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      A Way Forward for Biden and the Democrats in 2022 and 2024

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      Swing voters in two blue-leaning states just sent a resounding wake-up call to the Biden administration: If Democrats remain on their current course and keep coddling and catering to progressives, they could lose as many as 50 seats and control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections. There is a way forward now for President Biden and the Democratic Party: Friday’s passage of the bipartisan physical infrastructure bill is a first step, but only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022 and to hold on to the presidency in 2024.The history of the 2020 election is undisputed: Joe Biden was nominated for president because he was the moderate alternative to Bernie Sanders and then elected president as the antidote to the division engendered by Donald J. Trump. He got off to a good start, especially meeting the early challenge of Covid-19 vaccine distribution. But polling on key issues show that voters have been turning against the Biden administration, and rejecting its embrace of parts of the Bernie Sanders/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez playbook.According to our October Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, only 35 percent of registered voters approve of the administration’s immigration policies (which a majority view as an open-borders approach); 64 percent oppose eliminating cash bail (a progressive proposal the administration has backed); and most reject even popular expansions of entitlements if they are bundled in a $1.5 to $2 trillion bill based on higher taxes and deficits (the pending Build Back Better initiative). Nearly nine in 10 voters express concern about inflation. And 61 percent of voters blame the Biden administration for the increase in gasoline prices, with most also preferring to maintain energy independence over reducing carbon emissions right now.Progressives might be able to win the arguments for an all-out commitment to climate change and popular entitlements — but they haven’t because they’ve allowed themselves to be drawn into a debate about the size of Build Back Better, not its content. Moderate Democrats have always favored expanded entitlements, but only if they meet the tests of fiscal responsibility — and most voters don’t believe Build Back Better does so, even though the president has promised it would be fully paid for. Putting restraints on these entitlements so that they don’t lead to government that is too big, and to ballooning deficits, is at the core of the moderate pushback on the bill that has caused a schism in the party.Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema are not outliers in the Democratic Party — they are in fact the very heart of the Democratic Party, given that 53 percent of Democrats classify themselves as moderates or conservative. While Democrats support the Build Back Better initiative, 60 percent of Democrats (and 65 percent of the country) support the efforts of these moderates to rein it in. It’s Mr. Sanders from Vermont and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez from New York who represent areas ideologically far from the mainstream of America.The economy and jobs are now the top national issues, and 57 percent see it on the wrong track, up from 42 percent a few months ago, generating new basic kitchen-table worries. After the economy and jobs, the coronavirus, immigration and health care are the next top issues, but Afghanistan, crime, school choice and education are also serious areas of concern for voters.To understand the urgency for future Democratic candidates, it’s important to be cleareyed about those election results. Some progressives and other Democrats argue that the loss in the Virginia governor’s race, where culture war issues were a factor, should not be extrapolated to generalize about the administration. The problem with that argument is that last week’s governor’s race in New Jersey also showed a double-digit percentage point swing toward Republicans — and in that election, taxes mattered far more than cultural issues. The swing is in line with the drop in President Biden’s approval rating and the broader shift in the mood of the country.Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee in Virginia, ran for governor in 2013 and won by offering himself as a relative moderate. This time, he deliberately nationalized his campaign by bringing in President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama, and he closed out the race with the head of the teacher’s union, an icon on the left. He may not have brought in the progressive Squad, but he did hug a range of left-of-center Democratic politicians rather than push off the left and try to win swing voters.It’s hard to imagine Democratic candidates further to the left of Mr. McAuliffe, and of Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, doing any better with swing voters, especially when the math of elections requires two new voters to turn out to equal a single voter who switches from Democrat to Republican. It’s easy to dismiss individual polls that may or may not be accurate — but you can’t dismiss a clear electoral trend: the flight from the Democrats was disproportionately in the suburbs, and the idea that these home-owning, child-rearing, taxpaying voters just want more progressive candidates is not a sustainable one.After the 1994 congressional elections, Bill Clinton reoriented his administration to the center and saved his presidency. Mr. Biden should follow his lead, listen to centrists, push back on the left and reorient his policies to address the mounting economic issues people are facing. As a senator, he was a master at building coalitions; that is the leadership needed now.This would mean meeting the voters head on with stronger borders, a slower transition from fossil fuels, a focus on bread-and-butter economic issues (such as the price of gas and groceries), fixes to the supply chain fiasco that is impacting the cost of goods and the pursuit of more moderate social spending bills. Nearly three in four voters see the border as a crisis that needs immediate attention. Moving to the center does not mean budging from core social issues like abortion rights and L.G.B.T.Q. rights that are at the heart of what the party believes in and are largely in sync with suburban voters. But it does mean connecting to voters’ immediate needs and anxieties. As Democrats found in the late ’90s, the success of the administration begets enthusiasm from the base, and we actually gained seats in the 1998 midterms under the theme of “progress not partisanship.”Mr. Biden’s ratings since the Afghanistan withdrawal have fallen from nearly 60 percent approval to just above 40 percent in most polls. By getting the physical infrastructure bill passed with Republican votes, Mr. Biden has taken a crucial step to the center (79 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans supported it in the Harris Poll). Follow that infrastructure success by digging into the pending congressional budget office analysis of Build Back Better and then look closely at bringing in more of the popular benefits for people (such as expansion of Medicare benefits for dental and vision and family leave) and cutting out some of the interest group giveaways like creating