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      What Will Happen at the Iowa Caucuses? Here’s What to Expect

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      A win isn’t always win in the Iowa caucuses. In the final days, the candidates are scrambling to beat each other — and expectations.It may feel as if there is little suspense over who is likely to win the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa on Monday.But in Iowa, the unexpected can be the expected and a win is not always a win. The result could shape the future of the Republican Party at a time of transition, and the future of the Iowa caucuses after a difficult decade. It could help determine whether Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador, presents a serious obstacle to Donald J. Trump’s return to power — or whether Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, will be forced out of the race.Here’s a guide to some possible outcomes and what they mean for the contenders:A Trump victoryAll the assumptions about a big Trump night mean that the former president’s biggest opponent may turn out to be expectations — and not his two main rivals on the ballot, Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Trump and his campaign have set the bar high. Mr. Trump has run as an incumbent, not even debating his opponents. His aides say they think he can set a record for an open race by finishing at least 12 points ahead of his nearest rival.And for Mr. Trump, that could be a problem.“Trump has been polling around 50 percent plus or minus,” said Dennis J. Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University in Des Moines. “If he were to come in at 40, that’s a flashing yellow light. That suggests weaknesses and uncertainty.”Two forces could complicate Mr. Trump’s hopes for the night. Those same polls that show him heading for victory, the polls he boasts about at almost every rally he does in Iowa, could feed complacency among his supporters. Why come out and caucus — Caucus Day temperatures are projected to reach a high of zero degrees in places — if Mr. Trump is going to win anyway?And unlike Democrats’ caucuses, this is a secret ballot; Republicans do not have to stand and divulge their vote to their neighbors. That could matter if there really is a hidden anti-Trump sentiment out there that Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley have been banking on.Of course, these are just what-ifs. Mr. Trump has appeared to take a lesson from 2016, when, after leading in the polls, he lost the caucus to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. This time, he has deployed an immense field organization and traveled across Iowa, urging his supporters to vote. “He’s coming back to the state again and again,” said Jeff Angelo, a former Republican state senator who now hosts a conservative talk show on WHO-AM. “They are not going to take it for granted this time.”A weak showing by Mr. DeSantisGov. Ron DeSantis is hoping for a strong second-place finish in Iowa, though he trails the field in most public and private polls in New Hampshire.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe governor of Florida was once seen as Mr. Trump’s biggest threat and Iowa was the state where he could seize the mantle of being the Trump alternative. But Mr. DeSantis has not lived up to his billing, and the rise of Ms. Haley has forced him to the edge of the stage.The test for Mr. DeSantis, earlier this campaign season, was whether he could use Iowa to create a two-way race with Mr. Trump. Now, he is struggling to make certain that he at least scores what he was always expected to score: a strong second-place finish.Mr. DeSantis’s supporters say they remain confident he will come in second — and perhaps even upset Mr. Trump. “If you believe in polls, hopefully he comes in a solid second,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in Iowa who has endorsed Mr. DeSantis. “If you believe the ground game, there’s a potential he could upend the former president in Iowa. He has by far the best on-the-ground operation I’ve seen.”