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      Can Trump Count on Evangelicals in 2024? Some Leaders Are Wavering.

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      The former president, who relied on evangelical voters in 2016, has accused Christian leaders of “disloyalty” and blamed them for Republicans’ disappointing midterm performance.On Sunday, the Rev. Robert Jeffress, a longtime supporter of Donald J. Trump who has yet to endorse his 2024 White House bid, shared the stage at his Dallas megachurch with one of the former president’s potential rivals next year: former Vice President Mike Pence.The next day, Mr. Trump lashed out at Pastor Jeffress and other evangelical leaders he spent years courting, accusing them of “disloyalty” and blaming them for the party’s disappointing performance in the 2022 midterm elections.While Pastor Jeffress shrugged off the criticism, others weren’t as eager to let it slide, instead suggesting that it was time for Mr. Trump to move out of the way for a new generation of Republican candidates.The clash highlighted one of the central tensions inside the Republican Party as it lurches toward an uncertain 2024 presidential primary: wavering support for Mr. Trump among the nation’s evangelical leaders, whose congregants have for decades been a key constituency for conservatives and who provided crucial backing to Mr. Trump in his ascent to the White House.If these leaders break with Mr. Trump — and if evangelical voters follow, which is by no means a certainty — the result will be a tectonic shift in Republican politics.“When I saw his statement, I thought, ‘You’re not going to gain any traction by throwing the most loyal base under the bus and shifting blame,’” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical activist in Iowa and the chief executive of the Family Leader organization.Mr. Vander Plaats said that while evangelicals were grateful to Mr. Trump for his federal judicial appointments and for moving the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, many thought that his time as leader of the party has passed given how hardened many Americans’ views of him are. Asked whether Mr. Trump would command support among evangelical leaders as he did in the past, Mr. Vander Plaats, who has criticized Mr. Trump in the past, said, “No way.”Indeed, recent polls point to some Trump fatigue among Republican voters. But it is an open question whether evangelical voters will abandon him if prominent Christian ministers support other candidates. And Mr. Trump has previously had an ability to cleave various types of conservative voters from their longtime leaders, as he did during his unexpected Republican primary victory in 2016.In a New York Times/Siena College poll in October, before the midterm elections, nearly half of Republican voters said that they preferred someone other than Mr. Trump to be the party’s 2024 presidential nominee. But the same poll showed that 54 percent of evangelical voters said they planned to support him.President Donald J. Trump in 2017 with Robert Jeffress, an influential evangelical pastor and longtime Trump supporter. Mr. Jeffress has not endorsed Mr. Trump’s candidacy for president in 2024.Pool photo by Olivier DoulieryA spokesman for Mr. Trump declined to comment. Paula White, the televangelist who led Mr. Trump’s evangelical advisory board while he was president, could not be reached for comment.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.2023 Races: Governors’ contests in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi and mayoral elections in Chicago and Philadelphia are among the races to watch this year.Democrats’ New Power: After winning trifectas in four state governments in the midterms, Democrats have a level of control in statehouses not seen since 2009.G.O.P. Debates: The Republican National Committee has asked several major TV networks to consider sponsoring debates, an intriguing show of détente toward the mainstream media and an early sign that the party is making plans for a contested 2024 presidential primary.An Important Election: The winner of a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April will determine who holds a 4-to-3 majority in a critical presidential battleground state.Since his first campaign, Mr. Trump has considered the evangelical movement a crucial piece of his constituency. He was helped by a relationship that his lawyer and fixer at the time, Michael D. Cohen, had with the Rev. Jerry Falwell Jr., then the president of Liberty University.Mr. Trump tapped Mr. Pence to be his running mate in 2016 in part to assure wary evangelicals that a New York businessman could be trusted to keep his campaign promises.Many evangelicals set aside their skepticism of Mr. Trump’s sometimes scandalous behavior and focused on a long list of policy pledges from the candidate, a thrice-married reality television star. In one memorable moment, Mr. Falwell celebrated his 2016 endorsement of Mr. Trump by posing for a picture with him in front of a Trump Tower office wall that included a framed copy of a 1990 Playboy cover featuring the brash real estate developer.The uneasy alliance between Mr. Trump and evangelical leaders showed signs of strain during an interview he gave with Real America’s Voice, a right-wing streaming and cable network..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Asked about Pastor Jeffress’s neutrality in the 2024 race, Mr. Trump said he did not care, then declared that it was “a sign of disloyalty.” The former president pointed to the Supreme Court ruling last year overturning the federal right to an abortion — a decision led by three of Mr. Trump’s appointees — and said he was “a little disappointed” in some evangelical leaders who “could have fought much harder” during the midterms.