More than three decades ago, conventional Republicans and centrist Democrats signed on to an unwritten treaty. Conservatives agreed to mute their push for private school vouchers, their preference for religious schools and their desire to slash spending on public school systems. In return, Democrats effectively gave up the push for school integration and embraced policies that reined in teachers unions.

Curiously, the only time during her tenure that she prominently supported standardized testing was during the pandemic — a move seemingly intended to make public schools, which would obviously struggle to manage the task, look bad.

$5 billion annual tax credit for private school tuition, Ms. DeVos and her allies have made tremendous inroads at the state level.

And this past summer, the Supreme Court in Espinoza v. Montana declared that states could not bar religious schools from participating in state programs that provide scholarships to students attending private schools, clearing the way for further private expansion.

To capitalize on voter dissatisfaction with education policies in the coming years, Democrats can no longer lean on maligning Ms. DeVos.

And while Mr. Biden’s expansive (and expensive) education plans will confront the harsh reality of partisan division in Congress, he is guaranteed a powerful megaphone — one that he’ll share, not just with the next secretary of education, but with a former high-school teacher and current community-college professor, Jill Biden.

The best thing that could happen educationally is an investment in community colleges that enhances their value, rigor and prestige.

I sometimes fear the Trump administration has reduced us, emotionally and intellectually, to a single thought, played like a Gregorian chant on an endless loop: Just. Make. It. Stop.

Now, all of a sudden, we’re being reminded that we have real problems, like rising inequality, collapsing social mobility and the mounting financial burden one generation is placing on the next.

Biden’s higher education plan would make community college free for up to two years. For those who want to go further he’d make public colleges tuition free for most students and liberate many of the poor kids who were lured into signing up for an ungodly amount of debt.

t: I have no problem making college more affordable, but I’m generally against making things free on the view that people rarely value, or stick with, what they don’t pay for.

Anyway, the point here is just to think fresh. After four years of Trump, discussing these things feels a bit like seeing the sun and hearing those chirping birds you were just talking about for the first time in years.

But a vaccine that would be widely available to the public is still months away, while the need for one is becoming increasingly urgent

Covid-19 is killing more than 1,100 Americans a day, and the last million cases occurred in just six days.

This vaccine presents the opportunity of using doctors’ offices, clinics and pharmacies as vaccination sites,” he said, adding that he would not be surprised, should both vaccines become available, if vaccination sites requested Moderna’s.

Moderna said it would have 20 million doses ready by the end of 2020

Both companies plan to apply within weeks to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization to begin vaccinating the public

The company announced on Oct. 22 that it had completed enrollment of its 30,000-person study, and that 25,650 participants had already received two shots.

Moderna has received a commitment of $955 million from the U.S. government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority for research and development of its vaccine, and the United States has committed up to $1.525 billion to buy 100 million doses.

This pandemic has called on me to do what I have done best through my life, to multitask, anticipate people’s needs. It’s an opportunity to be resilient and to show Chloé, my little one, how to do it.

I tell her this is a parenthesis in life.

And their approach, in case you missed it, has been denial and a refusal to take even the most basic, low-cost precautions — like requiring that people wear masks in public.The epidemiological consequences of this cynical irresponsibility will be ghastly. I’m not sure how many people realize just how terrible this winter is going to be.

Awful as the pandemic outlook is, however, what worries me more is what our failed response says about prospects for dealing with a much bigger issue, one that poses an existential threat to civilization: climate change.

Right-wingers always claim that taking climate seriously would doom the economy, but the truth is that at this point the economics of climate action look remarkably benign

This indirectness made many of us pessimistic about the prospects for climate action. But Covid-19 suggests that we weren’t pessimistic enough.

After all, the consequences of irresponsible behavior during a pandemic are vastly more obvious and immediate than the costs of climate inaction. Gather a bunch of unmasked people indoors — say, in the Trump White House — and you’re likely to see a spike in infections just a few weeks later. This spike will take place in your own neighborhood, quite possibly affecting people you know.

Yet what we see instead is widespread refusal to acknowledge the risks, accusations that cheap, common-sense rules like wearing masks constitute “tyranny,” and violent threats against public officials.

