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      Meet the People Working on Getting Us to Hate Each Other Less

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      Affective polarization — “a poisonous cocktail of othering, aversion and moralization” — has prompted an explosion of research as the threat to democratic norms and procedures mount.Intensely felt divisions over race, ethnicity and culture have become more deeply entrenched in the American political system, reflected in part in the election denialism found in roughly a third of the electorate and in state legislative initiatives giving politicians the power to overturn election results.Many researchers have begun to focus on this question: Is there a causal relationship between the intensification of hostility between Democrats and Republicans and the deterioration of support for democratic standards?“Growing affective polarization and negative partisanship,” Jennifer McCoy and Murat Somer, political scientists at Georgia State University and Koç University-Istanbul, write in a 2019 essay, “Toward a Theory of Pernicious Polarization and How It Harms Democracies: Comparative Evidence and Possible Remedies,”contribute to a perception among citizens that the opposing party and their policies pose a threat to the nation or an individual’s way of life. Most dangerously for democracy, these perceptions of threat open the door to undemocratic behavior by an incumbent and his/her supporters to stay in power, or by opponents to remove the incumbent from power.What is affective polarization? In 2016, Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, wrote that when a voter’s “partisan social identity” merges with his or her racial, religious, sexual and cultural identities, “these various identities work together to drive an emotional type of polarization that cannot be explained by parties or issues alone.”Mason argues that “threats to a party’s status tend to drive anger, while reassurances drive enthusiasm” so thata party loss generates very negative, particularly angry, emotional reactions. This anger is driven not simply by dissatisfaction with potential policy consequences, but by a much deeper, more primal psychological reaction to group threat. Partisans are angered by a party loss because it makes them, as individuals, feel like losers too.One optimistic proposal to reduce partisan animosity is to focus public attention on the commonality of Democratic and Republican voters in their shared identity as Americans. Matthew Levendusky, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, has written extensively on this subject, including in his 2018 paper “Americans, Not Partisans: Can Priming American National Identity Reduce Affective Polarization?” and in his soon-to-be-published book, “Our Common Bonds: Using What Americans Share to Help Bridge the Partisan Divide.”“I show,” Levendusky contends in his 2018 paper, “that when subjects’ sense of American national identity is heightened, they come to see members of the opposing party as fellow Americans rather than rival partisans. As a result, they like the opposing party more, thereby reducing affective polarization.”There are serious problems, however, with a depolarization strategy based on American identity, problems that go to the heart of the relentless power of issues of race, ethnicity and immigration­ to splinter the electorate.In their December 2022 paper, “ ‘American’ Is the Eye of the Beholder: American Identity, Racial Sorting, and Affective Polarization among White Americans,” Ryan Dawkins and Abigail Hanson write thatWhite Democrats and White Republicans have systematically different ideas about what attributes are essential to being a member of the national community. Second, the association between partisanship and these competing conceptions of American identity among White Americans has gotten stronger during the Trump era, largely because of Democrats adopting a more racially inclusive conception of American identity. Lastly, appeals to American identity only dampen out-partisan animosity when the demographic composition of the opposing party matches their racialized conception of American identity. When there is a mismatch between people’s racialized conception of American identity and the composition of the opposition party, American identity is associated with higher levels of partisan hostility.Dawkins and Hanson acknowledge that “national identity is perhaps the only superordinate identity that holds the promise of uniting partisans and closing the social distance between White Democrats and White Republicans,” but, they continue,If conceptions of national identity itself become the subject of the very sorting process that is driving affective polarization, then it can no longer serve as a unifying identity that binds the entire country together. In fact, frames that highlight the association of American identity to historic norms of whiteness can ultimately divide the country further, especially as the United States transitions into a majority-minority country. Indeed, continued demographic change will likely make the schism between White Democrats and White Republicans wider before things have any hope to improve.I asked Levendusky about the Dawkins-Hanson paper. He replied by email that he was now “convinced that there is no simple path from animosity (or affective polarization) to far downstream outcomes (albeit important ones)” — adding that “there’s a long way from ‘I dislike members of the other party’ to ‘I will vote for a candidate who broke democratic norms rather than a candidate from the other party’ and the process is likely complex and subtle.”In an August 2022 paper, “Does Affective Polarization Undermine Democratic Norms or Accountability? Maybe Not,” David E. Broockman, a political scientist at Berkeley, Joshua L. Kalla, a political scientist at Yale, and Sean J. Westwood, a political scientist at Dartmouth, pointedly reject the claim made by a number of scholars “that if citizens were less affectively polarized, they would be less likely to endorse norm violations, overlook copartisan politicians’ shortcomings, oppose compromise, adopt their party’s views, or misperceive economic conditions. A large, influential literature speculates as such.”Instead, Broockman, Kalla and Westwood contend, their own studies “find no evidence that these changes in affective polarization influence a broad range of political behaviors — only interpersonal attitudes. Our results suggest caution about the widespread assumption that reducing affective polarization would meaningfully bolster democratic norms or accountability.”Broockman and his co-authors measured the effect of reducing affective polarization on five domains: “electoral accountability, adopting one’s party’s policy positions, support for legislative bipartisanship, support for democratic norms, and perceptions of objective conditions.”