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Ever since President Trump won the White House in 2016, a shocked Democratic Party had been united behind the mission of defeating him. Four years later, with the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr., the divides that have long simmered among Democrats are now beginning to burst into the open, as the president-elect confronts deep generational and ideological differences among congressional lawmakers, activists and the partys grass-roots base.

The fault lines began to emerge within hours of Mr. Bidens victory. Moderates argued that his success, particularly in industrial Midwestern states that Mr. Trump seized from the Democrats in 2016, was proof that a candidate who resisted progressive litmus tests was best positioned to win back voters who had abandoned the Democratic Party. Those tests included single-payer health care, aggressive measures to combat climate change and expanding the Supreme Court.

The progressives said we need a base candidate, said Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago and White House chief of staff under President Barack Obama, referring to a nominee who appeals to the left wing of the party. No we didnt. We needed someone to get swing voters. If you campaign appropriately, you can make that a governing transformation.

Moderate Democrats said they were hopeful the urgency of the problems confronting the nation would delay the inevitable reckoning the party faces between its ideological wings. Beyond that, they said that a disappointing showing by Democrats in congressional races the party lost seats in the House and faces a struggle for even narrow control of the Senate would give liberal Democrats less of a platform to push Mr. Biden to the left.

After a fiery call among members of the House Democratic caucus, in which some argued that progressives who have entertained ideas like defunding the police or Medicare for all had cost the party congressional seats, some Democratic leaders pushed further away from the left wing.

Representative Conor Lamb, a moderate from Pennsylvania who survived a difficult Republican challenge, said the results should be a wake-up call to the left.

What we heard from a lot of our constituents was that they do not like the Democratic message when it comes to police in Western Pennsylvania, and when it comes to jobs and energy, he said. And that we need to do a lot of work to fix that.

But after four years of pent-up frustration and energy, that may prove unlikely. By every early indication, Mr. Bidens election has emboldened progressive energy, no matter the setbacks in the congressional races. There is an up-and-coming generation of elected Democratic officials who have been waiting in the wings, eager to take the lead in formulating a platform for the party.

After supporting Mr. Biden as a means of defeating Mr. Trump, younger and more progressive Democrats who have gained a foothold in Congress and among party activists are skeptical about his future administration. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, setting policy terms in a statement after Mr. Biden was declared victorious, said: A Band-Aid approach wont get the job done. We have a mandate for action on bold plans to meet these twin health and economic crises.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a leading voice of the partys left wing, said in a phone interview that the next few weeks would set the tone for how the incoming administration will be received by liberal activists.

I think thats what people are keeping an eye out for: Is this administration going to be actively hostile and try to put in appointments that are going to just squash progressives and organizing? Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said. I dont envy the Biden team. Its a very delicate balance. But I think its really important to strike a good one. Because it sends a very, very powerful message on the intention to govern.

The fault lines crystallize the task ahead for Mr. Biden, who has long seen himself as a pragmatic consensus builder rather than a strict ideologue. In addition to the fractures within his party, Mr. Bidens administration will also have to navigate a Republican Senate, unless Democrats wrest two seats in Georgia during closely watched runoff elections in January.

If the party doesnt win those seats, an already divided Washington looks likely to endure.

Some moderate Democratic leaders urged the president-elect to head off any internal conflict by embracing policies both sides can agree on and reaching out to the left.

The first thing I would do if I were Joe Biden is Id propose a $15-an-hour minimum wage, said Edward G. Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Thats something that both sides agree on. That would be the first action on behalf of President Biden to show there are significant parts of the progressive agenda that need to be acted on.

Given the two Senate runoffs taking place in Georgia contests that will determine whether Mr. Biden will, like Mr. Obama, begin his first term with a unified Washington Mr. Biden might be initially reluctant to embrace positions that could make it easier for Republicans in Georgia to paint Democrats as out-of-touch, radical socialists.

