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      Gov. Chris Sununu: This Is How to Beat Trump

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      This week, Republican primary candidates for president will have a chance to make their case before a national audience — with or without Donald Trump on the debate stage. To win, they must break free of Mr. Trump’s drama, step out of his shadow, go on offense, attack, and present their case. Then they need to see if they can catch fire this fall — and if they can’t, they need to step aside, because winnowing down the field of candidates is the single best chance to stop Mr. Trump. Too much is at stake for us to have wishful candidacies. While the other Republican candidates are running to save America, Mr. Trump is running to save himself.Candidates on the debate stage should not be afraid to attack Donald Trump. While it’s true that Mr. Trump has an iron grip on more than 30 percent of the electorate, the other 60 percent or so is open to moving forward with a new nominee. Mr. Trump’s shortcomings hardly need reciting. Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy — candidates with compelling stories, records and polling — must show voters they are willing to take on Mr. Trump, show a spark, and not just defend him in absentia. Chris Christie, who has done great work exposing Mr. Trump’s weaknesses, must broaden his message and show voters that he is more than the anti-Trump candidate.If Mr. Trump is the Republican nominee for president in 2024, Republicans will lose up and down the ballot. According to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they would likely not support Mr. Trump in 2024 — not even Jimmy Carter had re-election numbers that bleak. Every candidate with an (R) next to their name, from school board to the statehouse, will be left to answer for the electoral albatross at the top of the ticket. Instead of going on offense and offering an alternative to Joe Biden’s failing leadership, Republicans will continue to be consumed with responding to Mr. Trump’s constant grievances and lies, turning off every independent suburban voter in America. And Mr. Trump, ever the narcissist, will spend the entire campaign whining about his legal troubles and bilking his supporters of their retirement savings to pay for his lawyers.Donald Trump is beatable, and it starts in Iowa and New Hampshire. Ignore the national polls that show he is leading — they are meaningless. It’s a reflection of the national conversation, name ID, and who is top of mind — not where the momentum is headed.The best indicator of Mr. Trump’s strength is looking to where the voters are paying attention: in states where candidates are campaigning, television ads are running, and there is a wide range of media attention on every candidate.In Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states that will vote in the 2024 Republican primaries, 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, more than half of Republican primary voters — our party’s most ardent voters — want someone not named Trump. While he regularly polls above 50 percent nationally, and even closer to 60 percent many times, he has not hit over 50 percent in New Hampshire in the last five months, according to Real Clear Politics.Having won four statewide elections in New Hampshire and earning more votes in 2020 than any candidate in history (outpacing Mr. Trump’s loss by 20 percentage points that year), I know that in New Hampshire, you don’t only win on policy: You win face-to-face, person-to-person. Voters have to look you in the eye and sign off on you as a person before they can sign off on you as a candidate. Prepared remarks behind a podium do not work.Candidates who have gone on to win the New Hampshire primary, best illustrated by former Senator John McCain, become omnipresent in my state. You must listen first, talk second. Talking at voters in New Hampshire does not work. This is why Mr. Trump must face a smaller field. It is only then that his path to victory shrinks. Leaders within the Republican Party — governors, senators, donors and media influencers — have an obligation to help narrow the field.At a minimum, any candidate who does not make the stage for the first two debates must drop out.Anyone who is polling in the low single digits by Christmas must acknowledge that their efforts have fallen short.After the results from Iowa come in, it is paramount that the field must shrink, before the New Hampshire primary, to the top three or four.Candidates who have essentially been running for years, and who have seen little movement in the polls especially in the early states, are particularly in focus. This fall, if their numbers have not improved, tough conversations between donors and their candidates need to happen. Media influencers and leading voices should amplify the Republican message that the longer these candidates stay in the race, the more they are helping Joe Biden — and Kamala Harris — get four more years.Provided the field shrinks by Iowa and New Hampshire, Mr. Trump loses. He will always have his die-hard base, but the majority is up for grabs. Candidates who seize on the opportunity and present a clear contrast to the former president will earn the votes.Candidates cannot continue to let the former president dominate the media like he has for the last six months. They need to be more aggressive about seizing the opportunity to boost their national profiles. There has been positive movement from some candidates, but more needs to be done.It must be said that candidates who stay in this race when they have no viable path should be called out. They are auditioning for a Trump presidency cabinet that will simply never happen. And even if a Trump administration magically materialized, no public humiliation that great is worth the sacrifice.As governor of the first-in-the-nation primary state, I will do everything I can to help narrow the field. I plan to endorse and campaign for the best alternative to Mr. Trump. As of now, it’s anyone’s for the taking.For 20 years straight, the winner of the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary has gone on to secure the party’s nomination. Once the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire are presented a clear alternative to Mr. Trump, his path forward darkens, and the Republican Party’s future begins to take shape. The rest of the country needs to see not just that the emperor has no clothes, but that the Republican Party is able to refocus the conversation where it needs to be, on a nominee dedicated to saving America.Christopher T. Sununu is the governor of New Hampshire.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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      DeSantis Tweaks His Messaging and Tactics After a Tough Campaign Stretch