But even though the 2020 election wasn’t about climate, it was to some degree about the pandemic — and the results make it hard to be optimistic about the future.

“But it’s also much worse than the spring because this virus is now much more widespread,” she said. “It’s not just one region of the country experiencing the surge. It’s every state.”

Dr. Watson said she worried that hospitals in many cities would soon become overwhelmed, as they were in New York City and other places on the East Coast during the spring peak.

The country is now recording more than 150,000 new cases each day on average, more than ever before.

The governors of Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington who have announced new restrictions in the last few days are all Democrats.

During that time, all roads in the

Navajo Nation are closed to visitors, residents must stay at home except for urgent trips, and most government offices will be closed. Essential businesses like gas stations and groceries are allowed to open, but only from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The virus killed about 1,700 people in Philadelphia in the early months of the pandemic, overwhelming the city’s funeral homes. With Covid-19 hospitalizations soaring again in the city, Dr. Farley warned that the virus could kill a similar number of Philadelphians this fall and winter if left unchecked.

“The bottom line is this: If we don’t do something to change the trajectory of this epidemic, the hospitals will become full,” Dr. Farley said. “They’ll have difficulty treating people, and we’ll have between several hundred and a thousand deaths by just the end of this year.”

But the appointments of Mr. Richmond, Ms. O’Malley Dillon and Mr. Ricchetti — all loyal lieutenants to Mr. Biden — suggest the importance that he is also placing on surrounding himself with people whose advice he implicitly trusts.

Ms. O’Malley Dillon, a veteran of former President Barack Obama’s campaigns, has been credited with steering Mr. Biden’s presidential bid through the difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic and the challenge of running against an unpredictable rival like Mr. Trump. Her appointment was reported earlier by NBC News.

She assumed the role of campaign manager in mid-March, just as the severity of the coronavirus outbreak was becoming clear to many Americans. Two days after she was named to the role, Biden campaign offices around the country shut down

He still has to assemble a communications team, including a press secretary, who will often serve as the public face of the administration. Among the possible candidates for that job is Symone Sanders, who has served as one of his top communications advisers during the campaign.

The president-elect will also have to choose a White House counsel, a key job in an era of divided government, when members of the other party often engage in legal clashes with the president. Dana Remus, who worked in the counsel’s office during Mr. Obama’s tenure, was the chief lawyer for Mr. Biden’s campaign.

This black line shows the overall margin in each election from 2008 to 2016. Four years ago, Mr. Trump won these counties by about 28 percentage points.

Mr. Trump had the most enthusiastic support in 2016 — the more than 1,400 counties that swung 10 points or more to the right from 2012.

Mr. Trump’s strongest supporters four years ago tended to live in counties with fewer college-educated residents. These counties solidly backed Mr. Trump again in 2020, while many of those with a more educated populace shifted toward Mr. Biden.

The same divide can be seen in the votes from suburban and rural America. Mr. Trump maintained his strong support in many of the country’s less-populous, rural counties while suburban voters collectively swung toward Mr. Biden.

Even in normal times, mass-vaccination campaigns involve many moving parts within a vast network of suppliers, transporters and middlemen.

Nine other candidates are also in the final stage of testing. If any of those win approval from the F.D.A., that will reduce the importance of Pfizer’s vaccine but also introduce new questions, such as which hospitals and people get the different vaccines.

Pfizer has said it expects to be able to produce 50 million doses this year.

“We’re working very closely, in the U.S., in particular, with Operation Warp Speed to identify those distribution points,” Ms. Alcorn said, referring to the federal initiative to produce and distribute Covid-19 vaccines. “We don’t have them today.”

Representatives of UPS and FedEx said they had been planning to play a major role in distributing vaccines and were ready to go.Once the Pfizer coolers reach their destinations, hospitals or pharmacies will have a few choices of how to store the vaccine. The easiest option is using ultracold freezers, but not many sites have them. Otherwise, the facilities can stash the trays in conventional freezers for up to five days. Or they can keep the vials in the cooler for up to 15 days, so long as they replenish the dry ice and don’t open it more than twice a day.

