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      Nikki Haley Endorsed by Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire

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      Mr. Sununu is popular in the state, though former President Donald J. Trump continues to dominate the field.Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire endorsed Nikki Haley for the Republican presidential nomination at a campaign event Tuesday evening, casting her as a fresh face for the party who could take on the elites in Washington and move the nation past the “nonsense and drama” of former President Donald J. Trump.“We are all in for Nikki Haley,” Mr. Sununu said to loud cheers at a ski area in Manchester, adding that her momentum was “real” and “tangible” and that her poll numbers and ground game have been “absolutely unbelievable.”Pacing in the middle of the audience, Ms. Haley called it “a great night in New Hampshire.” “It doesn’t get any better than this — to go and get endorsed by the ‘Live Free or Die’ governor is about as rock-solid of an endorsement as we could hope for.”The endorsement is a significant victory for Ms. Haley, who is trying to establish herself over Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida as the main alternative to Mr. Trump and has gained ground in New Hampshire polling in the past month.Mr. Sununu, a Trump critic who is serving his fourth and last two-year term as governor, was re-elected last year by more than 15 percentage points and is popular in the state. He was seen as a top recruit for the Senate last year but declined to run, and he also chose not to run for the Republican presidential nomination himself — saying at the time that he thought he could have more influence as an external voice than as a candidate.On the 2024 presidential campaign trail, Mr. Sununu stumped with Ms. Haley, Mr. DeSantis and former Gov. Chris Christie, as he weighed which of the three to back. In an interview last month, he said he would talk over his decision with friends and family over the Thanksgiving break. He said he was looking for someone who could beat Mr. Trump and who could connect with voters on “a very retail level.”Before the raucous crowd in Manchester, Mr. Sununu lauded Ms. Haley as a traditional Republican with the executive experience to secure the border, tackle mental health needs and ensure low taxes and limited government. He urged New Hampshire voters to turn the page on this era’s politics, taking shots at both President Biden and Mr. Trump. “We have a president who is more concerned about nap time,” he said. “We have a president who is worried about jail time.”In a news conference after the event, Mr. Sununu and Ms. Haley shot down suggestions that Ms. Haley might choose Mr. Sununu as her vice president should she win the nomination. “I think he is fantastic, but he has told me he doesn’t want anything to do with V.P.,” she said.Ms. Haley told reporters she had been more focused on winning over voters than scoring endorsements from elected officials, but she nevertheless called Mr. Sununu’s support a huge win for her bid. Mr. Sununu argued the race had now become a contest between only two people — “Nikki Haley and Donald Trump.”“There’s differences with us,” Ms. Haley said when Mr. Sununu was asked if he believed Ms. Haley had sufficiently confronted the former president. “Anti-Trumpers don’t think I hate him enough. Pro-Trumpers don’t think I love him enough. The end of the day, I put my truths out there and let the chips fall were they may.”Given his popularity and his proven ability to win as a Republican in a state that leans Democratic, Mr. Sununu could help sway the moderate Republicans and independents whom Ms. Haley is counting on to give her a strong showing in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary on Jan. 23.Undeclared voters, who can participate in the Republican primary, now make up roughly 39 percent of voters in the state, a greater slice of the electorate than either Democrats or Republicans. And with no competitive Democratic presidential primary next year, they are expected to play an even larger role in the Republican contest.“It is really a big move,” Matthew Bartlett, a former Trump appointee and Republican strategist who is unaligned in the race, said of Mr. Sununu’s backing. “It is really the last chess piece to fall in line before Election Day, and it is not to be underestimated.”But just how much weight it will carry is an open question in a primary in which nothing — not endorsements, not debates, not 91 felony charges — has changed the basic dynamic: Mr. Trump is the overwhelming favorite, and everybody else is fighting for second place.The Sununu endorsement was first reported by WMUR earlier on Tuesday.Mr. DeSantis received two of the biggest endorsements available in Iowa — those of Gov. Kim Reynolds and the evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats — but has yet to make significant gains on Mr. Trump there. Still, campaign officials for Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Christie downplayed the impact of Mr. Sununu’s backing.“This puts us down one vote in New Hampshire and when Governor Christie is back in Londonderry tomorrow, he’ll continue to tell the unvarnished truth about Donald Trump and earn that one missing vote and thousands more,” said Karl Rickett, campaign spokesman for Mr. Christie, who has made New Hampshire his do-or-die state.Ray Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, criticized both Ms. Haley and Mr. Sununu in a statement. “No matter how much Nikki Haley or Chris Sununu try to spin Granite Staters, the reality is they’re both MAGA extremists who spent years cozying up to Donald Trump,” he said.At the ski area in Manchester, a prospective voter solicited a low exclamation of “oohs” from the crowd when she asked if Ms. Haley would ever consider the vice presidency given Mr. Trump’s dominance in national and state polls.“It is not that big of a deal,” Ms. Haley responded, calming the crowd and prompting some laughter, “because what you have to know is I don’t play for second.”In the audience, Dan Silverman, 53, an undeclared voter who leans Republican, said he wasn’t particularly keen on any of the contenders in the Republican primary and was concerned about some of Ms. Haley’s “bombastic language” on foreign policy. But after watching her speak, Mr. Silverman, who teaches information systems courses at the University of New Hampshire, said he enjoyed her remarks. “I am coming around,” he said.Nearby, Bruce LaRiviere, 65, a retail salesman, said he was set on voting for Ms. Haley, whom he admired for her calls for term limits and competency tests for elected officials. He hoped Mr. Sununu’s endorsement would provide her the boost she needed to beat Mr. Trump, who he said was a force of a “noise and aggression.”“She’s very conservative,” he said. “I like the way she is going to try to change Washington.” More