“Our results,” they write, “run contrary to the literature’s widespread speculation: in these political domains, our estimates of the causal effects of reducing affective polarization are consistently null.”In an email, Westwood argued that the whole endeavor “to fix anti-democratic attitudes by changing levels of partisan animosity sounds promising, but it is like trying to heal a broken bone in a gangrenous leg when the real problem is the car accident that caused both injuries in the first place.”Westwood’s point is well-taken. In a country marked by battles over sex, race, religion, gender, regional disparities in economic growth, traditionalist-vs-postmaterialist values and, broadly, inequality, it is difficult to see how relatively short, survey based experiments could produce a significant, long-term dent in partisan hostility.Jan G. Voelkel, a sociologist at Stanford, and eight of his colleagues, report similar results in their October 2022 article “Interventions Reducing Affective Polarization Do Not Necessarily Improve Anti-democratic Attitudes.” “Scholars and practitioners alike,” they write, “have invested great effort in developing depolarization interventions that reduce affective polarization. Critically, however, it remains unclear whether these interventions reduce anti-democratic attitudes, or only change sentiments toward outpartisans.”Why?Because much prior work has focused on treating affective polarization itself, and assumed that these interventions would in turn improve downstream outcomes that pose consequential threats to democracy. Although this assumption may seem reasonable, there is little evidence evaluating its implications for the benefits of depolarization interventions.In “Megastudy Identifying Successful Interventions to Strengthen Americans’ Democratic Attitudes,” a separate analysis of 32,059 American voters “testing 25 interventions designed to reduce anti-democratic attitudes and partisan animosity,” however, Voelkel and many of his co-authors, Michael N. Stagnaro, James Chu, Sophia Pink, Joseph S. Mernyk, Chrystal Redekopp, Matthew Cashman, James N. Druckman, David G. Rand and Robb Willer significantly amended their earlier findings.In an email, Willer explained what was going on:One of the key findings of this new study is that we found some overlap between the interventions that reduced affective polarization and the interventions that reduced one specific anti-democratic attitude: support for undemocratic candidates. Specifically, we found that several of the interventions that were most effective in reducing American partisans’ dislike of rival partisans also made them more likely to say that they would not vote for a candidate from their party who engaged in one of several anti-democratic actions, such as not acknowledging the results of a lost election or removing polling stations from areas that benefit the rival party.Voelkel and his co-authors found that two interventions were the most effective.The first is known as the “Braley intervention” for Alia Braley, a political scientist at Berkeley and the lead author of “The Subversion Dilemma: Why Voters Who Cherish Democracy Participate in Democratic Backsliding.” In the Braley intervention, participants are “asked what people from the other party believe when it comes to actions that undermine how democracy works (e.g., using violence to block laws, reducing the number of polling stations to help the other party, or not accepting the results of elections if they lose).” They are then given “the correct answer” and “the answers make clear the other party does not support actions that undermine democracy.”The second “top-performing intervention” was to give participants “a video showing vivid imagery of societal instability and violence following democratic collapse in several countries, before concluding with imagery of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack.”“To our knowledge,” Willer wrote in his email, “this is the first evidence that the same stimuli could both reduce affective polarization and improve some aspect of Americans’ democratic attitudes, and it suggests these two factors may be causally linked, more than prior work — including our own — would suggest.”Kalla disputed the conclusions Willer drew from the megastudy:The most successful interventions in the megastudy for reducing anti-democratic views were interventions that directly targeted those anti-democratic views. For example, Braley et al.’s successful intervention was able to reduce anti-democratic views by correcting misperceptions about the other party’s willingness to subvert democracy.This intervention, Kalla continued,was not about affective polarization. What this suggests is that for practitioners interested in reducing anti-democratic attitudes, they should use interventions that directly speak to and target those anti-democratic views. As our work finds and Voelkel et al. replicates, obliquely attempting to reduce anti-democratic views through the causal pathway of affective polarization does not appear to be a successful strategy.I sent Kalla’s critique to Willer, who replied:I agree with Josh’s point that the most effective interventions for reducing support for undemocratic practices and candidates were interventions that were pretty clearly crafted with the primary goal in mind of targeting democratic attitudes. And while we find some relationships here that suggest there is a path to reducing support for undemocratic candidates via reducing affective polarization, the larger point that most interventions reducing affective polarization do not affect anti-democratic attitudes still stands, and our evidence continues to contradict the widespread popular assumption that affective polarization and anti-democratic attitudes are closely linked. We continue to find evidence in this newest study against that idea.One scholar, Herbert P. Kitschelt, a political scientist at Duke, contended that too much of the debate over affective polarization and democratic backsliding has been restricted to the analysis of competing psychological pressures, when in fact the scope in much larger. “The United States,” Kitschelt wrote in an email,has experienced a “black swan” confluence, interaction and mutual reinforcement of general factors that affect all advanced knowledge societies with specific historical and institutional factors unique to the U.S. that have created a poisonous concoction threatening U.S. democracy more so than that of any other Western society. Taken together, these conditions have created the scenario in which affective polarization thrives.Like most of the developed world, the United States is undergoing three disruptive transformations compounded by three additional historical factors specific to the United States, Kitschelt suggests. These transformations, he wrote, are:“The postindustrial change of the occupational structure expanding higher education and the income and status educational dividend, together with a transformation of gender and family relations, dismantling the paternalist family and improving the bargaining power of women, making less educated people — and especially males — the more likely socio-economic and cultural losers of the process.”