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      Samoa Is Set to Have Its First Female Leader

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      A dead-heat election was followed by uncertainty and intrigue. But barring further surprises, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa will become prime minister on Monday.While its island neighbors in the Pacific weathered military coups and internal volatility, Samoa long followed a predictable political course, keeping the same leader in power for more than two decades.But as the country is set to usher in its first female prime minister, that status quo has been dramatically upended. The incoming leader, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, represents a sharp break from what she describes as a worrying slide away from the rule of law, and she has vowed to scrap a major infrastructure project backed by China, her country’s largest creditor.And her ascension itself, after a dizzying seven-week period of uncertainty and intrigue that followed the April 9 election, has sent a rare charge through Samoan politics.First, there was a dead heat at the polls. Ms. Mata’afa’s upstart party won as many seats in Parliament as the one led by the swaggering prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi. An independent candidate took the remaining seat, making him a kingmaker.That set off feverish courting of that candidate by both parties. But the election commission intervened — paradoxically, blocking the rise of Ms. Mata’afa with the use of a law meant to ensure that more women served in Parliament.Under that law, women must hold at least 10 percent of the seats. The April election produced a count of 9.8 percent, which the electoral commission deemed insufficient. So it appointed another female member of Parliament — one representing Mr. Tuilaepa’s party. That handed him a majority, and a path to remaining in office.It didn’t last long. The independent candidate soon threw his weight behind Ms. Mata’afa’s party, and Samoa’s judiciary later tossed the additional female member out of Parliament, putting Ms. Mata’afa’s party in the majority. Although Mr. Tuilaepa has yet to concede, Ms. Mata’afa is scheduled to be sworn in as prime minister on Monday.Perhaps Samoa can then catch its breath.Apia, the capital of Samoa. Under Samoan law, women must hold at least 10 percent of the seats in Parliament. Matthew Abbott for The New York TimesMs. Mata’afa’s climb to the top job in Samoa — a country that was called Western Samoa until 1997 to distinguish it from American Samoa — is more than four decades in the making. Ms. Mata’afa, 64, a high chief who holds the title fiame, was propelled into political leadership after her father, the country’s first prime minister, died when she was 18. Not long after, she became the matai, or head of her family — an unusually early rise.“As an 18-year-old, I was looking forward to going to university, getting a degree, getting a job, maybe getting married,” she said by telephone on Friday. Always interested in politics, she had expected to move into the field over time. “But things were sped up unexpectedly. Sometimes life doesn’t work out necessarily how you thought it might.”She had long been expected to become prime minister one day — but as Mr. Tuilaepa’s successor, not his opponent, said Iati Iati, a political scientist at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.Ms. Mata’afa spent three decades in Mr. Tuilaepa’s party, the Human Rights Protection Party, eventually becoming its deputy leader. But she left it in November over what she saw as a slide toward autocracy, including legislation that threatened to change the structure of the Samoan judiciary.“It wasn’t a difficult decision to make,” Ms. Mata’afa said. “What really led me to make the decision to step away was the dismantling of essentially the rule of law.”“Because of that huge majority that the H.R.P.P. had,” she added, “it became a lot more rampant, even the internal checks weren’t there — I was getting to feel a bit like the lone voice. If you can’t do it from the inside, you have to step outside.”She became the leader of a new opposition party, known as FAST, which drew a number of other H.R.P.P. defectors.Ballots from Samoa’s April 9 election, which ended in a dead heat. Samoa Electoral Commission, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“She’s such a strong, powerful, well-respected political leader, and she’s really probably the only politician in Samoa at the moment who can counter Tuilaepa,” said Kerryn Baker, a researcher at the Australian National University who is an expert on parliamentary gender quotas in the region.Ms. Mata’afa has already pledged to take one significant step away from Mr. Tuilaepa, 76, the second-longest-serving prime minister in the world.On Thursday, she announced that she would cancel a $100 million wharf development backed by China, saying that her small country of 200,000 people did not need such a large infrastructure project. China is Samoa’s largest creditor, accounting for about 40 percent, or some $160 million, of its external debts.Mr. Tuilaepa has been a staunch ally of Beijing for decades. While Ms. Mata’afa said she wanted to preserve relations with China, her pledge to shelve the wharf project has raised questions about the future of those ties, Dr. Iati said.“What is Samoa’s position in relation to China, what is the Pacific’s position in relation to China?” he said. “It’s got people examining China’s role in the country and in the region as a whole.”Ms. Mata’afa has also promised to focus on sustainable development as Pacific nations suffer from the effects of climate change, and to work to ensure women’s continued participation in politics.One of Samoa’s first female members of Parliament, Ms. Mata’afa has been a fierce defender of the parliamentary gender quota. She characterizes it not as a way to increase women’s participation, but as “legislation to ensure that it does not fall below this level.”Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi had yet to concede as of Friday.Brittainy Newman/The New York TimesSamoa’s welfare system, unlike those of more developed nations, is still largely family-based, “and therefore women still carry a lot of that responsibility and burden,” Ms. Mata’afa added. “Women have to see politics as an area where they’ve seen other women be able to achieve in it, so it’s not something that is insurmountable.”“My goal for women is that they fulfill their potential, that we remove any barriers that might be there for women, to enable them to make that contribution,” she said. But with more than 20 legal challenges to her election still pending, some worry that Ms. Mata’afa may yet be barred from assuming the top office.“The H.R.P.P. and Prime Minister Tuilaepa — they’re not done,” said Patricia O’Brien, an expert on the region at the Australian National University. “They’re going to cast doubt on the results, they’re going to cast doubt on the court cases, they’re trying to do things to muddy the waters and to disrupt an orderly transition of power.”Mr. Tuilaepa offered a hint of how he saw his place in Samoa this month as he responded to a protest of about 100 people calling on him to concede.“I am appointed by God,” he told local news media. “They should go to a church and pray instead of protesting in front of the courthouse.”Ms. Mata’afa, for her part, said she just wanted to get on with the job.“It’s a free world; he can talk about anything he likes,” she said. “I just like to spend my energy talking about things that need to be addressed.” More

