Elections

More from our inbox:Assad Should Be Reviled, Not RecognizedThe Overuse of Guardianship Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “How to Make Trump Go Away,” by Frank Luntz (Opinion guest essay, April 10):Republicans are tying themselves in knots trying to come up with candidates who can appeal to Trump voters but who are not Donald Trump. The latest effort is this essay by the Republican strategist Frank Luntz.I laughed and groaned when I read about the search for “a candidate who champions Mr. Trump’s agenda but with decency, civility and a commitment to personal responsibility and accountability.” Really? How could such a thing be possible?Mr. Trump’s agenda — if one can say he has an agenda other than himself — is one of building a power base by stoking grievance, resentment and division. It is inherently based on indecency and incivility.The last thing this country needs is a smoother, more effective version of Donald Trump. We need an agenda that brings us together to make America a better place for everyone, not just for some at the expense of others. We don’t need an agenda that divides, debases and weakens us, whoever the candidate.John MasonSanta Rosa, Calif.To the Editor:Frank Luntz’s eight suggestions to the Republican leadership on how to dump Donald Trump are well considered and rational. But one other rational thought that he omitted is the threat that Mr. Trump would run as an independent if he isn’t nominated for the 2024 presidential race. Even a small percentage of his hard-core base could crush the chances for a normal Republican candidate to win the general election.Mr. Trump is irrational enough to spend the funds he has raised already plus some of his own in a vindictive, spoiler candidacy. It’s not a mystery why Republican leaders don’t know how to escape their dilemma.Davis van BakergemSt. LouisTo the Editor:As one of the steadily increasing body of independents, I read Frank Luntz’s column avidly to see where there might be a case to be made on behalf of the Republicans. Unfortunately, there is an underlying premise that Donald Trump did a lot of good things for the country during his term.I fail to see them.True, the economy was in good shape before the coronavirus, but I ascribe that in large part to the hard work of the Obama years. The only program of note that Mr. Trump initiated was the tax cuts that sharply increased an already swollen deficit and that benefited our citizens who least needed the help. Far from helping the disenfranchised, he milked them for his personal benefit and widened the divide.Internationally, he alienated our longstanding allies in Europe. We are left with his “impact on the bureaucracy and judiciary.” Mr. Luntz must mean rendering governance ineffectual through starvation and converting the judiciary into a political body.Not my idea of a record to run on.Tony PellBostonTo the Editor:Thank you for this great piece. Everything Frank Luntz said resonated with me, a liberal residing among some very strong conservatives. He went the extra mile to really understand Trump voters and describe in great detail how a Republican candidate could succeed with them in a future election.It was very thought-provoking, and helped me gain an even deeper insight into my neighbors and their concerns. I will remember what he wrote.Mary HollenGreenbank, Wash.To the Editor:Frank Luntz offers messaging advice for Republican presidential candidates to attract MAGA voters away from Donald Trump: Listen and sympathize with Trump supporters, he says, emphasize decency, civility and personal responsibility. Acknowledge Mr. Trump’s successes and offer the mildest criticisms of his presidential record and personal behavior. “Make it more about the grandchildren” because these mature right-wing voters care about the kids’ future.No doubt there are disillusioned Trump voters who are ready for a different message, but how many? Racism, misogyny and apocalyptic nihilism are the hallmarks of Trumpism. Mr. Luntz’s advice is not only risible — adopt a liberal demeanor without the Enlightenment values — but also paradoxical. It presumes an electorate yearning for a kinder, gentler fascism. ​Geraldine MurphyNew YorkAssad Should Be Reviled, Not Recognized /EPA, via ShutterstockTo the Editor:Re “After Shunning Assad for Years, the Arab World Changes Its Tune” (news article, April 14):It is troubling to see that several Arab nations have chosen to embrace President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whose tenure has been marked by unspeakable atrocities and egregious human rights violations. His reign of tyranny and terror should result in ongoing condemnation, not the newfound credibility that is being bestowed upon him by Syria’s Arab neighbors.Mass killings and widespread violence that have forced millions of people to flee their homes cannot and should not be overlooked when assessing the strategic importance of re-establishing formal relations with Syria and its rogue leader.Mr. al-Assad should be reviled, not recognized.N. Aaron TroodlerBala Cynwyd, Pa.The Overuse of Guardianship Rozalina BurkovaTo the Editor:Thank you for “A Better Alternative to Guardianship,” by Emily Largent, Andrew Peterson and Jason Karlawish (Opinion guest essay, April 5).As they note, the overuse of guardianship robs people of agency in their own lives. Those with guardians are left out of important conversations about their future, they don’t develop the skills necessary to make life choices and they are prohibited from entering into legal agreements, managing their money or getting married without the guardian’s consent.Because the individual has been deemed legally incompetent, the guardian signs any legally binding contracts, co-signs any disbursements and, depending on the state, may have to sign the marriage license.For people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, families are all too often counseled when their family member leaves school to seek guardianship.Nationwide data from the National Core Indicators indicates that among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities receiving services, a staggering 45 percent are under some form of guardianship. Supported decision-making, described in the essay, provides a much-needed alternative to this denial of rights and agency.Valerie J. BradleyCambridge, Mass.The writer is president emerita of the Human Services Research Institute. More

Dominion, which is owned by a New York private equity firm, has accused the news network of spreading false narratives about its election technology.If not for the 2020 election, most people would not have heard of Dominion Voting Systems, an elections technology company that John Poulos started out of his basement in Canada more than two decades ago.But in the days and weeks after the election, former President Donald J. Trump and many of his allies accused the company of perpetrating election fraud. Dominion then filed a slew of defamation lawsuits against public figures and news networks, accusing them of spreading the false narratives and exposing its employees to harassment. The company’s case against Fox News is scheduled to go to trial this week. Judge Eric M. Davis, who is presiding over the case, said in a statement late on Sunday that he was delaying the trial by a day, until Tuesday. He did not cite a reason but said he would make an announcement Monday at 9 a.m.Here is what we know about the company, from its private equity owner in New York to its powerful perch in the nation’s elections industry.Dominion’s Early DaysDominion became one of the largest providers of election technology in the United States by selling, licensing and maintaining products such as its Democracy Suite software and ImageCast voting and tabulation machines. During the 2020 election, the company served 28 states, including many swing states, as well as Puerto Rico. Mr. Poulos, who has degrees in electrical engineering and business, incorporated Dominion in Toronto in 2003 with some friends after a stint in Silicon Valley. His sister was his first investor, followed by his parents and his friends’ parents. (Dominion declined to comment for this article.)The company is named after Canada’s 1920 Dominion Elections Act, which removed barriers to voting that