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      New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu on How Donald Trump Loses the Primary

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      We saw a crowded Republican debate stage of seven candidates last Wednesday night — the kind of big field that worries New Hampshire’s governor, Chris Sununu, who has argued that candidates need to drop out if one or two strong rivals emerge to stop former President Donald Trump from winning the G.O.P. nomination.But can any of that happen? How? And do Republican voters even want Mr. Trump stopped? I spoke with the Mr. Sununu the day after the debate, and he described his vision for what an alternative could look like on a policy front, what it means to be a governor and whether Mr. Trump has fundamentally changed America. “Jerks may come and go, bad leaders may come and go,” he said, “but our institutions have stood through the test of times.” Mr. Sununu has served as governor of New Hampshire since 2017, and has maintained high levels of support from the battleground state that has otherwise voted for statewide Democrats in recent cycles.This interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, is part of an Opinion Q. and A. series exploring modern conservatism today, its influence in society and politics and how and why it differs (and doesn’t) from the conservative movement that most Americans thought they knew.Jane Coaston: It is the day after the second G.O.P. debate. Did anyone impress you last night?Gov. Chris Sununu: I think they were all very chippy. Tim Scott and Doug Burgum really knew that they had to push their way into the conversation, knowing that they had kind of gotten boxed out a little bit the first time. DeSantis did what he had to do, similar with the first one.Nikki Haley did a couple things. She showed she wasn’t a flash in the pan. I think she effectively won the first debate in that she showed them fire, she showed a good knowledge base. In the second debate, she didn’t disappoint either. I think she showed some grit and some fortitude.Elections are about choices. A real differentiation is saying, “I know where my opponent stands on these issues. I know exactly what their record is, and I can contrast that here.” She just seems very astute about everybody else’s record. And I think that does her very, very well in those debates.The other thing is that they finally started pulling at Donald Trump a little bit, in terms of his record. Again, Trump had some good ideas and good policies, but he couldn’t really execute on them. And again, showing that differentiation between someone who can actually execute on the policy, as opposed to someone who disagrees with the policy is a very important thing.Coaston: In The Times, you wrote, “In Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states that will vote in the 2024 Republican contests, Mr. Trump is struggling. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, he is consistently polling in the low 40 percent range. The floor of his support may be high, but his ceiling is low.” In New Hampshire and Iowa, Trump is leading by double digits. So if his ceiling is low, why is his floor so high? Why has his momentum stayed so consistent?Sununu: He does have this extremely strong base of populist Republican support. Folks that just will stand behind him no matter what, no matter all his faults. And we’ve seen that since 2016, right?In a recent poll, he was pulling in about 39 percent in New Hampshire. Which is actually really bad, by the way. I mean, he’s the former president, the voice of the G.O.P. for six years. Even with his base voters, he can’t get above 40 percent? And then the second part of that same poll is very interesting. About a third of his supporters would consider somebody else. So they’re not even that rock solid.Coaston: Gov. Chris Christie is polling well in New Hampshire, but not as well anywhere else. How can he grow his vote if he can? And do you think he could plausibly beat Trump for the nomination?Sununu: I think that’s a really good question. I like Chris a lot, I have the same concerns, but I think you’re expressing that he doesn’t seem to have created a strong ground game in any other state other than New Hampshire. So, New Hampshire can’t be your one and only, right? His poll numbers are decent, because he’s really willing to take on Trump, and that shows you that there’s a decent amount of people within the party that would just want to back the strongest anti-Trumper, which obviously he is.But where it goes from there, I’m not sure. I don’t know his campaign; I don’t know his ground game other than it doesn’t seem to be anywhere else but New Hampshire. That would make it really challenging, as opposed to just being a disrupter. If he actually wants to close the deal and win the primary with just New Hampshire in his back pocket, knowing that South Carolina and Florida come after that, you can’t be no-shows in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida.Coaston: There’s a type of current Republican governor who’s been critical of Donald Trump, or come under fire from him, or just managed to be a different kind of Republican than him. I’m thinking of you, I’m thinking of Brian Kemp in Georgia. I’m thinking of Spencer Cox in Utah. And you’re all fairly popular in your own states. What do you attribute the popularity to?Sununu: Being popular isn’t just galvanizing your base, and ignoring the independents and the Democrats, right? Being popular is about governing for all of your constituents. Being conservative in your values and your principles, and being able to stand behind them, that’s great. But the job isn’t just to support your party; it’s to support, especially as a governor, your entire population, regardless of what services they need, where they go to school, what their business might be, it really has to be that way.Coaston: Do you see similarities between yourself and Governor Cox and Governor Kemp, ideologically? Is there a policy through line that connects you?Sununu: One thing that definitely link us all together is fiscal responsibility. A governor has to manage the finances of the state, balance the budgets, make sure the programs are properly funded. We don’t have printing presses like they do in Washington, which is a good thing.Governors have to understand the aspects of management, managing people, accountability, metrics of success.Coaston: So that actually goes with my theory. Normal people don’t think about politics as an end goal, but politics is the means by which they get the things that they want or don’t want. I think that’s to me, why there are so many popular Republican governors of blue states, and so many just popular governors writ large. Being governor isn’t a messaging vehicle, it’s an actual job.Sununu: I think governors started getting the credit they deserve