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      Britain’s Conservatives Lose ‘Safe’ Seat, Dealing a Blow to Boris Johnson

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      The governing party lost to the Liberal Democrats a district that it had represented for more than a century.LONDON — Britain’s Conservative Party on Friday crashed to an election defeat in a district it had represented for more than a century, dealing a second stinging blow to Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a week of political turmoil that has shaken his leadership.In a contest on Thursday to select a new member of Parliament for North Shropshire, a district near the border with Wales, to the northwest of London, voters abandoned the Conservatives in favor of the centrist Liberal Democrats in one of the biggest voting upsets of recent years.The victorious Liberal Democrat candidate, Helen Morgan, overturned a majority of almost 23,000 won by the former Conservative lawmaker Owen Paterson at the last general election, in 2019. Mr. Paterson, a former cabinet minister who had held the seat since 1997, resigned last month after breaking lobbying rules despite an unsuccessful effort by Mr. Johnson to save him.The defeat follows a rebellion on Tuesday in which about 100 of Mr. Johnson’s own lawmakers refused to support government plans to control the rapid spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant. As well as embarrassing Mr. Johnson, the mutiny forced him to rely on the support of the opposition Labour Party to pass the measures, sapping his authority.Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced a mutiny from Conservative lawmakers who refused to support government plans to control the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.Jessica Taylor/Agence France-Presse, via Uk Parliament/Afp Via Getty ImagesMr. Johnson’s standing has also been weakened by claims that his staff held Christmas parties in Downing Street last year at a time when they were forbidden under coronavirus restrictions. The cabinet secretary, Simon Case, is investigating those allegations and his report is expected soon.When the results in North Shropshire were announced early Friday, Ms. Morgan had secured 17,957 votes; Neil Shastri-Hurst, the Conservative, had gotten 12,032; and Ben Wood, for Labour, had received 3,686. The vote counting for Thursday’s election took place overnight.“Tonight the people of North Shropshire have spoken on behalf of the British people,” Ms. Morgan said after her victory. “They have said loudly and clearly, ‘Boris Johnson, the party is over.’”She added that the voters had decided that Mr. Johnson was “unfit to lead and that they want a change.” She thanked Labour supporters who had given her their votes saying, “Together, we have shown that we can defeat the Conservatives not with deals behind closed doors, but with common sense at the ballot box.”Although the Liberal Democrats had hoped to pull off a surprise victory, the size of their majority was striking and unexpected. Ed Davey, the leader of the party, described the result as “a watershed moment,” adding in a statement, “Millions of people are fed up with Boris Johnson and his failure to provide leadership throughout the pandemic, and last night, the voters of North Shropshire spoke for all of them.”On Friday, Mr. Johnson said he accepted responsibility for the result. “I totally understand people’s frustrations,” he said. “I hear what the voters are saying in North Shropshire. In all humility, I’ve got to accept that verdict.”However, in an interview with Sky News, he also appeared to blame the news media, saying that “in the last few weeks, some things have been going very well, but what the people have been hearing is just a constant litany of stuff about politics and politicians.”Oliver Dowden, the chairman of the Conservative Party, also acknowledged the scale of the defeat. “I know that voters in North Shropshire are fed up, and I know that they have given us a kicking,” he told the BBC, adding that he and his party had “heard that message from them loud and clear.”Even before the loss of the seat, there was speculation that Mr. Johnson could face a formal challenge to his leadership little more than two years after he won a landslide general election victory in December 2019.To initiate a no-confidence vote, 54 of Mr. Johnson’s lawmakers would have to write to Graham Brady, the chairman of the committee that represents Conservative backbenchers. Such letters are confidential, but analysts do not believe that prospect is close. Parliament is now in recess, giving the prime minister a short political breathing space.Even so, Friday’s result is likely to increase jitters in Downing Street because North Shropshire was one of the Conservative Party’s safest seats, in an area of Britain that supported Brexit, Mr. Johnson’s defining political project.Despite their pro-European stance, the Liberal Democrats — who finished well behind Labour in North Shropshire in the 2019 general election — successfully presented themselves as the only credible challengers to the Tories in the constituency.Election staff counting votes in the  by-election on Thursday in Shrewsbury, England.Christopher Furlong/Getty ImagesBy doing so, they appeared to have persuaded a significant number of Labour’s voters to switch to them in order to defeat the Conservatives. Earlier in the year, the Liberal Democrats caused an upset when they won a seat from Mr. Johnson’s party in the well-heeled district of Chesham and Amersham, northwest of London.To some extent, the circumstances of Mr. Paterson’s resignation always made the North Shropshire seat hard to defend for the Conservative Party. But critics say that Mr. Johnson was the main architect of that situation through his unsuccessful efforts to save Mr. Paterson last month.In addition to the furor over the Christmas parties, Mr. Johnson also faces questions about whether he misled his own ethics adviser over what he knew about the source of funding for an expensive makeover of his Downing Street apartment.Roger Gale, a veteran Conservative lawmaker and a critic of Mr. Johnson, told Sky News that the prime minister had about three weeks over the holiday period to regroup, but would have to do so very fast. “We’ve had two strikes: First of all, the Conservative Party in the House of Commons earlier this week, now this result,” Mr. Gale said. “One more strike, and I think he’s out.”In recent weeks, Labour has moved ahead of the Conservatives in several opinion surveys, which also recorded a drop in Mr. Johnson’s approval ratings. Political analysts said that could put the prime minister in a vulnerable position, given the transactional nature of his party.“The Tory Party is a ruthless machine for winning elections,” said Jonathan Powell, a former chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Blair. “If that is continuing into an election cycle, the party will get rid of him quickly.”But, while the political climate remains volatile, most voters are probably more preoccupied by the effect of the Omicron variant as they prepare for the holiday season.Mr. Johnson has placed his hopes of political recovery on a speedy roll out of coronavirus vaccine boosters. Earlier this year, his fortunes revived when Britain’s initial vaccination effort proved fast and effective, allowing the country to remove all restrictions in July.Antivaccination protesters outside Parliament on Monday.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesSpeaking before the North Shropshire result, Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics at the University of Kent, said that Mr. Johnson could recover but may also be in danger of handing the next election to Labour through his errors.“I don’t think it’s over for Johnson,” Professor Goodwin said. “I think this is salvageable.” But, he added, “Johnson has entered that territory whereby oppositions don’t necessarily win elections because governments end up losing them.” More

