Elections

Former President Donald J. Trump attacked Vivek Ramaswamy, who is most closely aligned with him in the race for the Republican nomination, accusing the wealthy entrepreneur of engaging in “deceitful campaign tricks.””A vote for Vivek is a vote for the ‘other side’ — don’t get duped by this,” Mr. Trump said on social media, adding that “Vivek is not MAGA.”An hour earlier, a senior adviser for Mr. Trump, Chris LaCivita, also attacked Mr. Ramaswamy on social media as a “fraud” in response to a photo showing supporters of Mr. Ramaswamy wearing shirts displaying Mr. Trump’s mug shot that said “Save Trump, vote Vivek.”The attacks from Mr. Trump and one of his top aides in quick succession suggest that the Trump campaign has deliberately shifted toward attacking Mr. Ramaswamy in the final days before Monday’s Iowa caucuses.In a video posted to social media that appeared to be an indirect response to the attacks, Mr. Ramaswamy offered effusive praise for Mr. Trump, though he argued in conspiratorial terms that “the system” would keep Mr. Trump out of the White House and instead elect former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, whom Mr. Ramaswamy called a “puppet.”Mr. Ramaswamy, who ostensibly is running against Mr. Trump despite having been the former president’s most enthusiastic defender on the campaign trail, has long been in a peculiar entente with the primary’s front-runner. Though Mr. Trump has gleefully mocked his opponents in the race on social media, he has held his fire against Mr. Ramaswamy and even praised him as a loyal supporter.The change in strategy from Mr. Trump may reflect a calculation from his campaign that Mr. Ramaswamy, who is in a distant fourth place in the polls in Iowa, is taking some support — however small — from his campaign. Mr. Trump is hoping for an overpowering win in Iowa to shut out his strongest competitors and demonstrate that he has already all but secured the nomination. More

Mazi Pilip, the Republican candidate running in New York’s Third District, drew scrutiny after her initial financial disclosure was missing required information.The Republican nominee in a special House election to replace George Santos in New York provided a hazy glimpse into her personal finances this week, submitting a sworn financial statement to Congress that prompted questions and led her to amend the filing.The little-known candidate, Mazi Pilip, reported between $1 million and $5.2 million in assets, largely comprising her husband’s medical practice and Bitcoin investments. In an unusual disclosure, she said the couple owed and later repaid as much as $250,000 to the I.R.S. last year.But the initial financial report Ms. Pilip filed with the House Ethics Committee on Wednesday appeared to be missing other important required information, including whether the assets were owned solely by herself or her husband, Dr. Adalbert Pilip, or whether they were owned jointly.And despite making past statements that she stopped working there in 2021 when she ran for the Nassau County Legislature, Ms. Pilip reported receiving a $50,000 salary from the family medical practice in 2022 and 2023.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

Beijing loathes the new president, Lai Ching-te. He aims to protect the status quo with caution and American help, but tensions are likely to rise.China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has tied his country’s great power status to a singular promise: unifying the motherland with Taiwan, which the Chinese Communist Party sees as sacred, lost territory. A few weeks ago, Mr. Xi called this a “historical inevitability.”But Taiwan’s election on Saturday, handing the presidency to a party that promotes the island’s separate identity for the third time in a row, confirmed that this boisterous democracy has moved even further away from China and its dream of unification.After a campaign of festival-like rallies, where huge crowds shouted, danced and waved matching flags, Taiwan’s voters ignored China’s warnings that a vote for the Democratic Progressive Party was a vote for war. They made that choice anyway.Lai Ching-te, a former doctor and the current vice president, who Beijing sees as a staunch separatist, will be Taiwan’s next leader. It’s an act of self-governed defiance that proved what many already knew: Beijing’s arm-twisting of Taiwan — economically and with military harassment at sea and in the air — has only strengthened the island’s desire to protect its de facto independence and move beyond China’s giant shadow.