had excluded women and voters of certain racial, religious or economic groups. Mr. Poulos’s business idea was to help people with disabilities, such as paralysis or blindness, cast their ballots as independently as possible while still leaving an auditable paper trail. Dominion incorporated accessible technology like audio readouts and large screens into election machines.The company scored its first American contract in 2009, providing voting technology to dozens of counties in New York. The next year, it moved its headquarters to Denver, where it now has several hundred employees.Private Equity OwnersStaple Street Capital, a private equity firm in New York, is the majority owner of Dominion. Mr. Poulos, Dominion’s chief executive, retains a roughly 12 percent stake. PennantPark Investment, a financial firm based in Miami, is another investor.Fox said in a legal filing that Staple Street paid $38.3 million in 2018 to acquire 76.2 percent of Dominion. At the time, the private equity firm valued the technology vendor at $80 million, or one-twentieth of the $1.6 billion in damages that Dominion had sought from Fox, according to Fox’s filing.Staple Street’s owners, Stephen D. Owens and Hootan Yaghoobzadeh, first worked together in 1998 on buyouts for the Carlyle Group, a private equity giant. (Their résumés also feature stints at Lehman Brothers and Cerberus Capital Management.) The firm’s board of directors includes a former chief executive of Dunkin’ Brands as well as a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and ambassador to the European Union.Staple Street declined to comment.On its website, Staple Street says it has $900 million of assets under management — mostly midsize companies such as a flower bulb distributor in New Jersey, an accounting and payroll reporting service popular with restaurant chains, a support organization for dental clinics and, at one point, the theme park operator Six Flags.Fox said in its filing that Mr. Yaghoobzadeh had authorized Dominion’s lawsuit against the network. The lawsuit, Fox said, is meant to generate publicity, deter negative reporting and “unjustly enrich” Staple Street.Fox cited discovery documents that it said showed Dominion “in a solid financial position, maintaining substantial cash, carrying no debt and producing a steady return on investment” to Staple Street. In 2021, Dominion paid full bonuses to its employees and executives and projected $98 million in revenue for 2022, Fox said.Last year, when asked whether he believed that Dominion was a “toxic” company after the 2020 election, Mr. Owens answered, “That’s correct.”A Business in FluxIn its complaint, which it filed in 2021, Dominion accused Fox of broadcasting lies that “deeply damaged” its “once-thriving” business, “one of the fastest-growing technology companies in North America” with a potential value of more than $1 billion.Shasta County, a rural area in Northern California that has become a hotbed for election denial, terminated its Dominion contract in January. Lawmakers in Montgomery County in Pennsylvania renewed a deal with Dominion for $518,052 in February, the same month that officials in Kern County, north of Los Angeles, narrowly approved a three-year, $672,948 contract after hours of heated debate.Dominion’s contracts with local and state governments typically last for several years and range from tens of thousands of dollars to more than $100 million, the company said in its complaint against Fox. The company estimated that misinformation about the company had cost it more than $600 million in profits.In an expert witness report submitted in the case late last year, Mark J. Hosfield, a managing director of the investment bank and advisory firm Stout, wrote that the false narratives had led Dominion to lose $88 million in profits from current and future opportunities. He also wrote that Fox’s coverage had caused the value of Dominion’s equity and debt to drop $920.8 million. Dominion’s renewal rate with clients had historically been 90 percent, he said.Fox has said the $1.6 billion that Dominion is seeking is “a staggering figure that has no factual support” and was “pulled out of thin air.” There has been no evidence of Dominion’s laying off employees, closing offices, defaulting on credit obligations or suffering canceled contracts as a result of Fox’s coverage, the network said.Fox said in other court filings last year that “Dominion’s calculations are riddled with mathematical overstatements” and losses misattributed to damaging news coverage, and that the company had beaten revenue forecasts that it set before the election.“Dominion’s lawsuit is a political crusade in search of a financial windfall, but the real cost would be cherished First Amendment rights,” Fox said in a statement.Dominion, in a statement said: “In the coming weeks, we will prove Fox spread lies causing enormous damage to Dominion. We look forward to trial.”An Important but Mysterious IndustryThe elections technology industry has few major players and offers little public information about its finances. Dominion is most likely the second-largest company of its kind operating in the United States, behind Election Systems & Software in Nebraska, according to Verified Voting, an election security nonprofit.Both companies, along with Hart InterCivic in Texas, have acquired smaller competitors over the past two decades. As of 2016, the three vendors served more than 90 percent of eligible voters in the country, according to a report from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.Wharton researchers at that point described the election technology business as having “all the aspects of an industry that new investors would want to avoid — a costly regulatory environment, constrained market size, cost-conscious customers, and concentrated and entrenched vendors.”The Brennan Center for Justice estimated last year that replacing outdated voting equipment over the next five years could cost more than $580 million. A group of Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, sent letters in 2019 to Staple Street and other private equity firms that had invested in election technology companies, voicing concern about industry consolidation and the maintenance of voting machines. In response, Staple Street wrote to Ms. Warren that it spent roughly 10 to 20 percent of its revenue on research and development.Susan C. Beachy More

Bret Stephens: Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska governor and senator, emailed me a letter he was considering putting in the mail. He gave me permission to share it with our readers, so here you have it:Dear Federal Government,When a 21-year-old National Guardsman gets access to Top Secret briefings, my first conclusion is: You guys left the keys in the car and that’s why it was “stolen.” And when journalists find out who committed the crime before you do, my conclusion is that you folks are overpaid.BobYour thoughts on this latest intelligence debacle and the possibility that the suspect’s motive was to try to impress his little community of teenage gamers?Gail Collins: Yeah, Bret, the bottom line here is the fact that a teenage doofus was able to join the National Guard and quickly work his way up to its cyber-transport system, while apparently spending his spare time with his online pals playing video games, sharing racist memes and revealing government secrets.Bret: It’s enough to make me nostalgic for Alger Hiss.Gail: Teenage doofus is certainly in need of punishment, but he’s really not the main problem here. You think a lot about national security issues — what’s your solution?Bret: We certainly owe the suspect the presumption of innocence. But my first-pass answer is that when everything is a secret, nothing is a secret — in other words, a government that stamps “confidential” or “top secret” on too many documents loses sight of the information that really needs to be kept a secret.This is one area that’s really ripe for bipartisan legislation — a bill that requires the government to declassify more documents more quickly, while building taller and better fences around the information that truly needs to be kept secret.Gail: We really do agree, and to balance that out I’m gonna ask you about the Biden budget soon.Bret: Uh oh.Gail: But first I have to check your presidential prospect temperature. You kinda liked Ron DeSantis and then made a fierce turnaround, which I presume has been nailed in even further by his no-abortions agenda.Bret: It’s awful politics. It’s awful, period.Florida’s ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy means that many women will not even know they are pregnant before they are unable to obtain an abortion. It makes Mississippi’s 15-week ban look relatively moderate in comparison, which is like praising Khrushchev because he wasn’t as bad as Stalin. And it signals to every independent voter that DeSantis is an anti-abortion extremist who should never be trusted with presidential power.Gail: Down with DeSantis. So what about the new guy, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who would like to be our second Black president? He hasn’t officially announced, but he’s certainly doing that dance.Bret: In theory, he has a lot going for him. He exudes personal authenticity and optimism about America, as well as a sense of aspiration — attractive qualities in any politician. He’s sort of a standard-issue conservative on most policy issues and supports a 20-week national abortion ban, which is middle-of-the-road for most Americans and almost liberal for today’s Republican Party. He has the potential to win over some minority voters who have been trending conservative in recent years, while neutralizing potential Democratic attacks on racial issues.But how he fares with voters outside of his home base remains to be seen. A lot of these presidential aspirants fall apart the moment they come into contact with audiences who ask difficult questions.Gail: Yeah, recent interviews with Scott do seem to suggest there might be a problem there. On CBS, he said he was “100 percent pro-life.” When asked if that meant he supported Lindsey Graham’s proposed 15-week abortion ban, he replied “That’s not what I said.” Ummm …Bret: But we keep talking about Republicans. Are you still 100 percent convinced Joe Biden is gonna run for re-election? Because … I’m not.Gail: No way I’m going 100 percent. Biden’s current evasiveness could certainly be an attempt to time his big announcement for when everybody’s back from summer vacation and all geared up for presidential politics. Or, sigh, he could just want to string out his current status as long as possible because he knows once he announces he’s not running, he’ll practically disappear from the national political discussion.But I have trouble imagining that he doesn’t dream about knocking Donald Trump off the wall one more time. Why are you so doubtful?Bret: I know Biden is supposed to be following some kind of “Rose Garden strategy” of signing bills while his opponents tear themselves to pieces. But, to me, he just seems tired. I know that 90 is supposed to be the new 60, as you put it last week in your delightful column. I just don’t think that’s true of him. His 80 looks like the old 80 to me. Also, rank-and-file Democrats seem to be about as enthusiastic for his next run as they are for their next colonoscopy.I keep hoping he has the wisdom to know that he should cede the field as a one-term president who accomplished big things for his party rather than risk encountering senility in a second term.Gail: It’s important to stand up for the durability of so many 90-somethings. But age is certainly an issue in a lot of politics these days. I’m troubled right now about Senator Dianne Feinstein, who’s 89 and ailing. The Democrats need her vote to get anything much done in the Senate, particularly on judicial nominations.Bret: She’s a good argument for the point I was making about Biden.Gail: Very different cases — Biden is in great shape at 80; Feinstein is 89 and clearly failing. She’s already announced this year that she’s not running for re-election, but she really ought to step down instantly. A short-term governor-appointed successor could give the Democrats a much-needed vote, at least on some issues. But he or she shouldn’t be one of the possible candidates to succeed her. Maybe somebody who would just cheer us up for a while. How about Brad Pitt?Bret: Well, he’s definitely a Democrat, like most everyone else in Hollywood except Jon Voight. But my money is on Representative Adam Schiff succeeding Feinstein.Gail: Not a bad idea long term, although I’m hoping for another woman.OK, now it’s really time to talk about that Biden budget. Protect Medicare, expand some good programs like family leave and free community college for the poor. Balance it all out with a hike in the minimum income tax for billionaires.Are you surprised to hear that works for me?Bret: Expected nothing less. Basically I look at Biden’s budget not as a serious proposal but as a political ad for Democrats in 2024. In reality I expect we’ll get roughly the same budget as this year, only with much higher defense spending to account for threats from Russia and China.But the proposed tax on billionaires really bothers me, because it’s partially a tax on unrealized gains — that is, money people don’t actually have. If it were to pass, it could eventually apply to lots of people who are very far from being billionaires. It’s just like the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was originally devised in the late 1960s to hit a tiny handful of very rich people who weren’t paying their taxes, but wound up becoming another tax wallop to people of lesser means. I take it you … disagree?Gail: Uh, yeah. The very rich tend to organize their finances around legal tax avoidance. So they hold onto their often rapidly appreciating assets and just borrow against them.Bret: The problem remains that we’re talking about a tax on income that includes much more than income.Gail: It’s certainly important that what’s billed as a tax on the very rich not be applied to the middle class. But the complaints about Biden’s plan really are claims that it won’t just hit billionaires — it’ll make the hundred-millionaires suffer. Not feeling this is a problem.Bret: Fortunately it won’t pass this House or pass muster with this Supreme Court.On another note, Gail, an article in The Wall Street Journal reminds me that this month is the 50th anniversary of the first cellphone call — back when cellphones were the size of a shoe. Today, according to the article, more people have access to cellphones than they do to working toilets — six billion-plus versus around 4.5 billion. Any thoughts on the meaning of this golden anniversary?Gail: Wait, I’m mulling your toilet factoid …Bret: Yeah. Pretty shocking.Gail: OK, moving on. It’s thrilling the way cellphones allow parents to keep track of where their kids are and friends to stay in contact when they’re out of town. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched old movies when the heroine or the hero was in crisis and thought, “Oh, God if you could just call somebody.”But all this good news is connected to the technical and cultural changes that encourages people to communicate without having to take responsibility for what they say. Obviously, there are problems and we’ve got to figure out ways to make it work.Do you have a plan?Bret: We can’t escape the fact that new technologies are almost always both liberating and enslaving, and almost always unavoidable. Cellphones freed us from being attached to a physical location in order to be in touch — while putting us all on call no matter where we were. Smartphones put the world in our back pockets but also addicted us to tiny screens. If, God forbid, ChatGPT ever takes over this conversation, then, well, hmm … the two of us are going to spend a lot more time drinking good wine on your patio. There are worse fates.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, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