environmental justice warriors.Of course, this may require some Houdini-like leadership to get votes from the Progressive Caucus for a revised Build Back Better bill. But this is the best strategy to protect Democratic candidates in 2022.Yelling “Trump, Trump, Trump” when Mr. Trump is not on the ballot or in office is no longer a viable campaign strategy. Soccer moms, who largely despised Mr. Trump, want a better education for their kids and safer streets; they don’t see the ghost of Trump or Jan. 6 behind Republican candidates like now Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin of Virginia. Remember that only about one quarter of the country classifies itself as liberal, and while that is about half of the Democratic Party, the rest of the electorate nationally is moderate or conservative. While many rural and working-class voters are staying Republican, the message from last Tuesday is that the Democrats have gone too far to the left on key issues for educated suburban voters. Even Bergen County in New Jersey, a socially liberal bedroom community outside New York City, almost swung into the Republican column.While Mr. Youngkin waded directly into racially divisive issues, he also based his campaign on positive messages of striving for excellence in the schools and for re-establishing the American dream as a worthy goal. Those messages tapped into the aspirations of voters in ways that in the past were at the heart of the Democratic message. These are enduring values, as is reaffirming the First Amendment and the power of free speech.Demographics is not destiny. We live in a 40-40-20 country in which 40 percent are hard-wired to either party and 20 percent are swing voters, primarily located in the suburbs. After losing a game-changing slice of Midwestern working-class voters, who had voted for Mr. Obama, over trade, immigration and cultural policies, Democrats were steadily gaining in the suburbs, expanding their leads in places like New Jersey and Virginia. Without voters in these places, the party will be left with only too small of a base of urban voters and coastal elites. Unless it re-centers itself, the risk is that the Democratic Party, like the Labor Party in Britain, will follow its greatest success with an extended period in the desert.Mark Penn served as adviser and pollster to President Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton from 1996 to 2008. Andrew Stein is a former president of the New York City Council.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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      Republicans, Basking in Tuesday’s Victories, Diverge on What Comes Next

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      Looming over a gathering of Jewish conservatives in Las Vegas were questions about whether former President Donald J. Trump should remain the face of the party.LAS VEGAS — Two strikingly divergent visions of Republican political strength played out over the weekend at a conference of Jewish conservatives, the first major gathering of G.O.P. leaders since the party’s sweeping success in Tuesday’s elections. There were displays of blustery confidence. And there were calls for caution and restraint as party leaders tried to process their drastic gains.Looming over it all, and mostly addressed gingerly, was the uncertainty about whether Republicans could replicate their decisive gains with suburban voters, especially women, if former President Donald J. Trump remained the face of the party.Although a majority of the speakers at the annual conference of the Republican Jewish Coalition were effusive with their praise of the former president and spent much of the two-day gathering citing his administration’s most conservative policy achievements, others warned that Republicans who continued to give cover to his baseless claims about fraud in the 2020 election were jeopardizing the party’s recent success.The most notable Trump skeptic was former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who urged Republicans to promote a “plan for tomorrow, not a grievance about yesterday,” and said that the party would be making a grave mistake if it did not recommit itself to truth-telling.“Winning campaigns are always the campaigns that look forward, not backwards,” Mr. Christie said, earning only a smattering of applause from the crowd. Noting the less-than-enthusiastic response, Mr. Christie implored the audience: “That deserves applause. Because if we don’t get it, we are going to lose.”The 2020 election, Mr. Christie said, “is over.”The most notable Trump skeptic was former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who urged Republicans to promote a “plan for tomorrow, not a grievance about yesterday.” Caroline Brehman/EPA, via ShutterstockBut that was not the message delivered by most other speakers — a group that included more than a half dozen of the current and former governors and senators who are considered possible presidential contenders and leaders-in-waiting whenever Mr. Trump recedes from the spotlight.They offered much different interpretations of the results on Election Day last week, which delivered wins for Republicans in Democratic strongholds up and down the ballot — from Virginia, where they won the governor’s race for the first time since 2009, to Washington State, where a candidate running on a message of law and order prevailed in the contest for city attorney in Seattle. Republicans also picked up seats in municipal races across New York City and Long Island and came close to pulling off a colossal upset in the governor’s race in New Jersey.“The trend is unmistakable,” said Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader who hopes to lead his party back into the majority next year. “A Republican wave is underway.”A year into the Biden administration, polling data, history and Tuesday’s results indicate the political climate has become highly unfavorable to Democrats, who have proved that they can beat Mr. Trump but have not convinced enough Americans that they can govern effectively.The election results last week only boosted the optimism of Republicans who already believed they were likely to win the small number of seats they needed to win control of the House next year and were in a strong position to win a majority in the Senate as well.That confidence was irrepressible at their gathering in Las Vegas this weekend, as Republicans predicted not only big gains in the 2022 midterm elections, but in 2024 as well.Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said the results last week foreshadowed a victory in the House and the Senate. He also praised the “extraordinary courage” and “steel backbone” that Mr. Trump displayed as president.Mr. Cruz giddily described the despondency he said he witnessed among his Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill over the election last week and vowed that the 2022 midterms would bring about the day when “Nancy’s going to get on her broom” and “fly back to California.” That remark, referring to the first woman to hold the position of speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, drew a round of hearty laughter from the audience.Speaking with reporters after his speech on Friday night, Mr. Cruz pointed to how suburban mothers were “coming home to the Republican Party” as a hopeful sign of the party’s fortunes. “I think there are a lot of people across this country, including some soccer moms in Virginia who may have voted for Joe Biden, and looked at this past year and were horrified.”But he twice declined to say whether the G.O.P. could again expect similar results if Mr. Trump — who repelled suburban men and women in such high numbers in 2020 that it cost him several swing states — resumed his role as his party’s standard-bearer.Still, like many other top Republicans who have offered their analysis of the country’s suddenly jolted political landscape, Mr. Cruz indicated that he believed the poor public perceptions of President Biden and the Democratic Party were enough to guarantee Republican success.Ron DeSantis talked up his work as governor of Florida putting into effect policies that borrow from former President Donald Trump’s agenda.Caroline Brehman/EPA, via ShutterstockGov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is frequently mentioned as a top contender for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination should Mr. Trump decide not to run, thundered against what he called a “Fauchian dystopia,” a reference to the government’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is a proponent of the kinds of public health mandates and restrictions on everyday activity that many Republicans have opposed.Trump’s Bid to Subvert the ElectionCard 1 of 6A monthslong campaign. More

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      Election Results in Virginia Prove Things Can Get Worse for Democrats

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      Republicans ran up the margins in rural Virginia counties, the latest sign that Democrats, as one lawmaker put it, “continue to tank in small-town America.”HOT SPRINGS, Va. — The increasingly liberal politics of Virginia had been a sore spot for residents of this conservative town of 499 people nestled in the Allegheny Mountains. But this past week, as Republicans stormed to marquee victories powered in part by turnout in rural areas like Bath County, local voters cheered.“We got our Virginia back,” said Elaine Neff, a 61-year-old resident. “And we haven’t had a win in a long time.”Ms. Neff said she cried from a mix of happiness and relief after the election. She does not want to take the coronavirus vaccine and believes Glenn Youngkin, the winning Republican candidate for governor, will relax state mandates. Outside a nearby grocery store, Charles Hamilton taunted the Democrats.“We’re a county of old country folk who want to do what they want,” said Mr. Hamilton, 74. “They found out the hard way.”Charles Hamilton said his vote for Glenn Youngkin was really a proxy vote for Donald Trump.Eze Amos for The New York TimesIn the jigsaw puzzle that is electoral politics, Democrats have often focused their energy on swingy suburbs and voter-rich cities, content to mostly ignore many white, rural communities that lean conservative. The belief was, in part, that the party had already bottomed out there, especially during the Trump era, when Republicans had run up the numbers of white voters in rural areas to dizzying new heights.Virginia, however, is proof: It can get worse.In 2008, there were only four small Virginia counties where Republicans won 70 percent or more of the vote in that year’s presidential race. Nowhere was the party above 75 percent. This year, Mr. Youngkin was above 70 percent in 45 counties — and he surpassed 80 percent in 15 of them.“Look at some of those rural counties in Virginia as a wake-up call,” said Steve Bullock, the Democratic former governor of Montana who made a long-shot 2020 presidential run, partly on a message that his party needed to compete in more conservative parts of the country. “Folks don’t feel like we’re offering them anything, or hearing or listening to them.”Mr. Youngkin not only won less populated areas by record margins — he was outpacing former President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 showing in even the reddest counties, including by six percentage points in Bath County — but he also successfully rolled back Democratic gains in the bedroom communities outside Washington and Richmond, where many college-educated white voters had rejected Republicanism under Mr. Trump.The twin results raise a foreboding possibility for Democrats: that the party had simply leased the suburbs in the Trump era, while Republicans may have bought and now own even more of rural America.Republicans have never had a demographic stronghold as reliable as Black voters have been for Democrats, a group that delivers as many as nine out of 10 votes for the party. But some Democratic leaders are now sounding the alarm: What if rural, white voters — of which there are many — start voting that reliably Republican?Hot Springs, population 499, is a conservative place nestled in the Allegheny Mountains.Eze Amos for The New York Times“It’s not sustainable for our party to continue to tank in small-town America,” said Representative Cheri Bustos, the Illinois congresswoman who led the House Democratic campaign arm in 2020.“We’ve got a branding problem as Democrats in way too many parts of our country,” said Ms. Bustos, who is retiring from a downstate and heavily rural Illinois seat that Mr. Trump carried twice. She called it “political malpractice” and “disrespectful to think it’s OK to run up the score in big cities and just neglect the smaller towns.”There is no easy solution.Many of the ideas and issues that animate the Democratic base can be off-putting in small towns or untethered to rural life. Voters in Bath County, many of whom are avid hunters and conservative evangelicals, have long opposed liberal stances on gun rights and abortions. Some Democrats urge the party to just show up more. Some believe liberal ideas can gain traction, such as universal health care and free community college. Others urge a refocus on kitchen-table economics like jobs programs and rural broadband to improve connectivity. But it is not clear how open voters are to even listening.Representative Dean Phillips, a Democrat who flipped a Republican-held seat outside Minneapolis in 2018, said that when it comes to issues that concern rural America, his party is afflicted with a “disease of disinterest.”He especially lamented how his party’s strategists routinely tell candidates “to fish where the Democratic fish are instead of taking that canoe out a little further out on the lake.”“For a party that predicates itself on inclusivity,” he added, “I’m afraid we’re acting awfully exclusive.”Mr. Phillips called for Democrats to include “geographic equity” in their agenda along with racial and economic equity, noting that he is a proud member of the state’s Democratic Party, which is formally known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. “I’m a D.F.L.-er and yet the F’s and the L’ers aren’t voting for us,” he said..