“The more hard-line, tougher approach hasn’t worked,” said Susan Shirk, a research professor at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of “Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise.” “That’s the reality of Taiwanese politics.”That evolution, cultural and political, comes with risks. Mr. Lai’s victory forces Mr. Xi to face a lack of progress. And while China’s full response will play out over months or years, China’s Taiwan affairs office said Saturday night that the election cannot change the direction of cross-strait relations, effectively ensuring that the dynamic of brinkmanship and stress will continue and most likely intensify.After his win, Mr. Lai promised to seek a balanced approach to relations with Beijing.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesChina and the United States have made Taiwan a test of competing sensitivities and visions. To Beijing, the island is a remnant of its civil war that the United States has no business meddling with. To Washington, it is the first line of defense for global stability, a democracy of 23 million people and the microprocessor factory for the world.The gargantuan stakes add gravity to every word or policy that Mr. Lai or his party might deliver now and after his inauguration in May. With Taiwan’s sense of self and China’s expectations in conflict, Mr. Xi is not expected to sit idly by.Before the election, in editorials and official comments, Chinese officials painted Mr. Lai as a villain, calling him a stubborn “Taiwan independence worker,” a “destroyer of cross-strait peace” and potentially the “creator of a dangerous war.”During the campaign, Mr. Lai, 64, a veteran politician respected by supporters for his quiet determination, said that Taiwan did not need formal independence. In a news conference after his victory, he said he would seek a balanced approach to cross-strait relations including “cooperation with China,” following the path of his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen.But there is little chance of China changing its opinion.“Lai Ching-te is an impulsive and politically biased figure, so we cannot rule out the possibility that unpredictable and unknown developments may occur during his tenure,” said Zhu Songling, a professor of Taiwan studies at Beijing Union University.“I’m afraid it’s very dangerous,” he added, noting that Mr. Xi’s views on Taiwan were clear. That includes his insistence that force can be used if necessary.China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and President Biden in California in November. Warnings about Taiwan have become a staple of U.S.-China diplomacy.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWestern scholars of Chinese politics are not much more optimistic.“The next four years will be anything but stable in U.S.-China and cross-strait relations,” said Evan S. Medeiros, a professor of Asian studies at Georgetown University.Like other analysts, he said to expect a familiar suite of pressure tactics.At the very least, China will keep trying to manipulate Taiwan’s politics with disinformation, threats and economic incentives. Chinese officials have also hinted they could target trade, eliminating more tariff concessions.Expanded military drills are another possibility. Chinese fighter jets, drones and ships already encroach on Taiwan almost daily.Beijing has also shown that it will keep prodding Washington to pressure Taiwan and to cut military support. Messages of alarm are becoming a common feature of U.S.-China diplomacy.In Washington, on the eve of Taiwan’s election, Liu Jianchao, the head of the Chinese Communist Party’s international department, met with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. The United States said Mr. Blinken “reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”Mr. Liu, based on other official statements, most likely warned the United States not to intervene “in the Taiwan region” — a complaint sparked by an announcement that a delegation of former officials would head to Taipei after the election. Such visits have followed past elections. China’s Foreign Ministry condemned “the American side’s brazen chattering.”There are no plans in Washington to go silent, however, or constrain cooperation. Quite the opposite. Last year, the Biden administration announced $345 million in military aid for Taiwan, with weapons drawn from American stockpiles. Bills in Congress would also tighten economic ties to Taiwan, easing tax policy and laying a foundation for economic sanctions against China if it attacks.Taiwanese forces during an anti-landing drill last summer. The U.S. has pledged $345 million in military aid to the island.