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      Democrats Find Urgent New Reasons to Worry About Latino Voters

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      Two reports shed light on the issues driving Hispanic voters and why their support of the Democratic Party is eroding.Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.Of all the 2020 hangovers, perhaps none is as befuddling to Democrats as the party’s eroding support among Latino voters.And Democrats have plenty of reason to worry: For years, they have relied on Latinos as a crucial part of a winning coalition and held fast to the belief that the coalition would only grow along with new voters. Former President Donald J. Trump’s policies and rhetorical attacks on immigrants, many Democrats reasoned, would drive Hispanic voters to their party like no other candidate could.But Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign blew that theory out of the water: Hispanic support for him actually increased in 2020, particularly — but not only — in South Florida and South Texas. And two new reports this week show why Democrats should be worried.The first, by Equis Research, a Democratic-leaning group that focuses on Latinos, relies on polls and focus groups conducted over the year since the election. It found that the economy became the top issue for Latinos all over the country, replacing immigration for many voters.The report also found that fears of Democrats embracing socialist policies drove a large number of voters toward Mr. Trump, and that those fears persist even among Democratic voters.And in new polling by Way to Win, a Democratic-aligned group, the economy was seen as the most important issue among Latino voters. More alarming for Democrats though, is that half of all Hispanic voters polled in four key states said that they believed the country was going in the wrong direction.The poll surveyed 1,000 Latino voters in Texas, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona last month in both English and Spanish, and found that 58 percent of independent voters believe the country is heading in the wrong direction. Still, 60 percent of all Latino voters surveyed said they had a favorable opinion of President Biden and the Democratic Party.But that level of support won’t be enough to hold on to the House or Senate in the midterms, said Tory Gavito, the president of Way to Win.“To win next November, we need to have Latinos at the 70 mark for Democrats, so we’ve got to move for these folks,” Ms. Gavito said in an interview. “Right now we see the support, but it’s soft.”Kristian Ramos, the campaign manager for Way to Win’s midterm message research project, said: “We could easily lose them to the couch. This administration has done 10 times more on Covid, has done miraculous work on the economy, but Latinos have no idea. And the economic anxiety in this group is off the charts.”Half of those polled by Way to Win said that they trusted the Democratic Party more on the issues of jobs and the economy, while 54 percent said they approved of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy. Among those who have an unfavorable view of the party, 22 percent say it is too liberal or socialist, according to the poll.Yet the majority of those surveyed said they wished that Mr. Biden could have enacted more change than he has so far, which pollsters tied to “deep anxiety about the economy.”“They don’t really care ideologically, as long as someone is speaking to those pain points,” Mr. Ramos said.The Equis report found that Latinos who may have been otherwise inclined to vote for Mr. Trump in 2016 withheld their support in that campaign because of his hard-line stance on immigration and the “importance of the Hispanic identity.” But by the middle of 2020, neither of those issues clearly differentiated Trump supporters and Democratic voters. Instead, the impact of the pandemic appeared to drive a larger number of voters, and the Trump administration’s approach to reopening the economy was embraced by a majority of them.The Equis research found that Democrats are losing ground to Republicans on issues relating to the economy. Asked which party they find more accurately described as valuing hard work, better for the American workers and the party of the American dream, Latino voters were roughly evenly divided.“The challenge is that 2020 hasn’t ended, the same dynamics haven’t ended,” said Carlos Odio, the co-founder of Equis. If there is a moral to the story, Mr. Odio added, it is that less partisan Latinos moved toward the candidate they trusted more on their top issue. “So competing for the vote can pay off.”On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Echoes of Trump at Zemmour’s Rally in France

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      Éric Zemmour, the polarizing far-right polemicist, launched his presidential campaign last week with a frenzied rally that was disrupted by a violent brawl.VILLEPINTE, France — The speech, riddled with attacks on the news media, elites and immigrants, with a fiery orator whipping up thousands of flag-waving supporters, was reminiscent of a Donald J. Trump campaign stop from years past.But the scene was in France, last weekend, where Éric Zemmour, the polarizing far-right polemicist who has scrambled French politics, launched his presidential campaign with a rally in front of thousands of ardent supporters.“On est chez nous!” — “This is our home!” — they chanted in a cavernous convention center filled with spotlights, speakers and giant screens in Villepinte, a suburb northeast of Paris.At one point during the rally, antiracism activists were attacked in the sort of brawl rarely seen at French political events. Earlier in the day, fans booed a television news crew, forcing it to be temporarily evacuated, and several journalists reported being insulted and beaten.The outcome of Mr. Zemmour’s campaign remains unclear four months ahead of France’s presidential election, with President Emmanuel Macron still ahead in the polls, and fierce competition emerging from the right. But the rally offered a glimpse of where the election could head, and which Trumpian tones it could take.Unlike Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the traditional far right, who has long sought success by softening her party’s far-right views, Mr. Zemmour has bet that a full-on promotion of his reactionary ideas can fuel his rise.He has done so by mastering the codes of social and news media, and by appealing to a somewhat wealthier and more educated base than the traditional far right. Recent polls suggest this approach has worked; about 15 percent of French voters say they intend to vote for him in the first round of voting.Mr. Zemmour, beneath a banner reading “Impossible Isn’t French,” used his rally to attack the news media, elites and immigrants.Julien De Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“He’s the one who breaks a dam,” said Vincent Martigny, a professor of political science at the University of Nice. Voters who once balked at supporting Ms. Le Pen have now embraced his more extremist ideas, he said.But this quest to stake out a position on the extreme right may also backfire, as shown at Sunday’s rally, when dozens of his supporters attacked antiracism activists. The violent brawl could stain his image and undermine his attempts to broaden his electoral base, according to political analysts.Still, as with Mr. Trump, no scandal to date has done any lasting damage to Mr. Zemmour’s political ambitions as he taps into widespread fears that French identity is being whittled away by immigration. Those fears have been heightened by a number of terrorist attacks in recent years, some committed by the children of immigrants.The crowd, of about 12,000 people that gathered in the Villepinte convention center, reflected some of the forces that have fueled the candidate’s meteoric rise — upper middle-class voters and some segments of an educated, affluent youth.Men close to retirement age in hunting jackets and loafers waved French flags and cheered alongside young people dressed in crisp polo shirts; many displayed Roman Catholic crosses around their necks.