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    Jamie Dimon Urges Donors, Even Democrats, to ‘Help Nikki Haley’

    The JPMorgan Chase C.E.O.’s show of support for Ms. Haley came on the same day that a new super PAC set out to try to draw independent voters to her candidacy.The chief executive of Wall Street’s largest bank threw his support behind Nikki Haley on Wednesday, just as a group of entrepreneurs confirmed that they were forming a super PAC to try to draw independent voters to her.The two developments provided new signs that opponents of former President Donald J. Trump in the business world are coalescing around Ms. Haley as their favored alternative.“Even if you’re a very liberal Democrat, I urge you, help Nikki Haley, too,” Jamie Dimon, the chief of JPMorgan Chase, said at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit, a conference of global business leaders, addressing Wall Street executives in the room who might donate to candidates. “Get a choice on the Republican side that might be better than Trump.”Mr. Dimon had called Ms. Haley late last month to praise her campaign, but his comments on Wednesday were a far more public endorsement. He did not take the position that the nominee should be anyone but Mr. Trump, adding: “He might be the president. I have to deal with that, too.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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    Are Democrats Whistling Past the Graveyard?

    A New York Times and Siena College poll released Nov. 5 showed Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in five of the six key swing states, with a notable jump in support among nonwhite and young voters. In response, Democrats freaked out.But then two days later, voters across the country actually went to the polls, and Democrats and Democratic-associated policy did pretty well. In Kentucky, Andy Beshear held the governorship. Democrats took back the House of Delegates in Virginia. And Ohio voted for an amendment protecting abortion rights.[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]I asked Mike Podhorzer, a longtime poll skeptic, to help to help me understand the apparent gap between the polls and the ballot box. Podhorzer was the longtime political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. And as the founder of the Analyst Institute, he was the godfather of the data-driven turn in Democratic campaign strategy. He also writes a newsletter on these topics called “Weekend Reading.”We discuss the underlying assumptions behind polling methodologies and what that says about their results; how to square Biden’s unpopularity with the Democrats’ recent wins; why he thinks an anti-MAGA majority is Biden’s best bet to the White House and how that coalition doesn’t always map cleanly onto demographic data; what a newly energized labor movement might means for Biden; and much more.You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Jeff Geld and Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team includes Emefa Agawu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Carole Sabouraud. More

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    Why Trump Seems Less Vulnerable on Abortion Than Other Republicans