Mr. Biden has made clear he intends for his administrations cabinet to be diverse in race, gender and sexual orientation but a left wing that has become disenchanted with the inherent idea of representation as progress will be looking for concessions of power.

Grass-roots political groups on the left had a dual message for the president-elect: Congratulations and heres a list of demands. Several signaled that they expected Mr. Biden to defer to some demands of progressives, not only by selecting people from that wing of the party for key cabinet positions but also by excluding people with a Wall Street or lobbying background from the administrations hiring process. However, Mr. Bidens flexibility in making cabinet appointments sought by the left will be constrained if the Senate remains in Republican hands.

Jamaal Bowman, a progressive New York Democrat who will be sworn into the next Congress, took the view that Mr. Bidens victory was not an affirmation of moderate ideology, but a testament to a diverse Democratic Party that had embraced the shared goal of defeating an unpopular president. He cited the work during the general election of progressive groups and candidates who opposed Mr. Biden during the Democratic primary, including young climate organizers like the Sunrise Movement and said they should be rewarded.

Nov. 12, 2020, 7:30 p.m. ET

We have to move past the moderate-versus-liberal conversations and start speaking and moving together as a strong party, Mr. Bowman said. We have organizations like the Sunrise Movement and candidates like Jamaal Bowman who have gone out of our way to get Joe Biden elected.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she expected a long-term fight, particularly given the setbacks for Democrats in the congressional contests. She also cited cabinet appointments as a way to measure Mr. Bidens ideological core.

She said some people, including Mr. Emanuel, should not play a role in the partys future. The former mayor has been floated by some in Mr. Bidens inner circle to lead a department like housing or transportation.

Someone like Rahm Emanuel would be a pretty divisive pick, she said, citing his record as mayor on racial justice and his opposition to teachers unions. And it would signal, I think, a hostile approach to the grass-roots and the progressive wing of the party.

It is unclear what kind of audience progressives will find with Mr. Biden and his administration. Throughout the year, his campaign sought to project unity through measures like a joint task force with supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders, which led a campaign to adopt some of the left wings policy proposals, including plans around college debt. But Mr. Biden stopped short of the biggest ideas, like eliminating the Electoral College or embracing statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

Some leading Democratic Party moderates said they supported many of the ideological goals on the left but, reflecting what has long been a divide between the two wings, urged caution, particularly because of Democratic losses in other races.

We all have to take a deep breath, said Representative Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, a state that Mr. Trump snatched from Democrats in 2016 but that Mr. Biden won back this year. I know there are going to be people who are pushing for change. Im one of those people who want Medicare for all.

She argued that Democrats needed to be careful not to push away voters whom Mr. Trump won in 2016, or else risk another, similar candidate.

I also know we cant afford to have Donald Trump as president, she said.

But Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic pollster who advised President Bill Clinton when he successfully pushed the party to the center in the 1990s, said Mr. Biden would be able to delay divisive party fights because of the enormity of the crises he faces.

The nature of the pandemic and the economic and health crisis is so deep, he will inherit a mandate of urgency, he said. Unity within the party and unity within the country.

But for some on the left, the pandemic and the resulting economic crisis were reasons to push the administration further not to back off. They cited mistakes made as Mr. Obama began his administration in 2009, when many believed the partys progressive wing was too deferential to the new president in a moment of economic crisis.

I dont think there will be a grace period for Biden, because the country doesnt have time for a grace period, said Heather McGhee, a former president of Demos, a progressive policy and research organization. A million more people in poverty dont have time for a grace period. A racial epidemic and the coronavirus pandemic isnt taking a grace period. As he is declared the winner, he needs to be putting a team in place that can really change Washington.

Nina Turner, a co-chair of Mr. Sanderss 2020 presidential campaign, said she expected progressives to pressure Mr. Bidens transition team and administration from the outset. When asked how open she thought Mr. Biden would be to the left, she said, If the rhetoric thats being used on the campaign trail is any indication, not very open.

Still, she said, things have an amazing way of changing once youre in the office and you get that pressure.

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Managing a Divided Democratic Party is a Test for Joe Biden - The New York Times

House Democrats did not have the election they expected.

Decision Desk HQ projected Democrats will keep their majority in the House after calling races for Democratic Reps. Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Tom OHalleran in Arizona, officially bringing their count to 219 seats. Many more races have yet to be called.

Democrats faced unexpectedly stiff competition from Republican candidates in multiple districts. Rather than expanding their majority as many Democrats and nonpartisan forecasters expected, the Democratic margin in the House appears to be shrinking after they first flipped the chamber in 2018.

The story of the night for House Republicans was the success of Republican women candidates. Republicans flipped back six seats as of Wednesday morning, with Democrats only flipping two open seats in North Carolina. More races have yet to be called.

Led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrats were widely expected to retain control of the lower chamber of Congress after they gained the advantage in the 2018 midterms. Pelosi and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Cheri Bustos (D-IL) were projecting confidence going into the night, yet Bustos herself wound up in a much closer battle for reelection.

Democrats controlling at least one chamber is still an important result. With Joe Biden formally becoming president-elect, Democrats will control the House of Representatives and the White House, but the partys chances to take back the Senate come down to two uncertain runoffs in Georgia.

House Democrats saw early losses in Florida, where first-term Democratic Reps. Donna Shalala and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell lost to Republicans after Democrats underperformed with Cuban American voters in Miami-Dade County.

In Oklahomas Fifth Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Kendra Horn lost to Republican challenger Stephanie Bice. In New Mexicos Second Congressional District, vulnerable incumbent Rep. Xochitl Torres Small lost to Republican Yvette Herrell. And in South Carolinas First Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham lost to Republican Nancy Mace.

And even though Democrats invested big in Texas, hoping to replicate early success in 2018, they didnt manage to unseat a single Texas Republican member of the House in 2020. Democrats hung on to the two Texas seats they flipped in 2018, but failed to pick up any additional seats.

House Democrats bright spots of the night mirrored presidential trends. Democrats flipped Georgias Seventh Congressional District from red to blue, mirroring a trend at the presidential level of Biden appearing to perform better than expected in Georgia.

Its too early to say exactly what went wrong for House Democrats, who broadly hoped to comfortably expand their majority. District-level internal party polling had shown Republicans with the potential to lose even more seats in 2020.

Many Republican strategists had resigned themselves to the possibility that their House ranks could decrease. Instead, Republicans were the ones making gains albeit modest enough ones to stay the minority party in the House.

Cook Political Reports House editor Dave Wasserman had some early thoughts on Wednesday: Just like Biden, Democratic congressional candidates suffered losses among Hispanic voters in key races. Democrats had bad nights particularly in Florida and Texas; they lost a couple of incumbents in Florida and didnt defeat a single Republican incumbent in Texas, despite making a massive investment in the state to target 10 districts.

Republicans also learned from their losses in 2018 and recruited top-tier women candidates, who were on a winning streak.

After last night, Republicans are on track to more than double their current count of 13 women, Wasserman wrote.

The one bright spot for Democrats is that first-term women candidates, particularly those from national security backgrounds, largely held their own in competitive races. After sounding the alarm for months that the political environment was closer than the polls showed, Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) won her race on Wednesday. She was joined by fellow Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Elaine Luria (D-VA) and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA).

These outcomes all elude a clean narrative. Its difficult to say early on how much is based on strategic error, and how much is owed to the bizarre nature of this election year amid a pandemic that significantly hampered Democrats ability to do basic campaigning tasks like door-knocking.

Prior to Tuesday, most Republican strategists were privately resigned to the prospect of a double-digit loss of seats, Wasserman wrote. At this writing, Republicans may be on track to pick up between five and ten seats in the House, ironically about where our expectations started this cycle but certainly not where they ended.

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who easily fended off her own well-funded challenger, said that many embattled House Democrats failed to invest enough in digital advertising.

Two years after sweeping races across the country, the party now has to figure out what went wrong for their congressional candidates in 2020.

