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      ‘He’s 80 Years Old, and That Colors Every Impression Voters Have’: Three Writers Dish on Biden and the G.O.P. Debate

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      Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Katherine Mangu-Ward, the editor in chief of Reason magazine, and Nate Silver, the founder and former editor of FiveThirtyEight and author of the newsletter Silver Bulletin, to discuss their expectations for the third Republican debate on Wednesday night. They also dug into and sorted through a blizzard of political news — particularly the new New York Times/Siena battleground-state polling with dreadful news for President Biden that has Democrats freaked out (again).Frank Bruni: Thank you both for joining me. While we’ll pivot in short order to the debate, I can’t shake that poll, whose scariness ranks somewhere between “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and “The Exorcist.” I know my own head is spinning. I mean: Donald Trump ahead of President Biden in five of six crucial battleground states?How loud an alarm is this? Should Biden at this late stage consider not pursuing re-election? Would that likely help or hurt the Democrats in winning the White House? And if not Biden, who would give the party the best chance? Nate, let’s start with you.Nate Silver: Thanks for having me, Frank! It’s nice to be back in the (digital) pages of The Times! I think whether Democrats would be better off if Biden dropped out is very much an open question — which is kind of a remarkable thing to be saying at this late stage. There’s a whole cottage industry devoted to trying to figure out why Biden doesn’t get more credit on the economy, for instance. And the answer might just be that he’s 80 years old, and that colors every impression voters have of him.Katherine Mangu-Ward: The voters in these polls just seem to be screaming, ‘He’s too old, and I feel poor!’ The most shocking finding was that only 2 percent of voters said the economy was excellent. Two percent! Less than 1 percent of voters under 30 said the economy was excellent. In Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin, exactly zero polled respondents under 30 said the economy was excellent.Bruni: Nate, I take your point about “open question” — I have no crystal ball, and my God, I’ve never so badly wanted one, because the Democrats getting this right and blocking Trump is, well, incalculably vital to this democracy’s future. But if you were the party’s chief adviser and you had to make the call: Yes to Biden or no to Biden and an invitation to someone else?Silver: Well, I’m the probabilities guy — so I’ll usually avoid answering a question definitively unless you force me to. Really, the best option would have been if Biden decided in March he wouldn’t run, and then you could have a vigorous primary. If you actually invested me with all this power, I’d want access to private information. I’d like to do some polling. I’d want to canvas people like Gretchen Whitmer and Raphael Warnock about how prepared they are. I’d like to know how energetic Biden is from day to day.Bruni: And you, Katherine? Biden thumbs-up or thumbs-down? And if thumbs-down, tell me your favorite alternative.Mangu-Ward: If we’re picking up magical artifacts, a time machine would be more useful than a crystal ball. And you’d need to go back before the selection of Kamala Harris as vice president. A viable vice president would have been a moderate threat to Biden, but a weak one is a major threat to the party. If we’re scrounging around for an alternative, I don’t completely hate Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.Bruni: I’d settle at this point for a Magic 8 Ball. And Katherine, “don’t completely hate” in 2023 politics equals “want to marry and live with forever” in the politics of decades past. We’re a cynical lot!In any case, Nate mentioned age. How do you two explain that the same poll we’ve been talking about revealed that while 62 percent of Americans feel that Biden, 80, doesn’t have the mental sharpness to be effective, only 44 percent feel that way about Trump, 77. Only 39 percent said that Trump is too old to be president, while 71 percent said that Biden is. Do those numbers make any sense at all to you?Silver: There are at least three things going on here. First, the three-and-a-half-year difference between Trump and Biden is not nothing. It’s certainly something you start to notice if you have older friends, parents, relatives entering their late 70s or early 80s. Second, Biden’s manner of speaking and presentation just reads as being more old-fashioned than Trump’s, and that perception is reinforced by media coverage. Third, I wonder if younger voters feel like Biden’s a bit of a forced choice — there wasn’t really a competitive primary — so “old” serves as a euphemism for “stale.”Mangu-Ward: Because this election cycle has been largely bereft of serious policy debate, I also think age is one thing people can grab on to to justify their unease about a Biden second term.Bruni: I wrote a few months back about this: Trump is so deliberately and flamboyantly outrageous — such a purposeful cyclone of noise and distraction — that the normal metrics don’t apply to him. He transcends mundane realities like age. He’s Trump! He’s a horror-movie villain, a Saturday-morning cartoon, a parade float. Those things don’t have ages (or four indictments encompassing 91 counts).Silver: I like that theory. There’s a sense in which some voters feel like they’re in on the joke with Trump. Although I also don’t think that