Pfizer does not yet know where the government wants the vaccine sent or who will be first in line to receive it, said Ms. Alcorn, the supply-chain executive.

“If you’re talking about 12.5 million people, you’re going to have to make some very tough-minded decisions about who this goes to,” said J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research firm. “It’s a pretty small number of doses that are going to be distributed.”

For all the difficulties of making and distributing the vaccine, public health experts said the hardest part of the process could soon be complete.

One of the biggest early challenges may be distributing the vaccine in rural areas, which may not be able to administer doses quickly enough before they go bad. It isn’t clear how states with large rural populations are going to deal with this.

Mr. Pence told the lawmakers he planned to travel to Georgia on Nov. 20 to campaign for Republican senators in the two runoff elections.

In reality, Mr. Pence’s allies expect him to return to Indiana and make a living giving paid speeches and potentially writing a book. It will be the first time in a long time that Mr. Pence will live as a private citizen

The Constitution calls on the vice president to oversee a joint session of Congress, to be held this time on Jan. 6, in which the votes from the Electoral College are officially counted. Typically, vice presidents simply read from a script and take no actions to interfere with the results.

In 2000, Vice President Al Gore had to certify the disputed election results after the Supreme Court effectively handed the presidential election to his opponent, George W. Bush.

For Mr. Pence, the day he will have to announce Mr. Trump’s defeat is two months away. In the meantime, he has resumed more traditional duties of the job, appearing with the president on Wednesday at a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. And he postponed a family vacation to Florida, opting instead for a speaking engagement on Friday.

More educated places, which leaned strongly blue to begin with, voted even more Democratic in 2020 than they did in 2016.

A more educated work force bodes well for future local economic success — and places with brighter prospects swung toward Joe Biden.

Jobs requiring more education are projected to grow faster and be at less risk from automation. Counties where more jobs are “routine” (in the sense of being at greater risk from automation) voted strongly for Mr. Trump in 2016 and even more so in 2020, while counties with fewer such jobs swung toward Mr. Biden. Similarly, counties with a mix of occupations that are projected to grow faster voted even more strongly for Mr. Biden in 2020 than for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Not only did places with brighter economic prospects swing more toward Mr. Biden, but places with a stronger economy during the past four years did, too.

Overall voting patterns tend to change very little from election to election.

Put another way, only 7 percent of counties

swung more than 10 points in either direction between 2016 and 2020.

Many more places swung toward Mr. Biden relative to 2016 than toward Mr. Trump, but the most significant local shifts were toward Mr. Trump. These included heavily Hispanic areas in Miami-Dade County and along the Texas border, and the more heavily Mormon counties of Utah and Idaho

Both denser and more sprawling suburbs of large metros swung toward Mr. Biden by around five percentage points, while more traditionally Democratic urban counties didn’t shift much either way. Non-metropolitan, largely rural counties also shifted little.

Unfortunately, this development doesn’t mean we can all relax and start doing more things. It means we need to tighten up even further until the vaccine becomes available.

The goal is now no longer to learn to live indefinitely with the virus. It’s to get as many people through the winter as possible without getting sick.

It’s always been hard to convince people to make good choices when considering sacrifices. Uncertainty around when we’d get an effective vaccine made it even harder. Cutting off in-person interactions for an uncertain stretch of time was excruciating. But it may be more palatable to hunker down if it’s only for a defined period.

And the costs are not just financial; mental health is at risk as well as physical health as people forgo care, including self-care, to remain free from infection. All of that becomes easier to swallow if it’s for a shorter period of time.

To make the situation concrete, let’s consider the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. With cases growing rapidly around the country, especially in the northern Midwest, indoor social gatherings are more dangerous than at any point since the spring. Thanksgiving dinners are ideal settings for “superspreader” events: They crowd people from all over around a table to talk, laugh and drink, often in poorly ventilated rooms. Many families stuff themselves into houses for an entire long weekend.

