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    Why New Hampshire Thinks It’s Smarter Than Iowa

    Now that the Republican presidential primary race has moved to New Hampshire from Iowa, a few things will change.The evangelical Christian social conservatism that dominates Iowa’s Republican politics is out, replaced by fiscal hawkishness and a libertarian streak rooted in the Granite State’s “Live Free or Die” ethos.With Iowa fully in the rearview mirror, expect to hear a variation on the phrase “Iowa picks corn, New Hampshire picks presidents,” a favorite local slogan that aggrandizes the state’s role in the nominating process. Still, ask Pat Buchanan and John McCain about how winning New Hampshire in 1996 and 2000 catapulted them to the White House.One thing is clear: New Hampshire Republicans think their attention to federal spending and the national debt makes them a lot smarter than their Iowa brethren, for whom abortion and transgender issues have been atop the agenda.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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

    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

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    For Biden, Another Trump Nomination Presents Opportunity, and Great Risk

    Some Democrats consider the former president the Republican they would have the best chance against this fall, but also the one they most fear the consequences of losing to.To be clear, no one in President Biden’s White House would ever root for Donald J. Trump. To a person, they consider him an existential threat to the nation. But as they watched Mr. Trump open the contest for the Republican presidential nomination with a romp through Iowa, they also saw something else: a pathway to a second term.Mr. Biden’s best chance of winning re-election in the fall, in their view, is a rematch against Mr. Trump. The former president is so toxic, so polarizing that his presence on the November ballot, as Mr. Biden’s advisers see it, would be the most powerful incentive possible to lure disaffected Democrats and independents back into the camp of the poll-challenged president.And so, some Democrats felt a little torn this week as the Republican race got underway. None of them would cry if Mr. Trump were taken down by someone like former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who has one shot in New Hampshire next week to make it a race. Whatever Ms. Haley’s flaws, and Democrats see many, they do not believe she would pose the same danger to democracy that Mr. Trump does.But if she won the Republican nomination, she might pose a bigger danger to Mr. Biden.The paradox recalls 2016, when many Democrats were not unhappy when Mr. Trump won the Republican nomination, on the theory that the country would never elect a bumptious reality-television star who specialized in racist appeals and insult politics. Burned once, they are not so certain this time, but Democrats are banking on the hope that the country would not take back a defeated president who inspired a violent mob to help him keep power and has been charged with more felonies than Al Capone.“I was not one of those Democrats who thought Trump would be easier to beat in 2016,” said Jennifer Palmieri, Hillary Clinton’s communications director in the election she lost to Mr. Trump. “Some Democrats root for Trump. I think it is better for the country” for him “to be defeated in the Republican Party and not continue to gain strength.” If Mr. Trump did lose, she added, she believed Biden could defeat Ms. Haley or Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.But it might not be as easy. Ms. Haley would be vulnerable to Democratic attacks for enabling Mr. Trump as his ambassador to the United Nations, and even as a Republican candidate for president who largely declined to attack the former president and would not rule out voting for him if he won the nomination.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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

    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

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    Nikki Haley Looks to New Hampshire Primary With a Focus on Independents

    The former South Carolina governor has banked her campaign on the state, buoyed by an influx of cash and an advertising blitz as she looks to rebound from Iowa.Former President Donald J. Trump’s resounding victory in Iowa significantly raises the stakes of next week’s New Hampshire primary for Nikki Haley and the increasingly desperate contingent of Republicans who want to move on from Mr. Trump.While Iowa was largely a foregone conclusion at the top, with a spirited battle only for second place, a small but ever narrowing path still exists for Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, to beat Mr. Trump in New Hampshire. It relies heavily on tens of thousands of independent voters expected to participate in the Republican primary.Ms. Haley, who got a late start in Iowa, has from the beginning banked her campaign on a strong showing in New Hampshire, and has recently been buoyed by an influx of cash from the super PAC supporting her. The demographic makeup of the state is also much more favorable to her than the more rural and conservative Iowa. She has invested significant money and time here — holding 80 events in the state — and has the support of some its top Republicans, including the popular governor, Chris Sununu.“She’s on the ground, she’s in the diner, she’s doing the town halls,” Mr. Sununu said. “She’s answering anybody’s questions. Trump’s not doing that. You’re lucky to get him to fly in once a week to do a rally and then get the heck out of there.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    ABC News Cancels G.O.P. Debate After Haley Demands Trump Appear, Too

    ABC News canceled a Republican presidential debate scheduled for Thursday in New Hampshire, after Ron DeSantis was the only candidate who had agreed to participate.Hours earlier, Nikki Haley said she would not participate in future debates unless either Donald J. Trump or President Biden also participated, after a lower-than-expected result placing third in the Iowa caucuses.Ms. Haley’s statement also cast uncertainty over another upcoming Republican debate in New Hampshire, hosted by CNN and scheduled for Sunday.ABC News said in a statement that it and WMUR-TV had given Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley until 5 p.m. to “commit” to participate. They canceled the debate minutes after the deadline.Mr. Trump has refused to participate in any debates so far.Ms. Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump and a former South Carolina governor, finished third in the Iowa caucuses on Monday just behind Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor. After failing to overtake Mr. DeSantis in Iowa, Ms. Haley faces heightened pressure in New Hampshire, where polls have shown her within striking distance of Mr. Trump, who dominated in Iowa. The state holds its primary on Jan. 23.Ms. Haley has increasingly come under attack in recent debates as she has risen in the polls, including from Mr. DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, another rival who dropped out of the race after the caucuses and endorsed Mr. Trump.She has accused Mr. Trump of ducking his opponents.“He has nowhere left to hide,” Ms. Haley said in a statement on Tuesday. “The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden. I look forward to it.”The Trump campaign on Tuesday called Ms. Haley “desperate” and said the only voters casting ballots for her were Democrats “trying to interfere in a Republican primary.”Mr. DeSantis, who has ratcheted up his criticism of Ms. Haley at recent debates, including a one-on-one matchup on CNN last week in Iowa, assailed her on Tuesday on social media. He said she was afraid of scrutiny of her time as a Boeing board member after leaving the governor’s office.“The reality is that she is not running for the nomination, she’s running to be Trump’s VP,” Mr. DeSantis wrote. “I won’t snub New Hampshire voters like both Nikki Haley and Donald Trump, and plan to honor my commitments.”Later in the day, Mr. DeSantis went after Ms. Haley for not taking more questions from reporters and voters, calling her campaign “hermetically sealed.” “She will not do what I’m doing right here,” he said as he addressed reporters. More

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    Trump’s Landslide Victory in Iowa

    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

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    A Road Trip to Iowa for the Caucuses

    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