Opening statements in the $1.6 billion defamation case against Fox News were set to begin on Monday.A Delaware judge on Monday said that he had delayed by a day the start of a highly anticipated defamation trial over the spread of misinformation in the 2020 presidential election.The postponement of the trial was the latest twist in the case. Late Sunday, Judge Eric M. Davis said the proceedings would continue on Tuesday. He did not give a reason then or in his brief remarks from the bench just after 9 a.m. on Monday.“This does not seem unusual to me,” Judge Davis said, explaining that he had rarely been part of a trial that did not have some kind of delay. “I am continuing the matter until tomorrow.”The case has opened an unprecedented window into the inner workings of the country’s leading conservative news network. In the run-up to trial, Fox has handed over tens of thousands of emails and text messages exchanged among its hosts, producers and executives. Many of them revealed that there was widespread doubt inside the network over former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that he had been cheated of victory.The case is considered a landmark test of First Amendment protections for the press and has been closely watched by legal and media analysts. Dominion’s voting machines became the focus of pro-Trump conspiracy theories that wrongly implicated the company’s technology in a plot to flip votes from Mr. Trump to President Biden.On Monday, the courtroom was filled with reporters from around the world awaiting word on when they could expect to hear opening statements from both parties and exactly what the delay was about.Boldface names from Fox News — hosts including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo, along with Rupert Murdoch, whose family controls the sprawling Fox media empire — are expected to testify if the case goes to trial.Dominion Voting Systems, an elections technology company, filed the libel lawsuit against Fox in early 2021, claiming that Fox hosts and guests repeatedly uttered lies about its role in a fictitious plot to steal the election despite knowing the claims, which had been pushed by Mr. Trump and his supporters, were not true.Fox has said that it was reporting on newsworthy allegations involving a presidential election and insisted that its broadcasts were protected under the First Amendment as commentary and news. It has also challenged Dominion’s damages claim, arguing that the company vastly overvalued itself and has not suffered the blows to its business that it says.This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates. More

En un expediente de 101 páginas, Donald Trump reveló valores inferiores a los esperados en su compañía de redes sociales y préstamos bancarios considerables.El viernes, el expresidente Donald Trump proporcionó el primer vistazo a sus transacciones comerciales posteriores a la presidencia con un nuevo informe de sus finanzas personales. Aunque no ofrece detalles específicos, los documentos presentados en la Comisión de Elecciones Federales mostraron valores menores a los esperados en su empresa de redes sociales, otros dos cuantiosos préstamos bancarios y una nueva fuente de ingresos para la ex primera dama Melania Trump.El expresidente presentó su declaración después de solicitar varias prórrogas. Le habían advertido que sería objeto de sanciones si no declaraba a los 30 días de la fecha límite del 16 de marzo.De acuerdo con una persona informada acerca de esos documentos, la declaración financiera muestra ingresos acumulados desde enero de 2021 hasta el 15 de diciembre de 2022, según lo requerido por la Comisión de Elecciones Federales, y el valor de los activos hasta diciembre de 2022.Estas son seis conclusiones del expediente de 101 páginas.La empresa de redes sociales de Trump disminuye mucho su valoraciónLa declaración tasó la empresa matriz de Truth Social, la plataforma de redes sociales y megáfono personal del expresidente, entre 5 y 25 millones de dólares. Dicho valor reportado para la empresa matriz, Trump Media & Technology Group, era considerablemente menor que el de la posible valuación de 9000 millones de dólares para esta compañía cuando en octubre de 2021 anunció una fusión con una empresa de adquisición de propósito especial de gran liquidez llamada Digital World Acquisition Company.Alguien que contaba con información sobre el expediente afirmó que el cálculo reflejaba el valor actual de la participación de Trump y no era un intento por establecer el precio de los activos después de un posible cálculo. No obstante, el valor intrínseco de Trump Media es mucho menor de lo que él había esperado cuando puso en marcha la empresa a principios de 2021.El acuerdo de fusión ha sido retrasado por las investigaciones tanto de los fiscales federales como de los reguladores de valores, cosa que ha llevado al desplome de las acciones de Digital World, de 97 dólares por acción a su precio actual de 13,10 dólares por cada acción. Sin embargo, si se llega a concluir el acuerdo, habrá por lo menos 300 millones de dólares de una liquidez muy necesaria para Trump Media y posiblemente aumente, en un monto considerable, la riqueza en papel de Trump. Además, Trump se dispone a obtener 70 millones de acciones.La fecha límite para que Trump Media y Digital World completen la fusión es a principios de septiembre. La Comisión de Bolsa y Valores, que está investigando los eventos relacionados con la fusión propuesta junto con los fiscales federales, aún no ha firmado el acuerdo.Una portavoz de Trump Media dijo que la compañía seguía convencida de que alcanzaría “un valor de miles de millones de dólares”.La presentación también mostró que Trump, quien figura como presidente de Trump Media, posee el 90 por ciento de la empresa. La presentación no identifica a los propietarios del otro 10 por ciento de la empresa. El director ejecutivo de la compañía es Devin Nunes, el excongresista republicano de California.Las tarjetas digitales coleccionables de Trump presentan ventas iniciales insignificantesA fines del año pasado, Trump anunció su incursión en activos digitales conocidos como NFT, o token no fungible. Las tarjetas de Trump, unas tarjetas coleccionables virtuales ilustradas con una variedad de imágenes en caricatura del expresidente, salieron a la venta el 15 de diciembre.Este negocio —coordinado por Bill Zanker, un emprendedor que ya antes había escrito un libro con Trump y le había pagado millones de dólares en honorarios por sus conferencias— tenía expectativas muy altas: los NFT habían impuesto precios impresionantes en los últimos años y un solo token superó los 22 millones de dólares a principios de 2022.En privado, a Trump le habían garantizado que el proyecto podría alcanzar hasta 100 millones de dólares en ventas, pero las ganancias iniciales insinuaban un resultado menos espectacular y los analistas calcularon menos de seis millones de dólares de ingresos totales para principios de febrero.La nueva declaración financiera de Trump establece que la empresa que creó para el proyecto de los NFT, CIC Digital LLC, tuvo entre 100.001 dólares y un millón de dólares en ingresos. Pero debido a que el documento tiene información hasta el 15 de diciembre —el día exacto en que las tarjetas de Trump comenzaron a venderse—, no se supo qué tanto se incluyó de las primeras ventas de los NFT.La información pública relacionada con el comercio de criptomonedas muestra que en las primeras 24 horas de operaciones se vendieron 44.000 de las tarjetas de Trump en 99 dólares cada una. Además, el 15 de diciembre se vendieron varias tarjetas en el mercado secundario, cada una de las cuales obtuvo el diez por ciento en regalías de acuerdo con los términos de la oferta.Zanker se ha rehusado a hacer comentarios acerca de cómo se dividen las ventas de las tarjetas de Trump o qué costos indirectos podría haber. Pero el informe sí ofrece una pista del acuerdo desde la perspectiva de Trump. Registra el valor general de CIC Digital entre 500.000 y un millón de dólares, lo cual sugiere que tal vez el proyecto de los NFT no constituye las enormes ganancias repentinas que se creía que iba a tener.Un ejecutivo comentó que los ingresos que se mencionan en el informe financiero no reflejaban una gran parte del dinero que Trump ha ganado en las ventas de los NFT. Según este ejecutivo, en general, se han vendido varios millones de dólares y, en los términos del acuerdo, la mayor parte de las ventas brutas corresponden a Trump.Aparte, el informe mostraba que Trump ganó “más de cinco millones” a través de CIC Ventures Inc., una empresa no relacionada, pero con un nombre parecido que se creó en 2021. (“CIC” son las siglas de commander in chief: comandante en jefe). Esos ingresos fueron registrados como honorarios