his bankers would testify in his defense.Trump also assailed the presiding judge, Arthur Engoron, for having decided before the trial that fraud was committed. Engoron appeared exasperated, telling the former president to answer questions and stop delivering speeches.The testimony was a reminder of his political baggage, which was also an undercurrent of the endorsement of Ron DeSantis on Monday by Kim Reynolds, Iowa’s popular governor. Reynolds, whose state’s caucuses could be crucial in bolstering a Trump rival, said that the U.S. needed a president “who puts this country first and not himself” — a thinly veiled rebuke of Trump.His legal issues don’t appear to have dented his popularity. He has contended that he is being politically persecuted — “People like you go around and try to demean me and try to hurt me,” he told a state lawyer on Monday — an argument that some of his supporters have embraced.In a sign of his enduring political strength, the betting site PredictIt puts Trump’s odds of winning the nomination on Monday at more than four times that of his nearest competitor in its market, Nikki Haley.Dina Powell McCormick, in 2017, when she was a deputy national security adviser during the Trump presidency.Al Drago for The New York TimesExxon Mobil taps a Wall Street and D.C. power player Dina Powell McCormick, a former Goldman Sachs executive and onetime Trump administration official, is joining the board of Exxon Mobil effective Jan. 1. Her appointment comes as energy groups have embarked on a series of big deals on the back of soaring oil prices and bumper profits.Powell McCormick has long been one of the most senior women on Wall Street. Before joining BDT & MSD partners, an investment and advisory firm, earlier this year, she spent 16 years at Goldman Sachs. Powell McCormick led the Wall Street giant’s global sovereign business and sustainability, and she was a member of its management committee, among other roles.Powell McCormick has also been a Washington power player. She has spent more than a dozen years working in government. From 2017 to 2018, she was a deputy national security adviser to Trump and played a significant role on Middle East policy, including efforts to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. (Her husband, David McCormick, is a former C.E.O. of the hedge fund Bridgewater and was a Treasury Department official under Hank Paulson. He is running for Senate in Pennsylvania as a Republican.)Powell McCormick’s appointment even won backing from Mike Bloomberg, who is spending billions to fight climate change — a sign of how wide-ranging her political and business relationships are.“Dina has been a close partner for years through her role as global head of sustainability at Goldman Sachs,” Bloomberg said, “and we have teamed up to create new partnerships that invest in market-driven ways to create clean energy and advance climate transition goals.”Energy giants are on a deal spree. Exxon reported quarterly profits of $9.1 billion last month, as oil prices have surged and demand has skyrocketed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In October, Exxon agreed to acquire the shale oil specialist Pioneer Natural Resources for around $60 billion and Chevron struck a $53 billion deal to buy Hess. Exxon’s board had been in the spotlight over the energy transition. Engine No. 1, an activist investor, won three seats after targeting the company over its governance and environmental track record. But two years later, the firm changed course, saying that Exxon had made big changes. Exxon, however, has resisted calls to pour more money into renewable energy, arguing that its money is better on low-carbon investments.Tracing WeWork’s rise and spectacular fallWeWork finally filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, after years of struggling with crushing debt and the coronavirus pandemic’s emptying out of office spaces — and that’s even after it had abandoned the runaway growth it pursued under its co-founder, Adam Neumann.The company that sought Chapter 11 is a shell of the real estate juggernaut that first sought to go public at a $47 billion valuation. (Its stock is down 98 percent this year.) Here’s how the business once lauded by the Japanese tech investor SoftBank as a revolution went astray.WeWork has been on its heels since it scrapped its I.P.O. plans in 2019. The company had been riding high, buoyed by Neumann’s promises that the start-up — whose business involved leasing out office space for co-working — would “elevate the world’s consciousness.” But then:Prospective investors blanched at the company’s steep losses, lax corporate governance and the controversies that dogged Neumann. (Activities on private jets were among them.) And the S.E.C. criticized the company’s disclosure involving mismatches between long-term financial obligations and its short-term assets. Neumann stepped down after WeWork shelved its I.P.O., and SoftBank provided it with a multibillion-dollar lifeline.Under a new C.E.O., Sandeep Mathrani, WeWork confronted the