voters have quite shifted into general-election mode, and maybe the media hasn’t, either. Trump as candidate is a very different ball of wax than Trump as president, and that’s what Democrats will spend the next year reminding voters about.Bruni: Katherine, let’s say Biden stays in the race. Certainly looks that way. Can you envision a scenario in which Democrats grow so doubtful, so uncomfortable, that he’s seriously challenged for the nomination and maybe doesn’t get it? If so, sketch that for me.Mangu-Ward: As a libertarian (but not a Libertarian), I’m always cautiously interested in third-party challenges, and that seems more likely to me than a direct challenge for the Democratic nomination. After each election cycle, there’s a moment when pundits decide whether to blame a Green or a Libertarian or an independent for the fact that their pick lost, but an appealing outsider peeling off support from Biden or Trump seems more likely to be a real consideration this time around. We have a lot of noisy characters who don’t fit neatly into partisan boxes on the loose at the moment.Bruni: Veterans of Obama’s 2012 campaign are arguing that Obama was in a similar position to Biden a year out from the election in 2011. Nate, do they have a point? Or do their assurances ring hollow because Biden is not Obama, isn’t as beloved by the base, is indeed old, has been stuck in a low-approval rut for months now going back to 2021, or some combination of those?Silver: Certainly, it’s generally true that polling a year in advance of the election is not very predictive. But Biden’s situation is worse than Obama’s. His approval ratings are notably worse. The Electoral College has shifted against Democrats since 2012 (although it’s now not a given). And there’s the age thing. Remember, a majority of Democrats did not even want Biden to run again. I think the Democratic communications and strategy people have been shrugging off that data more than they maybe should.Mangu-Ward: Biden is definitely not Obama, and it’s definitely not 2012. The concerns about Biden’s age are valid. Though they would apply to Trump just as much in a sane world.Bruni: You’re both so admirably — or is that eerily? — calm. I need to get your diet, exercise or pharmaceutical regimen. Am I nuts to worry/believe that Trump’s return to the presidency isn’t just an unideal election outcome but a historically cataclysmic one? How much does that prospect scare you two?Mangu-Ward: That’s my secret, Frank. I’m always angry. Like the Hulk. I think the current offerings for president are deeply unappealing, to say the least. But that’s nothing new for someone who prefers to maximize freedom and minimize the role of the state in Americans’ personal and economic lives. I am concerned about the peaceful transfer of power, and Trump has shown that he and his supporters are more of a threat to that.Silver: On that, one thing I feel better about is that the reforms that Congress made to the Electoral Count Act made a repeat of Jan. 6 less likely. There’s also perhaps less chance of another Electoral College-popular vote split. If Trump wins the popular vote by three points and there’s no other funny business, I’m not sure what to say exactly other than that in a democracy, you often have to live with outcomes that you yourself would not have chosen.Bruni: Biden, theoretically, isn’t the only bar to Trump’s long red tie dangling over the Resolute Desk anew. I mean — again, theoretically — one of the candidates in this third Republican debate could be the nominee. Yes? Or is it time to admit that, barring a truly extraordinary development, the Republican primary is over?Silver: Prediction markets say there’s a roughly 75 percent chance that Trump is the nominee. That frankly seems too low — no candidate has been this dominant at this stage of the race before. I suppose there’s a path where Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley does relatively well in Iowa, the other drops out, and then — actually, I’m still not sure there’s a path. Maybe Trump’s legal trouble begins to catch up to him? As much as the early states tend to produce surprises, I think if you put all the numbers into a model, it would put the chances at closer to 90 percent than 75.Mangu-Ward: The Times/Siena poll is bad news for Biden, but it’s even worse news for the folks on the G.O.P. debate stage, because it suggests that they simply needn’t bother. Trump is doing just fine holding his own against Biden, so there’s no need to change horses midrace. Unless your horse goes to jail, I guess.The debate will be a primo demonstration of Sayre’s Law: “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.”Bruni: If one of the five people on the debate stage were somehow to overtake Trump, who would that be? Has Nikki Haley supplanted Ron DeSantis as the fallback?Silver: The one thing DeSantis originally had going for him was a perception of being more electable. But he’s pretty much squandered that by being an unappealing candidate along many dimensions. And Haley largely performed better than Trump in that new Times/Siena poll. Still, I’m not sure how many Republicans are going to be willing to oust Trump on the basis of a New York Times poll. And it’s not an easy argument to make to Republican voters when Biden looks vulnerable against anyone right now.Mangu-Ward: I appreciated Haley’s early debate appearances, where she put a lot of emphasis on the shared responsibility for budgetary malfeasance between the Democrats and Trump. But now she’s giving me 2012 Mitt Romney flashbacks. She’s a sane and competent Republican who has realized the