por conferencias, y es muy probable que estas se hayan incluido en los mítines que celebró antes de convertirse en candidato oficial en el mes de noviembre.Trump saldó algunos préstamos, pero adquirió otrosDesde que salió de la presidencia, Trump ha pagado seis préstamos pendientes, entre ellos uno con un valor de más de 50 millones de dólares sobre sus propiedades Trump Tower de Nueva York y Trump Doral, un club de golf en las afueras de Miami que ha sido la propiedad que por separado genera mayores ingresos en su empresa familiar.También contrajo dos préstamos nuevos, ambos de Axos Bank por un total de más de 50 millones de dólares cada uno, sobre las propiedades de Doral y Trump Tower.Asimismo, saldó un préstamo con un valor de más de 50 millones de dólares sobre el edificio Trump Old Post Office, el hotel de Washington que vendió el año pasado. La mayor parte de los préstamos que recibió del Deutsche Bank, que llegaron a ser por un total de más de 295 millones de dólares, ya están pagados y solo restan cerca de 45 millones de dólares que aún le debe a ese banco, el cual solía ser uno de sus principales acreedores.Trump enumeró deudas por un total de más de 200 millones de dólares.Trump vio otros ingresos derivados de un acuerdo con una empresa en Arabia SauditaLa declaración financiera muestra los primeros pagos a Trump por un nuevo acuerdo que respalda una empresa de inversión inmobiliaria con sede en Arabia Saudita para construir un complejo de hotel y campo de golf en Omán. Hasta ahora, los pagos están registrados con un valor de más de cinco millones de dólares.Un ejecutivo de la empresa explicó que la idea es desarrollar el proyecto en Mascate, Omán, sobre una colina que está junto al golfo de Omán y que este incluirá un campo de golf, villas y dos hoteles.Para este proyecto, la familia Trump está trabajando con Dar Al Arkan, una de las empresas inmobiliarias más grandes de Arabia Saudita. El terreno pertenece al gobierno de Omán, lo que significa que ahora Trump está prácticamente haciendo negocios con el gobierno de ese país.Melania Trump informa sobre una nueva fuente de ingresosEn 2021, la ex primera dama incorporó una empresa, MKT World LLC, con el mismo domicilio que el Trump International Golf Club, de acuerdo con los registros del Departamento de Estado de Florida. Dicha empresa reportó entre uno y cinco millones de dólares por regalías.Aunque no se sabía muy bien cuáles eran las actividades comerciales exactas de la empresa, Melania Trump ha encontrado varias formas de obtener beneficios económicos a partir de su relación con Donald Trump desde que salió de la Casa Blanca. En enero de 2022, subastó un retrato digital de ella misma elaborado por un artista francés, una impresión del retrato y un sombrero blanco que usó en la Casa Blanca cuando recibió al presidente de Francia.También se sumó al sitio de la red social conservadora Parler, la cual anunció un acuerdo con Melania Trump cuyos términos financieros no se revelaron. En un comunicado, Melania Trump señaló que le proporcionaría al sitio contenido exclusivo para “motivar a otras personas” y promover una serie de futuras subastas por internet de “objetos coleccionables”, como el sombrero que usó en la Casa Blanca.La ex primera dama Melania Trump, en la Casa Blanca en 2017, informó nuevas fuentes de ingresos en una divulgación financiera.Tom Brenner para The New York TimesEsta vez, Trump reveló menos detallesLas declaraciones financieras de Donald Trump fueron rastreadas con atención durante su primera contienda por la Casa Blanca y durante su presidencia. Los expedientes proporcionaron información importante acerca del efecto que tuvo en su riqueza el desempeño del cargo. Y aunque gran parte de sus ingresos y activos solo se reportaron en rangos muy amplios, Trump ya había reportado los montos específicos de los ingresos procedentes de algunas propiedades.Todo eso cambió en su última declaración.Esta vez, los ingresos de Trump se reportaron en rangos amplios, que es todo lo que requiere la legislación federal.Por ejemplo, Trump informó que los ingresos de Mar-a-Lago, su complejo turístico del sur de Florida, ascendieron a un total de 24,2 millones de dólares en 2020, un aumento del 13 por ciento en comparación con el año anterior. En su último informe, reportó que el complejo obtuvo “más de cinco millones de dólares”, la declaración más elevada en el expediente, cosa que en definitiva les dificulta a los electores tener una idea clara de sus finanzas.La divulgación muestra una lista mucho más extensa de acciones individuales y bonos por parte de Trump, a través de varias cuentas de inversión, por un total de varios cientos de millones de dólares en fondos adicionales invertidos, según los rangos de valores proporcionados. La presentación enumera las participaciones en cientos de acciones y bonos, incluidos petróleo y gas, servicios eléctricos, bancos, atención médica, compañías farmacéuticas, contratistas militares y muchos otros sectores.Esto refleja, en parte, los nuevos ingresos que obtuvo Trump a través de la venta el año pasado del Trump International Hotel en Washington y la refinanciación de hipotecas sobre dos valiosos edificios de oficinas controlados por Vornado Realty Trust en los que Trump tiene una participación, uno en Manhattan y el otro en San Francisco. Cuando estos préstamos fueron refinanciados, resultó en un gran pago para la familia Trump.El viernes, Eric Trump, quien ayuda a administrar la empresa familiar, dijo en un comunicado que la declaración financiera mostraba una compañía diversificada de bienes raíces y medios de comunicación relativamente saludable. “Contamos con una enorme liquidez y mantenemos una deuda increíblemente reducida en relación con el valor de nuestros activos”, señaló en el comunicado.No aludió a los diversos problemas jurídicos e investigaciones a las que se enfrenta la familia.Steve Eder More

The legal imbroglios of Donald Trump have lately dominated conversation about the 2024 election. As primary season grinds on, campaign activity will ebb and wane, and issues of the moment — like the first Trump indictment and potentially others to come — will blaze into focus and then disappear.Yet certain fundamentals will shape the races as candidates strategize about how to win the White House. To do this, they will have to account for at least one major political realignment: educational attainment is the new fault line in American politics.Educational attainment has not replaced race in that respect, but it is increasingly the best predictor of how Americans will vote, and for whom. It has shaped the political landscape and where the 2024 presidential election almost certainly will be decided. To understand American politics, candidates and voters alike will need to understand this new fundamental.Americans have always viewed education as a key to opportunity, but few predicted the critical role it has come to play in our politics. What makes the “diploma divide,” as it is often called, so fundamental to our politics is how it has been sorting Americans into the Democratic and Republican Parties by educational attainment. College-educated voters are now more likely to identify as Democrats, while those without college degrees — especially white Americans, but increasingly others as well — are now more likely to support Republicans.It’s both economics and cultureThe impact of education on voting has an economic as well as a cultural component. The confluence of rising globalization, technological developments and the offshoring of many working-class jobs led to a sorting of economic fortunes, a widening gap in the average real wealth between households led by college graduates compared with the rest of the population, whose levels are near all-time lows.According to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, since 1989, families headed by college graduates have increased their wealth by 83 percent. For households headed by someone without a college degree, there was relatively little or no increase in wealth.Culturally, a person’s educational attainment increasingly correlates with their views on a wide range of issues like abortion, attitudes about L.G.B.T.Q. rights and the relationship between government and organized religion. It also extends to cultural