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      The Florida governor, who has been losing ground in polls and dealing with staffing, spending and messaging issues, looks to right his campaign in New Hampshire.The NewsOn a weekend tour through New Hampshire, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida debuted a noticeably revamped version of his stump speech that focused more on the economy and border security — issues that voters in the Republican presidential primary say they care about deeply — while leaning less heavily on his reputation as a culture warrior and his record leading his home state.Gov. Ron DeSantis speaking on Saturday in Newport, N.H. He has adjusted his campaign tactics after struggling to gain much momentum.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesWhat changed: The speech was more human and less boilerplate.Mr. DeSantis offered a more personal touch, opening one speech with an anecdote about his first visit to Fenway Park during his time on the Yale baseball team and told the crowd at another event about a stranger buying him an elaborate meal at a steakhouse where he got to wear his dress-white Navy uniform out in public for the first time.Both reflected a marked change from his usual, more generic introduction, which remains in the speech, about sending President Biden “back to his basement.” Even the music at his events seemed more fitting. Before a town hall, his team played the New England earworm “Sweet Caroline.”The crowd clapped and sang along.Why It Matters: The latest DeSantis reset looks to be about more than staff changes.Mr. DeSantis is in the midst of rebooting a presidential campaign. In the last few weeks, his campaign has laid off more than a third of its staff, replaced his campaign manager and dealt with the fallout from a leaked memo about debate strategy.The tactics of his campaign already have shifted to include smaller events, more interactions with voters and the news media, and a grueling travel schedule — an effort more suited to a candidate who remains well behind former President Donald J. Trump in national polls.Now, Mr. DeSantis is adjusting his messaging as well to focus more on kitchen-tables issues and policy proposals, a shift that a campaign adviser said has long been part of the governor’s strategy. Mr. DeSantis also spent less time in his New Hampshire speeches this weekend attacking the liberal ideology that he calls “wokeness” than he has at previous events. But he did make more of an effort to explain why fighting it should matter to voters.“In law enforcement, in criminal justice, they overtake these prosecutor offices,” Mr. DeSantis claimed of liberal reformers, “and the average person ends up less safe as a result of that.”And he kept his focus on meeting and talking with voters.On Saturday, Mr. DeSantis frequently slowed down the pace of a parade in Londonderry, N.H., by stopping to shake hands with onlookers and pose for selfies. Later on, he opened an appearance by energetically shouting “Live free or die,” New Hampshire’s state motto, and made sure to ask the names of voters questioning him at the town hall.“He’s doing the retail politics thing, connecting with folks,” Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, a Republican who has clashed with Mr. Trump, said of Mr. DeSantis after the two governors met briefly at the parade. “I think he’s got a huge opportunity here.”What’s Next: A big debate … without Donald Trump.Mr. DeSantis faces the biggest test of his campaign on Wednesday: the first Republican presidential primary debate of the 2024 race, in Milwaukee.Mr. Trump appears to be skipping the debate, handing Mr. DeSantis an opportunity to take the spotlight. But the former president’s absence also means Mr. DeSantis, as the stand-in front-runner, will most likely come under withering fire from rival candidates. How he handles those attacks could define his image in the eyes of many voters tuning into the primary race for the first time.Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting his bid, had suggested in a leaked memo that Mr. DeSantis go on the offensive during the debate. But on Saturday, Mr. DeSantis’s new campaign manager, James Uthmeier, sent out a memo of his own, first reported by Axios, that suggested the governor would take a more measured approach focused on President Biden and his own policy vision.For his part, Mr. DeSantis told reporters over the weekend that he had not read the memo from the super PAC and that it would not influence his strategy. More

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      ‘America First 2.0’: Vivek Ramaswamy pitches to be Republicans’ next Trump

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      Vivek Ramaswamy was at the Iowa state fair, a must-visit destination for any presidential candidate, when he decided to rap.Wearing a red cap and a baggy white polo shirt, the millennial founder of a biotech company launched into a spirited rendition of Eminem’s Lose Yourself, as the governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, edged further and further towards the edge of their shared stage.“The whole crowd goes so loud, when he opens his mouth,” Ramaswamy rapped. The largely white crowd watched on politely.“But the words won’t come out. He’s choking, how, everybody’s joking now but the clock’s run out time’s up, over, blaow!”It was not a scene one usually associated with a Republican presidential candidate – especially a rightwing, deeply conservative one. But then again, the era of Donald Trump has upended almost all norms in US politics.Getting his words out has rarely been a problem for Ramaswamy, who is the youngest candidate running for the Republican nomination. The 38-year-old son of Indian immigrants has given scores of interviews since he entered the race, and has spent more time wooing people in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire than any other candidate.It’s working too. In some recent polls, Ramaswamy has now started to appear second only to the dominant frontrunner of Trump himself.Before demonstrating his musical abilities, Ramaswamy had sat down with Reynolds for a “fair-side chat”, where he said as president he would fire 75% of federal employees and abolish a raft of government agencies including the FBI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – which handled much of the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic – and the Department of Education.As president he would “revive our national identity”, Ramaswamy said. For good measure, he declared “the climate change agenda” a “hoax”.Hours after his appearance with Reynolds, Ramaswamy repeated much of the same things at the Des Moines Register newspaper’s “political soapbox”.Onlookers seemed enthused by Ramaswamy’s combination of extreme rightwing populism and youthful energy – and by his ready willingness to engage with them directly.“I like what he has to bring to us. He is on the same lines of where I’m at where there’s no reason to hide behind computers; actually speak to people and have open debates and talk real to people instead of being fake the way most of the world is now,” said John Meyers, a service director at a car dealership.Meyers, 54, agreed with Ramaswamy on climate change, adding: “I believe it is a hoax. I don’t believe it’s happening in the way everybody feels it is.”For someone who turned 38 in early August, Ramaswamy certainly has some extreme ideas: beyond just his head-in-the-sand approach to the cataclysmic environmental change happening on our planet.He rails against “the cult of radical gender ideology” – a term which he seems to use to qualify his opposition to trans rights. Ramaswamy wants to ban “addictive social media” for under-16s, while under his leadership the federal workers whom he has not fired would see remote working – which Ramaswamy calls “pro-lazy” – brought to an end.Like barroom bores across the country, he thinks the US has lost its “civic pride, civic identity, civic duty”. He has said affirmative action – the effort designed to ensure colleges and businesses offer equal opportunities to people of color, and people of all genders and sexual orientation – is “a cancer on our national soul”. His opposition to affirmative action, however, invariably lands on policies which may benefit Black or Latino Americans.“Top companies now regularly disfavor qualified applicants who happen to be white or Asian,” he tweeted in June. “Time to restore colorblind meritocracy once and for all.”Ramaswamy did not provide any evidence for his claim and did not respond to a question on the topic from the Guardian. Last year, a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that “one of the most durable and defining features of the US labor market is the 2-to-1 disparity in unemployment that exists between black and white workers”.