“The expansion of education goes together with a secularization of society that has undercut the ideological foundations of paternalism, but created fierce resistance in certain quarters.”“The sociocultural and economic divisions furthermore correlate with residential patterns in which the growing higher educated, younger, secular and more gender-egalitarian share of the population lives in metropolitan and suburban areas, while the declining, less educated, older, more religious and more paternalists share of the population lives in exurbia or the countryside.”The three factors unique to this country, in his view, are:“The legacy of enslavement and racial oppression in the United States in which — following W.E.B. DuBois — the white lower class of less skilled laborers derived a ‘quasi-wage’ satisfaction from racist subordination of the minority, the satisfaction of enjoying a higher rank in society than African Americans.”“The vibrancy of evangelical ‘born again’ Christianity, sharply separated from the old European moderate, cerebral mainline Protestantism. The former attracts support over-proportionally among less educated people, and strictly segregates churches by race, thereby making it possible to convert white Evangelical churches into platforms of white racism. They have become political transmission belts of right-wing populism in the United States, with 80 percent of those whites who consider themselves ‘born again’ voting for the Trump presidential candidacy.”“The institutional particularities of the U.S. voting system that tends to divide populations into two rival parties, the first-past-the-post electoral system for the U.S. legislature and the directly elected presidency. While received wisdom has claimed that it moderates divisions, under conditions of mutually reinforcing economic, social, and cultural divides, it is likely to have the opposite effect. The most important additional upshot of this system is the overrepresentation of the countryside (i.e. the areas where the social, economic, and cultural losers of knowledge society tend to be located) in the legislative process and presidential elections/Electoral College.”Kitschelt argues that in order to understand affective polarization it is necessary to go “beyond the myopic and US-centric narrow vision field of American political psychologists.” The incentives “for politicians to prime this polarization and stoke the divides, including fanning the flames of affective polarization, can be understood only against the backdrop of these underlying socio-economic and cultural legacies and processes.”Kitschelt is not alone in this view. He pointed to a 2020 book, “American Affective Polarization in Comparative Perspective,” by Noam Gidron, James Adams and Will Horne, political scientists at Harvard, the University of California-Davis and Georgia State University, in which they make a case thatAmericans’ dislike of partisan opponents has increased more rapidly than in most other Western publics. We show that affective polarization is more intense when unemployment and inequality are high, when political elites clash over cultural issues such as immigration and national identity and in countries with majoritarian electoral institutions.Writing just before the 2020 election, Gidron, Adams and Horne point out that theissue of cultural disagreements appears highly pertinent in light of the ongoing nationwide protests in support of racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement which has sparked a wider cultural debate over questions relating to race, police funding and broader questions over interpretations of America’s history. In a July 4th speech delivered at Mt. Rushmore, President Trump starkly framed these types of “culture war” debates as a defining political and social divide in America, asserting “our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.”The study of affective polarization sheds light on how vicious American politics has become, and on how this viciousness has enabled Trump and those Republicans who have followed his lead, while hurting Democrats whose policy and legislative initiatives have been obstructed as much as they have succeeded.Richard Pildes, a professor of constitutional law at N.Y.U., addressed this point when he delivered the following remarks from his paper “Political Fragmentation in Democracies of the West” in 2021 at a legal colloquium in New York:There is little question that recent decades have seen a dramatic decline in the effectiveness of government, whether measured in the number of important bills Congress is able to enact, the proportion of all issues people identity as most important that Congress manages to address, or the number of enacted bills that update old policies enacted many decades earlier. Social scientists now write books with titles like Can America Govern Itself? Longitudinal data confirm the obvious, which is the more polarized Congress is, the less it enacts significant legislation; in the ten most polarized congressional terms, a bit more than 10.6 significant laws were enacted, while in the ten least polarized terms, that number goes up 60 percent, to around 16 significant enactments per term. The inability of democratic governments to deliver on the issues their populations care most about poses serious risks.What are the chances of reversing this trend?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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      Trump Stages His Own ‘State of the Union’ After Biden’s Official Speech

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      Eager to burnish his 2024 bona fides as some Republicans raise doubts about his third bid for the White House, former President Donald J. Trump stood Tuesday between two American flags — in his signature blue suit and red tie — and offered his own assessment of the nation.But even the first line was incorrect.“Here’s the real State of the Union,” Mr. Trump said.The real State of the Union was delivered earlier Tuesday by the sitting president, Joseph R. Biden Jr. For more than two years, Mr. Trump has repeated the lie that he won the 2020 election, falsely claiming that the election was stolen. His claims have been rebuked by numerous recounts, court rulings and assessments from his own administration.There was no other allusion to the last presidential race during Mr. Trump’s two-minute videotaped speech, which he released after Mr. Biden finished his address.Instead, Mr. Trump spent most of his video excoriating the Biden administration, while hitting on some of the same themes he had during two campaign events on Jan. 28, which were aimed at assuaging doubts about his 2024 campaign that have arisen in the establishment wing of the Republican Party.Former President Donald J. Trump introducing his South Carolina leadership team during a campaign event in Columbia, S.C., last month.