consumption (movies, TV, books), social media choices and the sources of information that shape voters’ understanding of facts.This is not unique to the United States; the pattern has developed across nearly all Western democracies. Going back to the 2016 Brexit vote and the most recent national elections in Britain and France, education level was the best predictor of how people voted.This new class-based politics oriented around the education divide could turn out to be just as toxic as race-based politics. It has facilitated a sorting of America into enclaves of like-minded people who look at members of the other enclave with increasing contempt.The road to political realignmentThe diploma divide really started to emerge in voting in the early 1990s, and Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016 solidified this political realignment. Since then, the trends have deepened.In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden defeated Mr. Trump by assembling a coalition different from the one that elected and re-elected Barack Obama. Of the 206 counties that Mr. Obama carried in 2008 and 2012 that were won by Mr. Trump in 2016, Mr. Biden won back only 25 of these areas, which generally had a higher percentage of non-college-educated voters. But overall Mr. Biden carried college-educated voters by 15 points.In the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats carried white voters with a college degree by three points, while Republicans won white non-college voters by 34 points (a 10-point improvement from 2018).This has helped establish a new political geography. There are now 42 states firmly controlled by one party or the other. And with 45 out of 50 states voting for the same party in the last two presidential elections, the only states that voted for the winning presidential candidates in both 2016 and 2020 rank roughly in the middle on educational levels — Pennsylvania (23rd in education attainment), Georgia (24th), Wisconsin (26th), Arizona (30th) and Michigan (32nd).In 2020, Mr. Biden received 306 electoral votes, Mr. Trump, 232. In the reapportionment process — which readjusts the Electoral College counts based on the most current census data — the new presidential electoral map is more favorable to Republicans by a net six points.In 2024, Democrats are likely to enter the general election with 222 electoral votes, compared with 219 for Republicans. That leaves only eight states, with 97 electoral votes — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — up for grabs. And for these states, education levels are near the national average — not proportionately highly educated nor toward the bottom of attainment.The 2024 mapA presidential candidate will need a three-track strategy to carry these states in 2024. The first goal is to further exploit the trend of education levels driving how people vote. Democrats have been making significant inroads with disaffected Republicans, given much of the party base’s continued embrace of Mr. Trump and his backward-looking grievances, as well as a shift to the hard right on social issues — foremost on abortion. This is particularly true with college-educated Republican women.In this era of straight-party voting, it is notable that Democrats racked up double-digit percentages from Republicans in the 2022 Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania governors’ races. They also made significant inroads with these voters in the Senate races in Arizona (13 percent), Pennsylvania (8 percent), Nevada (7 percent) and Georgia (6 percent).This represents a large and growing pool of voters. In a recent NBC poll, over 30 percent of self-identified Republicans said that they were not supporters of MAGA.At the same time, Republicans have continued to increase their support with non-college-educated voters of color. Between 2012 and 2020, support for Democrats from nonwhite-working-class voters dropped 18 points. The 2022 Associated Press VoteCast exit polls indicated that support for Democrats dropped an additional 14 points compared with the 2020 results.However, since these battleground states largely fall in the middle of education levels in our country, they haven’t followed the same trends as the other 42 states. So there are limits to relying on the education profile of voters to carry these states.This is where the second group of voters comes in: political independents, who were carried by the winning party in the last four election cycles. Following Mr. Trump’s narrow victory with independent voters in 2016, Mr. Biden carried them by nine points in 2020. In 2018, when Democrats took back the House, they carried them by 15 points, and their narrow two-point margin in 2022 enabled them to hold the Senate.The importance of the independent voting bloc continues to rise. This is particularly significant since the margin of victory in these battleground states has been very narrow in recent elections. The 2022 exit polls showed that over 30 percent of voters were independents, the highest percentage since 1980. In Arizona, 40 percent of voters in 2022 considered themselves political independents.These independent voters tend to live disproportionately in suburbs, which are now the most diverse socioeconomic areas in our country. These suburban voters are the third component of a winning strategy. With cities increasingly controlled by Democrats — because of the high level of educated voters there — and Republicans maintaining their dominance in rural areas with large numbers of non-college voters, the suburbs are the last battleground in American politics.Voting in the suburbs has been decisive in determining the outcome of the last two presidential elections: Voters in the suburbs of Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Phoenix determined the winner in the last two presidential elections and are likely to play the same pivotal role in 2024.These voters moved to the suburbs for a higher quality of life: affordable housing, safe streets and good schools. These are the issues that animate these voters, who have a negative view of both parties. They do not embrace a MAGA-driven Republican Party, but they also do not trust Mr. Biden and Democrats, and consider them to be culturally extreme big spenders who aren’t focused enough on issues like immigration and crime.So in addition to education levels, these other factors will have a big impact on the election. The party that can capture the pivotal group of voters in the suburbs of battleground states is likely to prevail. Democrats’ success in the suburbs in recent elections suggests an advantage, but it is not necessarily enduring. Based on post-midterm exit polls from these areas, voters have often voted against a party or candidate — especially Mr. Trump — rather than for one.But in part because of the emergence of the diploma divide, there is an opening for both political parties in 2024 if they are willing to gear their agenda and policies beyond their political base. The party that does that is likely to win the White House.Doug Sosnik was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and is a senior adviser to the Brunswick Group.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, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