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      Maya Wiley Has ‘50 Ideas’ and One Goal: To Make History as Mayor

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      Maya Wiley Has ‘50 Ideas’ and One Goal: To Make History as MayorMs. Wiley has unveiled an array of policies to fight inequality as she seeks to become the first woman elected mayor of New York. Can she break out of the pack?Maya Wiley, at a vaccine sign-up in Brooklyn last month, is a civil rights lawyer who has focused her mayoral campaign on addressing inequality and systemic racism.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThe New York City mayoral race is one of the most consequential political contests in a generation, with immense challenges awaiting the winner. This is the fourth in a series of profiles of the major candidates.May 19, 2021If there was a single moment that captured the essence of Maya Wiley’s campaign for New York City mayor, the Women for Maya launch was it.She sat on a folding chair in Central Park at the event earlier this month, at the foot of a statue depicting three historical figures of women’s suffrage. To her immediate right was Representative Nydia Velázquez, the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress; to her left was Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon.Since entering the mayor’s race last year, Ms. Wiley had underscored how it was time for a woman — a Black woman — to finally lead New York, someone who understood the concerns of those who struggled even before the pandemic and who are worried that the recovery is leaving them behind.“You will no longer tell us we are not qualified,” Ms. Wiley said, before starting to chant “We lead!” with a crowd of supporters who gathered at the event.Ms. Wiley, 57, offers a mix of experience — she served as a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and led the Civilian Complaint Review Board — and a dose of celebrity: As a prominent analyst for MSNBC, she won the attention of its left-leaning viewership and sparked enthusiasm that she could become the standard-bearer for New York’s progressive left.Her comfort level with the on-the-fly jousting seen on cable news shows seemed to give her an advantage last week in the first official Democratic debate, as she repeatedly challenged Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president who is one of the contest’s front-runners.Three days later, she landed a key endorsement from Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the state’s highest-ranking House member. His support is expected to help Ms. Wiley with a key constituency Mr. Adams is also vying for: Black voters, especially from central Brooklyn.Ms. Wiley was endorsed by 1199 S.E.I.U., the city’s largest labor union, which represents health care workers, many of whom are women of color. She speaks often about making sure women are not left behind in the recovery.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesIf Ms. Wiley has a path to victory in the June 22 primary, it will also largely be paved by women. She has the support of the city’s largest labor union, Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents 200,000 health care workers, many of whom are women of color. And she has the backing of Ms. Velázquez and Representative Yvette Clarke, two powerful congressional leaders in Brooklyn.She hopes to capitalize on the sexual misconduct allegations that were recently lodged against her chief rival for progressive voters in the Democratic primary, Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller; Ms. Wiley called on Mr. Stringer to withdraw from the race, and she has picked up some of the endorsements he has lost.Her campaign is centered on a series of policy proposals that reflect her progressive values. She wants to cut $1 billion from the police budget and trim at least 2,250 officers. She wants to help poor families pay for child care by offering $5,000 grants to caregivers and building community centers with free child care. And she wants to create a $10 billion Works Progress Administration-style jobs program that funds infrastructure repairs and other projects.But she has yet to fully energize the left-wing of the party that she is trying to win over; she upset some activists by distancing herself from the defund the police slogan; she can also sound at times like her former boss, Mr. de Blasio, whose popularity has fallen sharply in his second and final term.Unlike Mr. Stringer and Mr. Adams, who have said they had always wanted to be mayor, Ms. Wiley readily acknowledges that running for office was never a lifelong ambition. She says she long believed she was more effective, and more natural, at pressuring elected officials from the outside.“I literally never thought I would run for public office, and I mean never,” she said in an interview. “It was not on my bucket list. I’ve been a civil rights lawyer and advocate my whole career, and politics is not appealing. What I wanted to make was change.”She said that her outlook began to shift several years ago, when her teenage daughter came to her almost in tears, worried she would be unable to pay rent in New York City while pursuing a career as a graphic novelist and illustrator. Ms. Wiley said the exchange brought home how increasingly unaffordable the city had become.“That was an emotional gut-punch moment that really stayed with me,” she said.While politics was not necessarily in Ms. Wiley’s blood, a commitment to social justice was.Ms. Wiley worked as Mayor Bill de Blasio’s counsel and served as chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Her father, a prominent civil rights leader, founded the National Welfare Rights Organization.