best way to keep her primary campaign viable is to go hard on immigration restrictionism. She was never an open borders gal, but she did usually offer some warm fuzzies about our nation of immigrants followed by a “get in line.”Bruni: ​​Trump has said he doesn’t want a running mate from any of the people on the debate stage. Do you see anyone — like Haley in particular — who could force his or her way into at least serious consideration? And could possibly help him get elected?Mangu-Ward: The Harris debacle certainly offers lessons for Trump, but I’m not sure whether he’s in the mood to learn them.Silver: The conventional political science view is that V.P. choices do not matter very much unless they seem manifestly unqualified. But they probably ought to matter more for candidates as old as Biden and Trump. I do think Haley would represent some softening of Trump’s image and might appeal to Republicans who worry about a second term being a total clown show. Who would actually staff the cabinet in a second Trump administration, with Trump’s tendency to be disloyal and the legal jeopardy he puts everybody in his orbit in, is one of those things that keeps me up at night.Bruni: Nate, your cabinet question haunts me, too. The quality of Trump’s aides deteriorated steadily across his four years in the White House. And anyone who came near him paid for it in legal fees and the contagion of madness to which they were exposed. So who does serve him if he’s back? Do Ivanka and Jared make peace with him — power again!Silver: I don’t think I have anything reassuring to say on this front! I do think, I guess, that Trump has some incentive to assure voters that he wouldn’t go too crazy in a second term — in 2016, voters actually saw Trump as being more moderate than Clinton.Mangu-Ward: A second-term president will always have a different kind of cabinet than a first-termer, and a Trump-Biden matchup would mean a second-termer no matter who wins. But either way the cabinet will likely be lower quality and more focused on risk mitigation, which isn’t ideal.Bruni: So is there any reason to watch this debate other than, when the subjects of the Middle East in particular and foreign policy in general come up, to see Haley come at the yapping human jitterbug known as Vivek Ramaswamy like a can of Raid?Silver: TV ratings for the second debate were quite low. But I suspect the main audience here isn’t rank-and-file voters so much as what remains of the anti-Trump Republican establishment. If Haley can convince that crowd that she’s more viable than DeSantis, and more electable than Trump, that could make some difference.Mangu-Ward: Historically, debates have been my favorite part of the campaign season, because I’m in it for the policy. But G.O.P. primary voters have been pretty clear that policy is not a priority. I suppose I’ll also tune in to see Chris Christie scold the audience. This week’s spectacle of him telling a booing crowd “Your anger against the truth is reprehensible” was pretty wild.Bruni: OK, lightning round — fast and dirty. Or clean. But definitely fast. Will Trump ever serve a day in prison?Silver: I’d say no, although prediction markets put the odds at above 50 percent!Bruni: You and your prediction markets, Nate! You could have given me your own hunch. Or wish. My wish is a 10-year sentence. At least. My hunch is zip. Hulk?Mangu-Ward: He will probably serve time. He will certainly exhaust every avenue available to him before doing so. In general, the fact that there are many opportunities for appeal is a good thing about our justice system.Bruni: Which 2024 Senate race do you find most interesting?Silver: Undoubtedly Texas, just because it’s one of the only chances Democrats have to pick up a G.O.P. seat. Ted Cruz won fairly narrowly last time, and Colin Allred is probably a better candidate than Beto O’Rourke.Mangu-Ward: Peter Meijer just joined the Senate Republican primary race in Michigan. I appreciated his performance in the House — he’s quite libertarian and was one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach Trump.Bruni: America’s medium-term future — are you bullish, bearish or, I don’t know, horse-ish?Silver: Everyone is so bearish now, you can almost seem like a bull by default just by pointing out that liberal democracy usually gets its act together in the long run. But the younger generation of voters takes a different attitude on a lot of issues, such as free speech, which has begun to worry me a bit.Mangu-Ward: Bullish, always. Politics ruins everything it touches, but not everything is politics.Bruni: Finally, should Democrats be brutally victory-minded and just swap out Joe and Kamala for Taylor and Travis?Mangu-Ward: I just said politics ruins everything it touches! Must you take Taylor from us, too?Bruni: Fair point, Hulk. You have me there.Silver: It would be a very popular ticket! Taylor Swift will turn 35 only a month before Inauguration Day in 2024, I’d note.Bruni: You both have my thanks. Great chatting with you.Frank Bruni is a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, the author of the book “The Beauty of Dusk” and a contributing Opinion writer. He writes a weekly email newsletter.Katherine Mangu-Ward (@kmanguward) is the editor in chief of Reason magazine.Nate Silver, the founder and former editor of FiveThirtyEight and author of the forthcoming book “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything,” writes the newsletter Silver Bulletin.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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      What Voters Want That Trump Seems to Have