Closed-door planning meetings involving White House officials, the Democratic National Committee and outside advisers are intensifying as President Biden nears a final decision about how and when to kick off his 2024 campaign.Mr. Biden’s seemingly off-the-cuff remark at an airport in Ireland on Friday that he would announce his campaign “relatively soon” was the kind of tantalizingly vague comment that could be — and was — read by his aides and others as either a reaffirmation that he was in no particular hurry to announce or a sign of gathering momentum.Behind the scenes, advisers and allies are weighing how soon the president should set in motion a re-election operation — an announcement that will surprise no one but will signal the start of a challenging new phase of his presidency.Before Mr. Biden’s remarks on Friday, conflicting signals abounded about the imminence of an announcement. Preparations have accelerated, according to people involved in and briefed on the planning sessions, even as those involved discuss the pros and cons of delaying a formal announcement into early summer, seeing little advantage in interrupting Republican infighting. At the same time, there has been increasing discussion among the broader Biden team about the notion of a low-key video announcement on April 25, the fourth anniversary of his entrance to the 2020 race — the kind of symmetry that Mr. Biden is said to appreciate.What is clear is that any external pressure that Mr. Biden and his team once felt to formally enter the 2024 race has mostly evaporated. No serious primary challenge to the president has emerged, and potential opponents have rallied behind him. The leading Republican candidate, former President Donald J. Trump, faces felony charges related to a hush-money payment to a porn star. And Republicans are generally more focused on thrashing one another and dragging the party to the right than on attacking Mr. Biden, who is content to draw a sharp contrast to the G.O.P. chaos from the Oval Office.“There is no immediate urgency,” said Kate Bedingfield, who recently departed the White House as communications director. “The president has the luxury of being able to decide when he wants to announce.”The waiting game began last year, with the suggestion that Mr. Biden would enter the race after the winter holidays. Then came hints that a campaign would begin after the State of the Union address and the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. Then the likely timing was April, to take advantage of the beginning of a fund-raising quarter. (Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said, “There has never been a time frame for any announcement.”)Inside the West Wing, Mr. Biden has kept most direct discussions about 2024 limited to a pin-size inner circle, where two senior aides, Anita Dunn and Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, are taking the lead. He has yet to designate a campaign chief, and only last week Democrats announced that Chicago would host the party’s 2024 convention.Mr. Biden traveled to Kyiv in February and met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Daniel Berehulak/The New York TimesAt 80, Mr. Biden is already the oldest president in American history, and he is likely to face questions about his plans no matter how many times he teases his re-election intentions without formalizing them. “I’m planning on running, Al,” he told Al Roker of NBC News at the White House Easter Egg Roll last week. “But we’re not prepared to announce it yet.”Mr. Biden’s timeline is well behind where President Barack Obama’s was at this point in 2011. Mr. Obama released a video that year in the first week of April announcing his bid, but top aides including David Axelrod and Jim Messina had begun forming the campaign months earlier. And Mr. Obama had chosen Charlotte, N.C., to host the convention in early February 2011.A top Democratic donor allied with Mr. Biden was quietly asked early this year to begin planning for a New York fund-raising trip in late April or early May to coincide with a potential kickoff to a 2024 re-election campaign. Then the donor received new guidance recently that such an event was on hold — and no new timeline was provided.“The longer he waits, the less scrutiny he is under,” Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist, said. “You have to measure that against creating momentum in these states that will matter. You’ve got to build infrastructure.”The desire to rebuild key relationships and renew political outreach in a way that only a campaign makes possible is one of the few internal pressures to get started. Mr. Biden won the Electoral College by a comfortable 306 to 232, but seven states in 2020 were decided by less than three percentage points.Money is at the center of the timing conversation. Delaying will postpone building a war chest for the general election.Those preparing to raise money for the campaign express few doubts that the party’s big donors will pony up to back Mr. Biden, and some officials fear an earlier entry might prove to be a wheel-spinning exercise, demanding that the aging president traverse the grueling fund-raising circuit sooner than necessary.And given that a majority of Democrats consistently say in polls that they prefer someone other than Mr. Biden as the nominee, a reliable infusion of grass-roots dollars is not guaranteed — at least until voters see the stakes of the election. Mr. Biden struggled to raise money online in 2019, breaking records only once he emerged as the nominee.Mr. Biden’s advisers argue that he and the Democrats bucked political history — and similar low ratings — to outperform in the 2022 midterm elections, in part by relentlessly painting Republicans as extremists.That is the basic blueprint for 2024. The Biden campaign-in-waiting is expected to be built around one of the president’s favorite political sayings: Don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.On four consecutive days last week, Mr. Biden posted tweets attacking “MAGA Republicans,” part of a drumbeat of warnings about the policies that Republicans want to roll back, including abortion rights. The Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade turbocharged Democratic voters in 2022 and is expected to be a motivator into 2024, even if abortion has been an uneasy topic for Mr. Biden.If Mr. Obama had soaring oratory and Mr. Trump had concertlike rallies, Mr. Biden’s advisers feel his strength is his governing ability and projection of competence. Spending time on the campaign trail, with its unscripted moments, introduces the risk of age-related mishaps.The president’s slipping on stairs while boarding Air Force One or falling off a bicycle were minor episodes during his first two years in office that nonetheless circulated heavily in the conservative news media. A similar incident during the heat of a presidential campaign could be far more significant.Mr. Biden’s advisers believe his strength is his governing ability and projection of competence. Spending time on the campaign trail, with its unscripted moments, introduces the risk of age-related mishaps. Doug Mills/The New York TimesMs. O’Malley Dillon, the White House deputy chief of staff, said Mr. Biden was maintaining an aggressive schedule. “Whether it was in Kyiv, barnstorming the country highlighting the manufacturing jobs he’s bringing back, averting international crises in the wee hours of the morning like he did in Bali or putting Republicans on defense over Social Security in the State of the Union, the American people and the world see his qualified leadership,” she said, “and younger aides have to push themselves to keep up with that pace.”Republicans have steadily hammered Mr. Biden’s mental and physical state, and are already trying to transform any Rose Garden-based approach into a liability. “He’s going to be Biden in the basement again,” Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman, predicted on Fox News last week.The Biden operation has taken steps to signal a coming bid, like announcing a “national advisory board” of influential Democratic leaders last month in The Washington Post. But some of the elected officials who were named as top Biden surrogates on the board found out about their involvement in such a council only when reading about it, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. There have been no communications to the full advisory board since its creation.In Washington, speculation has raged about who will serve as campaign manager, with an approved short list of Democratic operatives circulating for potential senior roles. Yet not all of the people on that list have had substantive contact with top Biden officials this year.Michael LaRosa, a former adviser to Jill Biden, the first lady, said power would inevitably be centralized at the White House regardless of the location of the campaign’s headquarters — Wilmington, Del., is favored but Philadelphia has also been under consideration — or the person named as campaign manager.“The person who is going to be running the campaign is going to be taking orders from the West Wing,” Mr. LaRosa said. He described Mike Donilon, Ms. Dunn, Ms. O’Malley Dillon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed as “the five people who inform his decision making when it comes to anything on policy or politics.”