devastating effect of pandemic lockdowns and the rise of remote working. The company went public — via a blank-check vehicle — in 2021, while it started closing locations and renegotiating leases.Mathrani left in May, reportedly after clashing with SoftBank. His replacement, David Tolley, has kept trying to right the ship, but WeWork warned in August that there was “substantial doubt” about its future. Last month, it said it would miss interest payments on its debt.WeWork’s filing raises questions about the fate of commercial real estate. The company noted on Monday that it had reached agreements with about 92 percent of creditors holding secured debt. Its restructuring involves reducing its real estate portfolio.The company is one of the largest corporate tenants in New York and London, and any move to shed more of its leases would hurt commercial landlords that are themselves struggling to pay their debts.THE SPEED READ DealsResearch analysts at some of the banks that took Birkenstock public wrote in their initial reports on the sandal maker that its I.P.O. was valued too high. (Bloomberg)“Warring Billionaires, a Rogue Employee, a Divorce: One Hedge Fund’s Tale of Woe” (NYT)PolicyIntel is reportedly the leading candidate to land billions of dollars in federal funding to build secure plants to make chips for use by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. (WSJ)A man who posed as a billionaire rabbi and made a $290 million takeover bid for the retailer Lord & Taylor was sentenced to more than eight years in prison. (Bloomberg)Best of the restDisney hired Hugh Johnston, the longtime finance chief at PepsiCo, as its new C.F.O. (CNBC)The founder of the dating app Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Herd, is stepping down as C.E.O. (NYT)We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. More

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      RFK Jr. Reveals How Voters Are Dreading a Trump-Biden Rematch

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      Frustration with the two men likely to be the major parties’ nominees has led voters to entertain the idea of other options, New York Times/Siena College polls found.A looming rematch next year between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump has left voters deeply dissatisfied with their options, longing for alternatives and curious about independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to new polls of six battleground states conducted by The New York Times and Siena College.Both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are viewed unfavorably by a majority of voters in these states, one-fifth of voters don’t like either of them, and enthusiasm about the coming election is down sharply compared with a poll conducted before the 2020 contest.That frustration and malaise have prompted voters to entertain the idea of other options. When asked about the likeliest 2024 matchup, Mr. Biden versus Mr. Trump, only 2 percent of those polled said they would support another candidate. But when Mr. Kennedy’s name was included as an option, nearly a quarter said they would choose him.That number almost surely inflates the support of Mr. Kennedy, the political scion and vaccine skeptic, because two-thirds of those who said they would back him had said earlier that they would definitely or probably vote for one of the two front-runners.The polling results include registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The findings suggest that Mr. Kennedy is less a fixed political figure in the minds of voters than he is a vessel to register unhappiness about the choice between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump.A Fifth of Voters in Battleground States Dislike Both Leading CandidatesRespondents’ opinions of President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump More

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      DeSantis Lands a Big Endorsement: Kim Reynolds, Iowa’s Popular Governor

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      After saying she would stay neutral in her state’s 2024 caucuses, angering Donald Trump in the process, Ms. Reynolds said “we have too much at stake.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida needed a lift in his quest to beat former President Donald J. Trump in the crucial Iowa caucuses.On Monday, Mr. DeSantis may have gotten one, as he received the endorsement of Kim Reynolds, the state’s popular Republican governor, during a recorded interview on NBC News.