during the pandemic, right? Congress passed a couple bills early on, and then they disappeared for political reasons. And the governor shouldered all the responsibility of managing each of the states uniquely. That’s really what started defining the red states and the blue states more than ever, right? Where the governors stood. Because how the governors managed tended to really differentiate along those lines. Blue states were very closed; red states tended to be more open. We all did it a little differently.You had to handle some pretty tough decisions that probably a good portion of the people were going to get upset with you on almost anything you did. So you had to be affable and approachable with a sense of transparency to re-instill public trust.Having good ideas is one thing, being able to manage and be accountable to it is another. And being able to do that in a public sphere with Congress. Congress doesn’t work for the president. I mean, Trump literally didn’t understand that for a while. Congress is their own entity, and you have to work with them, and manage a lot of what you want to do with their process, in order to achieve a goal and be able to move something forward.Coaston: You recently said, of Donald Trump and our institutions: “Trump’s too dumb to be a danger to democracy. Let’s not give him that much credit.” Now, recently, he suggested that General Milley should have been put to death. That there should be investigations into NBC for “treason.” How do you think about how voters see that and those kinds of comments? Do they not take him seriously, or are they into what he’s saying, or are they just not seeing it? Because there’s an argument to be made that many stupid people have done terrible things.Sununu: Trump speaks in hyperbole. He’s outrageous. And sometimes his hyperbole, he believes it. When Trump says these outrageous things, they don’t go, “Oh my God, I can’t believe he said that.” Nobody says that about Donald Trump anymore, right? They just take a lot of what he says with a grain of salt because he’s looking for the headline. He knows how to work the media and work the headlines. And that’s always been his M.O.Now, the way I try to define is this: A single individual is rarely, if ever, a threat to democracy in this country. Because we have a system of foundational institutions that really, for lack of a better term, are unwavering in a very good way. And the example I gave in that discussion was, we had a Civil War for goodness sakes. As tough and as horrific as that was, at the end of the Civil War, we didn’t have to change Congress or change the presidency.1968. I wasn’t here for it, but my goodness, when you had great American voices being assassinated, not shouted down. Literally assassinated while the Vietnam War was going on, while you had the Nixon [campaign] going on. People said it’s over. Democracy’s ending, this country’s doomed. It was a tough time, but we got through it. You had 9/11, right? And it’s a massive external threat. Our foundations, our institutions stood strong. Nothing fundamentally varied after that.You had the pandemic. You had Jan. 6. The fact that Congress met and certified the election and there was a peaceful transfer of power. Trump walked out the door. As much of a stink as he made that the election fraud in Jan. 6 and all this stuff, he still walked out the door.Jerks may come and go, bad leaders may come and go, but our institutions have stood through the test of times. I might disagree with policy, I might disagree that things are too liberal or too socialist, and other folks might think they’re too conservative or whatever it is. But that’s just policy and politics.Democracy at its core is solid. Our institutions at their core are solid. They really are. We’re not falling apart just because you have a couple idiots on top of the ticket on both sides, saying ridiculous things. It can be very disheartening, but it is also temporary. And it’s nature.[The U.S. government has continued to operate for a long time, and there is a real argument to be made that Jan. 6 ultimately reflected institutional resilience. It’s also true that through various crises in American life, there have often been changes to the shape and scope of government — from the 14th Amendment to the authorization for use of military force following Sept. 11. This is a longer conversation and debate.]Coaston: There’s a case that Trump really achieved a lot of the things conservative Republicans have long wanted. He built a strong conservative majority on the Supreme Court. His justices helped repeal Roe v. Wade. He cut taxes. Do you think that’s how your average Republican voter sees him as part of the continuum, or do you think that what people think of as “conservative” has changed?Sununu: Trump did get some good things done. I think he had some good ideas. But his failure was twofold. Number one, he said there were some really important things that he said he was going to do, and he just didn’t even try. Fiscal responsibility, completely out the door. The least fiscally responsible Republican president in history.He said he was going to secure the border. He didn’t secure the border. He barely touched it. He tried. Don’t get me wrong. I think he tried that, but he didn’t know how to work with Congress to negotiate and get something done. Now where he was able to get wins, this is the second part where he really fell down. He would get a win, and then almost immediately step all over it. And say something completely unrelated and outrageous or outlandish, or do something that the media jumped all over.And at the end of the day, he’s so divisive. I think what people are most frustrated with, what I’m most frustrated with, is he costs us seats. In a state like mine, as a Republican, you end up having to almost answer for the guy, and give excuses for the guy, as opposed to just talking about issues, and standing on your own two feet about what you are going to bring to the table as a candidate or offer to your community.I think Chris Christie actually, if you see his closing statement at last week’s debate, I think Chris really summed this up very, very well. We’re tired of the drama, we’re tired of making excuses. We might agree with him on policy. He didn’t get enough stuff done.Coaston: Forget the names of the candidates for a second. If you could see the field narrowed down, where it would just be Trump and another person or two, in your ideal world, what issues would that candidate be emphasizing, in terms of policy?Sununu: Local control, limited government, decentralizing Washington, D.C., balancing budgets and fiscal responsibility. If you have that core mind-set, everything else gets easier, everything else becomes possible. And America gets better because that empowers the citizens with more control back in their states, their hometowns, their cities, whatever it might be. We’ve