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesAt the event in Central Park, Ms. Steinem spoke about working with Ms. Wiley’s father, George Wiley, a prominent civil rights activist, in the 1970s.He founded the National Welfare Rights Organization and paid attention to “women in poverty as the single most important indicator of the country’s welfare when no other male spokesperson was doing that,” Ms. Steinem said.“I’m so sorry that Maya lost him young, but his spirit is in her,” she said.‘We had to find a way to live’The sudden death of Ms. Wiley’s father was especially traumatic.Mr. Wiley had taken his two children, Daniel and Maya, sailing off Chesapeake Beach, Md., on a summer day in 1973. The winds and seas were rough, and Mr. Wiley fell from the 23-foot pleasure craft into the Chesapeake Bay.His children threw him a line, but the tides and wind pulled him away, according to an Associated Press account of the episode. Days later, memorial services for Mr. Wiley, 42, were held across the nation.Ms. Wiley often speaks of her father’s death as a formative experience that shaped her and taught her a hard lesson in grief and perseverance. At her campaign kick-off event on the steps of the Brooklyn Museum in October, Ms. Wiley compared her loss to families who had watched a relative die from the coronavirus and could not hold them one last time.“My brother and I — two little kids, 9 and 10 years old — alone on a boat after watching the waves wash away our father, we had to find a way to live,” she said.She described how they found their way to the shore, and how the white beachgoers they encountered did not help them. They went from house to house asking for help until someone called the police.The seeming indifference from the people on the beach stayed with her. The experience, she told Bloomberg Opinion, made her realize that “racism is a deep illness.”Other parts of her biography often come up on the campaign trail. Ms. Wiley’s mother, Wretha, grew up in Abilene, Texas, and came to New York to attend Union Theological Seminary. Her parents met at Syracuse University and moved to the Lower East Side, where Ms. Wiley lived briefly as a baby, before they left for Washington.When she talks about education, Ms. Wiley notes that attending a segregated school as a child informed her thinking on the issue. She led a high-profile school diversity panel that in 2019 called for integrating city schools by eliminating gifted and talented programs.Yet when she is asked about fixing the city’s segregated school system, she has been vague at times, seeming cautious and political. Asked if she was afraid of talking about a combustible issue, Ms. Wiley pushed back.“I’m a kid who went to a segregated Black elementary school when I was young and was two years behind grade level despite the fact that my parents had collectively over eight years of graduate education between them,” she said.“I’m not afraid of third rails,” she added. “I wouldn’t be running for mayor if I was.”After her father’s death, Ms. Wiley moved to a private school where she caught up with her peers. She graduated from Dartmouth College and Columbia Law School. As a young lawyer, she worked as a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for two years, as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York for three years and at the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a fellowship.The job she held the longest was at the Center for Social Inclusion, a nonprofit she founded after the Sept. 11 attacks as a young mother “sitting in my living room with a baby in a bouncy seat.” She built it into a national organization dedicated to addressing racial inequity, with a $3 million annual budget and 13 employees.“As she came into her own, she opted not to go to a big private law firm, but to commit herself to public service,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who expressed admiration for Ms. Wiley’s dedication to social justice when she could have taken a different path. “She was progressive before the term was fashionable.”Ms. Wiley was in the running to lead the N.A.A.C.P., but withdrew from contention after joining Mr. de Blasio’s administration.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesA rocky experience inside city governmentMs. Wiley had never met Mr. de Blasio when she wrote a piece for The Nation magazine about broadband internet access that caught his attention. He invited her to three long get-to-know-you meetings at City Hall.She had been in the running to lead the N.A.A.C.P., but agreed to join Mr. de Blasio’s administration in 2014 as his chief legal adviser. She was proud to be the first Black woman to hold the job, and joked early on that her main goal was to “keep him out of jail.”Ms. Wiley, even in jest, was somewhat prescient: Mr. de Blasio was investigated for questionable fund-raising practices, leading Ms. Wiley to help craft the administration’s legal response. She also became known for her role in what became known as the “agents of the city” controversy, when she argued unsuccessfully in 2016 that Mr. de Blasio’s emails with outside advisers should be private.Ms. Wiley helped form Mr. de Blasio’s argument that communications with outside advisers should be as immune from public scrutiny as those of any city employee, even though many of the advisers also represented clients with business before the city.John Kaehny, executive director of the good-government group Reinvent Albany, said the efforts to hide the mayor’s emails were “desperate, doomed and destructive” and undermined Freedom of Information laws and ethics rules.“Agents of the city was a giant blunder by her and de Blasio and hopefully she learned from her mistakes,” he said.Ms. Wiley has gone to great lengths to say that her administration would be more transparent than Mr. de Blasio’s. She says that it was her job to provide the mayor with legal advice and it was his decision whether to follow that advice..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;}“Those emails would have been public if I was the decision maker,” she said at a mayoral forum.Not long after the episode, Ms. Wiley resigned and became chairwoman of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the agency that investigates police misconduct.While Ms. Wiley points to her time there as valuable experience in learning how to tackle police reform, groups like the New York Civil Liberties Union say she was too secretive about the disciplinary process and too sluggish in confronting the Police Department. The current chairman, the Rev. Fred Davie, has been more outspoken on issues like repealing 50-a, a law that until recently kept officer disciplinary records secret.Her experience at City Hall and the watchdog agency has enabled Ms. Wiley to argue that she knows city government, but it also ties her to Mr. de Blasio.As counsel to Mr. de Blasio, Ms. Wiley was known for her role in the “agents of the city” battle, when she tried to keep the mayor’s emails with outside advisers private.Nicole Bengiveno/The New York TimesMs. Wiley, like Mr. de Blasio, has been known to speak about inequality in broad terms. When she described homelessness as a public safety issue during a recent appearance on Brian Lehrer’s WNYC show, Mr. Lehrer shared a response from a listener: “de Blasio 2.0.”Ms. Wiley argues that women should not be judged by the men they worked for. She praised Mr. de Blasio’s achievements like universal prekindergarten and criticized him over his handling of the police killing of Eric Garner in 2014.