“Zemmour is someone who can actually make our ideas triumph and save France,” said Marc Perreti, a 19-year-old student from Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy suburb of Paris.Many of Mr. Zemmour’s supporters are members of the educated middle-class, a departure from the working class voters who traditionally supported nationalist candidates in France. Rafael Yaghobzadeh/Associated PressIn contrast with the affluent voters seen at Mr. Zemmour’s rally, Ms. Le Pen’s support comes mainly from the working class. A recent study showed Mr. Zemmour scoring well among the upper middle class, at 16 percent compared to 6 percent for Ms. Le Pen.There was widespread nodding at the rally when Mr. Zemmour talked of France’s “great downgrading, with the impoverishment of the French, the decline of our power and the collapse of our school.” And there were loud cheers when he mentioned “the great replacement, with the Islamization of France, mass immigration and constant insecurity.”The so-called great replacement, a contentious theory that claims the West’s population is being replaced by immigrants, has been cited by white supremacists in mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Tex.But Sophie Michel, a former history teacher and a mother of nine, said she believed the theory, pointing to the growing number of immigrant families living in her apartment building in western Paris.“We’re the last white people there,” she said, “this is for real.”The name of Mr. Zemmour’s new party, “Reconquest,” evokes the centuries-long period known as the Reconquista, when Christian forces drove Muslim rulers from the Iberian Peninsula.Two of Ms. Michel’s children also attended the rally, along with hundreds of young people. Hortense Bergerault, 17, said she followed Mr. Zemmour on Instagram, where he has nearly 150,000 followers, ranking only behind Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen among the presidential candidates. “I have many friends who are really into it,” she said.Supporters of Mr. Zemmour arriving at the campaign rally in Villepinte, near Paris, on Dec. 5.Julien De Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Martigny, the political scientist, said that Mr. Zemmour was the product of “culture wars” that had gradually spread far-right ideas across society, especially through Fox-style news networks, clearing “a space for a Trumpian player in the French political life.”“They have understood that there is no lasting political victory without a prior cultural victory,” Mr. Martigny said of Mr. Zemmour’s team.This cultural win was evident in Villepinte, where many supporters referred to Mr. Zemmour’s books and TV appearances as eye-opening experiences. Some wore baseball caps reading “Ben voyons!” — a rejoinder that Mr. Zemmour often uses to dismiss criticism, and which roughly translates to “Oh, come on!” The crowd even chanted the phrase when Mr. Zemmour, speaking from his lectern, mocked those accusing him of being a fascist.Antoine Diers, a spokesman for Mr. Zemmour’s campaign, said that although France and the United States were two different countries, they had “obviously” looked at Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential run “because it was a success.”Raphaël Llorca, a French communication expert and member of the Fondation Jean-Jaurès research institute, said Mr. Zemmour had successfully waged a “battle of the cool” designed to popularize his extreme ideas and “reduce the cost of adherence” to the far right.His YouTube campaign-launching video, riddled with cultural references, has drawn nearly 3 million viewers — evidence of his command of pop culture codes, Mr. Llorca said.“The cool is a way to defuse and neutralize otherwise extremely violent” ideas, he added.A video grab taken from AFPTV footage showing a scuffle at Mr. Zemmour’s rally. Dozens of his supporters attacked several antiracism activists.Colin Bertier/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn October, Mr. Zemmour said his success would depend on his ability to appeal to both the conservative, bourgeois electorate and that of the Yellow Vests, the mostly working-class movement that protested against economic injustice that Ms. Le Pen has long courted.Whether he can achieve that balancing act is far from clear, as shown by the attendance at the rally. The main economic proposal he outlined last weekend — slashing business taxes — is unlikely to speak to working-class voters.Mr. Zemmour’s theatrical entrance into the convention center, to the sound of dramatic music, also did little to eclipse the fact that he has so far failed to garner support from any major political figure, or party. This remains a major difference from Mr. Trump, who could count on the powerful Republican Party and solid financial backing.Mr. Zemmour said he was the target of the media and the elites. He praised the crowd before him for standing up to these attacks. “The political phenomenon of these rallies, it’s not me, it’s you!” he shouted.But some of his supporters might also prove to be his greatest liability.Midway through his speech, dozens of sturdy militants threw punches at several activists from SOS Racisme, an antiracism organization, who had stood on chairs at the rally and revealed T-shirts spelling out the phrase “NO TO RACISM.”Mr. Zemmour, right, on a political TV show on Thursday. Many of Mr. Zemmour’s supporters have referred to his books and TV appearances as eye-opening experiences.Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesProsecutors have opened investigations into the violence, including one against a man who lunged at and grabbed Mr. Zemmour as he walked toward the stage.Mr. Diers, the spokesman, said the antiracism activists had acted provocatively and that he had called on supporters “not to use force unreasonably.”Mr. Llorca, the communications expert, said that with such a polarizing campaign, Mr. Zemmour risked “being overwhelmed” by the extremism of his own supporters.The French news media later reported that some of those who had attacked the antiracism activists were neo-Nazi militants. As they chased down the activists toward the entrance hall, wearing black mufflers that hid their faces, they were stopped by a security staff member.“Thank you for being there,” he told them. “You did the job!” More

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      The Words Democrats Use Are Not the Real Problem