“A lot of them didn’t fight or weren’t really around to fight,” Mr. Trump said. “And it did energize the Democrats, but a lot of the people that wanted and fought for years to get it, they sort of — I don’t know — they weren’t there protesting and doing what they could have done.”Mr. Trump’s interviewer, David Brody, who is also a longtime commentator for the Christian Broadcasting Network, appeared to sense the potential effect Mr. Trump’s comments could have on evangelical voters. He told the former president that some anti-abortion activists had taken exception to being blamed for midterm losses.“Do you want to clear that up at all?” Mr. Brody asked.Mr. Trump doubled down.“It’s sort of what I explained to you,” he said. “I just didn’t see them fighting during this last election — fighting for victory for people that were on the same side as all of us.” He added, “The only rallies were the rallies I gave.”In reality, Mr. Trump, a former Democrat who once called himself supportive of abortion rights, has often been uncomfortable discussing the issue, going back to his 2016 campaign. He privately viewed the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade as problematic for Republicans, and he rarely spoke about abortion during his 2022 campaign rallies.Mr. Vander Plaats suggested that Republicans’ failure to win control of the Senate in November was due in part to Mr. Trump’s support for candidates like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, who did not make abortion a central focus of his candidacy.“Having an instinct to go after a very loyal base that you’re going to need in the Iowa caucuses, in the Republican primary, that’s just a bad instinct or it’s really bad advice,” Mr. Vander Plaats said, adding that “it’s time to turn the page” and put Mr. Trump’s movement behind another candidate.Mr. Trump’s political future may be complicated by multiple investigations into his conduct, both before he was a candidate in 2016 and his efforts to thwart the peaceful transfer of power after he lost in November 2020. Even if those investigations close without actions being taken against him, evangelical leaders and voters may have several other Republican options. One of them is Mr. Pence, a longtime evangelical who has visited churches in various states and has been outspoken in support of the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling. Another is Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state and C.I.A. director under Mr. Trump. There is also Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who a number of donors are hoping will enter the race.Marc Short, a top adviser to Mr. Pence and his former chief of staff, suggested that faith leaders recognized that the former vice president “is one of them.” He said that Mr. Trump “confuses their appreciation for what he did” in office with “their commitment to Christ and their congregations, first and foremost.”Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a conservative advocacy group, said Mr. Trump was right to be frustrated about the political response from conservatives after the Supreme Court’s decision in the abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Democrats had a plan to attack Republicans over the ruling, Mr. Reed said, while Republicans struggled to mount a political defense.Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said that on abortion, Republicans must “have a plan, get on offense and portray the Democrats as the extremists.”Nicole Craine for The New York Times“Too many Republican candidates tried to stick their heads in the sand, ignore the Dobbs decision and talk singularly about inflation and gas prices, with predictable results,” Mr. Reed said.“Trump is correct that if the party is going to succeed in 2024 and beyond, it has to own this,” he added. “We’ve got to have a plan, get on offense and portray the Democrats as the extremists.”Pastor Jeffress said in an interview that he did not view Mr. Trump’s comments as a personal attack. The pastor of a 16,000-member church, Pastor Jeffress was one of the few political veterans who anticipated the sea change in conservative politics six years ago and was one of Mr. Trump’s early, prominent endorsers.But, even now, he is hedging his bets in his neutrality.After telling Newsweek in November that he was withholding an endorsement because “the Republican Party is headed toward a civil war that I have no desire or need to be part of,” Pastor Jeffress said on Wednesday that he had not endorsed a 2024 candidate in part because Mr. Trump had not asked.Pastor Jeffress predicted that evangelicals would eventually coalesce around Mr. Trump, who, he said, “is most likely going to be the 2024 nominee.”“I just don’t see the need for an endorsement right now — not because of any lack of enthusiasm for President Trump, but I think keeping my powder dry might be the best thing for the president,” Pastor Jeffress said. “Timing is everything, and I think it might be a little early to do that.” More

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      A Colossal Off-Year Election in Wisconsin

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      Lauren Justice for The New York TimesConservatives have controlled the court since 2008. Though the court upheld Wisconsin’s 2020 election results, last year it ruled drop boxes illegal, allowed a purge of the voter rolls to take place and installed redistricting maps drawn by Republican legislators despite the objections of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. More

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      Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia Juggles Local Issues and National Ambition