“African Americans have made considerable gains in high school and college completion over the last four and a half decades – both in absolute terms as well as relative to whites – and those gains have had virtually no effect on equalizing employment outcomes,” the EPI wrote.Ramaswamy has also called Juneteenth, a federal holiday which recognizes the emancipation of Black people from slavery, a “useless” holiday.Strikingly, he wants to strip the vote from people under 25; they can avoid being disfranchised if they agree to serve in the military or as a first responder (he did neither).Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Ramaswamy studied at Harvard and Yale before becoming a venture capitalist and investing in pharmaceutical companies, some of which focused on pharmaceutical drug development. It has made him very wealthy – his net worth is in the hundreds of millions of dollars – and as of late June he had loaned his own campaign $15m.While Ramaswamy has pledged to use his business prowess to lead the US to fiscal glory, in part through revitalizing the coal industry, it is the ongoing American culture war where he has focused much of his attention.A particular bugbear is “wokeism”. He wrote a book about the subject, and according to his website, education, capitalism, big tech companies, American Express and Mother’s Day have all been infected by wokeness, which he defines as “obsessing about race, gender and sexual orientation”.Probably not coincidentally, all of Ramaswamy’s shtick fits in with current rightwing Republican dogma, and Trump’s agenda.Billing his plan as “America First 2.0”, he has clung tightly to Trump’s lengthy coattails, defending the former president against the four indictments he faces. In Iowa he said Trump was the “most successful president in our century”.What Ramaswamy offers, in his telling, is Trumpism, but with more competence, and with a youthful vigor.He has leaned into his youth – as well as the rap he frequently mentions his prowess on the tennis court – as a point of difference from both Trump and Biden. He is also not short on confidence: in Iowa he went so far as to compare himself to the US founding fathers.“Thomas Jefferson was 30 years old when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Alexander Hamilton was 24 at the time. Years later, he wrote the Federalist Papers, along with John Jay and James Madison. So do I think those guys were too young to set this nation into motion? You’re darned right they weren’t,” Ramaswamy said.Jefferson was actually 33 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, while Hamilton, who was 19, had nothing to do with the famous breakup text, but in any case Ramaswamy’s tender years are not the only obstacle he faces.It remains unclear whether a person of Indian descent can charm Republican voters, 85% of whom are white. In Iowa, Ramaswamy was asked by the Guardian about his experience of racial discrimination.“I have faced racial discrimination in my life. It has come from people of diverse races. I don’t think racism is limited to one race, actually, but I also don’t let it ruin my life. Have I stubbed my toe? Yes, I have. Is it pleasant when your toe is stubbed? No, it is not but you don’t let it ruin your life. So hardship is something that happens to you; victimhood is a choice,” he said.Hopefully Ramaswamy does not spend too much time on Truth Social, the social media network established by Trump as a safe space for his supporters to rant and rave.On the rightwing platform Ramaswamy’s eligibility to run, as a child of immigrants, has been questioned (Ramaswamy is eligible to serve as president), while Trumpers frequently draw attention to Ramaswamy’s Indian heritage, and his Hindu faith.Moreover, he is running in a party that undeniably has a racism problem.A Trump supporter was arrested last week after threatening to kill Tanya Chutkan, the judge who is overseeing the election interference case against Trump in Washington. The threat against Chutkan, who is Black, included racist terms. Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney in Georgia who is prosecuting Trump over alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, has also received racist threats, while this week Trump himself used the word “riggers” in a social media post – which a former Trump aide described as a racial “bullhorn”.As for Ramaswamy’s chances of winning the Republican nomination, they – along with all other candidates not named Trump – seem small at the moment.Trump has a 40-point lead over his Republican rivals in an average of national polling, with 54.6% of party members planning to vote for the twice-impeached former president. Ramaswamy is in third place, at 6.7%, but has gone from an unknown to a near ever-present face, and on Wednesday one poll put him in second place among Republican primary voters – albeit 47 points behind Trump.He has so far thrown everything at the key early voting states of Iowa – where he has spent at least 26 days, far more than his rivals – and New Hampshire, but it remains to be seen if ubiquity will be enough.“He has no political background, which in this day and age could be a very big plus,” said Steffen Schmidt, professor emeritus in the department of political science at Iowa State University.“People are tired of professional politicians. He seems to have an outgoing, engaging personality, which is what you need to have when you’re going and meeting people who have no idea who the hell you are.”There’s no rest for a presidential candidate, and on Sunday, fresh from the fair, Ramaswamy traveled to New Hampshire, where he won applause as he railed against the “rotten, corrupt federal bureaucratic state” at a “No BS BBQ”.The next night, Ramaswamy, who frequently pops up on the influential Fox News, was the focus of a town hall hosted by NewsNation, a far-right channel popular among Trump supporters, as he tries to expand his national profile.“He will talk to any media who will have him,” said Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire.“That’s all part of the game now. You can’t just rely on Iowa and New Hampshire catapulting you. Because in some ways if you wait until then, the catapult is too late.”People tend to like Ramaswamy. In New Hampshire, he has the highest approval rating of any Republican candidate, and people who come to his events invariably have good things to say. But Scala pointed to an old political adage that people in early-voting states “will date candidates, but marry someone else”.“I think Ramaswamy’s dilemma is he’s generating a lot of good word of mouth, and people like what they see,” he said.“But ultimately will they go beyond dating to actually marrying – especially if that means abandoning someone like Trump?” More

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      Trump Stronghold Is Unbothered by Indictments, But Worried About Winning