“A lot of people are waiting to write DeSantis’s obituary,” he said. “I just see DeSantis having a good night on caucus night.”Coming in second place could propel the DeSantis campaign on to New Hampshire. But a weak second-place showing — if he just barely edges out Ms. Haley, or the results are still in dispute as he leaves Iowa — could confirm Republican concerns about his political appeal, and force him to drop out. And coming in third?“Look, he told all of us that he’s all in for Iowa,” said Mr. Angelo. “You finish third in Iowa, I don’t see how you continue.”But even with a second-place showing — which his campaign would call a win — it’s hard to see how Mr. DeSantis builds on that. He trails the field in most public and private polls in New Hampshire. In fact, Mr. DeSantis is not competitive in any of the upcoming states. In a recent interview on NBC News, he declined to list any other states where he could win. He is not putting much effort, in terms of spending or ground game, in any other state. His best hope, it would seem, is that Mr. Vander Plaats is correct and he somehow pulls off an upset victory over Mr. Trump.A strong showing by Ms. HaleyNikki Haley could present herself as a real alternative for Republicans looking for another candidate besides Mr. Trump to lead the party this November if she comes in a solid second in Iowa.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesIf Ms. Haley does come in a solid second, this becomes a different race. She would head into New Hampshire, a state where she has strong institutional support, with the wind at her back, even after a few weeks that have been marked by stumbles on the campaign trail. She could present herself as a real alternative for Republicans looking for another candidate besides Mr. Trump to lead the party this November.And her supporters would almost certainly turn up the pressure on Mr. DeSantis to step aside to allow the party to unify around her. “That becomes the story of the caucus,” said Jimmy Centers, a longtime Iowa Republican consultant. “She becomes the alternative to former President Trump. And then I think the chorus is going to say, it’s time for the field to winnow so they can go head-to-head.”If Ms. Haley finishes in third place, Mr. DeSantis will presumably try to push her out of the race. But why should she leave? She will only be moving on to politically friendlier territory, as the campaign moves first to New Hampshire then to her home state, South Carolina.If Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley continue their brawling into New Hampshire, Mr. Trump will be the beneficiary. “If you don’t have a clear second-place person who can claim the mantle of where the ‘not-Trump’ vote goes in subsequent states, I don’t see where Trump is facing any challenges going forward,” said Gentry Collins, a longtime Iowa Republican leader.Another rough night for Iowa?This has been a tough decade for the Iowa caucuses. In 2012, Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, was declared the winner of the Republican caucus, but 16 days later, the state Republican Party, struggling to count missing votes, said that Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, had actually finished first.The 2020 Democratic caucus turned into a debacle, riddled with miscounts and glitches, and the brigade of reporters who had descended on Iowa left before the final results were known. (Quick quiz: Who won the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucus?)When there is already so much distrust of the voting system, fanned by Mr. Trump, the last thing Iowa needs is another messy caucus count. That would arguably be bad for Iowa, but also for the nation.“What I’m concerned about is that you could have a repeat of 2012,” said David Yepsen, the former chief political correspondent for The Des Moines Register who in 2020 predicted that the meltdown — which robbed Pete Buttigieg of momentum from his narrow victory — would spell the end for Iowa’s Democratic caucus.“You have 180,000 people voting in a couple of thousand precincts on little slips of paper that are hand-tabulated,” he said. “The doomsday scenario is that they have problems with their tabulations. With all this talk about voting being rigged, I just think the country is going to feel jerked around if Iowa Republicans don’t get this right.” More

