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Skip to contentSkip to site indexSection Navigation SEARCH GIVE THE TIMES Account Trump Administration Senate Shutdown Deal SNAP Benefits Tariff Tracker Approval Rating How the Heavy-Metal Fall of a Dictator Shapes Trump’s Venezuela Plans Seizing Panama’s leader was relatively easy. But the similarities between Panama and Venezuela are dangerously misleading, some analysts warn. Listen to this article · 9:00 min Learn more Share full article A man holding a television walks past an armored vehicle on a street in Panama. American troops patrolling the streets of Panama after invading in 1989.Credit...Steven D. Starr/Corbis, via Getty Images Michael Crowley By Michael Crowley Reporting from Washington Nov. 11, 2025 Updated 1:55 p.m. ET Leer en español It is a story the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro surely knows well. A Latin American strongman was in hiding, surrounded by American troops, heavy metal blaring through the night. In December 1989, Gen. Manuel Noriega’s run as dictator of Panama was reaching a humiliating end. American troops had invaded the country with orders to capture Mr. Noriega and bring him to trial. They would wind up surrounding his final hide-out, tormenting him for 10 days with loudspeakers blasting songs from the likes of Black Sabbath and Guns N’ Roses until he surrendered into handcuffs. Today, as President Trump considers military action in Venezuela, the parallels between Mr. Noriega and Mr. Maduro grow more and more significant, and some Trump officials hope the Venezuelan president will meet a similar fate. Like Mr. Noriega more than 30 years ago, Mr. Maduro has been federally indicted on drug trafficking charges. And U.S. officials maintain that the Venezuelan is not a foreign leader but a criminal who must be “brought to justice,” as Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said. In a national address announcing the invasion of Panama, President George H.W. Bush laid out his grounds for moving against Mr. Noriega, a defiant nationalist who brandished a machete in public and hosted cocaine-fueled parties at his lavish mansions. They included Mr. Noriega’s dictatorial rule, concerns about the security of the Panama Canal, and the brash general’s increasing hostility toward the United States. (In a final straw, Mr. Noriega’s forces had killed a U.S. Marine at a roadblock.) Image A soldier with a gun waving to a helicopter that is landing. American troops invaded Panama to depose the country’s leader, Manuel Noriega.Credit...Manoocher Deghati/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images But Mr. Bush also stressed Mr. Noriega’s status as a wanted criminal. The Justice Department had indicted him on charges of taking huge bribes in return for letting drug traffickers ship cocaine through his country. “I directed our armed forces to protect the lives of American citizens in Panama and to bring General Noriega to justice in the United States,” Mr. Bush said. For Mr. Noriega, escape was never an option. As Operation Just Cause began, a team of Navy SEALs crept onto an airfield and blasted Mr. Noriega’s personal Learjet with an anti-tank gun. SEAL divers sank a potential getaway boat with explosives. In all, some 27,000 American troops deployed. As the assault began, a panicked Mr. Noriega, accompanied by a mistress, wove through Panama City in an unmarked Hyundai and went into hiding. At one point, he ducked incognito into a Dairy Queen before taking refuge in the embassy of the Holy See in Panama City. Delta Force commandos and U.S. Army tanks quickly surrounded the building, which they could not storm, and demanded his surrender. When he refused, the music kicked in. The playlist was designed for maximum stress — and ridicule: Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive,” Van Halen’s “Panama,” Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Image An American soldier holding a large speaker on a street. An American soldier playing loud music through speakers outside the Vatican Embassy compound in Panama City.Credit...Michael Stravato/Associated Press Brent Scowcroft, who was serving as national security adviser to Mr. Bush, later called the tactic “a low moment in U.S. Army history.” But Mr. Noriega eventually surrendered and was hauled to Florida for trial. (The general’s years of service as a secret C.I.A. asset providing intelligence about Latin America were not enough to save him.) He was convicted and spent the rest of his life in prison until just before his death in 2017 in a Panamanian hospital after brain surgery. Mr. Noriega may be gone, but his story has not been forgotten — not by Mr. Maduro or Trump administration officials, many of whom have spent years trying to topple the Venezuelan leader. Mr. Noriega’s capture sometimes came up during debates in Mr. Trump’s first term about how to deal with Mr. Maduro, according to two former officials from the time. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, then the national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence and now a presidential envoy to Ukraine, had firsthand experience in Panama as an infantry assault commander during the operation. Image Drug Enforcement agents restraining Mr. Noriega on a military flight to the United States.Credit...U.S. Government, via Associated Press Among the options Trump officials considered at the time were a large-scale U.S. invasion of the country and “a smaller, special operation targeted directly at Maduro,” Mr. Trump’s former defense secretary Mark Esper wrote in a 2022 memoir. But the similarities between Panama 1989 and Venezuela 2025 are dangerously misleading, some analysts warn. Any U.S. effort to apprehend or kill Mr. Maduro, they say, would be far more treacherous than the operation to corral Mr. Noriega. “When people talk very loosely and say, ‘Well, we’ll just take him out,’ it’s useful to recall 1989,” said Michael Shifter, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service with extensive experience in Latin America. “When one confronts the realities of what it would require, you conclude how crazy it would be to commit American troops for regime change in Venezuela,” he added. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. efforts to depose hostile Latin American rulers have largely been failures. They include Mr. Trump’s own unsuccessful first-term push to oust Mr. Maduro, which sought to capitalize on the street protests across Venezuela in 2019. Image Civilians clashing with security forces on motorcycles on a street. In 2019, thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets in protest.Credit...Matias Delacroix/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Still, experts say the similarities between 1989 and today must be unsettling to Mr. Maduro. “There are parallels,” said Elliott Abrams, who served as U.S. special envoy for Venezuela during Mr. Trump’s first term. “One is that the guy running the government is someone we do not view as a legitimate head of government. And both are drug traffickers.” In September, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Mr. Maduro was “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world.” The Venezuelan leader, she added, “will not escape justice.” And like Mr. Noriega, who ran Panama though puppet politicians, Mr. Maduro is considered an illegitimate ruler by the United States because of the fraudulent elections that have kept him in power since 2013. Trump officials say he is more accurately described as a criminal cartel leader. As a Republican senator from Florida in 2019, Mr. Rubio posted images