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      An ‘Army of 16-Year-Olds’ Takes On the Democrats

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      Young progressives are an unpredictable new factor in Massachusetts elections. They’re ardent, and organized, and they don’t take orders.BOSTON — Dana Depelteau, a hotel manager, had just gone public with a long-shot candidacy for mayor in Boston when he noticed that someone in city politics was going after him online.The effect of this attack, he said, was lightning-fast and pervasive. The morning after he announced his candidacy on Twitter, he showed up at his local barbershop and, while staring at himself in the mirror, overheard a customer describing his views as white supremacist.“I’m thinking, ‘Man, politics is dirty,’” recalled Mr. Depelteau. He rushed home to fire back at his critic, a sharp-edged progressive who had dug up some of Mr. Depelteau’s old social media posts and was recirculating them online. But that, he discovered, was a big mistake.“I didn’t know how old she was,” he explained. “I just knew she was a prominent person.”That is how he became aware of Calla Walsh, a leader in the group of activists known here as the Markeyverse. Ms. Walsh, a 16-year-old high school junior, has many of the attributes of Generation Z: She likes to refer to people (like the president) as “bestie.” She occasionally gets called away from political events to babysit her little brother. She is slightly in the doghouse, parent-wise, for getting a C+ in precalculus.She is also representative of an influential new force in Democratic politics, activists who cut their teeth on the presidential campaigns of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.The full strength of these activists — many of whom are not old enough to vote — did not become clear until last fall, when they were key to one of the year’s most surprising upsets, helping Senator Edward J. Markey defeat a primary challenge from Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, who had been heavily favored to win.In conversation, Ms. Walsh tends to downplay her movement, describing them as “Markey teens” and “theater kids” who “formerly ran, like, Taylor Swift or K-pop stan accounts.”Canvassers for Ms. Wu in May. One test of the young progressives’ clout will come in the upcoming Boston mayoral race.Philip Keith for The New York TimesYoung progressive people are an unpredictable new factor in Massachusetts elections.Philip Keith for The New York TimesBut the Markeyverse carried out a devastating political maneuver, firmly fixing the idea of Senator Markey as a left-wing icon and Representative Kennedy as challenging him from the right. They carried out ambitious digital organizing, using social media to conjure up an in-person work force — “an army of 16-year-olds,” as one political veteran put it, who can “do anything on the internet.”They are viewed apprehensively by many in Massachusetts’ Democratic establishment, who say that they smear their opponents and are never held accountable; that they turn on their allies at the first whiff of a scandal; and that they are attacking Democrats in a coordinated effort to push the whole party to the left, much as the Tea Party did, on the right, to the Republicans.Ms. Walsh, for one, is cheerfully aware of all those critiques.In a podcast this spring, she recalled the day last summer when the Kennedy campaign singled her out in a statement, charging that negative campaigning online had created a vicious, dangerous atmosphere.“I won’t lie, I was terrified,” she said. But then, she said, the fear evaporated.“That’s when I realized I had a stake in this game: They are scared of me, a random teenager on the internet who just happened to be doing some organizing with her friends,” she said. “I think that made us all think, ‘Hey, they’re scared of us. We have power over them.’”The next roundAfter Mr. Markey beat Mr. Kennedy in the primary, Ms. Walsh taped a copy of his victory speech to the wall of her bedroom in Cambridge and turned her attention to down-ballot races.In his speech, Senator Markey had specifically thanked the Markeyverse for helping him beat Representative Kennedy. During a cycle in which campaigning moved almost entirely online, the young activists had done more than rebrand the candidate.They seemed to have affected long-established voting patterns: In Massachusetts, the turnout among registered voters between 18 to 24 had shot up to 20.9 percent in the 2020 primary from 6.7 percent in 2018, and 2.1 percent in 2016, according to Tufts’ Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.The race had left them with a heady sense of power. Tristan Niedzielski, 17, a high school senior from Marlborough, decided to skip Model U.N. this year and instead signed up to work on two campaigns, one for a seat in the state House of Representatives, and one for a regional school committee.He applied digital approaches he had picked up in the Markeyverse, using chat groups, direct messages and texts to convert friend networks into a volunteer work force. Both of his candidates lost, but narrowly, and he said he had learned something bigger: Outside of major cities, Massachusetts Democrats are not running sophisticated grass-roots campaigns.Tristan Niedzielski, 17, at rally in Boston on Saturday. Mr. Niedzielski, a high school senior from Marlborough, decided to skip Model U.N. this year and instead signed up to work on two campaigns.Philip Keith for The New York Times“It’s this lax culture of ‘Who do you know?,’” he said. “A lot of the state has never really seen any type of campaign political structure.”Some of what the young progressives have done can best be described as opposition research, targeting Democrats whom they consider too far right.In December, Ms. Walsh dug up off-color Twitter posts by Valentino Capobianco, a Kennedy supporter and candidate for a State House seat. (A few weeks later, allegations of sexual misconduct emerged against Mr. Capobianco, who would not comment for this article. He lost the support of leading Democrats, and won 8 percent of the vote.)Then she went after Mr. Depelteau, 36, a self-described “centrist Democrat,” recirculating social media posts he had made criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement. (Mr. Depelteau, who withdrew from the race in April, said it was not because of Ms. Walsh’s criticisms. He then left Twitter, which he called “toxic.”)She maintains a detailed spreadsheet on the declared candidates for mayor in Boston, monitoring donations from developers, police and energy companies. She runs trainings for young activists, entertaining her Twitter audience with juicy nuggets from campaign finance records, like a state representative who used campaign funds to expense AirPods.Her father, Chris Walsh, the director of Boston University’s college writing program, said her political enthusiasms have drifted over the last few years, from the existential cause of climate change to an exceedingly detailed focus on government and policy.Plus, he said, “Calla is also a 16-year-old. Like most, and maybe more than most, she’s not particularly communicative.”“Some of what I say is informed by looking at her Twitter,” he said.Senator Ed Markey during a news conference held to reintroduce the Green New Deal at the Capitol in April. Progressives embraced his candidacy, which focused heavily on his record on climate.Sarah Silbiger/Getty ImagesThe surge of grass-roots activism has come as a jolt in Massachusetts, which, because it is so firmly in the grip of one party, does not have a history of competitive primaries.“The old guard, the consulting class, hasn’t figured out a way of combating it,” said Jordan Meehan, 29, who turned to Ms. Walsh to organize digital outreach for a campaign last year, when he challenged a 34-year incumbent for a State House seat. He lost, but credits Ms. Walsh with devising a creative approach, reaching out individually to his social media followers and recruiting them for events and volunteer shifts.