By David Leonhardt

Good morning. We're covering the fight over the Democratic primaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin and an astrology machine.

The Tsongas state

The Democratic Party is engaged in a roiling debate over the order of its presidential primaries, as a Times Magazine story by Ross Barkan explains.

President Biden and other top Democrats want South Carolina to go first next year. State officials in New Hampshire insist on keeping their first-in-the-nation status and say they will simply move their primary to take place before South Carolina's. The outcome remains unclear.

Holding the country's first primary certainly offers big benefits to a state. Presidential candidates make repeated visits. So do political organizers and members of the media, filling hotels and restaurants. A single state's voters get to shape the national discourse. No wonder New Hampshire is fighting so hard to keep a privilege that it has had since the 1950s.

But there is also an inconvenient question to which New Hampshire officials have failed to offer a persuasive answer: How has the rest of the country benefited from the state's special status?

New England bias

New Hampshire's critics often point out the many ways it does not look like the rest of America. It is one of the country's whitest, highest-income and most educated states. It is home to ski resorts, lake retreats and boarding schools — but not a single city with more than 125,000 residents.

New Hampshire's defenders respond that its intimacy allows for a purer version of politics. Candidates talk directly with voters in restaurants and at town meetings, rather than competing mostly through advertisements. As in ancient Greece or the early United States, citizens can take the measure of the people who want to represent them. I have covered the New Hampshire primary, and I too found it charming.

The results are less impressive, though. There is no evidence that New Hampshire's voters have a talent for picking presidents that other Americans lack. If anything, the state's record is worse than average, at least on the Democratic side:

• New Hampshire voted against each of the past three Democratic presidents during their ultimately victorious nomination campaigns: Biden (who finished fifth!) in 2020, Barack Obama in 2008 and Bill Clinton in 1992. Not since Jimmy Carter, almost 50 years ago, has an eventual Democratic president won the state.
• No two-term Democratic presidency has started with a New Hampshire win. In 1992, Clinton did spin his second-place finish as a victory, calling himself "the comeback kid," but he received less than 25 percent of the vote.
• The clearest pattern is that New Hampshire prefers Democrats from nearby, regardless of their ideology or national appeal. Every time a major candidate from neighboring Massachusetts or Vermont has run in the past 35 years, that candidate has won New Hampshire: Bernie Sanders in 2020 and 2016, John Kerry in 2004, Paul Tsongas in 1992 and Michael Dukakis in 1988.

The closest thing to a substantive counterargument from New Hampshire officials is that their state is a swing state, unlike South Carolina, which is solidly Republican. If New Hampshire does still go first (as state law dictates) and Biden skips the state's primary (as his aides have said he would), the primary campaign would be filled with criticisms of him from both Republican candidates running for the 2024 nomination and fringe Democrats challenging Biden like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson.

"The reality is that New Hampshire is going to keep the first-in-the-nation primary," Ray Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said, "and the question only is whether or not the president is going to put his name on the ballot."

If he is not on the ballot, the criticism of Biden could theoretically damage his image in the state and hurt his chances when New Hampshirites vote next November in the general election. In a very close national election, New Hampshire might even determine the Electoral College result. But that scenario seems remote. A sitting president is always subject to harsh criticism during the other party's open primary, and most sitting presidents nonetheless win re-election.

Ultimately, the main beneficiary of New Hampshire's privileged primary status is New Hampshire, which explains why the state is fighting so hard to keep it. As Ross Barkan, the author of the Times Magazine article, writes, "Democrats there insist that it is their right to go first."

Related: Biden has his own self-interested motives in pushing for South Carolina, Ross explains. The state — home to many working-class Black voters — rocketed Biden to the front of the Democratic field in 2020 after his losses in New Hampshire and Iowa.

More on politics

• Ron DeSantis has made a series of unforced campaign errors, including the release of a controversial video.
• Yusef Salaam, one of the Central Park Five, won the Democratic primary for a City Council seat in Harlem.
• Members of Congress are pushing for more nonstop flights to Reagan National Airport in Washington on routes they use to commute.

ADVERTISEMENT

THE LATEST NEWS

• The leader of Belarus said that Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the Wagner uprising, was in Russia, not Belarus. The claim could not be immediately confirmed.
• President Biden told Sweden's prime minister that he was "anxiously" waiting for the country to join NATO. Its inclusion is unlikely because of Turkey's opposition.