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      Virginia’s Republican governor is considering a presidential run, but a divided state legislature may thwart his ambitions for conservative policy victories.VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Gov. Glenn Youngkin headlined a rally on Saturday outside the red-brick City Hall here, urging voters to back a fellow Virginia Republican in a special election for State Senate.It was part of a broader effort by the governor to use the 2023 session of the Virginia legislature to bolster his conservative credentials and agenda as he tests a possible presidential run in 2024. “I need Kevin in the Senate to help me get it done, so we have to win this election now,” Mr. Youngkin told the crowd, referring to Kevin Adams, the State Senate candidate.But Tuesday’s election was a bust for Mr. Youngkin and Virginia Beach Republicans: Mr. Adams was narrowly defeated, Democrats flipped the Republican-held seat he was seeking and one of the governor’s prominent right-wing initiatives — a 15-week abortion ban — seemed all but doomed as Democrats expanded their narrow majority in the upper chamber of the General Assembly.Mr. Youngkin’s 2021 election in blue Virginia instantly set off speculation about a potential White House run in 2024. In just his second year in office, he has had both a local and national focus.The governor has laid out priorities beyond abortion for the legislative session that begins this week: a proposed $1 billion in tax cuts, improving crisis mental health care and luring 2,000 police officers from other states that, as he put it, “do not support law enforcement.” He has also cultivated big donors and Republican voters outside Virginia, traveling widely before the midterms to support 15 Republican candidates for governor and appearing frequently on Fox News, where he advances the “parents’ matter” agenda that helped get him elected.Mr. Youngkin campaigned in October in Arizona with Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor. She lost her race.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesIn September, Mr. Youngkin stumped for Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, who won his race.Audra Melton for The New York TimesBut unlike some other potential Republican contenders in 2024, Mr. Youngkin is facing home state political dynamics that make it harder to notch clean conservative victories.Although other Republican governors testing the presidential waters enjoy Republican-led statehouses — in New Hampshire, Florida and South Dakota — Mr. Youngkin has a divided legislature. After the G.O.P. defeat in the special election for State Senate, Democrats hold a 22-18 majority. Republicans control the House of Delegates.“His challenge is that he can talk about things, but because of the political environment of Virginia, which is different from, let us say, Florida, he can by no means accomplish these conservative goals,” said Bob Holsworth, the founding director of the School of Government at Virginia Commonwealth University.Mr. Youngkin’s rising profile has attracted the attention of former President Donald J. Trump, whose unusually early announcement of a third presidential campaign in November was aimed in part at clearing the Republican field for 2024. On his social media platform, Mr. Trump wrote on Nov. 11 that his endorsement of Mr. Youngkin had cemented the governor’s 2021 victory. And Mr. Trump also made a racist remark about Mr. Youngkin’s name.“Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me,” the former president said in a series of posts on Truth Social.Mr. Youngkin’s victory — becoming the first Republican elected governor of Virginia since 2009 — stemmed from appealing to the Trump-centric base while keeping Mr. Trump himself at arm’s length to win suburban voters, whom he wooed with promised tax cuts. But he has now signaled a more aggressive approach toward Mr. Trump.Mr. Youngkin became the first Republican governor of Virginia since 2009.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesIn a brief interview before the rally on Saturday in Virginia Beach, Mr. Youngkin rejected Mr. Trump’s taunt about his name as the opposite of how he deals with people.“I do not roll that way,” Mr. Youngkin said. “I do not call people names. I treat people well, and I believe that’s the way that everyone should behave and sometimes in politics I think folks forget that.”Since the midterms, when many Trump-endorsed candidates lost their races, some of Mr. Youngkin’s backers perceive Mr. Trump’s influence on the wane and the opportunities for challengers on the rise. Furthermore, the former president has all but disappeared into his Florida estate after announcing his bid for re-election.Mr. Youngkin is little known to Republican voters beyond Virginia, barely registering in early primary polls. His main appeal is to political consultants and to the donor class, those who connect with him as a wealthy former co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group, a financial investment firm.Ron DeSantis, Florida’s pugilistic governor, is the leading Trump alternative. But Youngkin supporters paint him as a worthy alternative with a more affable, less prickly personality, someone who transitioned easily from a corporate glad-hander to a first-time candidate. Supporters envision Mr. Youngkin winning over droves of primary voters in the intimate campaign settings of Iowa and New Hampshire.“He’s got this very likable persona,” said Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman from Virginia. “He’s not angry. He walks into a room and he smiles.” Mr. Davis called Mr. DeSantis “the shiny new object right now,” but added, “When you get into one-on-one campaigning, I would just say Glenn is a natural.”Jimmy Centers, a Republican strategist in Iowa, said Mr. Youngkin’s championing of parent rights — over how America’s racial history is taught or what books students can be exposed to — grabbed the attention of conservatives nationally in 2021. But now, Mr. Centers said, Mr. Youngkin needs to build on that victory.“One could argue he was the first candidate to demonstrate parental rights was a winning issue,” Mr. Centers said. “That issue and his position will open doors for him in Iowa and other states, but my sense is that voters and caucusgoers will also want to measure results now that he is in office.”Mr. Youngkin, who is 56, insisted on Saturday that he had no timeline for making up his mind about a presidential run.