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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

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      ‘It’s a live audition’: Trump surrogates swarm Iowa before caucuses

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      Outside, traders were braving the bitter cold to sell Trump hats, T-shirts and other merchandise. Inside, hundreds of Trump supporters were proudly sporting “Make America great again” (Maga) regalia. They were surrounded by big screens, loudspeakers, TV cameras, patriotic flags and “Team Trump” logos.It had all the trappings of a Donald Trump campaign rally but one thing was missing: Donald Trump.The former US president was content to let South Dakota’s governor, Kristi Noem, speak on his behalf at the convention centre in Sioux City, Iowa, on Wednesday night. “We would never have the situation going on like we see in the Middle East right now,” Noem said. “If he had been in the White House, we would never see what was going on with Russia and Ukraine.”It was not the first time that Trump has delegated his campaign to a proxy ahead of the Iowa caucuses on 15 January, the first of the state-by-state contests in which Republicans choose a presidential nominee to take on Democrat Joe Biden in November’s election.While rivals Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have crisscrossed Iowa in search of votes, the frontrunner has been content to stay at home and let allies do much of the legwork for him. For these campaign surrogates, it is a very public opportunity to stake their claim to a job in a future Trump cabinet – or even as his vice-president.This week’s lineup included Ben Carson, a former housing secretary seeking to rally Iowa’s Christian evangelical voters; Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right firebrand and prominent ally of Trump in Congress; and Eric Trump, a son of the former president who followed him into business.On Monday two “Team Trump Iowa Faith Events” will feature ex-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now governor of Arkansas, and her father, Mike Huckabee, a former governor of the same state.Other prominent proxies include Florida congressmen Byron Donalds and Matt Gaetz; Kari Lake, a former candidate for Arizona governor who has roots in Iowa; Iowa’s attorney general, Brenna Bird, whose endorsement of Trump put her at odds with the state’s governor, Kim Reynolds, a backer of DeSantis; and actor Roseanne Barr, who five years ago was fired from her sitcom, Roseanne, after posting a racist tweet.For the Trump campaign, these events are useful to scoop up personal information that allows for follow-up calls and texts to remind supporters to show up at the caucuses. For the surrogates, they represent a chance to enhance political careers or boost their profile in the “Maga universe”, which might lead to work as a host or pundit in rightwing media.Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “It’s a live audition, using the campaign trail as a substitute for the boardroom set that he had on The Apprentice. All of these people are jockeying and trying to curry favour with Trump so that they are considered to be on the shortlist for some of the high-visibility positions that might become available if he were to win.”Since 2016, Trump campaigns have also been a family affair. His eldest son, Don Jr, attended the first Republican primary debate in Milwaukee along his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, but they were denied access to the official “spin room” so talked to reporters on the sidelines. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, a former senior adviser at the White House, is sitting this one out.Eric Trump, who turns 40 on Saturday , has long been mocked by comedians and satirists as the poor relation but seems to be working doubly hard to impress his dad. He told an audience in Ankeny, Iowa, on Thursday: “The greatest fighter in the world is my father. In fact, it’s kind of sometimes what he’s actually criticised for.”Bardella, a former senior adviser for Republicans on the House oversight committee, added: “It’s ‘I’m trying to win your approval’, whether it’s politically in terms of someone like Kristi Noem particularly or the lifelong pursuit of Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr to live up to the last name, to the outsized shadow that their father cast over their lives.”Such ostentatious displays of fealty could prove valuable to Trump in a year in which he faces the distraction of four criminal cases that threaten to strand him in a courtroom instead of the campaign trail. He is expected to appear at a federal appeals court hearing next week regarding the scope of his presidential immunity while in office.He must also choose a running mate. It is safe to assume that it will not be Mike Pence, his former vice-president, who alienated Trump by certifying the 2020 election results and ran an abortive campaign against him last year. Potential contenders include Haley, Lake and Noem as well as Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, entrepreneur and 2024 candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNoem’s event on Wednesday was far bigger than two DeSantis events in western Iowa on Wednesday, one of which was right down the road. Asked by CBS News what she would do if offered the vice-presidential slot, the South Dakota governor said: “I think anybody in this country, if they were offered it, needs to consider it.”Rick Wilson, a cofounder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, commented: “Noem is auditioning for vice-president, absolutely, which is why I think you’ll also see Elise Stefanik out there in the next couple of weeks also, because she is definitely trying to be vice-president. She’s not being shy about it at all; she’s telling people: ‘I want this gig.’”Wilson added: “Trump responds to people who are not just loyal. It’s subservience and a willingness to do whatever Trump wants you to do and so they’re checking a box. This is probably the minimum they can do to stay in his good graces. We’ll see more ‘respectable’ Republicans in the coming months also out there checking the box.”The former president’s absence from the campaign trail also reflects his