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      Koch Network Endorses Nikki Haley in Bid to Push GOP Past Trump

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      The support will give Ms. Haley more organizational strength in the field as she battles Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for the No. 2 spot in the Republican presidential race.The political network founded by the Koch brothers is endorsing Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary race, giving her organizational muscle and financial heft as she battles Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for second place in Iowa.The group announced its plans in a memo on Tuesday.The commitment by the network, Americans for Prosperity Action, bolsters Ms. Haley as the campaign enters the final seven weeks before the first nominating contest. Since the first Republican primary debate, Ms. Haley has steadily climbed in polls, even as Mr. DeSantis has slipped. Former President Donald J. Trump remains the dominant front-runner in the race.“In sharp contrast to recent elections that were dominated by the negative baggage of Donald Trump and in which good candidates lost races that should have been won, Nikki Haley, at the top of the ticket, would boost candidates up and down the ballot,” reads the memo from Emily Seidel, a senior adviser to Americans for Prosperity Action, who adds that Ms. Haley would win “the key independent and moderate voters that Trump has no chance to win.”The memo goes on to say that the country “is being ripped apart by extremes on both sides,” adding: “The moment we face requires a tested leader with the governing judgment and policy experience to pull our nation back from the brink. Nikki Haley is that leader.”The group laid out polling describing the shift in the race toward Ms. Haley in a separate memo.Ms. Haley, who has described Mr. Trump’s time as past, has gained support from donors and elite opinion-makers, many of whom describe her as the best alternative to Mr. Trump.But Ms. Haley’s campaign does not have the organizational strength that Mr. DeSantis does, thanks to work the super PAC affiliated with his campaign has been doing for much of the year.The endorsement from the super PAC established by David and Charles Koch could help change that. It will give her access to a direct-mail operation, field workers to knock on doors and people making phone calls to prospective voters in Iowa and beyond. The group has money to spend on television advertisements, as well.The network’s backing also helps fuel Ms. Haley’s momentum heading into the final weeks before voting begins.Americans for Prosperity Action has been among the country’s largest spenders on anti-Trump material this year, buying online ads and sending mailers to voters in several states, including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. All told, the group has spent more than $9 million in independent expenditures opposing Mr. Trump.One mailer in Iowa, paid for by the group, shows images of Mr. Trump and President Biden and reads, “You can stop Biden … by letting go of Trump.”But so far, none of that spending has benefited any of Mr. Trump’s rivals, who have been busy battling one another.The Koch network is well financed, raising more than $70 million for political races as of this summer.The group has been committed to opposing Mr. Trump’s return as leader of the Republican Party. In a memo in February, Ms. Seidel, who also serves as the president of Americans for Prosperity, the political network’s parent group, wrote: “We need to turn the page on the past. So the best thing for the country would be to have a president in 2025 who represents a new chapter.”Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, which has had upheaval in recent days, including the resignation of the chief executive of his super PAC, tried to throw cold water on the endorsement before it was even announced.“Every dollar spent on Nikki Haley’s candidacy should be reported as an in-kind to the Trump campaign,” Andrew Romeo, a DeSantis campaign spokesman, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, 30 minutes before Americans for Prosperity Action officials announced the endorsement on a press call.“No one has a stronger record of beating the establishment than Ron DeSantis, and this time will be no different,” he wrote. More