• A judge's ruling to limit the government's contact with social media companies will hurt the fight against disinformation, experts say. Conservatives say the decision combats censorship of their views.
• The "Twitter killer": Instagram introduced Threads, an app for text updates.
• GQ removed an article about the Warner Bros. Discovery C.E.O. from its website after the company complained.

• The long Fourth of July weekend was full of gun violence that killed at least 15 people and wounded more than 50 others.
• In Florida, a 7-year-old boy was killed by bullets fired as people fought over a jet ski. His grandfather tried to shield him.

• Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, arrives in China on a high-stakes diplomatic visit today.
• Israel's incursion into Jenin, a city in the occupied West Bank, was one of the largest in decades, but some analysts say it lacked a deeper strategy.
• A man who etched his name into a wall of the Colosseum in Rome apologized, saying he didn't know it was an ancient site.
• Her husband was smart and intensely private. Then the Chinese authorities stormed their home, leaving her to uncover that he was also, she suspects, a famed dissident blogger.

• The U.S. is destroying the last of its chemical weapons stockpile, decades behind schedule.

• Federal health officials will urge older people to get new vaccines for Covid, flu and R.S.V. before winter.
• Most people released from U.S. prisons struggle to find jobs, despite programs intended to help them.
• A man in California hid his mother's death for three decades to collect her government benefits.

To integrate artificial intelligence into medicine, doctors can't expect traditional testing to work with new technology, Daniela J. Lamas writes.

In the wake of the failed mutiny against Vladimir Putin, there are signs his close relationship with China's Xi Jinping has peaked, Ryan Hass argues.

Here are columns by Charles Blow, David French and John McWhorter on affirmative action.

Experience all of The Times. One subscription includes everything we offer — and everything you need to make the most of every day. Enjoy an introductory offer on The Times.

MORNING READS

"You can't fake it": Bill de Blasio and Chirlane McCray explain what went wrong in their relationship.

Inked: People are getting freckle tattoos.

Gum disease: Nearly half of Americans over 30 show symptoms. Here's how to recognize them.

Road trip: Prue Leith, the "Great British Baking Show" judge, drives from California to Florida.

Lives Lived: Edward Fredkin was an influential professor at M.I.T., despite never having graduated from college, who championed the idea that the entire universe might function like one big computer. He died at 88.

SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC

Tension: A year after Wimbledon banned Russian and Belarusian players, those returning to the competition have been met with a frosty reception in locker rooms.

An unusual end: Once ranked No. 2 in the world, Anett Kontaveit is retiring after this year's Wimbledon — with Netflix cameras documenting every second of her career's last days.

Golf wunderkind: Rose Zhang, the 20-year-old phenom, is the favorite in this weekend's Women's U.S. Open in just her third tournament as a professional.

ADVERTISEMENT

ARTS AND IDEAS

Written in the stars: Visitors have flocked to Iconic Magazines in Lower Manhattan this summer to enter their birth date into a machine that offers life advice. It's not a fortune teller (though it was influenced by the old Zoltar machines in arcades); it's an astrology machine, created by Co-Star. The device, which looks like a retro NASA creation, combines astrological info with an A.I. chatbot to generate personalized readings. On a recent trip to the shop, some users said the A.I. technology made them trust it more: "I'd be more inclined to believe that an old lady leaning over a crystal ball is lying to me than a computer," one said.

More on culture

• Coco Lee, the musician best known for performing an Oscar-nominated song in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," has died at 48.
• The Smithsonian's pick to direct a women's museum withdrew, citing "family issues," after a review of how she handled earlier harassment claims.
• The band Wham! is the focus of a new Netflix documentary. It is a "nostalgic, fantastical elixir," Wesley Morris writes.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Add garlic-chile oil and burrata to spaghetti.

Splurge on this lip balm (it's on sale).

Wear this summer's best sneaker.

Spend five minutes falling in love with avant-garde jazz.

GAMES

Here are today's Spelling Bee and the Bee Buddy, which helps you find remaining words. Yesterday's pangram was nonbelief.

And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku.

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

Editor: David Leonhardt

Deputy Editor: Amy Fiscus

News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti

News Staff: Lyna Bentahar, Lauren Jackson, Sean Kawasaki-Culligan, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu

News Assistant: Lauren Hard

Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch

Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance.

You received this email because you signed up for the Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account.

To stop receiving The Morning, unsubscribe. To opt out of other promotional emails from The Times, including those regarding The Athletic, manage your email settings. To opt out of updates and offers sent from The Athletic, submit a request.

Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app

Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices

The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018