“There’s no plans for decisions,” he said. “What there really is a plan for is to focus on delivering the agenda when Virginians hired me.”Mr. Youngkin signing executive orders on his first day in office in 2022.Steve Helber/Associated PressA political action committee Mr. Youngkin set up to support the campaigns of fellow Virginia Republicans and to tend to his own political future raised $4.8 million from donations of $10,000 or more through last year, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. The PAC paid $94,183 in 2022 to Axiom Strategies, a top G.O.P. consulting firm.Jeff Roe, the head of Axiom and Mr. Youngkin’s chief political adviser, addressed major Youngkin donors at a September retreat at a luxury resort outside Charlottesville. No specific plans were laid for 2024, according to attendees.“Youngkin is obviously somebody I’d very much like to run,” said Ray Washburne, a major G.O.P. donor from Dallas, who attended. But he said he wanted to hear more about Mr. Youngkin’s potential strategy, and gauge his legislative achievements, before making a lasting commitment. “After he finishes this session, let’s see what that world looks like.”Virginia Republicans were lowering expectations for the new legislative session even before this week’s special election solidified Democrats’ State Senate majority. The Virginia Beach race drew tens of thousands of dollars from pro- and anti-abortion groups. After Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, tossing abortion regulation down to the states, Mr. Youngkin told an anti-abortion forum he would “gleefully” sign any bill “to protect life.” In December, while unveiling a new state budget, he proposed a 15-week abortion ban.At the rally in Virginia Beach, however, Mr. Youngkin did not mention abortion once in an eight-minute speech. It suggested he wished to draw no further attention to an issue on which he could not deliver a conservative victory.The special election was a preview of a more important crucible for the governor this fall, when every seat in both legislative chambers is on the ballot.If Republicans hold their House majority and flip the Senate, the governor can present himself nationally as a giant slayer, someone who fully turned around a blue state. If, however, his party suffers further setbacks, Mr. Youngkin will have fewer claims on conservatives outside Virginia.Mr. Youngkin in Lansing, Mich., campaigning for Tudor Dixon, the candidate for governor who lost her race.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesCampaigning widely for Republicans running for governor last year, including Kari Lake in Arizona and Tudor Dixon in Michigan, both of whom lost, Mr. Youngkin was sometimes trailed by a media crew filming him for future TV ads. He appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News last week to denounce a Virginia high school for delaying notification to students who earned distinction on a national test. “They didn’t want the other students to feel bad,” Mr. Youngkin said.Although Mr. Youngkin issued an executive order on his first day in office banning teaching critical race theory in K-12 schools (educators said it wasn’t taught in the first place), other initiatives have gone less smoothly. A revision of state history standards, influenced by Youngkin appointees, was withdrawn after an uproar that it downplayed slavery as a cause of the Civil War and referred to Native Americans as the “first immigrants.” More

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      Just What Do McCarthy’s Antagonists Want, and Why Won’t They Budge?

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      The Republican holdouts are showing that party leaders’ usual methods of arm-twisting no longer work. “It’s not about policies, it’s about the fight,” said one former operative.As the Republicans’ drama over Representative Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become House speaker persists for round after round of negotiations and roll-call votes, one puzzling question is just what, exactly, the rebels want.To the endless frustration of McCarthy and his allies, the insurgents’ demands have been heavy on two factors: internal procedural rules meant to expand the power of the far right within the House, and the insurgents’ desire to present themselves as uncompromising foes of Democrats’ agenda. But more than anything else, McCarthy’s most die-hard opponents just seem intent on taking him down.“It’s not about policies, it’s about the fight,” said Doug Heye, a former aide to Representative Eric Cantor, the onetime majority leader who lost his seat in a stunning 2014 upset by a far-right challenger, David Brat. “The more you hear the word ‘fight’ or ‘fighter,’ the less you hear about a strategy for winning that fight.”The longer the speaker battle has dragged on, the more McCarthy’s supporters have expressed exasperation at this state of affairs. Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas accused the holdouts of mouthing “stupid platitudes that some consultant told you to say on the campaign trail.” Representative Don Bacon, who holds a swing seat in Nebraska, has taken to calling them “the chaos caucus” and the “Taliban 20.”Such strident language isn’t new: Representative John Boehner, who was hounded out of the speakership in 2015 by the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, later lashed out at one of its co-founders, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, as a “political terrorist” and a “jerk.” (Jordan is now backing McCarthy, and is set to run the powerful Judiciary Committee if and when the speaker fight is resolved.)Fueled by the grass-roots rightOne of the peculiarities of this speaker vote has been watching McCarthy’s team try to marshal the conservative-industrial media complex, which helped power the rise of political outsiders like Donald Trump and has steadily weakened the ability of party leaders to keep backbenchers in line.