The calculus is very different, however, if a vaccine is around the corner. While Pfizer’s still needs to be approved, manufactured and distributed, the company estimates that 50 million doses could be distributed before the end of the year. Another 1.3 billion would come in 2021. If other vaccines also show success, relief could come as soon as the spring.

While Pfizer’s still needs to be approved, manufactured and distributed, the company estimates that 50 million doses could be distributed before the end of the year. Another 1.3 billion would come in 2021. If other vaccines also show success, relief could come as soon as the spring.

The point generalizes. Without question, the sacrifices required to keep us safe from Covid-19 are costly. And the costs are not just financial; mental health is at risk as well as physical health as people forgo care, including self-care, to remain free from infection. All of that becomes easier to swallow if it’s for a shorter period of time.

Cutting off in-person interactions for an uncertain stretch of time was excruciating. But it may be more palatable to hunker down if it’s only for a defined period.

Pfizer’s announcement strengthens the case for federal financial support. Covid-19 is still going to hurt some businesses disproportionately, either because they’ll be forced to close again or because people have stopped going out as much. But Congress no longer needs to write a blank check to support them. It just needs to provide a lifeline for a number of months, a much more palatable prospect.

It’s a bad idea for restaurants and bars to be open for indoor dining this winter. Temporarily closing them down would be easier to stomach if these establishments are given the wherewithal to reopen next year.

The Pfizer announcement is unmitigated good news. But it would be a tragic mistake to relax our vigilance. Instead, continue to mask up, stay home and consider canceling or limiting your Thanksgiving plans. This is still a marathon, but the end is much closer than before.

The average daily death toll in the United States is inching back toward 1,000, and hospitals nationwide are strained with patients. The president-elect said that Americans would need to rely on basic precautions, like wearing masks, to “get back to normal as fast as possibl

The country now averages 900 deaths each day, and 28 states added more cases in the seven-day period ending Sunday than in any other weeklong stretch of the pandemic. No states are reporting sustained reductions in cases.

Coronavirus hospitalizations, perhaps the clearest measure of how many people are severely ill, are approaching record levels set during earlier surges of the pandemic, according to data collected by the Covid Tracking Project

At the White House, which has been the site of several high-profile outbreaks in recent months, Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, tested positive for the coronavirus on Monday, according to a spokesman for the agency. He became the latest in a long list of administration officials, including Mr. Trump himself, to contract the virus.

At least three people who attended an election party at the White House last week, including Mr. Carson, have tested positive for the virus. At the event, several hundred people gathered in the East Room for several hours, many of them not wearing masks as they mingled while watching the election returns.

Beyond the impact of the virus itself, when Mr. Biden takes office, he will face a sobering economic reality.

More than half of the states issued mask mandates at some point this year, and some officials have tried targeted shutdowns on bars and indoor dining. But public health officials acknowledge that there is little public appetite for a return to full lockdowns.

Mr. Biden, moving to signal to Americans that he is prepared to take charge after a chaotic year, named a new coronavirus task force headed by a former commissioner of food and drugs, Dr. David Kessler; a former surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy; and a Yale public health expert, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith.

The president-elect vowed to “spare no effort” in fighting the virus, with the goal of getting the economy “running at full speed again.”

His comments contrasted Mr. Trump’s. The president has spent the past eight months dismissing or playing down the need for Americans to wear masks, saying frequently — and falsely — that public health experts disagree about masks’ effectiveness.

Vice President Mike Pence, who serves as the chairman of Mr. Trump’s coronavirus task force, convened the group on Monday after meeting about once a week over the past several months. But Mr. Trump, who remains in office until January, is openly at odds with his own virus advisers, including about mask wearing.

There were 10 million fewer Americans working in October than in February, according to the Labor Department, and the pace of job growth has slowed every month since June.

“The virus is winning the war by now,” Mr. Pritzker said, urging the public to wear masks. “The situation has worsened considerably in certain areas of the state.”

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio warned on Monday that the city was “getting dangerously close” to a second wave and said that further lockdowns were possible if New Yorkers did not regain control of the virus. “Unfortunately, it could mean even having to shut down parts of our economy again,” he said.At Mr. Biden’s closed-door briefing with his Covid advisory board, which took place remotely over a video conference call on Monday, three leaders of the panel provided updates on the pandemic while others members of the group introduced themselves, according to a person familiar with the discussion.