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      Trump’s electoral and judicial calendars collide – but it does him little harm

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      Four candidates were on the campaign trail, meeting and greeting voters in frigid Iowa. A fifth was sitting in a courtroom in rainy Washington, trying to fend off a criminal case that might land him in jail.But in the upside-down, topsy-turvy world of American politics, it is Donald Trump – not Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson or Vivek Ramaswamy – who is expected to win the first Republican presidential nominating contest in a landslide next week.This is not despite but because of a host of legal woes that would have long buried a normal candidate in a normal time have become a feature, not a bug, of his 2024 presidential run. “Unprecedented” is the most overused word of the Trump era but this week really is, well, unprecedented as the collision of his electoral and judicial calendars gets real.On Tuesday he was in court as his lawyers tried to convince the three judges that a federal criminal case charging him with election subversion should be dismissed before it goes to trial. On Wednesday, Trump will sit for a Fox News town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, counterprogramming a CNN debate in the same city between DeSantis and Haley. On Thursday, expect to see Trump in New York for the closing arguments in a civil fraud trial. And on Saturday, he returns to Iowa for campaign rallies.The former president is picking and choosing when and where he shows up. In every case, the decision is calculated to maximise his chances of winning back the White House – and staying out of prison.He was not obliged to attend Tuesday’s proceedings at the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit. In driving rain, few protesters bothered to show up outside the courtroom and there were no TV cameras allowed inside. Trump sat there with no opportunity to speak as lawyers jousted over claims that he is immune from criminal charges for trying to overturn the 2020 election.Trump’s lawyer, D John Sauer, told a three-judge panel that prosecuting former presidents “would open a Pandora’s box from which that nation may never recover”. He argued that presidents must first be impeached and removed from office by Congress before they can be prosecuted. Judge Florence Pan reacted sceptically, asking Sauer: “You’re saying a president could sell pardons, could sell military secrets, could tell Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival?”Trump will probably lose this argument. But the real point of his rare return to Washington came after the hearing, when he spoke to reporters at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, formerly the Trump International hotel, calling it “a very momentous day” and insisting that he “did nothing wrong”.If the case is allowed to proceed, Trump claimed, that would potentially leave Biden open to prosecution once he left office. “When they talk about a threat to democracy, that’s your real threat to democracy,” he said. The remarks were transmitted live to the base on the conservative Fox News channel, guaranteeing more exposure than a typical rally.Meanwhile Trump’s fundraising campaign had kicked into gear. Before the hearing, he released a video in which he said he might prosecute Biden if he defeats him in the presidential election. “If I don’t get immunity then crooked Joe Biden doesn’t get immunity. Joe would be ripe for indictment,” he said.The campaign dates and court dates are now like two liquids mixed and impossible to separate. The trial in the federal election interference case is due to start on 4 March, one day before Super Tuesday, when 15 states will hold primaries or caucuses.The convergence has helped Trump break another American tradition. For half a century, Iowa has been a test of retail politics as diners, farms, hotel ballrooms, school gyms and a state fair play an outsized role in deciding who will become the most powerful person on the planet. The candidate with a winning smile and tireless handshake had a decent chance of working their way to the White House.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut data collected by the Des Moines Register newspaper shows that, between 1 January 2023 and 4 January 2024, Trump held only 24 events in 19 counties, far fewer than DeSantis (99 events in 57 counties), Haley (51 events in 30 counties) and Ramaswamy (239 events in 94 counties).Yet a recent poll put Trump 34 percentage points clear of DeSantis in Iowa. His campaign surrogates such as Ben Carson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kristi Noem often draw bigger crowds in the state than actual candidates.There are several reasons for Trump’s dominance but court appearances like Tuesday’s have not done him any harm. Any time his fortunes seemed in danger of flagging, for example after Republicans’ midterms flop, the justice department inadvertently gave him political rocket fuel. He played victim and martyr of a politicised system and Republicans – even his opponents – rallied around him.That will not necessarily work against Biden in November. A CBS News poll found that 64% of Americans do not think Trump should be immune from prosecution for actions he took as president, whereas just 34% believe he should be. Other surveys suggest that a criminal conviction – he is facing 91 criminal charges in Atlanta, Miami, New York and Washington – could deal him a big blow among moderates and independents.Two Republican candidates have been vocal in making that case. Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor and federal prosecutor, and Asa Hutchinson, an ex-governor of Arkansas, have warned that Trump will be convicted and is unfit for office.Last month a Reuters/ Ipsos poll put Trump’s support among Republicans at 61%. Christie? He was at 2%. And Hutchinson? He was at 1%. More

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      To Win Iowa, Trump Turns to Allies Like Marjorie Taylor Greene