“Women should not be defined by anything other than their record,” she said. “I’m not running against Bill de Blasio.”A push to ‘reimagine’ New YorkAs protests over police brutality rocked the nation last summer, Ms. Wiley gained attention on MSNBC for her clearheaded explanations of why some activists wanted to defund the police.Her national exposure created excitement when she entered the race, but also the expectation that she would catch fire as the leading progressive candidate. That has not happened for a variety of reasons.“This is a race that has a lot of progressive options,” said Eric Phillips, a former press secretary for Mr. de Blasio. “I think it’s natural that there would be real competition and one candidate wouldn’t automatically own that lane.”Ms. Wiley must prove that she can energize the left-wing of the party and be the most viable candidate to take on the two more moderate front-runners, Andrew Yang, the former presidential hopeful, and Mr. Adams. She is often in third or fourth place in the polls, along with Mr. Stringer.Ms. Wiley would cut $1 billion from the police budget, and hire a police commissioner from outside the department.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesBut the accusations lodged against Mr. Stringer have created some room for momentum: The powerful Working Families Party had named Mr. Stringer as its first choice for mayor, but withdrew the endorsement after the sexual misconduct allegations. The group is now supporting Ms. Wiley and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive and the most left-leaning candidate in the race.Still, Mr. Stringer has a major fund-raising advantage: He has more than $7 million to pour into television ads. Ms. Wiley has about $2.5 million on hand.Mr. Sharpton said he believed that Ms. Wiley could make a “late surge” once more voters start tuning into the race. He is considering endorsing one of several of the candidates trying to become the city’s second Black mayor — Ms. Wiley, Mr. Adams, or Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive — if Mr. Sharpton believes he could help one of them win, according to a person who is familiar with his thinking.To differentiate herself from some of her rivals, Ms. Wiley has been rolling out her “50 Ideas for NYC,” a new plan every day focused on issues like reducing the Black maternal mortality rate. Her most ambitious proposal is called “New Deal New York,” which involves spending $10 billion to help the city recover from the pandemic and to create 100,000 jobs. Her universal community care plan would make 100,000 families eligible for a $5,000 annual grant to care for children and older people. She also wants to hire 2,500 new teachers to lower class sizes.As concerns have grown about violent crime, she released a policing and public safety plan that includes hiring a civilian police commissioner and creating a new commission to decide whether to fire officers accused of misconduct. She was early in urging Mr. de Blasio to fire his police commissioner, Dermot F. Shea, after his aggressive response to last year’s protests.Yet she has also distanced herself from the defund slogan, saying the term “means different things to different people.” In contrast, Ms. Morales has embraced the movement and pledged to slash the $6 billion police budget in half — a stance that has endeared her to left-leaning voters, less so to more moderate ones.At the same time, some business and civic leaders fear that Ms. Wiley is too liberal; in a poll of business leaders, Ms. Wiley was near last place with just 3 percent. They also question whether Ms. Wiley has enough experience as a manager to run a sprawling bureaucracy with a $98 billion budget.“Maya is terrific, but business is looking for a manager, not an advocate,” said Kathryn Wylde, the leader of a prominent business group.At the moment, Ms. Wiley is simply looking to connect to as many voters as she can, in person and on social media, where she posts campaign diaries recorded at home.She lives in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, with her partner, Harlan Mandel, in an elegant house built in the Prairie School architectural style made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright. They have two daughters, Naja, 20, and Kai, 17. Ms. Wiley is Christian and Mr. Mandel is Jewish, and they belong to Kolot Chayeinu, a reform congregation in Park Slope.The last woman who came close to being mayor, Christine Quinn, a former City Council speaker, said she regretted that she tried to soften her hard-charging personality during her campaign. Her advice for Ms. Wiley was to be herself.“The thing voters hate the most is someone who is not authentic,” Ms. Quinn said. “Maya needs to be exactly who she is.”Who Ms. Wiley is, she said in an interview, is the daughter of civil rights activists who will fight to make the city more fair.“I have been someone committed to racial justice and transformation my entire career,” Ms. Wiley said. “And that means bringing us all back, every single one of us, and not just back to January 2020, but to reimagine this city.” More

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      In South Texas, Hispanic Republicans Try to Cement the Party’s Gains