dominance. Last month a Fox News poll put him at 52% among likely Republican caucus goers in Iowa, far ahead of DeSantis, at 18%, and Haley, at 16%. DeSantis has visited all 99 counties in the state but has made little headway.Trump is scheduled to host eight events in person before the caucuses, a small number compared with other candidates. He will skip a Republican primary debate hosted by CNN in Des Moines on Wednesday in favour of a town hall hosted by Fox News in the same city at the same time. He will hold his final rally in Cherokee on the eve of the caucuses and remain in the state on caucus night.His opponents have struggled to attract surrogates with star power. Haley’s backers include Will Hurd, a former congressman who dropped out of the race, and Chris Sununu, an ex-governor of New Hampshire, which holds the second nominating contest later this month. DeSantis has the support of Reynolds and Bob Vander Plaats, an influential Republican operative in Iowa and the chief executive of the Family Leader, a social conservative organisation.None is able to fire up the Republican base like Trump allies such as Greene, who was greeted by cheers in Keokuk, Iowa, on Thursday and proudly declared: “I’m a Maga extremist.”Sam Nunberg, a DeSantis supporter who was an adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, acknowledged her influence: “Marjorie Taylor Greene, whatever the majority of Americans think of her, is very strong within the Republican primary so she’s a good surrogate to have, specifically for the people that [Trump] needs.“The strongest, most enthusiastic voters … would like the message of a Marjorie Taylor Greene and are on the same page as him, particularly about the 2020 election and issues with Biden. But in general a surrogate operation can only do so much. I’m not saying that he’s going to lose the caucus; I hope he does.” More

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      Trump Takes Aim at Haley as Primary Enters Final Phase in Iowa

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      Nearly a week before the state’s caucuses, a frenzy of campaigning belies a seemingly static G.O.P. race, with former President Donald J. Trump the prohibitive front-runner.Donald J. Trump’s escalating attacks on Nikki Haley both on the airwaves and at his rallies — criticisms she likened Saturday to “a temper tantrum” — captured the turbulent dynamics in the final week before the first votes of the 2024 Republican presidential primary are cast.Mr. Trump, Ms. Haley and Ron DeSantis fanned out across Iowa this weekend to make their case before the state’s caucuses on Jan. 15 in a frenetic burst of activity as voters endured an unending barrage of mailers, TV ads and door knockers.But the late gust of campaigning belies a Republican race that has remained stubbornly static for months despite unfolding under the most extraordinary of circumstances. Mr. Trump remains the party’s prohibitive front-runner, even as he stares down legal jeopardy in the form of 91 felony counts spread across four criminal cases.For months, the date of the Iowa caucuses has been circled on Republican calendars as the first and one of the best opportunities for those hoping to slow Mr. Trump’s march toward a rematch with President Biden. Iowa Republicans, after all, were some of the few voters in the party to reject Mr. Trump in the 2016 primary.But the former president’s two top rivals — Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, and Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor — continue to thrash each other as much as Mr. Trump, though both are badly trailing him in most polls.Nikki Haley, left, the former governor of South Carolina, and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, have attacked each other as much as they have Mr. Trump, even though most polling shows him leading them both by wide margins.Brian Snyder/ReutersThe leading pro-Haley super PAC has spent more than $13 million attacking Mr. DeSantis in Iowa since December, including one recent mailer that features Mr. Trump’s distinctive blond hair photoshopped onto Mr. DeSantis, calling the governor “unoriginal” and “too lame to lead.” A pro-DeSantis super PAC, meanwhile, has funded more than $8 million worth of attacks in Iowa on Ms. Haley since November, with ads calling her “Tricky Nikki Haley” and condemning her positions on China and transgender rights.“It’s literally a circular firing squad for second place,” said Terry Sullivan, a Republican strategist who managed Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign. “Trump is the de facto incumbent nominee of the party, and if you want to beat an incumbent, you have to give a fireable offense. Their effort has been abysmal at delivering a fireable offense.”On the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol on Saturday, Mr. Trump indulged in the same lies about the results of the last election that were at the center of the violent uprising, and described those imprisoned for their roles in the attack as “J6 hostages.” But his leading G.O.P. rivals, ever wary of crossing a Trump-aligned party base even as the election nears, left the anniversary mostly unremarked upon. And it was Mr. Biden who on Friday used the occasion to pitch Mr. Trump as unfit for the presidency.Chris McAnich, who was at Mr. Trump’s event in Newton, Iowa, on Saturday wearing his white “Trump Caucus Captain” hat, said he had specifically attended because of the Jan. 6 date.“He did not incite a riot, and that’s kind of why I’m here, on Jan. 6, to say I’m with Trump and stick a thumb in their eye,” Mr. McAnich said.A Trump rally in Clinton, Iowa, on Saturday, the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Mr. Trump has described those imprisoned for their roles in the attack as “J6 hostages.”Tannen Maury/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA confident Mr. Trump continued to throw punches at a range of Republicans, including the late Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war whom Mr. Trump infamously mocked in 2015 when he said, “I like people who weren’t captured.” In Newton on Saturday, Mr. Trump brought up Mr. McCain’s vote against repealing the health care law known as Obamacare.“John McCain for some reason couldn’t get his arm up that day,” Mr. Trump said, mimicking Mr. McCain’s thumbs-down gesture. Mr. McCain had sustained injuries during his imprisonment that limited his arm mobility.Entering 2024, Ms. Haley appeared to be gaining momentum, consolidating support among more moderate Republicans. She announced this week that she had hauled in $24 million in the fourth quarter, a major infusion of cash at a critical juncture. The political network founded by the industrialist Koch brothers said it was plunging another $27 million into aiding Ms. Haley, including the first spending in Super Tuesday states.But she has made some verbal stumbles in recent days as a brighter spotlight shines on her. She suggested that New Hampshire would “correct” Iowa’s vote and that “you change personalities” as the calendar turns to the second voting state, miscues that Mr. DeSantis’s operation hopes he can capitalize on as the battle for second place has raged in Iowa. The DeSantis campaign was texting the quotes to Iowans over the weekend.Mr. Trump slashed at Ms. Haley, much as he has Mr. DeSantis, for daring to run against him after she said she would not. “Nikki would sell you out just like she sold me out,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday. The day before, he accused her of being “in the pocket” of “establishment donors,” and of being a “globalist.”“She likes the globe,” Mr. Trump said. “I like America first.”Mr. Trump’s pivot to Ms. Haley after months of unrelenting attacks on Mr. DeSantis signaled a new phase in the race. Ms. Haley is threatening not only to eclipse Mr. DeSantis for second place in Iowa but also to compete with Mr. Trump in New Hampshire, where independent voters are giving her a lift in a state with an open primary.Since mid-December, Mr. Trump’s super PAC has spent more than $5 million hitting Ms. Haley in New Hampshire — after spending nothing, federal records show. Mr. Trump’s campaign is now on the airwaves there, too.“Isn’t that sweet of him spending so much time and money against me?” Ms. Haley said on Fox News on Friday after she was shown a Trump ad attacking her on immigration.Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who has endorsed Ms. Haley and campaigned with her in Iowa this week, said in an interview that Mr. Trump was “scared.”“He’s seeing exactly what we’re seeing,” Mr. Sununu said. “She’s moving. He’s not. She has momentum. He doesn’t. She’s getting people excited. He’s yesterday’s news.”Ms. Haley campaigning in Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday. She is threatening not only to eclipse Mr. DeSantis for second place in the state but also to compete with Mr. Trump in New Hampshire.Rachel Mummey/ReutersMr. Trump’s team is hoping that a string of early and decisive victories, starting in Iowa and then in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, will help make him the presumptive nominee by March, when most of the delegates he needs to secure the nomination are up for grabs. The former president has reliably led in national polling by landslide margins for many months. The indictments at the center of Mr. Trump’s legal vulnerability have so far served only to strengthened him politically, with Republicans consistently rallying to his defense.Mr. Trump’s advisers have said that, in some ways, they are battling complacency as much as they are his rivals, with surveys showing him so far ahead. “Don’t go by the polls,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday, urging Iowa Republicans to turn out despite his lead to send a “thundering message” that will resonate through November.“It is effectively over,” said David Bossie, a Republican National Committee member who oversaw the debates process for the party and was a Trump campaign adviser. “It’s been effectively over since the beginning. This has never been a real race.”Still, millions of dollars are being plunged into the race by all sides. Mr. Trump’s super PAC recently produced a mailer in New Hampshire that counterintuitively links Ms. Haley to Mr. Trump. The mailer calls her “a BIG supporter of Trump’s MAGA Agenda.” It then tries to attack former Gov. Chris Christie as “an anti-Trump Republican.”The twist, according to a person working for the super PAC, is that the mailer went exclusively to independent voters in New Hampshire who have voted in Democratic primaries. The idea is that tying Ms. Haley to Mr. Trump will lure those independents to Mr. Christie, which could help the former president stay ahead of Ms. Haley.It’s just one example of the flurry of tactical maneuvers and advertisements that is now so omnipresent in the early states that one pro-DeSantis ad played on television screens in an Iowa venue on Saturday while Ms. Haley was speaking.Mr. Trump’s decision to bypass all the debates so far has left his rivals to fight among themselves. On Wednesday, Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis are set for their first one-on-one debate, on CNN. Mr. Trump has scheduled an overlapping town hall on Fox News.Ms. Haley, who has made the case that a Trump nomination will bring too much “chaos,” tried to goad the former president onto the debate stage at a town hall in Indianola, Iowa, urging him to “stop acting like Biden” and stop hiding.Mr. DeSantis, who has struggled for months to find an effective message that draws a contrast with Mr. Trump, may have landed on one in the waning days: “Donald Trump is running for his issues. Nikki Haley is running for her donors’ issues. I’m running for your issues.”The Iowa caucuses are quirky. There are no traditional polling places that are open all day. Instead, on a Monday evening of a holiday weekend, more than 1,500 precincts will open in the evening for in-person gatherings that can include speeches and lobbying among neighbors. Temperatures are projected to be in the single digits.The exercise can advantage the most organized campaigns, and Mr. DeSantis is banking that his super PAC’s much-discussed door-knocking operation will pay late dividends.“It’s never in our business inevitable,” said Beth Hansen, who managed former Gov. John Kasich’s 2016 Republican run for president. “But we don’t know what it is that is going to change this paradigm. And I don’t think it exists inside the current set of arrows the candidates are using in the quiver.”Kellen Browning More