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      With the former president busy defending himself in court from 91 felony charges, his campaign has deployed high-profile conservatives to help fill the gaps in Iowa.Less than a week before Iowans decide whether to slingshot Donald J. Trump toward another presidential nomination, his schedule looks like this: Go to Washington for an appeals court hearing on Tuesday. Pop into Iowa for a Fox News town-hall event on Wednesday — and then make an expected return to court on Thursday, this time in New York.He is not scheduled to hold another rally in Iowa until Saturday, two days before the caucuses.As Mr. Trump flits between the presidential trail and the courtroom, his campaign has deployed a web of high-profile conservative allies to help fill the gaps and make his case across the state, a strategy that the former president may be more likely to turn to this year as his legal issues keep him occupied.Over the last months, Mr. Trump’s campaign has set up smaller rallies with Republican luminaries who, among the president’s right-wing base, have achieved a kind of political celebrity.To start its efforts in January, the campaign last week held events with Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Eric Trump, one of Mr. Trump’s sons. This week, Ben Carson, Mr. Trump’s former secretary of housing and urban development, is scheduled for two appearances in eastern Iowa.Before a winter storm hit Iowa and disrupted travel, the campaign had also planned to hold events on Monday and Tuesday with Roseanne Barr, the actress and outspoken Trump supporter; Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, Mr. Trump’s former press secretary; and Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008.Mr. Trump’s use of campaign surrogates is a notable example of an old campaign tactic. Political candidates have long leaned on prominent allies to help them, given the logistical challenges of making pitches to voters in early-voting states that hold closely scheduled contests.“It’s a way to draw interest from caucusgoers and give them the opportunity to hear from other people,” said Jimmy Centers, a Republican strategist in Iowa who is unaligned in the race. “And it can be a draw in some cases to maybe get people out.”On Monday, while Gov. Ron DeSantis was in Florida attending to his day job, his wife, Casey, and Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a hard-right lawmaker, were traveling through southeastern Iowa at events held by Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting the DeSantis campaign.Other candidates were bringing well-known figures who have endorsed them to stump at their events. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, appeared over the weekend with Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire. The biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is expected to campaign later in the week with the right-wing commentator Candace Owens and the YouTube star and boxer Jake Paul.But as a former president who enjoys broad support, Mr. Trump is able to draw on a far deeper roster of conservative stars. Mr. Centers said Mr. Trump’s slate of surrogates tended to be people who were “more top of mind” for likely Republican caucusgoers.Many of Mr. Trump’s surrogates are eager to align themselves with his supporters or to display their loyalty to Mr. Trump. In some cases, they may be positioning themselves for potential positions in a future Trump cabinet. (Ms. Noem has said she would consider being Mr. Trump’s running mate.)And surrogates like Ms. Noem, Ms. Greene and Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, who held an event in Cedar Rapids last month, are themselves big draws for audiences.Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, whose state borders Iowa, has also been promoting Mr. Trump’s candidacy before the caucuses.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesBrian Duckett, 59, who attended Mr. Gaetz’s event, said he had been moved by the push from the campaign and the Florida congressman for Mr. Trump’s supporters to play a more active role in the caucuses.“I’ve never done that before, and I want to do it this time,” Mr. Duckett said.Last Wednesday, Ms. Noem drew hundreds of people to a 30-minute speech in Sioux City, just across the border from her home state. The same day, Mr. DeSantis himself held events nearby that were attended by just dozens.Mr. Trump’s surrogates are often able to help him appeal to specific segments of voters, speaking more directly to their concerns in a different way from Mr. Trump. The campaign hopes that this can help drive turnout and deliver Mr. Trump a decisive victory in the caucuses.Ms. Noem drew on being a wife, mother and grandmother as she shared personal stories to encourage the audience to caucus for Mr. Trump. And she mentioned her state’s proximity to Iowa to portray herself as someone who understood residents’ concerns about the prices of groceries and gasoline.“It’s dramatic for a state like Iowa,” Ms. Noem said of gas prices. “It’s dramatic for a state like my state of South Dakota, where it’s a long ways to drive anywhere.”Ms. Greene, an ultraconservative congresswoman who rose to power as a firebrand in Mr. Trump’s mold, was well positioned to address their party’s far-right flank.Speaking in Keokuk, a city at Iowa’s southeastern tip, Ms. Greene on Thursday proudly called herself a “MAGA extremist,” then railed against establishment Republicans, saying she had been “pretty let down” by them during Mr. Trump’s first term.“We were, too,” a man called out in response.“A common thing,” she agreed.The same day, Eric Trump worked a crowd of more than 150 people in Ankeny, in suburban Des Moines. He rattled off his father’s accomplishments. Then he, too, drew on his own particular advantages.“Should we call Donald Trump and see if he picks up the phone?” the younger Mr. Trump asked the audience. Moments later, the former president’s voice filled the room as his son held his phone up to the microphone.“I just want to say, I look forward to seeing you on Friday, we love you all, and I hope my son is doing a great job,” the elder Mr. Trump said.Max Anderson, 23, said at the Ankeny event that Mr. Trump’s steady stream of surrogates gave the former president’s pitch more credibility. He added that he thought the phone call reflected well on Mr. Trump’s character.“It shows that he takes care and loves his people — especially his kids,” Mr. Anderson said.Leah McBride Mensching More