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      Conservative Hispanic leaders, especially women, are ascendant in the Rio Grande Valley, where Republicans are trying to forge lasting bonds with voters who swung sharply to the right in 2020.McALLEN, Texas — The front door of the Hidalgo County Republican Party’s office is covered with photographs of high-profile politicians in the party: Gov. Greg Abbott, Senator John Cornyn and former President Donald J. Trump. Nearly all of them are white men.Step inside, and you’ll see a bulletin board with pictures of local Republican leaders: Adrienne Pena-Garza, Hilda Garza DeShazo, Mayra Flores. Nearly all of them are Hispanic women.Hispanic Republicans, especially women, have become something of political rock stars in South Texas after voters in the Rio Grande Valley shocked leaders in both parties in November by swinging sharply toward the G.O.P. Here in McAllen, one of the region’s largest cities, Mr. Trump received nearly double the number of votes he did four years earlier; in the Rio Grande Valley over all, President Biden won by just 15 percentage points, a steep slide from Hillary Clinton’s 39-point margin in 2016.That conservative surge — and the liberal decline — has buoyed the Republican Party’s hopes about its ability to draw Hispanic voters into what has long been an overwhelmingly white political coalition and to challenge Democrats in heavily Latino regions across the country. Now party officials, including Mr. Abbott, the governor, have flocked to the Rio Grande Valley in a kind of pilgrimage, eager to meet the people who helped Republicans rapidly gain ground in a longtime Democratic stronghold.One of those people, Ms. Pena-Garza, the chair of the Hidalgo County Republican Party, grew up the daughter of a Democratic state legislator. As was common for most Hispanic families in the area, she said, voting for Democrats was a given. But after her father switched parties in 2010, Ms. Pena-Garza soon followed, arguing that Democrats had veered too far to the left, particularly on issues like abortion and gun control.“Politics down here did scare me because you didn’t go against the grain,” she said. “If someone’s going to tell you: ‘Oh, you’re brown, you have to be Democrat,’ or ‘Oh, you’re female, you have to be a Democrat’ — well, who are you to tell me who I should vote for and who I shouldn’t?”Ms. Pena-Garza said she was called a coconut — brown on the outside, white on the inside — and a self-hating Latino, labels that have begun to recede only in recent years as she meets more Hispanic Republicans who, like her, embrace policies that they view as helping small business owners and supporting their religious beliefs.Now, she says, the political choice is a point of pride.“You can’t shame me or bully me into voting for a party just because that’s the way it’s always been,” she said.Monica De La Cruz-Hernandez, a Republican, is running against Representative Vicente Gonzalez, the Democrat who represents McAllen, in 2022.Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York TimesOne of the lingering questions of the 2020 election is just what drove this region — and other heavily Hispanic areas of the country — toward Republicans. The shift appeared to be particularly acute among women who call themselves conservative, according to a post-mortem analysis by Equis Labs, a Democratic-aligned research firm that studies Latino voters.Conversations with voters and activists in Hidalgo County suggested that there is not one answer but many: Women who staunchly oppose abortion voted for the first time; wives of Border Patrol agents felt convinced the Trump administration was firmly on their side; mothers picked up on the enthusiasm for Republicans from friends they knew through church or their children’s school.For many voters in the region, there is a profound sense of cynicism — a feeling that things will not change no matter who is charge. The border, after all, has been the site of a humanitarian crisis under both Democrats and Republicans. Nearly everyone here knows both undocumented immigrants and Border Patrol agents, occasionally even within the same family. And for many here, law enforcement remains one of the easiest paths to the middle class, and Republicans have portrayed national Democrats as hostile toward the police.Both Republicans and Democrats are likely this year to start funneling far more money into the region, where enthusiasm for the G.O.P. in 2020 was not limited to Mr. Trump. For the first time in recent history, a Republican came close to defeating the Democratic incumbent in Texas’ 15th Congressional District, which includes most of Hidalgo County and runs north of McAllen up to San Antonio.In next year’s race for the seat, the Republican candidate, Monica De La Cruz-Hernandez, is again challenging Representative Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat — but they may be competing on different political terrain if the district’s “bacon strip” shape is altered in redistricting later this year.At the local Lincoln Reagan Republican dinner in March, Mr. Abbott rallied support for Ms. De La Cruz-Hernandez and encouraged other women like her to come into the G.O.P. fold, speaking in glowing terms about their political potential and saying he had “never been as impressed” with the leadership of a county party.“I’ve never been onstage with so many accomplished, articulate Latinas as I have been tonight with this group of ladies,” he told an enthusiastic crowd. “This is amazing. If I were the Democrats, I would be very afraid right now, because there is a storm coming, a storm that is going to win Hidalgo County. I wanted to be here in person, wanted to say thank you.”“You will knock that damn door down,” Mr. Abbott added. “You will shape and reshape politics in the Lone Star State.”Jessica Villarreal said she had no desire to be politically active while she served in the Army, but now considers herself a faithful Republican and is considering a run for elected office.Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York TimesLike many of her supporters, Ms. De La Cruz-Hernandez first registered as a Democrat, largely, she said, so she could vote in local primary elections.“That was just what you do,” she said. She added that while she could not recall ever having voted for a Democrat for president, she had hesitated to voice her political views publicly, fearing that it could hurt her insurance business. “But I never understood the Democratic values or message being one for me,” she said. “And I am convinced that people here have conservative values. That is really who the majority is.”During her last campaign, Ms. De La Cruz-Hernandez relied heavily on local efforts, drawing little attention from the national Republican Party in a race she lost by just three points. Now she is focusing early on building support from donors in Washington. Already, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has named Mr. Gonzalez a “Frontline” member, an indication that it views him as one of the most endangered House Democrats. And in March, the National Republican Congressional Committee put Mr. Gonzalez on its 2022 “Exit List” and began airing ads against him.In an interview, Mr. Gonzalez primarily attributed the closeness of his race last year to the lack of Democratic in-person campaigning amid the coronavirus pandemic, and the high turnout to the particular phenomenon of Mr. Trump, rather than a long-term shift.