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMr. Trump, who has presided over three disappointing election cycles as the Republicans’ leader, held his first event at a New Hampshire state party gathering and then introduced his South Carolina leadership team in Columbia, S.C., in the statehouse hallway where lobbyists prowl during legislative sessions. Both were extraordinary settings for a politician known for upsetting the establishment and taking direct aim at longstanding public institutions.In his video on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said Mr. Biden was responsible for millions of undocumented immigrants who “have stormed across our southern border” and for a decline in real wages for 21 consecutive months.Mr. Trump, who is facing a criminal investigation into his handling of classified government documents and a criminal referral to the Justice Department from the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, accused Mr. Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department. “And I’m a victim of it,” he added.“But the good news is we are going to reverse every single crisis, calamity and disaster that Joe Biden has created,” Mr. Trump said. “I am running for president to end the destruction of our country and to complete the unfinished business of making America great again.” More

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      Sweep in 3 Special Elections Gives Democrats Control of Pennsylvania House

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      Three Democratic victories flipped the House for the first time in a dozen years by a single seat in the battleground state.Democrats swept three special elections in solidly blue House districts in western Pennsylvania on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, putting the party in the majority by a single seat and breaking a Republican legislative monopoly that has recently focused on election restrictions and anti-abortion bills.All three races were in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh and is the state’s No. 2 county by population, after Philadelphia.Control of the Pennsylvania House had been shrouded by uncertainty since the midterms in November, grinding legislative business to a halt while the parties clashed over ground rules and the timing of the special elections.Democrats had appeared to flip the chamber in the fall for the first time in a dozen years, but one lawmaker’s death and the election of two others to higher offices delayed the final outcome.The party’s majority — 102 seats to 101 seats — brings clarity to the last unresolved legislative races in a fiercely contested state.The Spread of Misinformation and FalsehoodsDeepfake Rules: In most of the world, the authorities can’t do much about deepfakes, as few laws exist to regulate the technology. China hopes to be the exception.Lessons for a New Generation: Finland is testing new ways to teach students about propaganda. Here’s what other countries can learn from its success.Covid Myths: Experts say the spread of coronavirus misinformation — particularly on far-right platforms like Gab — is likely to be a lasting legacy of the pandemic. And there are no easy solutionsA ‘War for Talent’: Seeing misinformation as a possibly expensive liability, several companies are angling to hire former Twitter employees with the expertise to keep it in check. In the 32nd District, Joe McAndrew, a former executive director of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee, defeated Clayton Walker, a Republican pastor. The seat had been held by Tony DeLuca, a Democrat who was the longest-serving member of the Pennsylvania House before his death in October from lymphoma. Still, Mr. DeLuca was overwhelmingly re-elected in the heavily Democratic district.In the 34th District, Abigail Salisbury, a Democratic lawyer, prevailed against Robert Pagane, a Republican security guard and former police officer. Ms. Salisbury will fill the seat of Summer Lee, a Democrat who in November became the first Black woman elected to Congress from Pennsylvania. Last year, Ms. Salisbury had previously lost to Ms. Lee in a Democratic primary for the legislature..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.In the 35th District, Matt Gergely, a Democrat who is the chief revenue officer of McKeesport, Pa., defeated Don Nevills, a Republican who operates a tattoo shop and ran unsuccessfully for the seat in November. Austin Davis, a Democrat who previously represented the district, was elected as lieutenant governor in the fall.The power shift dealt another blow to Republicans coming off the midterms, when the party failed to meet heightened expectations in Pennsylvania and nationally that were generated by economic turmoil and President Biden’s lackluster job approval ratings.In November, Pennsylvania voters consistently rejected Republicans in marquee races featuring candidates endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, who espoused false claims about fraud in the 2020 election.Democrats flipped a U.S. Senate seat and held onto the governor’s office when Josh Shapiro, who was previously Pennsylvania’s attorney general, defeated Doug Mastriano, a Republican state senator and an election denier, in an open-seat race.After losing control of the House, Republicans will be unable to override a veto by the governor.In a potential end-run around the governor, G.O.P. lawmakers have resorted to trying to amend the state Constitution in order to pass a voter ID bill. The complex amendment process, which ultimately requires putting the question to voters, is the subject of pending litigation.But both chambers of the General Assembly need to pass the bill this session in order to place it on the ballot.First-time voters and those applying for absentee ballots are currently required to present identification in Pennsylvania, but Republicans want to expand the requirement to all voters in every election and have proposed issuing voter ID cards. Critics say the proposal would make it harder to vote and could be a privacy risk.Mr. Shapiro has not ruled out compromising with Republicans on some voting rules, but has said that he would not support any proposal that hinders voting.Republicans, now likely to be thwarted legislatively, have also sought to use the constitutional amendment process to place new restrictions on abortion in Pennsylvania. More

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      Club for Growth Distances Itself Further From Trump

