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    How TikTok Helped Germany’s Left to a Surprise Election Showing

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    Struggling a month ago, the far-left Die Linke party surged into Parliament by riding a backlash against conservative immigration policy.Her fans call her Heidi. She is 36 years old. She talks a mile a minute. She has a tattoo of the Polish-German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg on her left arm and a million followers across TikTok and Instagram. She was relatively unknown in German politics until January, but as of Sunday, she’s a political force.Heidi Reichinnek is the woman who led the surprise story of Germany’s parliamentary elections on Sunday: an almost overnight resurgence of Die Linke, which translates as “The Left.”A month ago, Die Linke looked likely to miss the 5 percent voting cutoff needed for parties to earn seats in Germany’s Parliament, the Bundestag. On Sunday, it won nearly 9 percent of the vote and 64 seats in the Bundestag. “It was one of only five parties to win multiple seats in the new Parliament, joining the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the hard-right Alternative for Germany and the Green Party.It was a remarkable comeback, powered by young voters, high prices, a backlash against conservative politicians, and a social-media-forward message that mixed celebration and defiance.At a time when German politicians are moving to the right on issues like immigration, and when the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, doubled its vote share from four years ago, Ms. Reichinnek, the party’s co-leader in the Bundestag, and Die Linke succeeded by channeling outrage from liberal, young voters.They pitched themselves as an aggressive check on a more conservative government, which will almost certainly be led by Friedrich Merz, a businessman who has led the Christian Democrats to take a harsher line on border security and migrants.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Worries Me About Uruguay’s Elections This Year

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      In a year of landmark elections, my country’s presidential vote last month flew under the radar. And perhaps with good reason: Uruguay’s balloting was marked by unexciting candidates and their lackluster attempts to entice undecided voters to the polls. In the end, no candidate won a majority, leaving weary Uruguayans to brace for another round of unimpressive speeches leading up to a runoff on Sunday.It’s out of character for Uruguay to have such a boring political season. For as long as I can remember, elections here have been a spectacle, with balconies draped in political flags and spirited debates in the streets. Memories of life under a brutal dictatorship late last century have nourished our enthusiasm for democracy and the peaceful transfer of power between the right and left. Over four decades, this has been our superpower, rendering our nation of 3.4 million a politically stable oasis in a tumultuous part of the world. An uneventful vote seems preferable to the deep polarization that has surrounded presidential elections over the past year in countries like El Salvador, Argentina, Venezuela and even the United States.But underneath our staid election lies an urgent problem: Young people here feel increasingly left behind, despite Uruguay’s reputation as a beacon of economic and social success. That’s potentially bad news for one of the strongest democracies in Latin America: In a 2023 Latinobarómetro poll, 38 percent of the young people surveyed said they’d be fine giving up democracy for a government that could solve their problems.And young Uruguayans are afflicted by many problems. The country has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in Latin America, at 26 percent in 2023, compared with Argentina’s 18 percent the same year. Uruguay has elevated high school dropout rates. Young people are disproportionately affected by food insecurity and high imprisonment rates, with one in five children and adolescents living in poverty and 45 percent of the prison population under 30. As it did in other countries, the Covid-19 pandemic left Uruguay in the grip of a mental-health crisis that hit this group hard. In recent years, suicide was one of the leading causes of death among young people.All of this has translated into political apathy among marginalized young voters. But older generations also show dissatisfaction, voicing considerable disappointment in the government’s handling of childhood poverty, the high cost of living, corruption and rising crime rates. Although the inflation rate has slowed, net public debt rose, and there have been high-profile cases of mismanagement of public funds and corruption in President Luis Lacalle Pou’s administration.Before the first round of elections, I spoke with a handful of undecided young voters in the capital, Montevideo, all of whom were casting ballots for the first or second time. Some said that the presidential candidates who made it to Sunday’s runoff — Yamandú Orsi of the leftist Broad Front, and Álvaro Delgado of President Lacalle Pou’s center-right National Party — seemed distant, out of touch and difficult to understand.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why We Got It So Wrong

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      Let me ask you a few questions:If the Democrats nominated a woman to run for president, would you expect her to do better among female voters than the guy who ran in her place four years before?If the Democrats nominated a Black woman to run for president, would you expect her to do better among Black voters than the white candidate who ran in her place four years before?If the Republicans nominated a guy who ran on mass deportation and consistently said horrible things about Latino immigrants, would you expect him to do worse among Latino voters over time?If the Democrats nominated a vibrant Black woman who was the subject of a million brat memes, would you expect her to do better among young voters than the old white guy who ran before her?If you said yes to any of these questions, as I would have a month ago, you have some major rethinking to do, because all of these expectations were wrong.In 2024, Kamala Harris did worse among Black voters than Joe Biden did in 2020. She did worse among female voters. She did much worse among Latino voters. She did much worse among young voters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Democrats Need Working-Class Voters. Maybe Now They’ll Act Like It.

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      The other day I was supposed to visit a friend who had been released from prison. He had to cancel to rescue his sister, who is using drugs again.Another old friend needed a ride: It turned out that his car had broken down again, and until his next paycheck came, he couldn’t afford a $2 bolt to fix it.I think of friends like these here in rural Oregon, in an area that mostly supports Donald Trump, when people ask me why America’s working class rejected the Democrats on Tuesday. My neighbors, struggling to pay the rent and buying gas five dollars at a time, often perceive national Democrats as remote elites more eager to find them pronouns than housing. Election postmortems have been dissecting Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, but the challenge for Democrats goes far beyond any of that.For several decades, voters have identified more with the Democratic Party than with the Republican Party. But in some polls this year, more people have affiliated with the Republican Party than with the Democratic Party. Looking ahead at the specific Senate seats that will be in contention in 2026 and 2028, it’s not easy to see when the Democrats will have a chance to recover the chamber.I see the disenchantment with Democrats in my hometown, Yamhill, which traditionally was dependent on timber, agriculture and light manufacturing. But then good union jobs left, meth arrived and everything changed. Today more than a third of the kids on my old No. 6 school bus are dead from drugs, alcohol, suicide and reckless accidents.Here’s an astonishing statistic from Bureau of Labor Statistics data: Blue-collar private-sector workers were actually earning more on average in 1972, after adjusting for inflation, than they are now in 2024. So today’s blue-collar workers are on average earning less in real dollars than their grandparents were 52 years ago.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elecciones en EE. UU.: la jornada electoral, en fotos

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      El martes, decenas de millones de votantes acudieron a ayuntamientos, iglesias y gimnasios de secundarias de todo el país para depositar su voto.Se unieron a los más de 80 millones de estadounidenses que votaron anticipadamente, aunque las escenas variaron según el estado. En algunos estados, como Texas y Nueva York, muchos votantes pudieron entrar y salir rápidamente, mientras que en algunas zonas de Míchigan y Pensilvania, algunos votantes esperaron en largas filas. Muchos estados registraron una alta participación.Más allá del poder ejecutivo, también está en juego el control del Congreso, estrechamente dividido, junto con medidas electorales que incluyen la inclusión de la protección del derecho al aborto en las constituciones estatales, la legalización de la marihuana y el fin de la manipulación partidista.Los resultados empezaron a llegar el martes por la tarde, aunque se esperaba que recuento de los votos se prolongara más allá de la noche electoral, y se dijo que podrían pasar días antes de que finalizaran los resultados de la carrera presidencial.Nick Hagen para The New York TimesVotantes en la Woodworth Middle School de Dearborn, Míchigan. Dearborn es la ciudad de EE. UU. con mayor población árabe estadounidense.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesUna carpa electoral en un parque local de Las Vegas, NevadaWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Americans Head to the Polls: A Look at Election Day, in Photos

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      On Tuesday, tens of millions of voters showed up at town halls, churches and high school gymnasiums across the country to cast their ballots.They joined the more than 80 million Americans who voted early, though the scenes varied by state. In some states, like Texas and New York, many voters were able to get in and out quickly, while in some areas of Michigan and Pennsylvania, some voters waited in long lines. Many states reported high turnout.Beyond the executive branch, control of the narrowly divided Congress is also at stake, along with ballot measures that include adding abortion-rights protections to state constitutions, legalizing marijuana and ending partisan gerrymandering.The results began rolling in on Tuesday evening, though the counting of the votes will extend beyond election night, and it could be days before the results of presidential race are finalized.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesVoters at Woodworth Middle School in Dearborn, Mich. Dearborn has the largest Arab American population of any U.S. city.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesA polling tent at a local park in Las Vegas, Nev.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Here’s When the Polls Open to Vote Across the U.S.

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      Americans headed to the polls on Tuesday to cast their ballots in an extraordinarily close presidential election.While millions of Americans have already voted early, millions more will vote in person. Here’s when polling places open across the country (all times Eastern):6 a.m.ConnecticutIndiana (Polling places in the Central time zone open an hour later.)Kentucky (Polling places in the Central time zone open an hour later.)Maine (Municipalities with fewer than 500 residents can open later.)New Hampshire (It varies by municipality, but polls have to be open by 11 a.m.)New JerseyNew YorkVirginiaVermont (Polling places can open as early as 5 a.m., but times vary by municipality.)6:30 a.m.West VirginiaNorth CarolinaOhio7 a.m.DelawareWashington, D.C.Florida (Parts of the Panhandle located in the Central time zone open an hour later.)GeorgiaIllinoisKansas (Polling places located in the Mountain time zone may open an hour later.)LouisianaMarylandMassachusettsMichigan (except for parts of the state in the Central time zone, where polls open an hour later)MissouriPennsylvaniaRhode Island (except for the North Shoreham municipality, where polling stations open at 9 a.m.)South Carolina8 a.m.Alabama (Parts of the state located in the Eastern time zone may open an hour earlier.)ArizonaTennessee (Some municipalities, including those in the Central time zone, may open later.)IowaMinnesota (Towns with fewer than 500 people may approve later opening times.)MississippiNorth Dakota (Polls can open as late as 11 a.m.)OklahomaSouth Dakota (Polling places in the Mountain time zone open an hour later.)Texas (Polling places in the Mountain time zone open an hour later.)Wisconsin8:30 a.m.Arkansas9 a.m.ColoradoIdaho (Some polling places, including those in the Pacific time zone, open later.)Montana (Some smaller municipalities can open later.)Nebraska New MexicoOregon (Polling places in the Pacific time zone open an hour later.)UtahWyoming10 a.m.Washington (Times vary by county.)CaliforniaNevada11 a.m.Alaska (Some polling places open at noon.)NoonHawaii More

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      What Time Do the Polls Close? A State-by-State Guide

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      The first polls will close at 6 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and the last at 1 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday. In between, there will be a steady stream of closings every 30 to 60 minutes, with voting ending in the key presidential swing states between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern. Select your time zone to see poll closing times in your local area. Some polls closed All polls closed Polls closed earlier Look up poll closing times in your state: More