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      After Donald Trump and the Republican Party made gains among Black and Hispanic voters in the 2020 presidential election, a chorus of voices emerged to blame the outcome on Democratic messaging.Democrats, went the argument, were too “woke,” too preoccupied with “identity politics,” too invested in slogans like “defund the police” and too eager to embrace the language of the activist left. Terms like “BIPOC” (an acronym for Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and especially “Latinx” alienated the working-class Black and Hispanic voters who shifted to Trump in key states like Florida and North Carolina.It makes sense that this is where the conversation turned. People who work with words — journalists, commentators and political professionals — are naturally interested in the impact of messaging and language on voters.At the same time, it is important to remember that language does not actually structure politics. Yes, a political message can persuade voters or, on the other end, help them rationalize their choices. And yes, a political message can be effective or ineffective. But we should not mistake this for a causal relationship.The forces that drive politics are material and ideological, and our focus — when trying to understand and explain shifts in the electorate — should be on the social and economic transformations that shape life for most Americans.With that in mind, let’s return to the debate over the Democratic Party’s declining fortunes with Hispanic voters. (In all of this, it is important to remember that even with the significant shift to Trump, who improved on his 2016 total in 2020 by 10 percentage points, according to Pew, Biden still won 59 percent of the Hispanic voters who cast ballots.)Does a term like “Latinx” alienate some portion of the Hispanic voting public? A recent survey says yes. According to a new national poll of Hispanic voters, only 2 percent chose the term to describe their ethnic background, and 40 percent said it offends them either “a lot” (20 percent), “somewhat” (11 percent) or “a little” (9 percent). To the extent that Democratic politicians and affiliated voices used the term — demonstrating their distance from the communities in question — that may have left a bad taste in the mouths of some Hispanic voters. But it does not follow from there that use of the term explains anything about electoral trends among Hispanics. For those, we have to look at the material and ideological shifts I mentioned earlier.It would be too much for a single column to give a full inventory of those changes. But I can point to a few. First, there is the economy. In areas like the Rio Grande Valley of Texas — where Republicans made major inroads with Mexican American voters in 2020 — rising wages for workers in the region’s oil and gas industry helped shift some voters to the right. Nationally, there’s evidence that some Hispanic voters credited Trump with wage growth and rewarded him with additional support. In general, upward mobility and a greater sense of integration into the mainstream of American society has made a significant number of Hispanic voters more open to Republican appeals.Playing a similar role is evangelical religion. As my news-side colleague Jennifer Medina noted in a piece last year, “Hispanic evangelicals are one of the fastest growing religious groups in the country.” Churches remain important sites for political socialization, and evangelicalism is, at this juncture, a conservative force in American culture and politics. It makes sense, then, that Hispanic evangelicals are also much more likely than their Catholic counterparts to vote Republican.According to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, “Hispanic Protestants” were more likely than all other Hispanics to approve of Trump’s performance as president, his handling of the economy, his handling of “racial justice protests” and his handling of the pandemic. Hispanic Protestants were also much more likely to say that “Christians face a lot of discrimination.”There is also the longstanding effort by Republicans to mobilize Hispanic conservatives for the Republican Party. “For the past half century,” the historian Geraldo Cadava writes in “The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of an American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump,” “Hispanic Republicans and the Republican Party have been deliberate and methodical in their mutual, sometimes hesitant, embrace.” Beliefs about relations with Latin America, about “the United States as the protector of freedom in the world” and about “market-driven capitalism as the best path to upward mobility” have helped Republicans build a durable bulwark among Hispanic voters, one that the Trump campaign built on with focused and sustained outreach.Entangled in these social and economic transformations is a longstanding and potent American ideology that slots some people as “makers” and others as “takers,” to use Mitt Romney’s off-the-cuff language to donors during his presidential campaign in 2012. Although traditionally associated with whiteness and masculinity, this “producerism” holds sway and currency across the electorate. That’s part of why candidates in both parties scramble to associate themselves with blue-collar workers and why some Democratic proponents of the social safety net insist that their policies provide a “hand up, not a handout.”I think that a part of Donald Trump’s appeal, especially for men, was the degree to which he embodied the producerist ideal. His image, at least, was of the commanding provider, who generated wealth and prosperity for himself and others. Put another way, the prevalence of producerist ideology in American society helped frame Trump — previously the star of “The Apprentice” — as a political figure, making him legible to millions of Americans. Hispanic voters were as much a part of that dynamic as any other group.The point here is not to write an exhaustive explanation of what happened among Hispanic voters in the 2020 presidential election. The point is that our constant battles over language are more distracting than not. The whys of American politics have much more to do with the ever-changing currents of race, religion and economic production than they do with political messaging. And no message, no matter how strong on the surface, will land if it isn’t attentive to those forces and the other forces that structure the lives of ordinary people.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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      Fearing a Repeat of Jan. 6, Congress Eyes Changes to Electoral Count Law

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      Members of the special House committee investigating the Capitol riot are among those arguing for an overhaul of a more than century-old statute enacted to address disputed elections.WASHINGTON — Members of the select congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol are pressing to overhaul the complex and little-known law that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies tried to use to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that the ambiguity of the statute puts democracy itself at risk.The push to rewrite the Electoral Count Act of 1887 — enacted more than a century ago in the wake of another bitterly disputed presidential election — has taken on new urgency in recent weeks as more details have emerged about the extent of Mr. Trump’s plot to exploit its provisions to cling to power.Mr. Trump and his allies, using a warped interpretation of the law, sought to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to throw out legitimate results when Congress met in a joint session on Jan. 6 to conduct its official count of electoral votes.It was Mr. Pence’s refusal to do so that led a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters to chant “Hang Mike Pence,” as they stormed the Capitol, delaying the proceedings as lawmakers fled for their lives. Members of Congress and the vice president ultimately returned and completed the count, rejecting challenges made by loyalists to Mr. Trump and formalizing President Biden’s victory.But had Mr. Pence done as Mr. Trump wanted — or had enough members of Congress voted to sustain the challenges lodged by Mr. Trump’s supporters — the outcome could have been different.