DeSantis, Ron

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Even if Nikki Haley Shocks Trump in New Hampshire, It Won’t Matter

      by

      Nikki Haley did well enough in the Iowa caucuses Monday night to keep her supporters’ hopes alive. But her third-place showing, on the heels of Ron DeSantis and a mile behind Donald Trump, was also just disappointing enough to raise doubts about her candidacy.Her plan coming out of Iowa is a classic underdog strategy: Use strong early results to upend expectations in the contests to come, reshaping the dynamic of the race one upset victory at a time. So, the thinking goes, her solid-enough performance in Iowa will propel her higher in New Hampshire, where she holds a strong second place in the polls.It’s possible. But even if Ms. Haley does well in New Hampshire, it won’t matter. That’s because Ms. Haley is starkly out of step with the evolution of her party over the past decade.The shape of today’s Republican electorate can be seen most clearly in national polling of Republican voters, where Mr. Trump has led by a substantial margin for months. Even in the unlikely event that all the voters who have told pollsters in recent weeks that they support Mr. DeSantis, Chris Christie and the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson switched over to Ms. Haley, she would reach only the high 20s, placing her more than 30 points behind Mr. Trump, who sits at around 60 percent. (The voters who have said they support Vivek Ramaswamy, who dropped out of the race on Monday night, would likely switch to Mr. Trump.)Sure, Ms. Haley might peel off some of those Trump voters if she manages to puncture his air of inevitability by knocking him sideways in New Hampshire. But imagining that she could wrest the nomination from him ignores the fact that, if he were to suffer a humiliating setback in New Hampshire, Mr. Trump would be guaranteed to attack her with a viciousness he has so far reserved primarily for Mr. DeSantis. In December, as she climbed in the polls, MAGA loyalists like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon offered a preview of these sort of slashing attacks (referring to her as a “hologram” sent by donors or as potentially worse than “Judas Pence”).More important, though, the fulfillment of the Haley campaign’s hopes would require a wholesale shift in preferences among millions of Republican voters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Won 98 of Iowa’s 99 Counties, as Haley Prevented a Shutout

      by

      Former President Donald J. Trump won 98 of 99 counties in the Iowa caucuses on Monday, according to preliminary results published by the state Republican Party, demonstrating just how broadly he swept the first-in-the-nation contest.In counties large and small, Mr. Trump racked up commanding leads across the state. In the only county he lost, it was by a single vote: Johnson County, the state’s bluest county and the home of Iowa City and the University of Iowa, went for former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina.Shut out from a single victory was Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who had banked his candidacy on Iowa and put enormous effort into campaigning in rural, sparsely populated areas. He visited every one of Iowa’s 99 counties in the months before the caucuses, a tour known as the “Full Grassley,” and was rewarded on Monday with second- and third-place finishes from Sioux City to Davenport.Vivek Ramaswamy, the pro-Trump entrepreneur who dropped out on Monday after receiving just 7 percent of the vote in Iowa, had visited all 99 counties at least twice, a strategy that did not deliver the surprise performance he had been brashly predicting for months.Mr. Trump in contrast had put far less effort into circuiting the state and indulging in the kind of retail politics that Iowa campaigning is known for. He also had surrogates do much of the campaigning for him until the final week before the caucuses.After battling fiercely for second place in the race’s final weeks, Ms. Haley finished third overall in Iowa on Monday night. Her lone bright spot, albeit narrowly, was Johnson County. In his 2020 re-election campaign, Mr. Trump lost the county with just 27 percent of the vote, to over 70 percent for Joseph R. Biden Jr.Ms. Haley had been expected to do better in more populous urban and suburban areas — much like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who eight years ago won significant margins in the counties of Des Moines, its suburbs and Iowa City, as he, too, came in third place.But turnout fell sharply across the state this year, the lowest since the Republican caucuses in 2000, and urban counties lost thousands of votes. In the end, Ms. Haley fell far short in Iowa’s largest cities, losing by wide margins to Mr. Trump — and sometimes behind Mr. DeSantis — in the counties that include Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Davenport and Sioux City. More