“We’ll see what happens when Tucker and Sean Hannity and Ben Shapiro start beating up on those guys,” Representative Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania wistfully told reporters at the Capitol this week. “Maybe that’ll move it.”But Tucker Carlson did not beat up on those guys, instead celebrating the speakership debate as “pretty refreshing.” Nor is it clear that Fox News can command the exclusive loyalties of the right. Witness how, during the Republican primary for Senate last year in Pennsylvania, a network of conservative blogs and podcasts fueled the sudden rise of Kathy Barnette, a little-known conservative media personality who was able to throw a last-minute fright into Trump and Hannity’s preferred candidate, Mehmet Oz.“Is this a game show?” a frustrated Hannity pressed one of the House holdouts, Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, on his Fox News show on Wednesday night. She didn’t back down.Chris Stirewalt, a former editor at Fox News, said that “what happens online, on talk radio and on Fox prime time has been and will continue to be the harbinger of what House Republicans will do.” He added that the representatives and congressional aides he was speaking with were “all talking about how their positions were playing with the different hosts and sites.”F.A.Q.: The Speakership Deadlock in the HouseCard 1 of 7A historic impasse. More

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      Ron DeSantis Is Sworn In for a 2nd Term in Florida, as 2024 Speculation Looms

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      Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is weighing a possible run for president, set his state up as a blueprint for conservative policy across the country.Gov. Ron DeSantis opened his second four-year term on Tuesday with a speech that heralded Florida as a conservative blueprint for the rest of the country and subtly signaled his long-rumored ambitions for the White House.Speaking from the steps of the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee minutes after being sworn in, Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, made no direct mention of a potential presidential campaign in 2024. His 16-minute address during his second inauguration was peppered instead with suggestive lines that hinted at contrasts with former President Donald J. Trump, a fellow Floridian who is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.Mr. DeSantis, 44, criticized a “floundering federal establishment” for a “spending binge” that “left our nation weaker,” without differentiating between increases under the Trump or Biden administrations. Similarly, he assailed the federal government for “pandemic restrictions and mandates” that “eroded freedom and stunted commerce.” Many restrictions were put in place when Covid-19 first spread during Mr. Trump’s time in office.Mr. DeSantis has publicly questioned the science that federal health officials used to encourage vaccinations. And he has battled with Florida school districts, including in Republican counties, that defied his executive order to ban mask mandates in classrooms.“We lead not by mere words, but by deeds,” Mr. DeSantis said, calling the Republican-led state “the land of liberty and the land of sanity.”Gov. Ron DeSantis and His AdministrationReshaping Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has turned the swing state into a right-wing laboratory by leaning into cultural battles.Eyeing 2024: Polls show Mr. DeSantis gaining strength in a hypothetical Republican presidential primary. But the issue of abortion is a potential point of vulnerability on his right flank.Voter Fraud: A crackdown on voter fraud announced by the governor seems to have ensnared former felons who were puzzled that they were accused of violating voting laws.As he ticked through a list of benchmarks during his first term, Mr. DeSantis repeated the same phrase — “We delivered” — seven times during the first five minutes of his speech. He sought to claim credit for the state’s economic success and population gains, and draw attention to his 19-point margin of victory in November over former Representative Charlie Crist, a Democrat.Mr. DeSantis has not said whether he will run for president. At a debate during his re-election campaign, he refused to commit to serving a full four-year term.On Tuesday, he promised a second-term agenda that would deliver “record tax relief” for Florida families and further lean into the cultural battles that have brought him national attention, Republican support and Democratic criticism.As governor, Mr. DeSantis led the charge to prohibit discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in early elementary school and limit what schools and employers can teach about racism. He stripped Disney, long an untouchable corporate giant in the state, of the ability to govern itself for the first time in more than half a century — retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. conversations with young schoolchildren.Mr. DeSantis offered no new specific policies in his speech, vowing only to “enact more family-friendly policies” and to lead the fight for “freedom.”In the audience was Jeb Bush, the former governor who came up short in his presidential bid in 2016. Mr. Bush ushered in a modern Republican era in Florida in 1998 with his first election as governor. Since then, Democrats have never recaptured the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee.On a breezy, 72-degree day, Mr. DeSantis was sworn in at about 11:15 a.m., joined by his wife, Casey, 42, and their three children: Madison, 6; Mason, 4; and Mamie, 2. Mason buried his head in his mother’s light green dress as she held a Bible for her husband.The Bible Mr. DeSantis used to take the oath of office was a Bible of the Revolution, the first complete Bible in English to be printed in America, according to Sotheby’s. Glenn Beck, the conservative commentator, posted on Twitter that he lent that Bible to Mr. DeSantis for the inauguration. More

