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      Nikki Haley’s Pro-Israel Record Could Shape Her ’24 Bid

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      In January 2017, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, received a phone call from Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and Donald Trump’s newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations.Ms. Haley wanted to apologize.A month earlier, the U.N. Security Council had passed a resolution condemning Israel for building settlements in the West Bank. The Obama administration, by abstaining from the vote, had allowed the measure to pass, a parting rebuke to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s increasingly right-wing prime minister.In her first phone call to a fellow ambassador, Ms. Haley wanted to be clear that things would be different.“She guaranteed that it would not happen as long as she was serving as ambassador,” Mr. Danon recalled recently, “that she would get our back and support us.”That promise would set the tone for much of Ms. Haley’s time at the U.N. Over her nearly two-year tenure, she transformed herself from a foreign policy novice to a blunt-talking stateswoman, making the defense of Israel her defining cause.Ms. Haley blocked a Palestinian envoy’s appointment and took credit for forcing the withdrawal of a report that described the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians as “apartheid.” She walked out of a Security Council meeting during a Palestinian official’s speech and criticized the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee aid program, which she has since said “uses American money to feed Palestinian hatred of the Jewish state.”She was an enthusiastic face of the Trump administration’s diplomatic largess toward Israel, and described herself as turning back the tide of “Israel-bashing” at the world body.Denizens of the U.N.’s New York headquarters began joking that Israel now had two ambassadors.American ambassadors have generally stood with Israel at the U.N., but observers of Ms. Haley’s time there saw something new in her often confrontational advocacy for the Trump administration’s no-questions support for Mr. Netanyahu’s government.Critics have noted the political convenience of her approach — which ingratiated her with Mr. Trump’s inner circle and cemented relationships with major Republican donors and evangelical leaders — as well as its made-for-television tenor.“I wear heels,” she told the audience at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in 2017. “It’s not for a fashion statement. It’s because if I see something wrong, we’re going to kick them every single time.” A clip of the statement appeared in a video teasing her presidential campaign early this year.“There was always a clear distinction between her relatively pragmatic approach to most issues and an incredibly performative, purist approach to diplomacy regarding Israel,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director of the International Crisis Group.As Israel plunges into a new war in the Gaza Strip, after a stunning wave of attacks by Hamas fighters, this chapter of Ms. Haley’s career has taken on a sudden importance.Ms. Haley, one of the few candidates with a foreign policy record to run on, has cast herself as an unwavering Israel hawk whose views are grounded in experience. Last weekend, Ms. Haley urged Mr. Netanyahu to “finish” Hamas. During an appearance on “Meet the Press,” she recalled her 2017 visit to Hamas-dug tunnels near the Gaza border.When Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Netanyahu — who angered him by recognizing Joseph R. Biden’s victory in 2020 — Ms. Haley used the moment to reinforce her case against her former boss.“To go and criticize the head of a country who just saw massive bloodshed — no, that’s not what we need in a president,” she said at a news conference in Concord, N.H., on Friday.Ms. Haley, who declined to comment for this article, has seen a recent uptick in polling, although she continues to run far behind Mr. Trump. As a new conflict pushes world affairs to the foreground of the campaign, this may be her best chance to emerge as the leading Republican alternative to the former president.“This was always political capital that she was banking while she was at the U.N.,” Mr. Gowan said. “And it may pay off for her now.”A Keen Eye for Set Pieces“I wear heels,” Ms. Haley told an audience of staunch Israel supporters at the meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in 2017. “It’s not for a fashion statement. It’s because if I see something wrong we’re going to kick them every single time.”Pete Marovich/European Pressphoto AgencyIn interviews, close observers of Ms. Haley’s work — veterans of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the Trump White House and State Department, United Nations officials, and foreign policy lobbyists and experts — described it in similar terms.They recalled a diplomat who quickly became a more pragmatic negotiator than her own accounts of her tenure, which tend to focus on her confrontations, suggested. They also remembered her as a politician: someone who understood the United Nations post as a stopover on a trajectory toward bigger things.Ms. Haley was not enamored with the minutiae of diplomacy. She requested that staff cut down background papers to a single page of talking points, written in “eighth-grade English.” In her first address to her new employees, the ambassador told them she wanted to create a humane and efficient office culture, insisting that nobody’s work should keep them at the office after 6 p.m. — a tall order for an institution where meetings often ran into the evening, and diplomatic crises at unusual hours were practically a daily event.Ms. Haley also had a keen eye for what one former mission staff member described as “set pieces”: the confrontations and dramatic gestures that would gain attention.The first such moment for Ms. Haley arrived only days into her tenure. In early February 2017, António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, was preparing to name Salam Fayyad, the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, as the U.N.’s special envoy to Libya. Mr. Fayyad was a well-regarded reformer who had been seen as a key Palestinian partner for both the United States and Israel. Mr. Guterres had received informal signoffs from the Security Council members. His office had prepared a news release.But half an hour before the deadline for objections, Ms. Haley informed him that she considered Mr. Fayyad unacceptable.“We thought that this must be a mistake,” said Jeffrey Feltman, an American diplomat who at the time was Mr. Guterres’s under secretary general for political affairs. The appointment had been vetted, and State Department officials had vouched for Mr. Fayyad, he said. The decision had been Ms. Haley’s, her staff has since said, though Mr. Trump approved it. In a statement at the time, she argued that appointing a Palestinian to a significant U.N. position would be tantamount to recognizing Palestinian statehood. “The United States does not currently recognize a Palestinian state or support the signal this appointment would send within the United Nations,” she said.