He told lawmakers that officials in the government had failed to heed his warnings about acquiring masks and other supplies

Then came South Carolina. It was the first early contest where a large number of Black voters would register their preferences, and Mr. Biden enjoyed good will with those voters, stemming from his loyal service at the side of President Barack Obama.

When the results came in, he had won — and he had done so decisively, with more than twice as many votes as his closest rival, Mr. Sanders.

On Super Tuesday, Mr. Biden won 10 of 14 states, including some that he never campaigned in. His former rivals continued to coalesce around him over the next week. Senators Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey endorsed Mr. Biden before Michigan’s primary a week later.

Mr. Biden re-emerged on Memorial Day, placing a wreath at a veterans memorial in Wilmington, Del., and wearing a mask, in contrast to how Mr. Trump had been appearing.

The next week, he met with community leaders at a Black church in Wilmington following the death of George Floyd in police custody

His campaign organized occasional in-person events in Delaware and neighboring Pennsylvania that were designed with safety in mind, with large white circles on the ground ensuring social distancing among reporters who attended.

After months of suspense, he selected Ms. Harris, a former rival, to join the Democratic ticket.

Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris accepted their nominations in front of socially distanced reporters at an event center in Wilmington — a far cry from the packed arena that was supposed to have cheered them on. On the convention’s final night, supporters gathered in their cars as if at a drive-in theater, and the new Democratic ticket joined them for a fireworks display.

Once again, his campaign held carefully arranged events with social distancing and mask wearing, a stark contrast to Mr. Trump’s crowded rallies.

Mr. Biden was returning from a campaign trip to Minnesota when the news broke: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. Mr. Trump and Senate Republicans moved quickly to appoint Judge Amy Coney Barrett in her place.

Mr. Biden tried to frame the court fight as a battle over the future of health care in America, warning about Mr. Trump’s desire for the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act.

The first debate was the subject of great anticipation, presenting Mr. Trump with a chance to change a race that was unfolding in Mr. Biden’s favor. It also put a spotlight on Mr. Biden after Mr. Trump had spent months portraying him as a senile old man.

The meeting, however, was remembered not for Mr. Biden’s performance but for Mr. Trump’s constant interruptions.

Later that week came another seismic development: Mr. Trump tested positive for the coronavirus. Within two weeks, he had recovered and returned to the campaign trail with large rallies that flouted public health guidance.

Mr. Biden stuck to his approach. He made more visits to battleground states but refrained from holding crowded events.

In the final weeks, Mr. Biden pioneered a pandemic-appropriate substitute for traditional events: drive-in campaign rallies.His speeches quickly took on a new soundtrack, with applause lines punctuated by the beeping of car horns.

On the last weekend before Election Day, Mr. Biden campaigned with former President Barack Obama in Michigan, a state their ticket won twice. With coronavirus cases surging in many places, they condemned Mr. Trump over his handling of the pandemic.

Mr. Biden finished the campaign much the way he had started, presenting himself as a unifying figure who would work to repair the damage inflicted by Mr. Trump’s presidency.

States are already on alert for violence. On Monday, Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts ordered 1,000 members of the National Guard to be on standby in case of turmoil following Tuesday’s election.

Hundreds of National Guard troops already have been called up in non-law-enforcement roles, to assist states where the ranks of poll workers have been depleted by the coronavirus pandemic.

But in a year that is anything but normal, with the electorate sharply polarized, the president warning supporters of a stolen election, and gun sales through the roof, states are bracing for violence that may overwhelm local law enforcement and bring uniformed military troops into the streets.

Legal experts say the election may complicate the response because the president has broad discretion to sidestep legal restrictions by declaring an insurrection, which would allow him not only to take control of state National Guard troops, but also to deploy the Army or Marines.

But at the same time Mr. Trump threatened to deploy active-duty troops, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued against such a move to control the wave of protests in American cities, including Washington, at least at that time

Mr. Esper said at a Pentagon news conference that deploying active-duty forces in a domestic law enforcement role “should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations.”