“It really does threaten the whole consultant-industrial complex,” he said.Numerous political strategists in Massachusetts refused to comment for this article. This is in part because, as one of them put it, “I don’t want to be bashing high schoolers on the record,” but equally, perhaps, because they are wary of becoming targets online.The Kennedy-Markey race left a bitter aftertaste for much of the state’s political class, who say the young activists overlooked much of Mr. Markey’s 44-year congressional record and unnecessarily vilified Mr. Kennedy.“Either Kennedy or Markey would have been good for the things they care most about,” said Matt Bennett, the co-founder of Third Way, a moderate Democratic think tank based in Washington, D.C. “The idea that Joe Kennedy wouldn’t have been good on climate change is ridiculous. The notion that he wasn’t pure enough is a thing we have to be careful about.”And he warned against overestimating the power of the Markeyverse, noting that since that primary, many challenges to moderate Democrats have fallen short. Even in Massachusetts, he noted, Joe Biden won the presidential primary, beating out Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren.“Everyone pays far too much attention to Twitter,” he said. “It’s a fun-house mirror. It’s not real. It’s why so many journalists fell into the Bernie-is-inevitable trap. This is not where Democratic voters are.”One test of the young activists’ clout will come in the upcoming Boston mayoral race, in which many former Markey volunteers have thrown their support behind Michelle Wu, a Warren ally who has proposed major changes to policy on climate, transportation and housing. City elections in Boston have, traditionally, been decided by middle-aged and elderly voters. But the surge of youth activism has thrown all those assumptions into the air.Michelle Wu, a mayoral candidate, gathered with teenage canvassers in Copley Square in Boston earlier this month.Philip Keith for The New York Times“It’s energy from the bottom up, it’s not some Watertown committee chair telling people how to vote,” said the political strategist Doug Rubin, who is advising the campaign of Boston’s acting mayor, Kim Janey. “Previously, all the insiders used to find out who was going to win, and then they would want to be with the winners.”He said he welcomed the change. If it makes consultants nervous, Mr. Rubin added, it’s meant to.“People who say, ‘I can’t control it, I don’t understand it,’ well, that’s the whole point — you can’t control it,” Mr. Rubin said. “If you’re good on the issues they care about, they’re going to be with you. If you’re not, they’re not.”Markeyverse vs. MarkeyThat became clear last week when the Markeyverse went on the offensive.Their target, this time, was Mr. Markey himself, who on Tuesday had put out a carefully worded Twitter thread on the mounting violence in Israel, apportioning some blame on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides.This was a disappointment for many of the young progressives, who had been hoping for a sharp rebuke of Israel, like the ones that came from Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren, or from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.Though Mr. Markey’s voting record on foreign policy was no secret — he voted to authorize the occupation of Iraq in 2002, for example — it had faded into the background in their embrace of his candidacy, which focused heavily on his record on climate. Now, the group chats and Slack channels that comprise the Markeyverse were flooded with emotion, disappointment and betrayal.“It’s horrible to watch, and it’s disappointing,” said Emerson Toomey, 21, one of the authors of Ed’s Reply Guys, a Twitter account that helped establish Mr. Markey as a progressive star.Ms. Toomey, a senior at Northeastern University, was computing, with some bitterness, the “hundreds of thousands of hours” of unpaid labor she and her friends had provided to the senator. It made her question the compact she had assumed existed, that, in exchange for their support, he would accommodate their views on the issues that mattered.“Maybe he just said those things to us to get elected,” she said.Ms. Walsh, for her part, had shifted into full organizational mode, circulating a letter of protest that, she hoped, could induce Senator Markey to revisit his positions on the conflict.“He owes us much of his victory,” she said, “so we do have leverage over him.”Over the days that followed, Mr. Markey’s office was buffeted with calls from young volunteers. Twitter was brutal. John Walsh, who had been Mr. Markey’s campaign manager and is now his chief of staff, said he understood that they were disappointed and sounded regretful. (He is no relation to Calla.)Some of what the young progressives have done can best be described as opposition research, targeting Democrats whom they consider too far right.Philip Keith for The New York Times“I can tell you, Senator Markey loves these people,” he said of the young organizers. “He fought very hard for everything he told them he would fight for.”The Markeyverse, he said, now faced a key moment in their movement, determining whether they were willing to bend to preserve a relationship with an ally.“If compromising is not in your toolbox, that’s a hard thing,” he said. “Finding that balance is something, I think, anybody who stays at this for a long period of time figures out.”Late on Friday evening, Mr. Markey’s office offered a second statement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This time, it called on Israel to seek an immediate cease-fire, and invoked “defenseless Palestinian families who are already living in fear for their lives and the lives of their children.” Mr. Walsh said the statement was a response to Israel’s plans to deploy ground troops.It could have been recorded as a win for the Markeyverse, a sign that the senator had to pay attention to their views. But Ms. Walsh wanted to push further, pointing to a list of four policy demands that volunteers had sent to the senator’s office. The moment had become about proving something different: that the young progressives care more about issues than alliances. She concluded that they had been somewhat naïve last year. “We were politically infatuated with Ed during the campaign, which caused us to have those blind spots,” she said. “Looking back, I think we should not have developed those blind spots.”She said that, in the future, she would probably never support another candidate whose views on the Middle East did not line up with hers. Then she ticked off a laundry list of legislation she would be happy to work on with Senator Markey, like climate change and universal health care.She sounded, for better or for worse, like an experienced political hand.“It was never about him as an individual,” she said. “We will always have this community, whether or not he is the figurehead. We have moved beyond this being about one candidate.” More

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      G.O.P. Pursues Harsher Penalties for Poll Workers in Voting Crackdown

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      Heavy fines, felony charges and jail sentences: Republicans seeking to restrict voting are proposing strict punishments for election officials and workers who make errors or violate the rules.AUSTIN, Texas — Anita Phillips has been an election judge in Texas for 17 years, responsible for managing a precinct in Waco, a city of roughly 135,000 people. But over the last four years, the civic duty she prized has become arduous. Harassment by partisan poll watchers has grown increasingly caustic, she has found, and helping voters is ever more treacherous amid a thicket of new rules.Those regulations are likely to grow stricter: Republican lawmakers in Texas, following in the footsteps of their counterparts across the country, are pressing forward with a voting bill that could impose harsh penalties on election officials or poll workers who are thought to have committed errors or violations. And the nationwide effort may be pushing people like Ms. Phillips to reconsider serving their communities.