“I just felt like I couldn’t sit on the sidelines any longer,” Ms. Reynolds said. “We have too much at stake. I truly believe that he is the right person to get this country back on track.”Mr. DeSantis, sitting beside her, called her support in the Republican presidential primary “very meaningful.”The two governors then appeared together at a campaign rally in Des Moines, where Ms. Reynolds proclaimed that the nation needed a leader “who puts this country first and not himself” — a clear jab at Mr. Trump, whom she did not refer to by name during her remarks.Before the endorsement, Mr. Trump repeatedly criticized Ms. Reynolds, who had joined Mr. DeSantis at campaign events around Iowa, for her perceived disloyalty. Those personal attacks had outraged the Iowa governor. She had previously said she would stay neutral during the caucuses, as is traditional for sitting governors in the state.Mr. Trump, meanwhile, spent Monday testifying in a civil fraud trial that threatens his business empire in New York. It’s a contrast that is likely to become a running theme as the primary plays out, with Mr. Trump forced to spend time away from the campaign trail in order to deal with the four criminal indictments against him.In Iowa, Mr. DeSantis is in need of a jolt. He has staked his campaign on winning the Jan. 15 caucuses, moving much of his staff to the state in a bid to stop Mr. Trump’s momentum. But his poll numbers there have slipped. He is now tied for second place with former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina at 16 percent, far behind Mr. Trump at 43 percent, according to a Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll. Mr. DeSantis’s allies point out that the last three G.O.P. winners of the Iowa caucuses were also lagging at this stage of previous election cycles.Given Mr. DeSantis’s standing in the polls, the endorsement has risks for Ms. Reynolds. But she expressed confidence at the rally that he could win both the primary and the general election against President Biden.Because of her wide appeal to Iowa Republicans, Ms. Reynolds has the potential to shake up the race. “She’s the reason we’re red,” said Gloria Mazza, the chairwoman of the Republican Party of Polk County, which includes Des Moines. (Ms. Mazza is staying neutral in the caucuses.)Ben Jung, an undecided Iowa voter, said he attended Monday’s rally, held at an event space near downtown Des Moines, because of Ms. Reynolds’s endorsement.“It’s prompted me to finally get my feet out here and listen and look a little more closely,” said Mr. Jung, 53, who had been leaning toward supporting Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina but said he was also considering Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley.Leaders of Iowa’s evangelical community, an important voting bloc, suggested Ms. Reynolds’s endorsement was a major coup for the DeSantis campaign.Ms. Reynolds is “without question Iowa’s most popular Governor in generations,” Bob Vander Plaats, the president and chief executive of the influential Christian conservative group the Family Leader, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Combine her popularity with her campaign tenacity and she will be a force for” Mr. DeSantis.But Mr. Trump’s followers have demonstrated their loyalty so far during the primary, even as he faces criminal charges.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, disparaged Ms. Reynolds’s endorsement as a “Hail Mary pass at the end of a blowout game.”“A Kim Reynolds endorsement does not mean anything and does not sway voters,” Mr. Cheung said in a statement.After news of the endorsement leaked out on Sunday, Mr. Trump called Ms. Reynolds “America’s most Unpopular Governor” in a post on Truth Social, his social media site.During the NBC News interview, Mr. DeSantis took the opportunity to return fire to the former president.“With Donald Trump, if you don’t kiss the ring, you could be the best governor ever and he’ll trash you,” Mr. DeSantis said. “You could be a terrible, corrupt politician, but if you kiss his ring then all the sudden he’ll praise you.”Mr. DeSantis has not always been known for his personal touch. Members of Congress who have endorsed Mr. Trump have described the Florida governor as distant. And he has sometimes appeared awkward on the campaign trail.But in an interview with The Des Moines Register on Monday, Ms. Reynolds praised Mr. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, a breast cancer survivor, for calling her after her husband, Kevin, learned he had lung cancer.“Not only is he tough and disciplined,” Ms. Reynolds said, “but he’s compassionate and cares.” More

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      Prosecutors Assail Trump’s Bid to Have Federal Election Case Dismissed

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      Prosecutors said that Mr. Trump’s barrage of motions to have the case tossed out were full of “distortions and misrepresentations.”Federal prosecutors on Monday asked a judge to reject a barrage of motions filed last month by former President Donald J. Trump that sought to toss out the indictment charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 election and said his claims were full of “distortions and misrepresentations.”In a 79-page court filing, prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, went one by one through Mr. Trump’s multiple motions to dismiss the case and accused him and his lawyers of essentially trying to flip the script of the four-count indictment filed against him in August.