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesHaving worked with the Americans as vice president, Mr. Lai can move faster, analysts said, possibly into more sensitive areas.The United States could increase collaboration on cybersecurity, strengthening communication networks to a point that blurs the line with (or prepares for) intelligence sharing. It could seek to place military logistics equipment on the island — a strategy the Pentagon is introducing throughout the region.It is also an open secret that American military advisers, mostly retired officers, have a growing presence in Taiwan. Some Taiwanese officials call them “English teachers.” Under Mr. Lai, many more could be on the way.“Beijing has been turning a blind eye, so the question is: What size of that presence will cross the Rubicon?” said Wen-ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University’s Taiwan Studies Program. He added: “Hopefully each additional step will not be seen as overtly provocative to elicit or justify a massive Chinese reaction.”War, of course, is not inevitable. It may be less likely right now, when China is busy with a dismal economy and the United States with wars in Europe and the Middle East.Some analysts also hope that Mr. Xi will find a way to claim victory in the election and step back from antagonism. With a third-party candidate, Ko Wen-je, winning 26 percent of the vote with a vague focus on a middle path in China relations, Mr. Lai won with just 40 percent.“It’s in China’s national interest to expand the path of peaceful integration so they won’t have to fight,” Professor Shirk said. “There are a lot of people watching this interaction and Beijing’s reaction — all the investors are watching it too.”In Taiwan, however, there may be little Mr. Xi can do to polish China’s image. In recent surveys, less than 10 percent of Taiwanese respondents considered China trustworthy.“We have seen too many examples of what Xi did to Hong Kong and how he treated his people,” said Cheng Ting-bin, 56, a teacher in Taipei who voted for Mr. Lai.Most Taiwanese see their future elsewhere. On Saturday, many said they hoped the government could leverage the powerful semiconductor industry to build connections to Southeast Asia and Europe.A crowd celebrating Mr. Lai’s win on Saturday. Relations with China were less dominant than usual as an election issue.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesDuring the campaign, any identification with China seemed to have been erased. Though Taiwan’s official name is the Republic of China, a holdover from when Chinese nationalists fled there, R.O.C. references were hard to find. At Mr. Lai’s rallies, supporters wore shimmering green jackets with “Team Taiwan” written in English across the back.Even the Nationalist Party, known for favoring closer ties with Beijing, emphasized deterrence, the status quo and Taiwanese identity. Its candidate, Hou Yu-ih, spoke with such a strong Taiwanese accent that Mandarin speakers unfamiliar with local inflections had a hard time understanding him.In many ways, the election was less of a referendum on China policy than usual. Cost-of-living issues became more dominant in part because the candidates’ platforms on foreign affairs all aligned with what most people said they wanted: a stronger military, closer ties with the democratic world, and a commitment to the status quo that avoids provoking Beijing but also seeks to tiptoe out of its orbit.“What we want is just to preserve our way of life,” said Alen Hsu, 65, a retiree who said his father had come from China and his son serves in the Taiwanese Air Force.“China,” he added, “simply cannot be trusted.”John Liu More

When Iowa voters brave frigid weather to caucus on Monday, they will be participating in one of the coldest caucuses in decades — perhaps ever. A brutal combination of prolonged, below-freezing temperatures and strong winds have created conditions for a biting cold on Monday that looks worse than any previous caucus night in the Hawkeye State. Temperatures are not forecast to rise above minus 2 degrees all day, and by the time caucusing begins on Monday evening, the wind chill could drag temperatures to what feels like 35 degrees below zero — an extreme level of cold for even the heartiest of Midwesterners. “If someone is extremely lucky, they might get to zero,” said Allan Curtis, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Des Moines, referring to the best-case scenario for warmth in some parts of the state on Monday. He added: “No matter how you look at it, it’s going to be a bitter one.” The coldest caucus before this year was in 2004, when temperatures did not rise above 16 degrees, according to National Weather Service data. But it’s not the first time that Iowa caucusgoers have had to brave subzero temperatures. During the 1972 caucus, temperatures in Des Moines dipped to a low of minus 4 degrees, though they later rose into the 20s. In Waterloo, roughly two hours north, thermometers that year read as low as minus 11 degrees. This year’s weather has turned what is usually a frenzied and