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      DeSantis Will Pick Up Endorsement by Bob Vander Plaats of Iowa

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      The endorsement by Bob Vander Plaats was long expected, but comes as Gov. Ron DeSantis has tried to build momentum heading into the Iowa caucuses in January.The influential Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats endorsed Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday, the second major endorsement Mr. DeSantis has picked up this month in the state.Kim Reynolds, Iowa’s popular Republican governor, announced her support two weeks ago, giving Mr. DeSantis a key surrogate in a state that will hold the first vote of the Republican primary season with its caucuses on Jan. 15.“We need to find somebody who can win in 2024,” Mr. Vander Plaats said on Tuesday on “Special Report With Bret Baier” on Fox News. “What we saw in 2022, the supposedly red wave really only happened in Florida and in Iowa. Governor DeSantis took a reliable tossup state in Florida and made it complete red.”Mr. Vander Plaats has endorsed the last three Republicans who won contested Iowa caucuses — Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Santorum in 2012 and Ted Cruz in 2016 — though none of them went on to win the nomination. But it is far from clear that his support will be enough to bolster Mr. DeSantis, who is trailing former President Donald J. Trump by huge margins in polls in Iowa as well as nationally.As of Tuesday, Mr. DeSantis was more than 25 points behind Mr. Trump in the FiveThirtyEight average of Iowa surveys — an enormous gap to make up in less than two months’ time. And he is barely holding on to second place over Nikki Haley.Mr. Vander Plaats did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.Mr. Vander Plaats is well known for his influence among evangelicals, who are a powerful voting bloc in Iowa and have lifted socially conservative candidates there before.He is also a divisive figure. His organization once encouraged Republican candidates to sign a pledge that included a lament that “a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American president.”The Democratic National Committee highlighted a recent report about that pledge on Friday, as several Republican candidates prepared to appear at an event with Mr. Vander Plaats.On Tuesday, a D.N.C. spokeswoman, Sarafina Chitika, said: “Vander Plaats’ endorsement should come as no surprise — both he and DeSantis share the same desire to ban abortion and rip away freedoms from millions of women. They both promoted the insulting idea that slavery somehow benefited Black families.”At the recent event, a gala on Saturday for the anti-abortion group Pulse Life Advocates, Mr. Vander Plaats said that opposition to abortion was the single most important factor in his support for a candidate.“If they are not crystal clear where they are at on the sanctity of human life, you can’t trust them on anything else,” Mr. Vander Plaats said, adding: “The sanctity of life is not something to be nuanced. It’s not something to be poll-tested. It’s not a thing where the heartbeat bill was too harsh of a thing to be passed at the state level for the state of Florida.”That comment about the “heartbeat” bill, a common conservative name for six-week abortion bans, was a clear criticism of Mr. Trump, though Mr. Vander Plaats did not name him. Mr. Trump has called the six-week ban that Mr. DeSantis signed in Florida “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”Mr. Trump is, more than any other Republican, responsible for the Dobbs ruling that ended Roe v. Wade and allowed such laws to take effect, as he appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who made the ruling.Mr. Trump has not courted Mr. Vander Plaats, and the former president’s supporters have been dismissive about his endorsement’s significance. A statement from the Trump campaign on Tuesday said, “While the DeSantis camp will try and spin that a Vander Plaats endorsement will revive their sputtering and shrinking campaign, cold hard data tells a much different story. These G.O.P. caucus attenders have mixed feelings about Vander Plaats, if they have any opinion at all, and no few if any are moving to vote for DeSantis because of his endorsement.”Shane Goldmacher More