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      The anti-tax group has invited six possible presidential candidates to its donor retreat in Florida, and a notable name was left off the guest list.WASHINGTON — The Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group that spent nearly $150 million in the past two election cycles, has invited a half-dozen potential Republican presidential candidates to its annual donor retreat next month — but not Donald J. Trump.In a meeting with reporters on Monday, David McIntosh, president of the group, said that Republican chances of winning back the White House next year would be diminished if Mr. Trump were once again at the top of the ticket and that he hoped to introduce Republican donors to other possibilities.“The party should be open to another candidate,” Mr. McIntosh said, suggesting that Republicans had already lost too many elections with Mr. Trump as the face of the party.Mr. Trump and the Club for Growth, which is based in Washington, were frequent foils during the 2022 midterms, backing opposing candidates in some high-profile primary contests, including Senate races in Ohio and Pennsylvania. When the group started campaigning last year against J.D. Vance, Mr. Trump’s pick in Ohio, the former president ordered an aide to text Mr. McIntosh a vulgar message.On the eve of Mr. Trump’s presidential announcement in November, the group publicized internal polling that showed the former president trailing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida with Republican primary voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. (Mr. Trump is so far the only declared candidate in the race, but President Biden is expected to seek re-election.)The Run-Up to the 2024 ElectionThe jockeying for the next presidential race is already underway.Taking Aim at Trump: The Koch brothers’ donor network is preparing to get involved in the Republican primaries, with the aim of turning “the page on the past”  — a thinly veiled rebuke of Donald J. Trump.Trump’s Support: Is Mr. Trump the front-runner to win the Republican nomination? Or is he an underdog against Ron DeSantis? The polls are divided, but higher-quality surveys point to an answer.Falling in Line: With the vulnerabilities of Mr. Trump’s campaign becoming evident, the bickering among Democrats about President Biden’s potential bid for re-election has subsided.Democrats’ Primary Calendar: Upending decades of political tradition, members of the Democratic National Committee voted to approve a sweeping overhaul of the party’s primary process.Mr. McIntosh insisted that there was no personal animosity guiding the group’s interest in seeking another option for the 2024 nomination. Instead, he said that Mr. Trump had proved to be toxic among general election voters, adding that Republicans had lost elections in 2018, 2020 and 2022 on the former president’s watch.Mr. Trump’s standing among Republicans dipped in public opinion polls in November and December. In addition to being largely blamed for the Republicans’ disappointing midterm season, he was also roundly criticized after hosting a private dinner — a week after his campaign announcement — with Kanye West, who has been denounced for making antisemitic statements, and Nick Fuentes, an outspoken antisemite and prominent young white supremacist..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.He reported a less-than-stellar fund-raising haul in his first campaign finance report last week, yet another signal that his hold on some conservatives might be loosening. And the donor network created by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch is preparing to get involved in the presidential primaries in 2024, with the aim of turning the page on Mr. Trump.Still, Mr. Trump remains the front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination, and his typical fund-raising strength is in small-dollar donors. And, if he were to capture his third consecutive nomination, Mr. McIntosh said his group would support Mr. Trump against Mr. Biden in 2024. In Mr. Trump’s presidential bid in 2016, the Club for Growth initially opposed him, but eventually got on board.A spokesman for Mr. Trump declined to comment and instead pointed to three social media posts two weeks ago in which the former president repeatedly attacked the club, including one that referred to both the group and to Mr. DeSantis as “globalists.”On Monday, Mr. McIntosh spoke highly of Mr. DeSantis and provided reporters with internal polling that showed the Florida governor beating Mr. Trump in a head-to-head primary matchup, but trailing when the poll included a wider, hypothetical field of seven candidates. Mr. DeSantis, who won re-election last year, has not said whether he will run for president in 2024.Mr. McIntosh said that Mr. DeSantis had been invited to his group’s donor retreat, along with the other five non-Trump potential candidates in his group’s poll: former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.Mr. McIntosh declined to say whether any other contenders had accepted invitations to the retreat, which is set to be held in Florida, home to both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis.Mr. McIntosh said Republicans had underperformed last year in part because of abortion issues, but also in part because of Mr. Trump. He said the former president’s insistence on promoting candidates who repeated his lies about the 2020 election had unnerved voters, who viewed Republican candidates as “future Trumps.”“Trump was on the ballot,” Mr. McIntosh said. “So I worry that when we get into a general election, if Trump is the nominee, they’re going to be able to take a chunk of Republican votes.”Asked if he thought Mr. Trump could beat Mr. Biden, Mr. McIntosh said, “Anything is possible.”“The last three elections show he’s lost,” he added. More

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      Politicians Everywhere All at Once

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. President Biden will give his State of the Union address on Tuesday. I’m going to watch it as a professional obligation. But to be honest, I’m about as excited about it as I am for the Oscars, at least in its more recent incarnation. I just hope Lauren Boebert doesn’t go after Biden the way Will Smith went for Chris Rock.Is it crazy that I think we could dispense with the tradition altogether and go back to written messages delivered “from time to time,” as the Constitution puts it?Gail Collins: Oh, Bret, don’t be cynical. Remember waiting for the Donald Trump State of the Unions? No complaints about boredom then, since people were always waiting expectantly to see if he’d say something crazy.Bret: Well, you’re kinda making my point. And the switch from Trump to Biden isn’t exactly an upgrade in the rhetorical thrills department.Gail: OK, Biden isn’t an exciting orator. And now he’s stuck with that Chinese balloon distraction. But still, he’s got some things to celebrate with the economy going well, don’t you think? A cheerful State of the Union would definitely be more interesting than the Oscars. I warn you that before we’re done today, I’m gonna ask you what you think should win Best Picture.Bret: Other than the “Top Gun” sequel?About the State of the Union: Biden can look back at a year of some significant legislative and foreign policy accomplishments. But given the reality of a Republican House, what does he do next? Are there bipartisan compromises to propose?Gail: Guess Biden is discovering there’s no bipartisan G.O.P. to compromise with. I’m sure — or at least I can imagine — that Kevin McCarthy would be happy to come up with a deal to avoid default by simply raising the debt limit. But hard to imagine he could corral the crazy segment of his caucus, which wants to show off its muscles by forcing some serious cuts in spending.Bret: You may be right. Then again, it only takes a few moderate Republicans to break ranks and vote with Democrats to raise the ceiling. In a crunch, I could see that.Gail: You’re my interpreter of conservative spending dogma — what’s going to happen? What should happen?Bret: I won’t make any predictions because they’re bound to be proved wrong. What should happen? I like a proposal made by Phil Gramm, the former Texas senator — and Democrat turned Republican — in The Wall Street Journal: Raise the debt ceiling but “claw back unspent funds” from the $6 trillion in pandemic-related spending, which he and his co-writer, Michael Solon, believe could save $255 billion in 2023-24. That seems like a compromise a lot of Americans could get behind. What do you think?Gail: First, I’d like to see those pandemic funds directed to research, continued free testing in high-risk areas and short-term support for service industries like restaurants and hotels that haven’t recovered from a huge pandemic whack in business.Bret: That doesn’t sound like much of a compromise on the spending side.Gail: But maybe there’s a little give there. If the Republicans are willing to offer up some cost savings from their favorite programs — like military spending — I could imagine the Democrats compromising a bit on the pandemic funding. Have to admit $6 trillion is a sizable amount to spend.Bret: Doubt there will be any cuts in defense budgets in an era of rampaging Russians and Chinese spy balloons. But a good way for Democrats to test Republican seriousness on spending could be to insist on cuts in farm subsidies, which, of course, aren’t likely to happen either. So we’ll probably end up, at the last possible second, with a clean debt-ceiling raise — but, as the great Rick Bragg might say, only when it’s “all over but the shoutin’.”Gail: Now let me stoop to pure politics, Bret. Nikki Haley is set to announce that she’s running for the Republican presidential nomination. Besides being the former governor of South Carolina, she was Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. Remember the time she called Jared a “hidden genius”? Any thoughts?Bret: I think she’s the best of the Republican field by a mile — and I don’t just mean Trump. She was a good U.N. ambassador and understands foreign policy. She was a reasonable governor of South Carolina and is a moderate in today’s field of Republicans. She has an inspiring personal story as the daughter of Indian immigrants. She was among the first Republicans to put some distance between herself and Trump after Jan. 6. She connects with audiences. What’s not to like?Gail: Well, all that time she claimed she wouldn’t run against Trump. Her longstanding opposition to abortion rights. But she would probably be the strongest woman to enter the Republican presidential field since … wow, do you think I’ll get to revisit Margaret Chase Smith?Bret: Gail, you know how you now regret giving Mitt Romney (and his dog Seamus) such a hard time, considering what the party came up with next? I bet Haley is the one Republican you’d more or less be all right with as president.Gail: Hmm. Does she have any pet-transportation stories?Bret: Hehehe.Gail: Most of all, her entry has me wondering how many other candidates we’ll see lining up here. Never thought Ron DeSantis could beat Trump one on one, but if we’ve got a whole bunch of people in the Republican race, it might give DeSantis time to become more of a household name — and maybe even less of a doltish-sounding campaigner.Bret: What Republicans most want for 2024 is to win. And I think they realize that nominating Trump is a ticket to failure.That said, the problem for Republicans is that as more of them jump into the fray, they make Trump relatively stronger simply by carving up the anti-Trump vote in the G.O.P.’s winner-take-all primaries. I can see a scenario in which Trump maintains a steady base of support at around 35 percent, and then Haley, DeSantis, Pious Pence and Pompous Pompeo — and yes, I’m giving Trump ideas for nicknames here — carve up the remaining 65 percent.Gail: And Dippy DeSantis? Doofus DeSantis?Bret: Ron DeSantos?Can we pivot to Democrats for a moment here, Gail? It looks like the party is about to change its primary calendar, so that it would start with South Carolina, then move to New Hampshire and Nevada, then Georgia and then Michigan. Do you think this is an improvement?Gail: I do feel sorta sad for Iowa — being the tip-off was so important to the people there. But they screwed up their caucus system in 2020, and it’s pretty clear their time is over.Bret: I’m guessing that a lot of reporters with memories of freezing Januaries in Ames or Storm Lake aren’t too sorry for the change.Gail: New Hampshire is great at running primaries, and I have fond memories of many winter days in Concord — but truly, it does make sense to let states with more diverse populations have their turn at going early. And I’m sure Joe Biden hasn’t forgotten for a nanosecond that it was Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina’s endorsement that put him over the top in the nomination race. So yeah, I think it’s a good plan. How about you?Bret: My guess is that it makes no real difference what order the states go in. Biden came in fourth place in Iowa last time and still won. Bernie Sanders won in New Hampshire in 2016 and still lost. Not sure what switching the order achieves in the long run. In the end, the parties tend to get the nominees they want.Which, by the way, increasingly looks like it will be Biden on the Democratic side. We’ve talked about this so often before, but it just seems to me the worst idea. Do you think he might at least switch out Kamala Harris for another vice-presidential nominee? I think it might … reassure some voters.Gail: Yeah, we are in agreement here, but I’m sorry to say we’re both going to be disappointed. Biden is very clearly planning to run and there’s no way in the world he won’t keep Harris.Bret: Well, there goes my vote, at least assuming it’s not Trump on the other side. The chances that Biden couldn’t complete a second term are too great. And she’s shown no evidence of growing in office or being qualified to take over.Gail: Let me be clear that if Biden were, say, 65, I’d be in total support of another run at the White House. He’s not an inspiring president, but he’s been a good one.However, he’d be 86 at the end of his second term and that’s just too old. Not too old to be in public service — have to admit Jimmy Carter’s activism has slowed down lately, but hey, he’s 98. It’d be great if Biden moved on to new projects.But he won’t do that, and he’d never get rid of Harris. As someone who’s very, very eager to see a woman elected president, I still dread the idea that she’ll become an automatic heir apparent.Bret: When people observe that Harris hasn’t exactly wowed as veep, there’s usually someone who says that opposition to her is on account of her color or gender. So let me note that I just endorsed an Indian woman as a potential president, just as I supported the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.Gail: You did indeed.Bret: The problem with Harris is that she was a bad senator — she missed 30.2 percent of her roll call votes, compared with an average of 2.4 percent for her peers. She was a terrible presidential candidate, whose campaign fell apart before even reaching the Iowa caucus. As vice president, she has had no apparent accomplishments other than saying dumb and untrue things — like when she told NBC’s Chuck Todd that “we have a secure border.” In Washington she’s mostly famous for running a dysfunctional office with frequent staff turnover. So, do I want her a heartbeat away from a president who is the oldest in history? As Bill Maher likes to say, “Sorry, not sorry.”As for my Oscar pick, I’m going to have to go with “Tár.”Gail: Well, we’re in the cheerful disagreement business, so put me down for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” At least my title’s the longest.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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      Koch Network, Aiming to ‘Turn the Page’ on Trump, Will Play in the G.O.P. Primaries

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      The move by the alliance of conservative donors could provide an enormous boost to a Republican alternative to the former president.The donor network created by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch is preparing to get involved in the presidential primaries in 2024, with the aim of turning “the page on the past” in a thinly veiled rebuke of former President Donald J. Trump, according to an internal memo.The network, which consists of an array of political and advocacy groups backed by hundreds of ultrawealthy conservatives, has been among the most influential forces in American politics over the past 15 years, spending nearly $500 million supporting Republican candidates and conservative policies in the 2020 election cycle alone. But it has never before supported candidates in presidential primaries.The potential move against Mr. Trump could motivate donors to line up behind another prospective candidate. Thus far, only the former president has entered the race.The memo is set to go out to the affiliated activists and donors after a weekend conference in Palm Springs, Calif., where the network’s leaders laid out their goals for the next presidential election cycle. At various sessions, they made clear they planned to get involved in primaries for various offices, and early.“The Republican Party is nominating bad candidates who are advocating for things that go against core American principles,” the memo declares. “And the American people are rejecting them.” It asserts that Democrats are responding with “policies that also go against our core American principles.”The memo’s author is Emily Seidel, chief executive of the lead nonprofit group in the network, Americans for Prosperity, and an adviser to an affiliated super PAC. But the principles sketched out in the memo are expected to apply to some other groups in the network, which is now known as “Stand Together.”Americans for Prosperity’s super PAC spent nearly $80 million during the 2022 midterm elections, but that is likely just a fraction of the network’s overall spending, much of which was undertaken by nonprofit groups that will not be required to reveal their finances until this fall.One of the lessons learned from primary campaigns in the 2022 midterm election cycle, the memo says, in boldface, “is that the loudest voice in each political party sets the tone for the entire election. In a presidential year, that’s the presidential candidate.”The decision to get involved in the Republican presidential primaries is being viewed as a rebuke to Donald Trump.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIt continues, “And to write a new chapter for our country, we need to turn the page on the past. So the best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter. The American people have shown that they’re ready to move on, and so A.F.P. will help them do that.”Though the memo did not mention Mr. Trump’s name, leaving open the possibility that the network could fall in behind him if he won the Republican nomination, its references to a “new chapter” and leaving the past behind were unmistakable.The Run-Up to the 2024 ElectionThe jockeying for the next presidential race is already underway.G.O.P. Field: Nikki Haley is expected to join the contest for the Republican Party’s nomination soon, but other contenders are taking a wait-and-see approach before challenging former President Donald J. Trump.Trump’s Slow Start: In the first weeks of his third presidential campaign, Mr. Trump notched a less-than-stellar fund-raising haul, yet another signal that his hold on some conservatives may be loosening.Democrats’ Primary Calendar: Upending decades of political tradition, members of the Democratic National Committee voted to approve a sweeping overhaul of the party’s primary process.A Looming Issue: As Mr. Biden sharpens his economic message ahead of a likely re-election bid, the case over his handling of classified documents has thrust him into an uncomfortable position.Mr. Trump’s early entry into the race, in November, has largely frozen the field. The only other candidate expected to get into the race soon is Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, whose allies, despite her work as the U.N. ambassador under Mr. Trump, have cast her as a change from the past.The Koch network publicly opposed some of Mr. Trump’s policies, including tariffs he imposed as president, though it worked with his administration on an overhaul of the criminal justice system that slashed some sentences..