Presidential Election of 2024

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      At Iowa’s Biggest Game, Football and Politics Collide

      by

      Donald J. Trump and Ron DeSantis played off each other at the Iowa-Iowa State game, where the tables appeared to turn on the former president.Two ardent rivals faced off on Saturday. Thousands of fans cheered and jeered from the sidelines. Tension and hope, celebration and outrage all around.There was also a college football game.The event itself was highly anticipated, as is normal for the Iowa-Iowa State game. But this year’s matchup also featured a bitter head-to-head clash of a political kind that started even before kickoff occurred.Former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the front-runners in the Republican primary, both appeared at the game: Mr. Trump, in a private suite, and Mr. DeSantis, in the stands alongside the state’s popular governor, Kim Reynolds.It was the first time the two were at the same event since the Iowa State Fair, at which Mr. Trump and his supporters taunted Mr. DeSantis, who was heckled and cursed at as he strolled the fairgrounds with his family.A month later, at Jack Trice Stadium, the roles appeared to be reversed, with Mr. Trump on the receiving end.The former president entered the game to a mix of applause and audible boos, as a plane with a banner reading “Where’s Melania?” flew overhead — a nod to the absence of his wife from the campaign trail. Some attendees gave him the middle finger from the stands while he looked on from the glass-paneled box from which he watched the game.Two people wearing inflatable costumes resembling Mr. Trump and Anthony Fauci, who managed the Covid response during the Trump administration and has been a target of Mr. DeSantis’s — took photos with game attendees.People wearing inflatable costumes resembling Mr. Trump and Anthony Fauci posed for photos with fans.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesStill, Mr. Trump is dominating Iowa in the polls, despite eschewing the town-to-town retail politicking that is tradition in the state.Before kickoff, a crowd of several hundred gathered near the loading dock where Mr. Trump was expected to enter the stadium. Another large group crowded around the suite from which he watched the game during halftime, simply hoping for a glimpse of the former president.While Iowa voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 with an eight-percentage-point margin, the state’s two major college towns — Ames, where the game took place, and Iowa City, home of the rival Iowa Hawkeyes — are quite blue.A crowd gathered to get a glimpse of Mr. Trump arriving at the game.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe attacks came out early, before either candidate arrived at the game. Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down, released a new online ad ahead of the game — which was devised to reach digital devices in the area around the stadium — criticizing the former president’s previous support for transgender women competing in the Miss America pageant as “insanity.” Ripped-up DeSantis posters were strewn across the grounds outside the stadium.Ahead of the game, Mr. DeSantis appeared for roughly 15 minutes at a tailgate for the Iowa State wrestling team, where Cyclones fans played cornhole and sipped beer from red and gold koozies.Asked by a reporter about Mr. Trump, who is leading him by double digits in the state, Mr. DeSantis made a glancing reference to the former president’s four criminal indictments, saying that “Iowans don’t want the campaign to be about the past or to be about the candidates’ issues.” Instead, he continued, “They want it to be about their future and the future of this country. And that’s what I represent.”At the game, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida appeared in the stands alongside the state’s popular governor, Kim Reynolds.Jeffrey Becker/USA Today Sports,via ReutersBut even voters who are strongly considering supporting Mr. DeSantis questioned whether he could beat Mr. Trump.“How do you overcome this deficit?” said Richard Abrams, 38, a middle school teacher from Iowa City. “How do you persuade these Trump voters to come to your side? You’ve got to win some of those people over.”Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis weren’t the only candidates who vied for attention at the game. Vivek Ramaswamy, the political newcomer who has surged in the polls in recent weeks, strolled through the tailgate after several earlier appearances in the state. He garnered some attention, taking a quick shot of water from a “shot ski,” a ski to which shot glasses were attached, and shaking hands as he went. But he didn’t stay for the game, instead trying to jet off to a town hall in New Hampshire that was canceled after his plane was grounded “due to inclement weather.”Vivek Ramaswamy posed for photos with attendees at a tailgate.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesAsa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor running on a stridently anti-Trump platform, also appeared briefly at the tailgate. In remarks to reporters, he attacked Mr. Trump’s character and took a swipe at Mr. DeSantis, who allied himself closely with the former president while running for governor in 2018.“Donald Trump’s not going to speak the truth in this election,” said Mr. Hutchinson, who is barely making an impression in the polls. “But America needs to move in a different direction, and we don’t need a ‘Trump-lite,’ either.”Few tailgaters seemed to notice his presence.Asa Hutchinson speaking with reporters at the tailgate.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe day was almost a game within a game. The heckling, the fly-over and the anti-Trump ads were reminiscent of the Iowa State Fair in August, when Mr. DeSantis faced taunting from the Trump campaign and its supporters, including with a plane flying a banner that read: “Be likable, Ron!” At a sprint car race later that day, a crowd of 25,000 greeted Mr. DeSantis’s appearance with a chorus of boos.But many in attendance at the Iowa standoff — despite the candidates’ crowds and the hubbub around their arrivals — were far more interested in the rivalry on the field than the one off it.The game itself was highly anticipated, as is normal for the Iowa-Iowa State game.Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press“I just don’t think that the focus should be on them because it’s a rivalry between colleges,” said Melanie Frueh, from St. Charles. “Granted, there’s a lot of people out there, but I just don’t see that there’s that much importance to come here and try to make a name for themselves when people are having fun in this in this context.”Still, the game itself may not have maintained its level of appeal. The score sat at 14-3 at halftime, in favor of the Hawkeyes, who went on to win, 20-13. Scores of crowd members left with half the game still to go. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      President Biden Keeps Hunter Close Despite the Political Peril

      by

      The possibility of a federal indictment of Hunter Biden stunned the president. Yet the bond between him and his only surviving son is ironclad.Earlier this summer, President Biden was feeling hopeful.His son Hunter’s lawyers had struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors on tax and gun charges, and it seemed to the president that the long legal ordeal would finally be over.But when the agreement collapsed in late July, Mr. Biden, whose upbeat public image often belies a more mercurial temperament, was stunned.He plunged into sadness and frustration, according to several people close to him who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve their relationships with the Biden family. Since then, his tone in conversations about Hunter has been tinged with a resignation that was not there before, his confidants say.Now, as the Justice Department plans to indict Hunter Biden on a gun charge in coming weeks, White House advisers are preparing for many more months of Republican attacks and the prospect of a criminal trial in the middle of the 2024 presidential campaign.Republicans have cast Hunter’s troubles as a stew of nepotism and corruption, which the Biden administration denies. But there is no doubt that Hunter’s case is a drain, politically and emotionally, on his father and those who wish to see him re-elected.The saga reflects the painful dynamics of the first family, shaped by intense ambition and deep loss, along with anger and guilt. It is the story of two very different if much-loved sons, and of a father holding tight to the one still with him.This account is based on interviews with more than a dozen people close to the Biden family who declined to speak on the record out of concern about jeopardizing their relationships with the Bidens, along with writings from Biden family members.People who know both men say their bond is singular in its intensity. But even allies of President Biden, who prides himself on his political and human instincts, say he has at times been too deferential to his younger son, appearing unwilling to tell him no, despite Hunter’s problems and his long trail of bad decisions.And that has created unexpected political peril for the president.The Family BusinessMr. Biden with his sons Hunter, left, and Beau in the early 1970s. The two boys were close growing up.via Associated PressHunter was born on Feb. 4, 1970 — a year and a day after his older brother, Beau.The two boys were close growing up. Beau was seen as the future of the Biden political brand — the one who should be running for president, his father has said. President Biden has described Beau as “me, but without