“For the Republicans to think that there is some dramatic change, that they should pour attention and money into this district, I think they will be sadly mistaken,” he said. “But I am taking nothing for granted.”People waved signs supporting former President Donald J. Trump in McAllen last month.Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York TimesLike other Democrats along the Texas border, Mr. Gonzalez has tried to distance himself from national Democrats; this year he asked Mr. Biden to rescind an executive order to temporarily stop new fracking on federal lands. Last month, he traveled to the border with the Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan congressional group, and he has urged top Biden administration officials to come to the region.“We’re conservative Democrats down here,” he said. “We support a lot of international trade, we’re an agricultural community, we’re Catholic, we work in the oil fields, we’re avid gun collectors.”He added: “I think that’s pretty distinguishable from the rest of the Democratic Party. We can’t just assume that all Hispanics are going to stick with Democrats.”Mr. Gonzalez also attributed the shift toward Republicans in his district in part to misinformation, particularly on YouTube and other forms of social media. And some first-time Republican voters appeared to be swayed by false conspiracy theories.Elisa Rivera, 40, said she had voted for Mrs. Clinton in 2016, but did not understand the fierce reaction against Mr. Trump.“I was following along the family tradition, my dad is a hard-core Democrat, my father was really for unions, and I thought the Democrats defended the union,” Ms. Rivera said, before adding: “But then I started to research myself and found out the Democrats are supporting witchcraft and child trafficking and things like that, things that get censored because they get labeled conspiracy theory.”Other right-leaning Hispanic voters described a simple ideological shift.Mayra Rivera said her politics do not fit in a neat box.Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York TimesAs a child, Mayra Rivera, 42, worked in the fields with her parents, who arrived in the United States through the bracero program, which brought farmworkers to the country from Mexico. When her family struggled financially, she would walk door to door selling cupcakes. The first few times she voted, Ms. Rivera cast her ballot for Democrats. Even now, she said, her politics do not fit in a neat box.“My family doesn’t come from money, I have friends who are undocumented, I support medical cannabis,” she said. “But I definitely think Democrats are pushing free everything, giving the message that there’s no value in your hard work, and that’s not something I can believe in.”Like Ms. Rivera, Jessica Villarreal, 33, was only an occasional voter, and she had no desire to be politically active while she served in the Army. But now she considers herself a faithful Republican and is considering a run for elected office.“There are more of us who realize our beliefs are Republican, no matter what we’ve been told in the past,” Ms. Villarreal said. “I am a believer in God and the American dream, and I believe the Republican Party represents that.” More

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      How Four Years Shaped Girls’ Political Views

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      After Hillary Clinton’s loss and a tumultuous presidency, I reconnected with teens I had interviewed to get their sense of the world.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.In 2016, shortly before the presidential election, I interviewed teenage girls about how the campaign had affected them. Based on polls, it seemed as if the United States was about to elect its first female president, after a race that had been riddled with sexist insults.I followed up with them four years later, just after the 2020 election. We wanted to see how this tumultuous period had shaped them, because political science research shows that what people experience politically during their transition to adulthood often influences how they vote for a lifetime.It was challenging to find the girls again, because most didn’t live at home anymore and many were living in temporary locations during the pandemic. The first time, I had interviewed teenage girls at two high schools in Oregon — one in liberal Portland and another in conservative Moro. This year, all the young women from Portland agreed to talk with me again, but only one from Moro did.What I saw in them reflected the mixed message that girls frequently receive from society, something that has come up in other work I’ve done in my role writing about gender issues. Girls are told that they can become anything they want — they sign up for robotics clubs and sports teams and school government. But as young adults, they learn a more complicated message: More doors are open to women, but sexism, of all kinds, remains rampant.When I started covering gender for The Upshot, a team at The New York Times that examines politics and policy issues, Susan Chira, an editor who had covered the topic earlier in her reporting career, told me that stories about women’s issues must be retold again and again. Every new generation of young women faces the same issues as they start careers and families and come to terms with sexism and harassment, she said.I’ve found this to be true, and it highlights how unfinished the work of feminism is, and how little has changed. But reporting on stories like this also shows clearly that there has been progress, too.When I reconnected with the young women this year, they had all voted in their first presidential election and were well-informed on policy discussions. Some had become jaded about the ability of government to fix problems. They had been exposed to more sexism, and the ways in which sexism and racism intersect, in their own lives and on the public stage. They were less idealistic than they had been in high school — one, Sarah Hamilton, 21, said the sexism she had observed had extinguished any goals she had of becoming a leader.This change was also evident in two national polls we did for this reporting project. Shortly before the 2016 election, 83 percent of teenage girls surveyed said a candidate’s gender made no difference in running for public office. But this year, 80 percent said women face sexism when they run, and only half thought men and women had an equal chance of being elected.Despite those findings, the young women I interviewed all had high aspirations — they wanted to become a novelist, an animal scientist and a basketball player. One, Ana Shepherd, 18, had decided to pursue politics as a direct result of what she saw