“It’s just so taxing,” Ms. Phillips said. “And if me — I’m in my 40s, and I’m having this much stress — imagine every election worker and election judge that is 65 and over with severe health issues. This is supposed to be a way for them to give back. And it’s supposed to be something that makes them feel good about what they’re doing, but now they’re starting to feel like, ‘Are we going to be safe?’”Ms. Phillips is one of millions of citizens who act as foot soldiers of the American democratic system, working long hours for low pay to administer the country’s elections. Yet this often thankless task has quickly become a key target of Republicans who are propagating former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. In their hunt for nonexistent fraud, they have turned on those who work the polls as somehow suspect.That attitude has seeped into new voting laws and bills put forward by Republican-controlled legislatures across the country. More than two dozen bills in nine states, either still making their way through legislatures or signed into law, have sought to establish a rash of harsh new penalties, elevated criminal classifications and five-figure fines for state and local election officials who are found to have made mistakes, errors, oversteps and other violations of election code, according to a review of voting legislation by The New York Times.The infractions that could draw more severe punishment run the gamut from seemingly minor lapses in attention or innocent mistakes to more clearly willful actions in defiance of regulations. In Texas, taking any action that “would make observation not reasonably effective” for a poll watcher would carry new penalties. In Florida, failing to have an election worker continuously supervise a drop box would result in major fines. Willfully flouting new laws, like ones in states including Iowa and Texas that ban sending absentee ballots to voters who have not requested them, would also lead to tougher penalties.“The default assumption that county election officials are bad actors is problematic,” said Chris Davis, the county election administrator in Williamson County, Texas, north of Austin. “There’s so many moving parts and things happening at a given polling place, and innocent mistakes, though infrequent, can happen. And to assign criminal liability or civil liability to some of these things is problematic. It’s a big-time issue that we have.”“These poll workers don’t ever, in our experience, intend to count invalid votes, or let somebody who’s not eligible vote, or prevent somebody who’s eligible from voting,” said Mr. Davis, whose role is nonpartisan. “Yet we’re seeing that as a baseline, kind of a fundamental principle in some of the bills that are being drafted. And I don’t know where it’s coming from, because it’s not based on reality.”With the threat of felonies, jail time and fines as large as $25,000 hanging over their heads, election officials, as well as voting rights groups, are growing increasingly worried that the new penalties will not only limit the work of election administrators but also have a chilling effect on their willingness to do the job.Part of why last year’s voting unfolded so smoothly, without any major hiccups or reports of significant fraud, was a huge effort to recruit more poll workers, who were needed to buttress an aging election work force that was more vulnerable to the coronavirus. Secretaries of state in major battlegrounds like Michigan pleaded for thousands of additional workers as the election drew near. Philadelphia offered a raise in daily pay. And celebrities like LeBron James carried out major poll worker recruitment campaigns.But with heavy fines or even time behind bars increasingly a possibility, election officials fear some of that work could be undone.“The nit-picking by poll watchers and the penalizing of even the smallest of innocent mistakes is going to, over time, drive our most experienced election workers away,” said Isabel Longoria, the nonpartisan election administrator for Harris County, which is home to Houston and the largest county in Texas. “And I think a better solution is to provide more resources for training and education to our election workers, rather than put more bullies in the polls.”Isabel Longoria, the nonpartisan election administrator for Harris County, at a warehouse for election equipment storage.Michael Starghill Jr. for The New York TimesRepublicans in the Texas Legislature say the new penalties are necessary to force prosecutors to punish those who break the law and to ensure that election law is known and followed.“There’s an indication that sometimes lower-level offenses do not get the attention that high-level offenses do,” said State Senator Bryan Hughes, who sponsored one of the Texas voting bills. “And so if there’s a crime, it’s a problem and it’s not being prosecuted, one approach is to raise the level of offense so that the prosecutors know this is a big deal and you should take this seriously.”Mr. Hughes added that he was trying to take into account election officials’ worries of overly harsh penalties. “It’s always going to be balanced,” he said. “But people have to follow the law, and if I’m going to work for the government and I’m going to promise to follow the law and to serve the people of Texas, I’ve got to follow the law.”Some of the penalties that could affect election workers have been wrapped up in other Republican priorities as they overhaul state election codes. In bills across the country, G.O.P.-controlled legislatures have sought to limit the use of drop boxes, which are secure locations where voters can drop off their absentee ballots, rather than relying on the Postal Service.In Florida, the Legislature has mandated that each drop box be continuously staffed and monitored by an election worker. Failure to monitor a box in person carries a $25,000 fine for the election supervisor. The bill met strong opposition from election administrators in Florida, who testified against it and issued a statement criticizing the effort when it became law.“I happen to be a Democrat, but an overwhelming majority of the supervisors of elections in Florida are Republicans, and everybody opposes this law,” said Joe Scott, the supervisor in Broward County. “Because, as an elections administrator, you see that there’s just provisions in this law that are not needed.” Mr. Scott noted that video surveillance of drop boxes in 2020 had been sufficient, with no problems arising, so “having to expand additional resources in order to staff those boxes just feels very unnecessary to us.”.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 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(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-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 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:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Pat Gill, the county auditor in charge of elections in Woodbury County, Iowa, felt a similar pang. “Now you have 99 auditors that are being treated like potential criminals,” he said, referring to the number of counties in the state. “And that’s starting to feel very personal.”This year, Mr. Gill testified against Republicans’ voting bill in the state, which has since been signed into law. The legislation significantly limits the autonomy of auditors to run elections in their counties, particularly their ability to establish satellite in-person early voting centers and mail absentee ballot application forms to voters who haven’t requested them. It also adds new felony punishments for infringements of state law and creates fines of up to $10,000 for “technical infractions.”Part of the success of last year’s election was a huge effort to recruit more poll workers, who were needed to buttress an aging election work force that was more vulnerable to the coronavirus.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThe new law, Mr. Gill said, has created tension between Paul Pate, the Republican secretary of state, and county auditors, a relationship that was once more harmonious and is important for election administration to function smoothly.And, Mr. Gill said, the law could make it harder to staff polling sites around the state.One of Mr. Gill’s poll workers is Richard Pope, who has been up early to work on Election Days in Iowa for “30 to 40 years,” most recently in Sloan, a rural town of about 1,200 people on the western border of Iowa.