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      Republicans in Alton, N.H., still love the former president. But some are rethinking their loyalty, fearing Mr. Trump might not prevail in the general election.Follow our live updates on the Trump investigation in Georgia.Donald J. Trump has amassed a load of legal baggage that is hard to ignore: three indictments and 78 felony counts, including four for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. More charges could be imminent this week in Fulton County, Ga. Yet polls show his supporters have so far been unfazed.Republicans in small-town Alton, N.H., seem to be no exception. In interviews this month with more than 20 residents who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020, all but two dismissed the indictments as manufactured political theater.But in a twist that hints at burgeoning complexity within Republican circles, roughly half of the Trump voters interviewed here in recent days also said that while the indictments don’t bother them, they are increasingly concerned that Mr. Trump may not be able to win the general election.“Trump had a great opportunity and he did a lot of work, but the guy’s an idiot, he’s narcissistic and it’s too much to risk,” Roger Sample, a builder and member of the local planning board, said one recent morning outside the Alton McDonald’s. He was drinking coffee with a group of men; most of them agreed with his assessment.Many acknowledged that they still admired the former president. But his failure to win a second term, combined with their deepening despair at the country’s direction under President Biden, led them to a reckoning, they said. More mindful that Mr. Trump’s personal attacks and “second-grade stuff,” as one put it, repel some voters, they are considering other candidates.While Mr. Trump’s lack of filter raised doubts, the criminal cases did not. On the day when prosecutors in Washington laid out the most serious charges against Mr. Trump, the coffee drinkers outside McDonald’s rolled their eyes at the accusation that Mr. Trump had plotted to overthrow democracy. It was just more political nonsense, they said — the same sort of petty infighting that drove them to embrace Mr. Trump in the first place.“It’s like little kids on the playground — ‘You stole my marbles!’” said Rick Finethy, 61, a Trump loyalist who plans to stick with the former president.“That’s the swamp,” agreed Brian Mitchell, 69, another Trump supporter.From left, Rick Finethy, Roger Sample, Gary Nickerson and Brian Mitchell are among the men who meet daily for coffee at the McDonald’s in Alton. John Tully for The New York TimesWhat concerns them more than legal wrangling, Alton Republicans said, is Mr. Trump’s tendency to speak before he thinks on social media or in debates, causing controversy and diminishing the public’s perception of him as a capable leader. Mr. Trump’s loss in 2020 shook their confidence in his ability to overcome that behavior — and in voters’ willingness to overlook it.Mr. Mitchell said he would like to see Mr. Trump and his closest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, team up on one ticket, a strategy he thought could shore up Mr. Trump’s electability. “DeSantis is more politically correct,” he said. “He doesn’t fly off the handle.”Few places in New Hampshire have backed Mr. Trump as strongly as Alton, a conservative stronghold of about 6,000 people at the southern tip of Lake Winnipesaukee, near the center of the state in Belknap County. It was one of only two New Hampshire counties won by Mr. Trump in 2020. In Alton, he defeated Mr. Biden 62 to 37 percent.Among voters who plan to vote for Mr. Trump again, Nicholas Kalamvokis, 58, said he liked the former president’s “regular people” persona and was willing to overlook his role in the events of Jan. 6, which he did not believe rose to the level of a crime.“I think he encouraged it, but I don’t believe he incited it, and I don’t think he expected it to be as violent as it was,” said Mr. Kalamvokis, who moved to Alton from Massachusetts last year and works three part-time jobs. “I can see his motivation for it. It was selfish, but also for the betterment of the country.”Few places in New Hampshire have backed Mr. Trump as strongly as Alton, a conservative stronghold of about 6,000 people at the southern tip of Lake Winnipesaukee, and the surrounding Belknap County.John Tully for The New York TimesOnce humming with industry at its sawmills and shoe factories — as well as a corkscrew plant that produced tens of millions of the utensils in the early 20th century — the town, like many others in New England, now relies heavily on tourism for its economy. Drive north from Main Street, on a winding road where American flags fly from every utility pole, into the lakefront village of Alton Bay, and modest, middle-class neighborhoods give way to more imposing homes with docks and boats.The challenges of the seasonal economy, with its long dormant stretches, take a toll on year-round residents.Mr. Mitchell, a Massachusetts native whose father fought in World War II, felt that strain firsthand after moving to Alton 20 years ago and buying a country store on the shore of the lake.“People here recognize that when we lose manufacturing, we become a weaker nation, economically and militarily,” said State Representative Peter Varney, a Republican and lifelong Alton resident who represents the town.John Tully for The New York TimesAfter a decade, they sold the business, weary of trying to make a year’s living in three or four months.State Representative Peter Varney, a Republican and lifelong Alton resident who represents the town in the legislature, said New Hampshire’s lost industry — and its ongoing struggle to attract new jobs and stabilize its population — looms large. “People here recognize that when we lose manufacturing, we become a weaker nation, economically and militarily,” he said.Mr. Varney, who voted for Mr. Trump twice, said he was supporting another candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, for now to help the 38-year-old entrepreneur build name recognition in the state. Mr. Varney said he was not bothered by the indictments against Mr. Trump. But he hoped that Mr. Ramaswamy’s youth, enthusiasm and business know-how would drive voters his way and make him a contender.“I’m looking at the long game here,” said Mr. Varney, 69, who serves as fire chief in nearby New Durham and owns an Alton gun shop and an engineering firm.Other Republicans who backed Mr. Trump in the past said they, too, were considering their options.Renee and Jim Miller, a couple in Alton, said their newfound support for Mr. Ramaswamy was not a reaction to the indictments but a product of their attendance at one of his campaign events, where they said they were drawn in by the candidate’s empathy, eloquence and hopefulness.The Millers, like other Republicans planning to cast their primary ballots for other candidates, pledged to support Mr. Trump in 2024 if he were to be the nominee. But their clear preference for a fresh contender hints at an uptick in strategic thinking, at least in New Hampshire, a swing state that plays a prominent role in presidential politics with the first Republican primary in the nation.Ron Stevens, 75, a former Navy aircraft mechanic and retired auto body repair teacher, said he may also vote for Mr. Ramaswamy, a son of Indian immigrants who Mr. Stevens described as “very Trump-like.”Among the issues that matter deeply to him, Mr. Stevens said, is illegal immigration, partly because of his grandparents’ struggles as immigrants from Italy and Ireland.“I have nothing against immigrants personally; some of them work like hell,” he said. But “knowing what my relatives had to go through,” he added, he finds it hard to stomach generous handouts for people who don’t follow the rules.In the coffee circle at McDonald’s, the shift away from Mr. Trump has left Mr. Finethy outnumbered as he makes his case for the former president. A builder who started working on his family’s garbage truck when he was a 6-year-old boy in Alton, he said his biggest concern is China’s growing power and the threat it poses to the United States — a threat made more ominous, in his view, by revelations of financial ties between the Biden family and Chinese executives.(Mr. Biden recently announced new restrictions on U.S. investment in China.)“Do I think Trump is an idiot who doesn’t know when to shut up? Yes,” Mr. Finethy said. “But I don’t want to go back to a politician who’s just using the government to get rich. It’s what he does, not what he says, that matters. And this is a guy they can’t buy off.” More

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      Nikki Haley Fights to Stay Competitive in GOP Primary Dominated by Trump

