Presidential Election of 2024

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      Even if Nikki Haley Shocks Trump in New Hampshire, It Won’t Matter

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      Nikki Haley did well enough in the Iowa caucuses Monday night to keep her supporters’ hopes alive. But her third-place showing, on the heels of Ron DeSantis and a mile behind Donald Trump, was also just disappointing enough to raise doubts about her candidacy.Her plan coming out of Iowa is a classic underdog strategy: Use strong early results to upend expectations in the contests to come, reshaping the dynamic of the race one upset victory at a time. So, the thinking goes, her solid-enough performance in Iowa will propel her higher in New Hampshire, where she holds a strong second place in the polls.It’s possible. But even if Ms. Haley does well in New Hampshire, it won’t matter. That’s because Ms. Haley is starkly out of step with the evolution of her party over the past decade.The shape of today’s Republican electorate can be seen most clearly in national polling of Republican voters, where Mr. Trump has led by a substantial margin for months. Even in the unlikely event that all the voters who have told pollsters in recent weeks that they support Mr. DeSantis, Chris Christie and the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson switched over to Ms. Haley, she would reach only the high 20s, placing her more than 30 points behind Mr. Trump, who sits at around 60 percent. (The voters who have said they support Vivek Ramaswamy, who dropped out of the race on Monday night, would likely switch to Mr. Trump.)Sure, Ms. Haley might peel off some of those Trump voters if she manages to puncture his air of inevitability by knocking him sideways in New Hampshire. But imagining that she could wrest the nomination from him ignores the fact that, if he were to suffer a humiliating setback in New Hampshire, Mr. Trump would be guaranteed to attack her with a viciousness he has so far reserved primarily for Mr. DeSantis. In December, as she climbed in the polls, MAGA loyalists like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon offered a preview of these sort of slashing attacks (referring to her as a “hologram” sent by donors or as potentially worse than “Judas Pence”).More important, though, the fulfillment of the Haley campaign’s hopes would require a wholesale shift in preferences among millions of Republican voters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Trump Signals Plans to Go After Intelligence Community in Document Case

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      Court papers filed by his lawyers, formally a request for discovery evidence, sounded at times more like political talking points.Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump said in court papers filed on Tuesday night that they intended to place accusations that the intelligence community was biased against Mr. Trump at the heart of their defense against charges accusing him of illegally holding onto dozens of highly sensitive classified documents after he left office.The lawyers also indicated that they were planning to defend Mr. Trump by seeking to prove that the investigation of the case was “politically motivated and biased.”The court papers, filed in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., gave the clearest picture yet of the scorched earth legal strategy that Mr. Trump is apparently planning to use in fighting the classified documents indictment handed up over the summer.While the 68-page filing was formally a request by Mr. Trump’s lawyers to the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, to provide them with reams of additional information that they believe can help them fight the charges, it often read more like a list of political talking points than a brief of legal arguments.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      For Biden, Another Trump Nomination Presents Opportunity, and Great Risk