“I’ve never run into an experience where we haven’t had people all of the same mind, and that’s to apply the law equally and fairly,” Mr. Pope said. “I do not believe that there is major wide-scale fraud. If people make mistakes at the polls, they’re honest mistakes. If somebody comes in the wrong polling place, we direct them somewhere else.”Despite the new potential punishments he could face, Mr. Pope said he didn’t currently expect fellow poll workers to quit because of the law. But he added that all it would take was one publicized incident.“If we get in the news — somebody, somewhere gets punished for being a poll worker — then it’s off to the races,” he said.In Arizona, two bills that are stalled in the State Legislature would make it a felony for election officials to violate either of two existing laws. The first bill would bring felony charges against any official who sends early ballots to voters who had not requested them. (The Maricopa County recorder did so last year after the courts allowed an exception to be made because of the coronavirus pandemic.) The second bill would make it a felony to modify any deadline set by the state or federal government in the election calendar.As election officials and workers confront a future fraught with new legal exposure and doubts about their ability to oversee safe and secure voting, many continue to suspect the Republican motivation behind the bills, and the necessity for the measures.“My question as an election worker is, you know: Why?” Ms. Longoria said. “What is the problem that happened in Texas that would have led to that kind of response? And I can’t get an answer to that.”Jennifer Medina More

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      Why Sexual Misconduct Is Unforgivable but Corruption Is Overlooked

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      Two candidates in the New York race for mayor have been accused of wrongdoing. One has been urged to drop out of the race; the other is gaining strength.A year ago, if you had asked anyone who has spent time around New York City politics who would next become mayor, you were likely to hear that the election of Scott Stringer was more or less assured. Ranked-choice voting would probably favor him. A lifelong public servant, a son of Washington Heights, a wonk, an advocate — fighting for housing justice and climate justice and all the justices — he seemed like a pot roast on a damp night in midwinter: satisfying, if not abundant in memorable flavor.It was hard to foresee that the kind of candidate who could brag about having “fixed the back office” of the city’s pension fund would find himself engulfed in scandal, and yet here we are. As the city’s comptroller, Mr. Stringer had spent the past seven years rooting around in the mess of bureaucracy, issuing audit after audit, finding waste here and inefficiency there. In 2016, for example, his office uncovered that the city was spending $400,000 a day on hotel rooms for the homeless; two years later, that “a shocking 27 percent of commercial waste vehicles have been issued at least one red light camera violation.” A Stringer mayoralty, as one friend recently remarked, would provide a daily streaming of “competence porn.”Charisma, as the Trump era reiterated, allows people to overlook a litany of political sins. Among contenders in the Democratic mayoral field, Mr. Stringer had already been losing ground to Andrew Yang, he of bodega illiteracy, when a woman came forward late last month with accusations of sexual impropriety.Jean Kim, who volunteered on Mr. Stringer’s unsuccessful campaign for public advocate 20 years ago when she was 30, said that during that time, when both were unmarried, Mr. Stringer kissed her and groped her and tried to pressure her into sleeping with him, exploiting his stature in politics, when she wasn’t interested. Mr. Stringer, in turn, has denied the allegations, arguing that their involvement had been “light” and consensual. Ms. Kim and her many vocal allies view the interactions as assault.Jean Kim, a former intern to Scott Stringer, accused the mayoral candidate of sexual abuse and harrasment at a press conference in April.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesWhatever the truth, the judgment was swift. Mr. Stringer’s eventual defeat began to seem much more of a foregone conclusion, the result of a mind-set among many Democrats, particularly young ones, who regard sexual misdeeds as unparalleled in terms of their severity and demand for obliterating consequence.The most recent mayoral poll, of more than 1,000 Democratic voters, the first to be conducted after Ms. Kim’s allegations, had Mr. Stringer’s support dropping by 5 points, with Mr. Yang in the lead and Brooklyn Borough president Eric Adams essentially in second place.A decade ago, when Mr. Adams served in the state legislature, as chairman of the Senate Racing and Wagering Committee, he appeared on the radar of the state inspector general’s office for his involvement in the selection of a slot-machine operator at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. The company initially chosen — and then ultimately rejected after public outcry — had offered a bid $100 million below its competitors’ for the licensing fee.The 308-page report produced by the inspector’s office concluded that Mr. Adams had given investigators dubious testimony about the process, accepted campaign money from the operator first selected and then showed up at a celebratory dinner in which the company toasted its winning bid. Like Mr. Stringer, he has never been charged with anything; each has denied any lapses in ethical conduct. But the paths of the two candidates diverge in the way that these old allegations around Mr. Adams, more deeply substantiated, have appeared to have no effect on his current standing in the race.As it happens, corruption — real or insinuated — is often hard for ordinary people to understand, while for so many women, the abuses of men are all too easily pulled from the archives of personal recollection. Amid companion crises in the Cuomo administration, for example, the sexual misconduct allegations against the governor upstaged the efforts on the part of his office to obscure the death toll in state nursing homes.Four years ago, an article in the Annual Review of Political Science looked at voter response to corruption charges in democratic elections around the world and found that “voters keep re-electing politicians who steal from them.” Even when corruption is obvious, people are often willing to overlook it when weighed against other variables. Two years ago, Jasiel Correia, then a young mayor of Fall River, Mass., who was facing federal bribery, fraud and extortion charges, managed to be recalled and re-elected on the same day.Scott Stringer at a “Women for Stringer” comptroller campaign rally at the Harriet Tubman Memorial Statute in Harlem in August 2013.Michael Nagle for The New York TimesMr. Stringer’s situation is particularly striking, given that he won the race for comptroller eight years ago as the candidate of choice among young feminists who were not about to raise their champagne flutes for Eliot Spitzer, forced to leave office in 2008 because of his dalliances with prostitutes. At a fund-raiser for Mr. Stringer in Chelsea, late in the summer of 2013, there were Vogue editors and Lena Dunham out to show their support, improbably enough, for a candidate described by Women’s Wear Daily as an “avuncular man who has the countenance of an Upper West Side accountant.” They had been corralled by Audrey Gelman, his press secretary, who would go on to rise and fall as the founder of the women’s co-working space, the Wing..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-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;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-w739ur{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-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.