on Twitter of several toppled dictators in what was widely seen as a warning to Mr. Maduro, as domestic unrest and U.S. pressure mounted. They included before-and-after shots of Mr. Noriega — first waving his machete before a crowd, next posing for his federal mug shot. More recently, Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, Republican of Florida and an ally of Mr. Rubio’s, warned in a late September interview that Mr. Maduro might “rot in jail for the rest of his life like Noriega.” Mr. Trump may be deterred from major military action in Venezuela by the scale of the challenge. Panama was an easy target — a small country with a weak military, and in 1989, U.S. troops were already stationed there guarding the Panama Canal. Venezuela is about 12 times larger than Panama, with a population more than 10 times greater than Panama’s in 1989. And even the puny Panama Defense Forces put up enough resistance to kill 23 U.S. troops, including four of the elite Navy SEALS who carried out the assault on Mr. Noriega’s jet. The United States has estimated that 314 Panamanian soldiers and 202 civilians died during the operation. Mr. Maduro also enjoys a “highly skilled” inner ring of protection, Mr. Abrams said, with an elite force of bodyguards supplied by his close political allies in nearby Cuba. Mr. Maduro, in other words, would be unlikely to be found hiding out in a Dairy Queen. But like Mr. Maduro, Mr. Noriega was also defiant to the end. In April 1988, he thrilled a crowd when he concluded a fiery anti-U.S. speech by smashing a podium with his machete. “This machete represents the dignity and courage of the Panamanian people,” Mr. Noriega said. “It says, ‘not one step back.’” Image Nicolas Maduro surrounded by security officers and the public asking questions. Mr. Maduro enjoys a “highly skilled” inner ring of protection with an elite force of bodyguards supplied by his close political allies in nearby Cuba.Credit...Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press Just as Mr. Noriega rejected U.S. efforts to negotiate his exit from power, Mr. Maduro has similarly refused to step down, instead offering Mr. Trump a U.S. stake in his country’s mineral wealth. The Venezuelan leader has also invoked the memory of 1989, weaving it into a larger narrative about his defiance of what he calls American imperialism. During a visit to Panama City in 2015, Mr. Maduro stopped to lay a wreath at a memorial to Panamanians killed in the U.S. invasion. “Never again a U.S. invasion in Latin America,” he declared. Michael Crowley covers the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The Times. He has reported from nearly three dozen countries and often travels with the secretary of state. 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article-3.md Skip to contentSkip to site indexSection Navigation SEARCH Account Government Shutdown How a Shutdown Works Deal in the Senate SNAP Benefits Assistance for Federal Workers You have been granted access, use your keyboard to continue reading. Senate Passes Bill to Reopen Government Amid Democratic Rift The vote, on Day 41 of the shutdown, signaled an end in sight to weeks of gridlock. Eight members of the Democratic Caucus supplied the critical backing. Listen to this article · 7:23 min Learn more Share full article Video The Senate passed legislation to reopen the government after eight senators in the Democratic caucus broke with the party and supplied critical backing. The measure now heads to the House.CreditCredit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times Catie Edmondson By Catie Edmondson Reporting from the Capitol Published Nov. 10, 2025 Updated Nov. 11, 2025, 12:47 p.m. ET The Senate passed legislation on Monday night to end the nation’s longest government shutdown, after a critical splinter group of Democrats joined with Republicans and backed a spending package that omitted the chief concession their party had spent weeks demanding. The 60-to-40 vote, on Day 41 of the shutdown, signaled a break in the gridlock that has shuttered the government for weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, millions of Americans at risk of losing food assistance and millions more facing air-travel disruptions. The measure goes next to the House, which is expected to take it up no sooner than Wednesday and where the small Republican margin of control and intense Democratic opposition could make for a close vote. President Trump has indicated that he will sign it. The breakthrough came after eight senators in the Democratic caucus broke their own party’s blockade of spending legislation Republicans have been trying to pass for weeks to reopen the government, prompting a bitter backlash in their ranks. They said they had done so after concluding that Republicans were never going to accede to Democrats’ central demand in the shutdown fight — the extension of federal health care subsidies set to expire at the end of the year — while millions of Americans continued to suffer amid the federal closure. “We had no path forward on health care because the Republicans said, ‘We will not talk about health care with the government shut down,’” said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia. “And we had SNAP beneficiaries and those relying on other important services who were losing benefits because of the shutdown.” How Every Senator Voted on Passing the Bill to End the Shutdown A bipartisan group of senators agreed on a deal to reopen the government. It will still take days to reopen the government. Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday urged House members — who have not held a vote in nearly two months as they took an extended recess during the shutdown — to begin the process of returning to Washington “right now.” At the White House, Mr. Trump said that he approved of the plan. “We’ll be opening up our country very quickly,” he said, calling the package “very good.” While the legislation omits any mention of the tax credits, Democrats said they would accept an offer by Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, to hold a vote on the issue later this year, when the subsidies are set to expire. But that measure, which would require 60 votes to pass, faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Senate and even less chance of advancing in the House, where Mr. Johnson would be unlikely to bring it up amid widespread opposition in his party. Many Democrats, including a phalanx of senators across the ideological spectrum, called that commitment woefully insufficient and angrily denounced the spending deal. After holding his party together for 40 days in the shutdown fight, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, opposed the deal made by some of his own members because, he said on Monday, “it fails to do anything of substance to fix America’s health care crisis.” Others argued the agreement amounted to enabling Mr. Trump’s agenda and tactics, when Democrats should instead be standing up to him and Republicans. “Trump and MAGA Republicans have been shutting down the government since Inauguration Day, gutting Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and engaging in the greatest health care heist in history — all to pay for tax cuts for CEO billionaires,” said Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts. “The American people want us to stop the heist, not drive the getaway car.” The compromise measure, which was largely negotiated by leaders on the Senate Appropriations Committee, includes a spending package that would fund the government through January, as well as three separate spending bills to cover programs related to agriculture, military construction and legislative agencies for most of 2026. The package also includes a provision that would reverse layoffs of federal workers made during the shutdown and ensure retroactive pay for those who have been furloughed. Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly defied Congress’s dictates on spending matters, said on Monday that he would comply with those provisions. “I’ll abide by the deal,” he said. As many as a dozen Democrats, many centrists hailing from purple states who had been uncomfortable with the idea of backing a government shutdown, had been quietly huddling for weeks in search of an off-ramp. Several privately agreed to hold the party line until at least Nov. 1, the start date for the annual open enrollment period for people who receive health coverage through the federal marketplace, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. But as the impact of the shutdown worsened and radiated across the nation, with flight cancellations racking up ahead of Thanksgiving travel and rising uncertainty around accessibility to food stamps, moderate Democrats were ready to break from their party. In the end, the eight who did were all senators who could afford to take a political hit; two are retiring while the other six are not up for re-election next year. “The question was, does the shutdown further the goal of achieving some needed support for the extension of the tax credits?” said Senator Angus King, an independent of Maine who caucuses with Democrats and voted for the deal. “Our judgment was that it will not produce that result. And the evidence for that is almost seven weeks of fruitless attempts to make that happen. Would it change in a week or another week or after Thanksgiving or Christmas? And there’s no evidence that it would.” “What there is evidence of,” Mr. King added, “is the harm that the shutdown is doing to the country.” In a 53-to-47 party-line vote, Republicans defeated a last-ditch effort by Democrats on Monday night to try to add a proposal to the spending package that would extend the credits for one year. But the fight is far from over. Having succeeded in elevating the health care subsidies as a political issue during the shutdown, Democrats are eager to keep the pressure on Republicans to extend them or suffer the consequences from voters who polls show overwhelmingly want to see them protected. Also rejected on Monday on a party-line vote was a Democratic effort to add a provision to bar the White House from using a maneuver known as a “pocket rescission,” in which the administration seeks to unilaterally cancel spending approved by Congress by making the request so late in the fiscal year that lawmakers do not have time to reject it before the funding expires. The Trump administration used that maneuver earlier this year to cancel $4.9 billion Congress had approved for foreign aid programs. Senators also defeated an effort by Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, to remove language from the bill that would effectively ban the unregulated sale of intoxicating hemp-derived products. It was rejected on a bipartisan vote of 76 to 24, allowing the ban to stand. Also tucked into the legislation was a provision that would provide a wide legal avenue for Republican senators whose phone records were seized as part of the investigation by Jack Smith, the former special counsel, into the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to sue the government for at least half a million dollars each. A correction was made on Nov. 11, 2025: An earlier version of this story misstated the vote by which an amendment to the spending package was defeated. The vote to reject the proposal to strip out a provision that would effectively ban the unregulated sale of intoxicating hemp-derived products was 76 to 24, not 76 to 26. When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times. See more on: Donald Trump, U.S. Politics, Democratic Party, Republican Party, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives Share full article Related Content Site Index Site Information Navigation © 2025 The New York Times Company NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
article-4.md Skip to contentSkip to site indexSection Navigation SEARCH GIVE THE TIMES Account Opinion Guest Essay Young Voters Are the Holy Grail. Zohran Mamdani Just Showed Democrats How to Win Them. Nov. 11, 2025, 5:03 a.m. ET Zohran Mamdani holds his right hand over his heart in front of a crowd holding signs that read “Our time has come.” Credit...Damon Winter/The New York Times Listen to this article · 15:08 min Learn more Share full article 226 Thomas B. Edsall By Thomas B. Edsall Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality. It’s only been a week, but the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York last Tuesday raises key questions for those seeking to put the Democratic Party on a winning path. Did his victory reveal the potential of a movement driven by legions of young, disaffected voters — especially struggling college graduates who are part of the so-called precariat — determined to wrest power from the party’s old-guard establishment and push the party’s platform to the left? Or will the Mamdani movement deteriorate and fall into the long tradition on the left of flames that all too quickly burn out, another in the list of protest movements that includes Occupy Wall Street, the pink pussy hat resistance and even Black Lives Matter? Let me say at the outset that I don’t claim to have the answer. I am instinctively pessimistic, based on covering the struggles of liberalism and the left for more than a half-century. That puts me on the side of doubters. At the same time, however, key elements of Mamdani’s campaign have enormous potential for a party badly beaten in 2024, one that continues to be held in disdain by much of the electorate, including by many of its own members. To an unusual degree, researching and writing this column has changed my thinking, leaving me more impressed with what Mamdani achieved and with the possibilities he has raised for the Democratic Party. There is no question that Mamdani demonstrated an extraordinary, if not magical, ability to change the character and composition of the electorate in the nation’s largest city. The turnout rate of voters age 18 to 29 rose to 41.3 percent this year from 11.1 percent in the 2021 election for mayor. The share of total turnout composed of 18-to-29-year-olds grew to 16.6 percent from 8.9 percent four years ago Turnout rose for all groups, but much more among young voters than among voters over 50. I am not going to try to address two related but unknowable questions — whether a Mamdani administration will succeed and whether Mamdani himself is a potential candidate for higher office. Instead, my focus is specifically on the broader applicability of the Mamdani campaign strategy for the national Democratic Party. Mamdani built an insurgency within the Democratic Party primary electorate first by mobilizing traditionally quiescent young voters — many of whom have found that their B.A.s do not guarantee a good job or any job at all — and then drawing in nonwhite voters and more of the college-educated middle class. Democrats have been trying to win for two decades with what came to be known as an upstairs-downstairs coalition of largely white college-educated voters and nonwhite voters of all educational backgrounds. The Mamdani movement added two crucial ingredients: anger and moral purpose — and in so doing actually expanded the electorate itself. In sharp contrast, say, to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Mamdani