Governors have mobilized Guard forces frequently in recent months to respond to protests over violent policing, as well as hurricanes and wildfires. In June, during the height of the protests, about 86,000 Guard troops were deployed in domestic missions.

While federal law bars using federal troops, that restriction can be lifted by the president under the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to send in armed forces if he decides local authorities are not enforcing the laws of the United States.

The Insurrection Act could complicate the response to civil unrest, Ms. VanLandingham said, because mayors and governors have no say in what is classified as insurrection, so troops could be sent in even if local authorities do not think they are needed.

But early returns will not say much, because the polls will be open for another hour in parts of western Kentucky and Indiana that are on Central time.

Florida and Georgia are expected to count ballots faster than other swing states — Florida especially so — and if Mr. Biden wins either of them, he will be in a formidable position.

If Mr. Trump wins them, then we may be looking at a long wait for results in the Midwest to decide the race.

orth Carolina and Ohio are key presidential swing states, but while they are expected to report a majority of results quickly, they will also continue to accept mail-in ballots for more than a week. That means in a close race, we might not know who won until mid-November.

The last polls in Florida close at this time, as do all or most polls in three other important swing states: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Michigan and Pennsylvania may take several days to count mail ballots, and the returns there on election night may be disproportionately Republican.

There won’t be much to see at the statewide level in Arkansas, which is safe Republican territory for both Mr. Trump and Senator Tom Cotton.

Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota and Wisconsin are the states in play here. Arizona, Minnesota and Wisconsin will be closely watched in the presidential race, and Democrats are hoping to flip Senate seats in Arizona and Colorado.

None of the states with polls closing this time have competitive presidential or Senate races.

There is probably nothing to watch in Alaska or Hawaii on election night. Hawaii will report its results very quickly but does not have any competitive races. And while Alaska’s Senate and House races may be competitive, the state will not start — you read that right, start — counting absentee ballots until Nov. 10.

A New York Times/Siena College poll of Florida released on Sunday showed Mr. Biden with the support of 54 percent of the state’s Latino voters, compared with 62 percent for Mrs. Clinton four years ago. He and Mr. Trump were basically tied among Hispanic men in the state

Mr. Biden is competitive among Latino voters, and could still win Florida based on his strength with educated whites.

But he would be in better shape, campaign aides privately acknowledged, if the campaign had reached out earlier to recruit infrequent voters and soften Mr. Trump’s support among Hispanic men in the state.

“The Biden people have done a good job in playing catch-up, but it is always the same, every cycle,” said Chuck Rocha, who runs Nuestro PAC, a pro-Biden committee that has raised $9 million for Spanish-language advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts. “Everybody only does Latino outreach in the last couple of weeks of the campaign. That has to change.”

The coronavirus has also been an impediment, said Mr. Castro, the former secretary of housing and urban development under President Barack Obama and now an adviser to Mr. Biden. “Latino voters like in-person contact,” he said.

Thanks to those funds, the Biden campaign has been able to increase its Spanish-language media buys in the closing weeks, with six-figure expenditures booked in Florida, Arizona and Pennsylvania, a spokesman said.

Still, the party has seen some successes. The Democratic National Committee invested heavily in microtargeting Puerto Rican voters through the purchase of call lists in 2019, and Mr. Biden owes his surprising strength in Texas and Arizona to strong support from Latino voters.

Democratic officials say they expected that nine million Latino voters will have gone to the polls early by mail or in person, up from 3.7 million in 2016.

Democrats have also recently begun pouring money and resources into outreach efforts, with donors pumping $28 million into three independent expenditure groups aimed at increasing Latino turnout in the past two months.

The overall problem is rooted not only in the party’s inconsistent efforts to reach Latino voters, but also in the particulars of Mr. Biden’s primary campaign. It was a cash-poor operation that was focused on Black voters, a group long courted by the former vice president that turned out to be critical to his primary victory.

But much of the Democrats’ resources in the closing days is being devoted to providing basic voting information to registered Latino voters, rather than funding a deeper dive into the voter files to reach more voters, or a big effort to change the minds of wavering male voters, party officials said.