all the downsides.”Beau was a natural leader, a student athlete and Ivy League-educated lawyer who rose to become the most popular political figure in Delaware. As President Barack Obama described him, Beau was “someone who charmed you, and disarmed you, and put you at ease.’’Hunter grew up intelligent and artistic, sharing his father’s loquacious personality. After graduating from Georgetown University, he served in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Portland, Ore., where he worked at a food bank in a church basement and volunteered at a socialization center for disabled people. He met a fellow volunteer, Kathleen Buhle, in the summer of 1992. Within months she was pregnant, and in July 1993 the two married. Hunter later graduated from Yale Law School.By the early 2000s, living in Delaware with his wife and three young daughters, Hunter had begun drinking heavily at dinner, he has said, at parties and after work at Oldaker, Biden & Belair, a law and lobbying firm where he was a partner.He moved away from lobbying around the time his father became vice president, after the Obama administration issued restrictions on lobbyists working with the government. But his later ventures drew scrutiny as well. In 2014 he joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that was under investigation for corruption, as Mr. Biden, then the vice president, was overseeing White House policy toward Ukraine.When Hunter was discharged from the Navy Reserve in 2014 because of cocaine use, Mr. Biden’s email to his family about the news coverage was succinct. “Good as it could be,” he wrote. “Time to move on. Love Dad.”As his father and brother showed a talent for public service, Hunter envisioned himself as the financier supporting the family business of politics.For a time, it was work that made him proud, because it made him feel needed.“I had more money in the bank than any Biden in six generations,” he wrote in “Beautiful Things,” his 2021 memoir, noting that when his lobbying career was steady in the late 1990s, he helped pay off his brother’s student loans, enrolled his three daughters in private school and covered the mortgage on a house where he and Beau were living.Decades later, though, he was known to complain about the responsibility. A person close to Hunter said those complaints were exaggerated, expressed at a time when Hunter was feeling bruised.Tragedy and substance abuse have stalked the Biden family for generations. Hunter was not quite 3 years old when his mother and baby sister were killed in a car accident that left him and Beau seriously injured and in a hospital for months. Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, at age 46. After that, Hunter descended further into alcoholism and a devastating addiction to crack cocaine.Mr. Biden with Hunter, left, and other members of their family at a memorial service for Beau Biden in Dover, Del., in 2015.Patrick Semansky/Associated PressPresident Biden’s father had bouts of drinking, according to people who knew him, and one of his brothers, Frank, has struggled with alcoholism. Mr. Biden’s daughter, Ashley, has sought treatment for addiction. On the campaign trail in 2008, when Mr. Biden was a candidate for vice president, he offered a blunt explanation for his own decision not to drink: “There are enough alcoholics in my family.”As his problems with addiction worsened in recent years, Hunter’s life unraveled. His marriage to Ms. Buhle ended in 2017, and he had a romantic relationship with his brother’s widow, Hallie, that set off tabloid headlines and more family angst.At times the elder Mr. Biden has seemed at a loss to respond, and worried about pushing Hunter away. At his son’s behest, Mr. Biden released a statement in support of the relationship between Hunter and Hallie. When that relationship ended soon after, Hunter cycled in and out of rehabilitation facilities and tried experimental therapies including ketamine and “the gland secretions of the Sonoran Desert toad,” according to his memoir. He was often not able to stay sober for more than a couple of weeks at a time.Hunter has a fourth child, Navy Joan Roberts, who was conceived during an encounter in 2017 he says he does not remember. Hunter has said he does not have a relationship with the child. President Biden did not acknowledge the girl, who was born in Arkansas, until July, and only after Hunter gave him the OK, according to a person close to the president.Mr. Biden’s devotion to his son means that he has long followed Hunter’s lead. At one point, after a family intervention over Hunter’s drug use, a distraught Mr. Biden approached his son in the driveway of Mr. Biden’s home in Delaware.