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      The former South Carolina governor is campaigning at a grueling pace, but polling suggests that so far, Republican voters aren’t flocking to her.Nikki Haley is campaigning at a grueling pace as she fights to stay competitive in the Republican presidential contest, crisscrossing Iowa and New Hampshire to find a clear lane forward in a race dominated by Donald J. Trump and his mountain of legal problems.So far, that path is elusive.By many measures, Ms. Haley is running a healthy campaign poised to capitalize on rivals’ mistakes. She has built a robust fund-raising operation and her team has cash to spare: A super PAC backing her this week announced a $13 million advertising effort in Iowa and New Hampshire. And at events, voters often like what she has to say.“She is not pounding the pulpit,” Eric Ray, 42, a Republican legal defense consultant in Iowa, said after watching her speak at a barbecue restaurant last weekend in Iowa City, adding that she had his vote. “She is not jumping up and down. She is not screaming the word ‘woke.’ She is making reasonable arguments for reasonable people.”Yet as Ms. Haley tries to occupy a lonely realm between the moderate and far-right wings of her party, her attempts to gain national traction — talking openly about her positions on abortion, taking a hard stance against transgender girls playing in girls’ sports, attacking Vice President Kamala Harris — appear to be falling flat with the Republican base at large.Polls show Ms. Haley stuck in the low single digits in Iowa and New Hampshire, and trailing both Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in her home state, South Carolina. Nationally, the first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign showed Mr. Trump carrying the support of 54 percent of likely Republican primary voters. Ms. Haley sat in a distant third, tied at 3 percent with former Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Ms. Haley is polling in the low single digits in Iowa and New Hampshire, and trailing both Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in her home state, South Carolina.John Tully for The New York TimesWorryingly for Ms. Haley, as Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has stumbled and given his competitors an opening, it has been Mr. Scott, her local Republican rival, who has appeared best positioned to benefit.“I wouldn’t dismiss her just yet,” said Dante Scala, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. But, he added, “When you are treading water among your own party’s voters — that is a problem.”Allies of Ms. Haley, 51, the sole Republican woman in the race, argue that she has beaten long odds before, stunning political analysts to win the South Carolina governor’s office by climbing from fourth place in the polls and fund-raising.Her campaign says it has exceeded its benchmarks: At least 2,000 gathered in Charleston, S.C., for the kickoff of her presidential bid. Ms. Haley has held more events in Iowa and New Hampshire than most of her competitors, and her bid is attracting the interest of a wide mix of donors.When voters ask about how she can prevail, Ms. Haley points to retail politics — “get used to this face, because I am going to keep on coming back” — and her financial strength. Her top competitors have spent millions of dollars, with little to show for it, she suggests, because few voters have been paying attention in these early summer months.“We haven’t spent anything,” she said in Iowa City, declaring her campaign was about “to kick into full gear.” She added, “You will see me finish this.”But Mr. Trump poses a different type of obstacle for her, and for every other Republican candidate playing catch-up.Ms. Haley, who served as United Nations ambassador under the former president, has carefully calibrated her approach to Mr. Trump and his unwavering followers. Delivering many of the same broadsides he does, but cloaking them in calm tones and plain language, she has alternated between criticism and praise of the former president.Ms. Haley at a campaign stop last month in Iowa City. She has spent years toeing the line between Reagan-Bush neoconservatism and the Trump-centric politics of today’s Republican voters.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesHer unwillingness to directly confront Mr. Trump has drawn criticism from some anti-Trump Republicans. Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey recently compared the reluctance of Ms. Haley and other candidates to mention Mr. Trump to the “Harry Potter” world’s fear of uttering the name “Voldemort.”“Nikki, it’s OK,” Mr. Christie said. “Say his name. It’s all right.”Ms. Haley fired right back, saying: “I’m not obsessively anti-Trump like he is. I talk about policies.”At a gathering with six other Republican rivals on Sunday in Iowa — though not including Mr. Trump — Ms. Haley mentioned the former president in passing, not as a 2024 rival, but to recall how he “lost his mind” in delight over a briefing book she prepared while serving as his U.N. ambassador. Her speech was heavy on foreign policy, most notably warning that China was outpacing the United States in shipbuilding, hacking American infrastructure and developing “neuro-strike weapons” to “disrupt brain activity, so they can use it against military commanders.”Ms. Haley has spent years toeing the line between the Reagan-Bush neoconservatism she once sought to emulate and the Trump-centric politics of today’s Republican voters.During the 2016 election, when Mr. Trump first ran, she did not support him in the Republican primary or his pledge to build a border wall. But she eventually said she would vote for him and later agreed to serve as his ambassador. She left on good terms at the end of 2018, receiving a rare glowing review from Mr. Trump in an administration in which staff turmoil and turnover were rampant.After the Capitol riot, she faulted the president. But she later contended that he was needed in the Republican Party and lavished praise on his approach to foreign policy, including his dealings with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea. She has since echoed Mr. Trump’s hard-line immigration message, including an idea to deploy the military against drug cartels in Mexico.In recent stump speeches and political events, Ms. Haley has turned China — and not Mr. Trump — into her foil, amplifying her attacks on the Biden administration for its attempts to thaw relations with the global superpower.As governor of South Carolina, she lauded and welcomed Chinese companies, helping them expand or open new operations in the state. But on the 2024 trail, she has argued that this investment accounted for less than 2 percent of the jobs and projects her administration brought in, and that she did not learn how dangerous China was until she became U.N. ambassador.“I’ve been across the negotiating table from China,” Ms. Haley told an audience of more than 50 people at a manufacturing company in Barrington, N.H., promising to crack down on the “Chinese infiltration at our universities” and the importation of fentanyl from China across the Southwestern border. “They don’t play by the rules, they never have.”A bright spot for Ms. Haley is her fund-raising. She raised $7.3 million through her presidential campaign and affiliated committees from April through June, according to financial filings that revealed her strong appeal to small donors. Her robust network of bundlers, or supporters who raise money from friends and business associates, includes 125 such backers. Forty percent of them are first-time bundlers, and the group includes powerful women in business and politics, according to her campaign.Ms. Haley has turned China into her foil, attacking the Biden administration for its attempts to thaw relations with the global superpower.John Tully for The New York TimesJennifer Ann Nassour, one of her bundlers and a former chairwoman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, said Ms. Haley was in a prime position to break out at the first Republican debate this month.“No one wants to see another Trump-Biden showdown,” Ms. Nassour said, adding that it was “not good for democracy.”At the town hall event in Barrington, Toby Clarke, 64, asked Ms. Haley a question weighing on many G.O.P. voters who would like to move on from Mr. Trump: How can the Republican Party come together and avoid splitting its primary results in a way that hands the nomination to the former president?“Everybody is worried that this is going to turn into 2015 all over again,” Ms. Haley responded, assuring Mr. Clarke that the field of Republican candidates was smaller and that she was meeting the necessary benchmarks to pull ahead. “It’s not going to be 2015 all over again.”At an event at a vineyard in Hollis, N.H., later that day, with attendees shielded under umbrellas as rain poured from the sky, Ms. Haley expressed optimism, promising to outwork her rivals.“Republicans have lost the last seven out eight popular votes for president — that is nothing to be proud of,” she said. “We need a new generational leader.”Trip Gabriel More