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-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 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:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Now, though, young women — especially those occupying prominent political positions on the left — are abandoning Mr. Stringer. Among the first to rescind an endorsement was a close friend and ally, State Senator Jessica Ramos, 35 years old and elected in 2018, who maintained in a statement that after Ms. Kim “came forward to share her truth,” it was “our duty to listen.” Soon the Working Families Party vacated Mr. Stringer’s camp as well.But despite the aura of finality around his campaign, there is another truth. Young voters are notoriously loath to turn out in local elections. Data from a few recent races in New York indicates that Democratic women between the ages of 18 to 34 are less likely to show up at the polls than voters over 40 — even when a dynamic, young female candidate presents herself.Three years ago, in the primary that sent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress, women in that cohort turned out at a rate of only 7 percent, nearly half the proportion of those over 40 who voted.More concerning than anything else in this election cycle is the extent to which so many New Yorkers remain oblivious to the particulars of the mayoral race at a moment profoundly critical to the city’s future. People who several months ago might have been able to predict the outcome of the Georgia Senate runoffs in Lamar County to one-tenth of a percent have little ability to differentiate among the candidates beyond viral details like Mr. Stringer’s harassment allegations, Mr. Yang’s goofy levity and Shaun Donovan’s limited understanding of the Brooklyn housing market.Regardless of the whether the accusations against Mr. Stringer and Mr. Adams prove spurious or damning, one thing is true, at least for now. Two men accused of wrongdoing are ahead of women who are accused of nothing. More

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      In Virginia, a Fight Over the Suburbs in the Governor’s Race

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      Glenn Youngkin, a first-time candidate with vast wealth, will deliver a pro-business message intended to win over suburban voters. Democrats plan to portray him as a Trump devotee.Republican voters’ choice for Virginia governor, a deep-pocketed first-time candidate who plans to run as a business-friendly political outsider, will offer a major test in the post-Trump era of the party’s ability to win back suburban voters who have fled over the past four years.Glenn Youngkin, who won the Republican nomination on Monday night, had walked a line between his party’s Trump-centric base and appeals to business interests in a crowded field, defeating two rivals who more aggressively courted supporters of former President Donald J. Trump.After years of Democratic advances in the state thanks to suburban voters who adamantly rejected anyone linked to the Trump G.O.P., Mr. Youngkin, 54, a former private equity executive, has warned that “we can kiss our business environment away” if Democrats retain power in Richmond.During the nominating fight, he criticized the current governor, Ralph Northam, and his predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, for creating business conditions that cause college-educated residents (read: suburbanites) to move away.But even as Mr. Youngkin tries to focus on kitchen-table issues, Democrats signaled on Tuesday they would aggressively seek to fuse the nominee to Mr. Trump, by reminding voters of hard-line positions he took in fending off six Republican rivals — including on voting rights, Medicaid expansion and culture-war topics like critical race theory.Mr. McAuliffe, the polling leader for the Democratic nomination, said in a statement on Tuesday that Mr. Youngkin “spent his campaign fawning all over Donald Trump,” adding that he would “make it harder to vote” and be “a rubber stamp for the N.R.A.’s dangerous agenda.”Mr. Trump stayed out of the G.O.P. race while the field jockeyed for position, with Mr. Youngkin ultimately emerging as the winner after roughly 30,000 voters cast ranked-choice ballots at 39 locations around the state on Saturday. But the former president jumped in on Tuesday with an endorsement of Mr. Youngkin, although it was primarily an attack on Mr. McAuliffe, a former fund-raiser for Bill and Hillary Clinton, who as a private citizen was in business with Chinese investors.“Virginia doesn’t need the Clintons or the Communist Chinese running the state,” Mr. Trump said, “so say no to Terry McAuliffe, and yes to Patriot Glenn Youngkin!”But Mr. Youngkin might consider such effusions unwelcome in a state Mr. Trump lost by 10 percentage points in November. Mr. Youngkin, 54, was raised in Virginia Beach and has lived in Northern Virginia for 25 years. He defeated two rivals who appealed more directly to the Trump-centric base: Pete Snyder, a technology entrepreneur, and State Senator Amanda Chase, a hard-right supporter of the former president who was censured in a bipartisan vote of the state’s General Assembly for referring to the rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 as “patriots.”Mr. Youngkin’s appeal to Republicans was at least twofold: He is a political blank slate, with no record in elected office for Democrats to attack. And his private wealth — reportedly more than $200 million after he retired as co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group — will allow him to compete financially against Mr. McAuliffe, a prolific fund-raiser.Mr. McAuliffe raised $36 million for his 2013 election campaign and more than $9.9 million during the past two years, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Mr. Youngkin has already spent $5.5 million of his own money since entering the race in late January.Republicans have not won a statewide election since 2009, and Democratic dominance of the once-purple state accelerated under Mr. Trump, with Democrats taking control of both houses of the General Assembly in 2020 for the first time in a generation.They used their dominance of state government to pass sweeping progressive priorities like more restrictive gun laws and a ban on capital punishment.But the trend is not irreversible, as some election analysts see it. In the pre-Trump era, Mr. McAuliffe won his first governor’s race in 2013 by just 2.5 percentage points against a hard-right conservative, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II. Rural regions of southern and southwest Virginia have grown redder even as the populous northern and central suburbs are bluer. There is a theoretical path to statewide Republican victory for a candidate who rouses rural Trump voters, appeals to suburban independents and benefits from lower overall Democratic turnout without Mr. Trump as a motivator.And Mr. Youngkin has signaled that he would run against the very legislation Democrats have passed, accusing his opponents of pushing Virginia far to the left of most voters’ preferences.Mr. McAuliffe may be the clear polling leader for the Democrats, but he is conspicuous as the lone white candidate in a field with three Black contenders, in a party whose base is heavily African-American.In four years in office, Mr. McAuliffe governed as a pro-business Democrat, and he began his campaign for a second term in December on a pro-education note, pledging to raise teacher pay and offer universal pre-K. (Virginia governors cannot serve two consecutive terms.)Though Mr. Youngkin is not as unrelenting a supporter of Mr. Trump as some of his Republican opponents, he declined the chance at a recent candidates’ forum to distance himself from Mr. Trump’s lies about a rigged 2020 election. Asked about “voter integrity,” he launched into a five-point plan to “restore our trust in our election process.”During the nominating race, he also pledged to restore a state voter identification law and to replace the entire state board of education. He also said he would create the “1776 Project,” an apparent reference to a curriculum of patriotic education proposed by a commission established under Mr. Trump that has been derided by mainstream historians.Last month, Mr. Youngkin said it was “a sad thing” that Virginia had expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, though he acknowledged the clock couldn’t be turned back.As Mr. Youngkin likely spends generously on TV ads to forge a more soft-focus identity as a pro-business outsider, Democrats are sure to try to keep his earlier positions in front of voters.“Make no state mistake about it, we are going to point out every step of the way the right-wing extremism of Glenn Youngkin,” Susan Swecker, chair of the Virginia Democrats, said on Tuesday. More