campaign was, in effect, an intraparty insurrection seeking to displace what its backers see as a dysfunctional and failed old guard. It is this semi-revolutionary element that gave the Mamdani campaign its larger moral legitimacy: the reform of a moribund institution. By achieving this, Mamdani’s admirers argued, he demonstrated the potential for initiating similar intraparty insurrections elsewhere in the country, campaigns seeking to convert internal discontent from a disadvantage into a tool to awaken and mobilize the electorate: “Simply put, the Democratic Party is primed for a hostile takeover.” Ryan Enos, a political scientist at Harvard, argued in a Substack post right after the election, “Mamdani and the Future of the Democratic Party.” Mamdani has tapped into a new political marketplace for enterprising candidates, Enos contended: As talented as Mamdani may be, there are many more people out there with similar talents and who are, like Mamdani, outsiders to the party establishment or will be willing to run as outsiders if this is the path to electoral success. Given the national mood and the fact that virtually nobody really likes the Democratic Party, we can anticipate that these politicians will emerge as contenders for various levels of office, perhaps even as the next Democratic presidential nominee. And many, as with Mamdani, will likely be able to overcome establishment forces and gain power. Mamdani’s significance, Enos argued, lies more in the fact that there was enough enthusiasm for change rooted in dissatisfaction with the status quo and anger at those who perpetuate it, that voters in a major election were willing to elect a true outsider candidate and to work hard enough to do so in the face of enormous establishment resistance. From an entirely different perspective, Steve Bannon, who oversaw Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and remains one of the most powerful voices on the right, sees great potential in the Mamdani campaign. Bannon warned his fellow conservatives, including the president, that they risk self-delusion if they dismiss the significance of Mamdani’s victory. In an interview last Wednesday with Politico, Bannon declared: People better understand they have a fight on their hands. This guy is a serious guy. … The national Republican Party and some of the smartest strategists do not realize the power of the Working Families Party and the [Democratic Socialists of America] for ground game. Modern politics now is about engaging low-propensity voters, and they clearly turned them out tonight, and this is kind of the Trump model. This is very serious. Bannon shares Enos’s view that Mamdani has opened a political window for the left: “You’re going to see a whole new group of Mamdanis in these major urban cities. This is the flower of what the progressive left has delivered over the last 40 or 50 years.” John Mollenkopf, director of CUNY’s Center for Urban Research, has studied the demographics, neighborhood dynamics, immigration patterns and politics of New York for more than four decades. He has been impressed by the Mamdani campaign. In a phone interview, Mollenkopf described the mayor-elect as “an exceptionally talented communicator and campaigner, very thoughtful, very smart, very anticipatory about the kinds of criticisms he’s going to get.” Mamdani was deluged with hostile questions throughout the campaign, Mollenkopf pointed out, and “one sign of how talented he is is that he doesn’t react with his gut. He reacts with his brain.” Contrary to critics who argued that Mamdani is too far left, Mollenkopf argued that Mamdani did exactly what the centrist critics of the woke Democratic Party said he should do. He constantly stressed kitchen-table issues, affordability, cost of living. He focused on that relentlessly. He didn’t say, “I’m bringing socialism to New York.” He didn’t say, you know, “We’re going to seize the means of production.” He said, “We’re going to make your buses free and fast. We’re going to freeze your rent.” In other words, “He followed the conservative advice about how Democrats could win.” Mollenkopf argued that as mayor one of Mamdani’s key challenges will be managing and containing the more radical wing of the Democratic Socialists of America, “who think that the election is the road to revolution. Mamdani is going to have to confront those people sooner or later.” The get-out-the-vote drive led by D.S.A. organizers was a key factor in Mamdani’s victory, in Mollenkopf’s view: They got somewhere between 70 and 110,000 people out in canvassing efforts, both for the primary and for the general election. I’ve never seen anything like it in New York, including the Obama campaigns. There is a more ambivalent view of the Mamdani campaign. Zachary Donnini, a graduate student in data science at Harvard and a data adviser to the Yale Youth Poll, captured this equivocality in his prescient June 27 Substack posting, “How Zohran Mamdani Could Deliver the Left’s Most Important Win in Years.” The general election “is definitely set to be the left’s biggest win since AOC defeated Joe Crowley, and potentially even bigger,” Donnini wrote, but let me play devil’s advocate and throw some cold water on the excitement. It’s nothing new for the left to prove they can win Democratic municipal primaries in the most lefty cities in the country. Sure, this was against a massive disadvantage in name recognition and fund-raising, and N.Y.C. is a much bigger fish to fry that gets far more national media attention. But Brandon Johnson won in Chicago just two years ago and now sits at a 6 percent approval rating as mayor. Progressive D.A. George Gascón won in Los Angeles in 2020, only to get absolutely demolished by an independent in 2024, running a staggering 53 points behind fellow Democrat Kamala Harris in the same county. … This is shaping up to be the left’s biggest electoral win in forever, but it could all be for nothing (and potentially really damaging to the gaining momentum of the movement) if Mamdani can’t break the recent pattern of his progressive predecessors having spectacularly unsuccessful tenures actually governing. In an email, Donnini elaborated: It’s worth remembering that New York City is demographically exceptional. Mamdani’s strongest areas (Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and western Queens) represent a concentration of young, progressive voters found in only a handful of places nationwide, like Chicago’s North Side. While his appeal won’t translate everywhere, certain elements are replicable: his social media savvy and focus on affordability clearly resonate with a segment of the electorate. The challenge for Democrats is harnessing that enthusiasm without alienating swing voters in the process. There are, of course, a substantial number of Democrats who view the Mamdani campaign as a political and ideological dead end that will collapse in failure, providing ammunition to Trump and his allies on the right. In an email, Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist who played a key role guiding the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton to victory, made a detailed case that the moderate strategies adopted by Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, governors-elect of Virginia and New Jersey, offer a far better model for Democratic candidates than Mamdani’s approach: We have empirical data after Tuesday. A real-life test case in which Spanberger, a centrist Democrat, flipped a G.O.P.