“Essentially, she punished Salam Fayyad for his nationality, at the same time she was criticizing the U.N. for punishing Israelis for their nationality,” Mr. Feltman said. “It seemed to me to be quite hypocritical.”Speaking before an audience of Israel supporters at the AIPAC conference the following month, Ms. Haley cast the move more provocatively, taking credit for having Mr. Fayyad “booted out” of the U.N. post, and portraying the decision as a response to a culture of “Israel-bashing” at the organization. She announced that unless things changed, “there are no freebies for the Palestinian Authority anymore.”The Trump Translator at the U.N.Ms. Haley made herself the public face at the U.N. of the administration’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.Al Drago for The New York TimesBefore arriving at the U.N., Ms. Haley had a scant record on Israel policy. She has described her support for the country as “a matter of faith” — raised Sikh, she later converted to Christianity — and compared her own cultural background as the child of Indian immigrants to that of Israelis’. “We’re aggressive, we’re stubborn and we don’t back down from a fight,” she said in 2017.Her main claim was that as the governor of South Carolina, she signed a bill in 2015 banning the state from doing business with companies that boycotted or divested from Israel.Such laws — South Carolina’s was the second, after Illinois — had that year become a focus of pro-Israel political donors, including Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate and backer of the Republican Jewish Coalition, who wielded enormous influence in the G.O.P. and in Israel before his death in 2021.Ms. Haley’s campaign said the she did not discuss the issue with Mr. Adelson at the time. In 2016, Mr. Adelson contributed $250,000 to Ms. Haley’s political action committee — a quarter of the contributions it received that year — and hosted her in his luxury box at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.Arriving at the United Nations six months later, Ms. Haley quickly became the face of Mr. Trump’s Middle East policy, which reflected the long-held aims of pro-Israel hard-liners as well as conservative evangelicals, who ascribe great theological importance to the rise of a modern Jewish state in the Holy Land.“There’s been a historic tension between Zionism and a belief that the United States had an obligation to be an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians,” said Ralph Reed, the chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “Under Trump, we moved on, and now the G.O.P. tilts unapologetically pro-Israel.”Ms. Haley leaned into her role at the U.N. as the public defender of the administration’s pullout from the Iran nuclear deal, its support for expanding West Bank settlements and its decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.After the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the embassy move, Ms. Haley hosted a reception at the U.S. Mission, refusing to invite the 21 countries — including longtime American allies like Britain, France, Germany and Japan — who voted for the measure.“The United States will remember this day,” she warned.Some who watched her work up close detected less absolutism in her views, and her diplomacy, than she presented at the General Assembly and in interviews.Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N.’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process at the time, recalled traveling in Israel to the Gaza border with Ms. Haley. “I think that trip really opened her eyes to the fact that there are two competing narratives, two competing realities in this situation,” he said. “Whatever the public speeches she made,” he added, “when we sat down to talk, she would say, ‘OK, what can we do about this?’”Palestinian supporters, however, saw a rhetorical escalation, even by the standards of a resolutely pro-Israel Republican Party.“You look at some of her statements and actions, it was comically over the top — not just willingness to support Israel, but a willingness to hurt Palestinians,” said Yousef Munayyer, who directs the Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington D.C.Her public performances served her well in the often vicious internal politics of the administration. Amid a divide between foreign policy traditionalists — the long-résuméd appointees often cast as the “adults in the room” — and the coterie of Trump confidants who largely drove his Middle East policy, Ms. Haley aligned herself with the latter group.Her Israel advocacy gave her common cause with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who had been tasked with the Middle East policy portfolio. When Mr. Kushner and others began drafting the White House’s Middle East peace plan, Ms. Haley was one of only a handful of policymakers allowed to see it and offer comments, said Jason Greenblatt, Mr. Trump’s special envoy for Middle East peace.“I thought she was one of my most important allies,” he said.Spending Political CapitalMs. Haley’s tenure was watched closely by influential evangelicals. David Brody, an anchor at the Christian Broadcasting Network, said “God is using Nikki Haley for such a time as this,” in his coverage of Ms. Haley’s 2017 visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMs. Haley’s work also won accolades from evangelicals and Jewish Republican donors, key constituencies for any aspiring Republican president. Her U.N. tenure was covered closely by the Christian Broadcasting Network, the evangelical-oriented media company.“Clearly God is using Nikki Haley for such a time as this,” the network’s anchor, David Brody, said in a June 2017 segment, over footage of Ms. Haley praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.In 2018, Christians United for Israel, the influential Christian Zionist organization led by the televangelist John C. Hagee, presented Ms. Haley with the organization’s Defender of Israel award. As she neared the end of her speech, someone in the crowd yelled: “Haley 2024!”But early polling has shown that Mr. Haley is struggling to peel away evangelical voters from Mr. Trump. Although Mr. Hagee offered a prayer at her campaign launch event, he has not endorsed her.“Most evangelicals certainly appreciate Nikki Haley’s pro-Israel stance,” said Robert Jeffress, the influential pastor of the First Baptist Dallas megachurch. “But evangelicals also realize that her pro-Israel policy while she was U.N. ambassador was a reflection of Donald Trump’s pro-Israel position.”Among prominent Jewish Republican donors, she has more vocal allies. Toward the end of Ms. Haley’s time at the U.N., Fred Zeidman, a Texas businessman, made her a promise. “I told her if she ever wanted to run for president of the United States, I was going to be with her from Day 1,” recalled Mr. Zeidman, who served as Jewish outreach director for the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney, John McCain and George W. Bush.In March, Mr. Zeidman and two like-minded donors, Phil Rosen and Cheryl Halpern, wrote to the members of the Republican Jewish Coalition urging them to back Haley, citing her U.N. record.But a majority of the group’s benefactors have not yet contributed to any candidate. “They don’t see any reason to actively give when you’ve got nine people out there,” Mr. Zeidman said.Mr. Zeidman and other Haley supporters hope that Republicans seeking an alternative to Mr. Trump will coalesce behind her candidacy. But despite Ms. Haley’s recent signs of momentum, the gulf between her and Mr. Trump remains daunting.“If she would’ve run in Israel,” Mr. Danon, the former Israeli ambassador, said, “I’m sure it would’ve been much easier for her.”