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      Andrew Yang's Endorsement from Rep. Grace Meng Shows Momentum With Key Voting Bloc

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      The former presidential candidate won a major endorsement in the New York City mayor’s race from Rep. Grace Meng, a top Asian-American leader in Queens.When Andrew Yang ran for president last year, the surprising staying power of his candidacy was powered by a fiercely loyal, politically diverse group of supporters often referred to as the “Yang Gang.”He also enthusiastically embraced his Taiwanese-American background, drawing support from Asian-American voters, even as he occasionally fed stereotypical tropes like describing himself as “an Asian man who likes math.”Now, Mr. Yang is running for mayor of New York City, and his appeal to that constituency may be critical in the June 22 Democratic primary. Asian-Americans have generally accounted for 6 to 10 percent of voters in previous elections, and a large turnout could have an outsize impact on a race where voter interest has been lagging.On Monday, Mr. Yang received a major boost with an endorsement from Representative Grace Meng, the highest-ranking Asian-American elected official in New York, as he seeks to solidify support among Asian-American leaders.Ms. Meng, the city’s first Asian-American member of Congress, said she decided to back Mr. Yang after she kept hearing from her constituents in Queens who were genuinely excited by him.“They really feel like he’s someone who gives them hope,” she said in an interview.Standing outside a school in Flushing, Queens, with Ms. Meng, who is also Taiwanese-American, Mr. Yang said that Asian-Americans were often considered an afterthought in the life of the city. He said that he was glad that people were inspired by his campaign, but he also wants to focus on the nuts and bolts of improving their lives.Representative Grace Meng, center, said she endorsed Andrew Yang in part because her constituents in Queens said that he was “someone who gives them hope.”Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesMr. Yang, a former nonprofit executive, already has endorsements from key leaders in the community, including Ron Kim, a prominent Korean-American assemblyman in Queens, and Margaret Chin, a city councilwoman from Hong Kong who represents Lower Manhattan.Asian-American voters represent an important constituency, with strongholds in Flushing and in Chinatowns in Manhattan and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. But they are hardly a monolithic group: There is great diversity among Chinese and Indian voters and along generational lines, with older voters skewing more conservative.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, was endorsed by a group of Asian-American leaders last week in Sunset Park and also has support from Peter Koo, a city councilman from Queens who grew up in Hong Kong.More than 700 people from the Asian-American community signed a letter opposing Mr. Yang, saying that he was too pro-police and perpetuated racist stereotypes, and that “representation alone is simply not enough.”Many of those who signed are involved in progressive politics, including a candidate for City Council who wants to cut the police budget in half and another who is a Democratic-Socialist.John Liu, a state senator who was a leading candidate for mayor in 2013, is considering endorsing Mr. Yang, but had not ruled out backing Mr. Adams or Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio. Mr. Liu said that he likes many of Mr. Yang’s plans for the city and that Ms. Meng’s endorsement was significant.“Grace is a visible and influential leader, especially in this particular moment that we’re in with the Asian-American community feeling under siege and unprotected and underrepresented,” Mr. Liu said.Mr. Adams had been banking on support from the Asian-American community and continues to make the argument that voters can rely on him because he has been their friend for many years.“Before Yang, I was the Chinese candidate,” Mr. Adams recently told The New York Times.Mr. Yang has focused attention on violent attacks on Asian-Americans in New York and across the nation and has spoken about the discrimination he faced growing up. Bruce Gyory, a Democratic strategist who is not working for anyone in the race, said Mr. Yang could try to boost Asian-American turnout in the primary to more than 10 percent. He compared his situation to Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, who was Italian-American and Jewish and who won in 1933 with those voters’ support at a time when Italians and Jews together represented a third of New York’s population.“His prospects depend upon that being the fact, just as it did for La Guardia among Italian voters in 1933,” he said.The League of Asian Americans of New York, an organization that has hosted forums in recent months with some mayoral candidates, has not yet made an endorsement. Many of the group’s members are Chinese-Americans who became politically engaged in recent years in order to oppose the elimination of admissions tests for New York’s specialized public high schools..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-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;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-w739ur{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-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.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-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 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:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}David Lee, a leading member of the organization, said that the two most important issues for the group were public safety and education.Mr. Lee, a retired financial analyst and registered Republican, said that he liked Mr. Yang’s personality and approachability, and believed it was important to have an Asian-American mayor. But Mr. Adams was much stronger in supporting specialized testing and law enforcement, Mr. Lee said, noting that Asian-American shop owners have raised concerns about enforcement for shoplifting and violent crimes.“He’s a former police officer. That really says it all,” Mr. Lee said.Mr. Adams has hammered Mr. Yang for his decision to leave New York City during the pandemic and for not being a native New Yorker — Mr. Yang grew up in Schenectady, N.Y., and Westchester County, and has lived in the city for more than two decades since attending Columbia Law School.His wife, Evelyn, grew up in Flushing and attended public school there. Her father owned a small business, and her mother worked as an insurance and real estate broker before becoming a stay-at-home mother. Her first job, the campaign noted, was at a bagel shop in Bayside, Queens.Andrew Yang did not grow up in New York City, but his wife, Evelyn, left, did.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesMr. Yang said on Monday that he had a “special connection” to voters in Queens because of his wife’s roots, and it was like a “second home” to him.In downtown Flushing on Monday, reaction to Mr. Yang and the mayor’s race ranged from optimism to indifference, even as large posters of the candidate were visible, including outside the busy New World Mall food court.Takla Tashi Lama, 42, who works in the jewelry business and was waiting in line at the Queens Public Library to be vaccinated, said he planned to vote for Mr. Yang.“He’s very hard working and sincere,” he said, adding that he hoped Mr. Yang brought transparency to City Hall.Benjamin Chin, 30, who was working at a vaccine site at the Queens Public Library, identified himself as a proud member of the “Yang Gang.” He said that one important issue for him was keeping the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test to make sure that Asian-American students have a path to a good education. (Mr. Yang said he wants to keep the test, but to also consider other criteria as part of the admissions process to the elite high schools.)But most of all, Mr. Chin liked that Mr. Yang was an outsider.“I’m very much in favor of not having a politician in office,” he said. “I don’t trust politicians.”Nicole Hong contributed reporting. More