-held governorship in a purple state with a centrist, persuasion-based strategy; while a socialist with a mobilization strategy limped across the finish line, an astonishing 18 points behind Kamala Harris. Begala argued that the very fact that “Mamdani ran on cost of living and did not focus on the woke white left’s agenda of identity, guilt and grievance” demonstrated the continuing strength of a centrist, pragmatic approach. “If a democratic socialist refuses to run on the far left’s social and cultural elitism, you can be sure it’s dead.” Begala did acknowledge the success of the Mamdani’s overarching strategic guideline: Keep it simple, stupid. Free buses. Freeze rent. Free child care. City-owned grocery stores. Tax the rich. Regardless of how you feel about these ideas, each one would fit on a hat. Contrast those slogans with how Kamala Harris summarized her housing policy at an August rally in North Carolina: “As president, I will work in partnership with industry to build the housing we need, both to rent and to buy. We will take down barriers and cut red tape including at the state and local levels. And by the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage by building three million new homes and rentals that are affordable for the middle class. And we’ll do that together.” All that said, Begala continued, Let me get to the heart of your question: Zohran Mamdani had the weakest win of a successful New York Democrat in 35 years. Fifty-point-four percent is weak. Eric Adams got 67 percent. Bill DeBlasio got 73 percent his first election and 66 percent in his second. Contrast that weakness with Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill’s strength. Each outpaced Harris by 4 to 5 percent. It seems to me the question is, why were Spanberger and Sherrill so much stronger than Mamdani — while running in much more challenging terrain than he? While some of Begala’s points are well taken, he misses a strength of Mamdani’s that sets him apart from his fellow Democratic victors on Election Day: He mobilized disgruntled and angry young voters, who have long been seen as the potential to be the party’s sleeping giant. In New Jersey, voters 18 to 44 made up 31 percent of the electorate. In Virginia, it was 33 percent. In New York City, it was 40 percent, according to CNN exit polls. Differences of seven or nine percentage points in the composition of the Democratic electorate may seem modest. In practice, they are seismic, with the potential to revitalize an almost lifeless political party. G. Elliott Morris, a political analyst who publishes his work on Substack at Strength in Numbers, described this aspect of Mamdani’s victory in an essay on Sunday, “The Mamdani Youthquake Suggests a Way for Democrats to Repair Their Brand.” Examining the election results, Morris wrote, “one chart that really caught my eye,” which showed “the percent of voters participating in New York City’s mayoral election that were less than 45 years old.” Of the two million voters who cast ballots in person, he continued, 42 percent were under age 45 — a much higher share than in recent mayoral races. In 2021, just 27 percent of those who voted for New York City mayor were under 45. First-time voters also made up an abnormally high 20 percent of the electorate on Tuesday. These new voters broke for Democratic Party and democratic socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani over former governor Andrew Cuomo by a margin of 66 to 30. This group was as pro-Mamdani as young voters, who broke 70 to 25 in his favor. Crucially, Morris wrote, “Mamdani also won two-thirds of voters with an unfavorable view of both political parties. This is something that Donald Trump managed to do in 2016, 2020 and 2024, as well.” Maybe, Morris concluded, “the party can learn something from Mamdani’s success in turning out new voters and engaging anti-system voters with an agenda aimed at affordability and the American dream. That is, after all, what most voters say they want out of politics anyway.” The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com. Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads. Thomas B. Edsall has been a contributor to the Times Opinion section since 2011. His column on strategic and demographic trends in American politics appears every Tuesday. He previously covered politics for The Washington Post. Read 226 comments Share full article 226 Related Content Site Index Site Information Navigation © 2025 The New York Times Company NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
article-5.md Skip to contentSkip to site indexSection Navigation SEARCH GIVE THE TIMES Account Trump Administration Senate Shutdown Deal SNAP Benefits Tariff Tracker Approval Rating Sanders Looks to Flex the Left’s Power With Senate Endorsement in Minnesota Senator Bernie Sanders is backing Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in her state’s Democratic primary race for Senate, his latest attempt to pull the party to the left. Listen to this article · 3:19 min Learn more Share full article 154 Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont speaking behind a lectern at the Capitol and gesturing with his hands. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent, is still one of the most popular politicians among Democratic voters, and remains determined to reshape the party in his image. Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times Shane Goldmacher By Shane Goldmacher Nov. 10, 2025 Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is wading ever more deeply into the Democratic Party’s ideological tug of war, endorsing Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota in her contested primary race to replace the retiring Senator Tina Smith, a Democrat. The move is Mr. Sanders’s third endorsement in a competitive primary for Senate. Ms. Flanagan, who was elected twice as the running mate of Gov. Tim Walz, is facing off against Representative Angie Craig, a Democrat. Their race is one of many primaries next year that will help determine the direction of the party. In a statement provided first to The New York Times, Mr. Sanders hailed Ms. Flanagan as having “the guts to stand up for working people against the billionaires and the corporate interests.” Mr. Sanders, 84, an independent, was the runner-up in the last two competitive Democratic presidential primaries. Still one of the party’s most popular politicians, he remains determined to reshape it in his image. He has already endorsed progressive candidates in open Democratic Senate races in Michigan and Maine next year. His latest endorsement comes a day after moderates in the Senate struck an agreement with Republicans to move toward reopening the federal government after the longest shutdown in history. The deal ignited outrage on the left, including from Mr. Sanders. Image Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota speaking into a microphone against a dark background. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota is facing off against Representative Angie Craig in the state’s Democratic primary race for Senate. Credit...Abbie Parr/Associated Press “I think the future rests with those of us who are going to stand with the working class, take on the oligarchs, take on massive levels of income and wealth inequality, and come up with an agenda and improve lives for ordinary people,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview last week ahead of his most recent endorsement. On one side of the Minnesota race is Ms. Flanagan, who has endorsed Mr. Sanders’s longtime priority of “Medicare for all,” and who last week accused her rival in an interview of being a “corporate Democrat.” “We must take on the big fights that will actually make life more affordable, not just the fights we think we can win,” she said in a statement, adding that she was proud to accept Mr. Sanders’s endorsement. On the other side is Ms. Craig, who flipped a battleground seat from Republicans in 2018 and cast herself in an interview last week as a “gets stuff done” Democrat. She highlighted her efforts to push provisions of legislation that ultimately capped the price of insulin at $35 for those on Medicare. “I’m the kind of Democrat who is going to question my own party at times and whether we’re doing the right thing,” Ms. Craig said, noting that she had challenged a more senior member of her party to became the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee. Ms. Flanagan has earned endorsements from several other high-profile progressives, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, but notably, her running mate, Mr. Walz, has yet to endorse a candidate. Ms. Craig, for her part, has the backing of a number of influential Democrats in the party, including Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader; Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin; and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the longtime Democratic leader in the House. Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent. A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 11, 2025, Section A, Page 21 of the New York edition with the headline: Sanders Hits The Hustings To Endorse Progressives. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe See more on: Bernard Sanders, Democratic Party, U.S. Politics Read 154 comments Share full article 154 Related Content Site Index Site Information Navigation © 2025 The New York Times Company NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
article-6.md Skip to contentSkip to site indexSection Navigation SEARCH GIVE THE TIMES Account Artificial Intelligence Are Therapy Chatbots Safe? Right-Wing Chatbots Wrongful-Death Lawsuit California’s A.I. Law Wearable Companions SoftBank Sells $5.8 Billion Stake in Nvidia to Pay for OpenAI Deals The move has further stoked concerns among some investors that the rally in artificial intelligence stocks was overdone. Listen to this article · 3:06 min Learn more Share full article Masayoshi Son speaking with one hand in the air. Masayoshi Son, the founder and chief executive of SoftBank, has bet big on artificial intelligence.Credit...Franck Robichon/EPA, via Shutterstock Michael J. de la Merced By Michael J. de la Merced Nov. 11, 2025, 11:40 a.m. ET The DealBook Newsletter Our columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and his Times colleagues help you make sense of major business and policy headlines — and the power-brokers who shape them. Get it sent to your inbox. SoftBank, the Japanese technology giant, has staked its future on artificial intelligence. But to help pay for those expensive investments, the company last month sold its entire $5.8 billion holdings in Nvidia, the chipmaker behind the A.I. boom, SoftBank said in its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday. SoftBank’s enormous spending plans, including some $30 billion alone on OpenAI, come amid a flood of planned investments in artificial intelligence across the technology industry — including circular deals among the same companies. (Nvidia, for example, is committed to investing up to $100 billion in OpenAI, which in turn plans to buy an enormous slug of the chipmaker’s processors.) News that SoftBank, an influential technology investor, was getting out of one of the biggest names in artificial intelligence stoked concern among some investors that the rally in A.I. stocks was overdone. A new skeptic of the boom appeared on Monday: Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager made famous by the book and the movie “The Big Short,” questioned on social media the accounting for tech giants’ huge purchases of computer chips. But SoftBank’s reason for the sale was purely pragmatic, according to its chief financial officer, Yoshimitsu Goto. “We do need to divest our existing portfolio so that, that can be utilized for our financing,” he told analysts. “It’s nothing to do with Nvidia itself.” Late last month, OpenAI completed a corporate reorganization to become a for-profit company. As part of that move, SoftBank agreed to make its full $30 billion investment in the ChatGPT maker. The move underscored the steep financial requirements of SoftBank’s continuing focus on artificial intelligence. “I want SoftBank to lead the A.I. revolution,” Masayoshi Son, the company’s founder and chief executive, said in 2023. That has meant making big pledges, including the OpenAI investment, and joining a venture called Stargate, with OpenAI and Oracle, that intends to build an array of data centers. More broadly, SoftBank has announced that it plans to invest $100 billion in projects in the United States. Doing so has forced the company to find the money for its pledges, including by selling off existing investments and borrowing heavily. In some cases, however, those investments have paid off already. Despite the price tag of the OpenAI commitment, the start-up’s soaring valuation — on paper, at least — helped SoftBank more than double its profit in the most recent quarter, to 2.5 trillion yen, or $16.2 billion. But SoftBank’s sale of its Nvidia stake resurrected memories of its last investment in the chipmaker, which it sold off in 2019. That was a few years before its stock began to climb on the back of demand for A.I. services like ChatGPT. Michael J. de la Merced has covered global business and finance news for The Times since 2006. See more on: OpenAI, Masayoshi Son Share full article Related Content Site Index Site Information Navigation © 2025 The New York Times Company NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
Skip to contentSkip to site indexSection Navigation SEARCH GIVE THE TIMES Account Government Shutdown How a Shutdown Works Deal in the Senate SNAP Benefits Assistance for Federal Workers News Analysis For Trump, Nothing Was Off Limits During the Shutdown President Trump pressured Democrats by taking punishing actions no previous administration ever took during a shutdown. Listen to this article · 4:40 min Learn more Share full article President Trump, seated behind a desk, smiles as he gestures with his left hand. President Trump and congressional Republicans followed a strategy of ramping up pain and waiting out the Democrats.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times Luke Broadwater By Luke Broadwater Reporting from Washington Published Nov. 10, 2025 Updated Nov. 11, 2025, 9:27 a.m. ET Leer en español The government shutdown is already the longest in American history. But it’s also perhaps the most punishing, in part because President Trump has taken actions no previous administration ever took during a shutdown. Over the past six weeks, the Trump administration cut food stamps for millions of low-income Americans. It tried to fire thousands of government workers and withhold back pay from others, while freezing or canceling money for projects in Democratic-led states. It remains to be seen whether there will be a political price to pay for Mr. Trump or his party, with polls showing that voters generally blamed Republicans more for the shutdown. But for now, the tactics appear to have worked, after a group of Democrats agreed to support a bill to end the shutdown and drop the concessions their party had demanded. “Standing up to Donald Trump didn’t work,” Senator Angus King, independent of Maine who caucuses with the Democrats, said on MSNBC Monday. “It actually gave him more power.” The bare-knuckle politics