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      Quinn Mitchell, Known for His Pointed Questions of Candidates, Ejected From GOP Event

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      Quinn Mitchell, an aspiring journalist from New Hampshire, was escorted out of a G.O.P. candidate summit on Friday, though he was later allowed to return.It was the type of tough question a Republican presidential candidate might get on a Sunday morning talk show, only the person asking it was 15: Quinn Mitchell wanted to know if Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida believed that former President Donald J. Trump had violated the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021.Video of the uncomfortable exchange at a June 27 town hall in Hollis, N.H., for Mr. DeSantis, who dodged the question, ricocheted online. So did the pair’s next encounter at a July 4 parade in Merrimack, N.H., where a video showed Quinn, an aspiring journalist, being shooed away by a handler for the Florida governor.But the teenager said he was not prepared for what happened on Friday, when he was briefly ejected by police officers from the First in the Nation Leadership Summit, a candidate showcase organized by the New Hampshire Republican Party. The two-day event in Nashua, N.H., featured Mr. DeSantis and most of the G.O.P. field, but not Mr. Trump.“They said, ‘We know who you are,’” Quinn, who has his own political blog and podcast, said in a phone interview on Saturday from his home in Walpole, N.H., referring to the organizers of the summit.Quinn, who received a guest credential for the summit from the state’s G.O.P., said a person associated with the event had told him that he had a history of being disruptive and had accused him of being a tracker, a type of political operative who records rival candidates.The next thing he knew, Quinn said, he was being led to a private room and was then ushered out of the Sheraton Nashua hotel by local police officers. His ejection was first reported by The Boston Globe.Jimmy Thompson, a spokesman for the New Hampshire Republican Party, said in a text message on Saturday that the teen’s removal had been a mistake.“During the course of the two-day event, an overzealous volunteer mistakenly made the decision to have Quinn removed from the event, thinking he was a Democrat tracker,” Mr. Thompson wrote. “Once the incident came to our staff’s attention, NHGOP let him back into the event, where he was free to enjoy the rest of the summit.”Quinn met Vivek Ramaswamy at a Republican event in Newport, N.H., last month. Mr. DeSantis isn’t the only candidate who has faced his direct questions.Sophie Park for The New York TimesA spokesman for the DeSantis campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.A public information officer for the Nashua Police Department also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.According to his website, Quinn has attended more than 80 presidential campaign events since he was 10, taking advantage of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status in the nominating process to pose questions to candidates.He said he wanted to hear former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey speak on Friday, along with the businessman Perry Johnson, a long-shot candidate.At a town hall featuring Mr. Christie in April, Quinn had asked another pointed question: Would Hillary Clinton have been better than Mr. Trump as president?Mr. Christie, the former president’s loudest critic in the G.O.P. field, answered that he still would have chosen Mr. Trump in the 2016 election, describing the contest as “the biggest hold-your-nose-and-vote choice” the American people ever had.About two months later, it was Mr. DeSantis’s turn to field a question from Quinn, this one about Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6.“Are you in high school? said Mr. DeSantis, who has faced criticism as a candidate for not being fluid when interacting with voters and journalists, a dynamic that has made for some awkward exchanges on the campaign trail.The Florida governor pivoted, arguing that if the 2024 election focused on “relitigating things that happened two, three years ago, we’re going to lose.”Quinn said that it did not seem like a coincidence that he was kicked out of the event on Friday before Mr. DeSantis’s remarks, which he had planned to skip.“They know the story between me and DeSantis,” he said.By the time he was allowed to return to the event, Quinn said he was able to catch Mr. DeSantis’s remarks. But when the governor opened it up for a question, Quinn left.“OK, one quick question, what do you got?” Mr. DeSantis asked an audience member.Nicholas Nehamas More

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      GOP Candidates Are Pleading Their Case to Donors to Take on Trump

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      Rivals to Donald J. Trump and their strategists told financiers that time is running out to build up a viable alternative to the former president.With less than 100 days until the Iowa caucuses, Donald J. Trump’s leading rivals continue to engage in a pitched battle with one another as much as with him, igniting fears that internal divisions were threatening to doom efforts to find a fresh face for the Republican Party in 2024.From Dallas to Park City, Utah, top Republican donors gathered behind closed doors this week as talk intensified about the need to cull the G.O.P. field. In private remarks to donors in Utah, Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, delivered a blunt message that it was time to pick sides and invest if there was any chance to prevent another Trump nomination.“Get in the game,” Ms. Haley urged them, according to two people who were present at the event.But given Mr. Trump’s durable lead, some political financiers are considering staying on the sidelines. For those donors who aren’t, the choice has increasingly narrowed to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Ms. Haley, whose fortunes have been lifted by her performance in the first two debates. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina is a factor as well, given the $25 million his super PAC has remaining in television ad reservations in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in the next three months.On Friday, teams of advisers to Mr. DeSantis, Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott descended on Dallas for separate presentations to an exclusive gathering of some of the most influential Republican donors in the nation, a group known as the American Opportunity Alliance. They met at a property owned by the billionaire Republican financier Harlan Crow, who has gained attention and scrutiny for his close relationship with Justice Clarence Thomas.The crowd included some of the party’s biggest contributors or their top representatives, megadonors like Paul Singer and Ken Griffin who can spend tens of millions of dollars. And the stakes produced pointed presentations, according to more than a half-dozen people who were in the room or had been briefed on the remarks.The DeSantis team argued that any effort to push him out of the race would backfire for the anti-Trump cause. Three top DeSantis campaign strategists — James Uthmeier, David Polyansky and Ryan Tyson — presented internal polls showing that 90 percent of his supporters would drift to Mr. Trump if Mr. DeSantis were to exit the race. Ms. Haley’s supporters, they said in contrast, would flow to Mr. DeSantis if she departed.The DeSantis team suggested that Mr. Trump had to be stopped in Iowa, and that Mr. DeSantis was the only one positioned to do so. And they acknowledged Mr. DeSantis’s past struggles, describing themselves as having fought back to a stronger position.Gov. Ron DeSantis in Nashua, N.H., on Friday. His team has told donors that any effort to push him out of the race would backfire on the anti-Trump cause.John Tully for The New York TimesMs. Haley’s advisers, Betsy Ankeny and Jon Lerner, showed their own internal surveys, which placed Ms. Haley ahead of Mr. DeSantis in New Hampshire and South Carolina and had the two of them tied in Iowa. Mr. DeSantis had stalled, they argued, and she was rising.In a sign of the threat Ms. Haley poses to Mr. DeSantis, Never Back Down — the leading pro-DeSantis super PAC — is readying an anti-Haley ad campaign and has tested several attacks, including her ties to China, according to a person familiar with the matter. Such a move would be a watershed moment, as DeSantis advisers have long insisted the primary is a two-man contest between the governor and Mr. Trump.Mr. Scott, whose team had not initially been invited to Dallas, was represented by Jennifer DeCasper, Zac Moffatt and Erik Iverson. They revealed that Mr. Scott would enter October with $11.6 million cash on hand for the primary — more than either Mr. DeSantis or Ms. Haley.Ms. DeCasper pitched Mr. Scott’s toughness and his willingness to stand up to Mr. Trump. She invoked when he confronted Mr. Trump for the former president’s equivocations after the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va.“We’ve never flown to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring, to ask permission for anything,” she said.The dueling presentations underscored the degree to which the race to be the main alternative to Mr. Trump is playing out in donor meetings as much as on the ground in the early states.Ms. Haley, campaigning in New Hampshire on Friday, made explicit the power of wealthy donors to narrow the field. “I think it’s up to the voters, and I think it’s up to the donors to decide which candidates should get off the stage,” Ms. Haley said as she filed to appear on the ballot in the state.For months, donors have had private discussions not just about the possibility of collectively backing a single alternative to Mr. Trump, but whether wealthy backers of low-polling candidates could encourage those candidates to drop out to consolidate anti-Trump support.In recent days, Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis have made a series of announcements pitching political insiders on their respective momentum. Mr. DeSantis on Thursday announced his first ad reservation of the race, saying he would spend $2 million in Iowa. That came a week after he started shifting one-third of his staff from Tallahassee to Iowa to bolster his operation in the state.Ms. Haley rolled out her fund-raising haul, revealing she had more cash on hand for the primary than Mr. DeSantis, $9.1 million to $5 million. She also announced the opening of her first office in Iowa and the addition of two staff members in the state, bringing her total to four.For veterans of the 2016 primary, the obsessive focus on the race to be in second place is inflicting a serious sense of déjà vu.“In October of 2015, you had Jeb Bush machine gunning Marco Rubio and Rubio going after Ted Cruz, and nobody was really laying a hand on Trump,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who was a top adviser to Mr. Rubio at the time.