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      Pence Reaches Fork in Road of 2024 Campaign With New Trump Indictment

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      Through four years as Donald J. Trump’s vice president, or perhaps three years and 350 days, Mike Pence brandished a peerless talent: insisting that all was going smoothly amid plain evidence to the contrary.His 2024 campaign, he has long insisted, is going smoothly.“I have great confidence in Republican primary voters,” he said in an interview, riding to an Iowa hog roast last weekend. “I’m confident we’re going to get a fresh look.”It seemed notable that Mr. Trump, never shy about knocking anyone he views as a threat, had barely bothered to attack him in the race to that point.It was early, Mr. Pence suggested.“I think we’re coming,” he said calmly, “to a fork in the road.”The fork has arrived.As the former lieutenant to the Republican front-runner and a critical witness to that front-runner’s alleged crimes against democracy, Mr. Pence is campaigning now as many things: anti-abortion warrior, unbending conservative, believer in “heavy doses of civility.”Yet he is running most viscerally, whether he intends to or not, as a cautionary tale — a picture of what can happen when anyone, even someone as loyal as he was, defies Mr. Trump.“Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president,” Mr. Pence said on a campaign conference call on Wednesday, during which supporters were reassured that he was on track to qualify for the first Republican debate. “Anyone who asks someone else to put them over their oath to the Constitution should never be president again.”At minimum, he has gotten his former running mate’s attention.“I feel badly for Mike Pence,” Mr. Trump posted on Wednesday on his social media site, Truth Social, repeating unfounded election claims. His former vice president, he said, was “attracting no crowds, enthusiasm or loyalty from people who, as a member of the Trump administration, should be loving him.”Mr. Pence’s most prominent turns this summer have been in court documents regarding his former boss, not in early states.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Pence’s early difficulties are not shocking. Mr. Trump continues to dominate among Republicans, and much of the party’s base despises Mr. Pence for his lone act of major public defiance: resisting efforts to reverse Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss.But to see Mr. Pence up close, at stops across Iowa and New Hampshire in recent weeks, is to absorb the bracing particulars of a campaign not sparking — the creaky score of polite clapping in modest rooms — and of a candidate convinced he will be judged kindly by history, unable to hustle that history along.His most prominent turns this summer have been in court documents, not in early states. Many key details in the federal indictment against Mr. Trump, which said that Mr. Pence took “contemporaneous notes,” are culled from conversations between them. At one point, the indictment recounted, Mr. Trump let fly a three-word rebuke: “You’re too honest.”If so, this does not seem to have done Mr. Pence many favors as a candidate (though the campaign has already repurposed the “Too Honest” label for T-shirts and hats). His fund-raising has been meager. He is polling, at best, a very, very distant third or fourth.While his team says the campaign has gone according to plan, noting his late entry in the race compared with some competitors’, seven other Republicans say they have qualified for the debate later this month, a group that includes two rivals who joined the primary the same week he did in June.At a candidate forum last week in Des Moines, where multiple extended ovations greeted Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence strained to coax applause at times even while serving up the reddest of meat. (“Americans are facing one man-made crisis after another, and that man’s name is Joe Biden,” he said, to near silence.)Mr. Pence has compelled supporters to worry openly about the size of his venues as he speaks in modest rooms.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesHe has failed to dissuade voters from ascribing foreboding meaning to the mundane. (“Is that a sign?” a woman whispered in Hudson, N.H., noticing a small snake near Mr. Pence’s foot as he spoke outdoors.)He has compelled some supporters to worry openly about the size of his venues.“So tiny — you’re a vice president, for heaven’s sake,” Shirley Noakes, 84, said before he arrived to another crowd of dozens in Meredith, N.H.For those who once considered Mr. Pence the chief enabler in Mr. Trump’s White House — buoying him through relentless executive chaos that rattled democratic institutions well before January 2021 — any campaign stumbles amount to a well-earned comeuppance.Mr. Trump was the nation’s essential man, Mr. Pence long attested, and more than that, “a good man.” (He does not use that adjective anymore.)Asked in the interview if he saw himself as an example to other Republicans who remain devoted to the former president, Mr. Pence did not say no. He reiterated his pre-Jan. 6 dedication to Mr. Trump “through thick and thin, until my oath to the Constitution required me to do otherwise.”“I would leave to others,” he said, “any judgment about what that says about the president.”Among some who admire Mr. Pence, for his stand at the Capitol and otherwise, his campaign thus far has been confounding, a mission without a near-term political rationale.“He doesn’t really have a unique selling proposition,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who has both praised Mr. Pence for what he did on Jan. 6 and been accused of helping to perpetuate Mr. Trump’s election lies. “In terms of John F. Kennedy’s ‘Profiles in Courage,’ I think that Pence is a very admirable person. In terms of that being a way to win the Republican nomination, I think it doesn’t have any traction.”Mr. Pence said he thought Mr. Gingrich was “not giving Republican primary voters enough credit.”But regardless, Mr. Pence said, this race is a calling for him and his wife, Karen Pence, no matter how it ends. “Campaigns should be about something more important than the candidate’s election,” he said.Mr. Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, during the opening prayer at the Iowa hog roast. Jordan Gale for The New York TimesAnd this one, at least, is poised to answer some questions in the interim.What do Americans think of Mike Pence now, without someone else blocking their view? What should they think?“You want to take a picture or something?” he asked with a smile recently in Barrington, N.H., arriving unannounced to a home décor shop whose Republican proprietors appreciated the visit, they said later, but did not support him. “Just in case I turn out to be somebody important.”Trump’s opposite ‘in every way’Mr. Pence has imagined himself as a prospective president for some time, entertaining White House runs during his years as a congressman and Indiana governor.