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The rural share of the vote in America has been steadily shrinking, but remains sizable enough to be politically potent. National exit polling in 2020 estimated that one in five voters lived in rural or small-town America. The Democratic data firm TargetSmart, which categorized voters based on population density, labeled 30 percent of the electorate as rural.But while some Democratic politicians now recognize the scope of their rural problem, the words of voters in Bath County expose the difficulty in finding solutions. In interviews with a dozen white, rural voters who backed Mr. Youngkin, policy was less important than grievance and their own identity politics. And the voters, fueled by a conservative media bubble that speaks in apocalyptic terms, were convinced that America had been brought to the brink by a litany of social movements that had gone too far.A Confederate statue stands next to the sheriff’s office in Hot Springs.Eze Amos for The New York TimesA monument to Confederate soldiers stands next to the sheriff’s office in Hot Springs, a visual representation of the cultural gap between its residents and the Democratic base. The town is accessible only by a two-lane highway that winds through mountains near the West Virginia border. It’s best known for The Homestead, a luxury resort founded in the late 1800s that has hosted golf tournaments, conferences for the United Nations and presidents, including William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt.Ms. Neff, who owns a hardware store adorned with images of Mr. Trump as Rambo and the Terminator, was in Washington on Jan. 6 to support the former president — but refused to go into further detail. Citing false evidence, she called the coronavirus vaccine a “poison” and said she worried that Democrats were planning extermination camps of Mr. Trump’s supporters.Karen Williams, a Bath County resident who manages vacation rentals, said she resented the current Virginia governor, Ralph Northam, a Democrat, for keeping schools shut down during the pandemic, embracing progressive policies focused on race and removing Confederate statues and monuments. She called this an example of critical race theory, a graduate-level academic framework that has become shorthand for a contentious debate on how to teach race and racism in schools.White children “are no longer allowed to be kids, we’re treating them like little monsters,” Ms. Williams said.Mr. Hamilton, a veteran of the Vietnam War, said his vote for Mr. Youngkin was really a proxy vote for Mr. Trump. Of President Biden, he said, “the best thing that can happen is to get him and that woman out of there.”John Wright said he had become so frustrated with the mainstream media that he consumes only pro-Trump programming.Eze Amos for The New York TimesJohn Wright, a 68-year-old retiree, said he listened only to pro-Trump programming.“I don’t care if the media said the moon was full of cheese, and there was an astronaut who brought back some cheese,” Mr. Wright said. “If the media said it, I won’t believe it.”Takeaways From the 2021 ElectionsCard 1 of 5A G.O.P. pathway in Virginia. More

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      In Trump Election Interference Investigation, Grand Jury Looms

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      An Atlanta D.A. is said to be likely to impanel a special grand jury in her criminal investigation of election interference by the former president and his allies.As the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot fights to extract testimony and documents from Donald J. Trump’s White House, an Atlanta district attorney is moving toward convening a special grand jury in her criminal investigation of election interference by the former president and his allies, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deliberations.The prosecutor, Fani Willis of Fulton County, opened her inquiry in February and her office has been consulting with the House committee, whose evidence could be of considerable value to her investigation. But her progress has been slowed in part by the delays in the panel’s fact gathering. By convening a grand jury dedicated solely to the allegations of election tampering, Ms. Willis, a Democrat, would be indicating that her own investigation is ramping up.Her inquiry is seen by legal experts as potentially perilous for the former president, given the myriad interactions he and his allies had with Georgia officials, most notably Mr. Trump’s January call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, urging him to “find 11,780 votes” — enough to reverse the state’s election result. The Georgia case is one of two active criminal investigations known to touch on the former president and his circle; the other is the examination of his financial dealings by the Manhattan district attorney.Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, opened her criminal inquiry into the former president in February.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMs. Willis’s investigation is unfolding in a state that remains center stage in the nation’s partisan warfare over the vote.The Biden Justice Department has sued Georgia over a highly restrictive voting law passed by the Republican-led legislature, arguing that it discriminates against Black voters. At the same time, Mr. Trump is aggressively seeking to reshape the state’s political landscape by ousting Republicans whom he considers unwilling to do his bidding or to adopt his false claims of election fraud. He is supporting a challenger to Mr. Raffensperger in next year’s primary, and has been courting possible candidates to run against the Republican governor, Brian Kemp. One Trump ally, former Senator David Perdue, is weighing such a run, while another, the former football star Herschel Walker, is eyeing a Senate bid. (A new governor would not have direct power to pardon, which in Georgia is delegated to a state board.)Instead of impaneling a special grand jury, Ms. Willis could submit evidence to one of two grand juries currently sitting in Fulton County, a longtime Democratic stronghold that encompasses much of Atlanta. But the county has a vast backlog of more than 10,000 potential criminal cases that have yet to be considered by a grand jury — a result of logistical complications from the coronavirus pandemic and, Ms. Willis has argued, inaction by her predecessor, Paul Howard, whom she replaced in January.By contrast, a special grand jury, which by Georgia statute would include 16 to 23 members, could focus solely on the potential case against Mr. Trump and his allies. Ms. Willis is likely to soon take the step, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deliberations, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the decision is not final. Though such a jury could issue subpoenas, Ms. Willis would need to return to a regular grand jury to seek criminal indictments.Ms. Willis’s office declined to comment; earlier this year, in an interview with The New York Times, she said, “Anything that is relevant to attempts to interfere with the Georgia election will be subject to review.”Aides to Mr. Trump did not respond to requests for comment; in February, a spokesman called the Fulton County inquiry “the Democrats’ latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump.”Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, wrote in a new book about Mr. Trump’s asking him to “find” more votes: “I felt then — and still believe today — that this was a threat.”Ron Harris/Associated PressMr. Raffensperger made his view of Mr. Trump’s election meddling clear in a book released this month, on Election Day: “For the office of the secretary of state to ‘recalculate’ would mean we would somehow have to fudge the numbers. The president was asking me to do something that I knew was wrong, and I was not going to do that,” he wrote.Of Mr. Trump’s call, Mr. Raffensperger wrote, “I felt then — and still believe today — that this was a threat.”A 114-page analysis of potential issues in the case was released last month by the Brookings Institution, with authors including Donald Ayer, a deputy attorney general during the George H.W. Bush administration, and Norman Eisen, who was a special counsel to President Barack Obama. The report concluded that Mr. Trump’s postelection conduct in Georgia put him “at substantial risk of possible state charges,” including racketeering, election fraud solicitation, intentional interference with performance of election duties and conspiracy to commit election fraud.Mr. Trump’s ongoing commentary about what took place in Georgia may not be helping his cause. In September, he held a rally in Perry, Ga., attended by thousands of followers, as well as Mr. Walker and Representative Jody Hice, who is running against Mr. Raffensperger.At the rally, Mr. Trump recalled how he phoned Mr. Kemp, who refused his entreaties to intervene.“Brian, listen,” Mr. Trump said he told the governor. “You have a big election-integrity problem in Georgia. I hope you can help us out and call a special election, and let’s get to the bottom of it for the good of the country.”The Brookings authors asserted that these comments could help prosecutors establish “intent” to convince lawmakers to commit election fraud — a crucial hurdle in proving a solicitation case against Mr. Trump.“I think he worsened his exposure with those comments,” Mr. Eisen said. “The mere fact of his conversation with Kemp is evidence of solicitation of election fraud, because Trump’s demand was based on falsehoods. By commenting on it further at the rally, he offered the prosecution free admissions about the content of that exchange.”Trump’s Bid to Subvert the ElectionCard 1 of 6A monthslong campaign. More

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      Trump Justice Dept. Official Defies Request by Jan. 6 Panel

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      Jeffrey Clark, who aided in the former president’s efforts to overturn the election, appeared before the committee but would not answer substantive questions.WASHINGTON — Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official involved in former President Donald J. Trump’s frenzied efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, refused to cooperate on Friday with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, leading to a sharp rebuke from the committee’s chairman.The standoff between Mr. Clark and the committee is the second such confrontation since Congress began investigating the circumstances surrounding the Capitol violence, seeking information on Mr. Trump’s attempts to subvert the election. The House has already voted to find one Trump ally, Stephen K. Bannon, in criminal contempt of Congress for stonewalling the inquiry.“Mr. Clark’s complete failure to cooperate today is unacceptable,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee. “As prescribed by the House rules, I have considered Mr. Clark’s claim of privilege and rejected it. He has a very short time to reconsider and cooperate fully. We need the information that he is withholding, and we are willing to take strong measures to hold him accountable.”Mr. Clark appeared before the committee on Friday but delivered a letter saying he would not answer substantive questions. He cited attorney-client privilege protecting his conversations with Mr. Trump.“He is duty-bound not to provide testimony to your committee covering information protected by the former president’s assertion of executive privilege,” Mr. Clark’s lawyer, Harry W. MacDougald, wrote in a letter to the committee, which was reported earlier by Politico. “Mr. Clark cannot answer deposition questions at this time.”Mr. Bannon also cited Mr. Trump’s directive for former aides and advisers to invoke immunity and refrain from turning over documents that might be protected under executive privilege in his refusal to cooperate. A federal judge expressed skepticism on Thursday about the merits of Mr. Trump’s lawsuit against the committee seeking to block from release at least 770 pages of documents related to the Capitol riot.Under federal law, any person summoned as a congressional witness who refuses to comply can face a misdemeanor charge that carries a fine of $100 to $100,000 and a jail sentence of one month to one year.Mr. Thompson suggested such a penalty could await Mr. Clark, once a little-known official who repeatedly pushed his colleagues at the Justice Department to help Mr. Trump undo his loss.The committee has issued a subpoena seeking testimony and records from Mr. Clark, a focus that indicates it is deepening its scrutiny of the root causes of the attack, which disrupted a congressional session called to count the electoral votes formalizing President Biden’s victory.Mr. Thompson contrasted Mr. Clark’s refusal to cooperate with the actions of Jeffrey A. Rosen, who was acting attorney general during the Trump administration, and previously sat for a lengthy interview with the committee..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media 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0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“His refusal to answer questions about the former president’s attempt to use the Department of Justice to overturn the election is in direct contrast to his supervisors at the department,” Mr. Thompson said in a statement. “It’s astounding that someone who so recently held a position of public trust to uphold the Constitution would now hide behind vague claims of privilege by a former president, refuse to answer questions about an attack on our democracy and continue an assault on the rule of law.”Mr. MacDougald’s letter argued that Mr. Clark had nothing to do with the events of Jan. 6.“He has informed me he worked from home that day to avoid wrestling with potential street closures to get to and from his office at Main Justice,” the letter said. “Nor did Mr. Clark have any responsibilities to oversee security at the Capitol or have the ability to deploy any Department of Justice personnel or resources there.”But the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a recent report there was credible evidence that Mr. Clark was involved in other efforts to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power, citing his proposal to deliver a letter to state legislators in Georgia and others encouraging them to delay certification of election results.The Senate committee also said Mr. Clark recommended holding a news conference announcing that the Justice Department was investigating allegations of voter fraud, in line with Mr. Trump’s repeated demands, despite a lack of evidence of any fraud. Both proposals were rejected by senior leaders in the department.The New York Times reported in January that Mr. Clark also discussed with Mr. Trump a plan to oust Mr. Rosen, and wield the department’s power to force state lawmakers in Georgia to overturn its presidential election results. Mr. Clark denied the report, which was based on the accounts of four former Trump administration officials who asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation.Mr. Clark’s subpoena is one of 19 issued by the committee. The panel has interviewed more than 150 witnesses so far, according to a person with knowledge of its activities. More

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      Republicans Are Going to Use Dog Whistles. Democrats Can’t Just Ignore Them.