just gotten to a place where Washington, even the Republicans in Washington, think that they’re the most important thing, and they’re not. The states are. We created Washington.Coaston: Now, governor, I love federalism. I truly do. But do you think that candidate would appeal to voters? I think that a lot of voters now, you see people who are like, “But this terrible thing is happening in this state I don’t live in. Make them stop.”Sununu: So, the mind-set I’m talking about definitely appeals in a general election. There’s no doubt. You need to work extra hard to get that message to carry through. But at its core, it’s the best form of government.I want to hand you the control, you the power, you the say, as an individual, what’s happening in your community. If you can articulate that, and get people there — it’s not easy. I think we do pretty well in New Hampshire. I think that’s one of the reasons that I stay popular. I’m not trying to control every town. I’m not trying to control every school board.Coaston: Why didn’t you run for president?Sununu: First, I have a 24/7 job. I would have had to really ignore a lot of very important aspects of what’s happening, and New Hampshire’s crushing it right now. I love the state; I didn’t want to basically live in Iowa for six months. That would have been the strategy, right?Plant yourself in Iowa, surprise everybody with a solid win or second place there, crush it here in New Hampshire, and then it’s me and Trump. And after that, I’d beat him. So there was a path. The second piece was, my family really wasn’t into it. And it’s such an endeavor.Coaston: Do you think Donald Trump will win the New Hampshire primary this winter?Sununu: Well, I hope not. He could. He very well could. Most voters that actually vote in the primary won’t make up their minds till after Thanksgiving. Trump has more to lose than the other candidates, if he were to lose New Hampshire and Iowa. The other candidates don’t necessarily have to win New Hampshire and Iowa. One of them or two of them just have to stand out as the clear second and third choice to Trump.So the field massively narrows down after New Hampshire, and then we go from there. And those candidates or candidate, if it’s just one especially, would have a ton of political momentum, a ton of money flowing into their campaign, a ton of opportunity to really turn on the jets, if you will, and fire forward to take Trump on one-on-one within the Republican primary process. And I believe very strongly, leave him behind.If six of those individuals on that stage have the discipline to get out when they need to get out, it’s Trump and one other person, and Trump loses. Think of it that way. Just those six individuals. They all have the same fundamental goal, for Trump not to be the nominee. But if they can just put a little bit of the ego and self-interest aside, and as soon as there’s no longer a very clear path to victory, they got to get out. If they have the discipline to do that early, it’ll all work.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Republicans’ Promises to Combat Fentanyl Fall Flat With Some Voters

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      The official toxicology report states that Andrea Cahill’s son died at 19 years old from an accidental fentanyl overdose. But more than three years after Tyler Cahill’s death in his childhood bedroom, she doesn’t believe that. It was a poisoning, she says, and there is no question about whom to blame: “the cartels.”Ms. Cahill believes the governments of Mexico and China should be punished for the drug’s flow into the United States. A political independent who nearly always votes for Republicans, she wants a president with relentless focus on the issue.“It does feel like maybe nobody cares,” she said.These days, Republican presidential candidates are working to convince people like Ms. Cahill that they share her urgency.Ron DeSantis talks about fentanyl in every stump speech, vowing to send the military into Mexico to target cartels. Nikki Haley has promised to send special operations forces across the border. Chris Christie has called for better access to treatment. Former President Donald J. Trump has offered few specific solutions but has tapped into victims’ families’ hunger to be seen: He likens deaths from the drug to wartime casualties.At Wednesday night’s debate, the candidates linked the crisis to immigration and foreign policy, and hammered home the toll.“We have had more fentanyl that have killed Americans than the Iraq, Vietnam and Afghanistan wars combined,” Ms. Haley noted.The promises are required of any politician wanting to appear in touch with New Hampshire, a state that can make or break presidential campaigns. As fentanyl has become one of the most urgent health crises in the country — it is now a leading cause of death for people under 45 — it has ravaged the small state. Last year, opioid overdose deaths hit a four-year high, though down slightly from their peak in 2017, according to state data. Most were from fentanyl.But truly connecting with voters — persuading them that help could be on the way — is proving difficult. In dozens of interviews with people on the front lines of the fight against fentanyl, a sense of abandonment is pervasive. Many said they believed the federal government did too little to stop the epidemic from happening and that it continues to do too little to try to bring it under control.The candidates’ talk of blockades and military intervention is met with cynicism and a deep distrust that their government can find solutions.“I don’t see it getting better if it’s Trump or Biden or whoever is going to step in,” said Shayne Bernier, 30, who fought opioid addiction years ago and is now helping to open a sober-living home in downtown Manchester, N.H. For more than a year, Mr. Bernier has patrolled parks and streets routinely, giving information about a city-funded detox program.Shayne Bernier fought opioid addiction years ago and now patrols the streets and parks of Manchester, N.H. He thinks politicians’ attention to the issue will be fleeting: “They’ll talk about it for an election, and then we’ll never hear from them again.”Mr. Bernier grew up in the city and has “Live Free or Die,” the official state motto, tattooed on his left bicep. He considers himself a conservative. He neither loves nor loathes Mr. Trump, though he understands how the former president appeals to the anger and frustration that courses through his friends.