House Democrats have spent the past two years passing bills at a rapid clip, on everything from sweeping anti-corruption reforms to lowering the cost of prescription drugs to a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill. But the vast majority of these bills were dead on arrival in the US Senate. It seems likely this ambitious agenda could continue to be on ice, unless Democrats flip two Georgia Senate runoff races that will be decided in January.

One of the few bipartisan pieces of legislation Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and President Trump were able to agree on was the $2.2 trillion CARES Act at the beginning of the pandemic; a second stimulus package has been held up by partisan bickering. McConnell recently signaled willingness to pass another stimulus package before the end of the year. He called it a top priority for the Senates lame-duck session but was vague on concrete details.

Even on infrastructure one of the few places where there seemed to be bipartisan agreement getting a bill through could be elusive. Should Democrats flip the Senate, Pelosi has provided them a road map.

But its too early to say if they will get to use it.

Update: This piece was updated with recent Decision Desk calls in several key House races.

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Democrats win majority in House, will keep control for two more years - Vox.com

James Clyburn, the House majority whip and Democratic kingmaker who played an outsized role in Joe Bidens successful presidential run, has said the sloganeering of the Black Lives Matter protests and other social justice efforts this summer might have hampered them at the polls.

Clyburn, a Black South Carolina congressman and prominent figure in the civil rights movement, likened the defund the police mantra of certain activists to civil rights efforts in the 1960s, when some public support for the movements objectives was eroded by radical messaging.

Clyburn invoked memories of John Lewis, the civil rights icon who died this year.

I came out very publicly and very forcibly against sloganeering, Clyburn said Sunday on CNNs State of the Union. John Lewis and I were founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. John and I sat on the House floor and talked about that defund the police slogan, and both of us concluded that it had the possibilities of doing to the Black Lives Matter movement and current movements across the country what Burn, Baby, Burn did to us back in the 1960s, Clyburn said.

Burn, Baby, Burn became a street slogan during the Watts civil unrest of 1965 in Los Angeles, at the time the largest and costliest uprising of the civil rights era.

We lost that movement over that slogan, he said.

He added: We saw the same thing happening here. We cant pick up these things just because it makes a good headline. It sometimes destroys headway.

As an example, Clyburn cited the defeat of South Carolina US Senate hopeful Jaime Harrison, who ended up beaten comprehensively by the incumbent Republican Lindsey Graham in a race many had hoped he would win after he turned a longshot campaign into a real contest.

Jaime Harrison started to plateau when defund the police showed up with a caption on TV, ran across his head, Clyburn said in a separate Sunday appearance on NBCs Meet the Press.

That stuff hurt Jaime. And thats why I spoke out against it a long time ago. Ive always said that these headlines can kill a political effort.

Clyburn also attacked the Democratic partys progressive left wing, members of which have already broken ranks and fired the first shots in a looming battle for the future political direction of the party.

Sometimes I have real problems trying to figure out what progressive means, he said.

Clyburns comments followed a salvo by left-wing rising star Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez who has taken the opposite position, reflecting deep rifts in Bidens victorious party as it prepares to reoccupy the presidency.

In a no-holds-barred, post-election interview with the New York Times, she warned that if the Biden administration does not put progressives in top positions, the party would lose badly in the 2022 midterm elections.

The leftwing New York congresswoman sharply rejected the notion that progressive messaging around the summers anti-racism protests and more radical policies like the Green New Deal had led to the partys loss of congressional seats. She said the party needed to play to its core base of supporters, not reach out to centrists, or soft Republicans.

If the party believes after 94% of Detroit went to Biden, after Black organisers just doubled and tripled turnout down in Georgia, after so many people organised Philadelphia, the signal from the Democratic party is the John Kasich won us this election? I mean, I cant even describe how dangerous that is, she said.

Kasich is a former Republican governor of Ohio who campaigned for Biden, endorsing him as a centrist that moderate Republicans could get behind.