“It’s shaping up to be a repeat of 2016,” Mr. Conant added of the current contest. He said that this time, it was even worse for the Trump challengers. “Now, even if you combined everyone’s poll numbers that was on the debate stage, you’d still be under Trump.”A recent national poll from Fox News showed Mr. Trump at 59 percent, virtually unchanged from September. Mr. DeSantis was the next closest at 13 percent, with Ms. Haley in third, with 10 percent.Still, most of Mr. Trump’s rivals tread cautiously when it comes to criticizing the former president.On Monday, Mr. DeSantis made his first appearance on MSNBC, the type of network he had spent years deriding as “corporate media,” a sign of his need for political oxygen and coverage. And while he swiped at how a Trump nomination would be a distraction — citing documents found near toilets in Mar-a-Lago — he evaded a follow-up question about whether Americans should be concerned Mr. Trump was loose with the nation’s secrets, the charge at the center of the special counsel’s criminal indictment.“Well, look, I think that’s an allegation — it remains to be seen,” Mr. DeSantis began, before pivoting to a defense of Mr. Trump.Later in the week, Mr. DeSantis criticized Mr. Trump for his attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and on Israel’s intelligence services for missing the impending terrorist attack by Hamas. The issue is potent for a number of pro-Israel and politically conservative donors, and Mr. DeSantis’s allies and advisers see it as a Trump vulnerability.Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, said that if donors “don’t pick a candidate, Trump is going to be the nominee.”John Tully for The New York TimesSpencer Zwick, who oversaw Senator Mitt Romney’s fund-raising operation when he ran for president in 2012 and who organized the Utah conference, said Ms. Haley “was probably the strongest in making the case” that donors needed to mobilize to stop Mr. Trump from winning. Other attendees included former Vice President Mike Pence, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.“If you don’t pick a candidate, Trump is going to be the nominee,” Mr. Christie warned the donors, according to a recording of his remarks obtained by The New York Times.But the lower-polling Mr. Christie urged the donors not to focus on whom they thought could win — “Your track record shows that you don’t” know how to predict that, he said to laughter — but whom they thought would be the best president.“How about we try that one?” Mr. Christie said. More

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      The Real Danger in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Independent Run

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      Most of the concern over the independent presidential campaigns of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and the No Labels party has focused on the risk that they could draw votes away from President Biden and throw the 2024 election to Donald Trump. That’s understandable, given what happened in 2000 and 2016.But there is another reason to fear these candidacies, and it’s right there in the Constitution: a contingent election decided by the House of Representatives, arguably the worst part of the Electoral College system.Ask people who don’t like the Electoral College — that’s roughly two-thirds of Americans — and they will point to its occasional habit of awarding the presidency to the candidate who comes in second in the popular vote. This fundamental violation of majority rule has happened five times — in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016. It nearly happened in 2020 and threatens to do so again in 2024.Don’t get me wrong: The wrong-winner scenario is unequivocally bad. Mr. Trump once called it “a disaster for a democracy,” before it delivered him to the White House. Yet it is not the most democratically offensive feature of the Electoral College. Few Americans are aware that under the Constitution, a candidate could lose the popular vote and the Electoral College and still become president. In fact, it’s already happened.How? By taking the election completely away from the people and giving it to the House of Representatives. This may sound far-fetched, but it is alarmingly plausible at a moment when the major-party candidates are relatively unpopular. No Labels (which is also the No Candidate party at the moment) seems to think that a contingent election is an entirely viable path to the White House — which is true, since it is virtually impossible to imagine any third-party candidate winning the old-fashioned way. But the group seems willfully oblivious to the chaos and destabilization that contingent elections provoked in the past and undoubtedly would again, especially in such a tense and polarized political climate. It is, as the best-selling author James Michener put it in a 1969 book on the topic, “a time bomb lodged near the heart of the nation.”The bomb goes off if an independent candidate like Mr. Kennedy manages to pick up a few electoral votes and prevents either of the two main candidates from winning an outright majority of electors (at least 270 out of 538). In that case, the American people no longer have a say in the biggest election in the land. Instead, under the 12th Amendment, the top three electoral vote getters advance to a second round, in which the House of Representatives “shall choose immediately, by ballot, the president. But” — and rarely in the history of democracy has a “but” been asked to do so much — “in choosing the president, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote.”Those votes in the past were decided by what a majority of a state’s delegation wanted, although the House can set different rules if it chooses. If the delegation is evenly divided, the state gets no vote. The point is, it doesn’t matter which party has more members in the House as a whole; all that matters is the happenstance of which party controls more state delegations. And right now Republicans control 26 state delegations and Democrats 22.One vote per state, with the presidency in the balance. Stop for a moment and consider the absurdity of this. North Dakota, whose single representative in Congress represents about 779,000 people, would have as much say in choosing the nation’s leader as California’s 52 House members, who together represent almost 40 million people. The two Dakotas combined (fewer than 1.7 million people, about the population of Phoenix) would wield twice as much power as Texas, with 30 million people. This is about as far from the principle of majority rule as you can get.The irony is that many founders expected this to be the standard way America would choose its presidents. As the plan took shape during the constitutional convention in 1787, Virginia’s George Mason predicted that the House would end up deciding 19 out of 20 elections. This wasn’t a bug in the system but a natural consequence of the lack of knowledge held by 18th-century Americans of politicians outside their home state. As a result, the thinking went, votes would be spread among a wide range of candidates, leaving most with some electors but none with a majority.This sounded reasonable at the time, but as soon as it happened, in the wild tie election of 1800, it nearly collapsed the young nation, and the founders quickly realized what a bad idea it was. Congress rapidly passed the 12th Amendment to avoid a repeat. Thomas Jefferson, who prevailed that year, later wrote to a friend that the House-election provision was “the most dangerous blot in our Constitution, and one which some unlucky chance will some day hit.” He was proved right in 1824, when a four-way race for the White House prevented any of the candidates from winning an outright majority. Andrew Jackson led in electoral votes and popular votes, but the House picked the second-highest vote getter, John Quincy Adams. Jackson’s supporters were furious. They called it a corrupt bargain, and for good reason: Henry Clay, the speaker of the House and one of the other candidates in the race, hated Jackson and strong-armed lawmakers to vote for Adams, who later chose Clay for secretary of state.The House has not decided a presidential election in the 200 years since, although it came close in 1968, during a tumultuous three-way race among Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, the former Alabama governor who ran on the ultraright American Independent Party ticket. Nixon won but not before Wallace, an archsegregationist, captured 46 electoral votes in five Southern states.Now imagine that in 2024, a No Labels candidate or even Mr. Kennedy or Mr. West is able to peel off a few electors in, say, Maine or Alaska, states that pride themselves on their independent streaks. (Maine awards its electors by congressional district, making it even easier to pick one off.) It’s not a simple task, given the varied and sometimes strict ballot-access rules in many states. Many fans of Mr. Kennedy and Mr. West may never get a chance to vote for them. Still, No Labels has managed to secure a spot on the ballot in 11 states, including key battlegrounds like Arizona and North Carolina.Bottom line: It’s easy to assemble an electoral map in which no candidate reaches 270 electoral votes, sending the election to the House. That vote would not take place until early January 2025, after the newly elected Congress is seated, but even if Democrats regain a numerical majority in the House, Republicans are likely to hold and possibly expand their advantage in state delegations. In other words, assuming Mr. Trump is still a free man, he could be picked by the House to be the 47th president, even if Mr. Biden wins millions more popular votes and the most electoral votes.It is reckless fantasy for a group like No Labels to inject more choices into a system that is not designed to handle them. That may sound like democracy in theory, but in practice it produces the opposite: a greater chance of a candidate winning with the support of only a minority. That’s all the more likely when the two major parties are as closely divided as they are today.This isn’t an argument against more political parties. To the contrary, multiparty democracies can give voters a wider and healthier range of choices, better reflecting the diversity of the electorate.A huge, diverse country like the United States should welcome reforms like a proportional election system — and, while we’re on the subject, the elimination of the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote. Until then, the quixotic campaigns by today’s professed independents aren’t just futile; they’re dangerous.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: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Who Else Should Run for President?