“They’ll talk about it for an election, and then we’ll never hear from them again,” he said of politicians’ promises to address the crisis.Five years ago, Mr. Trump traveled to New Hampshire and remarked how “unbelievable” it was that the state had a death rate from drugs double the national average. When he promised to secure the border “to keep the damn drugs out” the audience responded by chanting: “Build that wall!”The drugs never stopped coming in. The supply only increased, with heroin entirely eclipsed by fentanyl, its cheaper and deadlier synthetic cousin. The state is less of an outlier than it once was: In one recent public opinion poll, more than a quarter of American adults ranked opioids and fentanyl as the greatest threat to public health.To some extent, Mr. DeSantis has picked up where Mr. Trump left off. He promises to shoot drug traffickers “stone cold dead,” a vow consistently met with applause. He largely casts the problem as a symptom of a porous border, giving conservatives another reason to rail against illegal immigration.Tough talk about the Southern border brings some comfort to parents like Ms. Cahill. It’s unclear how her son got the drug that killed him. A video Tyler recorded and shared with a friend that night suggests he took what he believed to be Percocet to relieve pain from a recent tattoo, she says. His father found him dead the next morning.“I had no idea how deadly it could be, how immediate — you can’t call for help,” she said. She keeps fliers in her car that warn “there is no safe experience” using street drugs.But placing the blame on illegal border crossings is misleading. A vast majority of fentanyl in the United States enters through legal ports of entry, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Typically, U.S. citizens driving across the border smuggle in the drugs, stuffing them into trailers, trunks or vehicle linings. Keith Howard, who runs Hope for New Hampshire Recovery, a peer-support community group in Manchester, grimaces when he hears candidates talk about a border crackdown as a viable solution. Mental health support, well-paying jobs and long-term treatment programs are even more important, he said.“There is a need to escape from life for a lot of people right now,” Mr. Howard said. “The sense of alienation people have is much, much deeper than it was 10 or even five years ago.”Nikki Haley has promised to do more to target China’s funneling of chemicals used to create fentanyl.Chris Christie says politicians haven’t been honest with voters about solutions.When Mr. Christie, a former governor of New Jersey, visited Hope for New Hampshire Recovery earlier this year, he notably did not mention the border. He served as the chair for Mr. Trump’s special commission to combat the opioid crisis, but many of the recommendations in the 138-page report that the commission issued in 2017 went nowhere. Mr. Christie blamed the pandemic, but he also said the Trump administration did not focus enough on crafting specific policies and programs.Since then, he said, the crisis has worsened, and politicians haven’t been straight with voters about solutions.“It’s dishonest to lead people to believe that you can enforce your way out of this problem,” he said in an interview, adding that he would support sending National Guard troops to legal ports of entry to help Border Patrol agents intercept drugs. At the same time, he added: “I don’t want to fool the American people into thinking that if I send National Guard to the Southern border, that will solve the problem.” President Biden has focused on both expanding enforcement and improving treatment. In March, the Food and Drug Administration approved over-the-counter sales of Narcan, a nasal spray that reverses opioid overdoses. Mr. Biden has called for closer inspection of cargo and stronger penalties for those caught trafficking drugs. Recently, he criticized the Republican-controlled Congress for risking a federal shutdown, which would prevent billions allocated to the D.E.A., Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol to address the crisis.Victoria Sullivan considers Mr. Biden’s approach a failure. A former Republican state lawmaker in New Hampshire and political talk show host, Ms. Sullivan this year helped open a sober-living home for men in recovery.Ms. Sullivan calls her role “government cleanup,” as she tries to fill gaps left by local agencies. She is convinced the city’s drug policies are too permissive and drawing people from around the region to Manchester’s streets. (Roughly a quarter of people who are homeless in Manchester report that they are from the city.)Some advocates argue that Manchester’s permissive policies have drawn people from around the region to the city’s streets.Ms. Sullivan says the problem requires more aggressive interventions, accessible medical treatment, strong families and religious institutions. Her solutions hit at a contradiction in many Republicans’ views about the drug crisis: She is unabashed about her conservative, small government views, but she argues that agencies need to spend more money on rehabilitation programs.“The government has just failed at every level,” Ms. Sullivan said. “They encourage dependence but don’t do anything near enough to get anyone on their feet on their own.”Ms. Sullivan has voted for Mr. Trump in the past and still supports him. But she also been impressed by Ms. Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, who earlier this year hosted a discussion at Freedom House, the sober-living home Ms. Sullivan helped create. There, Ms. Haley promised to do more to target China’s funneling of chemicals used to create fentanyl brought into the United States.Victoria Sullivan, a former Republican state lawmaker in New Hampshire and political talk show host, said she wanted the government to spend more money on rehabilitation programs.Patrick Burns, 35, grew up in rural Maine, where he began pilfering his mother prescription opioids as a teenager. At 17, he enlisted in the Army and served for several years in Afghanistan.When he returned in 2013, nearly everyone he grew up with was battling an addiction of some kind. He moved to Manchester partly to be closer to a larger Veterans Affairs Medical Center, thinking he could get more help there. Instead, he ran into one bureaucratic hurdle after another and said he found fentanyl all around him.“We’re just a bunch of people who have been discarded,” said Patrick Burns, an Army veteran who struggled to get help with his addiction.Mr. Burns voted for Mr. Trump once before and could imagine doing so again. What he finds harder to imagine, he said, is that the government that sent him to war can find a way out of the morass he sees in Manchester.“People just don’t have a clue — it’s become such a problem,” Mr. Burns said. “Now rather than address it, they just kind of ignore it. They try to mitigate the effects, but there are not pre-emptive strikes at all. We’re just a bunch of people who have been discarded.”Ms. Cahill has tried to ensure that Tyler is remembered. She allowed his photograph to be displayed in the Washington headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and attended a rally at the state capitol earlier this year to raise awareness.That day, she stood with another mother in Concord, N.H., to pass out Narcan to anyone who walked by. When she offered it to two teenage boys, their father stepped in to intervene. “No thanks; they’re good kids,” she remembered him telling her, before shuffling them away.Ms. Cahill was taken aback.“That’s not the point,” she said, recalling the incident. “Tyler was a good kid. This stuff is out there whether we want to acknowledge it or not.”Nicholas Nehamas More