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James Clyburn: defund the police slogan may have hurt Democrats at polls - The Guardian

WASHINGTON Consistent is not the adjective many would use to describe President Trumps national security policy. But there is one goal he has nurtured since the 2016 campaign: withdrawing all American troops from Afghanistan.

Now, in the waning days of his presidency, Mr. Trump is scrambling to make it so, aided by conservative antiwar forces who see it not only as good policy but also as a linchpin to any future he may seek in politics.

This week, Mr. Trump dismissed his defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, who had repeatedly expressed reluctance for a fast pullout from Afghanistan, replacing him with Christopher C. Miller, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who may lack the stature and experience to push back effectively on Mr. Trumps 11th-hour foreign policy actions.

Notably, Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel and fierce proponent of ending American involvement in Afghanistan, was named this week as a senior adviser to Mr. Miller.

Mr. Trump recently nominated a new ambassador to Afghanistan, William Ruger, the vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute a vocal and well-financed opponent of current conflicts abroad. Even before any Senate confirmation, which seems unlikely before Inauguration Day, Mr. Ruger maintains a large chair at Mr. Trumps foreign policy table.

The president has had difficulty finding personnel who would faithfully execute on his preferences, Mr. Ruger said in an interview on Friday. With the new Pentagon leadership, the president could really cement a legacy here, he said, adding that Mr. Trump could be the leader who ends Americas longest war.

This week, the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, traveled to Washington on a previously scheduled trip as officials in both countries braced for a possible announcement as early as next week to quickly reduce the 4,500 United States troops still left in Afghanistan. Mr. Trump has said previously that he wants to pull all troops from Afghanistan by Christmas.

With his recent flurry of firings and appointments, Mr. Trump has effectively pulled down a majority of the personnel guardrails against a fast withdrawal.

Mr. Trumps views on reducing the United States footprint overseas are long standing and a central component of his America First foreign policy agenda. After originally supporting the war in Iraq, he spent years criticizing President George W. Bush for Americas wars in the region. During his 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump astonished fellow Republicans by directly attacking Mr. Bush about the war in Iraq and suggesting he failed to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But what many Republicans failed to grasp is that Mr. Trumps positions on the so-called endless wars were good politics. Rancor toward those conflicts has grown among many conservatives, including those in the Koch circle, as well as libertarians among congressional Republicans and even those on the left, including Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, among others.

Last year, VoteVets, the liberal political action committee, and the conservative Concerned Veterans for America teamed up to persuade Congress to revoke authorizations of military force passed after Sept. 11. Mr. Trump also replaced the hawkish John R. Bolton with Robert C. OBrien as his national security adviser. Mr. OBrien has said the United States needs to redirect its resources from Afghanistan and toward the competition and possible conflicts with China and Russia.

Polls have shown that a majority of veterans have grown disenchanted with the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, which helped Mr. Trump earn strong support among veterans who voted in 2016. Many have been disappointed that troops remain deployed in Afghanistan and that other promises to reduce the military presence in other regions have not been fulfilled.

Exit polls this month suggest that Mr. Trump won veterans 54 percent to 44 percent; in 2016, the poll found he won veterans 60 percent to 34 percent, a major shift that could stem from a variety of factors including his mixed record on these issues.

Nov. 12, 2020, 7:30 p.m. ET

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will find himself having to address these political dynamics at home and the realities on the ground as progress toward peace between the Taliban and the Afghan government stalls.

Critics of a fast withdrawal before the Taliban meet the conditions of a recent peace agreement fear that any attempt to pull all American troops by years end would potentially result in deaths on the ground. Citing recent escalating violence across the country, they worry that the Taliban could succeed at seizing more territory, especially in the south, the groups historic center of power.

Its irresponsible to make troop reduction your entire political objective, said Evelyn N. Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense. If you withdraw irresponsibly, you put strategic objectives and military lives at risk.