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      House Speaker Mike Johnson Visits Trump at Mar-a-Lago

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      It was the speaker’s first trip to see the former president since he won his post, and it came as he faced anger from right-wing lawmakers for moving to fund the government.Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday night visited former President Donald J. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, according to a person familiar with the meeting, making his first pilgrimage to see the Republican presidential front-runner since his surprise elevation to the top post in the House last month.The visit to Mr. Trump’s Florida home came at a tricky moment for the inexperienced speaker, who is already facing criticism from hard-right allies livid at him for teaming with Democrats last week to pass legislation to avert a government shutdown. The person confirmed the private meeting on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it.Mr. Trump’s influence over spending fights in Washington may be limited, but Mr. Johnson’s decision to meet with him within weeks of his election is a sign he knows he cannot afford to have Mr. Trump weighing in publicly against him and hardening right-wing opposition to his leadership.Mr. Johnson has taken other steps to ingratiate himself to the far right and cement his hold on the gavel. Late last week, he announced he was publicly releasing surveillance video of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, a step far-right lawmakers and activists have been demanding as they seek to undercut the facts about how supporters of Mr. Trump violently stormed the complex seeking to overturn his electoral defeat.Since Mr. Trump’s election in 2016, Republican congressional leaders have had to cultivate some kind of working relationship with him. But Mr. Johnson, who defended the former president in two Senate impeachment trials and played a lead role in trying to help him invalidate the 2020 election results, is positioning himself as the first speaker to be in complete lock step with the former president.The meeting at Mar-a-Lago was reported earlier by Punchbowl News.Last week, Mr. Johnson officially endorsed Mr. Trump — a move former Speaker Kevin McCarthy resisted even while proclaiming that the former president would be the Republican nominee and would be re-elected.“I endorsed him wholeheartedly for re-election in 2020, and traveled with his team as a campaign surrogate to help ensure his victory,” Mr. Johnson said in a statement to The New York Times. “I have fully endorsed him once again.”The endorsement came in response to a report by The Times that in 2015, Mr. Johnson had posted on social media saying that Mr. Trump was unfit to serve and could be a danger as president.“The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House,” Mr. Johnson wrote in a lengthy post on Facebook on Aug. 7, 2015. “I am afraid he would break more things than he fixes. He is a hot head by nature, and that is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.”Mr. Johnson, who until last month never held a top-tier position in leadership, was in Florida for a fund-raising trip. He made a stop at Mar-a-Lago for an event for Representative Gus Bilirakis, Republican of Florida, according to the person familiar with the meeting with Mr. Trump.A spokesman for Mr. Johnson did not provide additional information about the meeting. More

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      DeSantis Lands a Big Endorsement: Kim Reynolds, Iowa’s Popular Governor