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      Here is a second round of readers’ choices beyond the announced candidates.To the Editor:Re “More Hats in the Ring?” (Letters, Sept. 29):I’d like to see Gavin Newsom enter the presidential race.He’s intelligent and experienced, governing the most populous state in the country and one of the largest economies in the world.As governor of California, he’s aware of the important issues facing our country today: unchecked immigration, climate change, homelessness, polarization of society, etc.He’s young and charismatic, and presents an air of confidence and stability that our country and our allies desperately need.He would be an interesting and exciting candidate who could motivate voters. He could win the presidency, and many Americans would breathe a sigh of relief and have hope for the future.Mary Ellen RamirezHoffman Estates, Ill.To the Editor:If Caroline Kennedy joined the presidential race, she would receive my support. Unlike the current Kennedy who is vying for the presidency (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.), she is not mired in controversy and conspiracy theories.She served as the U.S. ambassador to Japan during President Barack Obama’s administration and is now the ambassador to Australia, showcasing her experience in diplomacy and politics. She has spent her life devoted to politics, educational reform and charitable work. She has continued her father’s legacy with class.Ms. Kennedy has never been driven by the spotlight, which proves that she would not be interested in boasting about accomplishments or putting personal interests ahead of the needs of the country.We have yet to elect a woman as president in this country. If we were to find Camelot again, Caroline Kennedy would be our leader.Kristina HopperHolland, Mich.To the Editor:Our commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, has exceptional credentials to appeal to the electorate and to lead our nation.She earned a B.A. degree in economics at Harvard while graduating magna cum laude (and played rugby, an ideal foundation for politics, she says). She then became a Rhodes scholar, got a law degree from Yale Law School and worked as a venture capitalist.As general treasurer of Rhode Island, she reformed the state’s pension system. From there she became governor of Rhode Island, and cut taxes every year and removed thousands of pages of regulations. She is now the nation’s commerce secretary.Gina Raimondo has an excellent educational foundation, solid business qualifications and experience on the federal level as a cabinet member. Gina Raimondo checks a lot of boxes.David PastoreMountainside, N.J.To the Editor:There are numerous plain-speaking, pragmatic governors who eschew divisive culture wars and focus on results-oriented governance, job creation and fiscal responsibility. What distinguishes Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia is not only his courageous stand against Donald Trump’s election denialism, but his attention to re-establishing Republican Party unity.Only a Republican governor who can attract support from conservative Republicans, crossover Democrats and independent voters can realistically hope to build the gridlock-busting coalition the nation so desperately needs at this time. That makes Governor Kemp a most attractive presidential candidate in 2024.John R. LeopoldStoney Beach, Md.To the Editor:The best choice for another Democratic presidential candidate is Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a progressive Democrat focusing on health care, universal pre-K and infrastructure.Ms. Whitmer knows what voters want. Her campaign to “fix the damn roads” in cold hilly Michigan helped get her elected governor. She is fearless against insurrectionists and homegrown militias, and did not back down about her government’s pandemic restrictions. She spooks Donald Trump, who calls her “that woman from Michigan.” She knows how to kick the G.O.P.’s butt, winning the governorship with an over 10-point margin and inspiring voters to elect a Democratic-controlled House and Senate.Ms. Whitmer is smart and energetic, and projects a down-to-earth Midwestern sensibility.Big Gretch for the win!Karla JenningsDecatur, Ga.To the Editor:I hereby nominate Gen. Mark Milley for the presidency. Just retired from his post as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley is well qualified to become commander in chief.His 43-year Army career, during which he served in command positions across the globe, was exemplary. He is well versed in the functioning of government and in the politics of Washington. He holds degrees from Princeton and Columbia.His reverence for the American system of government is unwavering — perhaps most tellingly in a speech following the 2020 election, when our system of government hung in the balance. “We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual,” he said. “We take an oath to the Constitution.”Arguably his biggest mistake was following President Donald Trump to St. John’s Church in Washington after protesters objecting to the killing of George Floyd were cleared from the area. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics,” he later acknowledged. “It was a mistake that I have learned from.” How refreshing, a public figure apologizing. We could use more of that.Henry Von KohornPrinceton, N.J.To the Editor:I would like to see Nikki Haley be the Republican candidate against a female Democrat — Amy Klobuchar, Gina Raimondo or Gretchen Whitmer. All are qualified. We would have our first woman president regardless of which party won.Arleen BestArdsley, N.Y.To the Editor:Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado.He’s engaged, honest, eloquent, passionate and cut from a cloth that might not even exist anymore. His biggest flaw is that he’s not flashy or dramatic, but he knows policy, can come up with solutions, and is in touch with the real problems facing our nation. He is the moderate and principled human being that this country needs.Ken RizzoNew YorkTo the Editor:I like President Biden’s policies and his accomplishments, but I think he’s too old. So I’d like to see Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio run for the Democratic Party nomination.Mr. Brown is a progressive, F.D.R.-style Democrat who has focused on economic policies that have improved the lives of working-class Americans. He is pro-union and helped President Biden pass the CHIPS and Science Act, which had broad labor support.He’s also principled: He was the second Senate Democrat to call for the resignation of the disgraced senator Bob Menendez. And he’s been able to win, and keep, his Senate seat in swing-state Ohio, which the Democrats will need to win in 2024.I’m not from Ohio and I’ve never met Sherrod Brown, but every time I see him interviewed I think, “Why doesn’t this guy run for president?” I think he’d stop the slide of working-class Americans away from the Democratic Party, and as president, he’d continue to advance the successful Biden economic agenda.He could definitely beat Donald Trump. And if he’s not at the top of the ticket, I think he’d make an excellent V.P. choice for Gretchen Whitmer.Charles McLeanDenverTo the Editor:Tom Hanks.We’ve had actors before as president (aren’t they all?), but none as talented, well respected, intelligent, multidimensional, centered, compassionate and, well, genuine. He projects steel when necessary and is nobody’s fool — politically astute and cross-party electable.Bob CarrChicagoTo the Editor:I believe that Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut should consider running. He has vast experience in both domestic issues and foreign policy. His passion for classic, progressive issues is based on a concern that all Americans have a high quality of life.His bipartisan efforts, especially on gun control, are impressive. Age, eloquence and demeanor matter a great deal on a world stage; he is young, composed, thoughtful and articulate.Christopher NilsonChandler, Ariz.To the Editor:For the Democrats: Jared Polis, governor of Colorado, is the first name that comes to my mind. He’s an intelligent, honest, hard-working moderate.For the Republicans: No name comes to me, but I could support anyone who’s intelligent, honest and has the courage to stop being a fearful apologist for Donald Trump.The fact that I see no one fitting that bill makes me worry for the fate of my country.Jim HollestelleLouisville, Colo. More

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      Has Support for Ukraine Peaked? Some Fear So.