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

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      The Growing Republican Battle Over War Funding

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      Rob Szypko, Carlos Prieto, Stella Tan and Dan Powell and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicIt’s been one month since the attack on Israel, but Washington has yet to deliver an aid package to its closest ally. The reason has to do with a different ally, in a different war: Speaker Mike Johnson has opposed continued funding for Ukraine, and wants the issue separated from aid to Israel, setting up a clash between the House and Senate.Catie Edmondson, who covers Congress for The Times, discusses the battle within the Republican Party over whether to keep funding Ukraine.On today’s episodeCatie Edmondson, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to force a stand-alone vote on aid for Israel has set up a confrontation between the House and Senate over how to fund U.S. allies.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBackground readingThe Republican-led House approved $14.3 billion for Israel’s war with Hamas, but no further funding for Ukraine.Speaker Johnson’s bill put the House on a collision course with the Senate.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Catie Edmondson More

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

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

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      Elecciones en EE. UU.: los temas clave en las votaciones del martes

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      El martes se celebran comicios importantes en todo el país, entre ellos unas votaciones en Virginia que podrían ser cruciales para el acceso al aborto en el estado.El martes, los votantes en Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Misisipi y otros puntos de Estados Unidos irán a las urnas para unas elecciones locales, las cuales no deben confundirse con las principales votaciones del país, que se celebrarán en 2024. Estas votaciones, no obstante, ofrecerán algunas pistas sobre la potencia del aborto como tema mobilizador frente al lastre de los bajos niveles de aprobación del presidente Joe Biden en un momento en que los políticos se preparan para los comicios presidenciales del próximo año.Los resultados podrían determinar si es que los demócratas se afianzan en su enfoque hacia temas clave como el aborto, un asunto positivo para el partido en un nuevo sondeo New York Times/Siena que mostró que Donald Trump va por delante de Biden en cinco estados indecisos (o pendulares) a un año de las presidenciales.Aquí algunos temas para tener en cuenta:Acceso al aborto versus la impopularidad de Biden en Virginia y KentuckyEl martes se deciden en las urnas los 140 curules de la Asamblea General de Virginia. Glenn Youngkin, el gobernador republicano y con relativa popularidad en ese estado de tendencia demócrata, espera quedarse con el senado del estado y asegurar el control total republicano de Richmond. De lograrlo, Youngkin vería un impulso para sus ambiciones a nivel nacional.Pero la campaña de los demócratas se está enfocando en el derecho al aborto, advirtiendo que si los republicanos asumen el control pondrían fin al acceso al aborto en el último estado del sureste en donde aún queda.Youngkin está poniendo a prueba una concesión que los republicanos a nivel nacional esperan logre convencer a los votantes luego de que su partido perdió mucho apoyo desde que la Corte Suprema rescindió el derecho constitucional al aborto. Dicho compromiso consiste en prohibir el acceso al aborto luego de 15 semanas de gestación, con excepciones en caso de violación, incesto y riesgo a la vida de la madre. Los demócratas dicen que se trata de una artimaña, pero deben sobreponerse al lastre de la impopularidad de Biden.En Kentucky se desarrolla una dinámica similar. En ese estado los demócratas se han apoyado fuertemente en el tema del aborto, en especial para perjudicar al retador republicano que busca la gobernación, Daniel Cameron. Cameron es el actual fiscal general del estado y ha tenido que defender la prohibición total de Kentucky al aborto. El gobernador titular, el demócrata Andy Beshear, sigue siendo popular, tiene antecedentes familiares en política (su padre, Steve Beshear también fue gobernador) y una reputación de moderado que le ha blindado contra los ataques que lo acusan de ser laxo en materia de delincuencia y apoyar los derechos “radicales” de las personas transgénero.Beshear ha liderado consistentemente en los sondeos, pero su afiliación política es un riesgo en Kentucky, un estado en el que el expresidente Donald Trump ganó por unos 26 puntos porcentuales en 2020. Los últimos sondeos del ciclo apuntaban a un empate técnico.