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      After saying she would stay neutral in her state’s 2024 caucuses, angering Donald Trump in the process, Ms. Reynolds said “we have too much at stake.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida needed a lift in his quest to beat former President Donald J. Trump in the crucial Iowa caucuses.On Monday, Mr. DeSantis may have gotten one, as he received the endorsement of Kim Reynolds, the state’s popular Republican governor, during a recorded interview on NBC News.“I just felt like I couldn’t sit on the sidelines any longer,” Ms. Reynolds said. “We have too much at stake. I truly believe that he is the right person to get this country back on track.”Mr. DeSantis, sitting beside her, called her support in the Republican presidential primary “very meaningful.”The two governors then appeared together at a campaign rally in Des Moines, where Ms. Reynolds proclaimed that the nation needed a leader “who puts this country first and not himself” — a clear jab at Mr. Trump, whom she did not refer to by name during her remarks.Before the endorsement, Mr. Trump repeatedly criticized Ms. Reynolds, who had joined Mr. DeSantis at campaign events around Iowa, for her perceived disloyalty. Those personal attacks had outraged the Iowa governor. She had previously said she would stay neutral during the caucuses, as is traditional for sitting governors in the state.Mr. Trump, meanwhile, spent Monday testifying in a civil fraud trial that threatens his business empire in New York. It’s a contrast that is likely to become a running theme as the primary plays out, with Mr. Trump forced to spend time away from the campaign trail in order to deal with the four criminal indictments against him.In Iowa, Mr. DeSantis is in need of a jolt. He has staked his campaign on winning the Jan. 15 caucuses, moving much of his staff to the state in a bid to stop Mr. Trump’s momentum. But his poll numbers there have slipped. He is now tied for second place with former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina at 16 percent, far behind Mr. Trump at 43 percent, according to a Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll. Mr. DeSantis’s allies point out that the last three G.O.P. winners of the Iowa caucuses were also lagging at this stage of previous election cycles.Given Mr. DeSantis’s standing in the polls, the endorsement has risks for Ms. Reynolds. But she expressed confidence at the rally that he could win both the primary and the general election against President Biden.Because of her wide appeal to Iowa Republicans, Ms. Reynolds has the potential to shake up the race. “She’s the reason we’re red,” said Gloria Mazza, the chairwoman of the Republican Party of Polk County, which includes Des Moines. (Ms. Mazza is staying neutral in the caucuses.)Ben Jung, an undecided Iowa voter, said he attended Monday’s rally, held at an event space near downtown Des Moines, because of Ms. Reynolds’s endorsement.“It’s prompted me to finally get my feet out here and listen and look a little more closely,” said Mr. Jung, 53, who had been leaning toward supporting Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina but said he was also considering Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley.Leaders of Iowa’s evangelical community, an important voting bloc, suggested Ms. Reynolds’s endorsement was a major coup for the DeSantis campaign.Ms. Reynolds is “without question Iowa’s most popular Governor in generations,” Bob Vander Plaats, the president and chief executive of the influential Christian conservative group the Family Leader, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Combine her popularity with her campaign tenacity and she will be a force for” Mr. DeSantis.But Mr. Trump’s followers have demonstrated their loyalty so far during the primary, even as he faces criminal charges.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, disparaged Ms. Reynolds’s endorsement as a “Hail Mary pass at the end of a blowout game.”“A Kim Reynolds endorsement does not mean anything and does not sway voters,” Mr. Cheung said in a statement.After news of the endorsement leaked out on Sunday, Mr. Trump called Ms. Reynolds “America’s most Unpopular Governor” in a post on Truth Social, his social media site.During the NBC News interview, Mr. DeSantis took the opportunity to return fire to the former president.“With Donald Trump, if you don’t kiss the ring, you could be the best governor ever and he’ll trash you,” Mr. DeSantis said. “You could be a terrible, corrupt politician, but if you kiss his ring then all the sudden he’ll praise you.”Mr. DeSantis has not always been known for his personal touch. Members of Congress who have endorsed Mr. Trump have described the Florida governor as distant. And he has sometimes appeared awkward on the campaign trail.But in an interview with The Des Moines Register on Monday, Ms. Reynolds praised Mr. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, a breast cancer survivor, for calling her after her husband, Kevin, learned he had lung cancer.“Not only is he tough and disciplined,” Ms. Reynolds said, “but he’s compassionate and cares.” More

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      Kim Reynolds, Iowa’s Influential Governor, Expected to Endorse DeSantis