well-funded caucus weekend into a far more subdued affair. Blizzards and icy roads scrambled candidates’ schedules late into the final stretch of campaigning, leaving reporters marooned in hotels and candidates with precious little time to talk to voters with fewer than 72 hours before caucusing begins. It has also stirred some anxiety within the campaigns, as strategists speculate over how the deep freeze could affect turnout. Former President Donald J. Trump, who canceled a majority of his rallies through the weekend because of the weather, said during a radio interview on Friday that he expects “great turnout” from his supporters despite Monday’s arctic temperatures. Nikki Haley, who canceled in-person events on Friday in response to blizzards across the state, asked her supporters during a virtual town hall for Council Bluffs voters to turn out in the cold weather and dress warmly in case there are lines outside of caucus sites. “I know it is asking a lot of you to go out and caucus, but I also know we have a country to save,” she said. “And I will be out there in the cold.” And on Saturday, campaigning in person in Cedar Falls, she was. More

Ms. Haley has attracted the interest of non-Republicans who say they’ll caucus for her, as rivals attack her for an insufficiently conservative message.With temperatures threatening to dip below zero in Iowa on Monday, some of the voters preparing to caucus for Nikki Haley have already overcome a different hurdle: a long history of voting for Democrats.At recent campaign events across Iowa, a number of Democrats and left-leaning independents said they saw Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, as a reasonable Republican who could move the country away from bitter partisanship and restore civility in national discourse. Many were drawn to her pledges to unite the country, and to work across the aisle on thorny issues such as abortion. Others are simply motivated by a fear of former President Donald J. Trump’s candidacy and the possibility that he will beat President Biden and regain the White House.Joseph E. Brown Sr., who served two terms as an Iowa state senator in the 1970s and ’80s, said he was a registered Democrat for 50 years until he switched parties last month so that he could caucus for Ms. Haley.“Now that I have my Republican card, I have to go visit my father’s gravesite here in town and apologize,” said Mr. Brown, who lives in Clinton, Iowa. He added that his father, a staunch Democrat and World War II veteran, always voted a straight party ticket.Mr. Brown’s one complaint about Ms. Haley is that she tends to echo misleading claims from Republican lawmakers on the number of agents from the Internal Revenue Service auditing middle-class families. But he said he appreciated her stalwart support for aiding both Ukraine and Israel, and her promises to lower the national debt and make the federal government more efficient. He praised her measured approach toward Mr. Trump — calling out the “chaos” that trails him without attacking him on specifics — and even agreed with her support for pardoning the former president if he is found guilty of crimes.“I’m not opposed to Joe Biden,” he said. “But out of all the Republican candidates, she is the one that strikes me as someone who can rebuild the office of the presidency.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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Taiwan’s vice president, whose party has emphasized the island’s sovereignty, defeated an opposition party that favors reviving engagement with China.Taiwan’s vice president, Lai Ching-te, who has faced sustained hostility from China, won the island democracy’s presidential election on Saturday, a result that could prompt Beijing to step up pressure on Taiwan, deepening tensions with Washington.For many of the millions of Taiwanese citizens who lined up at ballot booths on Saturday, the vote centered on the question of who should lead Taiwan in an increasingly tense standoff with its much larger, autocratic and heavily armed neighbor, China.They chose Mr. Lai, of the governing Democratic Progressive Party, or D.P.P., which wants to keep steering Taiwan away from Beijing’s influence, over Hou Yu-ih of the opposition Nationalist Party, which has vowed to expand trade ties and restart talks with China.In his victory speech, Mr. Lai called for citizens to come together and pledged to uphold Taiwan’s values. “We are telling the international community that between democracy and authoritarianism, we will stand on the side of democracy,” Mr. Lai said.With 99 percent of polling places reporting results, Mr. Lai had 40 percent of the vote to Mr. Hou’s 33 percent, according to Taiwan’s Central Election Commission. Ko Wen-je of the upstart Taiwan People’s Party drew 26 percent of votes. Mr. Hou and Mr. Ko both conceded defeat at gatherings with their supporters. Supporters of Mr. Lai, the presidential candidate for the Democratic Progressive Party, celebrating in Taipei on Saturday.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesThe election drew a strong voter turnout of nearly 70 percent. In the afternoon, the main parties held gatherings for supporters to watch as the votes were being counted after the polls closed at 4 p.m.At the D.P.P.’s gathering outside its headquarters in Taipei, thousands of supporters, many of whom waved pink and green flags, cheered as Mr. Lai’s lead grew during the counting of the votes, which was displayed on a large screen on an outdoor stage. Many described feeling hopeful that a Lai presidency would protect Taiwan’s sovereignty and unique identity.“I support Lai Ching-te because I believe he will uphold the democratic values of Taiwan,” said Huang I-hsuan, 45, a financial analyst who was at the gathering.In some polling stations, lines began forming even before voting started in the morning, with many multigenerational families showing up in groups. Taiwanese citizens, who must vote in person, fanned out to reach nearly 18,000 polling stations in temples, churches, community centers and schools across the island.Mr. Lai had been widely seen as the front-runner. But in the days leading up to the vote, the race was too close to call.Voters at a polling place in Taipei.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesMr. Hou, the Nationalist candidate, had narrowed Mr. Lai’s lead to only a few percentage points in many polls in recent weeks. He had promised to ease tensions with Beijing, arguing that stronger ties with China would help reduce the risk of conflict.And Mr. Ko, the third-party candidate who had sought to appeal to voters fed up with the two established parties, despite falling in the polls, had continued to draw large numbers to his rallies, including nearly 200,000 people on Friday night.One of Mr. Ko’s supporters, Jessica Chou, 25, said she thought that the D.P.P. had pushed Taiwan too close to Washington, and that she hoped the next leader would keep a distance from both the global powers.“I’m worried about China, but I also think that we can’t always rely on the United States,” Ms. Chou said, as she came out of the school where she said she had voted for Mr. Ko. “I hope that Taiwan can find its own strategically advantageous position.”Hou Yu-ih, the Nationalist candidate, at a polling station in Taipei.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesOn Friday night, the parties each held raucous election-eve rallies around Taiwan. In Chiayi, candidates from the three parties drove campaign vans around a large fountain at a circle in the city’s downtown, yelling slogans and urging people to vote.Large crowds of supporters packed side streets around the circle, waving colorful banners and big balloons. The parade was festive, with candidate vans playing thumping club music, and several supporters dressed in inflatable dinosaur costumes for no apparent political reason.Waving a small flag for the Nationalist Party at the rally in Chiayi, Wu Lee-shu, 60, a clothing store clerk, said she was concerned about Taiwan’s safety under the D.P.P. “I’ll vote for the Nationalist Party because I think it’s less likely that they would push Taiwan to war,” she said. “I’m worried about letting the other party take power, but I’ll respect the results of democracy.”The candidates had also debated domestic issues such as housing and energy policy, and they traded accusations that their rivals engaged in shady land deals. But the issue of China overshadowed the election, as it always has.Ko Wen-je, the Taiwan People’s Party candidate, voted at a school in Taipei.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesBeijing asserts that the island of 23 million people about 100 miles off the Chinese coast is its territory. It has urged Taiwan to accept unification and refused to rule out the use of force, if China’s leaders decide it is necessary. The United States is by far Taiwan’s most important security backer, and has under Presidents Biden and Trump become more openly active in supporting the island against Chinese pressure.Mr. Lai will now have a crucial say over Taiwan’s security and dealings with Beijing over the next four years, a period when some experts and U.S. military commanders have warned that the Chinese armed forces could be increasingly capable of an effective military assault on the island, roughly one hundred miles off the eastern Chinese coast.Before Mr. Lai assumes the presidency in May, Taiwanese people — along with officials in Beijing and Washington — will be watching for any early signs of his approach to China, Taiwan’s biggest trading partner as well as a growing threat to its autonomy.His party rejects Beijing’s claim over Taiwan, and the Chinese government has especially reviled Mr. Lai, who earlier in his career called himself a “practical worker” for Taiwan’s independence. Chinese officials, echoing Taiwanese opponents of Mr. Lai, have suggested that a victory for him would risk pushing Taiwan closer to war.In some places, lines began forming at booths even before the polls opened at 8 a.m.Mr. Lai’s win gives his party a third consecutive term in power, something no party had previously achieved since Taiwan adopted direct presidential elections in 1996. He has promised to stick with the approach of the current leader, President Tsai Ing-wen: keeping Beijing at arm’s length while seeking to avoid conflict, and strengthening ties with the United States and other democracies. Mr. Lai’s vice-presidential running mate, Hsiao Bi-khim — formerly Taiwan’s representative in Washington — is likely to work with Mr. Lai to continue that effort.Since Ms. Tsai became president eight years ago, China has escalated military pressure on Taiwan. Chinese jets and warships regularly test Taiwan’s military, and that intimidation could increase, at least for a while, if Mr. Lai wins. More

If Ron DeSantis surprises in Iowa and beyond, if he recovers from his long polling swoon and wins the Republican nomination, it will represent the triumph of a simple, intuitive, but possibly mistaken idea: That voters should be taken at their word about what they actually want from their leaders.It was always clear, going into 2024, that a large minority of the Republican primary electorate would vote for Donald Trump no matter what — including, in the event of his untimely passing, for the former president’s reanimated corpse or his A.I. simulation. A smaller bloc strongly preferred a pre-Trump and un-Trump-like Republican; this has become the Nikki Haley constituency.This left a crucial middle bloc, maybe 40 percent of the party in my own guesstimation, that was Trump-friendly but also seemingly persuadable and open to another choice. These were those Republicans who mostly hadn’t voted for Trump in the early primaries in 2016, who had regarded him as the lesser of two evils during his tilt with Hillary Clinton, but who had gradually become more authentically favorable toward him over the course of his presidency — because of the judges he appointed, because of the strength of the economy, because they reacted against the hysteria of his liberal opponents, or just because of the alchemy of partisan identification.I talked to a lot of these kind of Republicans between 2016 and 2020 — not a perfectly representative sample, probably weighted too heavily toward Uber drivers and Catholic lawyer dads, but still enough to recognize a set of familiar refrains. These voters liked Trump’s policies more than his personality. They didn’t like some of his tweets and insults, so they mostly just tuned them out. They thought that he had the measure of liberals in a way that prior Republicans had not, that his take-no-prisoners style was suited to the scale of liberal media bias and progressive cultural hegemony. But they acknowledged that he didn’t always seem entirely in charge of his own administration, fully competent in the day-to-day running of the government.So their official position was that they wanted a version of Trump with less drama, who wasn’t constantly undermined by his generals or his bureaucrats, who didn’t seem confused about the difference between tweeting about a problem and actually addressing it. They didn’t want to go back to the pre-Trump G.O.P., but they also didn’t just want to replay Trump’s first term — especially how it ended, with Trump at war with his own public health apparatus over Covid while a left-wing cultural revolution surged through American cities and schools and mass media.Ron DeSantis’s entire persona as governor of Florida seemed to meet this ostensible demand. He had a strong record of both political and legislative success, having moved Florida rightward at the ballot box and in public policy — a clear contrast with Trump, as a one-term president who presided over notable Republican political defeats. DeSantis was a cultural battler who seemed more adept than Trump at picking fights and more willing than many pre-Trump Republicans to risk the wrath of big donors and corporations. His Covid record was exactly in tune with the party’s mood; he exuded competence when a hurricane hit; he fought constantly with the media and still won over Florida’s swing voters. If Republicans wanted to keep key elements of Trumpism but joined to greater competence, if they wanted a president who would promise to build a wall and then actually