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      Some Democrats consider the former president the Republican they would have the best chance against this fall, but also the one they most fear the consequences of losing to.To be clear, no one in President Biden’s White House would ever root for Donald J. Trump. To a person, they consider him an existential threat to the nation. But as they watched Mr. Trump open the contest for the Republican presidential nomination with a romp through Iowa, they also saw something else: a pathway to a second term.Mr. Biden’s best chance of winning re-election in the fall, in their view, is a rematch against Mr. Trump. The former president is so toxic, so polarizing that his presence on the November ballot, as Mr. Biden’s advisers see it, would be the most powerful incentive possible to lure disaffected Democrats and independents back into the camp of the poll-challenged president.And so, some Democrats felt a little torn this week as the Republican race got underway. None of them would cry if Mr. Trump were taken down by someone like former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who has one shot in New Hampshire next week to make it a race. Whatever Ms. Haley’s flaws, and Democrats see many, they do not believe she would pose the same danger to democracy that Mr. Trump does.But if she won the Republican nomination, she might pose a bigger danger to Mr. Biden.The paradox recalls 2016, when many Democrats were not unhappy when Mr. Trump won the Republican nomination, on the theory that the country would never elect a bumptious reality-television star who specialized in racist appeals and insult politics. Burned once, they are not so certain this time, but Democrats are banking on the hope that the country would not take back a defeated president who inspired a violent mob to help him keep power and has been charged with more felonies than Al Capone.“I was not one of those Democrats who thought Trump would be easier to beat in 2016,” said Jennifer Palmieri, Hillary Clinton’s communications director in the election she lost to Mr. Trump. “Some Democrats root for Trump. I think it is better for the country” for him “to be defeated in the Republican Party and not continue to gain strength.” If Mr. Trump did lose, she added, she believed Biden could defeat Ms. Haley or Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.But it might not be as easy. Ms. Haley would be vulnerable to Democratic attacks for enabling Mr. Trump as his ambassador to the United Nations, and even as a Republican candidate for president who largely declined to attack the former president and would not rule out voting for him if he won the nomination.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Trump Won 98 of Iowa’s 99 Counties, as Haley Prevented a Shutout

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      Former President Donald J. Trump won 98 of 99 counties in the Iowa caucuses on Monday, according to preliminary results published by the state Republican Party, demonstrating just how broadly he swept the first-in-the-nation contest.In counties large and small, Mr. Trump racked up commanding leads across the state. In the only county he lost, it was by a single vote: Johnson County, the state’s bluest county and the home of Iowa City and the University of Iowa, went for former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina.Shut out from a single victory was Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who had banked his candidacy on Iowa and put enormous effort into campaigning in rural, sparsely populated areas. He visited every one of Iowa’s 99 counties in the months before the caucuses, a tour known as the “Full Grassley,” and was rewarded on Monday with second- and third-place finishes from Sioux City to Davenport.Vivek Ramaswamy, the pro-Trump entrepreneur who dropped out on Monday after receiving just 7 percent of the vote in Iowa, had visited all 99 counties at least twice, a strategy that did not deliver the surprise performance he had been brashly predicting for months.Mr. Trump in contrast had put far less effort into circuiting the state and indulging in the kind of retail politics that Iowa campaigning is known for. He also had surrogates do much of the campaigning for him until the final week before the caucuses.After battling fiercely for second place in the race’s final weeks, Ms. Haley finished third overall in Iowa on Monday night. Her lone bright spot, albeit narrowly, was Johnson County. In his 2020 re-election campaign, Mr. Trump lost the county with just 27 percent of the vote, to over 70 percent for Joseph R. Biden Jr.Ms. Haley had been expected to do better in more populous urban and suburban areas — much like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who eight years ago won significant margins in the counties of Des Moines, its suburbs and Iowa City, as he, too, came in third place.But turnout fell sharply across the state this year, the lowest since the Republican caucuses in 2000, and urban counties lost thousands of votes. In the end, Ms. Haley fell far short in Iowa’s largest cities, losing by wide margins to Mr. Trump — and sometimes behind Mr. DeSantis — in the counties that include Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Davenport and Sioux City. More

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      Nikki Haley Looks to New Hampshire Primary With a Focus on Independents

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      The former South Carolina governor has banked her campaign on the state, buoyed by an influx of cash and an advertising blitz as she looks to rebound from Iowa.Former President Donald J. Trump’s resounding victory in Iowa significantly raises the stakes of next week’s New Hampshire primary for Nikki Haley and the increasingly desperate contingent of Republicans who want to move on from Mr. Trump.While Iowa was largely a foregone conclusion at the top, with a spirited battle only for second place, a small but ever narrowing path still exists for Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, to beat Mr. Trump in New Hampshire. It relies heavily on tens of thousands of independent voters expected to participate in the Republican primary.Ms. Haley, who got a late start in Iowa, has from the beginning banked her campaign on a strong showing in New Hampshire, and has recently been buoyed by an influx of cash from the super PAC supporting her. The demographic makeup of the state is also much more favorable to her than the more rural and conservative Iowa. She has invested significant money and time here — holding 80 events in the state — and has the support of some its top Republicans, including the popular governor, Chris Sununu.“She’s on the ground, she’s in the diner, she’s doing the town halls,” Mr. Sununu said. “She’s answering anybody’s questions. Trump’s not doing that. You’re lucky to get him to fly in once a week to do a rally and then get the heck out of there.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tries Creating Own Party to Get on Ballot in 6 States