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      The Virginia election results should shock Democrats into confronting the powerful role that racially coded attacks play in American politics. No candidate would think of entering an election without a winning message on the economy or health care. Yet by failing to counter his opponent’s racial dog whistles, Terry McAuliffe did the equivalent, finding himself defenseless against a strategy Republicans have used to win elections for decades.Crucially, the Republican nominee, Glenn Youngkin, was able to use racially coded attacks to motivate sky-high white turnout without paying a penalty among minority voters. This appears to solve the problem bedeviling Republicans in the Trump era: how to generate high turnout for a candidate who keeps Donald Trump at arm’s length, as Mr. Youngkin did.Before Tuesday night, conventional wisdom held that racially coded attacks could well spur higher white turnout but that those gains would be offset by losses among minority voters. Mr. Youngkin proved this assumption false. He significantly outperformed other Republicans among white voters, especially women: In 2020, Joe Biden beat Mr. Trump among white women in Virginia by 50 percent to 49 percent, but according to exit polls, Mr. Youngkin beat Mr. McAuliffe among them by 57 percent to 43 percent. At the same time, Mr. Youngkin suffered no major drop-off among minority voters — if anything, he appeared to slightly outperform expectations.This should terrify Democrats. With our democracy on the line, we have to forge an effective counterattack on race while rethinking the false choice between mobilizing base voters or persuading swing voters.It will not work to ignore race and talk about popular issues instead. Mr. McAuliffe’s closing message was a generic appeal on infrastructure and other issues that poll well. He was following the strategy known as popularism, which has gained in influence since the 2020 election, when Democrats’ disappointing down-ballot performance was attributed to rhetoric like “defund the police.”In the heat of a campaign, popularism fails because Republicans will not let Democrats ignore race. Mr. Youngkin dragged race into the election, making his vow to “ban critical race theory” a centerpiece of his stump speech and repeating it over the closing weekend — even though in Virginia the prominence of C.R.T., which teaches that racism is woven into the structures of American society, was vastly exaggerated.Some Democrats may resist accepting the centrality of race, pointing to the bearish national political environment and cyclical patterns. This would be a mistake for two reasons. First, C.R.T. helped create the rough national environment, with Fox News hammering it relentlessly; and cyclical explanations, like thermostatic public opinion (a longstanding tendency for voters to drift toward the views of the party out of power on some issues), do not explain Democrats’ loss of support in the suburbs or the strong turnout. Voters in New Jersey, where a stronger-than-expected Republican performance caught Democrats off guard, have been inundated with C.R.T. hype by Fox News, too.Second, the past half-century of American political history shows that racially coded attacks are how Republicans have been winning elections for decades, from Richard Nixon’s “law and order” campaign to Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens” and George H.W. Bush’s Willie Horton ad. Many of these campaigns were masterminded by the strategist Lee Atwater, who in 1981 offered a blunt explanation: Being overtly racist backfires, he noted, “so you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.” C.R.T. is straight out of the Atwater playbook.In recent years, it has become commonplace in Democratic circles to think that our diversifying population has relegated such attacks to the past. The theory goes that Democrats can counteract racist appeals by encouraging high turnout among people of color. This interpretation took a ding in 2016 and a bigger hit in 2020, when Mr. Trump shocked many people by making major inroads with Latinos. Latinos recently became the largest population of color, and Democrats cannot win on the national level without winning them by large margins. Yet from 2016 to 2020, Democrats saw a seven-point drop in support among Latinos, according to the Pew Research Center.How did the most racist president of our lifetime outperform a more generic Republican like Mitt Romney with Latinos? Research by Equis Labs suggests that Latinos found Mr. Trump’s populist message on the economy appealing.And as Mr. Trump showed — and Mr. Youngkin confirmed — racially coded attacks do not necessarily repel Latino voters. They may even attract them. One of us, Ms. Gavito, was among the first to flag this disturbing trend. In focus groups in battleground states during the lead-up to the 2020 election, pollsters with Lake Research tested a message that denounced “illegal immigration from places overrun with drugs and criminal gangs” and called for “fully funding the police, so our communities are not threatened by people who refuse to follow our laws.” Both whites and Latinos found this message persuasive, but Latinos found it appealing at significantly higher rates than whites.This, then, is the Democrats’ problem: The fact that Republicans can drag race into the conversation with ease kicks the legs out from under the idea that Democrats can succeed by simply talking about more popular things. And the fact that racially coded attacks spur turnout among white voters without necessarily prompting a backlash among minority voters undermines the idea that mobilizing a diverse electorate can win elections for Democrats.That’s the bad news. The good news is, we know what a path forward looks like.First, Democrats must separate our (accurate and necessary) analysis of structural racism from our political strategy in a country where the electorate remains nearly 70 percent white — and as much as or more than 80 percent white in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Instead of ignoring race while Republicans beat us silly with it, Democrats must confront it and explain that powerful elites and special interests use race as a tool of division to distract hard-working people of all races while they get robbed blind. Then pivot back to shared interests. The pivot is critical: Without it, Democrats are simply talking past voters, while Republicans play on their racial fears.This strategy is known as the “race-class narrative,” pioneered by Prof. Ian Haney López of Berkeley, the author Heather McGhee and the messaging expert Anat Shenker-Osorio (whom we have worked with). To be clear, Democrats should not seek to impose a racial-justice frame; to the contrary, research found a focus on racial justice to be less persuasive than the