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      The war in the Middle East, anxiety about the commitment of the U.S., and divisions in Europe are worrying Kyiv that aid from the West may wane.Clearly anxious, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine went in person this week to see NATO defense ministers in Brussels, worried that the war between Israel and Hamas will divert attention — and needed weapons — from Ukraine’s long and bloody struggle against the Russian invasion.American and NATO officials moved to reassure Mr. Zelensky, pledging another $2 billion in immediate military aid. But even before the war in the Mideast began last week, there was a strong sense in Europe, watching Washington, that the world had reached “peak Ukraine” — that support for Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s invasion would never again be as high as it was a few months ago.The new run for the White House by former President Donald J. Trump is shaking confidence that Washington will continue large-scale support for Ukraine. But the concern, Europeans say, is larger than Mr. Trump and extends to much of his Republican Party, which has made cutting support for Ukraine a litmus test of conservative credibility.Even in Europe, Ukraine is an increasingly divisive issue. Voters in Slovakia handed a victory to Robert Fico, a former prime minister sympathetic to Russia. A vicious election campaign in Poland, one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, has emphasized strains with Kyiv. A far right opposed to aiding Ukraine’s war effort has surged in Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz is struggling to win voters over to his call for a stronger military.“I’m pessimistic,” said Yelyzaveta Yasko, a Ukrainian member of Parliament who is on the foreign affairs committee. “There are many questions now — weapons production, security infrastructure, economic aid, the future of NATO,” she said, but noted that answers to those questions had a timeline of at least five years.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, right, talking with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Wednesday at a NATO meeting in Brussels.Olivier Matthys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have been fighting for 600 days,” she added, “and I don’t see the leadership and planning that is required to take real action — not just statements — in support of Ukraine.”Even more depressing, Ms. Yasko said at a recent security forum in Warsaw, is the way domestic politics are “instrumentalizing Ukraine.”“Opinion polls show the people still support Ukraine,” she said, “but politicians start to use Ukraine as a topic to fight each other, and Ukraine becomes a victim.”“I’m worried,” she continued. “I don’t like the way my country is used as a tool.”The previous bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States no longer seems to hold. “There’s less pushback against the anti-Ukrainian stuff already out there,” said Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, mentioning the Republican right wing and influential voices like Elon Musk. “It’s dangerous.”Should Washington cut its aid to Ukraine, deciding that it is not worth the cost, top European officials, including the European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, openly acknowledge that Europe cannot fill the gap.He was in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, when Congress excluded support from Ukraine in its temporary budget deal. “That was certainly not expected, and certainly not good news,” Mr. Borrell told a summit meeting of E.U. leaders this month in Spain.European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, right, with Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, this month in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via EPA, via Shutterstock“Europe cannot replace the United States,” he said, even as it proposes more aid. “Certainly, we can do more, but the United States is something indispensable for the support to Ukraine.” That same day, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that without Western aid, Ukraine could not survive more than a week.European leaders have pledged to send more air-defense systems to Ukraine to help fend off a possible new Russian air campaign targeting energy infrastructure as winter looms. Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Friday that his country would send additional Patriot missiles, which have proved effective in defending the skies over Kyiv, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office.At the same time, European vows to supply one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March are falling short, with countries supplying only 250,000 shells from stocks — a little more than one month of Ukraine’s current rate of fire — and factories still gearing up for more production.Adm. Rob Bauer, who is the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said in Warsaw that Europe’s military industry had geared up too slowly and still needed to pick up the pace.“We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe” to aid Ukraine, he said, “and therefore the bottom of the barrel is now visible.”Even before the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East, a senior NATO official said that the mood about Ukraine was gloomy. Still, the official said that the Europeans were spending more on the military and that he expected Congress to continue aid to Ukraine, even if not the $43 billion authorized previously.Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense research institution, said a key issue now is Ukrainian will and resources in what has become a war of attrition. “It’s not really about us anymore, it’s about them,” he said. “The issue is Ukrainian resilience.”Ukrainians will quietly admit to difficulties with morale as the war grinds on, but they see no option other than to continue the fight, whatever happens in the West.Soldiers with the 128th Brigade repairing a broken down Carnation, a self-propelled artillery piece, before taking it back to the front line in September in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesBut some say that they are fearful that President Biden, facing what could be a difficult re-election campaign against Mr. Trump, will try to push Kyiv to get into negotiations for a cease-fire with Russia by next summer, to show that he is committed to peace.That worry is likely to be exaggerated, American officials suggest, given Mr. Biden’s continuing strong support for Ukraine, which is echoed in American opinion polls. But there remains confusion about any end goal that does not foresee Ukraine pushing all Russian troops out of sovereign Ukraine, or any clear path to negotiations with a Russia that shows no interest in talking.As Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, said at the Warsaw security forum, the mantra “as long as it takes” fails to define “it,” let alone “long.” For him, “it” should mean driving the invading Russians out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.In private, at least, other European officials consider that highly unlikely.Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, suggested that NATO’s 75th anniversary summit meeting next summer in Washington will be tense because of Ukraine, as it will come at the height of the American presidential campaign. Any invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is likely to help Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate, Mr. Bildt said.But while many worry about the possibility of declining American support for Ukraine, the potential for backsliding is not limited to the United States, as the costs of the war are more deeply felt in Europe.In its campaign in Poland, for elections this weekend, the governing Law and Justice Party has complained angrily that Ukrainian grain exports are flooding the Polish market, damaging the farmers who are a key element of the party’s support and underlining the implications for Polish agriculture should Ukraine join the European Union.Mr. Zelensky responded that “it is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater — making a thriller from the grain.”Grain stored in Leszczany, Poland, in April.