¿Los votantes de Ohio apoyarán el derecho al aborto?Desde el ascenso de Trump, Ohio ha sido un estado republicano de manera predecible, pero el martes se realizará un referéndum para establecer el derecho al aborto bajo la constitución estatal que podría ser la prueba más pura de la postura de los republicanos en el asunto. O no.Cuando se ha consultado a los votantes directamente sobre el asunto del aborto en la papeleta, los grupos a favor del derecho al aborto han tenido una racha ganadora desde que la Corte Suprema revocó el fallo Roe contra Wade y retiró las protecciones constitucionales al procedimiento. Incluso en estados profundamente republicanos como Kansas, los votantes apoyaron de forma abrumadora el derecho al aborto. Pero quienes se oponen al aborto lograron victorias impotantes previo al referéndum del martes. En esta contienda, los votantes tendrán que votar “sí” a un cambio constitucional. Históricamente los electores de Ohio han tendido a rechazar las enmiendas que se deciden en en las urnas.Si bien la enmienda establecería el “derecho a tomar y llevar a cabo sus propias decisiones reproductivas”, también permite explícitamente que el estado prohíba el aborto después de la viablidad, o cerca de las 23 semanas, cuando el feto puede sobrevivir fuera del útero, a menos que el médico de la gestante determine que el procedimiento es “necesario para proteger la vida o la salud de la paciente embarazada”. Pero en la papeleta, los votantes verán un resumen del secretario del estado, Frank LaRose, un republicano que se opone al aborto, que dice que la enmienda “permitiría siempre que un niño nonato sea abortado en cualquier momento del embarazo, sin importar la viabilidad”.Ambos bandos han acusado al otro de desinformar y de llevar a cabo tácticas sucias.En Misisipi: una prueba a la ampliación de Medicaid, y un escándaloLa prohibición al aborto en Misisipi ocasionó la caída del fallo Roe versus Wade cuando la Corte Suprema se puso del lado de Thomas E. Dobbs, funcionario de salud del estado, en el caso Dobbs versus Jackson.Este estado del sur profundo del país ahora enfrenta una batalla campal por la gobernación, pero los candidatos no se han centrado en el aborto, ya que tanto el gobernador actual, el republicano Tate Reeves, como su rival demócrata, Brandon Presley, se oponen al procedimiento.En lugar de ello, el sorprendente desafío de Presley ha sido avivado de forma potente por su impulso para ampliar Medicaid según lo establecido por la Ley de Cuidado de Salud a Bajo Precio (Affordable Care Act) y un escándalo de corrupción en el que se malgastaron 94 millones de dólares federales destinados a las comunidades pobres de Misisipi en proyectos como unas instalaciones de voleibol colegial propuestas por Brett Favre, el mariscal de campo superestrella ya retirado.Reeves nunca estuvo directamente involucrado en el escándalo, pero sí despidió a un abogado investigador justo después de que el abogado emitió un citatorio que podría haber brindado detalles sobre la participación de habitantes destacados de Misisipi.“Si crees que Tate Reeves atacará la corrupción, tengo una propiedad de playa en Nettleton para venderte”, dijo Presley este mes en un debate, haciendo alusión al noreste del estado.Presley es integrante de la Comisión de la Función Pública de Misisipi y tiene una clase única de reconocimiento de marca: es primo segundo de Elvis Presley.Pero en Misisipi, Reeves cuenta con tres ventajas que podrían ser insuperables: la titularidad como gobernador, la “R” de su afiliación partidista en la papeleta y el apoyo de Trump, que en las elecciones de 2020 ganó en el estado por casi 17 puntos porcentuales.Más iniciativas en la papeleta: riqueza, retiro y marihuana recreativaEl martes los votantes tomarán bastantes decisiones de manera directa en las urnas sin pasar por las autoridades electas. Además del aborto, la iniciativa que más atención atrae estará en Ohio, donde se decidirá si el cannabis debe legalizarse para consumo recreativo. Si los votantes están de acuerdo, Ohio sería el 24avo estado en legalizar la marihuana. Eso podría presionar al Congreso para que avance con la legalización que busca liberalizar las restricciones a las operaciones bancarias interestatales para las empresas que se dedican legalmente al cannabis.Los texanos van a decidir la suerte de 14 enmiendas constitucionales, entre ellas una que prohibiría al estado imponer un tributo “a la riqueza” o cobrar impuestos sobre el valor de mercado de los activos que se poseen pero no se venden. Los activistas liberales y algunos senadores demócratas destacados, como Elizabeth Warren de Massachusetts, han apoyado ese tipo de impuestos como la única forma de acceder al patrimonio de los multimillonarios, que pagan impuestos sobre la renta mínimos pero que llevan lujosos estilos de vida gracias a una riqueza vasta y sin carga impositiva.Los texanos también van a decidir si aumentan la edad de jubilación obligatoria para los jueces estatales de 75 a 79 años. More