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      Florida's New Voting Rights Law Explained

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      Voting rights groups filed lawsuits shortly after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation reducing voting access in the battleground state. Critics said the law will disproportionately affect people of color.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, signed new voting restrictions into law on Thursday, reducing voting access in one of the nation’s critical battleground states.Florida, which former President Donald J. Trump won by about three percentage points in 2020, is the latest Republican-controlled state, following Georgia, Montana and Iowa, to impose new hurdles to casting a ballot after November’s elections.Voting rights experts and Democrats say that some provisions of the new law will disproportionately affect voters of color.Here’s a guide to how the law changes voting in Florida.What are the changes in the new law?The law, Senate Bill 90, limits the use of drop boxes where voters can deposit absentee ballots, and adds more identification requirements for anyone requesting an absentee ballot. It also requires voters to request an absentee ballot for each two-year election cycle, rather than every four years, under the previous law. Additionally, it limits who can collect and drop off ballots.The law also expands a current rule that prohibits outside groups from holding signs or wearing political paraphernalia within 150 feet of a polling place or drop box, “with the intent to influence voters,” an increase from the previous 100 feet.Why are people upset?The new law weakens key parts of an extensive voting infrastructure that was built up slowly after the state’s chaotic 2000 election. In 2020, that infrastructure allowed Florida to ramp up quickly to accommodate absentee balloting and increased drop boxes during the coronavirus pandemic.Voters of color are most reliant on after-hours drop boxes, critics of the law say, as it’s often more difficult for them to both take hours off during the day and to organize transportation to polling places.Republican legislators promoting the bill offered little evidence of election fraud, and argued for limiting access despite their continued claims that the state’s 2020 election was the “gold standard” for the country.Florida has a popular tradition of voting by mail: In the 2016 and 2018 elections, nearly a third of the state’s voters cast ballots through the mail.In both years, more Republicans than Democrats voted by mail. But in 2020, more than 2.1 million Democrats cast mail ballots, compared with 1.4 million Republicans, after Mr. Trump claimed repeatedly that expanding mail-in voting would lead to fraud.Has voter fraud been a problem in Florida?Voting ran smoothly in 2020, by all accounts.“There was no problem in Florida,” said Kara Gross, the legislative director and senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. “Everything worked as it should. The only reason they’re doing this is to make it harder to vote.”And Mr. DeSantis has praised Florida’s handling of November’s elections, saying that his state has “the strongest election integrity measures in the country.”But on the need for the new law, he said: “Florida took action this legislative session to increase transparency and strengthen the security of our elections.”.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-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;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-w739ur{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-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.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-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 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:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Are other states pursuing similar restrictions?Yes. The Texas House of Representatives passed a similar measure this week after a lengthy debate. The bill will soon be taken up by the state’s Republican-controlled Senate. Other states including Arizona, Michigan and Ohio are considering their own bills.What can we expect to happen next?Voting rights groups filed lawsuits shortly after Mr. DeSantis signed the bill into law during a live broadcast on a Fox News morning program.The League of Women Voters of Florida, the Black Voters Matter Fund and the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans joined in one suit, arguing that “Senate Bill 90 does not impede all of Florida’s voters equally.”“It is crafted to and will operate to make it more difficult for certain types of voters to participate in the state’s elections, including those voters who generally wish to vote with a vote-by-mail ballot and voters who have historically had to overcome substantial hurdles to reach the ballot box, such as Florida’s senior voters, youngest voters, and minority voters.”Another suit was brought by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Disability Rights Florida and Common Cause, who argued that the law violates constitutional protections and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.The law took effect immediately, and will be in force for the 2022 election, when Mr. DeSantis is up for re-election. 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      And Then There Was One: G.O.P. Defends Its Last Seat in Queens

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      The party struggles to hold on in an increasingly diverse borough, even as it fights its own internal battles.In heavily Democratic Queens, Councilman Eric Ulrich is a political oddity: He’s the only Republican elected to public office in the borough, and one of the only ones remaining in New York City outside of Staten Island.“One is the loneliest number,” Mr. Ulrich said.A white moderate, Mr. Ulrich has won four elections over his 12-year term representing District 32 in southern Queens. But because of term limits, he cannot run for re-election, making the race to replace him something of a last stand for Republicans in the borough.While Queens has long leaned Democratic, its Republican Party has for decades maintained a presence in citywide party politics, and up until less than a decade ago kept a grip on a handful of public offices.But waves of immigrants have transformed Queens into one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the nation, while a steady progressive shift in the borough’s politics has all but banished Republicans from elected office.The county party still has a base, in absolute terms: There are roughly 140,000 registered Republicans in Queens, the most of any borough in the city and more than in many large American cities. Those voters have helped two Republican mayors win five elections over the last 30 years in a city that is overwhelmingly Democratic.But the Queens Republican Party has been hampered by long-running feuds that have driven members out and hindered its ability to embrace those waves of immigrant voters, even though many of them espouse conservative values, said Tom Long, chairman of the Queens County Conservative Party, which endorses many Republicans in Queen races. And the party has suffered a series of public embarrassments, most recently in February when Philip Grillo, a district leader, was arrested for participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots in Washington, D.C. Mr. Grillo retains his position while his case is adjudicated.