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      Defying Trump, G.O.P. Congressmen Hit the Trail in Iowa for DeSantis

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      A pair of idiosyncratic, ultraconservative House Republicans are risking the ire of the former president and his supporters to try to bolster the Florida governor.Most House Republicans operate under an unspoken but ironclad rule: Do whatever you can to avoid provoking the wrath of former President Donald J. Trump.But on a recent weekend here in Iowa, just days before the state’s first-in-the-nation nominating contest, two of Congress’s staunchest conservatives were doing just that as they crisscrossed the state with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to make the case for a different party standard-bearer.At stop after stop on a string of frigid, gray days, Representatives Chip Roy of Texas and Thomas Massie of Kentucky packed into crowded sports bars and coffee shops, casting Mr. DeSantis as a leader with a proven track record of conservative victories. In doing so, they issued a surprisingly blunt review of what they argued were a string of policy failures by the former president — including his inability to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, to complete a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and to rein in the skyrocketing national debt — and an implicit critique of his character.“The primary reason that I’m supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis for president is that I want my son and my daughter to be able to look up to the occupant of the Oval Office,” Mr. Roy told a packed room of caucusgoers at a sports bar in Ankeny. “Someone they can emulate. Someone that you would be proud to have them follow and look to as a leader.”Mr. Roy and Mr. Massie have always cut singular figures in Congress. Mr. Roy, a former chief of staff to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, has emerged as arguably the most influential conservative voice on policy in the House G.O.P. conference. Mr. Massie, a libertarian who is by turns thoughtful and mischievous, forced Congress to return to Washington to take a recorded vote on the $2 trillion stimulus measure at the height of the pandemic.But their commitment to break with a vast majority of their colleagues — including the entire House Republican leadership — and campaign for Mr. DeSantis even as he lags badly in polling behind Mr. Trump is perhaps one of their most fraught political moves yet.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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      Challenged on Policy Views in Town-Hall Event, Haley Doesn’t Budge

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      Nikki Haley was repeatedly challenged over policy views that veer away from her more conservative rivals during an hourlong town-hall event on Fox News on Monday, but she stood her ground — and called Donald J. Trump an agent of chaos and Ron DeSantis a liar.With the Iowa caucuses one week away, Ms. Haley has much ground to make up against the front-runner and former president, Mr. Trump, but a second-place finish ahead of Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, could propel her into New Hampshire, which hosts the first primary of 2024.Ms. Haley has consistently attacked Mr. DeSantis, but on Monday evening, she took some swipes at Mr. Trump as well, saying he “copped out” on the United States’ international alliances, lied about her record and brought turmoil with his presidency.“Chaos follows him, and we cannot be a country in disarray,” she said before a live audience in Des Moines that greeted the jab with applause.Ms. Haley took pointed questions from Iowans and Fox News hosts on her promise to negotiate a compromise on abortion, to bolster U.S. support for Ukraine and to raise the retirement age to stave off insolvency for Social Security and Medicare. All of those positions break with her two main rivals.On abortion, she repeated her point that any national rules on terminating pregnancy would need to clear a 60-vote threshold in the Senate. She jabbed at Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis on the issue, quipping, “The fellas just don’t know how to talk about it.”On Social Security and Medicare, she stood by what used to be the standard Republican position before the rise of Mr. Trump: that those at or nearing retirement would get their full benefits, but that benefits need to be curtailed for younger workers and the affluent.And she remained firm on an internationalist approach to foreign policy, despite the rising tide of isolationism in her party. “You’ve got to be a friend to get a friend,” she said.Ms. Haley also responded to an ad blitz by a Trump super PAC in New Hampshire that has been attacking her as “too weak” and “too liberal” on illegal immigration, pointing to her passage of some of the toughest immigration laws in the country during her tenure as governor of South Carolina.“Look, just because President Trump says something doesn’t make it true,” she said. She also said, “I appreciate all the attention President Trump is giving me. It is quite sweet and thoughtful of him. But he is lying about it.”Meanwhile, the Trump campaign kept up the barrage meant to slow her momentum. As she spoke, the campaign sent out a flurry of emails, with titles like “Nikki Haley Revives Bush Amnesty Policies,” “Nikki Haley Loves China” and “Nikki Haley Will Raise Your Taxes.” More