    • 63 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Trump’s Landslide Victory in Iowa

      by

      More from our inbox:Young Voters: Vote!U.S. Strikes in YemenThe Genocide Charges Against IsraelDonald J. Trump at a caucus site in Clive, Iowa, on Monday evening. His victory was called by The Associated Press only 31 minutes after the caucuses had begun.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Wins Iowa in Key First Step Toward Rematch” (front page, Jan. 16):If you weren’t scared before Monday night’s Iowa caucuses, you should be terrified now. The disgraced, twice-impeached, quadruple-indicted former president came within one vote of winning all 99 of Iowa’s counties, and received 51 percent of the vote.Ron DeSantis came in a distant second with 21 percent of the vote, and Nikki Haley was a distant third with just 19 percent of the vote.The bid for the Republican nomination for president is all but over, leaving America with a terrible choice between the autocratic and awful former president, and the obviously too old and frail current president.Unless Ms. Haley can win convincingly in New Hampshire, and match Donald Trump in South Carolina, the former president will be the nominee.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      A Road Trip to Iowa for the Caucuses

      by

      Suri Botuck was eager to hear Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida deliver his closing pitch to Iowans on Sunday in Cedar Rapids — but she didn’t caucus for him on Monday night. Nor is she even from Iowa.Ms. Botuck, 40, and her husband, Jacob Botuck, 42, hail from St. Louis, about 250 miles to the south. With five of their six children in tow, they piled into the family’s 2009 Toyota Sienna at first light on Sunday morning to participate in what she called “caucus tourism,” a tradition her family began during the Democratic primary race four years ago.In 2020, the family attended events for Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg and Donald J. Trump. Every stop was meticulously documented in a photo book she brings on their travels.The Botuck family’s photo book. Jenna Fowler/The New York TimesWhy, exactly, do the Botucks travel so far — and in such great numbers — to see a few stump speeches?Ms. Botuck said she viewed the trips as more than just family outings. They are a chance to engage with the political process up close. “My hope is that my kids will know they always have to vote,” she said.This year, the Botucks were joined by Ms. Botuck’s sister, Rivka Friedman, 34, her husband and her five children.“As much as politics can be fun, it’s also important to us because these things impact everything,” Ms. Botuck said, adding that she found the campaign events in Iowa to be “really family friendly.”On Monday, the Botucks went to see Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the wealthy entrepreneur, who dropped out of the race later that evening following Mr. Trump’s decisive victory.Ms. Botuck said she had voted for Mr. Trump in the last go-round. “I like my low taxes, I like my peace in Israel, I like my school choice,” she said.Her husband, whom she described as “more of a libertarian,” cast a symbolic write-in vote for the American economist and statistician Milton Friedman, who died nearly two decades ago.While Ms. Botuck hasn’t decided whom she will vote for in Missouri’s primary, she said Mr. DeSantis was a strong contender. The Florida governor, she said, “has a very good spine and doesn’t care what people think.”She also said she liked the prospect of Mr. DeSantis as Mr. Trump’s running mate, something the governor has ruled out. “I’d love to see a joint ticket,” she said.After Mr. Trump’s first-place finish, the Botucks were headed to the DeSantis party. When asked about the former president’s win, Ms. Botuck said of the DeSantis campaign, “I’m sure they really were prepared for that.” More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Even the Battle for Second Turned Out Well for Trump in Iowa

      by

      A dominant victory and little momentum for his rivals.Donald Trump won by 30 percentage points. Doug Mills/The New York TimesIf there was any question whether Donald J. Trump was on track to win the Republican nomination, it was answered Monday night by the voters of Iowa.The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses delivered him a sweeping victory, offering the most concrete proof yet of his dominance over the Republican Party.With nearly all the votes counted, Mr. Trump’s share was 51 percent. Ron DeSantis finished a distant second at 21 percent, with Nikki Haley at 19 percent.The result is not surprising or even unexpected, but Mr. Trump’s victory is no small feat. A year ago, Iowa did not look as if it would be easy for the former president. In an upset eight years ago, Iowa voters rejected Mr. Trump in favor of Ted Cruz. And unlike the rest of the country, the Iowa political establishment has refused to get in line behind Mr. Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Donald Trump Wins the Iowa GOP Caucuses