the Trump administration employed during the shutdown — often coming from his budget director Russell T. Vought, whom Mr. Trump refers to as Darth Vader — became too brutal for the handful of centrist Senate Democrats, who never liked the idea of the shutdown much anyway. The deal they voted for on Monday reverses much of the pain Mr. Trump inflicted. Under its terms, the president must rescind his layoffs and restore back pay to other government workers. Democrats will also get a vote on extending subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, something that Senate Republicans weeks ago offered them. While the shutdown may be ending, Democratic officials say the party learned a lesson that base voters reward them when they fight. Democratic leaders view last week’s elections, with big victories in governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, as evidence that their strategy was working. They point to polling that indicates that the public was blaming Mr. Trump and Republicans more than Democrats for the shutdown. “Republicans all across the country got wiped out,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top Democrat in the House, adding, “As House Democrats, we know we’re on the right side of this fight.” Democrats also believe they now have an issue to run on in the midterm elections. They have highlighted issues important to voters, positioning themselves in the public’s mind as the party fighting for lowering health care costs, while they can contrast those efforts with the Trump administration’s attempts to deny food stamps to needy families. But Trump officials have also learned a lesson. If they wait out Democrats long enough — and turn up the pain enough — they will back down. Early in the shutdown, White House officials had predicted Democrats would eventually fold. They saw little need for Mr. Trump to negotiate with the Democratic leaders, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Mr. Jeffries. The strategy, White House officials said, was to wait out the Democrats, ramp up the pain and then watch as they eventually caved. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said he approves of the deal under consideration to reopen the federal government. “We’ll be opening up our country very quickly,” Mr. Trump said. Asked if that meant he would back off his attempts to fire federal workers, he said: “I’ll abide by the deal. The deal is very good.” Mr. Trump also made it clear that he wants to position the Republicans as the party that is working for lower health care costs. He said he wants to move toward a health care system that cuts out insurance companies. “We want a health care system where we pay the money to the people instead of the insurance companies,” he said. “And I tell you, we’re going to be working on that very hard over the next short period of time.” But Mr. Trump offered no details about what such a plan could look like or how it could save money for consumers. There may still be more fallout from the shutdown even after it is resolved. Some House Democrats, dissatisfied that Mr. Schumer couldn’t better control his caucus and hold the line on Democratic demands, called for him to be replaced. “Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, said in a post on X. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?” But Mr. Jeffries said he was standing by his counterpart in the Senate. “The overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, have waged a valiant fight over the last seven weeks,” Mr. Jeffries said. Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times. See more on: Donald Trump, U.S. Politics, Republican Party, Democratic Party, U.S. Senate, Angus King Jr. Share full article Related Content Site Index Site Information Navigation © 2025 The New York Times Company NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
Skip to contentSkip to site indexSection Navigation SEARCH Account Reshaping Congress State-by-State Guide California G.O.P. Files Suit Maryland Revisits Its Map Ohio G.O.P. Gains Ground Virginia’s Maps Kansas Redistricting Was on the Fast Track. Then Some Republicans Said No. The state’s top Republicans wanted to join President Trump’s push to redraw congressional maps. But plans for a special session fell apart when some lawmakers resisted. Listen to this article · 9:30 min Learn more Share full article Daniel Hawkins, the speaker of the Kansas House, holds a phone and stands with two other men. Daniel Hawkins, the speaker of the Kansas House, pitched members of his caucus on a special session for redistricting.Credit...John Hanna/Associated Press Mitch Smith By Mitch Smith Nov. 11, 2025 Updated 2:24 p.m. ET The top Republicans in Kansas were ready to join President Trump’s redistricting push and redraw the state’s political map to deliver another seat in Congress to Republicans. Democrats feared that a special session to pass new district lines was inevitable. Then something surprising happened. Some Republicans refused. The pushback on the Plains leaves in place, at least for now, the one Democratic-leaning congressional district in Kansas. It comes as a small but rising number of lawmakers across the country, Republicans and Democrats, have balked at joining the drive to carve up congressional districts to boost their side’s odds in the midterm elections. The national flurry of remapping, set off this summer when Texas Republicans drew a new one at the president’s behest, happened quickly in several states. But growing resistance from state lawmakers, for reasons both practical and philosophical, has put a chill on the effort. When the Republican governor of Indiana called a special session for redistricting last month, the Senate Republicans said the votes were not there. Maryland Democratic leaders are divided. And in Kansas, where top Republicans had hoped to meet about a new map last Friday, House leaders failed to get enough support. The debate over remapping in Kansas is not over, and new boundaries could still pass when lawmakers return for their regular session in January. Some Republican legislators were stripped of committee leadership roles on Friday, a punishment for bucking the party line on redistricting. And several lawmakers said they had considered the possibility of more political repercussions if the president were to become more involved. But the depth and breadth of Republican skepticism, both conservative and moderate, from both rural areas and cities, suggests that redistricting faces an uphill climb in Kansas even if political pressure continues to increase. “I would rather just stand on principle and stand on my morals and ethics,” said State Representative Brett Fairchild, a conservative Republican, who said he believed redistricting went against the intent of the country’s founders and could backfire on his party in future elections. “That way I can actually look at myself in the mirror and sleep at night. It’s not all just about getting re-elected.” ‘Be Expecting a Call’ State Representative Clarke Sanders said he first heard a pitch for redistricting in September at a retreat with his fellow Republicans in Wichita. He said the House speaker, Daniel Hawkins, presented to members of his caucus a letter that would call a special session, and that Mr. Hawkins described meeting with Mr. Trump at the White House, where the president made the case for a new congressional map that would help Republicans in the state. Two-thirds of the Kansas House and two-thirds of the Kansas Senate would have needed to agree for lawmakers to return to the Capitol on Nov. 7 to consider a new map. Democrats were never going to sign