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Pence looks like a presidential candidate who knows that he looks like a presidential candidate.“Out of central casting,” Mr. Trump used to say of him, in happier times, and the Pence 2024 team seems inclined to sustain the aesthetic.He still shakes hands with his whole body — leaning, nodding, left palm on a voter’s upper back.He still remembers names and local favorites, pandering with impunity. (In New Hampshire: “I stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts the other day …” In Iowa: “I look forward to seeing you at Casey’s and Pizza Ranch…”)He is still liable to point straight ahead suddenly, as if drawing a firearm in the credits of a Hoosier James Bond, for the closing flourish of his remarks.“The best” — point! — “days for the greatest nation on earth are yet to come.”Mr. Pence, 64, has imagined himself as a prospective president for some time, entertaining White House runs during his years as a congressman and Indiana governor. In his 2022 memoir, he said he had developed “a healthy distrust of my own ambition.”Much of Mr. Pence’s career can read now as a study in suboptimal timing, with a politician who could seem almost ostentatiously out of step with the moment.In 2004, dismayed at the spending decisions of a Republican administration, Mr. Pence said he felt like “the frozen man” as a lonely voice for fiscal restraint in Congress. “Frozen before the revolution, thawed after it was over,” he said then. “A minuteman who showed up 10 years too late.”In 2016, he endorsed Senator Ted Cruz of Texas for president days before Mr. Cruz dropped out. “Cruz’s vision of our party hewed the closest to mine,” he reasoned in his book.It was Mr. Trump who gave Mr. Pence a timely lifeline anyway, inviting him on the ticket during a tough re-election race in Indiana.For all of Mr. Trump’s volatility, people who know both men said, their relationship was often buttressed by genuine affection.Robert Jeffress, the senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Dallas, recalled Mr. Trump’s glee at introducing him to Mr. Pence shortly after their election in 2016. “He said, ‘Robert, he is absolutely fantastic,’” Mr. Jeffress remembered. “‘He is opposite me in every way.’”Surely it helped relations that the dynamic between the two was never ambiguous: There was one star, one principal, one sun around which the operation would orbit.Mr. Trump gave Mr. Pence a timely lifeline when he invited him on the ticket during a tough re-election race back home.Damon Winter/The New York TimesIn his stump speech, Mr. Pence speaks about being “well-known” but “not known well,” a man often seen standing quietly behind another man.“Just a half-step off,” he told a couple dozen supporters in Ames, Iowa, “off the shoulder of the president.”In the interview, he noted: “I don’t believe that we ever agreed to a single profile interview in four years. Because I never wanted the story to be about me.” (As it happened, Mr. Trump did not want that, either.)Eventually, nightmarishly, the story became about him.Mr. Pence said he sensed in the days after the Capitol riot that Mr. Trump was “deeply remorseful about what had occurred.”The former president offers no apology for his role in the violence that surrounded Mr. Pence and his family that day.Breaking a vise grip he helped createMr. Pence at a first-responder round table meeting in Nevada, Iowa, last month, where he repeated a mantra of his on the campaign trail: “So help me God.”Jordan Gale for The New York TimesFour words accompany almost any public appearance by Mr. Pence.“So help me God,” he said in Nevada, Iowa, convening with first responders.“So help me God,” he said in Napa, Calif., at a gathering of Catholic conservatives.“So help me God,” he said in Meredith, N.H. “Which happens to be the title of my book.”Friends say Mr. Pence was always cleareyed about — and unmoved by — his steep odds in 2024. That he joined the field anyway, they suggest, says more about his faith than his ego.“My sense is there was a really long and interesting discussion with God,” said Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who decided against a run himself, speaking highly of Mr. Pence after watching the candidate forum in Des Moines.But a vexing political irony for Mr. Pence has persisted: Mr. Trump’s unyielding support among many conservatives — a vise grip that the former vice president must break to have any electoral hope — can be traced in large measure to Mr. Pence.Mr. Jeffress said the symbolic resonance of Mr. Pence’s 2016 selection by Mr. Trump was immeasurable to evangelical voters especially, enshrining a stalwart of the right beside an ideologically flexible nominee. “And now, the overwhelming majority of evangelicals still support Trump,” he added, “because he has a track record.” (Mr. Jeffress is supporting Mr. Trump.)Mr. Pence suggested that this history is partly why he felt called to the 2024 campaign. In 2016, he said, Mr. Trump made “a tacit promise” to govern as a conservative.“He makes no such promise today,” Mr. Pence said.As other candidates, including Mr. Trump, hedge and deflect their positions on abortion restrictions, Mr. Pence has eagerly promoted his role in vetting the Trump-nominated Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade.“He has forced the other contenders to step up and say where they stand,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America. “I think he has the potential to do that as well on other issues.”Mr. Pence has tried to reach conservative voters by taking a stand on abortion, an issue other candidates, including Mr. Trump, have avoided.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesA smattering of encouragement has come from the nonvoting set. In Meredith, where several guests thanked Mr. Pence for his actions on Jan. 6, a 15-year-old named Quinn Mitchell sent the Q. and A. session into a brief hush.Given the former president’s conduct, he asked, “do you think Christians should vote for Donald Trump?”Mr. Pence held for a beat, proceeding carefully.“I’m running for president of the United States because I think I should be the next president,” he said to applause.The young attendee understood, he said later, that the candidate was probably best served avoiding a clean yes or no.But when the two met afterward, Mr. Pence took care to commend the questioner.“You have a bright future,” he wrote on a poster the teen had brought. “God bless.” More

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      Pro-Haley Group Plans $13 Million Ad Push in Iowa and New Hampshire