the last four years. She was born in Mexico and felt she could help give immigrants a voice in policy.Their thoughts had been molded by the racial justice protests, by Trump administration policies, by Hillary Clinton’s loss and those of other women in the 2020 Democratic primaries. They spoke eloquently about the importance of representation in government and giving voice to people who had been marginalized. In high school, they had named role models like Beyoncé, the Kardashians and their school principal. Now they mentioned Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vice President Kamala Harris.Jordan Barrett, 19, was a supporter of Donald Trump in 2016 and the sole student from Moro who agreed to talk. The last four years, she said, have made her learn about perspectives other than those she grew up with, and think about issues like refugee policy and access to health care. She voted for Joe Biden.I partnered with Ruth Fremson, a Times photographer, on this project, and she shot portraits of the girls in 2016 and this year. The photographs reflected the changes in their awareness, ambitions and sense of identity that I observed in my interviews. In the more recent set of photos, the young women are more mature and composed but still bright-eyed.Returning to the group also brought up new topics I hadn’t expected to explore in my reporting, most notably about race. Every one of them mentioned race in their discussions about leadership and sexism — they saw these issues as interlinked.The young women, even the more conservative ones, had progressive views about diversity — something that young people of both parties share, surveys show. They demand that leadership reflects the people leaders represent. Whether it’s in politics, their jobs or their daily lives, they are going to bring these values to the forefront.Maybe I’ll try to catch up with them again in 2024. More

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      What Teenagers Have Learned From a Tumultuous Time in Politics

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      Soon-to-be voters say they’re disillusioned by what they’ve observed, but many are also motivated to political action.A high school student in Atlanta registering to vote. What happens in politics when people are teenagers can shape their lifelong political views.Christopher Aluka Berry/ReutersFor American teenagers, their political coming of age has been a tumultuous one. They’ve seen the boundary-breaking candidacies of women and people of color, and the norm-shattering presidency of Donald Trump. They’ve lived through racial justice protests, a pandemic, and attacks on American democracy.Research shows that a voting generation is typically shaped for life by what happens politically in their teen years and early 20s. What have teenagers taken away from all this? We asked 604 of them, ages 13 to 17, from around the country, in a poll by Dynata for The New York Times. A little more than half the teenagers surveyed were girls. And nearly half were Black, Hispanic, Native American or Asian-American. (We talked to more of them because Generation Z will be the first in which nearly half of the electorate is nonwhite.)The survey revealed a generation of soon-to-be voters who felt disillusioned by government and politics, and already hardened along political lines — something political scientists said was new for people this young. But it also revealed a significant share of teenagers who felt motivated to become involved themselves, whether out of inspiration or frustration.“Simultaneously, we have this caustic, scorched-earth politics of the Trump administration, particularly for people of color, and at the same time we see young people exercising power and influence and organizing and showing up in the marches and the election,” said Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, a political scientist at Purdue. “This is their political socialization, so we have to see how it plays out.”The survey respondents were too young to vote, but they divided along similar partisan lines as adults, reflecting the divisive political atmosphere they’ve grown up absorbing. White teenagers were less likely than teenagers of color to support Mr. Biden. Biden supporters were more likely to say it was important to have women and other underrepresented groups serving in office. Eighty-seven percent of them said they hoped a woman would be elected president in their lifetime; 47 percent of Trump supporters hoped so.About half of the teenagers strongly or slightly agreed that government had their interests in mind and could help meet their needs. But less than half of girls or respondents who were Black, Hispanic, Native or Asian-American agreed, and only one-third of Trump supporters did.Their political attitudes differed significantly by gender and race. White boys were most likely to believe the government represented them. Minority girls were 21 percentage points less likely to agree that the government had their interests in mind. White boys were the only group of teenagers in which a majority could think of many people in leadership who shared their identity; just 25 percent of minority girls could.These experiences were reflected in significant gaps in political ambition: White boys were 20 percentage points more likely to be interested in running for office than boys of color; white girls were eight points more likely than girls of color.Yet despite being unconvinced that government was meeting their needs, the majority of the teenagers, and roughly equal shares of girls and boys, said they were interested in following and discussing what happens in politics and government. And various political events of the last four years were more likely to have inspired them to consider running for office someday than to have discouraged them.High school students in Odessa, Texas, standing for the Pledge of Allegiance as they watched the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Biden in government class. Surveys show teenagers are already hardening along partisan lines.Eli Hartman/Odessa American, via Associated PressThe Trump presidency had the most polarizing effects on political ambition. It made one-third of teenagers of both genders less interested in running, with a larger effect on those of color. But it also made about half of survey respondents, and nearly three-quarters of Trump-supporting teenagers, more interested in running (the rest said it didn’t influence their interest.)By comparison, the 2020 election made about two-thirds of teenagers more interested in running, and 15 percent less interested, and the effect was similar for supporters of the Republican and Democratic candidates and for boys and girls.Other research has also found that for some young people who were disappointed by the Trump presidency, it awakened their interest in political involvement, according to David Campbell and Christina Wolbrecht, both political scientists at Notre Dame.