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      The move is a big win for the Florida governor — and a snub to Donald Trump — just months before the Iowa caucuses.Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa is expected to endorse Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in the Republican presidential primary on Monday, throwing her significant clout in the state behind him as he tries to make up ground against former President Donald J. Trump before the state’s caucuses in January.The endorsement is set to take place at a DeSantis campaign rally in Des Moines Monday evening that both governors will attend, according to three people familiar with the plans. The rally has been announced, but the endorsement has not, outside of media reports.The endorsement was first reported by The Des Moines Register and NBC News.Ms. Reynolds, who is very popular with Republicans in her state, is also chair of the Republican Governors Association. It is unusual for sitting governors to weigh in on the caucuses — the first Republican presidential nominating contest — before they take place, and she had previously said that she would stay neutral.But Ms. Reynolds is one of the few governors with whom Mr. DeSantis has had a true bond in recent years, with the two aligned on matters related to policy on Covid and abortion, among other things. Her interest in his candidacy has been clear for months, including to Mr. Trump, who criticized her for not falling in line behind him.People who have spoken with Ms. Reynolds say she has had some frustrations with the DeSantis campaign’s stumbles. But she is enraged with Mr. Trump, who has twice attacked her personally, according to those people.Some of Ms. Reynolds’s advisers had cautioned her against wading into the race, according to two people familiar with the discussions, suggesting it was a heavily lopsided risk-reward calculation given Mr. Trump’s dominant lead in the polls — and his penchant for vindictiveness. But she decided in the end it was worth it.Mr. Trump criticized Ms. Reynolds earlier this year after growing frustrated by her public appearances with Mr. DeSantis. Later, he lashed out again, saying he didn’t invite her to his events. While Ms. Reynolds stayed silent after those incidents, she did respond on social media when Mr. Trump criticized the kind of restrictive abortion legislation that both she and Mr. DeSantis have signed into law.Mr. DeSantis has pointedly defended Ms. Reynolds from those attacks, calling her “one of the best governors in the country.”“I think that Donald Trump’s attacks on Kim Reynolds are totally out of bounds,” he told reporters at the Iowa State Fair this summer. “I couldn’t disagree with it any more. And she’s done really nothing but do a great job. She’s never done anything to him. But that’s just how he operates.”The endorsement comes ahead of the third presidential debate on Wednesday in Miami, where Mr. DeSantis will try to both close ground on Mr. Trump and separate himself from Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former United Nations ambassador who was tied with him in Iowa in the latest Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll in the state.The DeSantis campaign declined to comment, and a spokesman for Ms. Reynolds did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Earlier in the year, Mr. Trump’s team, in private discussions, seemed to be in denial about the fact that Ms. Reynolds and Mr. DeSantis had a unique relationship, and that an endorsement might be in the offing. But that changed as Ms. Reynolds appeared with Mr. DeSantis in the state, and there was some overlap between her team and the super PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis.So for months, Mr. Trump’s team has been girding for a potential Reynolds endorsement of Mr. DeSantis, particularly as Mr. DeSantis has suggested she might be a vice-presidential candidate on his ticket.Mr. Trump turned to his Truth Social platform to respond to media reports about the endorsement, calling Ms. Reynolds “disloyal” for siding with Mr. DeSantis.“If and when Kim Reynolds of Iowa endorses Ron DeSanctimonious, who is absolutely dying in the polls both in Iowa and Nationwide, it will be the end of her political career in that MAGA would never support her again, just as MAGA will never support DeSanctimonious again.” He added, “They can now remain loyal to each other because nobody else wants them!!!”Ms. Reynolds is deeply protective of her state, and some close to her believed she would be unlikely to endorse Mr. DeSantis unless his campaign showed signs of progress. The decision to endorse would appear to be a sign that Ms. Reynolds thinks she can make a meaningful difference. Historically, the Iowa caucuses have been volatile affairs with significant movement as the voting draws near.Mr. DeSantis has increasingly banked his entire candidacy on a strong showing in Iowa, having moved a sizable share of his staff to the state.Crossing Mr. Trump could be perilous for Ms. Reynolds, despite her popularity. In August, after the former president had begun attacking her, Ms. Reynolds appeared alongside Mr. DeSantis at a sprint car race outside Des Moines.The crowd booed both governors. More

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      DeSantis and Trump Bring Their Campaign Battle Home to Florida

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      At a state party summit, Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald J. Trump both argued that Florida was their turf. For the crowd, Mr. Trump’s assertion seemed to ring truer.When Gov. Ron DeSantis took the stage at a state Republican Party event in Kissimmee, Fla., on Saturday, he strode in front of a giant screen that proclaimed “Florida Is DeSantis Country.”Hours later, when it was former President Donald J. Trump’s turn, the backdrop instead broadcast a forceful rebuttal: “Florida Is Trump Country.”Both men were well received. But by the end of the night, Mr. Trump’s slogan rang truer.During his speech, Mr. Trump, the front-runner in the Republican presidential primary, aggressively attacked Mr. DeSantis, who once seemed like his most formidable rival. He called Mr. DeSantis names and described him as weak and disloyal to a crowd that laughed at a popular governor who once appeared infallible in his home state.Yet Mr. DeSantis had not even mentioned the former president in his own speech, even after questioning Mr. Trump’s manhood on a conservative news network this week. Instead, he shied away from his recent outspokenness against his rival and returned to the veiled swipes that characterized the race’s early months.Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have circled each other on the campaign trail for months but have rarely appeared on the same stage. Saturday’s event, the Florida Freedom Summit, brought their political tussle into full view.It also emphasized a dynamic that has become one of Mr. DeSantis’s largest political hurdles. Even as his rivalry with Mr. Trump has defined the Republican primary for months, the former president’s grip on the party has not loosened, while Mr. DeSantis has been losing ground.Mr. DeSantis’s reluctance to single out Mr. Trump on Saturday was all the more striking because the other candidates who spoke throughout the day were willing to do so.Vivek Ramaswamy, 38, said he was better positioned than Mr. Trump to reach younger voters. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said that Republicans had underperformed in multiple elections under Mr. Trump’s leadership.Mr. Scott also took aim at Mr. DeSantis’s campaign, saying that the governor had entered the race as a “historically strong candidate with all the advantages” but had drastically bled support.Mr. DeSantis’s falling stature was made evident earlier in the day when six Republican state lawmakers said that they would shift their endorsements from Mr. DeSantis to Mr. Trump, a move first reported by The Messenger.The defections came days after Senator Rick Scott of Florida, Mr. DeSantis’s predecessor with whom he has a frosty relationship, said that he would back Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis dismissed the significance of the legislators’ about-face.“Look, this happens in these things,” he told reporters on Saturday after signing the paperwork to file for the Florida primary. “We’ve had flips the other way in other states. It’s a dynamic thing. I mean, politicians do what they’re going to do.”But Mr. Trump made a point of bringing his new supporters onstage early in his speech, emphasizing how he was chipping away at Mr. DeSantis’s core base.He also portrayed Mr. DeSantis as having desperately sought his endorsement in 2018, saying that Mr. DeSantis had come to him with “tears flowing from his eyes,” and took credit for his political rise. Mr. Trump has made such attacks a mainstay of his stump speech.“It’s so disloyal,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. DeSantis’s decision to enter the 2024 race. And voters, he said, “care about loyalty.” The crowd whooped in affirmation.The crowd seemed to be on Mr. DeSantis’s side only when Mr. Trump discussed the coronavirus pandemic. As he rattled off the states whose Republican governors he believed best handled Covid-19, he conspicuously left out one.Members of the crowd filled in the blank: “Florida,” they shouted. Mr. Trump simply smirked and shrugged.During his time onstage earlier in the afternoon, Mr. DeSantis at times appeared to be operating within an alternate reality. He did not acknowledge Mr. Trump’s position in the race. His claim that Florida is “DeSantis Country” — certainly accurate when he won re-election by nearly 20 percentage points last year — ignored polling averages that show Mr. Trump 35 points ahead of him in the state.And while Mr. DeSantis opened his speech by joking that he did not need a teleprompter, a jab at President Biden, he frequently looked down at his notes as he spoke.Mr. Trump’s hold on Republicans in Florida was evident at the summit. The audience responded with booming cheers as he rattled off his accomplishments and attacked Mr. Biden. No other candidate received such resounding support.Mark Spowage, 73, said he had considered Mr. DeSantis a Republican “golden boy” after he received Mr. Trump’s endorsement as governor. But his opinion of Mr. DeSantis plummeted when he announced that he was challenging Mr. Trump — a shift shared by many of Mr. Trump’s loyal followers.“How does he think he has the right to do that?” Mr. Spowage, a software engineer, asked of Mr. DeSantis. “Because from my position, Trump was ordained, like someone that God has anointed to somehow take responsibility. For him to stand up to Trump, wow.”Many Republicans in the state have been privately whispering that Mr. DeSantis seems weaker at home than ever before, and Mr. Trump’s allies have said they are recruiting more defectors.Mr. DeSantis is now regularly ridiculed by his onetime ally, Mr. Trump. Memes poke fun at his unfortunate moments on the campaign trail, includinga controversy over whether Mr. DeSantis wears lifts in his boots. (He says he does not.)A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis’s campaign pointed out that he still has many more endorsements from state legislators in Florida, as well as in New Hampshire and Iowa, the first nominating states.Mr. Trump, however, remains widely popular with voters in those states. And though Mr. DeSantis has staked his campaign on a strong showing in Iowa, a recent survey found him tied there with Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. She has edged him out in polls in New Hampshire as well.Ms. Haley was originally scheduled to speak at Saturday’s summit but did not attend. Her campaign did not answer questions about her absence.Mr. Trump will again try to overshadow Mr. DeSantis on Wednesday, when the governor and other G.O.P. rivals take part in the third Republican debate in Miami. The former president, who has announced that he will instead hold a rally in Hialeah, Fla., is skipping the debate once again, a decision Mr. DeSantis sharply criticized earlier this week but did not mention on Saturday.“If Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate, I’ll wear a boot on my head,” Mr. DeSantis said in an interview on Newsmax on Thursday.But the crowd at the summit was clearly in no mood to hear any digs at the former president, and candidates who criticized Mr. Trump were heckled. When former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas said that he believed Mr. Trump would probably be found guilty in one of the criminal cases he was facing, the boos were ferocious.And Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who has become an outspoken Trump critic, was jeered immediately after he took the stage.Mr. Christie was not dissuaded, firing back at the crowd, “Your anger against the truth is reprehensible.”Jazmine Ulloa More