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      Trump targets Iowa win as Republican rule changes tilt 2024 race his way

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      Donald Trump’s presidential campaign anticipates winning the Iowa state caucuses and advisers have suggested internally they would only be concerned about the former president being upstaged if another candidate started polling within five or 10 points, according to people close to the campaign.The margin of the expected win has been an informal litmus test for several weeks, and with none of Trump’s rival candidates close to breaching that threshold, the campaign has been confident Trump will win the state’s first-in-the-nation nominating contest.Victory for Trump in Iowa would give him crucial momentum that advisers hope will propel him to the Republican nomination for 2024, as well as the personal satisfaction of attaining what eluded him in 2016, when he finished second – after Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas – despite leading in the polls.The confidence inside the Trump campaign is tempered mainly by the recognition that low turnout from supporters could undercut Trump’s commanding position, a situation he has attempted to address by scheduling a blitz of rallies before the 15 January caucuses.Trump returned to Iowa on Friday to run through four campaign rallies in two days after visiting the state infrequently in recent months, at least compared with his main rivals, Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, and Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor.In presidential primaries and caucuses, voters cast ballots in their states as the first of two steps. The outcomes of those contests determine which individuals, called delegates, will go to the Republican national convention to formally be chosen as their party’s nominee.The idea for the Trump campaign is that a victory in Iowa would give him the necessary momentum to win the next contests in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Michigan, putting him ahead of the field for Super Tuesday on 5 March.By mid-March, the campaign anticipates they will have won enough bound delegates that Trump is assured of clinching the nomination to set up a general election rematch against Joe Biden, according to an internal analysis.The campaign’s analysis, based on public and internal polling, estimates Trump to win 973 delegates by 5 March and 1,478 by 19 March, a senior campaign official told reporters last month. It takes 1,215 to win the nomination.Backstopping Trump’s projected path to the nomination are rule changes the campaign forced through in several crucial early voting states that dramatically alter the way delegates are awarded.For months last year, the campaign pursued an audacious effort to convince state Republican parties in places like Nevada, Michigan and California to change the rules in a way that favored Trump – and disadvantaged both Haley and DeSantis.In Nevada, Michael McDonald, the chair of the state Republican party, enacted new rules seen as especially damaging to DeSantis, by in effect blocking Super Pacs that the Florida governor relies on from participating in the caucuses.The rules, which came almost immediately after McDonald was among a small group treated to a meal with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club, so disadvantages Trump’s other rivals that they have pulled up stakes entirely. Last month, McDonald was indicted by a Nevada grand jury on charges of forging and submitting fraudulent documents in the 2020 fake-elector scheme.In California, the state party enacted a rule change to award delegates based on a statewide vote instead of congressional districts, doing away with the state’s longstanding system that was seen as more equitable to lesser candidates.The change means Trump now has a shot at claiming all of California’s 169 delegates – more than in any other state – while making it dramatically harder for Haley or DeSantis to challenge him in a two-horse race.Another state that has shifted its rules is Michigan, which this cycle will run a complicated dual primary and caucus in a system where the majority of delegates will be bound in a process also seen as favoring Trump.The moves have been denounced by Trump’s rivals as underhanded and tantamount to rigging the nominating contests; the reality is that Trump has significantly tilted the race to his advantage.Still, even if the backroom dealing by Trump was initially part of a failsafe effort to cover for deficiencies – for instance, in Iowa – rivals like DeSantis have slipped in the polls there, meaning Trump might be in a stronger position that even his campaign has anticipated. More

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      Donald Trump Is Connecting With a Different Type of Evangelical Voter