      by

      Donald J. Trump won the Iowa caucuses on Monday, a crucial first step in his bid to reclaim the Republican nomination for the third consecutive election as voters braved the bitter cold, looked past his mounting legal jeopardy and embraced his vision of vengeful disruption.The victory, called by The Associated Press on Monday night only 31 minutes after the caucuses had begun, accelerated Mr. Trump’s momentum toward a historic potential rematch in November with President Biden that could play out on both the campaign trail and in the courtroom.In a state that had rejected him in the caucuses eight years ago, Mr. Trump finished ahead of two of his main rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who were locked in a race for second place. It was unclear who had won second and who had won third. The result was a setback for both Republicans, who had spent as much time and money battling each other in Iowa as they had spent on the front-runner. Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, had previously predicted victory in Iowa, and both he and Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, have argued that a strong second-place finish would better position them as Mr. Trump’s chief rival going forward.Mr. Trump is the first former president in the modern era who has sought to return to the White House. On Monday, he was hoping to shatter the Republican record for the largest victory ever in a contested caucus, which was just under 13 percentage points. Despite the quick declaration of Mr. Trump as the winner, it was not yet clear if he would win an outright majority of more than 50 percent, a critical psychological barrier for those in the party still hoping to stop him.A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, Andrew Romeo, said in a statement that the early declaration of Mr. Trump’s victory was “absolutely outrageous.” He borrowed a phrase from Mr. Trump to accuse the news media of participating “in election interference by calling the race before tens of thousands of Iowans even had a chance to vote.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      The Joy of Defeat in the Iowa Caucuses