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      Larry Elder Ends Long-Shot Presidential Bid

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      Mr. Elder, a Los Angeles Republican who bills himself as “the sage from South Central,” endorsed Donald Trump.Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host from California whose run for the Republican presidential nomination never gained traction, ended his campaign on Thursday and endorsed Donald J. Trump, the front-runner in the crowded field.“Throughout my campaign,” Mr. Elder wrote in a message posted online, “I have been steadfast in my belief that the biggest issues facing our nation are the crisis of fatherlessness, the dangerous lie that America is systemically racist, the need for an amendment to the constitution to set federal spending to a fixed percentage of the GDP — otherwise government gets bigger whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, and the need to remove the Soros-backed DAs across the country who refuse to endorse the law.”(George Soros’s indirect donations to a prosecutor’s campaign have animated Mr. Trump’s allies, and Mr. Soros’s name comes up often among conspiracy theorists in attacks frequently viewed as antisemitic.)Mr. Elder added, “I hope my campaign has helped shine a light on these critical issues and sparked important conversations about how we can solve them.”He never surpassed the Republican Party’s donation or polling thresholds to qualify for candidate debates.Mr. Elder, a Los Angeles Republican who bills himself as “the sage from South Central,” was the top vote-getter among challengers to Gov. Gavin Newsom in the state’s attempted recall election in 2021. Voters instead chose to keep Mr. Newsom in office.“Now that I am exiting the race,” Mr. Elder added in his message on Thursday, “I am proud to announce my endorsement of Donald Trump for President of the United States. His leadership has been instrumental in advancing conservative, America-first principles and policies that have benefited our great nation. We must unite behind Donald Trump to beat Joe Biden.”While Mr. Trump is the dominant front-runner for the Republicans’ presidential nomination, he is facing seven major cases in six courthouses in four cities. Two of the cases relate to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, which he still falsely maintains was rigged. More