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president as an independent, announced on Tuesday that he had filed paperwork to create his own political party in six states — an effort to get his name on the ballot with fewer voter signatures than would be required for an unaffiliated candidate.Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer turned anti-vaccine activist who has promoted conspiracy theories and right-wing misinformation, is seeking to form a “We the People” party in California, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi and North Carolina as well as a “Texas Independent Party.”Election offices in North Carolina and Hawaii confirmed that they had received the campaign’s applications for a new party, as did the Texas secretary of state’s office. Officials in California and Delaware did not respond to inquiries. A spokeswoman for Mississippi’s secretary of state said Mr. Kennedy’s team had contacted the office, but a filing could not be immediately confirmed because of a weather-related disruption.Mr. Kennedy’s campaign said that forming parties in those six states would reduce the number of signatures he needed to get on the ballot in all 50 states by 330,000 — about a third of the previous total.In at least two of the states, however, he will need to persuade a minimum number of voters to register with the party in order to get ballot access: roughly 75,000 in California and roughly 770 in Delaware.Two other states, North Carolina and Hawaii, require registered voters’ signatures to complete the formation of the party: at least 13,865 in North Carolina and at least 862 in Hawaii.And in Texas, Mr. Kennedy will need about 81,000 people to participate in precinct conventions in order for his party to get a line on the general-election ballot.So far, Mr. Kennedy has a confirmed spot on the ballot in only one state. Utah granted him access this month after he collected the 1,000 signatures required there.In addition to his campaign’s efforts, a super PAC supporting Mr. Kennedy said in December that it planned to spend more than $10 million to secure ballot access in 10 states, including two that now appear to be covered by the party formation filings: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York and Texas.Mr. Kennedy initially challenged President Biden for the Democratic nomination, but left the primary in October to run as an independent. A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted late last year found nearly 25 percent of voters considering him, although many of those respondents also indicated they were likely to support one of the front-runners. Nonetheless, it reflects deep discontent with a rematch between Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. More

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      ABC News Cancels G.O.P. Debate After Haley Demands Trump Appear, Too

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      ABC News canceled a Republican presidential debate scheduled for Thursday in New Hampshire, after Ron DeSantis was the only candidate who had agreed to participate.Hours earlier, Nikki Haley said she would not participate in future debates unless either Donald J. Trump or President Biden also participated, after a lower-than-expected result placing third in the Iowa caucuses.Ms. Haley’s statement also cast uncertainty over another upcoming Republican debate in New Hampshire, hosted by CNN and scheduled for Sunday.ABC News said in a statement that it and WMUR-TV had given Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley until 5 p.m. to “commit” to participate. They canceled the debate minutes after the deadline.Mr. Trump has refused to participate in any debates so far.Ms. Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump and a former South Carolina governor, finished third in the Iowa caucuses on Monday just behind Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor. After failing to overtake Mr. DeSantis in Iowa, Ms. Haley faces heightened pressure in New Hampshire, where polls have shown her within striking distance of Mr. Trump, who dominated in Iowa. The state holds its primary on Jan. 23.Ms. Haley has increasingly come under attack in recent debates as she has risen in the polls, including from Mr. DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, another rival who dropped out of the race after the caucuses and endorsed Mr. Trump.She has accused Mr. Trump of ducking his opponents.“He has nowhere left to hide,” Ms. Haley said in a statement on Tuesday. “The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden. I look forward to it.”The Trump campaign on Tuesday called Ms. Haley “desperate” and said the only voters casting ballots for her were Democrats “trying to interfere in a Republican primary.”Mr. DeSantis, who has ratcheted up his criticism of Ms. Haley at recent debates, including a one-on-one matchup on CNN last week in Iowa, assailed her on Tuesday on social media. He said she was afraid of scrutiny of her time as a Boeing board member after leaving the governor’s office.“The reality is that she is not running for the nomination, she’s running to be Trump’s VP,” Mr. DeSantis wrote. “I won’t snub New Hampshire voters like both Nikki Haley and Donald Trump, and plan to honor my commitments.”Later in the day, Mr. DeSantis went after Ms. Haley for not taking more questions from reporters and voters, calling her campaign “hermetically sealed.” “She will not do what I’m doing right here,” he said as he addressed reporters. More

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      Trump Left Iowa With Momentum and a Court Date

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      Also, the U.S. struck Houthi targets for a third time. Here’s the latest at the end of Tuesday.The Iowa caucuses could hardly have gone better for Donald Trump. The former president won the first presidential nominating contest by 30 percentage points — more than double the record in the state’s competitive Republican races. His dominance codified, yet again, his double-fisted hold on the Republican electorate.Now the race moves on to New Hampshire, where next week’s primary is perhaps the last clear chance for one of Trump’s rivals to slow him. Nikki Haley has banked on independents there, and one poll this month showed her at 32 percent, just seven points behind Trump. But her third-place showing in Iowa suggested that Ron DeSantis would continue challenging her, despite lacking a clear path forward.“If you have two serious opponents running against him, there’s virtually no chance of beating him for the nomination,” my colleague Shane Goldmacher said, adding that yesterday’s result was “basically exactly what the Trump campaign would have hoped for.”All three leading candidates have events tonight in New Hampshire. But first, Trump stopped in Manhattan for the opening day of a trial in a suit filed against him by E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of defaming her after she accused him of rape. His decision to appear, under no obligation, reflected his effort to use the legal threats against him to energize his supporters.Houthi fighters held a rally near Sana, Yemen, on Sunday against strikes by the U.S. and Britain.Associated PressThe U.S. struck Houthi targets for a third timeU.S. forces carried out a strike today against Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles in Yemen, according to military officials. It was the third attack against the Iran-backed rebel group since a U.S.-led air and naval barrage that hit dozens of targets last week.The strikes, which targeted four missiles that were being prepared to be fired, came after the Houthis launched a new round of attacks in critical shipping lanes. The group attempted to hit an American warship on Sunday, damaged a U.S.-owned commercial ship yesterday and hit a Greek bulk carrier today. Houthi leaders have said they will continue their attacks until Israel withdraws from Gaza.In Gaza, Qatar said Israel and Hamas had reached a deal to allow additional aid into Gaza in exchange for the delivery of medication to Israeli hostages.Also, Israel has been surprised by the extent and quality of the tunnel network beneath Gaza. They now believe there are far more than they once thought: between 350 and 450 miles of tunnels.Supporters of extending the child tax credit in 2022.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesLawmakers struck a bipartisan tax dealTop Democrats and Republicans in Congress announced today that they had reached a $78 billion compromise to partly extend a major pandemic expansion of the child tax credit, which cut child poverty rates nearly in half in 2021, and restore three popular expired business tax breaks. The deal would be financed by reining in the pandemic-era employee retention tax credit.Yet the rare bipartisan agreement, spanning both chambers, still faces steep obstacles in a Congress laboring to tackle the basic work of funding the government. Some House Democrats have argued that the legislation should do more to expand the child tax credit, while several Senate Republicans have voiced resistance.A courtyard in Fort Worth, yesterday. Desiree Rios for The New York TimesIt’s cold in the Deep SouthA blast of Arctic air reached into the Deep South today, breaking low-temperature records, while the Midwest and the Great Plains faced dangerous below-zero wind chill temperatures. Even New York received its first significant snowfall in almost two years.Another Arctic blast is expected to begin by the end of the week. See what you are in for, and follow these steps to protect yourself and your home.More top newsBusiness: A judge blocked JetBlue’s $3.8 billion proposal to buy Spirit Airlines, agreeing with the Justice Dept. that the merger would hurt competition.Courts: A lawsuit claimed that James Dolan, the mogul behind Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks, pressured