Good morning. We're covering today's elections — as well as Donald Trump's testimony, the Israel-Hamas war and WeWork's bankruptcy. |
 | | Andy Beshear, Kentucky's Democratic governor.Jon Cherry for The New York Times |
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Today is Election Day, and we are using this newsletter to give you a guide. One theme is that Democrats are hoping to continue their strong recent electoral performance despite President Biden's low approval rating. |
Why have Democrats done so well in elections since 2022? In part, it's because voter turnout is modest in off-year elections like today's. The people who vote tend to be engaged in politics. They are older, more affluent and more highly educated than people who vote only in presidential elections. |
As the Democratic Party becomes more upscale — the class inversion of American politics that this newsletter often discusses — the party will naturally do better in lower-turnout elections than it once did. But these victories do not necessarily foreshadow presidential elections. The other side of the class inversion is that Democrats are increasingly struggling with lower-income and nonwhite voters, many of whom vote only in presidential elections. |
Today's elections still matter for their own sake, of course. Below, we list the questions that can help you make sense of the results. |
1. Will abortion rights keep winning? |
At least three states are worth watching: |
- Ohioans will vote on a referendum to protect abortion access until about 23 weeks of pregnancy. If it passes, it will be the seventh straight victory for abortion rights in state referendums since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.
- In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat running for re-election, is focusing on his support for abortion rights (while also trumpeting the fruits of Biden's economic policies without naming Biden, as our colleague Reid Epstein explains).
- In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, is trying to give his party a model for the post-Roe world by backing a 15-week limit as a middle ground. All of Virginia's state legislature seats are on the ballot.
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2. Can a Democrat win in the Deep South? |
No Democrat has been elected governor or senator in Mississippi in more than 20 years. But Brandon Presley, a state official and second cousin of Elvis Presley, seems to have an outside chance. |
Gov. Tate Reeves, the Republican incumbent, has been hurt by a corruption scandal in which, according to court documents, a state official directed welfare funds to the pet projects of wealthy, connected Mississippians. Presley is running the kind of campaign that was once normal for Democrats: moderate on social issues, progressive on economics. He calls himself pro-life, emphasizes his religious faith and supports gun rights, while promising to expand Medicaid and help rural hospitals. |
"The fight in politics in Mississippi is not right versus left," Presley said. "It's those of us on the outside versus those of them on the inside." Recent polls have shown him trailing by between one and eight points. |
3. What happens with schools? |
Conservatives and liberals are running against each other for school boards in suburban Philadelphia, Northern Virginia and elsewhere — with gender issues often central. One example: In Pella, Iowa, a Des Moines suburb, voters will decide whether to give the City Council more control over the public library after the library's board recently rejected the effort of some residents to ban the memoir "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe. |
4. How will cities deal with rising homelessness? |
Voters in Spokane, Wash., will decide whether the police can issue tickets to people who camp within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds and child-care facilities. In Boulder, Colo., voters will decide whether to prioritize the removal of encampments near schools and sidewalks. |
5. Will affordable-housing efforts grow? |
Voters in Boulder County will also decide whether to address a major cause of homelessness: high real-estate costs. Boulder, Seattle and Santa Fe, N.M., will each vote on initiatives to fund affordable housing. In Tacoma, Wash., voters will decide whether to restrict landlords' ability to evict tenants during the winter and the school year. |
6. How will changes to criminal justice fare? |
In several counties — including those that encompass Pittsburgh and Jackson, Miss. — prosecutor races pit a progressive against a tough-on-crime candidate. |
In Jackson, District Attorney Jody Owens — who views drug addiction as largely a public health issue and has pledged not to prosecute abortion cases — is running for re-election against Darla Palmer, an independent who has criticized the amount of violent crime. |
7. What else is on the ballot? |
Ohioans will vote on whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Rockville, Md., a Washington suburb, will vote on a nonbinding initiative on whether to lower the voting age to 16. Three Michigan cities, including Kalamazoo, will decide whether to adopt ranked-choice voting. And more than a dozen cities, — including Houston, Philadelphia and Orlando, Fla. — will vote for mayor. In Uvalde, Texas, the mother of one of last year's shooting victims is running for mayor. |
 | | In Manhattan.Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times |
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- At a civil trial in Manhattan, Donald Trump testified that he helped assemble financial documents that the New York's attorney general said had overvalued his properties.
- On the stand, Trump called the attorney general "a political hack" and derided the trial as "very unfair."
- The judge repeatedly chided Trump for going off-topic, at one point asking his lawyers, "Can you control your client? This is not a political rally."
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- Tuberculosis is once again the world's deadliest disease, displacing Covid. One problem: Though it's curable, many people don't know they have it.
- China has lent more than a trillion dollars to developing countries. Now, it's bailing them out.
- The Iranian activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize this year began a hunger strike after she was denied hospital treatment for a heart condition.
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Republicans running against Trump need to toughen up if they want to win, and criticize him the way the voter base criticizes him, Kristen Soltis Anderson writes. |
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 | | Fiona in lonelier times. Animal Rising |
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Lives Lived: Zdenek Macal led the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, but his reach was international: He also conducted orchestras in Berlin, London and elsewhere. He died at 87. |
No. 1 upset: No. 20 Colorado beat top-ranked L.S.U. — the defending women's college basketball national champion — in the season opener. |
 | | "Dead City III" by Egon Schiele. Leopold Museum, Vienna |
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Stolen Schieles: For years, museums denied that their Egon Schiele paintings had been stolen by Nazis from Fritz Grünbaum, a cabaret performer who died in a concentration camp. Many have since changed their position. New York City prosecutors recently returned nine Schiele works, valued at $10 million, to Grünbaum's heirs. Now they're trying to reclaim 13 more works, from museums in Austria and Chicago. |
 | | Julia Gartland for The New York Times |
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Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David and Ian |
 | Editor: David Leonhardt News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti News Staff: Desiree Ibekwe, Lauren Jackson, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch |
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