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      Haley Heads Into Second G.O.P. Debate on the Rise, Making Her a Likely Target

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      After her breakout performance at the first debate, the former South Carolina governor has gained attention from Republican voters and donors and is moving up in the polls.At a campaign event at a scenic country club in Portsmouth, N.H, on Thursday, James Peterson, a businessman, thrilled an audience when he stunned Nikki Haley with a question she said she had never heard before, and which cut straight to the point: 100 years from now, how do you think history will remember Donald Trump?“I always say, ‘I’ve done over 80 town halls in New Hampshire and Iowa — that’s all the debate prep I need,’ but you take it to a whole new level,” Ms. Haley said to a roar of laughter from roughly 100 Rotary Club members and their guests.She then took a quick beat before diving into a measured, yet sharpened, critique of Mr. Trump and his administration — the good, the bad, and with some subtlety, the ugly.“Time does funny things. My thought will be that he was the right president at the right time,” she said, later making clear, “I don’t think he is the right president now.”Such a thorny question might be just the type of preparation Ms. Haley, 51, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, is looking for as she heads into the next Republican presidential debate on Wednesday with real momentum — and as the likely focus of political attacks.After her last performance on the national debate stage, in which she made a strong general election pitch and tangled with opponents on foreign policy, climate and abortion, Ms. Haley has seen gains in the polls, a rush of volunteers and swelling interest from early-state voters.Recent surveys have her running third in Iowa and New Hampshire and second in her home state of South Carolina. One CNN survey showed Ms. Haley beating President Biden in a hypothetical general-election matchup.Some of her top fund-raisers said donors who had been waiting on the sidelines for a Trump alternative to emerge were coalescing behind her. Former Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois, a top giver to her rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has transferred his allegiance to Ms. Haley.Another major backer, Eric J. Tanenblatt, an Atlanta businessman who has hosted three fund-raisers for Ms. Haley since March, said the excitement around her candidacy has increased significantly in recent weeks.“When she was here last week, we didn’t have to call people, people were calling us,” he said. He noted that the size of her events have grown, “each one bigger than the one before.” He added of his most recent gathering: “We had to turn people away — it is a good problem to have.”But even as Ms. Haley looks to replicate her debate success next week, the 2024 presidential race still appears to be Mr. Trump’s to lose. And with voters and donors starting to pay more attention, her rivals are likely to as well.Since the last debate, Ms. Haley has mostly split her time between New Hampshire and South Carolina while also making up ground in Iowa. She has continued to burnish her foreign policy credentials, criticize Republicans on spending — which played well in the first debate — and call for a change in generational leadership.On a farm last week in Grand Mound, Iowa, she drove a corn combine and spoke of the need to fix the legal immigration system to address farmers’ labor shortages against a backdrop of gleaming green tractors and American and Iowa flags. But she also pledged to defund sanctuary cities and send the military into Mexico to tackle drug cartels.In a packed auditorium at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, N.H., on Friday, Ms. Haley laid out her economic priorities, including eliminating the federal gas and diesel tax, ending green energy subsidies, overhauling social security and Medicare for younger people and withholding the pay of Congress members if they fail to pass a budget.She criticized both Republican and Democratic presidents for increasing the debt but reserved her toughest broadsides for China and Mr. Biden, whom she accused of plunging the nation into “socialism” and enlarging government, saying he was pouring money into social and corporate welfare programs that she argued were hurting the poor “in the name of helping the poor.”Ms. Haley rode a corn combine during a farm tour in Grand Mound, Iowa, last week.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesHer appearances lately have drawn in moderates, independents and even some Democrats who say they like her fresh face and appeals to common sense and reason. “I like her fast thinking and proactive ideas,” said Nancy Wauters, 67, a retired medical office support staffer and an independent voter who went to see Ms. Haley speak at a Des Moines town hall last week after being impressed by her performance in the first debate.But swaying Trump die-hards who have continued to rally behind the former president has been more difficult. “I like Nikki Haley a lot,” said Barbara Miller, 64, a retired banker, at Ms. Haley’s event in Portsmouth. “But I just feel that Donald Trump is the stronger, more electable candidate.”When another voter at the country club in Portsmouth pressed Ms. Haley on how she would overcome his advantage, Ms. Haley said she expected the field to winnow after the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire and to come to a “head-to-head” matchup in her home state of South Carolina.Mr. Trump missing the first debate and now possibly the second was a mistake, she said.“You can’t win the American people by being absent,” she said. 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      in US Politics

      DeSantis falls to fifth in New Hampshire poll in latest campaign reverse