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesThe Polish government, fighting for votes with parties farther to the right, then said it would cease military aid to Ukraine, even though it has already provided an enormous amount early in the war.Anti-Russian sentiment is a given in Poland, but the animosity toward Germany, an E.U. and NATO ally, was striking, too, said Slawomir Debski, the director the of Polish Institute of International Affairs.He described the campaign as “very dirty,” with wild accusations playing on strong anti-German, anti-Russian, anti-European Union sentiments, combined with growing tensions with Ukraine.It was all a sharp contrast to Poland’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees and important early provision of tanks, fighter jets and ammunition just last year.“I warned many people, including the Americans, that this government is being accused of doing too much for Ukraine, so be careful,” Mr. Debski said.Michal Baranowski, a Pole who is the managing director for the German Marshall Fund East, said he was “disheartened because Polish political leaders know we need to stay the course in Ukraine, but they are letting emotions and politics get the better of them.”Polish division, however political, does not stay in Poland, Mr. Baranowski warned. “The effect of this on the United States and the Republican Party is terrible,” he said.Constant Méheut More

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      Inside Trump’s Backroom Effort to Lock Up the Nomination

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      Not long after the new chairman of the Republican Party in Hawaii was elected in May, he received a voicemail from none other than Donald J. Trump.“It’s your all-time favorite president,” Mr. Trump told the chairman, Tim Dalhouse. “I just called to congratulate you.”The head of the Kansas G.O.P. received a similar message after he became chairman. The Nebraska chairman had a couple of minutes and a photo arranged with the former president during an Iowa stop. And the chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, Michael McDonald, who had served as a fake elector for Mr. Trump after the 2020 election, was among a group of state party officials who were treated to an hourslong Mar-a-Lago meal in March that ended in ice cream sundaes.Months later, Mr. McDonald’s party in Nevada dramatically transformed the state’s influential early contest. The party enacted new rules that distinctively disadvantage Mr. Trump’s chief rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, by effectively blocking the super PAC he relies upon from participating in the state’s new caucus.Mr. McDonald has tilted the rules so significantly that some of Mr. Trump’s opponents have accused the party of manipulating the election for him — and have mostly pulled up stakes in the state entirely.Mike Brown, the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, received a congratulatory message from Donald Trump after he became chairman, a sign of the work the Trump team is doing behind the scenes.John Hanna/Associated PressAs Mr. Trump dodges debates and is regularly seen on his golf courses in branded white polo shirts and red MAGA hats, it can seem that he is bypassing the 2024 primary fight entirely. He has done relatively few public campaign events until recent weeks. But Mr. Trump and his political team have spent months working behind the scenes to build alliances and contingency plans with key party officials, seeking to twist the primary and delegate rules in their favor.It amounts to a fail-safe in case Mr. DeSantis — or anyone else — scores a surprise victory in an early state. And it comes as Mr. Trump faces an extraordinary set of legal challenges, including four criminal indictments, that inject an unusual degree of uncertainty into a race Mr. Trump leads widely in national polling.“They’ve rigged it anywhere they thought they could pull it off,” said Ken Cuccinelli, a former Trump administration official who founded Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC that was essentially ousted from the Nevada caucus.The maneuvering is the type of old-school party politics that Mr. Trump, who cut his teeth in the machine politics of 1970s and 1980s New York, relishes and knows best: personal calls and chits, glad-handing, relationships and reprisals. Advisers say that in contrast to some tasks, getting him to make those calls is a breeze. Plus, the seemingly arcane issue of delegate accumulation — tallying up formal support in the states to secure the nomination at the party convention next summer — is deeply personal to Mr. Trump after he was outflanked in exactly this fight in 2016.Then, a better-organized Senator Ted Cruz of Texas worked Trump-skeptical state parties to win more delegates even in some places where he had lost at the ballot box. Mr. Cuccinelli was one of Mr. Cruz’s top delegate hunters at the time. Now, surrounded by a more experienced team and the authority of a former president with loyalists entrenched nationwide, Mr. Trump is doing to Mr. DeSantis exactly what he once accused Hillary Clinton of doing to Bernie Sanders: bending the system in his favor.The Republican Party in Nevada enacted new rules that disadvantage Gov. Ron DeSantis by effectively blocking a pro-DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, from participating in the state’s new caucus.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesMr. Trump’s backroom campaign reveals the extent to which he has become the establishment of the Republican Party.“This is the kind of stuff that’s not talked about in the news,” said Scott Golden, the chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, who was invited to speak briefly in private with Mr. Trump when the former president visited his state this spring. “This is important stuff. It is ultimately about making sure your person is the nominee.”In presidential primaries or caucuses, voters’ casting of ballots is only the first step. Those elections determine the individuals — called delegates — who go to the national party convention to formally choose their party’s nominee. The rules each state uses to allocate delegates and bind them to particular candidates can shift from year to year, and the people in charge of those rules are otherwise obscure state party officials.Wooing those insiders can be crucial. Among those who attended the Mar-a-Lago dinner in March was Alida Benson, then the executive director of the Nevada Republican Party. Now she is Mr. Trump’s Nevada state director.At one point, Mr. Trump’s campaign warned state parties nationwide about the legal risks of working with super PACs. In the past, super PACs have generally been allowed to organize and advertise in both primaries and caucuses. But in Nevada, a new rule was enacted that barred super PACs from sending speakers, or even literature, to caucus sites, or getting data from the state party.The unstated goal: to box out Never Back Down.Alex Latcham, who oversees Mr. Trump’s early-state operations, called the Nevada party’s moves especially sweet. He noted that Nevada is the state where the super PAC’s largest donor, Robert Bigelow, lives and where its chairman, Adam Laxalt, just ran for Senate.“Not only is it a strategic victory, but it’s also a moral defeat for Always Back Down,” Mr. Latcham said, purposefully inverting the group’s name.Advisers to Mr. DeSantis, known for his bare-knuckle tactics in Florida, have complained about an imbalance in the playing field.“I don’t think they play fair,” said James Uthmeier, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign manager.