“And I don’t mean that in a disparaging way,” he added. “This president, like every president before him, has a small circle of trust who he seeks advice from.”A top Biden adviser disagreed with the suggestion that the West Wing would dominant the campaign, saying the eventual campaign manager would be “empowered.”Whenever he does enter the race, Mr. Biden is expected to reveal a slate of top campaign advisers — not just a single campaign manager — to put forward a diverse team.“They should have as much diversity as they can at the highest echelons of the campaign,” said Mr. Rocha, who has focused on mobilizing Latino voters. “Their biggest challenge is going to be motivating Latinos to vote for him.”Mr. Biden has been doing some extra contributor outreach. Donors are often among the attendees to the White House Easter Egg Roll, and some were among those invited to an additional breakfast with Mr. Biden and the first lady in the state dining room before the event, according to two people with knowledge of the breakfast, which did not appear on the president’s public schedule.Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, Democrat of Delaware, who is close with Mr. Biden, downplayed the timing of his 2024 entry. “The American people are going to judge him on the job that he’s done for four years as president,” she said, “not on the one day that he announces.” More

Candidates are visiting early primary states, attending cattle calls and holding donor summits. The nascent campaign seems to be kicking into gear.From small towns in Iowa and New Hampshire to the grand stages of interest groups’ conventions, the 2024 presidential campaign is underway, whether or not Americans are ready.The past week has brought at least four declared or likely candidates to New Hampshire, three to Iowa and one to South Carolina. Nine addressed the National Rifle Association’s annual forum in Indianapolis, and three attended a Republican donor retreat in Nashville.The formal choreography of the campaign is falling into place. Last Tuesday, the Democratic National Committee chose Chicago to host its convention next August. On Wednesday, the Republican National Committee, in a surprise to no one, chose Fox News to host the party’s first debate this August.The declared candidates filed their quarterly fund-raising reports late this week, revealing the first big campaign finance error of the season. The campaign of Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, exaggerated her fund-raising total by more than $2 million by double-counting sums transferred between different committees.Five major candidates have officially announced campaigns: four Republicans (former President Donald J. Trump, Ms. Haley, former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Vivek Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire entrepreneur and author) and one Democrat (the self-help author and 2020 candidate Marianne Williamson).But on the campaign trail, it seems like more.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who announced an exploratory committee on Wednesday, had a particularly packed week, with trips to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. A tour of Alex’s Restaurant in Goose Creek, S.C., on Friday had the look and feel of a full-blown campaign stop, with supporters holding signs and the number of reporters rivaling the number of diners.Mr. Scott talked with voters and restaurant staff before heading outside to take questions from reporters — walking a thin line between being a declared candidate and one in waiting.“The message is resonating,” he said, underlining his belief that his conservative talking points with religious overtones will appeal to a broad swath of Republican voters. Asked if he had made up his mind about running for president, he said: “I’m getting closer. Without any question.”He added that he would return to Iowa and New Hampshire in the coming days and had plans to stop in Nevada, another early-voting state.While Mr. Scott was in South Carolina, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — the top challenger to Mr. Trump in early polls, though not officially in the race — spoke at Liberty University in Virginia and then flew to New Hampshire. Mr. DeSantis addressed a crowd of 500 at a state Republican Party dinner in Manchester.The event raised $250,000 for the state party, with the party chairman saying Mr. DeSantis had directed his own donors to give an additional $132,000.After his nearly 40-minute speech, Mr. DeSantis spent just as long methodically working his way through the crowd, visiting all 50 tables for handshakes, backslaps, photos and small talk. “Did you get it?” he asked picture takers. “County chairman for where?”The low-stakes interactions appeared designed to dispel criticism that Mr. DeSantis was unwilling to engage in the traditional retail campaigning that political activists in early-voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire value. On Saturday, he also stopped by an airport diner.The governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, was in Nashville, far away from home, testing out his own possible campaign at the Republican National Committee’s private donor retreat. There he spoke at a luncheon on Saturday and implicitly blamed Mr. Trump for the party’s underwhelming performance in the midterm elections. (Data backs him up: A New York Times analysis found that candidates Mr. Trump supported in primaries performed about five percentage points worse than other Republicans did in the general election.)Mr. Trump was at the retreat, too, casting himself against that evidence as the only candidate who could win a general election. So was his former vice president, Mike Pence, whom Trump supporters declared their desire to hang when they stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.“The old Republican Party is gone, and it’s never coming back,” Mr. Trump said in a speech Saturday, less than two weeks after he was arraigned in New York on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records. “Instead of being the party of the establishment class, we are now the party of the working class, the party of all Americans.”The evening before, Mr. Pence cast the 2024 election as a fight between “one vision grounded in traditional Republican principles, and another vision that grasps what some think the American people want to hear.” He took repeated but indirect aim at Mr. Trump, noting that in 2022, “candidates that were focused on the past, particularly those focused on relitigating the last election, did not do well.”On Sunday, Mr. Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor who announced his campaign this month and was in Iowa a few days ago, partook in another campaign staple: the Sunday morning talk show interview.Appearing on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Mr. Hutchinson gave the usual answer to the question of why he was running — “because we need leadership that brings out the best of America and doesn’t appeal to our worst instincts.” Then the host, Margaret Brennan, pressed him on how he would respond to the country’s bleak parade of mass shootings.He did not endorse any new federal legislation and expressed skepticism about whether red-flag laws — which allow the removal of guns from people deemed to pose a danger to themselves or to others — protected due process. At the same time, he urged states to make greater use of existing laws that allow the institutionalization of people deemed to pose a danger to themselves or to others.There has been much less activity across the aisle, where President Biden is inching toward formally declaring a re-election campaign that he has already said was definite. (“We’ll announce it relatively soon,” he said on Friday.)No one with a large support base has risen to challenge him. But he does have one official competitor, Ms. Williamson, who has been traversing New Hampshire since Friday, hitting Dover, Henniker, Keene, Lancaster and Littleton.A second challenger, the anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., plans to announce his campaign this Wednesday.The election will be just 566 days away.Rebecca Davis O’Brien More