that letter, meaning that Republicans could afford only a handful of dissenters from the supermajorities they hold in both chambers. The speaker “told us that if we don’t sign on to this, be expecting a call from the White House,” said Mr. Sanders, a conservative from Salina, a city of 46,000 people in central Kansas. Mr. Sanders did not sign the letter. Sure enough, he said he got that phone call from Washington. Mr. Sanders said he did not remember the name of the caller, who identified himself as a White House staff member, and that they talked for perhaps 30 minutes. The staff member “was saying that it was really important that we get this done,” he recalled. Mr. Sanders, who described the call as cordial, explained his belief that drawing a new map would be politically risky. “I just thought that this would give Democrats a club to beat us over the head with if we went forward,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview. White House officials did not answer questions about redistricting in Kansas. On Friday, Mr. Sanders got a call from Speaker Hawkins, he said. He was told that he was being removed from his role as vice chairman of the Higher Education Budget Committee because he had not agreed to the special session. Memos sent by Mr. Hawkins to lawmakers and obtained by The New York Times showed that at least six committee chairs and vice chairs were removed from their posts on Friday, and that other committee assignments were also reshuffled. Mr. Hawkins said in his newsletter that 10 House Republicans had not signed the special session letter. In an interview over the weekend on the “John Whitmer Show,” a local talk radio program, Mr. Hawkins said that “any leader that is not working with the other leaders to make things happen really doesn’t deserve to be a chair anymore, and, quite frankly, that’s the reason why I made a move.” Image State Representative Clarke Sanders, in a red striped tie and blue jacket, stands at a podium beside another lawmaker. State Representative Clarke Sanders, right, at the Kansas State Capitol in 2022.Credit...John Hanna/Associated Press Mr. Hawkins, who is running for state insurance commissioner, did not agree to be interviewed. He sent a statement that said: “Democrats have been gerrymandering for years, and now folks want to clutch their pearls that Republicans are finally fighting back. That’s rich.” Redistricting usually takes place once a decade, but that convention went by the wayside this summer after Texas Republicans passed new boundaries. California Democrats responded with a plan of their own, approved this month by voters. Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina and Democrats in Virginia also forged ahead. Leaders in both parties have urged more states to join in. In Kansas, skepticism over redistricting extends beyond the 10 Republicans who did not sign the letter seeking a special session. At least one House member, Mr. Fairchild, said he had signed the letter because he wanted to consider other topics in a special session, but was always a firm no on redistricting. And while the State Senate mustered the support it needed for a special session, not everyone who signed was fully persuaded. “I worry that if we go in and try to redraw now, and if we don’t have good reasons to do so, I think there could be a backlash,” said State Senator Mike Thompson, a Republican from the Kansas City suburbs who signed the letter but said he was undecided on redistricting. ‘It’s Hard to Wrangle Us’ Kansans reliably vote for Republicans in presidential elections, and Mr. Trump carried the state last year by 16 percentage points. But the state’s voters have an independent streak, too. They rejected an effort to strip abortion rights from the State Constitution in 2022 and have twice elected Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat whose veto pen complicates Republicans’ redistricting goals. Voters have also continued to re-elect Representative Sharice Davids, the only Democrat in Kansas’ congressional delegation, even after Republicans made her district more conservative when they last drew maps. Ms. Davids, who flipped a Republican-held seat in the 2018 midterms, has beaten recent Republican challengers by at least 10 percentage points. In late September, when redistricting had seemed more likely, Ms. Davids described herself as “legitimately livid that this is happening.” She spent the weeks that followed making the case against redistricting in her district. “It’s infuriating, but it’s also a little bit confusing because it’s such a bad idea,” said Ms. Davids, who was one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress. “Just basic principles: Voters should be choosing their representatives, and not the other way around.” Some statehouse Democrats in Kansas thought a special session was inevitable. But Republican legislators, both those who signed the letter and those who did not, said those Democrats had misunderstood their opposition. “It wasn’t just Trump snaps his fingers and we redistrict,” said Mr. Thompson, the state senator. “If that were the case,” he added, “it would have been done weeks ago.” Image U.S. Representative Sharice Davids, in a cap and ponytail, rides on a vehicle beside a man on farmland. U.S. Representative Sharice Davids toured a cattle farm in her district in September.Credit...David Robert Elliott for The New York Times State Representative Pat Proctor, a redistricting supporter from Leavenworth, described remapping as essential to supporting the president’s agenda. But on an issue like redistricting, he said, there are often a range of Republican views. “We are a big, big tent,” said Mr. Proctor, who is running for secretary of state. “And so it’s hard to wrangle us.” The redistricting fight is not settled. Mr. Proctor said he expected redistricting to come to the floor in January. Ms. Davids said that “their plan to cheat the system isn’t over.” Both Speaker Hawkins and Ty Masterson, the State Senate president, indicated in statements that a new map was still a goal. Kansas Republicans have also noted that Ms. Kelly, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, has spoken in support of Democratic-led states passing new maps in response to Republican gerrymandering. “President Trump asked Republicans to fight for fair maps and for America’s future,” said Mr. Masterson, part of a large field seeking the Republican nomination for governor in 2026. “We did our part — and we’ll keep leading the charge here in Kansas.” In order to enact a new map over Ms. Kelly’s near-certain veto, Republicans will need two-thirds support in both chambers, the same threshold the House failed to reach in calling the special session. Some Republican holdouts say they will not budge. State Representative Mark Schreiber, a moderate Republican from Emporia, said he opposed redistricting and feared that it “would just ruin the confidence people have in our political system.” “I’m very comfortable with my reasoning,” Mr. Schreiber said. “If the president called, I would tell him the same thing. And if he ran a primary challenger, I’d say, ‘Bring it on.’” Mitch Smith is a Chicago-based national correspondent for The Times, covering the Midwest and Great Plains. See more on: U.S. Politics, U.S. House of Representatives, Republican Party Share full article Related Content Site Index Site Information Navigation © 2025 The New York Times Company NYTCoContact UsAccessibilityWork with usAdvertiseT Brand StudioPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyTerms of ServiceTerms of SaleSite MapHelpSubscriptions
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