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      They are not just the churchgoing, conservative activists who once dominated the G.O.P.Karen Johnson went to her Lutheran church so regularly as a child that she won a perfect attendance award. As an adult, she taught Sunday school. But these days, Ms. Johnson, a 67-year-old counter attendant at a slot-machine parlor, no longer goes to church.She still identifies as an evangelical Christian, but she doesn’t believe going to church is necessary to commune with God. “I have my own little thing with the Lord,” she says.Ms. Johnson’s thing includes frequent prayer, she said, as well as podcasts and YouTube channels that discuss politics and “what’s going on in the world” from a right-wing, and sometimes Christian, worldview. No one plays a more central role in her perspective than Donald J. Trump, the man she believes can defeat the Democrats who, she is certain, are destroying the country and bound for hell.“Trump is our David and our Goliath,” Ms. Johnson said recently as she waited outside a hotel in eastern Iowa to hear the former president speak.Karen Johnson went to church regularly as a child and taught Sunday school as an adult, but, despite identifying as an evangelical Christian, she does not attend church anymore.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesWhite evangelical Christian voters have lined up behind Republican candidates for decades, driving conservative cultural issues into the heart of the party’s politics and making nominees and presidents of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.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 avoids mention of US Capitol attack on 6 January anniversary

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      Donald Trump largely ducked speaking about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol during a campaign speech Saturday, which he delivered on the third anniversary of the insurrection, reflecting the degree to which Republican voters have absolved the former president of responsibility for that day’s deadly consequences.Trump’s remarks came a day after Joe Biden appeared in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, and spoke about how his presidential predecessor had urged his supporters to “fight like hell” shortly before they staged the Capitol attack.Trump brought up January 6 only once as he addressed hundreds of supporters in the town of Newton, Iowa, nine days before that state’s Republican caucuses are scheduled to kick off the 2024 presidential campaign. He repeated previous claims that the Democrat Biden, whom he is likely to face in a general election rematch in November, is the true threat to democracy.“You know this guy [Biden] goes around and says I’m a threat to democracy,” Trump said. “No, he’s a threat because he’s incompetent. He’s a threat to democracy.”“Nobody thought J6 was even a possibility,” Trump said later, without elaborating.Trump also attacked the former Republican representative Liz Cheney, who has been sharply critical of Trump since the January 6 attack, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol as legislators were certifying Biden’s 2020 election victory.On the other hand, Biden has repeatedly called Trump a threat to democracy on the trail, and that messaging has emerged as a central theme of his campaign so far.“We saw with our own eyes the violent mob storm the United States Capitol,” Biden said Friday. Referring to Trump, Biden continued: “He told the crowd to ‘fight like hell,’ and all hell was unleashed. He promised he would right them. Everything they did, he would be side by side with them. Then, as usual, he left the dirty work to others. He retreated to the White House.”Biden’s remarks were a clear attempt to balance out the approach at recent campaign events in Iowa by Trump’s – and those backing other Republican presidential hopefuls – who have downplayed the significance of January 6. Many of them have also embraced conspiracy theories regarding the events of that day.Trump himself has suggested during previous campaign stops that undercover FBI agents played a significant role in instigating the attack, an account not supported by official investigations.More than 1,200 people have been charged with taking part in the riot, and more than 900 have either pleaded guilty or been convicted following a trial.Nine deaths have been linked to the attack, including law enforcement suicides.Yet on Saturday, Hale Wilson, a Trump supporter from Des Moines who was at the Newton event, said of the attack: “It wasn’t really an insurrection. There were bad actors involved that got the crowd going.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump has been in Iowa to curry support before the state’s Republican caucus on 15 January, which is the first contest of the Republican presidential nominating contest. He currently leads all competitors by more than 30 percentage points in the state, according to most polls.Polls have also shown that a rematch with Biden later this year could be close and competitive despite 91 criminal charges pending against Trump, who was twice impeached during his time in the Oval Office.The criminal charges against Trump are for trying to subvert his defeat to Biden in the 2020 race, illegally retaining government secrets after he left the White House and giving hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who has reported having a sexual encounter with the former president during an earlier time in his marriage to Melania Trump.Trump additionally has grappled with civil litigation over his business practices and a rape allegation which a judge deemed to be “substantially true”.Biden on Friday said Trump’s January 6 denial betrayed an attempt “to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election”.“There’s no confusion about who Trump is or what he intends to do,” Biden remarked.
      Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting More