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      Casey DeSantis Makes Solo Appearance in Iowa, Connecting With Moms and Promoting ‘Parents’ Rights’

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      Gov. Ron DeSantis’s wife, Casey DeSantis, held her first solo campaign event in Iowa, connecting with fellow moms and casting her husband as a champion of the “parents’ rights” movement. She was there to woo the conservative moms of Iowa. So Casey DeSantis, the wife of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, wasted no time in talking about her three young children — and how badly she wanted to leave them home.“It’s funny, somebody outside by the snowball machine was asking, ‘Did you bring your kids with you?’” she said, sitting on a small stage on Thursday in suburban Des Moines for her first solo appearance in her husband’s presidential campaign. Her answer was unequivocal: “No.”The last time she had the brilliant idea of doing a campaign event with one of her small children, she told the crowd, was at an event for her husband’s re-election campaign in Florida. For most of her remarks, Madison, then 5, squirmed by her side. In the final moments, Madison tugged on her sleeve and whispered that she had to go to the bathroom, Ms. DeSantis recalled.“What you’re having, moms, is one of those out-of-body experiences. Do I need to get up? Do I need to walk her?” she said, as the audience roared. “Like, what is happening?”Widely considered to be her husband’s most important adviser, Ms. DeSantis is the “not-so-secret weapon,” the “second in command” and the “primary sounding board” of his political operation. Now, in the early weeks of his presidential campaign, she’s added yet another position to her portfolio: humanizer-in-chief.Deploying a spouse to try to soften a prickly political image is a tried-and-true tactic of presidential politics. In 2007, Michelle Obama charmed Democratic primary voters with an everywoman pitch devised to ground her husband’s unusual life story. Four years later, Ann Romney toured Iowa and New Hampshire, offering “the other side of Mitt” — a caring, empathic family man who did not fit the caricature of the heartless corporate raider drawn by his rivals. And in the final days of the 2016 campaign, Melania Trump made a rare campaign appearance in the Philadelphia suburbs to counter her husband’s coarse image with female voters.But rarely does this strategy appear quite so early in the primary campaign, a reflection both of Mr. DeSantis’s struggles to connect with voters and the central role his wife has long played in his political career.During her husband’s first congressional race, Ms. DeSantis, then a local news reporter, crisscrossed neighborhoods in their northeastern Florida district on an electric scooter, knocking on doors and making his case. Years later, when he ran for governor, she narrated his most attention-grabbing campaign ad, a 2018 spot in which he encouraged their then-toddler to “build the wall” with large cardboard blocks. Her role expanded along with his: After he won, she secured a prime office in the governor’s Capitol suite, participated in personnel interviews as he hired staff for his new administration and shared the podium at hurricane briefings — some of the most high-profile gubernatorial appearances in storm-prone Florida.In recent weeks, she has joined her husband in embracing the quirky traditions of the early-state primary circuit, praising Iowa’s gas-station pizza and making headlines for sporting a black leather jacket emblazoned with an unofficial campaign slogan “Where Woke Goes to Die” at an annual motorcycle-themed Republican fund-raiser in Des Moines.Her high-profile role has created a war of conflicting spin, as supporters and detractors offer their assessment of the couple’s professional partnership. She’s his greatest asset. Or, depending on who’s opining, maybe his greatest liability. She’s the antidote to his much-documented struggles to connect. Or a virus infecting his insular campaign, encouraging her husband’s distrust of those outside his tight-knit political orbit.Yet for Mr. DeSantis, the hope is simply that his wife can offer a way to secure the holy grail of presidential campaigns: relatability.That message wasn’t subtle on Thursday in Johnston, Iowa, where Ms. DeSantis appeared alongside the state’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, for a question-and-answer session. “How in the world do you do it?” gushed the governor, herself a mother of three daughters and a grandmother to 11 grandchildren.“It’s a little bit of organized chaos. I’m not going to lie,” said Ms. DeSantis, before launching into a series of stories about her three young children — Madison, Mason and Mamie — and their adventures in the governor’s mansion.Then, it was down to business. Ms. DeSantis had come to officially roll out “Mamas for DeSantis,” a national version of the statewide group she started during her husband’s re-election bid in 2022. In her remarks, Ms. DeSantis attempted to position him as an avatar for the conservative anger at school administrators and school boards that exploded during the pandemic.Much of her remarks were focused on a loose social agenda often described as “parents’ rights,” a hodgepodge of a movement that includes efforts to limit how race and L.G.B.T.Q. issues are taught, attacks on transgender rights, support for publicly funded private school vouchers and opposition to vaccine mandates.“I care about protecting the innocence of my children and your children,” she told the audience on Thursday. “As long as I have breath in my body I will go out and I will fight for Ron DeSantis, not because he’s my husband — that is a part of it — but because I believe in him with every ounce of my being.”It was a message that resonated with some in the audience, which included many who were affiliated with Moms for Liberty, a group that’s emerged as a conservative powerhouse on social issues. Mr. DeSantis, said Elicha Brancheau, a member of Moms for Liberty, has been a strong champion for parents’ rights, and she said she was impressed by his wife’s commitment to the issue.“I like her a lot. She’s so smart, well-spoken,” said Ms. Brancheau, who met Ms. DeSantis before the event. “I love the dynamic of their family.”Not everyone was as convinced.Malina Cottington, a mother of five who started home-schooling her children after the pandemic, said she was seeking a candidate who would take the strongest position on preserving what she described as parental rights. She was impressed by Mr. DeSantis but liked the bolder plan of one of his Republican rivals, Vivek Ramaswamy, the multimillionaire entrepreneur and author who has pledged to abolish the Department of Education.“I think we need something that drastic,” said Ms. Cottington, 42, who lives in suburban Des Moines. “We just want to be able to make sure we can raise our kids the way we want to raise them.” More

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      The D.N.C. Has a Primary Problem

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      Last December, the 30-odd members of the Democratic Party’s rules and bylaws committee filed in to the Omni Shoreham, the glittering resort hotel that once hosted Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inaugural ball. All of the Democrats, many of them gray-haired habitués of the rubber-chicken circuit, knew they had come to Washington to hash out, after months of debate, what the presidential-primary calendar would look like come 2024. Listen to This ArticleFor more audio journalism and storytelling, More

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      Stumping on July 4, Trump’s Rivals Pitch Themselves to Early-State Voters

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      Donald J. Trump loomed large over the campaign trail, even though he was among the few G.O.P. contenders who stayed away from it.At a high school cafeteria in Merrimack, N.H., on Tuesday, where patriotic music blasted from the speakers and the lunch tables were decked in star-spangled napery, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota mingled with families who were digging into eggs, sausage and pancakes at a Fourth of July breakfast hosted by the local Rotary Club.Nelson Disco, 88, one of the prospective voters in the small crowd, had a couple of questions for him. What was he running for? And with which party?“You’ve got some competition,” Mr. Disco exclaimed, as the North Dakota governor told him he was seeking the Republican nomination for president.But Mr. Burgum was undeterred: “Feeling great” about the race, he said.It was the final Fourth of July before New Hampshire’s first-in-the nation Republican primary, set for February, and the famed kingmaking caucuses in Iowa — plenty of time to make up ground, but it was clear for the darkest of dark horses who were burning shoe leather on Tuesday that there was a lot of ground to make up.Some better-known competitors were in New Hampshire too. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is in a distant second place in the Republican primary polls to former President Donald J. Trump, walked in two parades, including one that also drew Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is still well back in the pack. The weather was less than agreeable: Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Scott and others walking in the afternoon parade in Merrimack, N.H., were soaked when a rainstorm swept through.Independence Day campaigning is a tradition in New Hampshire and Iowa, as old as the caucuses and the primary in those states. That would be more than a century of front-runners and also-rans at the parades, picnics and pancake breakfasts of the Granite State. This year, however, there was a twist: The prohibitive front-runner, Mr. Trump, skipped the hustings, staying home with his family and firing off vulgar social media posts.Yet the minions of his campaign and his own bulky shadow still hung heavily over his competition.Former Vice President Mike Pence greeted spectators at an Independence Day parade in Urbandale, Iowa.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesIn Urbandale, Iowa, where Mr. Trump’s former vice president and current competitor, Mike Pence, was marching in the parade, spectators broke into a chant — “Trump, Trump, Trump” — as he passed by.Melody Krejci, 60, of Urbandale, said: “My whole family is Trump supporters, even down to our grandbabies. They also wear Trump clothing and Trump hats.” There are posters of Trump in their rooms, too, she said.She added, “I think Pence is a coward,” alluding to the erroneous belief, still pushed by Mr. Trump, that his vice president could have rejected enough electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, to send the 2020 election back to the states, and possibly overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.In the old days — before super PACs flooded the airwaves, social media brought politicians’ messages directly to voters’ smartphones and partisans were glued to their favored cable news shows — showing up on the Fourth of July really mattered.“Retail has always been mostly theater, but now it’s all a performance for the cameras, not about meeting regular people and listening to their concerns,” said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee.This year, Mr. Trump’s rivals hoped it still did matter. In Merrimack, N.H., volunteers and supporters backing Mr. DeSantis waited to walk with their candidate in the Fourth of the July parade there, standing near a dance troupe in hot pink shirts, a wooden float filled with members of the Bektash Shrine Clowns and a yellow school bus decorated as the boat from the Boston Tea Party.But it was another Republican presidential hopeful, Mr. Scott, who caused a stir first, showing up on the parade route trailed by a passel of photographers and television cameras.“Hopefully some of those voters will become our voters,” Mr. Scott told reporters when asked his thoughts on the people in DeSantis and Trump gear who were coming up to shake his hand. “But at the end of the day, we thank God that we have folks that are committed to the country, committed to the concept that the conservative values always work.”Outside a pancake breakfast in Merrimack, N.H., former Representative Will Hurd of Texas and his wife, Lynlie Wallace, mixed with runners at a road race.Mr. Hurd, a moderate Republican and a fierce critic of Mr. Trump’s who is trying to get his fledgling presidential campaign out of the starting gate, said he had just finished touring the northern border near Vermont, which he said faces problems similar to those at the southern border in his home state: low resources and increased drug trafficking. Those were the sorts of issues he wanted to tackle, he said. But for now, he added, he was just happy to simply be out shaking hands.“Today is about meeting people, right?” Mr. Hurd said. “Not everybody is doom scrolling on social media or consuming cable news.”And Trump? “I’m sure people are thankful he’s not out,” he said. “He comes with a lot of baggage.”If there were glimmers of hope for the dark horses, it came from voter acknowledgment of that baggage, which now includes felony charges in New York connected to the payment of hush money to a porn star and federal felony charges in Miami accusing him of misusing highly classified documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them.Senator Tim Scott joked with a Trump supporter before walking in the July Fourth parade in Merrimack, N.H., on Tuesday.Reba Saldanha/Associated Press PhotoIn Iowa, Jim Miller, 73, was sitting along the Urbandale parade route with his wife and other family members. He said he had voted for Mr. Trump twice but had been disappointed in his attitude. He wants a candidate who puts being American ahead of being a Republican or a Democrat.Asked to compare Mr. Pence with Mr. Trump, Mr. Miller said: “Not even close. I’d take Pence any day.”As for Mr. Burgum, he expressed an understanding of just how steep his climb would be to even get into contention for his party’s presidential nomination. The name recognition challenge is “familiar,” he said. But he also noted that people had underestimated him when he left a lifelong career in the private sector to run for governor in 2016.He won that race by 20 percentage points, and he has not been seriously challenged in North Dakota since.Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota in Iowa last month. Mr. Burgum was among a number of Republican presidential hopefuls who spent the July Fourth holiday in New Hampshire.Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressNot everyone was in the dark on his campaign. A volunteer, Maureen Tracey, 55, rushed up from the back of the room to ask for a selfie with him. She said she liked Mr. Burgum because, like Mr. Trump, he seemed “different from a politician.” But unlike Mr. Trump, she added, Mr. Burgum seemed to be someone she could trust.Mr. Trump “has hurt too many people, and when you hurt so many people, there is no trust,” Ms. Tracey said.Mr. Burgum, contrasting himself with the highest-profile Republican in the race, Mr. Trump, without mentioning him, said that he had decided to run because the country needed a leader who would work for every American, regardless of political affiliation.“Republicans, Independents, Democrats — they all drive on the U.S. roads, they all go to U.S. schools, they all get health care in America,” he said. “Today’s the day to really reflect on that.”Ann Hinga Klein More

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      Trump Won’t Campaign at a July 4 Parade, but Other Republican Hopefuls Will

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      But for early-state G.O.P. voters hoping for more attention on Independence Day, the pickings will be plentiful: Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis and others will be on the trail.It’s the final Fourth of July before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary — still more than six months away, yes. But all the same, the Republicans vying for their party’s presidential nomination will be on the trail, waving to supporters from parades, shaking hands with voters and taking selfies.But not the front-runner: Donald J. Trump will be conspicuously absent on the 247th anniversary of the nation’s independence.Mike Pence is headed to Iowa, while Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida will do double duty with two parades in New Hampshire, the state that is also drawing Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, a dark-horse candidate, among others.The former president has upended the traditional expectations of Iowa and New Hampshire voters. For decades they have prided themselves on their discernment of presidential candidates and have demanded to get to know them personally before casting the first ballots in the nation.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign, objected to the notion that the former president is avoiding retail politics over the Fourth of July holiday, pointing to Mr. Trump’s rally in South Carolina on Saturday, which, he said, counted as Independence Day weekend. Mr. Trump also appeared at the Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia on Friday, and he even dropped by Pat’s King of Steaks, a cheese steak palace that has been a mainstay for politicians in Philly for decades.And this Friday the former president will be in Council Bluffs, Iowa.But on the actual anniversary of the nation’s birth?“His campaign will have an overwhelming presence in various parades and patriotic events in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, engaging with voters and Americans who are sick of Joe Biden’s failed leadership,” Mr. Cheung said.But Mr. Trump himself will be spending the day with his family, Mr. Cheung said.“I’m sure people are thankful he’s not out,” former Representative Will Hurd of Texas, a recent entrant in the Republican primary race, quipped outside a pancake breakfast in Merrimack, N.H. “He comes with a lot of baggage.”Former President Donald J. Trump during a rally on Saturday in Pickens, S.C.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFor early-state Republican voters hoping for more personal attention on the Fourth, the pickings will be plentiful — just not Mr. Trump. Mr. Pence, the former vice president, will walk the parade route in Urbandale, Iowa, then meet voters 35 miles north in Boone, Iowa, on Tuesday.Both Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Scott will be at the July 4 parade in Merrimack, as will several other Republican presidential hopefuls: Mr. Burgum, Mr. Hurd, the entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy, and Perry Johnson, a Michigan businessman. Marianne Williamson, a long-shot challenger of President Biden for the Democratic nomination, will be there too, as well as at an earlier parade in Wolfeboro — where Mr. DeSantis will also be.Mr. Biden will be using a bit of presidential prerogative to host active-duty military families for barbecue at the White House. He will also have military and veteran families, caregivers and survivors on the White House lawn for Washington’s traditional fireworks — but not before some politicking at an event with the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association.Mr. Trump’s campaign evinces no concern that his absence from the stage will give his rivals any room to make up ground in the Republican primaries. After queries about his July 4 plans, his team released a memo Monday afternoon highlighting his campaign’s plans to celebrate the holiday in Iowa and New Hampshire — and calling out his dominant position in Republican primary polling.Republican veterans don’t see much of an opening for Mr. Trump’s rivals either.“He definitely plays by a different set of rules,” said David Kochel, a longtime Republican adviser and strategist in Iowa. Mr. Trump has made some recent adjustments with unscheduled stops at restaurants like Pat’s and, after his arraignment on the first federal felony charges ever levied on a former president, at Versailles, Miami’s beloved Cuban restaurant. He will be appearing with virtually the entire G.O.P. field at the Republican Party of Iowa’s biggest fund-raiser, the Lincoln Dinner, on July 28.“But,” Mr. Kochel said, “his celebrity and the fact that he was president gives him more flexibility.”The retail politics tradition in Iowa and New Hampshire may well be overrated, an artifact of a time before super PACs saturated airwaves, social media reached voters’ phones and celebrity pervaded the zeitgeist, regardless of who was in the diners and pizza joints.“Retail has always been mostly theater, but now it’s all a performance for the cameras, not about meeting regular people and listening to their concerns,” said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee.Mr. Burgum got a taste of the hill he has to climb on Tuesday when Nelson Disco, 88, a retired engineer, asked him at a pancake breakfast in Merrimack, N.H., what he was running for and which party he was registered with.“You’ve got some competition,” Mr. Disco exclaimed, as the North Dakota governor told him he was running for president.For someone like Mr. DeSantis, who joined the primary campaign relatively late, appearances like his two July 4 parades do demonstrate that he is putting in the effort and taking New Hampshire seriously, said Mr. Cullen, who is now a Republican consultant in the state.As for the former president, “Can you imagine Trump walking in the Wolfeboro Fourth of July parade?” he asked. “I don’t think so.”Limiting Mr. Trump’s public appearances and emphasizing large rallies over glad-handing with a few dozen supporters may help to preserve the former president’s celebrity and mystique among his faithful while projecting confidence. And Republican primary voters already know how they feel about the former president. His fate in the primary contest may depend more on external factors — like his indictments in two cases and the trials that may ensue, as well as other inquiries he is facing — than on his power of persuasion at an Iowa Pizza Ranch.Mr. Cheung insisted, even as he outlined a relatively sparse schedule for Mr. Trump,“It would be incorrect to write that he will be sparing retail politics and limiting public appearances.” But the rest of the Republican field, with weaker field operations and later starts, do not have that luxury, said Dave Carney, another New Hampshire Republican consultant and veteran organizer.For those laboring to break out of the pack, Mr. Trump’s absence on July 4 presented a moment to introduce themselves to at least a few voters in person.“Today is about meeting people, right?” Mr. Hurd said. “Not everybody is doom scrolling on social media or consuming cable news.” More

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      The Run-Up Goes to Iowa

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      Listen and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicFor the past few months, The Run-Up has been reporting on political insiders and the work they’ve quietly been doing to shape the 2024 presidential election.What we’ve found is a group of people — Republicans and Democrats — all operating under the premise that this race will revolve around former President Donald Trump. That his nomination — and thus a rematch between Trump and President Biden — is almost inevitable.But if anything is going to blow up that assumption, it’s probably going to start in Iowa.As the first state in the Republican primary process, Iowa plays a key role in narrowing the field. If Trump wins there, it may effectively mean that he has secured the nomination.However, there’s a group of voters that holds disproportionate power in the state and in American culture more broadly. These voters were once part of Trump’s coalition — and they are now wavering.If they go another way, the whole race could open up.In our final episode of the season, The Run-Up goes to Iowa and inside the evangelical church. We speak with Bob Vander Plaats, an evangelical activist with a history of picking Iowa’s winners. And we go to Eternity Church, where Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida recently spoke, and talk to Jesse Newman, the pastor, and other members of the congregation.Photo Illustration by The New York Times. Photo by Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesAbout ‘The Run-Up’First launched in August 2016, three months before the election of Donald Trump, “The Run-Up” is The New York Times’s flagship political podcast. The host, Astead W. Herndon, grapples with the big ideas already animating the 2024 presidential election. Because it’s always about more than who wins and loses. And the next election has already started.Last season, “The Run-Up” focused on grass-roots voters and shifting attitudes among the bases of both political parties. This season, we go inside the party establishment.New episodes on Thursdays.Credits“The Run-Up” is hosted by More

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      5 Takeaways From Mike Pence’s CNN Town Hall

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      Donald Trump’s former vice president sought to draw a contrast with his old boss while also embracing the actions of their administration.Former Vice President Mike Pence capped his first full day as a formally declared presidential candidate with a CNN town hall on Wednesday night in Iowa, casting himself as an experienced, traditional conservative.But his challenges in a Republican primary field dominated by former President Donald J. Trump were evident throughout the roughly 90-minute event.Mr. Pence sought at once to align himself with Trump administration actions that were cheered by many Republicans, while drawing both explicit and oblique contrasts with Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the nomination. It is a difficult balancing act for any Republican candidate, but especially for Mr. Trump’s former vice president, who has so far gained little traction in the polls.He also sought to emerge as the leading social conservative in the race, quoting Scripture and emphasizing his opposition to abortion and transgender rights.“I’d put my arm around them and their parents, but before they had a chemical or surgical procedure I would say, ‘Wait, just wait,’” Mr. Pence said, when asked about his opposition to gender-transition care for young people even when their parents consent.Here are five takeaways:Trump’s legal troubles were a thorny topic.A number of the Republican 2024 hopefuls have struggled with how to distance themselves from Mr. Trump, who maintains a strong grip on a slice of the Republican base.Mr. Pence confronted that issue early in the town hall, when he was asked about the possibility of another indictment of Mr. Trump. Federal prosecutors have informed Mr. Trump’s legal team that he is a target of an investigation concerning his handling of classified documents after he left office.“It would be terribly divisive to the country,” Mr. Pence said, saying he “would hope” that an indictment would not go forward. “It would also send a terrible message to the wider world.”He added, “No one’s above the law,” when pressed on whether he thought prosecutors should not pursue an indictment even if they believed Mr. Trump had committed a crime. But he suggested that the situation involving Mr. Trump presented “unique circumstances here.”Asked whether, as president, he would pardon Mr. Trump if he was convicted of a crime, Mr. Pence instead shifted to speak lightheartedly about his chances in the race.“I’m not sure I’m going to be elected president of the United States,” he said. “But I believe we have a fighting chance. I really believe we do.”Mr. Pence has faced his own scrutiny over his retention of documents, but the Justice Department declined to pursue charges.He was firmer in criticizing Trump over Jan. 6.Hours before the town hall, Mr. Pence issued his sternest denunciations to date of Mr. Trump, lacing into him over his actions on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Pence, who had helped legitimize Mr. Trump in the eyes of some conservatives in 2016 and was long his loyal lieutenant, rebuffed Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign to seek to effectively reject now-President Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. He drew threats of “Hang Mike Pence” from some in the pro-Trump mob that attacked the Capitol that day.During the town hall, moderated by Dana Bash, Mr. Pence again made clear that he and Mr. Trump had “a difference” in their approach to the results of the 2020 election.“That hasn’t changed,” he said. “But also there are profound differences about the future of this country, the future of the Republican Party.”Asked if he would consider pardoning those who attacked the Capitol, as Mr. Trump has suggested doing, Mr. Pence said, “I have no interest or no intention of pardoning those that assaulted police officers or vandalized our Capitol. They need to be answerable to the law.”The declaration drew little audible reaction from the audience.He tied himself to key Trump administration decisions.Even as Mr. Pence highlighted areas of disagreement with Mr. Trump, he also spoke frequently about their shared time in the White House as he discussed issues as varied as immigration, abortion and the pandemic, illustrating the challenge of running on a record tied so closely to a political rival.“I couldn’t be more proud to have been vice president in an administration that appointed three of the justices that sent Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history where it belongs,” he said.At another point, he said, “I’m proud of everything that we did during our administration to come alongside families and businesses in the midst of the worst pandemic in 100 years.”He made frequent overtures to evangelical voters.Mr. Pence, the former governor of Indiana, is a man of deep faith, and his allies see an opening to connect with evangelical voters in Iowa, the leadoff caucus state that is home to many socially conservative voters.Mr. Pence spoke about his personal faith journey and sprinkled his remarks with references to the Bible. He also emphasized his opposition to abortion rights, pledging that “we will not rest or relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the country.”“If I have the great privilege to serve as president of the United States, I’ll support the cause of life at every level,” he said, even as he acknowledged that “we have a long way to go to win the hearts and minds of the American people.”Some Republican presidential candidates have been reluctant to give specifics on their positions regarding abortion policy, or have modulated how they approach it depending on the audience. Mr. Pence seemed eager to discuss the subject, but he faces stiff competition for the voters who are often most moved by the issue. White evangelical voters ultimately became one of Mr. Trump’s most crucial constituencies, and many other candidates, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, are competing hard to make inroads with those voters as well.He sounded at times like a pre-Trump Republican.Mr. Pence invoked former President Ronald Reagan, expressed qualms about spending and made the case for a muscular foreign policy that emphasized American leadership in the world.Throughout the night, he often sounded like a Republican candidate from the pre-Trump era.“It’s also disappointing to me that Donald Trump’s position on entitlement reform is identical to Joe Biden’s,” Mr. Pence said as he discussed the social safety net.He chided both Mr. Trump — and, more obliquely, Mr. DeSantis — for their postures toward Ukraine.“When Vladimir Putin rolled into Ukraine, the former president called him a genius,” Mr. Pence said. “I know the difference between a genius and a war criminal.”Swiping at Mr. DeSantis, he said at another point, “I know that some in this debate have called the war in Ukraine a territorial dispute. It’s not.” Mr. DeSantis, who did use that phrase, has since sought to clarify that description, also calling Mr. Putin a war criminal.And despite his own involvement in the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice overhaul during the Trump administration, Mr. Pence sounded tough-on-crime notes. “I frankly think we need to take a step back from the approach of the First Step Act,” he said.As the event wound down, Mr. Pence was pressed repeatedly on how he squared casting Mr. Trump as a threat to the Constitution with his promise to support the Republican nominee. Mr. Pence did not answer directly, insisting, “I don’t think Donald Trump’s going to be the nominee.” More

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      Pence Delivers Strong Rebuke to Trump in Campaign Announcement

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      The former vice president — and now rival — to Donald Trump gave his most aggressive criticism of his former boss, portraying him as unfit to be president.Former Vice President Mike Pence announced his presidential campaign in Iowa on Wednesday with a repudiation of Donald J. Trump, portraying his former boss — and now rival — as unfit for the presidency and going further than ever before in condemning the character and values of the man he loyally served for four years.Before a crowd of several hundred on the campus of the Des Moines Area Community College, Mr. Pence focused on something that many in his party have tried to desperately avoid: Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021.“Jan. 6 was a tragic day in the life of our nation,” Mr. Pence said. “But thanks to the courage of law enforcement, the violence was quelled, we reconvened the Congress. The very same day, President Trump’s reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol.”He added: “But the American people deserve to know on that fateful day, President Trump also demanded I choose between him and our Constitution. Now voters will be faced with the same choice. I chose the Constitution, and I always will.”No other major Republican candidate for president has even mentioned the attack on the Capitol in an announcement speech. Most elected Republicans have contorted themselves to avoid ever talking about that day — believing it only alienates their voters. A growing number of Republicans are going even further, trying to falsely reframe the attack on the Capitol as an inside job by the F.B.I. or by leftist groups pretending to be Trump supporters.Instead, Mr. Pence described his own actions that day in certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory as a decisive moment that proved his mettle, and Mr. Trump’s actions that day as disqualifying.“The Republican Party must be the party of the Constitution of the United States,” Mr. Pence said to applause.At his campaign announcement in Des Moines, Mr. Pence pitched himself as a candidate who would uphold the Constitution as president.Jordan Gale for The New York Times“Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” he said. “And anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president again.”Mr. Pence’s use of the word “never” took him across a line he had not breached until now, even as he has criticized Mr. Trump since Jan. 6. His announcement speech put him closer to more outspoken Republicans such as former Representative Liz Cheney, who have described Mr. Trump as morally unfit to occupy the Oval Office.With his remarks, Mr. Pence raised an immediate question for his campaign: As one of the criteria for participating in the G.O.P. primary debates, the Republican National Committee requires each candidate to sign a pledge that they will support the party’s eventual nominee.Mr. Pence has put himself in the potential position of having to support a candidate in Mr. Trump, the front-runner in the Republican Party, who he said should “never” be president.Despite that, only minutes after his speech, Mr. Pence promised in an interview with Fox News that he would support the Republican nominee for president, “especially if it’s me.”The former vice president addressed a thorny issue of his long-shot candidacy: how to account for his years of supporting a candidate whose character and positions were well known in 2016, and whose presidency was consistent with some of those expectations. In Mr. Pence’s telling, the Mr. Trump with whom he shared a ticket has, in fact, changed.Mr. Pence spoke to a crowd of several hundred on the campus of Des Moines Area Community College on Wednesday, drawing a contrast between himself and his former boss, who is their party’s current front-runner.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Pence homed in on three issues to draw an ideological contrast with Mr. Trump: abortion, fiscal conservatism and foreign policy.“When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he promised to govern as a conservative. And together we did just that,” Mr. Pence said, leaving unmentioned the inconvenient fact that the Trump-Pence administration added around $8 trillion to the national debt.“Today he makes no such promise,” he added. “After leading the most pro-life administration in American history, Donald Trump and others in this race are retreating from the cause of the unborn.”While Mr. Pence went after Mr. Trump in his speech, he used an announcement video earlier in the day to attack President Biden. “Our country’s in a lot of trouble,” Mr. Pence said in his nearly three-minute-long announcement video, accusing Mr. Biden and the “radical left” of weakening America “at home and abroad.”Citing “runaway inflation,” a looming recession, a southern border “under siege,” unchecked “enemies of freedom” in Russia, China “on the march,” and what he calls an unprecedented assault on “timeless American values,” he promised to deliver what he said the nation sorely needed.“We’re better than this,” Mr. Pence says. “We can turn this country around. But different times call for different leadership. Today our party and our country need a leader that’ll appeal, as Lincoln said, to the better angels of our nature.”In his speech, Mr. Pence went on to make clear that unlike other Republican candidates he wouldn’t be afraid to cut spending on Social Security and Medicare in order to confront the nation’s debt crisis.Then he turned to foreign policy. He said Mr. Trump had walked away from America’s traditional role on the world stage. He described the United States as “the leader of the free world” and an “arsenal of democracy.” He criticized Mr. Trump for describing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as a “genius” and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “territorial dispute.” More

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      5 Takeaways From Ron DeSantis’s First Campaign Trip

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      He swung back at Donald Trump. He vowed to vanquish the “woke mob” and turn the country into mega-Florida. He had normal encounters with voters that didn’t become memes.After his unusual, buzzy and ill-fated presidential debut on Twitter last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida carried out a far more traditional campaign tour this week, barnstorming Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to sell himself as the strongest Republican alternative to former President Donald J. Trump.Along the way, he drew sizable, enthusiastic crowds of DeSantis-curious voters. He held babies. He got testy with a reporter. He threw some punches at Mr. Trump. He warned of a “malignant ideology” being pressed by liberals and vowed to “impose our will” to stop it.Here are five takeaways.He won’t cower against Trump — but how hard he’ll counterattack is unclear.For months, Mr. DeSantis held his fire against Mr. Trump. Those days are clearly over.“Petty,” he labeled Mr. Trump’s taunts. “Juvenile.” The former president’s criticisms of him? “Bizarre” and “ridiculous.”But Mr. DeSantis made those remarks not from the stage, in front of Republican voters, but behind the scenes in comments to reporters, suggesting that he is not quite ready to attack Mr. Trump head-on. Instead, his most direct shots were saved for President Biden (“We’re going to take all that Biden nonsense and rip it out by the roots”). When it comes to Mr. Trump, the governor has said he is simply defending himself from a man with whom he avoided public disagreements for years.“Well, now he’s attacking me,” a seemingly aggrieved Mr. DeSantis said outside Des Moines.There are risks to bashing Mr. Trump. For some voters, part of Mr. DeSantis’s appeal has been his willingness to avoid warring with a fellow Republican.“DeSantis has Trump policies, without all the name-calling,” said Monica Schieb, an Iowa voter who supported Mr. Trump in 2016 but now plans to back Mr. DeSantis.Mr. DeSantis drew healthy crowds on the trip, as he did in Gilbert. He often sought to highlight his relative youthfulness at age 44, in contrast to Donald J. Trump and President Biden. Nicole Craine for The New York TimesA key message: He’s young and energetic and can serve two terms.Mr. DeSantis packed his schedule with three or four rallies per day, covering hundreds of miles in each state and addressing a total of more than 7,000 people, his campaign said.The events did not quite have the MAGA-Woodstock energy of Mr. Trump’s arena rallies, but they were lively and well-attended. Tightly orchestrated, too: There was no chowing of hoagies or cozying up to bikers at diners. Up-tempo country music and occasionally cheesy rock (“Chicken Fried” by the Zac Brown Band and “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor) preceded him onstage.The message behind the rigorous schedule?Turning the country into a mega-Florida takes a “disciplined, energetic president,” in his words.It’s a phrase we’re likely to hear more of, given that it takes aim at both of the major obstacles in Mr. DeSantis’s path to the White House: Mr. Trump and President Biden.At nearly every event, Mr. DeSantis, 44, used comments about his energy level as an indirect swipe at his much older opponents. Mr. Trump is 76; Mr. Biden is 80. And Mr. DeSantis regularly noted that unlike his main Republican rival, Mr. Trump, he would be able to serve two terms.The messaging allowed Mr. DeSantis to set a clear contrast with the former president without necessarily angering Mr. Trump’s loyal supporters.Two terms, the governor says, would give him more time to appoint conservative Supreme Court justices and unwind the “deep state.” (Mr. Trump responded angrily to the new line of attack, saying in Iowa on Thursday that “you don’t need eight years, you need six months,” adding, “Who the hell wants to wait eight years?”)The case Mr. DeSantis is making, however, sometimes seems to be undercut by his own delivery. Even supporters acknowledge that he is not a natural orator, and on the stump he sometimes calls himself an “energetic executive” in a neutral monotone.Mr. DeSantis kicked off the tour with an event on Tuesday at an evangelical church in Clive, Iowa. Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesHumbly, he compares himself to Churchill, fighting ‘the woke mob’ on the beaches.If Mr. DeSantis had to summarize what he believes is wrong with America in one word, his three-state tour suggests the answer might be “woke,” a term that many Republican politicians find easy to use but hard to define. The governor frequently rails against “wokeness,” which he describes as a “war on the truth,” in distinctly martial terms.At several events, Mr. DeSantis, a military veteran, seemed to borrow from Winston Churchill’s famous “We shall fight on the beaches” speech, given to exhort the citizens of Britain in their existential struggle against Nazi Germany.“We will fight the woke in education,” Mr. DeSantis said in New Hampshire. “We will fight the woke in corporations. And we will fight the woke in the halls of Congress. We will never surrender to the woke mob.”(Mr. Trump seemed to take a shot at his rival’s use of the word, saying on Thursday, “I don’t like the term ‘woke,’ because I hear ‘woke, woke, woke.’” He added: “It’s just a term they use. Half the people can’t even define it. They don’t know what it is.”)Earlier, at his kickoff rally outside Des Moines on Tuesday night, Mr. DeSantis seemed to put the various building blocks of his stump speech together into a coherent vision, one that portrayed the United States as a nation being assaulted from the inside by unseen liberal forces bent on reshaping every aspect of American life.“They are imposing their agenda on us, via the federal government, via corporate America, via our own education system,” he said. “All for their benefit and all to our detriment.”In turn, Mr. DeSantis promised to aggressively wield the power of the presidency in order to resculpt the nation according to conservative principles, much as he says he has done in Florida, where he has often pushed the boundaries of executive office.“It does not have to be this way,” he continued in his Iowa kickoff speech. “We must choose a path that will lead to a revival of American greatness.” The line drew cheers.Mr. DeSantis on Thursday in Manchester, N.H. Apart from a few contentious exchanges with reporters, he avoided awkward moments on the trip. David Degner for The New York TimesHis interactions: Pretty normal, overall.Both detractors and supporters were watching closely for how Mr. DeSantis, who sometimes appears uncomfortable with the basics of retail politics, interacted with voters. Democrats and Trump allies have made a legion of memes out of his uncomfortable facial expressions or clumsy responses to voters in casual conversations. (An emphatic “OK!” is often his answer to learning a person’s name or a child’s age.)But apart from a pugnacious exchange or two with the news media — episodes that are, of course, cheered by the Republican base — Mr. DeSantis avoided obvious awkward moments. He tried to make himself relatable, playing up his dad credentials. He told stories about taking his family out for fast food and contending with a 3-year-old who needed to use the “little potty.”After his speeches, he worked the rope line, talked with voters, snapped pictures and signed autographs. He always reacted enthusiastically when voters told him they lived part-time in Florida. “What part?” was his standard follow-up, before discussing how badly those areas had been hit by Hurricane Ian.While this all might be a low bar, it was set, in part, by Mr. Trump’s relentless mockery of Mr. DeSantis’s personality.Frank Ehrenberger, 73, a retired engineer who attended a DeSantis event in Iowa on Wednesday, said the governor had struck him as “genuine.”Still, Mr. DeSantis may need to do more. At events in Iowa and New Hampshire on Wednesday and Thursday, he did not take audience questions from the stage, leading to some criticism. Instead, at one stop in New Hampshire, Mr. DeSantis tossed baseball caps to the crowd.The early nominating states require a set of political skills different from the one that works in Florida, where politicians rely heavily on television advertising to get their messages across.By Friday, during his visit to South Carolina, he had seemed to shift his strategy, electing to answer voters’ questions from the stage alongside his wife, Casey DeSantis.Casey DeSantis has given remarks in the middle of Mr. DeSantis’s stump speeches at events, talking about both their family life and what she casts as her husband’s ability to clean up “the swamp” in Washington.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesYou’ll be seeing a lot more of Casey DeSantis.At his events, Mr. DeSantis has paused his stump speech to invite Ms. DeSantis onto the stage to deliver her own remarks. As she speaks, he usually stands smiling behind her before returning to the lectern to close out his speech. At one stop in New Hampshire, he kissed her temple after she had finished.These intermissions — not unprecedented, but unusual as a routine at presidential campaign events — underscore the high-profile role Ms. DeSantis is expected to play her in husband’s bid, after acting as an important adviser in his political rise.If this first tour is anything to go by, she is likely to be one of the most prominent and politically active spouses of a major presidential candidate in several election cycles, perhaps since Bill Clinton in 2008.Onstage, Ms. DeSantis tells the usual marital stories meant to humanize candidates and illustrate their family life — including an oft-repeated bit about the time one of their three children wielded permanent markers to decorate the dining room table in the governor’s mansion.But she is far from light entertainment. Much of her roughly five-minute speech is meant to portray her husband, whom she often refers to as “the governor,” as an authoritative, decisive leader, one capable of cleaning up “the swamp” in Washington.“Through all of the history, all the attacks from the corporate media and the left, he never changes,” Ms. DeSantis said Thursday in New Hampshire. “He never backs down, he never cowers. He never takes the path of least resistance.”Ann Klein More