“The defendant attempts to rewrite the indictment, claiming that it charges him with wholly innocuous, perhaps even admirable conduct, — sharing his opinions about election fraud and seeking election integrity,” James I. Pearce, one of the prosecutors, wrote, “when in fact it clearly describes the defendant’s fraudulent use of knowingly false statements as weapons in furtherance of his criminal plans.”When Mr. Trump first filed his motions to dismiss the case, they represented a breathtaking effort to reframe the various steps he took to remain in power after losing the election as something other than crimes.For example, Mr. Trump sought to portray his repeated efforts to use false claims that the election had been stolen as “core political speech” protected by the First Amendment. He similarly tried to recast his lies about the election as “opinions” that he tried to use to build support for his wide-ranging efforts to overturn the results of the race.But Mr. Pearce shot back on Monday for the Justice Department, saying that the First Amendment did not protect “criminal conduct” like using lies in a plot to defeat the will of the voters. He also wrote that Mr. Trump’s efforts to recast the meaning of the special counsel’s indictment in his own favor were “based on an inaccurate and self-serving characterization of the charges.”In a separate motion, Thomas P. Windom, another prosecutor on the case, rejected Mr. Trump’s arguments that the charges should be dismissed because they are part of a “selective and vindictive prosecution.”As part of their flurry of filings last month, Mr. Trump’s lawyers sought to paint the election interference case as “a retaliatory response” by President Biden to go after Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination.The lawyers made those accusations even though the indictment had been brought by Mr. Smith, an independent special counsel, and after an extensive grand jury investigation.Mr. Windom responded to the claims by noting they were “spurious” and “contrived from two newspaper articles citing anonymous sources.” Appearing to get his back up, he also mounted an angry defense of his colleagues on Mr. Smith’s team.“The special counsel and career prosecutors in the special counsel’s office collectively have served in the Department of Justice for decades,” Mr. Windom wrote. “They have sworn oaths to support and defend the Constitution, and they have faithfully executed their prosecutorial duties in this case.”As part of his selective prosecution claims, Mr. Trump had argued that even though he was not the first candidate in U.S. history to have created alternate slates of electors to the Electoral College in an effort to win an election, he was the only one to have suffered criminal charges for having done so.Mr. Windom acknowledged that alternate slates had indeed been sparingly used going back to the time of Thomas Jefferson. But he maintained that “none of the historical examples the defendant points to involved deceitful and corrupt efforts” to “block the certification of the legitimate results of a presidential election.”In yet a third filing, prosecutors rebuffed Mr. Trump’s attempt to strike from the indictment any mention of the violence that erupted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. As part of their motions to dismiss, his lawyers had asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to remove all references to the Capitol attack from the case given that none of the charges explicitly accuses Mr. Trump of inciting the mob of his supporters that stormed the building.But writing for the government, Molly Gaston, a prosecutor in Mr. Smith’s office, asserted that Mr. Trump was “responsible for the events at the Capitol on Jan. 6” despite the lack of an incitement charge and that evidence about the attack was instrumental to the government’s case.“That day was the culmination of the defendant’s criminal conspiracies to overturn the legitimate results of the presidential election,” Ms. Gaston wrote.The series of filings on Monday was the second time Mr. Smith’s office has rebutted Mr. Trump’s attempts to have the election case thrown out before it goes to trial. Last month, they assailed his initial motion to dismiss, rejecting sweeping claims that he enjoys “absolute immunity” from prosecution because the indictment arose from actions he took while in the White House.Last week, Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Chutkan to put the case on hold entirely as she considered the immunity claims — another example of the former president’s long-running efforts to delay the proceeding for as long as possible.On Monday, Ms. Gaston asked Judge Chutkan to deny the request to pause the case.“The defendant has an established record of attempting to disrupt and delay the court’s carefully considered trial date and pretrial schedule,” she wrote. “Now the defendant has timed his motion to stay these proceedings for maximum disruptive effect.” More

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      With Poll Results Favoring Trump, Should Biden Step Aside?

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      More from our inbox:Reducing I.R.S. FundingHealth Insurance, SimplifiedPoll results show President Biden losing to Donald J. Trump by margins of four to 10 percentage points in key battleground states.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Voters in 5 Battlegrounds Favor Trump Over Biden” (front page, Nov. 6):When will the Democratic Party stop sitting on its hands and do something about the dire reality of the coming presidential election?The most recent New York Times/Siena College poll has President Biden behind Donald Trump in five of six swing states while his approval ratings among youth and minorities — two essential demographics for the party — continue to plummet.There comes a time when we have to say, “Dad, you’ve been a wonderful father and we love you dearly, but we are taking away the car keys.”We can all see it: the shuffle, the drifting focus, the mental confusion during a news conference in Vietnam. Mr. Biden’s handlers keep him under close wraps now, but the gasps among the electorate are going to be frequent when he gets out on the campaign trail debate circuit.This is no time to nominate an octogenarian who refuses to acknowledge his visibly dwindling abilities. The fact that Mr. Trump is only three years younger is irrelevant. Facts, logic and even multiple criminal proceedings are nonfactors when your opponent is a cult figure whose worshipers are willing to follow him blindly into authoritarianism.What the Democrats need to win is vigor, freshness and the hope of positive change. This is no time to cling to gentlemanly traditions of incumbency.Mr. Biden should go down in history as the president who led us out of our darkest hours, but if he refuses to pass the torch to a younger generation, he will be remembered as just another aging politician who refused to let go.If the Democratic Party sits back idly, pleading helplessness in our moment of need, it will prove that this country has not one but two dysfunctional parties.Bill IbelleProvidence, R.I.To the Editor:I read this headline, “Voters in 5 Battlegrounds Favor Trump Over Biden,” and was shocked; then I looked at the charts and graphs in the paper, and was depressed, and turned to my application for Canadian citizenship. Then finally, on Page A13 (they will have to pry the print paper out of my dying hands), I see in large print: “Polls have often failed to predict results of elections this far out.”I really hate polls, but believe they have the power to sway people significantly. So, why publish them this far out if they are lousy predictors at this stage?Betsy ShackelfordDecatur, Ga.To the Editor:The media’s coverage of President Biden is the principal reason the latest poll shows him behind Donald Trump in five of six critical states.Mr. Biden inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and the gravest public health crisis in a century. He got off to the fastest start of any president since F.D.R., creating over six million jobs in his first year and reaching his goal of the vaccination of over 200 million Americans in fewer than 100 days. Yet the bulk of the reporting for most of his presidency since then has involved inflation and his age.Underreported is the impact of Mr. Biden’s other achievements: the largest investment in green energy in American history; a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure; the first federal gun safety legislation in nearly three decades; and the biggest expansion of veterans’ benefits in over three decades.Michael K. CantwellDelray Beach, Fla.To the Editor:The latest polls showing President Biden losing support from minority and youth voters should prompt leading Democrats to urge him not to seek a second term. It’s time for a high-level delegation, including Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, to visit the White House for a reality check.Yes, Joe Biden is a patriotic American and a good president. But the specter of Donald Trump back in the Oval Office demands that he step aside and pass the torch to preserve our democracy.Judith BishopMiami BeachTo the Editor:Your article about the latest poll was frightening but not surprising. How many times and in how many ways does the leadership of the Democratic Party have to be told that President Biden is unpopular?Are they backing him because, according to the book, an incumbent is more electable than a challenger? Are they relying on the fact that Mr. Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020? If so, they need to take another look at that election.I am a lifelong Democrat surrounded by the same, but neither I nor any of my friends voted for Mr. Biden; we all voted against Mr. Trump. That may not be enough in 2024.It’s entirely possible that many of the people I know — and large sections of the electorate — won’t vote at all. And very few of us have the energy and enthusiasm it takes to campaign effectively.Claudia Miriam ReedMcMinnville, Ore.To the Editor:“Why Biden Is Behind, and How He Could Come Back,” by Nate Cohn (The Upshot, nytimes.com, Nov. 5), misses a critical point.It seemingly assumes that any Biden loss of voter support from 2020 will only move to the Donald Trump column. I believe there is an increasing possibility that a significant portion of any Biden losses will instead go to a third party. Not since Ross Perot in the 1992 election have I perceived such support for a viable third-party candidate.The No Labels movement seems to be making genuine progress and