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      Race for G.O.P. Chair Obscures the Party’s Bigger Problems

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      Ronna McDaniel’s quest for a fourth term atop the Republican National Committee has triggered an ugly intraparty fight between the right and the farther right. Figuring out how to win back swing voters is not a top priority.Since former President Donald J. Trump’s narrow victory in 2016, the Republican Party has suffered at the ballot box every two years, from the loss of the House in 2018 to the loss of the White House and Senate in 2020 to this year’s history-defying midterm disappointments.Many in the party have now found a scapegoat for the G.O.P.’s struggles who is not named Trump: the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel.But as Ms. McDaniel struggles for a fourth term at the party’s helm, her re-election fight before the clubby 168 members of the Republican National Committee next month may be diverting G.O.P. leaders from any serious consideration of the thornier problems facing the party heading into the 2024 presidential campaign.Ms. McDaniel, who was handpicked by Mr. Trump in late 2016 to run the party and whom he enlisted in a scheme to draft fake electors to perpetuate his presidency, could be considered a Trump proxy by Republicans eager to begin to eradicate what many consider to be the party’s pre-eminent problem: the former president’s influence over the G.O.P.Those Republicans, whose voices have grown louder in the wake of the party’s weak November showing, see any hopes of wooing swing voters and moderates back to the G.O.P. as imperiled by Mr. Trump’s endless harping on his own grievances, the taint surrounding his efforts to remain in power after his 2020 defeat, and the continuing dramas around purloined classified documents, his company’s tax fraud conviction and his insistence on trying to make a political comeback.But Ms. McDaniels is not facing moderation-minded challengers. Her rivals are from the Trumpist right. They include the pillow salesman Mike Lindell, who continues to spin out fanciful election conspiracies, and — more worrying for Ms. McDaniel — a Trump loyalist from California, Harmeet Dhillon, who is backed by some of Mr. Trump’s fiercest defenders, including the Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a youthful group of pro-Trump rightists.Ms. McDaniel, who was handpicked by Mr. Trump in late 2016 to chair the party, is running for a fourth term.Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMs. McDaniel has accused Ms. Dhillon, who was co-chair of the election denying group Lawyers for Trump in 2020, of conducting “a scorched-earth campaign” against her by rallying outside activists “to put maximum pressure on the R.N.C. members” who will choose the party leader for the next two years in late January in Dana Point, Calif.“It’s been a very vitriolic campaign,” Ms. McDaniel said in an interview, adding: “I’m all for scorched earth against Democrats. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do against other Republicans.”The candidacy of Mr. Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive who exemplifies the conspiracy-driven fringe, has put still more right-wing pressure on Ms. McDaniel, who refuses to say Joseph R. Biden Jr. was fairly elected in 2020. (Mr. Lindell’s latest conspiracy theory is that Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Mr. Trump’s biggest rival so far for the 2024 presidential nomination, unfairly won re-election in November.)The circus brewing ahead of the R.N.C.’s Jan. 25 gathering does not bode well for members who believe the party’s troubles stem from Mr. Trump.“The former president has done so much damage to this country and to this party,” said Bill Palatucci, a committee member from New Jersey, who described the R.N.C. chair election as shaping up to be “a Hobson’s choice.”“We have to acknowledge that 2022 was a disaster, and we need to do things differently,” he said, adding, “I would prefer and still hope there would be a different option.”The R.N.C. has undertaken what it says is a serious analysis of the 2022 results, led by Henry Barbour of Mississippi, the nephew of the state’s former governor, Haley Barbour, and a co-author of the so-called autopsy that the party ordered up after Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss. That report counseled a more inclusive attitude toward voters of color and moderate swing voters, and a more open stand on overhauling immigration laws — the opposite tack taken by the party during the Trump era.The 2022 review committee includes Jane Brady, a former attorney general of Delaware, and Kim Borchers, a committee member from Kansas, but it is also being co-chaired by Ms. Dhillon, who, at least for now, has spent the past weeks rallying the hard right, not courting the center.Ms. Dhillon, in an interview, suggested replacing Ms. McDaniel was a prerequisite for change.“There may be many reasons for the various losses over the last several years, but what they all have in common is that they occurred under the current leadership, which has promised to change exactly nothing in the next two years,” she said. “The most unifying thing that Ronna could do would be to move on to new challenges, and allow us to unite around a vision that includes much-needed reforms, improvements, and investments in a winning future.”Ms. Dhillon has rallied the hard right rather than court the center.Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesAnd the forces gathering against Ms. McDaniel are multiplying. The Republican Party of Florida scheduled a no-confidence vote on Ms. McDaniel in the second half of January. The chairman of the Nebraska Republican Party withdrew his support of Ms. McDaniel, citing an “ever growing divide” among both R.N.C. members and “now, even more so, Republicans across the nation.” The executive committee of the Texas Republican Party unanimously passed a nonbinding vote of no-confidence in Ms. McDaniel, and the Arizona G.O.P. publicly called on her to resign. Still, the Republican National Committee chair’s race is the ultimate inside game; only members get a vote. And Michael Kuckelman, the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party and an R.N.C. member, said he still thinks Ms. McDaniel will easily win another term.Ms. Dhillon’s pressure campaign is likely bolstering Ms. McDaniel’s support among committee members she has befriended over the past six years, he said, and potentially damaging Ms. Dhillon’s chances of leading the party in the future. Around two-thirds of the committee’s members have already said they will back Ms. McDaniel’s re-election.Ms. McDaniel with Mehmet Oz, who lost the Senate race in Pennsylvania to Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat.Laurence Kesterson/Associated PressMr. Kuckelman also said Ms. McDaniel was being unfairly blamed for losses in key Senate and House contests. “Everybody needs to bring the temperature down a little bit,” he said. “Ronna McDaniel does not pick candidates. Republicans do that in the primaries. Her job is to get the vote out, and she does get the vote out.”Moreover, Ms. Dillon’s tactics have antagonized some committee members.At Turning Point USA’s conference last week in Phoenix — where recriminations and sniping at fellow Republicans seemed to be a theme — Ms. Dhillon appeared on Stephen K. Bannon’s “War Room” show and took her own shots at the committee she seeks to lead.“Consultants are running the building at the R.N.C.,” she told Mr. Bannon before a cheering crowd. “Those consultants get paid whether we win or lose.”Her accusations are rankling her colleagues. On an internal committee listserv, Jeff Kent, a committee member from Washington, wrote that Ms. Dhillon “does not have the right to go on national television and defame the character of the R.N.C. members who have chosen not to support her.”Audience members at a conference in Phoenix hosted by Turning Point USA. Rebecca Noble for The New York TimesThe Turning Point conference concluded with a straw poll in which only 2 percent of the 1,150 conference attendees chose Ms. McDaniel as their preferred party chairwoman going forward. Mr. Kirk then emailed all 168 voting members of the committee to tell them the group would challenge any member who did not heed the call of the party’s activists.Given the circumstances, Mr. Palatucci said Ms. McDaniel remains favored for re-election, but anything could happen over the next month.“A lot of her support is soft, and some could be convinced to vote for somebody else,” he said. “R.N.C. members are very experienced politicians. They’re experts at looking you in the eye and saying, ‘I love you,’ and in a secret ballot slitting your throat.”All of this fighting is over a position whose salary topped $358,000 in 2022 but whose responsibilities are tangential to midterm elections at best.In the interview, Ms. McDaniel boasted of investments the party has made — in community centers to engage voters of color, especially Latinos; in voter registration drives; and in get-out-the-vote efforts. She cited a New York Times analysis that showed that Republican voter turnout in November was robust. The problem: Many of those Republicans appeared to vote for Democrats.“We don’t pick the candidate,” she said. “We do not do the messaging for the candidates, right? They pick consultants, and their own pollsters. So what does the R.N.C. do? We build the infrastructure. We do the voter registration.”The committee’s role becomes more pivotal during the presidential campaign, raising money for the party’s nominee and staging the convention, which is set for mid-July 2024 in Milwaukee. It will also try to unify the party during what may be an exceptionally contentious primary season.Party chairs usually take a back seat to the president, who commonly calls the shots from the White House. And Ms. McDaniel said she had really only begun to put her imprimatur on the R.N.C. since Mr. Trump left the White House. “These last few years, in my mind, have been the first few years I’ve been able to really innovate,” she said.She cited efforts like those on Republican community centers, voter registration and legal actions around voting as important to continue. “We have to keep that going heading into a presidential year,” she said. “After that, I will happily step aside.”But Ms. McDaniel’s keep-it-going attitude may be her biggest liability. Some committee members who do not like Ms. Dhillon’s tactics or solutions nevertheless worry about the current chairwoman’s insistence that all is well.“We need a leadership change; the bottom line is the status quo is unacceptable,” Mr. Palatucci said. “This election is a month and a half away. A lot can happen. I’m expecting some movement. And certainly the storm that Harmeet is instigating is causing a very good debate within the committee, and that’s worth having.” More

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      G.O.P. Gains Strength on N.Y. City Council, as a Democrat Breaks Ranks