“The division is killing the Republican Party,” Mr. Long said. “The average person gets disgusted and walks away.”Such discord has provided an opening for Democrats to eliminate Queens Republicans entirely from public office this year. There are several Democratic candidates vying in the June 22 primary for the chance to claim Mr. Ulrich’s seat in the November general election.District 32 is demographically and ideologically split: The northern portion voted heavily for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020 and has seen the kind of influx of immigrants — including Latino, Indo-Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Punjabi — that has made Queens a model of diversity. To the south, Blue Lives Matter flags and bumper stickers are ubiquitous in neighborhoods like the Rockaways and Breezy Point, a gated community at the southwestern tip of the district that is an enclave of white conservatism. It is one of the few areas in the city that voted overwhelmingly for Donald J. Trump in 2020. Despite the large number of Republicans in Queens, registered Democrats still outnumber them roughly by three to one in District 32, though that difference is much narrower than the seven-to-one edge that Democrats enjoy boroughwide. Democrats say it is time to replace Mr. Ulrich with a leader who better reflects the immigrants and voters of color who have largely replaced white voters in the district’s northern stretches.Felicia Singh and her opponents in the Democratic primary for a city council seat say it is time for a council member who better represents their district in southern Queens.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesTo win, they have to defeat Joann Ariola, 62, who is both the chairwoman of the Queens Republican Party and its candidate to save the District 32 seat. “Being the Republican, there’s pressure on me,” she said, “But I have lot of support in the district.”Ms. Ariola, a longtime civic leader in Howard Beach, a mostly white, Republican-leaning neighborhood, is running partly on a tough-on-crime platform that she hopes resonates with voters frustrated with liberal city leaders like Mayor Bill de Blasio, who she says has mismanaged the city and implemented policies that have helped lead to a rise in violent crime.“Right now, the city is off the track,” she said. “It is absolutely a derailed train and needs to be brought back to the center.”She said cuts in police funding and bail-reform measures have helped turn the city into “a blood-soaked shooting gallery” that is driving New Yorkers away. She also opposes the mayor’s plan to close Rikers Island and build smaller jails across the five boroughs.Mr. Ulrich said he was supporting Ms. Ariola, and that he believed she could win in November.“People in this district vote for the person, not the party,” he said. “They are willing to vote for a moderate Republican when the Democrat is too liberal.”But not all Queen Republicans agree. Ms. Ariola’s campaign has already been affected by the kind of vitriolic infighting that has divided borough Republicans for years.The Queens Republican Patriots, a splinter faction within the county party, backed a local businessman, Steve Sirgiovanni, to run against Ms. Ariola in the primary. Her team responded by getting him ousted from the ballot over his petition filings, a ruling his campaign is appealing.Joe Concannon, who founded the Queens Republican Patriots in 2018, said party leaders have become more fixated on battling fellow Republicans than on battling Democrats. The focus, he said, should be on building the party through fund-raising, enrollment and recruiting moderate Democrats frustrated with the leftward drift of their party.For decades, handfuls of Queens Republicans managed to win elections in the borough despite its demographic and political shifts. But in 2012, Councilman Peter Koo, a Republican, switched parties to the Democrats, citing excessive Republican infighting. In 2013, Republican Councilman Dan Halloran, whose belief in Paganism had already made him a controversial figure, left office after becoming embroiled in a bribery scheme to sell a spot on the Republican ballot.Mr. Concannon complained that the county organization has come under the stranglehold of Bart and John Haggerty, two brothers from Forest Hills who are its vice chairman and executive director. (John Haggerty was convicted in 2011 of stealing $1.1 million in funds from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign. Released in 2015, he has since resumed a leadership role.)Mr. Concannon said the brothers helped install Ms. Ariola in 2017 as a figurehead, while retaining the real power in the party.Bart Haggerty denied Mr. Concannon’s accusation. “Joann Ariola runs the Queens Republican Party,” he said, and referred further questions to Ms. Ariola. Ms. Ariola likewise pushed back, calling Mr. Concannon and his supporters “a group of incompetent people” without standing in the party. “They’re squawking loudly from the sidelines but that’s exactly where they are, on the sidelines,” she said. “They’re not in the game.”Despite the infighting, Queens Republicans remain largely united behind their ongoing support for Mr. Trump, and county Democratic leaders see the District 32 race as an opportunity for borough voters to effectively rebuke the county’s pro-Trump voters, said Representative Gregory Meeks, a Queens congressman who heads the borough’s Democratic Party.Of course, discord is common within political organizations. Queens Democratic Party leaders have been criticized by more progressive members as remaining too moderate. In a Democratic primary for a City Council seat in Flushing, several candidates recently formed a coalition against Sandra Ung, the candidate backed by county party leaders, as a show of force against the party.Michael Reich, the executive secretary of the Queens Democratic Party, said it would make a “full court press” for the primary victor, including campaign volunteers, help from local Democratic clubs and appearances by local elected Democratic officials.County Democratic leaders opted not to endorse a candidate in the primary because local district leaders could not agree on a favorite and because it was difficult to isolate a front-runner, given the vagaries of the city’s new ranked-choice voting rules, which will allow voters to select their top five candidates.There are several moderate Democrats in the primary, including Kaled Alamarie, 52, a city planner; Helal Sheikh, 41, a former city schoolteacher; Bella Matias, a founder of an education nonprofit; and Mike Scala, 38, a lawyer and activist from Howard Beach who won the Democratic primary for the council seat in 2017 before losing to Mr. Ulrich.Ms. Singh campaigned in a garment shop in Ozone Park.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesAnother candidate, Felicia Singh, 32, a former teacher, hopes to ride a progressive political wave that has swept much of Queens in recent years, most notably with the 2018 election of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes parts of Queens and the Bronx.Changing demographics are palpable in Ozone Park, a large part of the district’s northern section that in the 1990s was still an Italian stronghold where the mobster John Gotti once had his clubhouse and threw mammoth Fourth of July parties. Today, Bengali, Guyanese and Indian immigrants have moved in, Punjabi music blasts from passing cars and cricket games can be seen in schoolyards.Ms. Singh, campaigning outside the sari and pizza shops along 101st Street in Ozone Park, promised voters a “revolution of change.”Some Democrats believe that November could see not just a defeat for the Queens Republicans, but the election of the district’s first nonwhite council member.Thanks to ranked-choice voting, like-minded groups of voters now have a greater chance of electing a candidate who reflects their preferences — even if he or she is not their first choice — rather than splitting their vote among multiple candidates, said Evan Stavisky, a Democratic political strategist.In one scenario, voters of color could split their votes among multiple candidates of color — as most of the Democratic candidates are — and wind up essentially “agreeing” on a candidate who may not be their top choice. Ms. Singh said she would tackle issues that affect working-class immigrants, like her father, a 66-year-old Indian immigrant who became a victim of the taxi medallion crisis after declaring bankruptcy on his loan, leaving him in danger of losing the family’s Ozone Park house.“Now you have candidates of color who are ready to represent a community that has been neglected,” she said. More