“They’ve rigged it anywhere they thought they could pull it off,” Ken Cuccinelli said of the Trump team. Mr. Cuccinelli is a former Trump administration official who founded Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC.Christian Monterrosa for The New York TimesMr. Cuccinelli accused Mr. Trump of hypocrisy. “No one has tried to rig the rules like Donald Trump has been doing here at least in a very long time,” he said. “And no one has ever done it who, in other circumstances, complains about the rules being rigged.”Mr. Latcham called that “sour grapes on behalf of less sophisticated candidates or their organizations who were outworked and outmaneuvered. I mean, the reality is this is politics.”Just how tilted is the field in Nevada now? Mr. DeSantis’s campaign won’t even say if he will apply to be on the ballot, and no serious candidate or super PAC has spent a dollar on television ads there since late June. Mr. McDonald, the state party chairman, claims neutrality but remains one of Mr. Trump’s closest allies. He and the Nevada G.O.P. did not respond to requests for comment.Perhaps the most significant change in the primary rules took place in California. Republican officials in the state, whose primary was moved up to Super Tuesday by Democrats in the Legislature, adopted a set of rules over the objection of DeSantis allies that will award all 169 of its delegates to any candidate who tops 50 percent of the vote statewide — a threshold only Mr. Trump is currently anywhere near.“By nature, President Trump is a gambling type of guy, and I think to have that opportunity is certainly appealing to him,” Jessica Millan Patterson, chairwoman of the California Republican Party, said of a potential delegate sweep.Previously, each of the state’s 52 congressional districts delivered delegates independently, allowing candidates to cherry-pick more favorable political terrain. The change caused Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, to essentially give up on California, halting a door-knocking operation that had already visited more than 100,000 homes in the state.Ben Ginsberg, a longtime Republican lawyer and one of the party’s foremost experts on delegates, called California’s move one of the most consequential changes on the calendar.“It gives him an advantage that a front-runner has never had before to absolutely wrap it up by Super Tuesday,” Mr. Ginsberg said of Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump spoke at the California Republican Party convention last month. Behind the scenes, his campaign worked to shape the state party’s primary rules. Todd Heisler/The New York TimesBehind the scenes, Mr. Trump’s campaign worked to shape California’s rules, contacting at least some party executive committee members directly. One person who helped craft the rules in California to make it harder for Mr. DeSantis to accumulate delegates was Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker, who had for months sought to stay in Mr. Trump’s good graces in whatever ways he could short of a formal endorsement. In the end, Mr. Trump did not return the favor, staying on the sidelines as Mr. McCarthy was ousted this month as speaker.At the center of the Trump delegate operation is a low-profile former White House aide, Clayton Henson. He has traversed the country for months on Mr. Trump’s behalf to establish a beachhead with party officials. This spring, on the same April day President Biden announced his re-election run, Mr. Henson plopped himself on the couch in the lobby of the Omni hotel in Oklahoma City, where the Republican National Committee was holding a training session.He sat there all day, and the next, texting and pulling aside state party leaders for quick introductions. Other campaigns were absent that day — and have been for many of the months since.“Clayton’s met with many of us,” said Eric Underwood, the Nebraska G.O.P. chair, who recently went to see Mr. Trump in neighboring Iowa. The campaign had arranged a few private minutes backstage; he pitched a future Nebraska visit. In contrast, Mr. Underwood said he had to personally push through a crowd to buttonhole Mr. DeSantis at the most recent R.N.C. meeting in Wisconsin.Another state that has shifted its delegate rules is Michigan. While those changes came about after the Legislature moved up the primary date, state Republicans have implemented a complicated dual primary and caucus, with many of the delegates determined by a system seen as favoring Mr. Trump.“It’s a slam dunk for Trump,” Jason Roe, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party, said of the shift. “I don’t think it’s a mistake that Trump-aligned party leaders engineered that.”Mr. Trump’s backroom advantage — operating effectively as a party boss, leveraging relationships built during his presidency — is cover for his operational disadvantages, especially in Iowa. Mr. DeSantis’s team believes a defeat of the former president there would reset the race, and the governor is increasingly betting his whole candidacy on that.Mike Brown, the Kansas chairman, said he had communicated regularly with Mr. Henson for more than six months as Kansas became a winner-take-all primary on March 19. It is the type of high-stakes early contest Mr. Trump’s advisers have favored even if they didn’t press for this particular move. For some other campaigns, Mr. Brown had to reach out to the R.N.C. for contact information.“I received a call from folks connected to DeSantis,” Mr. Brown recalled. “Two very nice ladies who I can’t remember their name right now.”Nicholas Nehamas More

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      Dennis Kucinich Leaves Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Presidential Campaign

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      In a shake-up just days after announcing his independent bid, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. replaced his campaign manager Dennis J. Kucinich with his daughter-in-law.Dennis J. Kucinich left his post as the presidential campaign manager for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and was replaced by Mr. Kennedy’s daughter-in-law, a political neophyte best known for a memoir about her tenure in the C.I.A.The campaign shake-up comes at a moment of renewed scrutiny on Mr. Kennedy’s campaign. The political scion of one of the most influential families in contemporary American politics announced on Monday that he was ending his Democratic primary challenge to President Biden and would continue his campaign as an independent candidate.Mr. Kucinich’s departure came a surprise even to Mr. Kennedy’s press secretary, who was informed of it on Friday afternoon by a New York Times reporter. In a subsequent news release, Mr. Kennedy said his campaign had “benefited enormously from the political experience of Dennis Kucinich.” Mr. Kucinich was not quoted in the release.Mr. Kennedy’s new campaign manager is Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, a former C.I.A. agent, memoirist and documentarian who in 2018 married Mr. Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy III.“Amaryllis is a woman of extraordinary intelligence and drive who I am confident will take this campaign to the next level,” Mr. Kennedy said in the news release.Ms. Kennedy has already been on the campaign payroll, according to the campaign’s financial report covering the three-month period ending Sept. 30, which was filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday.Ms. Kennedy’s social media is a hodgepodge of condemnations of American support for and involvement in overseas wars along with her critical reporting about the country’s fight to eradicate illegal drugs. She also posted a eulogy of her family’s parrot, Toots. She revealed little about her prior involvement in Mr. Kennedy’s presidential campaign beyond a July Instagram post urging followers to watch a 35-minute speech of his.Mr. Kucinich, a former Democratic congressman who twice ran for president himself, has been with Mr. Kennedy, a leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories, since he began his run for office in April. He introduced Mr. Kennedy at the Philadelphia rally where Mr. Kennedy announced his independent bid.Mr. Kucinich confirmed in a brief interview on Friday afternoon, before the campaign release came out, that he was no longer Mr. Kennedy’s campaign manager. He said that he would “not discuss any internal communications of the campaign.”In the message to campaign staff members sent earlier on Friday, Mr. Kucinich praised the work of the “powerful team” that was ready to take the campaign in a “new direction.” He added: “That patriotic goal is within sight, and I urge each of you to hold fast.” More