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      The Florida governor Ron DeSantis fell to fifth in a new New Hampshire poll, trailing not just Donald Trump, the runaway leader for the Republican presidential nomination, but Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley and Chris Christie.The poll, from CNN and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), was just the latest worrying sign for DeSantis, whose hard-right campaign has struggled ever since a glitch-filled launch with Elon Musk on his social media platform in May.The former president faces 91 criminal charges, for election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments, and civil threats including a defamation case in which he was adjudicated a rapist.He denies wrongdoing and claims political persecution. His popularity with Republicans has barely been dented. Though at 39% his support in the New Hampshire poll was lower than in national and other key state surveys, he still enjoyed a commanding lead.Describing “a close contest for second”, CNN put the biotech entrepreneur Ramaswamy at 13%, the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley at 12% and Christie, a former New Jersey governor running explicitly against Trump – and focusing on New Hampshire – at 11%.DeSantis was next with 10%, a 13-point drop since the last such poll in July.The Florida governor has run a relentlessly hard-right campaign, seeking to outflank even Trump, by any measure an extremist.“DeSantis’s decline comes largely among moderates,” CNN said, detailing a 20-point drop in such support, “while Haley has gained ground with that group. Ramaswamy’s standing has grown among younger voters and registered Republicans. And Christie’s gains are centered among independents and Democrats who say they will participate in the GOP primary.”Ramaswamy and Haley were widely held to have shown well in the first debate, in Wisconsin last month. The second is in California next week. Trump is again set to skip the contest.Outside the top five in the CNN-UNH poll, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott attracted 6% support and Mike Pence, a former Indiana governor and vice-president to Trump, scored 2%. No other candidate passed 1%.New Hampshire will be the second state to vote. It has been widely reported that Trump is gearing up to attack DeSantis in the first, Iowa, where DeSantis has targeted evangelical voters.According to the author Michael Wolff, Rupert Murdoch, the Fox News owner, originally believed Trump would lose to DeSantis in Iowa because “it was going to come out about the abortions Trump had paid for”. Iowa polling, however, returns consistent Trump leads.Speaking to the New York Times, David Polyansky, DeSantis’s deputy campaign manager, said: “Winning an Iowa caucus is very difficult. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline. It takes an incredible amount of hard work and organisation, traditionally. So much so that even in his heyday, Donald Trump couldn’t win it in 2016.”The Texas senator Ted Cruz won Iowa then. But Trump won the nomination – and the White House.On Wednesday, at an oil rig in Texas, DeSantis introduced his energy policy, attracting headlines by saying opponents were stoking “fear” about the climate crisis.A spokesperson, meanwhile, was forced to deny Wolff’s report that DeSantis may have kicked Tucker Carlson’s dog.“The totality of that story is absurd and false,” Andrew Romeo told the Daily Beast, of the report involving the former Fox News host. “Some will say or write anything to attack Ron DeSantis because they know he presents a threat to their worldview.” More

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      Doug Burgum and Asa Hutchinson May Not Make the Next GOP Debate

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      Low poll numbers could keep the long-shot Republicans off the stage next Wednesday in the second presidential primary debate.After eking their way into the first Republican presidential debate last month, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, long-shot candidates, appear to be in jeopardy of failing to qualify for the party’s second debate next week.Both have been registering support in the low single digits in national polls and in the polls from early nominating states that the Republican National Committee uses to determine eligibility.The threshold is higher for this debate, happening on Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. Several better-known G.O.P. rivals are expected to make the cut — but the candidate who is perhaps best known, former President Donald J. Trump, is again planning to skip the debate.Mr. Trump, who remains the overwhelming front-runner for the party’s nomination despite a maelstrom of indictments against him, will instead give a speech to striking union autoworkers in Michigan.Who Has Qualified for the Second Republican Presidential Debate?Six candidates appear to have made the cut for the next debate. Donald J. Trump is not expected to attend.Some of Mr. Trump’s harshest critics in the G.O.P. have stepped up calls for the party’s bottom-tier candidates to leave the crowded race, consolidating support for a more viable alternative to the former president.Lance Trover, a spokesman for the Burgum campaign, contended in an email on Wednesday that Mr. Burgum was still positioned to qualify for the debate. Mr. Hutchinson’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Emma Vaughn, a spokeswoman for the R.N.C., said in an email on Wednesday that candidates have until 48 hours before the debate to qualify. She declined to comment further about which ones had already done so.Before the first debate on Aug. 23, the R.N.C. announced it was raising its polling and fund-raising thresholds to qualify for the second debate, which will be televised by Fox Business. Candidates must now register at least 3 percent support in a minimum of two national polls accepted by the R.N.C. The threshold for the first debate was 1 percent.Debate organizers will also recognize a combination of one national poll and polls from at least two of the following early nominating states: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.“While debate stages are nice, we know there is no such thing as a national primary,” Mr. Trover said in a statement, adding, “Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are the real people that narrow the field.”Mr. Burgum’s campaign has a plan to give him a boost just before the debate, Mr. Trover added, targeting certain Republicans and conservative-leaning independents through video text messages. A super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is running a distant second to Mr. Trump in Republican polls, has used a similar text messaging strategy.Mr. Burgum, a former software executive, is also harnessing his wealth to introduce himself to Republicans through television — and at considerable expense. Since the first debate, a super PAC aligned with him has booked about $8 million in national broadcast, live sports and radio advertising, including a $2 million infusion last week, according to Mr. Burgum’s campaign, which is a separate entity. His TV ads appeared during Monday Night Football on ESPN.As of Wednesday, there were six Republicans who appeared to be meeting the national polling requirement, according to FiveThirtyEight, a polling aggregation site.That list was led by Mr. Trump, who is ahead of Mr. DeSantis by an average of more than 40 