gaining increasing public awareness, if not outright support.While the Democrats are panicking that any gain in No Labels support will come from their candidate, I’m not so sure, as there is evidence that Mr. Trump’s numbers may be just as affected, if not more.Mr. Cohn should start digging deeper into the third-party movements and their likely impact on the election outcome.Kenneth GlennLangley, Wash.Reducing I.R.S. Funding Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Holding National Security Hostage to Help Tax Cheats,” by Paul Krugman (column, Nov. 3):As usual, Mr. Krugman provides a valuable perspective on an important initiative with serious policy as well as economic implications. I believe that there is a longer-term goal that the Republicans are serving by a proposed reduction in funding for the I.R.S. in addition to protecting tax cheats and suspect enterprises.Part of the funding for the I.R.S. is also scheduled to be used for major upgrades in equipment and staffing so that the I.R.S. operates more efficiently and effectively, including being available to answer questions and assist ordinary taxpayers.By reducing the funding for the I.R.S., the Republicans are deliberately undermining improved, consumer-helpful government services so that ordinary taxpayers (and voters) become increasingly frustrated with, and resentful or angry at, the I.R.S.Sowing and fertilizing dissatisfaction with government services among the voting populace appear to be a “growth industry” for the Republicans in Congress.David E. JoseIndianapolisHealth Insurance, Simplified Haik AvanianTo the Editor:Re “It’s Just This Easy to Lose Your Health Insurance,” by Danielle Ofri (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 31):Dr. Ofri rightly condemns the “illogical patchwork of plans and regulations” of the American health care system.The solution, as Dr. Ofri suggests, is to make fundamental health insurance automatic for all Americans, allowing them to opt out but not requiring them (as happened to Dr. Ofri) to opt in.Paul SorumJamaica Plain, Mass.The writer is professor emeritus of internal medicine and pediatrics, Albany Medical College. More

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      Black Voters’ Shift to Trump Is a Warning Sign for Biden, Strategists Say

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      New York Times/Siena College polling painted a worrisome picture of the president’s standing with a crucial constituency. Democratic strategists warned that the erosion could threaten his re-election.Black voters are more disconnected from the Democratic Party than they have been in decades, frustrated with what many see as inaction on their political priorities and unhappy with President Biden, a candidate they helped lift to the White House just three years ago.New polls by The New York Times and Siena College found that 22 percent of Black voters in six of the most important battleground states said they would support former President Donald J. Trump in next year’s election, and 71 percent would back Mr. Biden.The drift in support is striking, given that Mr. Trump won just 8 percent of Black voters nationally in 2020 and 6 percent in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. A Republican presidential candidate has not won more than 12 percent of the Black vote in nearly half a century.Mr. Biden has a year to shore up his standing, but if numbers like these held up across the country in November 2024, they would amount to a historic shift: No Democratic presidential candidate since the civil rights era has earned less than 80 percent of the Black vote.The new polling offers an early warning sign about the erosion of Mr. Biden’s coalition, Democratic strategists said, cautioning that the president will probably lose his re-election bid if he cannot increase his support from this pivotal voting bloc.A number of Democratic strategists acknowledged that the downbeat numbers in battleground states extended beyond Black voters to the party’s core constituencies, warning that the Biden campaign had to take steps to improve its standing, particularly with Black, Latino and younger voters. The Times/Siena polls surveyed registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster for Mr. Biden’s campaign in 2020, said the president’s political operation had not been “present enough” for Black Americans and younger voters.“I don’t think we’ve been voicing what we delivered to the African American community and particularly among younger African American men,” she said. “We have to get the numbers up and we have to get African American voters out to vote, and we have to get the numbers up with young people and we have to get them out to vote.”Mr. Biden’s numbers in the polling were particularly low among Black men. Twenty-seven percent of Black men supported Mr. Trump, compared with 17 percent of Black women.Still, there are signs that Democrats’ hurdles with Black voters, however alarming for the party, leave room for improvement. About a quarter of Black voters who said they planned to support Mr. Trump said there was some chance they would end up backing Mr. Biden.Cornell Belcher, who worked as a pollster for former President Barack Obama, said he doubted that many Black voters would switch their support to Mr. Trump. His bigger fear, he said, is that they might not vote at all.