a woman into unwanted sex.Tech: Elon Musk demanded that Tesla’s board give him shares worth more than $80 billion if it wants him to work on artificial intelligence.Nigeria: Shell said that it had agreed to sell its onshore oil and gas business to a group dominated by local companies for $1.3 billion.New York: The suspect in the Gilgo Beach serial killings was charged with a fourth murder.Supreme Court: Oral arguments are set for tomorrow in a potentially major case that is backed by the billionaire Charles Koch.Business: The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting kicked off in Davos.Finance: Goldman Sachs earned $2 billion in the fourth quarter of last year.Health: Diabetes is fueling a rise in amputations in San Antonio.Pets: A dog from Portugal was honored as the world’s oldest. Now his age is being investigated.Sports: A Welsh rugby star said he is stepping away from the sport to pursue a career in the N.F.L.TIME TO UNWINDJesse Armstrong, the creator of “Succession,” right foreground, accepted the Emmy Award for best drama.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersThe Emmys may have been a send-off for Peak TVLast night’s Emmy Awards, which were dominated by the likes of “Succession” and “The Bear,” felt a touch more nostalgic than most award shows. One reason was the strike-related delays that left several 2022 shows up for honors. Another reason, my colleague John Koblin wrote, is that they felt like a goodbye to the so-called Peak TV era.The days in which streaming services offer an almost endless supply of new programming seem to be coming to an end, John wrote. Luckily, many of the top-quality shows are sticking around.Best dressed? Pick out your favorite outfit from the award show.Keith NegleyLearning a language may help stave off dementiaResearch suggests that speaking multiple languages can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease by up to five years. Having to inhibit your mother tongue, in theory, makes the brain more resilient to the impairments caused by diseases like dementia.It’s not clear whether casually following a language app confers the same cognitive advantage. But the regularity with which you use the second language appears to be more important than when you learn it.Sabato De Sarno introduced his first Gucci collection for men.Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDinner table topicsGucci’s reboot: The label’s new creative director ditched his predecessor’s pussy bows and brought back some old-school cool.The Ozempic age: The food industry has long marketed its products as impossible to resist. Has that lost its selling power?Text bubbles: Group chats have quietly become the de facto spaces for everything: sharing dumb jokes, grieving or even planning for an insurrection.A reader asked: How much water do I really need to drink every day?WHAT TO DO TONIGHTLinda Xiao for The New York TimesCook: This pimento cheese pie will become a fast favorite for parties.Watch: The season finale of “Fargo” is tonight. Here’s what else is on TV this week.Read: Kyle Chayka’s new book considers how technology has narrowed our choices.Listen: Check out Ariana Grande’s new track, and nine more songs worth listening to.Nourish: We have tips for making sure you eat enough fruits and vegetables.Replace: If you have any of these 17 household items, it might be time for a new one.Compete: Take this week’s Flashback history quiz.Play: Here are today’s Spelling Bee, Wordle and Mini Crossword. Find all our games here.ONE LAST THINGThe Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo in 2014.Noritaka Minami, via SFMOMAA second life for an architectural marvelIt’s been 50 years since the Nakagin Capsule Tower was erected in Tokyo. Back then, it looked like something out of a science-fiction film: a futuristic tower composed of 140 detachable, single-resident capsules with porthole windows, like a pile of eyes fixed on the city.Now it’s gone. After years of neglect, the pods were pulled down one by one in 2022. Only 23 of them could be salvaged. But those orphaned puzzle pieces are embarking on another life across Japan and the world as art spaces, museum pieces and even holiday accommodations.Have an enduring evening.Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — MatthewWe welcome your feedback. Write to us at evening@nytimes.com. More