race-class narrative. The strategy we suggest here is a middle way: It is more powerful than a racial-justice-only frame but also more powerful than a strategy that ignores race altogether. Race is the elephant in the room, and Democrats must stop fooling themselves into thinking that they can prevent it from becoming an issue.Second, Democrats must put aside the false choice between the tactics of persuasion and mobilization and embrace them both. By confronting race as a tool of division, and then pivoting to shared interests, Democrats can offer an optimistic, inspiring and even patriotic vision. This is the approach that rocketed Barack Obama to the White House. As an African-American, Mr. Obama was never allowed to ignore race. Forced to confront it, Mr. Obama offered Americans a vision that mobilized a broad, diverse coalition — while also persuading white voters. In 2008, Mr. Obama won the highest share of the white vote since Bill Clinton in 1996.Race has infused American history and politics since our founding. It threads through most aspects of daily life, and stirs up complicated feelings that Americans of all backgrounds find difficult to discuss. But Virginia showed that race is impossible to ignore.The simple fact is that Republicans have long used race to achieve victory, and Democrats are fooling themselves if they think they can avoid it. Democrats have to get real about race, and forge a way to win.Tory Gavito (@torygavito) is president of Way to Win, a donor network focused on expanding Democrats’ power in the Sun Belt, and lead of the Latinx Justice Fund. Adam Jentleson is the executive director of Battle Born Collective, a progressive strategy organization, a former deputy chief of staff to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada and the author of “Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy.”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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      Authorities Arrest Analyst Who Contributed to Steele Dossier

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      Igor Danchenko, a Russia analyst who worked with Christopher Steele, the author of a dossier of rumors and unproven assertions about Donald J. Trump, was taken into custody as part of the Durham investigation.WASHINGTON — Federal authorities on Thursday arrested an analyst who in 2016 gathered leads about possible links between Donald J. Trump and Russia for what turned out to be Democratic-funded opposition research, according to people familiar with the matter.The arrest of the analyst, Igor Danchenko, is part of the special counsel inquiry led by John H. Durham, who was appointed by the Trump administration to scrutinize the Russia investigation for any wrongdoing, the people said.Mr. Danchenko, was the primary researcher of the so-called Steele dossier, a compendium of rumors and unproven assertions suggesting that Mr. Trump and his 2016 campaign were compromised by and conspiring with Russian intelligence officials in Moscow’s covert operation to help him defeat Hillary Clinton.The people familiar with the matter spoke on condition of anonymity because the indictment of Mr. Danchenko had yet to be unsealed. A spokesman for Mr. Durham did not respond to a request for comment.Some claims from the Steele dossier made their way into an F.B.I. wiretap application targeting a former Trump campaign adviser in October 2016. Other portions of it — particularly a salacious claim about a purported sex tape — caused a political and media firestorm when Buzzfeed published the materials in January 2017, shortly before Mr. Trump was sworn in.But most of the important claims in the dossier — which was written by Mr. Danchenko’s employer, Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent — have not been proven, and some have been refuted. F.B.I. agents interviewed Mr. Danchenko in 2017 when they were seeking to run down the claims in the dossier.The interview suggested that aspects of the dossier were misleading: Mr. Steele left unclear that much of the material was thirdhand information, and some of what Mr. Danchenko — who was born in Russia but lives in the United States — had relayed was more speculative than the dossier implied.A 2019 investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general sharply criticized the F.B.I. for continuing to cite material from the dossier after the bureau interviewed Mr. Danchenko without alerting judges that some of what he said had cast doubt on the contents of the dossier.The inspector general report also said that a decade earlier, when Mr. Danchenko worked for the Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington think-tank, he had been the subject of a counterintelligence investigation into whether he was a Russian agent.In an interview with The New York Times in 2020, Mr. Danchenko defended the integrity of his work, saying he had been tasked to gather “raw intelligence” and was simply passing it on to Mr. Steele. Mr. Danchenko — who made his name as a Russia analyst by exposing indications that the dissertation of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia contained plagiarized material — also denied being a Russian agent.“I’ve never been a Russian agent,” Mr. Danchenko said. “It is ridiculous to suggest that. This, I think, it’s slander.”Mr. Steele’s efforts were part of opposition research that Democrats were indirectly funding by the time the 2016 general election took shape. Mr. Steele’s business intelligence firm was a subcontractor to another research firm, Fusion GPS, which in turn had been hired by the Perkins Coie law firm, which was working for the Hillary Clinton campaign.Mr. Danchenko said he did not know who Mr. Steele’s client was at the time and considered himself a nonpartisan analyst and researcher.Mr. Durham has been known to be interested in Mr. Danchenko and the Steele dossier saga. In February, he used a subpoena to obtain old personnel files and other documents related to Mr. Danchenko from the Brookings Institution, where Mr. Danchenko had worked from 2005 until 2010.The charges against Mr. Danchenko follow Mr. Durham’s indictment in September of a cybersecurity lawyer, Michael Sussmann, which accused him of lying to the F.B.I. about who he was working for when he brought concerns about possible Trump-Russia links to the bureau in September 2016.Mr. Sussmann, who then also worked for Perkins Coie, was relaying concerns developed by data scientists about odd internet logs they said suggested the possibility of a covert communications channel between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked financial institution. He has denied lying to the F.B.I. about who he was working for.William K. Rashbaum More

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      Youngkin’s Dance With Trump Was Pivotal. But Is It Repeatable?