On Saturday, Veronica Escobar, the Democratic congresswoman from El Paso, spent 20 minutes on the phone with a young Mexican-American woman in Texas who was outraged at Mr. Trump’s response to the pandemic and frightened by his rhetoric — and had no intention, whatsoever, of voting.

Democrats are relying on many Latino voters to go to the polls on Election Day, as they have tended to do in the past.

Each time, he made the required payment to the I.R.S. for income taxes he might owe — $1 million for 2016 and $4.2 million for 2017.

The Democrats have seized on his income tax bills as a symbol of the inequalities in the current tax system.

“Why should a firefighter, an educator, a cop — why should a welder, why should a steelworker pay a higher tax rate than the super wealthy?” Mr. Biden asked Monday during a campaign stop in Cleveland. “Why should you pay more taxes than Donald Trump, for God’s sake?”

In national polling by The New York Times and Siena College, voters across the political spectrum say they worry that the next generation of Americans will be worse off. And they are concerned America could lose its democracy.

Republicans describe fears of creeping socialism from within the Democratic Party and deep changes in American values amid protests against the police and historical figures. Democrats fear threats to democracy from within the White House itself, as they describe Mr. Trump undermining the country’s institutions and rule of law.

Americans deeply divided not just on which candidate they support in the election, but also on questions that have become inseparable from partisan politics this year.

Democrats believe the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is yet to come; Republicans believe the worst is already behind the country. Democrats, by broad margins, approve of the Black Lives Matter movement; Republicans, to a comparable degree, have denounced it.

Just one in five Democrats said they were personally better off than four years ago, in a recent Times/Siena national poll. Nearly nine in ten Republicans said they were better off at the end of the first Trump administration.

Today, the economic picture looks very different. The official unemployment rate in September was 7.9 percent, and more than 12.6 million people are unemployed — five million more than when Mr. Trump took office.

Republicans remain more positive than Democrats, but overall confidence in the economy is low, according to Gallup polls from mid-October, and only 28 percent of those surveyed approved of the way things were going in the United States.

On top of economic and election worries, America is facing a pandemic with a growing number of victims; 9.3 million Americans have been infected.

Nebraska, which splits its Electoral College votes and has been a focal point for Mr. Trump, has averaged more than 1,100 coronavirus cases per day over the last week, the most of any point in the pandemic.

Across the country, the virus outlook is bleak and getting bleaker. Infection numbers are trending upward in 41 states, and more than 20 states have set weekly case records in recent days.

Much of the recent increase has been driven by explosive growth in the same Northern battleground states that could decide the presidential race.

Worries about voter fraud, disinformation, misinformation, possible violence and disruptions to ballot casting are also troubling many Americans.

Before you vote, take a few minutes to research the environmental positions of the candidates running for local offices. Use reputable sources to avoid falling for fake voting guides,

For the first three and a half years of Donald Trump’s presidency, a period defined by near-constant attacks on climate policy across the federal government, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration remained mostly unscathed — a bastion of objective climate research, carrying out its mission largely without fear or favor toward the ideological preferences of the White House.

a series of changes have sparked growing concern within the agency. First, in August, political staff at the Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA, issued instructions that any communication, internal or external, must first be cleared from above. Suddenly, the agency’s leaders couldn’t even send an all-hands message to their own employees without getting it approved outside NOAA.

Then, last month, a set of new political hires installed by the White House began arriving at NOAA, their roles unclear and their backgrounds surprising, i

There have been threats to NOAA’s independence before — most famously last year, when Mr. Trump, angry that the agency’s meteorologists had contradicted his statement that Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama, told his top aide to have the agency “clarify” its position. NOAA’s then-acting administrator, Neil Jacob

believing his job was on the line, publicly rebuked his own staff. (

The objective, according to people with ties to the administration, is to undermine the National Climate Assessment, the country’s premier contribution to knowledge about climate risks — and the foundation for federal regulations to combat global warming.

That strategy depends on Mr. Trump winning a second term next week. If he loses, Joseph R. Biden Jr. could reverse those changes.