Critics of an accelerated withdrawal point to logistical challenges of the strategy. Several current and former Pentagon officials have noted that a withdrawal within two months which seems to be Mr. Trumps goal would be challenging, given the amount of military equipment that would have to be shipped out to avoid becoming spoils for the Taliban.

Those in the Pentagon will use the logistics argument to slow this down, said Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Concerned Veterans for America, a group that has strongly influenced veterans policies under Mr. Trump. People there have slow-walked this and tried to box the president in and that likely upset the president and did not endear Secretary Esper to him.

Over the last year, the organization has spent over $3 million on advertisements in support of an Afghanistan withdrawal. Conservative news media personalities, including Tucker Carlson, have also advocated the drawdown. If Mr. Trump actually announces an expedited plan, we are going to go big, Mr. Caldwell said.

Of course with Mr. Trump, strongly expressed intentions concerning troops often do not come to fruition.

After announcing a full troop withdrawal from Syria in late 2018 and abandoning Kurdish allies, for which he was widely criticized he opted to leave several hundred troops in Syria.

He has also told aides he wanted to greatly reduce the 700 American troops in Somalia most of them Special Operations forces and so far that has gone nowhere.

Mr. Ruger said the pressure would remain when Mr. Biden takes office.

Regardless of who the president is, we will support good policies, he said. Getting out of Afghanistan is good policy.

Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed reporting from Kabul.

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Trump Pentagon Purge Could Accelerate His Goal to Pull Troops From Afghanistan - The New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan Three U.S. presidents and 19 years later, it is President-elect Joseph R. Bidens turn to inherit the American war in Afghanistan. The question that is leaving Afghans hanging is just how quickly he will remove troops.

It is a desperately difficult time for Afghanistan. American troops, honoring President Trumps deal with the Taliban, are still on their way out of the country, despite the stalling of peace talks between the insurgency and the Afghan government, and a wave of intensified Taliban offensives near important cities.

Officials in Kabul are very aware that Americans are tired of the war a fact made clear by a near absence of the issue in presidential debates, and by Mr. Bidens seeming agreement with President Trumps desire to get out of Afghanistan.

It is past time to end the forever wars, which have cost the United States untold blood and treasure, Mr. Biden wrote in Foreign Affairs earlier this year. As I have long argued, we should bring the vast majority of our troops home from the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East and narrowly define our mission as defeating al Qaeda and the Islamic State (or ISIS)."

Still, in Mr. Biden, Afghan officials said they hoped to gain a less capricious and more communicative ally, though they know he is unlikely to stop the troop withdrawal.

We understand theres not going to be U-turn on the U.S. side on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, said Nargis Nehan, a former minister of mines and petroleum under President Ashraf Ghani. But under the leadership of the Biden administration, we hope and believe that its going to be done with a much more responsible strategy in comparison to the Trump administration.

Both in Kabul and Washington, officials with knowledge of security briefings said there was fear that President Trump might try to accelerate an all-out troop withdrawal in his final days in office though the amount of American infrastructure still in the country would be physically impossible to remove by January, according to security officials.

A Pentagon shake-up in recent days, while President Trump has sought to contest his election loss, has cast more confusion on the issue. Security officials said that on Thursday, the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, was traveling to Washington for consultations.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan, Col. Sonny Leggett, denied that General Miller was going to Washington for consultations, saying instead that he was on preplanned travel.

American commanders, while careful not to contravene President Trump in public, have warned that it was vital to keep the withdrawal contingent on the Talibans keeping their pledges.

Afghan officials are also publicly urging Mr. Biden to better support the stalled peace talks in Qatar, which some Afghans felt were pushed too hard by the Trump administration without enough protections for them. On Monday, Afghanistans second vice president, Sarwar Danesh, called on the incoming Biden administration to conduct a review of the Afghan peace process and to put more pressure on the Taliban to negotiate fairly.

A decade ago, as vice president in the Obama administration, Mr. Biden was the in-house skeptic of the war, pushing against the huge troop surge in Afghanistan that began in 2009.