“What we found is that there was great disillusionment in democracy among adolescents, especially girls, especially those who think of themselves as Democrats,” Mr. Campbell said. “Then we found this upsurge in protest activity, so the disillusionment, rather than driving them out of politics, pushed them into political activity.”Their research also suggests that the surge of women running has been encouraging to young people — among liberals and some conservatives as well. In 2018, adolescents who lived in female congressional candidates’ districts grew more positive about American democracy, whether or not the candidates won, the research shows.“There’s no other way to explain their optimism than seeing these women run,” Professor Campbell said. “The effect is strongest among Democratic girls, but you find it among Democratic boys as well, and even Republican girls picked up on it. In fact, the only group that wasn’t inspired was Republican boys.”The teenage respondents’ views of Kamala Harris, in an open-ended question about what it meant to them that she was vice president, ranged as widely as adults’ views of her, and touched on similar themes of partisanship and identity.Several called her a socialist. Others said they felt she was picked for her identity as a woman of color, rather than for her accomplishments, and one said she was “not very likable.” Another disapproved of her policies: “Ultimately, Democrats will bankrupt the United States,” that respondent said.Still others called her an inspiration, especially those who did not see themselves in most political leaders: “I am so happy, I am mixed-race and so is she,” one wrote. “She is totally inspiring to me and I love her.”Another said, “She is my inspiration to know that women can rise to the top in government.” And a third wrote that her election sent this message: “Politics are changing and more things are possible.” More

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      They Believe in Ambitious Women. But They Also See the Costs.

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      When Sarah Hamilton was in high school, Hillary Clinton was running for president, and it made a big impression. Her candidacy made Ms. Hamilton want to become a leader someday too, she said, and maybe even run for office. Four years later, Ms. Hamilton, 21, is no longer interested in leadership. Even though it felt […] More

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      St. Louis Elects Tashaura Jones Its First Black Female Mayor

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      Tishaura Jones, the city’s treasurer, promised on Tuesday night not to stay silent on racial injustices and vowed to bring “fresh air” to the city.Tishaura Jones became the first Black woman elected mayor of St. Louis on Tuesday and later this month will begin leading a city racked with a high homicide rate, disturbances at the city jail and challenges related to the pandemic.Ms. Jones, the city’s treasurer, received about 52 percent of the vote over her opponent Alderwoman Cara Spencer’s nearly 48 percent, according to unofficial results posted to the city’s website. Ms. Jones will be sworn in on April 20.Ms. Jones, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.Ms. Spencer, also a Democrat, conceded on Tuesday night and later congratulated Ms. Jones on Twitter, saying, “You have my support in making St. Louis the great city we know it can be.”This was the first mayoral election under the city’s new election-law overhaul, known as Proposition D. It requires candidates to run without partisan labels, and the two candidates with the most votes in a primary in March would face each other in a general runoff election the next month.In her victory speech, Ms. Jones reminded supporters of her campaign promises. “St. Louis, this is an opportunity for us to rise,” she said. “We are done ignoring the racism that has held our city and our region back.”Ms. Jones pledged that she would not stay silent when she saw racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia or religious intolerance, adding, “I will not stay silent when I spot any injustice.”Transformational change would not be immediate, she said. “It will require a little patience, a little hard work, determination and the understanding that decades of problems would not be solved within days of solutions.”Ms. Jones, a graduate of Hampton University, the Saint Louis University School of Public Health and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, has spent the last 20 years as a public servant. In 2002, she was appointed as Democratic committeewoman of the Eighth Ward in the city of St. Louis, she served two terms in the Missouri House of Representatives, and she has served as the city’s treasurer since 2013, according to her campaign website. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor of St. Louis in 2017.Ms. Jones will replace Lyda Krewson, the first woman to serve as the city’s mayor, who said last fall she would not seek a second term in office.Ms. Krewson congratulated Ms. Jones on Twitter. “I am rooting for your success,” she said. “My administration and I are prepared to make this as smooth a transition as possible.”When Ms. Jones takes office, she will face a list of challenges, including a rise in violence. Last year, the city saw its highest homicide rate in 50 years with 262 murders, five fewer than the record set in 1993. There have been 46 homicides so far this year, according to the St. Louis Police Department.The city’s jail has also seen a growing number of disturbances in recent months, and on Sunday, inmates broke windows, set a fire and threw items onto the street below. A similar episode took place in February.Ms. Jones campaigned on improving the city’s response to the pandemic and pursuing policies to improve its public health infrastructure. Mobile and stationary vaccination clinics would also be established under her lead. St. Louis has about 36 positive cases per day on average, and about 14 percent of all St. Louis residents have been fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times databaseAs the city is promised more than $500 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, Ms. Jones also pledged relief for small businesses and those in need of rental and mortgage assistance.“It’s time for St. Louis to thrive,” Ms. Jones said Tuesday night. “It’s time to bring a breath of fresh air to our neighborhoods.” More