“I’m not worried about Trump doubling his support with Black and brown voters,” said Mr. Belcher, who focuses particularly on surveying voters of color. “What I am worried about is turnout.”He added: “But that’s what campaigns are for. We build a campaign to solve for that problem.”Karen Wright, a business consultant in McDonough, Ga., who immigrated to the United States from Jamaica in 1982, said she had always voted for Democrats, seeing them as the best option for younger immigrants, particularly those from predominantly Black countries like hers.Now, though, she believes Mr. Biden has not followed through on his campaign promises on immigration, worries that Democrats have gone too far in their embrace of L.G.B.T.Q. issues and faults them for books used in public education that she believes are too sexually explicit.Next year, Ms. Wright, 53, said that she planned to support Republicans up and down the ballot — and that she was not alone.“My clients are mostly Black,” she said. “They voted Democrat last year and they all said next election they’re going to vote Republican.”Angela Lang, the executive director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, a group that aims to mobilize Black voters in Milwaukee, said canvassers who worked with her organization had encountered an overwhelming number of Black voters who did not want to vote or did not see the value in turning out again.“People are like: ‘Why should I vote? I don’t feel like voting. Voting doesn’t do anything. My life hasn’t changed,’” she said, adding that the group had found that high prices and housing instability had fed people’s pessimism. “If your basic needs aren’t being met, it’s difficult to pay attention to politics and it’s difficult to have faith in that system when you voted before but you’re still struggling day to day.”Still, Cliff Albright, a veteran progressive organizer and a co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said Democrats had time to get back on track. Black voters, he said, are responding to the same fears about economic and global uncertainty that many Americans are confronting.“We’re a year out from the election,” Mr. Albright said. “If you ask the very same people the same question a year from now, when the choice is very clear, the same 22 percent might have a very different answer.”He added: “Is there work to be done? Yes. But is the sky falling? No.”Black voters have long powered Democratic presidential victories. Their support in South Carolina in 2020 set Mr. Biden on the path to becoming the nominee. During the general election, Black voters were again crucial to his victory.Officials with Mr. Biden’s campaign acknowledge that they have work to do to shore up the president’s standing with Black voters. Erin Schaff for The New York TimesBiden campaign officials now say they recognize they have work to do with Black voters, and they and their allies have begun multimillion-dollar engagement campaigns targeting them.Last month, the Biden campaign started an organizing program in Black neighborhoods in Milwaukee. The campaign has dispatched top surrogates to hold events aimed at Black voters and has bought advertising on Black radio programs that promotes the “real difference for Black America” his policies have made. “President Biden is getting it done,” a narrator says. “For us. And that’s the facts.”Quentin Fulks, the deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden, said, “We know we have to get to work and we have to communicate with these voters and we have to do it earlier than ever before.”In interviews, Black voters said they had seen little progress from the Biden administration on some of their top priorities, including student loan debt relief, affordable housing and accountability for the police.Some worried that Mr. Biden was more focused on foreign policy than on domestic issues like inflation. In the Times/Siena poll, 80 percent of Black voters rated the economy as “only fair” or “poor.”A few said that their openness to supporting Mr. Trump, despite his offensive comments about Black communities and the 91 felony charges he faces in several criminal cases, reflected their disaffection with Mr. Biden and his party more than any real affinity for the former president.Keyon Reynolds-Martin, a father of one in Milwaukee, praised what he saw as Mr. Trump’s prioritizing of the economy and domestic policy, recalling the stimulus checks he received during the pandemic. Mr. Trump initially did not support the relief checks, which were spearheaded by Democrats. He later affixed his signature to them, representing the first time a president’s name had appeared on an Internal Revenue Service disbursement.Mr. Reynolds-Martin, 25, said he planned to vote for Mr. Trump next fall, when he casts his first ballot ever.Of Mr. Biden, he said, “He’s not giving money to help the United States, but he’s giving money to other countries,” adding, “At least Donald Trump was trying to help the United States.”Talitha McLaren, 45, a home health aide in Philadelphia, said she was undecided about whether to vote in 2024.She worries about a total erosion of democracy under a second Trump administration, but she is also frustrated with Mr. Biden and his party for failing to tackle rising costs that have not kept pace with her income and for not providing help with her student loan debt. On Tuesday, she plans to vote for the Democrat running for mayor of her hometown.“Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to support the Democrats,” she said. “But they haven’t won me over yet on what they’re trying to do for the country. Because what they’re doing now ain’t working.”Alyce McFadden More