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.If the network were to unite behind an alternative to Mr. Trump, it could give that candidate a tremendous boost, given the resources at its disposal, which at times have rivaled — and even surpassed — those of the Republican National Committee.It would also be a dramatic departure for the Koch network, which was launched by the Koch brothers during former President George W. Bush’s administration as an effort to reorient the Republican Party and American politics around their libertarian-infused conservatism.And it comes at a moment when a number of the party’s most prolific donors have remained on the sidelines, with a Republican primary field that has yet to take shape.The network has had ties to former Vice President Mike Pence, who is taking steps that could lead to a presidential campaign. And some major donors have expressed interest in Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is also weighing a potential campaign. But if Mr. DeSantis enters the race, he is likely months away from doing so, according to people familiar with his thinking.“It looks like the Democrats have already chosen their path for the presidential — so there’s no opportunity to have a positive impact there,” the memo says. Americans for Prosperity’s super PAC “is prepared to support a candidate in the Republican presidential primary who can lead our country forward, and who can win.”A number of big donors who backed Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020 have yet to say they will do so again. Other groups of donors, such as those belonging to the hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer’s American Opportunity Alliance, which overlaps with the Koch network, are also largely on the sidelines so far.It may be easier for the Koch network to decide to oppose Mr. Trump than to agree on an alternative.In past election cycles, the ideological diversity of the network’s donors, as well as the Kochs’ commitment to their own ideology, have been impediments to uniting behind a single presidential candidate.While Charles Koch is the most prominent figure in the network — his brother David began stepping back from it before his death in 2019 — it draws its influence partly from its ability to pool resources from an array of major donors who represent sometimes divergent wings of the Republican Party, including noninterventionists, foreign policy hawks and religious conservatives.Perhaps the closest the network came to wading into a Republican presidential nominating context was in 2016, when it was pressured by some donors and operatives to back an opponent of Mr. Trump, who was seen as anathema to the Kochs’ limited government, free-trade instincts.But the network wavered. And one of its top operatives, Marc Short, decamped for the presidential campaign of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who was viewed by many Koch-aligned donors as having the best chance to defeat Mr. Trump, but whose hawkish instincts ran afoul of the Kochs.The network remained largely on the sidelines of the 2016 presidential race after Mr. Trump won the Republican nomination: Charles Koch at one point compared having to decide whether to support Mr. Trump or Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, to being asked to choose between cancer or a heart attack.It continued to sit out presidential politics in 2020, when Mr. Koch expressed regret over the network’s financial backing of Republicans and proclaimed that it had “abandoned partisanship” in favor of bipartisan efforts like overhauling the criminal justice system.The network rejects the idea that it retreated from politics altogether, however, noting in the memo that Americans for Prosperity engaged in more primary elections last year — about 200 at the state and federal level — than ever before, and that the candidates it supported won in more than 80 percent of those races. More

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      Is Trump Way Up or Way Down?

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      The polls are surprisingly divided, but higher-quality surveys point to an answer.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and President Trump in July 2020, when they were working together. Al Drago for The New York TimesIs Donald J. Trump the clear favorite and front-runner to win the Republican nomination? Or is he badly weakened and even an underdog against Ron DeSantis?At the onset of the Republican campaign, the polls are exceptionally divided on Mr. Trump’s support among Republican primary voters.In national surveys since last November’s midterm election, different pollsters have shown him with anywhere between 25 percent and 55 percent of the vote in a multicandidate field.That’s right: a mere 30-point gap.Huge Variance in Support for TrumpIn national surveys since November, different pollsters have shown Mr. Trump with anywhere between 25 percent and 55 percent of the vote in a multicandidate field. More

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      2016 Trump Campaign to Pay $450,000 to Settle Nondisclosure Agreements Suit

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      The settlement with a former campaign aide who says she was the target of sexual harassment effectively invalidates agreements hundreds of 2016 Trump campaign officials signed.Former President Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign will pay $450,000 as part of a settlement of a long court fight over its use of nondisclosure agreements, according to documents filed on Friday in a New York federal court.The proposed settlement with Jessica Denson, a former campaign aide whom the campaign tried to silence as she claimed she was the target of abusive treatment and sexual harassment by another campaign member, effectively invalidates the nondisclosure agreements that hundreds of officials from Mr. Trump’s first presidential run signed.Ms. Denson is set to receive $25,000, the filings show, and the rest will cover legal fees and other costs. The judge in the case, who has not yet approved the settlement, pushed back on efforts by the campaign to keep the paperwork sealed. The details were reported earlier by Bloomberg News.“We think that this N.D.A. was entirely unreasonable from the beginning,” said David K. Bowles, one of the lawyers for Ms. Denson, who initially represented herself in the case. “No attorney should have ever drafted it, and no campaign worker should have ever been compelled to sign it. We think the unwinding of the N.D.A. is a triumph for free speech, for democracy and for Jessica Denson, in particular, and we are very proud of our accomplishment tonight.”A representative for Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign did not respond to emails seeking comment.Mr. Trump has made broad use of nondisclosure agreements throughout his business career and, later, his political career. The agreements have generally sought to keep people from disclosing information about Mr. Trump, but he has also used them as a cudgel against a wide variety of aides. In Ms. Denson’s case, her lawyers argued the agreement was overly broad, among other flaws.Ms. Denson had been trying to make the suit a certified class action shortly before the matter was settled. She has a separate case pending related to her claim that she was harassed by a superior on the campaign. More