“We know that we came precariously close to a constitutional crisis, because of the confusion in many people’s minds that was obviously planted by the former president as to what the Congress’s role actually was,” said Zach Wamp, a former Republican congressman from Tennessee who is a co-chairman of the Reformers Caucus at Issue One, a bipartisan group that is pressing for changes to the election process.Republicans in Congress have repeatedly blocked efforts by Democrats to alter election laws in the wake of the 2020 crisis, and it is not clear whether a bid to revamp the Electoral Count Act will fare any better. But experts have described the law as “almost unintelligible,” and an overhaul has the support of several leading conservative groups..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-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;}“There are a few of us on the committee who are working to identify proposed reforms that could earn support across the spectrum of liberal to conservative constitutional scholars,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a member of the Jan. 6 committee. “We could very well have a problem in a future election that comes down to an interpretation of a very poorly written, ambiguous and confusing statute.”Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, said on Thursday that “the 1887 Electoral Count Act is directly at issue” and that the panel would recommend changes to it.The Constitution leaves it up to Congress to finalize the results of presidential elections shortly before Inauguration Day. Article II, Section 1 says, “The president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted.”Vice President Mike Pence presided over a joint session of Congress in January convened to formalize the Electoral College tally. Erin Schaff/The New York TimesBut the process is further detailed in the Electoral Count Act, which says that as lawmakers read through the electoral results of each state during a joint session of Congress, members of the House and Senate may submit objections in writing, which can be sustained if a majority of both chambers approves. In the event that a state submitted multiple slates to Congress, the governor’s certified electors would hold, the law says, unless a majority in both chambers voted to reject them.The statute was written in the aftermath of the disputed election of 1876 between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, and has dictated how Congress formalizes elections, mostly without incident, ever since.But what unfolded on Jan. 6 tested its limits.Both of the objections by Mr. Trump’s allies — who sought to invalidate the electoral votes of Pennsylvania and Arizona — failed in the House, although the vast majority of Republicans supported them. Yet in the months since, it has become clear those challenges were part of a broader strategy. John Eastman, a lawyer advising Mr. Trump, drafted a plan that included sending to Mr. Pence, who presided over the joint session in his role as president of the Senate, a slate of Trump electors from seven states won by Mr. Biden.Mr. Eastman and other allies of Mr. Trump suggested pressuring the vice president to accept the alternate slate of Trump electors, throwing out legitimate votes for Mr. Biden. Under such a scenario, Mr. Eastman argued, a vote of those states’ delegations in the House, favoring Republicans, could keep Mr. Trump in power. (Mr. Eastman this week informed the committee he planned to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid answering the committee’s questions.)“The antiquated law governing the Electoral College vote count is too vague and ripe for abuse, and it resulted in baseless objections that delayed the democratic process,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota and the chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee. “It’s time to update this law to safeguard our democracy.”Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, has indicated an openness to revising the statute, and a small group of senators, including Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, has been working on potential solutions.Understand the Claim of Executive Privilege in the Jan. 6. InquiryCard 1 of 8A key issue yet untested. More

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      Why a Pollster is Warning Democrats About the 2022 Midterm Elections

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      Focus groups with Virginia voters led to a bluntly worded memo on what Democrats need to do going into the midterms.Brian Stryker, a Democratic pollster, didn’t work for Terry McAuliffe’s campaign in the Virginia governor’s race. But Mr. McAuliffe’s narrow defeat in a liberal-leaning state alarmed him and most every Democratic political professional.That defeat also prompted a centrist group, Third Way, to have Mr. Stryker convene focus groups to examine why Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin won in a state that President Biden had carried by 10 points last year.Mr. Stryker drafted and posted a bluntly worded memo with his analysis from the focus groups, and that memo has circulated widely in his party.The participants hailed from the suburbs of Washington and Richmond and had the same political profile: Each supported Mr. Biden in 2020, and either voted for Mr. Youngkin in November or strongly considered supporting him.In an interview with The Times, Mr. Stryker expanded on what he learned from the voters and the course correction he believes Democrats must take.This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.What was the first thing you told your partners after you got done with the groups — what was your big takeaway?I was surprised by how dominant education was in this election. I was also struck by how much it was this place for all of these frustrations for these suburban voters, where they could take out their Covid frustrations in one place..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-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;}So if you’re advising a Democratic client running in 2022, what do you tell them?I would tell them that we have a problem. We’ve got a national branding problem that is probably deeper than a lot of people suspect. Our party thinks maybe some things we’re saying aren’t cutting through, but I think it’s much deeper than that.What is that branding problem, in a nutshell?People think we’re more focused on social issues than the economy — and the economy is the No. 1 issue right now.What drives this perception that Democrats are fixated on cultural issues?We probably haven’t been as focused on the economy as we should be. I think some of that is voters reading us talking about things that aren’t economic issues. Part of it is just a natural reaction, too: We’re in an economy they feel is tough. It’s hard for them to think we’ve solved problems when they see so many.How do Democrats balance a commitment to core constituencies while at the same time addressing economic issues that voters are confronting every day?The No. 1 issue for women right now is the economy, and the No. 1 issue for