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      Election Day 2023: What to Watch in Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky and More

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      Voters in Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Mississippi and elsewhere head to the polls on Tuesday for off-year elections that will offer clues to the continued potency of abortion against the drag of President Biden’s low approval ratings as politicians prepare for the coming presidential election year.The results may determine whether Democrats find some reassurances on their approach to key issues like abortion, which was a bright spot for the party in a new New York Times/Siena poll that showed Donald J. Trump leading Mr. Biden in five critical swing states one year out.Here is what to watch:Abortion access vs. Biden’s unpopularity in Virginia and Kentucky.All 140 seats in Virginia’s General Assembly are on the ballot Tuesday, with the Democratic-leaning state’s relatively popular Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, hoping to capture the State Senate and secure total Republican control of Richmond. That feat would propel Mr. Youngkin’s national ambitions.But Democrats are running on abortion rights, warning that G.O.P. control would end abortion access in the last state in the Southeast.Mr. Youngkin is testing a compromise that national Republicans hope will be a winning message after so many party losses since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion: a ban on abortion access after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with exemptions for rape, incest and the life of a mother. Democrats say that is a ruse, but they must overcome the weight of Mr. Biden’s unpopularity.A similar dynamic is playing out in Kentucky, where Democrats have leaned heavily on the abortion issue, especially to tarnish the Republican challenger for governor, Daniel Cameron, who, as the current state attorney general, has had to defend Kentucky’s total abortion ban. The incumbent Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, remains popular, with a family name (his father, Steve Beshear, was also a governor) and a moderate reputation that have insulated him against attacks that he is soft on crime and supports “radical” transgender rights.Mr. Beshear has led consistently in the polls, but in a state that former President Donald J. Trump won by about 26 percentage points in 2020, the “D” by Mr. Beshear’s name is a liability. The final polls of the cycle pointed to a dead heat.Will voters in Ohio back abortion rights?Ohio has been a reliably Republican state since the rise of Mr. Trump, but a referendum to establish a right to abortion under the state constitution could be the purest test on Tuesday of where even Republicans stand on the issue. Or not.Abortion rights groups have been on a winning streak with ballot measures that put the question of abortion straight to voters since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, doing away with constitutional protections for abortion rights. Even in deeply Republican states like Kansas, voters have overwhelmingly supported abortion access. But abortion opponents scored some important victories before the referendum on Tuesday. In this contest, voters will have to affirmatively vote “yes” on a constitutional change; Ohioans have historically tended to reject ballot amendments.While the amendment would establish “a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” it also explicitly allows the state to ban abortion after viability, or around 23 weeks, when the fetus can survive outside the uterus, unless the pregnant woman’s doctor finds the procedure “is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.” But in the ballot box, voters will see a summary from the secretary of state, Frank LaRose, a Republican who opposes abortion, which says the amendment “would always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability.”Both sides of the issue have accused the other of misinformation and underhanded tactics.In Mississippi, a test of expanding Medicaid — and scandal.Mississippi’s abortion ban brought down Roe v. Wade when the Supreme Court sided with Thomas E. Dobbs, Mississippi’s health officer, in Dobbs v. Jackson.The Deep South state now faces a pitched battle for governor, but the candidates have not made abortion the central issue, since the incumbent Republican governor, Tate Reeves, and his Democratic challenger, Brandon Presley, both oppose it.Instead, Mr. Presley’s surprisingly potent challenge has been fueled by a push to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and a public corruption scandal that saw the misspending of $94 million in federal funds intended for Mississippi’s poor on projects like a college volleyball facility pushed by the retired superstar quarterback Brett Favre.Mr. Reeves was never directly implicated in the scandal, but he did fire an investigating attorney just after the lawyer issued a subpoena that could have turned up details about the involvement of prominent Mississippians“If you think Tate Reeves will take on corruption, I’ve got some beachfront property in Nettleton to sell you,” Mr. Presley said in a debate this month, referring to his hometown in the state’s northeast.Mr. Presley, a member of the Mississippi Public Service Commission, has a unique kind of name recognition; he is a second cousin of Elvis Presley.But in Mississippi, Mr. Reeves has three advantages that could prove impenetrable: incumbency, the “R” next to his name on the ballot, and the endorsement of Mr. Trump, who won the state in 2020 by nearly 17 percentage points.Ballot initiatives, from wealth to weed.Voters will make numerous direct decisions on Tuesday, bypassing elected officials. Beyond abortion, the most watched initiative will be, again, in Ohio, where voters will decide whether cannabis should be legalized for recreational use. If voters agree, Ohio would become the 24th state to legalize marijuana. That could put pressure on Congress to move forward legislation at least to ease restrictions on interstate banking for legal cannabis businesses.Texans will decide the fate of 14 constitutional amendments, including one that would bar the state from imposing a “wealth” tax, or a tax on the market value of assets owned but not sold. Liberal activists and some prominent Democratic senators, such as Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have pushed such taxes as the only way to tap the wealth of billionaires, whose income taxes are minimal but whose vast, untaxed wealth supports lavish lifestyles.Texans will also decide whether to raise the mandatory retirement age of state judges to 79, from 75. More