    He appointed judges who overturned Roe, but his vague statements on the issue may give him some leeway with voters.Donald J. Trump is showing surprising resilience on the abortion issue, appearing less vulnerable than fellow Republicans despite his key role in shaping the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade.An Ohio referendum last Tuesday guaranteeing abortion access and similar election results have bolstered Democrats’ hopes that they could repeat those successes in 2024.But Mr. Trump has held steady in recent surveys even among voters who favor keeping abortion mostly legal. President Biden, who holds a big lead among those who want abortion always legal, led the “mostly legal” group by only one percentage point against Mr. Trump in the recent New York Times/Siena College surveys of battleground states.Mr. Trump seems to have effectively neutralized abortion as an issue during the Republican primary. He appears to be attending to general election voters by employing vagueness and trying to occupy a middle ground of sorts, perhaps allowing voters to see what they want to see. And traditionally in presidential elections, a relatively small share of people will vote based on any one social issue, even if that issue is abortion.Voters who want abortion to be “mostly legal” are about twice as likely to say they are making voting decisions based on economic issues over social issues like abortion. The only group of voters across the six swing states for whom societal issues are even close to as important as economic issues are white college-educated voters, and those voters are expected to be a smaller share of the electorate in a presidential year than in a low-turnout off-year election like the Ohio abortion referendum.The share of voters who prioritize economic issues over social issues has increased by more than 12 percentage points in favor of the economy since the 2022 election, according to Times polling in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.Joel Graham, 49, of Grant County, Wis., said he would like abortion access to remain widespread: “In my mind, it’s not a politician’s choice, it’s a woman and a family’s choice.”“If Trump is elected, I have some concerns that there’s a chance he would put more hard-core conservatives on the Supreme Court and they might crack down more on abortion,” he said. Still, he says he plans to vote for Mr. Trump again because of his economic policies and concerns about the Biden administration’s foreign policy.Mr. Trump has been on many sides of the abortion issue over the years. In 1999, as a member of the Reform Party, he said he was “very pro-choice.” When he ran for office in 2016, he said women should be punished for having an abortion, then later took it back. Recently, he took full credit on his social media platform for being the one who ended the constitutional right to abortion in America: “I was able to kill Roe v. Wade.”When pressed in September whether he would sign a federal abortion ban at 15 weeks, he declined to give a definitive answer. “I’m not going to say I would or I wouldn’t,” he said.Conservative Republicans such as evangelicals have urged Mr. Trump to come out more forcefully against abortions, but they been among his biggest backers, and he is unlikely to lose them. And for many Republicans who want some abortion access, his lack of a defined stance — combined with his seeming long-term indifference on the issue — has not been a problem.“I haven’t seen Trump say something either way on abortion; he doesn’t seem to care either way and that’s fine with me,” said one of the respondents, a 38-year-old woman from Schuylkill County, Pa., who spoke on condition of anonymity. She wanted abortion to be mostly legal, she said, and planned to vote for Mr. Trump again.With the possible exception of Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s opponents for the Republican nomination have seemed to struggle to address shifting views on abortion. Gov. Ron DeSantis largely avoided the topic on the campaign trail, having signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida, a law that has been called extreme by some members of his own party. Mr. Trump called it “a terrible mistake.”Mr. DeSantis quietly came out in support of a federal 15-week abortion ban earlier this year, after months of dodging questions, and criticized Mr. Trump: “Pro-lifers should know he is preparing to sell you out.”But Mr. Trump has distanced himself from more restrictive abortion laws, favored by some in his party, seeming to recognize their unpopularity. Half of swing state voters oppose a federal 15-week abortion ban, while 42 percent are in favor. Voters who want abortion to be mostly legal are fairly divided on a 15-week ban, with a slim majority opposed.For those who want abortion to be mostly legal, Mr. Trump’s role in overturning Roe doesn’t appear to be a big concern.“I don’t think Trump was responsible for the Supreme Court’s decision,” said Michael Yott, a 37-year-old police officer from the Detroit area. “I honestly think that Trump is just for less government and states’ rights, and I’m fine with that. Now with Roe being gone, it’s up to each state to create their own rules and that’s fine.”Mr. Yott said he hoped some access to abortion would be maintained, particularly in early stages of pregnancy, but added, “My answer contradicts the stance of Republican candidates, but it’s just not that high on my list of issues.” More

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    I’m a Pollster. Democrats Need Young Voters to Win in 2024.

    Well before the latest Times/Siena poll raised concerns about Joe Biden’s re-election prospects, John Della Volpe was sounding alarms. The Harvard Kennedy School pollster — who worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign — first noticed a change in the way young voters were thinking about politics last spring. For months he has heard dissatisfaction with the two parties and increasing attraction to third party options from young voters in his town halls.With the next presidential election less than a year away, Della Volpe offers his advice for re-energizing young voters’ interest in the Democratic Party and its candidate.Illustration by Akshita Chandra/The New York Times; Photograph by flySnow/Getty ImagesThe 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.This Opinion short was produced by Phoebe Lett. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin and Annie-Rose Strasser. Mixing by Efim Shapiro. Original music by Sonia Herrero, Isaac Jones and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. More

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    What Voters Want That Trump Seems to Have

    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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    Democrat Repels G.O.P. Incursion in South Brooklyn City Council Race