Black voters is the economy, and the No. 1 issue for Latino voters is the economy. I’m not advocating for us ignoring social issues, but when we think broadly about voters, they actually all want us talking about the economy and doing things to help them out economically.So what can Democrats do going into the midterms?A big part of the problem was that people didn’t feel they knew enough about McAuliffe and what he had done. Governors, in particular, during Covid were on TV all the time, talking to people about Covid. So it’s all anybody knows of what they’ve done. So you need to tell your story about what you’ve been doing, to the press and in paid communications, outside of Covid. And that applies to members of Congress, state legislators, everyone on down.Is there any silver lining to be found for Democrats?If the country is in a better place next year, we’re likely to be rewarded for that. Voters are responding to real-world frustrations; this isn’t some manufactured narrative.I want to cite a few things from your memo that struck me, one of which was that the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which became law in March, may as well not exist.Voters don’t remember things. They have short attention spans. One bright spot, though: If we have an economy that voters feel like is starting to pick up, being able to point back and remind them, “Hey I did XYZ, and that really got things rolling.”So you think Democrats next year should spend the bulk of their time trumpeting their legislative accomplishments from this year?We should spend 2022 talking about things we’ve done to lower costs for working families and to get people back to work. Some of those things may be in a piece of legislation; others are things the White House did. Some are constituent services.Voters don’t think Democrats are addressing big issues in their lives?They just see costs going up and don’t feel like there’s any progress being made yet.How much of that is driven by the day-to-day lived experiences of people?A ton of it. They drive by the pump. They know what the cost of a pound of ground beef is supposed to be, or boneless skinless chicken breast. Those are the things they talk about, meat and groceries — those are the things they really see.Let’s come back to the schools issue. How much of what drove that for Mr. Youngkin is that we’re 18 months into Covid, and voters are simply fatigued and want somebody to blame?Voters don’t think that in general a lot of Democrats felt really bad about closing the schools or felt like it was really a negative on people. I think showing some empathy on that could go a long ways in terms of: Yes, closing schools was hard on kids and hard on parents.One of the things you also said in the memo was that McAuliffe’s strategy of linking Mr. Youngkin to former President Donald Trump was ineffective. What in the conversations with your groups made that clear?The respondents kind of laughed at that approach. They said, “Oh, these silly ads that compared Youngkin to Trump — he just doesn’t seem like that guy.” The thing that these people disliked about Trump was that they didn’t like Donald Trump the person; it wasn’t Donald Trump the constellation of policies. That may very well have been the best message that McAuliffe had, but if we are in that position again, we’re going to lose a ton of races. We’ve got to have something better.How much does Mr. Biden himself take the blame with these voters? Is his name invoked?It’s Biden, Democrats — they all come together.But it’s not like with Trump, where voters single him out?No, and also none of these people regretted their choice and wish they had voted for Trump.Did you ask that question?I asked it a couple of different ways: “Do you think you made a mistake last year?” or, “If you had the choice in a year, would you change your vote?” Nobody was interested in Trump. It was not even a question for them. More

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      Democrats Struggle to Energize Their Base as Frustrations Mount

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      Even as President Biden achieves some significant victories, Democrats are warning that many of their most loyal supporters see inaction and broken campaign promises.Democrats across the party are raising alarms about sinking support among some of their most loyal voters, warning the White House and congressional leadership that they are falling short on campaign promises and leaving their base unsatisfied and unmotivated ahead of next year’s midterm elections.President Biden has achieved some major victories, signing a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill and moving a nearly $2 trillion social policy and climate change bill through the House. But some Democrats are warning that many of the voters who put them in control of the federal government last year may see little incentive to return to the polls in the midterms — reigniting a debate over electoral strategy that has been raging within the party since 2016.As the administration focuses on those two bills, a long list of other party priorities — expanding voting rights, enacting criminal justice reform, enshrining abortion rights, raising the federal minimum wage to $15, fixing a broken immigration system — have languished or died in Congress. Negotiations in the Senate are likely to further dilute the economic and climate proposals that animated Mr. Biden’s campaign — if the bill passes at all. And the president’s central promise of healing divisions and lowering the political temperature has failed to be fruitful, as violent language flourishes and threats to lawmakers flood into Congress.Interviews with Democratic lawmakers, activists and officials in Washington and in key battleground states show a party deeply concerned about retaining its own supporters. Even as strategists and vulnerable incumbents from battleground districts worry about swing voters, others argue that the erosion of crucial segments of the party’s coalition could pose more of a threat in midterm elections that are widely believed to be stacked against it.Already, Mr. Biden’s approval ratings have taken a sharp fall among some of his core constituencies, showing double-digit declines among Black, Latino, female and young voters. Those drops have led to increased tension between the White House and progressives at a time of heightened political anxiety, after Democrats were caught off-guard by the intensity of the backlash against them in elections earlier this month. Mr. Biden’s plummeting national approval ratings have also raised concerns about whether he would — or should — run for re-election in 2024.Not all of the blame is being placed squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Biden; a large percentage of frustration is with the Democratic Party itself.“It’s frustrating to see the Democrats spend all of this time fighting against themselves and to give a perception to the country, which the Republicans are seizing on, that the Democrats can’t govern,” said Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, who leads the A.M.E. churches across Georgia. “And some of us are tired of them getting pushed around, because when they get pushed around, African Americans get shoved.”Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a leading House progressive, warned that the party is at risk of “breaking trust” with vital constituencies, including young people and people of color.“There’s all this focus on ‘Democrats deliver, Democrats deliver,’ but are they delivering on the things that people are asking for the most right now?” she said in an interview. “In communities like mine, the issues that people are loudest and feel most passionately about are the ones that the party is speaking to the least.”Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats acknowledge that a significant part of the challenge facing their party is structural: With slim congressional majorities, the party cannot pass anything unless the entire caucus agrees. That empowers moderate Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia to block some of the biggest promises to their supporters, including a broad voting rights bill.A more aggressive approach may not lead to eventual passage of an immigration or voting rights law, but it would signal to Democrats that Mr. Biden is fighting for them, said Faiz Shakir, a close adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Mr. Shakir and others worry that the focus on the two significant pieces of legislation — infrastructure and the spending bill — won’t be enough to energize supporters skeptical of the federal government’s ability to improve their lives.“I’m a supporter of Biden, a supporter of the agenda, and I’m frustrated and upset with him to allow this to go in the direction it has,” said Mr. Shakir, who managed Mr. Sanders’s presidential run in 2020. “It looks like we have President Manchin instead of President Biden in this debate.”He added: “It’s made the president look weak.”The divide over how much attention to devote to staunch Democratic constituencies versus moderate swing voters taps into a political debate that’s long roiled the party: Is it more important to energize the base or to persuade swing voters? And can Democrats do both things at once?White House advisers argue that winning swing voters, particularly the suburban independents who play an outsize role in battleground districts, is what will keep Democrats in power — or at least curb the scale of their midterm losses. They see the drop among core groups of Democrats as reflective of a challenging political moment — rising inflation, the continued pandemic, uncertainty about schools — rather than unhappiness with the administration’s priorities.“It’s November of 2021, not September of 2022,” John Anzalone, Mr. Biden’s pollster, said. “If we pass Build Back Better, we have a great message going into the midterms, when the bell rings on Labor Day, about what we’ve done for people.”Even pared back from the $3.5 trillion plan that Mr. Biden originally sought, the legislation that passed the House earlier this month offers proposals transforming child care, elder care, prescription drugs and financial aid for college, as well as making the largest investment ever to slow climate change. But some of the most popular policies will not be felt by voters until long after the midterm elections, nor will the impact of many of the infrastructure projects.Already, Democrats face a challenging education effort with voters. According to a survey conducted by Global Strategy Group, a Democratic polling firm, only about a third of white battleground voters think that either infrastructure or the broader spending bill will help them personally. Among white Democratic battleground voters, support for the bills is only 72 percent.Representative James E. Clyburn, the high-ranking House Democrat from South Carolina and a close ally of Mr. Biden, said the way the bills were negotiated and reported in the media had voters in his district asking him about money that was cut from initiatives rather than the sweeping benefits.“People stopped me on the streets saying we cut money from our H.B.C.U.s,” Mr. Clyburn said, pointing out that more funding for historically Black colleges and universities will be added in the coming years of the administration. “So while everybody keeps blaming the Democrats, Democrats, Democrats, it’s the Senate rules that are archaic, and stop us from passing these bills.”Mr. Clyburn and other lawmakers say they struggle to explain the vacillations of congressional wrangling to their voters, who expected that by electing Democrats to the majority they would be able to pass their agenda.“Nobody thought about the filibuster and the realities,” said Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee. “People don’t understand the Byrd rule and the parliamentarian and the things we have to put up with. It does lower their enthusiasm.”Atlanta voters cast their ballots last November. Mr. Biden won more than 90 percent of Black voters in Georgia, but inaction on voting rights has weakened their support.Jessica Mcgowan/Getty ImagesAs they’ve begun to do with the infrastructure bill, the White House plans an aggressive approach to sell the social policy legislation once it passes, dispatching Mr. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other top officials for events across the country.“There is a real window of opportunity to show the cooperation and competence people expect from us,” said Representative Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey and a leader of a moderate wing of lawmakers in congressional negotiations. “It’s up to us to communicate what we just accomplished for families and for the country.”Yet many activists say the White House is to blame for failing to aggressively push for the central promises made to their supporters during the campaign. They said they wanted Mr. Biden to leverage both his bully pulpit and executive powers to tackle student loans, criminal justice, immigration reform and other issues.“We’re talking about democracy in such a crisis and here we are with very few legislative days left and the lack of urgency is deafening,” said Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner, a minister and civil rights advocate who has helped lead the response from faith leaders on voting rights. “For the president to say he can only do one thing at a time is simply not true.”Lorella Praeli, the president of Community Change Action, a group advocating immigration reform, offered a terse warning to the administration about keeping Latino support: “There are no participation trophies.”Some of the most popular policies in the social safety net bill that passed the House won’t be felt by voters until long after the midterm elections.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesAlready, the national environment looks difficult for Democrats, who may lose seats in redistricting and face the historical trend of a president’s party losing seats during his first term in office.Tomás Robles, the co-chair of Lucha, a Latino civil rights group based in Phoenix that is widely credited with helping Democrats win the state in 2020, said people were “disillusioned and unmotivated” by what they had seen in the first 10 months of Democratic governance.“When you’re not passing bold progressive policies, you have to be able to show something,” Mr. Robles said. “President Biden gets the most blame because he’s the most visible, but it’s the party as a whole that has failed its voters.”In Georgia, inaction on voting rights has fueled a steepening decline of enthusiasm for Mr. Biden among Black voters. The New Georgia Project, a progressive civil rights group, conducted a study last month of Black voters in Georgia, and found that 66 percent approved of the job Mr. Biden was doing, and 51 percent thought that his administration was working to address the concerns of the Black community. In 2020, Mr. Biden won more than 90 percent of Black voters in Georgia.Representative Cori Bush, a progressive whose district includes large parts of St. Louis, said the social safety net and climate provisions included in the bill that passed the House could not be pared down any further. And, she added, the White House has to follow through on other provisions if Democrats want to excite Black voters — perhaps the party’s most loyal constituency — ahead of the midterm elections.“Do I believe Black community members will be happy to see these investments? Absolutely. Will they feel like this has changed their lives in some ways? Yes,” Ms. Bush said. “But will this be enough to excite? When you’re excited, that means that you feel like something else is coming. You have hope that more is happening. So what’s next?” More