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      Progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans are clashing on what may be the most ideologically diverse City Council ever.As a first-term Democrat on the New York City Council, it might seem logical that Ari Kagan would want to curry favor with his party, which has an overwhelming majority within the 51-member body. Instead, he did the politically unthinkable this month: He switched parties to join the Council’s five other Republicans.For Mr. Kagan, who represents a district in South Brooklyn that is becoming more conservative, the move might be to his political advantage when he seeks re-election next year — even if it means a loss of power and influence on the Council. But Mr. Kagan said that he believed that the Democratic Party, especially in New York, had drifted too far to the left.“It’s not me leaving the Democratic Party,” Mr. Kagan said. “The Democratic Party started to leave me.”Across New York City, where Democrats outnumber Republicans seven to one, there are signs of Republicans making inroads. In the most recent midterm elections, every county in the city voted more Republican than it did in the 2020 presidential election, and three Democratic members of the State Assembly lost to Republicans in South Brooklyn.Lee Zeldin, the Republican nominee for governor, won Staten Island by 19 points more than Republicans won the borough in the 2020 presidential election. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, won the governor’s race by the smallest margin in over 30 years — in part because of how well Mr. Zeldin did in parts of New York City. “Ten years ago, our party was somewhat on the decline. We were fractured, we were disjointed, we were losing voters,” Joseph Borelli, the Council’s Republican minority leader, said at the news conference announcing Mr. Kagan’s switch. “I think today is a sign that the opposite is happening.”Some on the far left have accused Mayor Eric Adams, a moderate Democrat who is a former registered Republican, of serving as an unspoken ally to Republicans. Mr. Adams regularly criticizes left-leaning Democrats, including members of the Council, as damaging to the party’s electoral hopes.The mayor also has a working relationship with Mr. Borelli. That became evident when Mr. Borelli’s Republican appointees to a City Council districting commission joined with Mr. Adams’s appointees in an unsuccessful bid to push through Council maps that would have benefited Republicans by keeping all three G.O.P. districts on Staten Island contained within the borough, while hurting some progressive Democrats in Brooklyn.The Council maps that were ultimately created as part of the once-in-a-decade redistricting process still increased the chance that newly drawn districts might be won by Republicans in next year’s election, according to an analysis by the CUNY Mapping Service.Still badly outnumbered, the Republican contingent on the Council will be hard-pressed to pass partisan legislation, but it can still create, if not shape, debate. Its members oppose vaccine mandates, filed a lawsuit to invalidate noncitizen voting, used the word “groomer” in opposition to drag queen story hour in public schools and are vocal proponents of more stringent policing tactics.The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      DeSantis Is Showing Strength. He’s Also Vulnerable on His Right Flank.

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      For staunchly anti-abortion conservatives, the Florida governor’s 15-week ban doesn’t go far enough.In April, when Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a bill banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest, he staked out a position as an unapologetic opponent of abortion rights.But now, as polls show DeSantis gaining strength in a hypothetical Republican presidential primary in 2024, he’s under pressure from conservatives to do more. More than perhaps any other issue, abortion is a potential point of vulnerability for the Florida governor — and a rare subject on which he has faced criticism from his right flank.“So far, we’ve actually been quite disappointed with Governor DeSantis,” said Andrew Shirvell, the founder and executive director of Florida Voice for the Unborn, a grass-roots anti-abortion group.And should DeSantis run for president, Shirvell said, “if there’s a big pro-life champion to contrast their record with Governor DeSantis’s record, there’s no doubt that he will be hit. That is his weak point.”It isn’t just DeSantis’s position that makes him a potential target for a future conservative rival; it’s also the state he represents.Florida is a paradox. It’s firmly in Republican hands now. But it also has one of the highest rates of abortion in the country — nearly twice the national average. And as surrounding states have tightened their laws, the number of women seeking abortion care in Florida clinics has roughly doubled, according to Planned Parenthood.“From my perspective, it’s terrible, but for those who would completely ban abortion, it’s not enough,” Anna Eskamani, a Democratic state lawmaker, said of the 15-week ban. “If he thought it was popular, DeSantis would have campaigned on that, and he didn’t. He wouldn’t even say ‘abortion.’”Polls show that somewhere between roughly half and two-thirds of the state’s residents would prefer that abortion remain legal in all or most cases. In battleground states this year, voters punished Republicans they deemed too extreme on abortion. All that might be giving DeSantis pause, even though he cruised to re-election by nearly 20 percentage points and would seem to have little to fear from Florida’s demoralized Democrats.“There’s always going to be a need for abortion care,” said Laura Goodhue, the executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates. “Ron DeSantis is fond of saying he’s in favor of freedom, yet he’s perfectly happy taking away people’s bodily autonomy.”Shifting post-Roe politicsAnti-abortion groups, however, sense a shifting political landscape after the Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade. In red states like Florida, where Republicans now hold supermajorities in both chambers of the State Legislature, they see a chance to push a maximalist agenda.What to Know About Donald Trump TodayCard 1 of 6Donald J. Trump is running for president again, being investigated by a special counsel again and he’s back on Twitter. Here’s what to know about some of the latest developments involving the former president:Documents investigation. More