    Justin Brannan, a moderate Democrat, defeated an ex-Democrat who ran as a Republican in New York’s most closely watched council race.A moderate Democrat who is among the New York City Council’s most powerful members beat his Republican opponent on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. By prevailing in the southern Brooklyn race, Democrats held a council seat that had shown signs of drifting away from their control.The Democrat, Justin Brannan, the Council’s finance chairman, defeated Ari Kagan, who was elected to the Council as a Democrat in 2021, but left the party last year and quickly adopted Republican stances on issues such as abortion and crime.The two incumbents wound up running in the same South Brooklyn district as a result of a once-in-a-decade redistricting process that saw all 51 Council seats up for re-election.Democrats overwhelmingly control the City Council, and many ran unopposed on Tuesday — including Yusef Salaam, one of the so-called Central Park Five defendants who won a hotly contested Council primary in Harlem this past summer.But Republicans were hoping to flip a seat or two, with Mr. Kagan and a candidate in the Bronx, Kristy Marmorato, thought to be their best hopes. Ms. Marmorato, an X-ray technician running on the Republican and Conservative lines, was challenging Marjorie Velázquez, the Democratic incumbent in the northern Bronx.The growth in the size and political influence of the Asian American community were also reflected on this year’s ballot.In a new southern Brooklyn district that was created as part of the redistricting process to account for the growth of that community, Susan Zhuang, a Democrat and the chief of staff for William Colton, an assemblyman, faced Ying Tan, the Republican.Voters filled out their ballots in Queens, where the district attorney, Melinda Katz, coasted to re-election.Anna Watts for The New York TimesIn northern Queens, the Republican incumbent, Vickie Paladino, defeated Tony Avella, a Democrat and former council member, in a rematch from two years ago.Inna Vernikov, a Republican who was recently charged with openly displaying a gun on her hip at a pro-Palestine rally where she was a counterprotester, easily defeated two candidates in another South Brooklyn district.Melinda Katz, the Queens district attorney and a moderate Democrat, also won easily over Michael Mossa, the Republican nominee. Mr. Mossa tried unsuccessfully to paint Ms. Katz as a far-left progressive who was soft on crime.Voters also considered two statewide ballot measures that would allow local governments to increase their debt limits for building sewage-treatment plants and for school districts in small cities to improve their physical properties. More

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    New York: How to Vote, Where to Vote and What’s on the Ballot

    [Here’s how to vote in New Jersey, Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Virginia.]For most New Yorkers, it will be a relatively quiet Election Day, with no presidential, governor or mayoral races on the ballot this year.Polls are open from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. You can find your polling location online.Absentee ballots can still be mailed in, but they most be postmarked by Tuesday. They can also be dropped off at a poll site in your county or your county board of elections office by 9 p.m. Tuesday.What is on the ballot this year?Your ballot might include races for the New York City Council, district attorney, judges and the two statewide ballot measures.The City Council is led by Democrats, and they are expected to keep control of the legislative body. But some local races have been contentious, and Republicans have been trying to increase their power in a city that has long favored Democrats.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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    Why Less Engaged Voters Are Biden’s Biggest Problem

    His weakness is concentrated among those who stayed home in the midterms but who may show up in 2024.Higher turnout is not necessarily positive for Democrats. Adria Malcolm for The New York TimesIf you’re looking to reconcile the surprisingly strong Democratic showing in the midterm elections with President Biden’s weakness in the polls today, consider the political attitudes of two groups of respondents from New York Times/Siena College polls over the last year.First, let’s consider the 2,775 respondents from Group A:It’s relatively old: 31 percent are 65 or older; 9 percent are under 30.It’s split politically: 33 percent identify as Republicans compared with 31 percent who consider themselves Democrats. About 72 percent are white. Black and Hispanic respondents are at 9 percent each.It’s relatively well educated: 41 percent have a college degree. Next, let’s look at the 1,534 respondents from Group B:It’s relatively young: 26 percent are 18 to 29; 17 percent are 65 or older.It’s relatively Democratic: 26 percent identify as Democrats, compared with 19 percent who identify as Republicans. Only 54 percent are white; 13 percent are Black and 19 percent are Hispanic.Just 28 percent have a college degree.Mr. Biden probably won Group B by a comfortable margin in the 2020 presidential election, whether based on fancy statistical models or based on what those respondents told us themselves.But it’s actually Group B that backs Donald J. Trump in Times/Siena polling over the last year. Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden, 41-39, among Group B respondents, while Group A backs Mr. Biden, 47-43.OK, now the reveal:“Group A” is people who voted in the 2022 midterm elections.“Group B” is people who did not vote in the 2022 midterms.Is this a surprising finding? Yes. But it also makes sense of a lot of what’s going on in the polling today.Mr. Biden may be weak among young, Black and Hispanic voters today, but that weakness is almost entirely concentrated among the voters who stayed home last November. As a consequence, Democrats paid little to no price for it in the midterms, even as polls of all registered voters or adults show Mr. Biden struggling mightily among these same groups against Mr. Trump.These less engaged voters might just be the single biggest problem facing Mr. Biden in his pursuit of re-election, the Times/Siena data suggests. If there’s any good news for Mr. Biden, it’s that his challenge is concentrated among voters who still consider themselves Democrats — a group that, in theory, ought to be open to returning to the president’s side.Whom Voters Say They’ll Support in 2024 More