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      Here’s Who Qualified for the Third Republican Presidential Debate

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      Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott will meet again on the stage on Wednesday night, but Doug Burgum missed the cut.Five candidates have qualified for the third Republican presidential debate on Wednesday evening, the Republican National Committee announced on Monday.Former President Donald J. Trump, the dominant front-runner in the Republican primary, is skipping the debate, which will be held in Miami — less than 70 miles from Mr. Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Trump also did not participate in the previous two debates.The candidates who made the cut:Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former United Nations ambassador.The entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.The Lineup for the Third Republican Presidential DebateFive candidates have made the cut for the third Republican debate on Nov. 8. Donald J. Trump will not participate.Each qualifying candidate had two polling paths to a debate podium: The candidates had to either poll at 4 percent or more in two national polls or at 4 percent in one national poll and at 4 percent in two state polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina — which hold contests early in the cycle. Each poll needed to survey at least 800 likely Republican voters and meet certain standards meant to reduce bias to qualify, according to the R.N.C.The candidates also had to have a minimum of 70,000 campaign donors, including at least 200 donors from 20 states or territories.Candidates had until Monday evening to meet these requirements. The candidates also had to pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee. Candidates signed this pledge for the previous two debates. Mr. Trump has refused to sign.The debate stage has narrowed considerably from the first event held in August. Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a vocal Trump critic, qualified for the first debate but not the second or third.Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota also failed to qualify for the third debate after struggling to reach the required polling threshold. Mr. Burgum has weathered calls to drop out of the race as he hovers at about 1 percent in national polls.“Skipping the next debate isn’t going to stop us,” Mr. Burgum said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I’ve been told ‘it’s impossible’ my entire life and always beat the odds.”Former Vice President Mike Pence appeared at the first two debates but dropped out of the race last week amid signs he would not qualify for this debate. More

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

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