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      Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia may inspire Republican imitators vying to win over Trump supporters without embracing the former president outright.Since he burst onto the national political scene in 2015, Donald J. Trump has strong-armed one Republican after another into submission. But in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin did something new: He managed to keep the former president at a politically safe remove without alienating him or his allies.Mr. Youngkin’s success in the Virginia governor’s race speaks not only to his own deft handling of his party’s volatile and unpredictable standard-bearer but also to Mr. Trump’s apparent willingness to place himself on the sidelines during a campaign that received wall-to-wall coverage on cable news.What is not known is whether Mr. Youngkin’s formula is repeatable elsewhere, particularly in the 2022 midterm elections. Mr. Trump has little track record of ceding the spotlight or allowing other Republicans to take credit for any political success, and there is little reason to expect that to change.Early on in his own campaign, Mr. Youngkin, a former private equity executive, recognized Mr. Trump’s usefulness to his political prospects. In the spring, during the Republican nominating contest in Virginia, Mr. Youngkin echoed Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud. After winning the G.O.P. nomination at a party convention in May, Mr. Trump endorsed him and Mr. Youngkin told a conservative radio host that he was honored.“President Trump represents so much of why I’m running,” Mr. Youngkin said at the time.But thereafter, Mr. Youngkin mainly kept quiet about the former president. Mr. Trump, in turn, made no public demands of fealty and encouraged his Virginia supporters to flood the polls, something he refused to do ahead of the January special elections in Georgia that gave Democrats control of the Senate.Mr. Youngkin focused his campaign on education policy, eliminating taxes on groceries and gasoline, and other local issues that were hardly Trump priorities. He insisted that he planned to run his own race, staying away from two rallies that Mr. Trump called into. And he rarely spoke about the issues that used to motivate the Republican base, such as gun rights or opposing abortion.But embedded in his education policy was a pitch to the same white grievance politics that fueled Mr. Trump’s campaign — an attack on critical race theory, a graduate-level academic framework that has become a stand-in for a debate over what to teach about race and racism in American schools. In Virginia, it served as a catchall rallying cry akin to the states’ rights battles of generations past.And the Democrats seemed to help Mr. Youngkin more than Mr. Trump did.Mr. Youngkin did not need to remind Mr. Trump’s supporters that the former president had backed him. His Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, turned much of his campaign, and his closing argument above all, into a message tethering Mr. Trump and Mr. Youngkin together, a gambit designed to energize the Democratic base — which it did in Northern Virginia.Even President Biden joined in the Trump-bashing, speaking far more about his predecessor than his own agenda during a rally for Mr. McAuliffe last week in Arlington.“The reason I mentioned Trump,” the president told reporters on Wednesday, was because issues that Mr. Trump supports, even while out of office, were “affecting their lives every day and they’re having a negative impact on their lives.”Mr. Youngkin successfully fused the Republican Party’s past and present, building a coalition of Trump partisans and moderates who disengaged with the G.O.P. during the former president’s White House tenure.The Republican turnout on Tuesday — aided by an expansion of the mail-in and early-voting laws denounced by Mr. Trump — swamped what otherwise would have been a respectable showing by Mr. McAuliffe, whose total, while still being counted, showed he won at least 500,000 more votes than he received during his winning 2013 campaign.But Mr. Youngkin did a notch better, with his pro-Trump and anti-Trump coalition, a theme he hewed to during his victory remarks.“Together, together, together, together, we can build a new day,” he said.Mr. Youngkin’s triumph may inspire copycat Republicans eager to win the allegiance of Mr. Trump’s supporters without a sustained public embrace of the former president. The tricky part will be doing so without alienating elements of the party critical to winning in competitive contests.As results poured in showing Mr. Youngkin ahead on Tuesday night, Mr. Trump issued three separate self-congratulatory statements. Then on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump told John Fredericks, a conservative radio host and the chairman of his 2016 and 2020 campaigns in Virginia, that Mr. Youngkin would have been crushed without his support.“Without MAGA, he would have lost by 15 points or more,” Mr. Trump said.Former President Donald J. Trump said Mr. Youngkin would not have won the election in Virginia without the support of his MAGA supporters.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesMr. Youngkin spent $20 million of his own money to subsidize television ads portraying him as a from-the-bootstraps business success, clad in a campaign-logo fleece vest that cemented his image as a suburban dad. Weeks later, Mr. McAuliffe began airing his own ads attacking Mr. Youngkin as a Trump acolyte.Takeaways From the 2021 ElectionsCard 1 of 5A G.O.P. pathway in Virginia. More