For years, U.S. policymakers and officials likened the task of building new government institutions and modern security forces in Afghanistan in the middle of a war to building an airplane midflight. In 2009, Mr. Biden sought a different approach: to focus on international terrorist threats in Afghanistan and little else.

I dont think he has his changed his mind much since then: to get out of Afghanistan, let Afghans govern themselves, but keep a light footprint in the form of counterterrorism, primarily to ensure U.S. national security interests, said Tamim Asey, a former Afghan deputy defense minister under Mr. Ghani.

That approach keeping a small number of troops in Afghanistan as a counterterrorism force to keep Al Qaeda and Islamic State loyalists in check has been urged by the Pentagon and some American lawmakers.

In the Feb. 29 agreement with the United States that started the troop withdrawal, the Taliban agreed to publicly separate itself from Al Qaeda which was under the Taliban governments protection when it launched the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to deny terrorist groups the use of Afghan territory as a haven. But the troop withdrawal has continued even though last month a Qaeda leader was killed in a Taliban-controlled district in the countrys east, and there has been no evidence of any decisive severing of ties between the groups.

Afghan officials and analysts say they hope Mr. Biden will proceed more cautiously, and not be as likely to leave Afghanistan at the mercy of the Taliban and meddling neighbor countries.

A commitment to defeating Al Qaeda and the Islamic State is something that is part of Afghanistans formula for long-term stability and serves an important role here, said Orzala Nemat, an independent researcher in Afghanistan. A symbolic presence of international military forces balances this very weak position that Afghanistan is in the region, surrounded by nuclear powers.

Mr. Biden knows Afghanistan, he has been here a dozen times as a senator and he has interacted with many Afghan leaders, said Mr. Asey, the former deputy defense minister.

Afghan officials were quick to note that Mr. Biden and President Ghani have long been friendly toward each other. But Mr. Asey said that Mr. Biden also had a history of tension with other important Afghan officials notably with former President Hamid Karzai, whom he told that Pakistan was 50 times more important to the United States than Afghanistan, and whom he lectured about corruption.

One way that Afghan officials hope Mr. Biden can make a difference is by simply taking their concerns seriously. Some Afghan officials said they felt bullied by Trump and American officials to accept terms with the Taliban they did not agree to, particularly on the mass release of Taliban prisoners.

Human rights activists said they were also concerned that the peace process included too few protections for women and ethnic and religious minorities. In that, they are hoping the American Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris, can be an important voice as well.

We hope she will be a strong advocate for Afghan women within the Biden administration, said Ms. Nehan, the former mining minister, of Ms. Harris. We felt abandoned by the Trump administration.

Whatever achievement in regards to womens rights we are talking about does not just belong to Afghan women, its a universal achievement that we all have our own part in and a responsibility in protecting them, she added.

While there are currently around 4,500 U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, Taliban officials have implied that the February deal would collapse if the incoming Biden administration prolongs the presence of American forces in the country, including any counterterrorism forces.

But for now the Taliban leadership will watch and wait, as their fighters keep up their offensives.

The United States has responded by increasing airstrikes in defense of Afghan forces. While permitted under the February deal, anything drastically more under a new administration, such as attacking Taliban behind their front lines, could nullify the agreement.

October was the deadliest month in Afghanistan for civilians since September 2019, according to data compiled by The New York Times. At least 212 civilians were killed.

In a statement, the Taliban called the U.S. election and its outcome an internal issue of the United States.

The Islamic Emirate would like to stress to the new American president-elect and future administration that implementation of the agreement is the most reasonable and effective tool for ending the conflict between both our countries, the statement said.

But Qari Mohammad Farooq, a Taliban shadow district governor in Jowzjan Province, laid it out plainly.

I heard that Joe Biden won, but none of them are good for us, Mr. Farooq said. For me it doesnt matter who won, but it is important that they must leave.

Reporting was contributed by Najim Fahim from Kabul, Taimoor Shah from Kandahar and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

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U.S. Troops Are Still Leaving, but Afghans Hope Biden Will Help - The New York Times