complete it, DeSantis was clearly the best and only possibility.Those voters still have a chance, beginning in Iowa, to make the choice they claimed to want. But if current polls are correct and they mostly just return to Trump, what will it say about how political identification really works?One argument will be that DeSantis failed the voters who were open to supporting him, by failing to embody on the campaign trail the brand that he built up in Florida and that had built him solid national polling numbers before he jumped into the race.For instance, it’s clear that the ability to wrangle happily with the liberal media is a crucial part of the Trumpian persona, and having showed some of that ability in Florida, DeSantis unaccountably tried to run a presidential campaign exclusively via right-wing outlets and very-online formats like his disastrous Muskian debut. His lack of charisma relative to Trump was always going to be a problem, but he still made it worse by cocooning himself, initially at least, from the conflicts that should have been a selling point.Or again, any Trumpism-without-Trump would presumably need to copy some of Trump’s flair for ideological heterodoxy, his willingness to ignore the enforcers of True Conservatism and promise big — new infrastructure projects, universal health care, flying cars — whatever the indifferent follow-through. And again, while the DeSantis of Florida seemed to have some instinct for this approach — attacking woke ideology in schools while also raising teacher salaries, say — as a presidential candidate he’s been more conventional, running the kind of ideologically narrow campaign that already failed to deliver Ted Cruz the nomination in 2016.But allowing for these kind of specific critiques of how DeSantis has failed to occupy the space he seemed to have carved out, his struggles still seem more about the gap between what voters might seem to want on paper and how political attractions are actually forged.Here DeSantis might be compared to the foil in many romantic comedies — Ralph Bellamy in a Cary Grant vehicle, Bill Pullman in “Sleepless in Seattle,” the boyfriend left behind in the city while the heroine reconnects with her small-town roots in various TV Christmas movies. He’s the guy who’s entirely suitable, perfectly sympathetic and yet incapable of inspiring passion or devotion.Or again, to borrow an insight from a friend, DeSantis is an avatar for the generation to which he (like me, just barely) belongs: He’s the type of Generation X-er who pretends to be alienated and rebellious but actually has a settled marriage, a padded résumé, a strong belief in systems and arguments and plans — and a constant middle-aged annoyance at the more vibes-based style of his boomer elders and millennial juniors.The Republican Party in the Trump era has boasted a lot of Gen X leaders, from Cruz and Marco Rubio to Paul Ryan and Haley. But numerically and spiritually, the country belongs to the boomers and millennials, to vibes instead of plans.This might be especially true for a Republican Party that’s becoming more working-class, with more disaffected and lower-information voters, fewer intensely focused consumers of the news, less interest than the Democratic electorate in policy plans and litmus tests. (Though even the Democratic electorate in 2020 opted against its most plans-based candidates in the end, which is why an analogy between DeSantis and Elizabeth Warren has floated around social media.)And it’s definitely true in the narrative context created by Trump’s legal battles, all the multiplying prosecutions, which were clearly the inflection point in DeSantis’s descent from plausible successor to likely also-ran.If a majority or plurality of Republican voters really just wanted a form of Trumpism free of Trump’s roiling personal drama, a version of his administration’s policies without the chaos and constant ammunition given to his enemies, the indictments were the ideal opportunity to break decisively for DeSantis — a figure who, whatever his other faults, seems very unlikely to stuff classified documents in his bathroom or pay hush money to a porn star.But it doesn’t feel at all surprising that, instead, voters seem ready to break decisively for Trump. The prosecutions created an irresistible drama, a theatrical landscape of persecution rather than a quotidian competition between policy positions, a gripping narrative to join rather than a mere list of promises to back. And irresistible theater, not a more effective but lower-drama alternative, appears to be the revealed preference of the Republican coalition, the thing its voters really want.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: [email protected] the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More