      by

      Coming in second can be a win in early-state contests. One thing is certain in tonight’s Iowa caucuses: The loser will make a triumphant victory speech.That’s how it works in early-state presidential politics. It’s the rare contest where coming in second is … a win? The runner-up, whether it’s Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis, will claim the Republican mantle of the chief alternative to Donald Trump heading into New Hampshire’s primary.The dynamic has created some hilarious and slightly mind-bending moments in the annals of presidential politics. Eight years ago, a triumphant Marco Rubio declared: “This is the moment they said would never happen.” He was in third place.There’s a long history of candidates turning second place into a rhetorical victory. In 1992, Bill Clinton placed second in New Hampshire and declared himself “the comeback kid.” Trump is the exception here. In 2016 when he placed second in Iowa, he claimed fraud and asked for the results to be thrown out.To learn about the joys of being a runner-up, I called Jessie Diggins, a cross-country skier from Minnesota who knows all about the gap between first and second. She won the first U.S. cross-country skiing gold medal in U.S. history at the 2018 Olympics and then took a silver and a bronze in 2022 — and did it in brutal weather similar to the subzero temperatures that have descended upon Iowa.This is what a real first-place celebration looks like.Lars Baron/Getty Images“The difference between a gold and silver is it will change your life — or it won’t,” she told me from a ski camp in the Italian Alps, where she said she had learned to make tortellini while taking a break from the World Cup circuit.When Diggins won gold in South Korea, NBC’s announcer nearly hyperventilated on the air. “Here comes Diggins! Here comes Diggins!” he screamed as she moved into first place just ahead of the finish line, followed by “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! — Gold!” When Diggins won two more medals four years later, the hype was relatively muted.Like the Olympics, Iowa’s caucuses aren’t only about winning and losing. It will also matter how close the candidates finish to Trump. Nike may disagree — “Second place is the first loser,” the shoe company said at the 1996 Summer Games — but in Iowa second place is often the second winner.If Haley winds up a relatively close second, expect to hear about how it’s the greatest night in her political life. DeSantis would brand himself a modern-day comeback kid with a second-place finish.(Prepare to geek out: The Times’s election night forecast will include a needle for the race for second place tonight.)When second is really firstDiggins knows about heroic second-place finishes.Thirty hours before she won a silver medal at the 2022 Olympics in China, she came down with a case of food poisoning, sapping her energy. She said she was prouder of that finish while competing in suboptimal conditions than the gold from four years earlier.Then last November, during a race near the Arctic Circle in Finland, she lost a glove and was bleeding profusely from her face and still finished second in a 20-kilometer race when it was about zero degrees Fahrenheit — a little bit warmer than the expected minus 5 in Des Moines tonight.“There’s this really interesting relationship between first place and second place because there’s how everyone else treats you, and then there’s how you feel about it,” she said. “If you allow other people to evaluate you, you will never be happy because you will never make everyone happy. And I think that’s probably more true in politics than anywhere else.”Then there’s the weather — the first topic of conversation for just about everybody here in Des Moines.Both DeSantis and Haley have turned Iowa’s weather into a piece of their stump speech. “It’s not going to be pleasant,” DeSantis said of the caucus conditions.For her Olympic races, Diggins said she was wearing “as many layers as I thought I could still move in.” The key to succeeding in brutal conditions, she said, is not letting the cold get to her head, even if every other part of her body is freezing — lessons that carry over to running a presidential campaign.“It’s a really just a pain tolerance,” she said. “How much suffering are you willing to put up with and are you willing to go there?”Campaigns are struggling to estimate how the winter weather will affect voter turnout.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe coldest caucusHow cold is it? The Diocese of Des Moines gave Catholics dispensation to skip yesterday’s Sunday Mass. The National Weather Service described conditions as “arctic.”It will be warmer tonight than it has been over the weekend, but that’s not saying much. Des Moines could see temperatures of 10 below zero, with wind-chill as low as 30 below, according to the National Weather Service. Nevertheless, Republican presidential campaigns are asking Iowans to schlep to more than 1,600 caucus sites across the state tonight to cast ballots in the first presidential contest of 2024.“We’re going to be out there in the snow,” Nikki Haley said Sunday, my colleague Jazmine Ulloa reported.I can say from some experience that being outside when it is 5 below zero is no fun, and 15 below is even worse. At those temperatures, car tires deflate. Gas stations are no help: The air and gas pumps freeze too. It is a risk to be outside.What that means for caucus turnout is anyone’s guess.As my colleague Jonathan Swan reported, the Trump and DeSantis campaigns had been preparing for a record turnout of more than 200,000 caucusgoers, eclipsing the previous high of 187,000 in 2016. But now it’s anyone’s guess.David Kochel, a veteran Iowa Republican strategist, predicted about 150,000 Iowans would show up on Monday, a figure in line with historical norms, but still just about 25 percent of the registered Republicans in the state. He cited Trump’s lead and the weather as the biggest factors.In cities and suburbs where Haley’s supporters are more prevalent, the roads are plowed and there’s less blowing snow. Trump’s supporters in rural Iowa are said to be more motivated, but blowing snow is still whipping across the network of two-lane highways. The DeSantis campaign says his supporters are the most committed caucusgoers of all.All the Iowans we’ve talked to have told reporters they can handle the brutal weather. We’ll all find out tonight, given their shoddy track record, if they can finally carry out glitch-free caucuses.Reporter updates◆◆Donald Trump is making it very clear where his focus is this morning, arguing in a post on Truth Social that Nikki Haley is out of step with the Republican Party, and that she can’t win a general election because she can’t coalesce his MAGA movement behind her.He added what might be the nicest thing he’s said about Ron DeSantis in months: that the Florida governor “at least, is MAGA-Lite.” — Michael Gold◆◆Ron DeSantis continues to insist that he will stay in the race, no matter how he performs in tonight’s caucuses. “We’re going on with this,” he said in an interview with NBC News. “We’ve been built for the long haul.” For months, DeSantis promised to win Iowa, but he and his team have scaled back those expectations as he has remained well behind Donald Trump in polls. —Nicholas NehamasFollow live coverage and results here.More politics news and analysisHope? Nope: Fear and anxiety are on the ballot in Iowa.Oh captain: Meet the little-known biggest players in Iowa tonight.Untold story: Ron DeSantis rarely talks about his compelling biography.Trading places: Our DeSantis and Haley reporters swapped candidates for a day.Smoothie stop-by: Retail politics is complicated when you’re the commander in chief.By the numbers: Seven digits tell the tale of the Republican primary.No pandering: How Trump sidestepped the traditions of Iowa politics.When will we know? Iowa’s history does not inspire confidence for a timely result tonight. More