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      Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, has been struggling to gain traction in a crowded Republican field dominated by Donald Trump.A super PAC supporting Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign said on Tuesday that it had reserved more than $13 million in television and digital ads in Iowa and New Hampshire starting in August. The outlay is the first major advertising push in support of Ms. Haley since she became the first Republican to challenge former President Donald J. Trump this year.The group, SFA Fund Inc., is pouring $7 million into ads in Iowa and $6.2 million into ads in New Hampshire that will run over the next nine weeks. The first television ad features Ms. Haley, 51, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, talking tough on China at a political rally, arguing that the country’s leaders “want to cover the world in communist tyranny.”A voice-over says, “Nikki Haley: tough as nails, smart as a whip, unafraid to speak the truth.”Polls show Ms. Haley stuck in the single digits in a primary race that has been dominated by Mr. Trump.The first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign showed Mr. Trump with the support of 54 percent of likely Republican primary voters, while Ms. Haley trailed far behind with just 3 percent, the same level of support as former Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Ms. Haley has until now relied on free television and press coverage that has come from her brisk clip of events and appearances in Iowa and New Hampshire, where she has spent more time campaigning than most of her rivals.In a memo published this month, Mark Harris, SFA Fund’s lead strategist, said the group was gearing up to begin “an aggressive voter contact campaign” as Ms. Haley enters the next phase of the race. “Nikki Haley understands that China’s growing influence poses a monumental threat to the United States,” Mr. Harris said in a statement announcing the ads.In Iowa, Republican campaigns have spent $31.8 million so far this year, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. The $7 million campaign would make SFA Fund the second-largest spender in the state, behind only Mr. Scott’s Trust in the Mission PAC, or TIM PAC, which has spent more than $15.3 million. Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has spent the next-highest amount, with $3.4 million in ads.Spending in New Hampshire has totaled only $3.4 million. TIM PAC has been the largest spender there, too, having invested $1.1 million in ads.Ms. Haley raised $7.3 million through her presidential campaign and affiliated committees from April through June, a modest sum that nevertheless revealed her robust appeal to small donors. SFA Fund had $17 million in cash on hand as of the end of June. More

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      How Trump Could Wreck Things for Republicans in 2024

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      Things just got a whole lot more interesting in New Hampshire politics. Just below the presidential churn, the governor’s race in the politically quirky Granite State has some superjuicy drama percolating — the kind that offers a vivid reminder of just how much trouble Donald Trump stands to cause for his party in 2024.Gov. Chris Sununu, currently enjoying his fourth two-year term, recently announced that he would not run for re-election next year. This instantly gave Democrats their best shot at flipping a governorship from red to blue in 2024, and the race is now rated as a tossup. Quick as a bunny, Republican contenders began hopping into the field, and both parties started gearing up for a brawl.Of the candidates so far, the best known is the former senator Kelly Ayotte. Like Mr. Sununu, Ms. Ayotte is from the more moderate, pragmatic, bipartisan end of the Republican spectrum — as you might expect in this staunchly independent, politically purple state. Elected to the Senate in 2010, she was considered a serious up-and-comer in the party until, with a little help from Mr. Trump’s lousy coattails, she narrowly lost her 2016 re-election race against the Democrat Maggie Hassan.It’s hard to know precisely how much of a drag Mr. Trump, who also lost New Hampshire that year, exerted on Ms. Ayotte. But the senator’s wild waffling over Mr. Trump’s fitness for office surely didn’t help: Did she see as him a role model? “Absolutely.” Oops, make that no! Would she endorse his candidacy? Um, not really. Did she personally support him? Yes. Wait, no!The voters of New Hampshire were unimpressed.Seven years later, Ms. Ayotte is looking to make a comeback. Unfortunately for her, so is Mr. Trump, who may be popular in deep red states but will be a source of agita for Ms. Ayotte and other Republicans in swing states who might have to share the ticket with him. Republicans are hopeful about picking up Senate, House and governors’ seats in 2024, but they have barely started to contend with how the once-and-aspiring president could complicate things for down-ballot candidates.Nowhere is this clearer than in New Hampshire, a key presidential battleground. The state’s Trump-infected political landscape looks even more treacherous in 2024 than it did in 2016. Not just because of the former president’s latest campaign, which is shaping up to be even nastier and more divisive than his first two, but also because of Mr. Sununu’s high-profile crusade to tank that campaign.One of the nation’s most popular governors and one of his party’s most prominent Trump critics, Mr. Sununu has grown increasingly adamant that his party must move beyond the 45th president, and he has publicly pledged to work against Mr. Trump’s nomination. If Mr. Trump is the nominee in 2024, “Republicans will lose again. Just as we did in 2018, 2020 and 2022. This is indisputable, and I am not willing to let it happen without a fight,” Mr. Sununu wrote in The Washington Post last month.This move may burnish Mr. Sununu’s independent rep nationwide. (He is seen as a future presidential player.) But it only complicates life for many down-ballot Republicans in the state. Especially ones, like Ms. Ayotte, who have a somewhat … troubled history with the fealty-obsessed Mr. Trump.For the G.O.P., the New Hampshire governor’s office is one of the shrinking number of outposts where a pragmatic, old-school breed of Republican leader has been able to thrive in the midst of the party’s MAGAfication. Republicans felt confident Mr. Sununu had the juice to win, no matter who topped the ticket next year. Any other Republican is a shakier bet for winning the independent and crossover votes needed to win statewide in New Hampshire. The governor’s departure is being talked about as yet another step in the party’s ideological constriction.Although broadly popular, Mr. Sununu is not beloved in New Hampshire’s conservative circles. His anti-Trump mission will do nothing to improve this. “I think Sununu is trying to dance the same tightrope I am and a lot of us are: being very forceful about the fact that we need a new nominee and yet trying not to take too big of a dump on the former president,” said Jason Osborne, the Republican leader of the state House and one of Ms. Ayotte’s early endorsers.Fancy footwork aside, the Trumpnunu rift is going to make it harder for the governor’s aspiring successors to avoid getting sucked into the Trump vortex — the dangers of which Ms. Ayotte knows too well. She is already trying to get out ahead of the issue, asserting that she will support whoever winds up the party’s standard-bearer.“I do wonder whether she’s going to hold to that line of, ‘Hey, that’s between Sununu and Trump,’” said Dante Scala, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. “She may be able to do that for some time.”But as campaign season heats up, look for Ayotte et al. to be increasingly pressed to clarify their views on the whole mess. (Trust me: Intraparty feuding is catnip for political journalists.) Staying out of the muck will very likely require elaborate tap dancing on a tightrope while juggling hot potatoes.The situation will be even thornier for whomever Mr. Sununu decides to endorse — which, at this point, is expected to be Ms. Ayotte. Sure, a popular governor’s nod in the race to succeed him will serve as a vote of confidence in the eyes of many. But it could also “fire up the conservative base even more” to undermine his pick, said Mike Dennehy, a G.O.P. strategist in the state. The territory is “more complicated than in 2016,” he asserted. And some think it would be best for the governor to delay endorsing until much later in the game.All of this, mind you, is piled on top of Ms. Ayotte’s specific challenges as a candidate. (Pro-life in a pro-choice state post-Dobbs? Oof.) And the basic political disposition of New Hampshire. “In general, it has become a slightly uphill battle to beat Democrats,” observed Mr. Scala.Stay tuned. As with so much in Mr. Trump’s Republican Party, this promises to be quite the show.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