percentage points. The list also includes the multimillionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy; Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Mr. Trump’s United Nations ambassador; former Vice President Mike Pence; and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.And while Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina was averaging only 2.4 percent support nationally as of Wednesday, he is also expected to make the debate stage by relying on a combination of national and early nominating state polls to qualify.Mr. Scott has performed better in places like Iowa and his home state than in national polls, and his campaign has pressed the R.N.C. to place more emphasis on early nominating states.The R.N.C. also lifted its fund-raising benchmarks for the second debate. Only candidates who have received financial support from 50,000 donors will make the debate stage — 10,000 more than they needed for the first debate. They must also have at least 200 donors in 20 or more states or territories.While Mr. Burgum’s campaign said that it had reached the fund-raising threshold, it was not immediately clear whether Mr. Hutchinson had.Both candidates resorted to some unusual tactics to qualify for the first debate.Mr. Burgum offered $20 gift cards to anyone who gave at least $1 to his campaign, while Politico reported that Mr. Hutchinson had paid college students for each person they could persuade to contribute to his campaign.Candidates will still be required to sign a loyalty pledge promising to support the eventual Republican nominee, something that Mr. Trump refused to do before skipping the first debate.Shane Goldmacher More

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      In New Hampshire, Chris Christie Still Sees a Path to Beat Trump

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      As he stakes his candidacy on the state, Chris Christie is promising to find new ways to confront Donald Trump. “I’m not going to let him get away with being a coward,” he said in an interview.An upset victory over Donald Trump in New Hampshire could be a knockout blow, according to Chris Christie. He is staking his presidential campaign on winning the state.Emily Rhyne/The New York TimesIn his against-all-odds pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has campaigned almost exclusively in New Hampshire: More than 90 percent of his events since February have been in the Granite State, according to a New York Times analysis.To hear Mr. Christie tell it, New Hampshire is his do-or-die state. If he doesn’t perform well here, that will probably be it.“I can’t see myself leaving the race under any circumstances before New Hampshire,” he said in an interview. “If I don’t do well in New Hampshire, then I’ll leave.”Much as he did during his White House bid in 2016, Mr. Christie is betting on the independent streak of New Hampshire voters to validate his candidacy and catapult him into contention. (Mr. Christie ultimately finished sixth in New Hampshire that year and dropped out a day later.)But while he blended into the crowd in the 2016 Republican primary contest, Mr. Christie occupies a nearly solitary position in this race: as the candidate offering the harshest criticisms of the runaway front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Christie’s central pitch to Republicans in New Hampshire is that they must vote with a sense of responsibility and urgency, because defeating Mr. Trump in the first-in-the-nation primary may be the only way to halt his march to the nomination.“The future of this country is going to be determined here,” Mr. Christie told a crowd this week at a local brewery, clutching an I.P.A. “If Donald Trump wins here, he will be our nominee. Everything that happens after that is going to be on our party and on our country. It’s up to you.”Though Mr. Christie has improved in recent polls, he still trails Mr. Trump in New Hampshire by double digits, and by much more in national polls and surveys of Iowa, the first nominating state.Mr. Christie signed autographs for supporters at an event on Monday in Rye, N.H.Sophie Park for The New York TimesYet in the interview, Mr. Christie said he still saw a path in New Hampshire. He pointed to numerous past candidates who “broke late” in the state, including Senator John McCain of Arizona during his 2000 campaign. Mr. Christie noted that Mr. McCain, who ended up winning New Hampshire, had driven around the state “basically riding around in a Suburban with two aides.”Mr. Christie is apparently trying to emulate that style. This week, he cruised around New Hampshire with only a driver and two staff members. His campaign does not have staff members on the ground in New Hampshire, and in all, he has only 11 staff members on the payroll, according to his campaign.In the trip to New Hampshire, his first since the opening Republican primary debate last month, Mr. Christie ratcheted up his criticisms of the former president.He now goes so far as to liken Mr. Trump to an autocratic leader, arguing that his conduct is beneath the office of the presidency. Mr. Christie tiptoes toward predicting how the former president’s criminal indictments will unfold, declaring that the country cannot have a “convicted felon” as its leader. And he needles Mr. Trump with subtle jabs at his idiosyncratic tendencies, taunting the former president for his love of cable television and apparent preference for well-done hamburgers.But despite his willingness to take on Mr. Trump, Mr. Christie has been denied his best shot at confronting the former president directly on the debate stage. Mr. Trump skipped the first debate and seems unlikely to attend the second one, which will be held in California at the end of the month.Mr. Christie, who has qualified for the second debate, said he had been drawing up contingency plans.“I’m not going to let him get away with being a coward and running away,” Mr. Christie said in the interview. “It could be meeting him out in front of his event as he’s making his way in. It could be confronting him on his way out. It could be actually going to the event. It could be a whole bunch of options that we’re going to try. I’m not going to tell them exactly which one I’m going to do, because then he would have his staff prepared for it and try to stop me.”Tell It Like It Is PAC, the super PAC supporting Mr. Christie’s bid, latched onto the New Hampshire-or-bust approach early on. Ninety-six percent of the roughly $1 million the group has spent on radio and television advertising has been in New Hampshire markets, according to data from AdImpact, a media tracking firm.Mr. Christie’s events grew more crowded as his swing through New Hampshire progressed, culminating with more than 150 people packed in a gym without air-conditioning in Bedford. Audiences at his events tended to applaud his anti-Trump broadsides.Mr. Christie was greeted with applause at an event in a crowded gymnasium in Bedford, N.H.Sophie Park for The New York TimesHis voters are holding out hope, but they acknowledge his path is tough.