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      Bloodied Venezuelan Opposition Returns to Elections for First Time in Years

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      UPATA, Venezuela — His opposition to Venezuela’s authoritarian leader had left him bloodied by government thugs, forced him into hiding in a foreign embassy and pushed him into a nearly two-year exile in Italy, where he sold bread in a train station as he thought of home.Américo De Grazia’s political defiance had also cost him his marriage and his savings. And yet here he was, back in his hometown in southeastern Venezuela, sweating through his shirt sleeves on stage — one of thousands of opposition candidates running in an election this Sunday that they are almost certain to lose.“We are in a time of turbulence,” Mr. De Grazia, 61, told voters as drums beat behind him, “and that demands we fight.”The political parties who oppose Venezuelan’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, have for years refused to participate in elections, arguing that to do so would legitimize a man who has spent nearly a decade jailing enemies, detaining journalists, co-opting political parties and banning key opposition figures from office, all as the country has fallen into an economic and humanitarian crisis.But on Sunday, the opposition will make a return to the ballot box, putting up candidates in gubernatorial and mayoral races across the country, an about-face they say is meant to rally a disillusioned electorate ahead of a future presidential vote, which should legally take place in 2024.Supporters of Mr. De Grazia cheering during a speech.Mr. De Grazia’s political defiance cost him his marriage and his savings. The conditions — while nominally better than in past years, according to the nonpartisan Venezuelan Electoral Observatory — are far from freely democratic, and the shift is a gamble for the opposition.Mr. Maduro, who faces both economic sanctions and an investigation in the International Criminal Court, is hungry for democratic legitimacy, and he is likely to use the election to push the United States and the European Union to ease their positions against him.Supporters of Ángel Marcano, the candidate for the ruling party, gathering for a rally in downtown Ciudad Bolívar.A warehouse with the former President Hugo Chavez’s likeness emblazoned on the front.But the shift is also a sign of just how desperate many Venezuelans are for anything that looks like a shot at change. And Mr. De Grazia’s fight to become governor of one of the country’s largest states is emblematic of that desperation.“This election is not free, not fair, not transparent, nothing like that,” he said over lunch one day after a campaign rally where he handed out tiny pieces of paper bearing his name, face and personal phone number — homespun campaigning in difficult times. But, “to beat this regime you have to confront it.”Bolívar, a sprawling state in Venezuela’s southeast, is home to steel and aluminum plants and large deposits of gold, diamonds and coltan. Despite these resources, its people have suffered greatly amid the country’s economic decline. Ninety-five percent of the nation now lives in poverty, according to the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas.In Bolívar, families line up daily outside food kitchens, and children die regularly of treatable and preventable conditions — malaria, hydrocephalus, malnutrition — because their parents cannot afford medication.A couple making a pot of soup that will feed over a dozen children in their community in the state of Bolivar.Roxana Sánchez, 20, with her son, Anthony, 7 months, who a doctor in Bolivar diagnosed with severe malnutrition, with the boy weighing little more than his birthweight.In interviews in six municipalities across the state, many people said that an influx of dollars that began two years ago, after Mr. Maduro’s decision to relax economic regulations that had once defined his government, had percolated little beyond the richest families.Mr. De Grazia is the son of Italian immigrants who started a string of bakeries in Bolívar in the 1950s. The original shop, Panadería Central, is still open across the street from the home where Mr. De Grazia lives with his mother, who runs the bakery.He entered politics at 14, and eventually became a vocal critic of the governments of Hugo Chávez and his successor, Mr. Maduro, who held themselves up as champions of a socialist revolution.Mr. De Grazia’s career has often focused on workers’ rights and corruption in the mining industry. He was a congressman for a decade, and said that he had been beaten up at least four times in the National Assembly. In the last instance, the results of which were caught on camera in 2017, men wearing ski masks left him bleeding on the legislature’s patio.In 2019, he supported a decision by the head of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, to declare himself interim president, a move backed by the United States and dozens of other countries.Afterward, Mr. Maduro’s government issued capture orders for Mr. De Grazia and many other opposition figures, forcing him to flee. He went first to the Italian Embassy, where he lived for seven months, and then to Italy, where he worked in a bakery run by one of his seven children.It was around that time that his wife issued an ultimatum: Leave politics or we split. They split. “She could no longer take that life,” he said. “This is part of the price.”Supporters of Mr. De Grazia in El Palmar, Venezuela.A boy resting on his grandmother’s shoulders during an assembly in support of Mr. De Grazia in Upata, Venezuela.But in Italy, Mr. De Grazia became increasingly convinced that the opposition coalition he once backed had no plan to move beyond a stalemate. He said that electoral abstention had left the coalition disconnected from voters and almost weaponless in the fight for fairer election conditions in 2024.In February, he announced that he would participate in this year’s vote. He left the coalition, and was booted from the party he joined at 14, called Causa R. In April he declared his candidacy for governor.Several months later, much of the coalition that had rejected him declared that they, too, would participate in the vote. Among the candidates running this year is David Uzcátegui, of Miranda State, who called abstention “an error.”“The vote is an instrument you can fight with,” he said.Mr. De Grazia and many other opposition candidates have limited chances of winning. In a report ahead of the vote, the Venezuelan Electoral Observatory said that while the government had allowed a broader spectrum of participation in this election than in past years, it continued to “restrict full freedom to exercise suffrage” in myriad ways, among them the illegal use of public funds to campaign for the ruling party.Hundreds of political prisoners remain locked up, while many voters fear they will lose benefits if they don’t cast a ballot in favor of Maduro-backed candidates.Takeaways From the 2021 ElectionsCard 1 of 5A G.O.P. pathway in Virginia. More