“You have to believe he’s got a chance,” said Irene Bonner, 75, of Meredith, N.H., who said she was normally apolitical but had been inspired to come to an event by Mr. Christie’s tough talk against Mr. Trump.“The party is so completely blinded by Trump, it just boggles my mind,” said John Bonner, her husband. “After everything’s gone down and the things he’s said and done. But at least Christie is speaking up.” He added, “The rest of them really aren’t.”If Mr. Trump does emerge as the nominee, Mr. Christie said, he will not back off in his criticism.“I can’t imagine that I’ll ever keep quiet,” he said in the interview. “I don’t think it’s in my personality, so I’ll continue to say what I believe is the truth.”He added: “But I’ll also be critical of Joe Biden, I’m certain, because I have been since he became president, and I suspect he is not going to do some sort of miraculous turnaround that’s going to win my support. So I think I probably have difficult things to say about both of them if I was not the nominee.”Asked if he would make an endorsement in a Trump-Biden rematch, the rarely pithy Mr. Christie was succinct: “No.” More

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      New Hampshire Voters Like Ramaswamy, but More as a No. 2

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      At campaign stops across the state, the political newcomer has drawn big crowds and praise from voters. But some wonder if he needs more political seasoning.Vivek Ramaswamy, the only top-polling presidential candidate to hit the campaign trail over Labor Day weekend, is enjoying the attention of his newfound status.Across five events in New Hampshire on Saturday, part of an 11-stop swing in the Granite State, Mr. Ramaswamy drew hundreds of attendees, often exceeding the number of seats or the space provided at venues from a state fair in Contoocook to a country store in Hooksett.But the crowds and attention being showered on the 38-year-old political newcomer come with something of a caveat: Many of those showing up at his events and driving his rise in the polls see him as a possible vice president or a great future president — but not necessarily a president yet.“I have socks older than him,” said Pamela Coffey, 69, who came from Peterborough, N.H., to see the candidate in person.Mr. Ramaswamy, who entered the race in February with little name recognition and no political experience, has campaigned at a grueling pace in early states and adopted an everywhere-all-the-time media strategy that in recent weeks has propelled him to third place in the race, just behind Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.A combative performance in the first Republican presidential debate last month, in which he was attacked more than any other candidate onstage, put a spotlight on him that translated into heightened attendance at his campaign events. But some voters in New Hampshire said they still had reservations about Mr. Ramaswamy’s youth and inexperience.Mr. Ramaswamy has used his status as the first millennial to run as a Republican candidate to lament his generation’s being “hungry for a cause” — primarily to older audiences. One of the most reliable applause lines at his New Hampshire events was his controversial proposal to require that high schoolers pass a civics test before they can vote.Mr. Ramaswamy drew big crowds at his Saturday events, including one at the Hopkinton State Fair in Contoocook, N.H.Sophie Park for The New York TimesMr. Ramaswamy’s “America First” platform and outsider standing are fashioned after former President Donald J. Trump’s, down to his predisposition toward falsehoods. Like Mr. Trump, for example, Mr. Ramaswamy has expressed disdain for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine: He scoffed at “Zelenskyism” and called the president the “pied piper of Hamelin in cargo pants” as cows mooed in the background at an event in Dublin, N.H.Pat Cameron of Goffstown, N.H., said he saw Mr. Ramaswamy as a “great candidate” with “a lot of really good ideas grounded in what this country really believes in.” But he added: “I honestly believe that Trump would be the best. Personally, I would have loved to see President Trump take him as his running mate for vice president.”And Mr. Trump himself complimented Mr. Ramaswamy last week, spurring questions about whether the Republican presidential front-runner would consider Mr. Ramaswamy to run as No. 2 on his ticket if he wins the nomination.On Tuesday, the former president told the conservative commentator Glenn Beck that he thought Mr. Ramaswamy was “a very, very intelligent person.”“He’s got good energy,” Mr. Trump continued. “He could be some form of something.”But Mr. Ramaswamy, who has said repeatedly that he is not running to be second in command, reiterated that stance on Saturday. “I think President Trump and I share this in common: Neither of us would do well in a No. 2 position,” he said at a town hall in Newport, N.H., just after calling Mr. Trump, as he did in the Republican debate, the “best president of the century.”Despite Mr. Ramaswamy’s frequent praise for Mr. Trump — and repeated promises to pardon him, if he wins the presidency — he has sought to differentiate himself in subtle ways. While Mr. Trump has continued to invoke the 2020 election and the indictments he faces, Mr. Ramaswamy calls for a forward-thinking vision of the United States as a “nation in our ascent” with revived patriotism under a drastically altered executive branch.And Mr. Ramaswamy has recently alluded to questions of Mr. Trump’s electability, saying on Saturday that the “America First movement does not belong to one man” and that 2024 “can’t be another 50.1 election.”“I’m the only candidate in this race who can win in a landslide that reunites this country, that brings young people along,” he said in Dublin.Mr. Ramaswamy greeted voters after a house party in Dublin, N.H., on Saturday, one of the day’s five campaign events.Sophie Park for The New York TimesNonetheless, many voters who came to hear him speak in New Hampshire uttered his name with that of Mr. Trump, unprompted.“I like that he’s not like a normal politician,” said Reed Beauchesne, 54, of Concord, N.H. “He reminds me of Trump, in a way. I think he and Trump would be great together, actually.”And for the voters searching for an alternative to Mr. Trump, not being a “normal politician” can be interpreted as a hindrance.“He’s got some points that resonate with everybody, so that’s wonderful, but my biggest concern is his lack of experience,” said David Leak, 63, who added that he preferred Mr. DeSantis. “Every politician talks great on the stump, the speeches are well rehearsed, but what do they do after they get in?” More