“I don’t know what else to do,” Mr. Biden cried out. “Tell me what to do.’”Hunter has said he finally got sober after meeting his second wife, Melissa Cohen, in 2019.A Father, Not a PoliticianPresident Biden tries to keep his son close.When Hunter accompanied the president on a trip to Ireland in the spring, he traveled on Air Force One and slept on a cot in his father’s hotel room. When Hunter flies to Washington from his home in Malibu, he stays at the White House, sometimes for weeks at a time. When he is on the West Coast, his father calls him nearly every day, sometimes more than once.Hunter shares his father’s tendency toward effusiveness and intensity in interactions with people he loves, according to people who know both of them. They also share a quick temper.“I’m like his security blanket,” Hunter told The New Yorker in 2019. “I don’t tell the staff what to do. I’m not there giving directions or orders. I shake everybody’s hands. And then I tell him to close his eyes on the bus. I can say things to him that nobody else can.”Allies of the president have deep respect for the bond, but have privately criticized Mr. Biden’s apparent inability to say no when Hunter sought to pull him into his business dealings. Some allies of the president say his loyalty to his son — inviting him to state dinners, flying with him aboard Marine One and standing on the White House balcony with him — has resulted in wholly avoidable political distractions.Hunter Biden is often seen at presidential events with his family, like watching the Fourth of July fireworks at the White House.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesNo hard evidence has emerged that Mr. Biden personally participated in or profited from the business deals or used his office to benefit his son’s partners while he was vice president. And Mr. Biden’s advisers have pointed to legal experts who argue that the tax and gun charges against the president’s son are rarely prosecuted.Still, Hunter Biden’s business dealings have raised concerns because testimony and reports have indicated that he traded on the family name to generate lucrative deals. Devon Archer, Hunter’s former business partner, told congressional investigators that Hunter used “the illusion of access to his father” to win over potential partners.Mr. Archer said that Mr. Biden had been in the presence of business associates of his son’s who were apparently seeking connections and influence inside the United States government.But Mr. Archer’s testimony fell short of Republican hopes of a smoking gun to prove the president’s involvement in his son’s efforts to drum up business overseas. The elder Mr. Biden would occasionally stop by a dinner or a hotel for a brief handshake, Mr. Archer said, or engage in a few pleasantries over the phone.Although many observers see the investigation as a darkening shadow over the presidency, President Biden and his son do not dwell on it in their daily phone calls.They do talk politics occasionally; Hunter is an informal adviser who has helped his father brainstorm speeches. But mostly, the president shares updates from the rest of the family and simply asks how his son is doing, people familiar with the calls say.Anger in CaliforniaHunter Biden’s life in California is a world away from his father’s in Washington.He lives with his wife and their toddler son, who is named for Beau, in a rental home high above the Pacific Ocean. It is a place that feels impossibly idyllic — except for signs that warn of wildfires that could burn the fragile paradise to the ground.Most mornings, he sits in his home and paints, putting oils and acrylics to canvas in a ritual that he says helps keep him sober. Then he drives, Secret Service agents in tow, to the nearby house of Kevin Morris, a Hollywood lawyer who has become a financial and emotional lifeline since the two met at a fund-raiser for the Biden campaign in 2019.Hunter Biden painting in his California studio in 2019. He says painting keeps him sober.Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesThat year, Hunter told The New Yorker he was making about $4,000 a month. He had moved to California, in his telling, to “disappear” as his father was running for the presidency. His new wife was pregnant. He had chosen to live in one of the most expensive areas of the country, and he was struggling to stay afloat. Mr. Morris, who made his fortune brokering entertainment deals and representing celebrities including Matthew McConaughey, saw an opportunity to help. He has lent Hunter millions to pay back taxes and support his family, according to people who know about the arrangement.Friends of the family fear for Hunter’s well-being out in California because he is a recovering addict who is under pressure. He has said that his new career as a painter is a form of survival, keeping him “away from people and places where I shouldn’t be.”Despite the concerns, people closer to Hunter say he is determined and resilient. But they also describe him as angry and spoiling for a fight.These days, under the watchful eye of a drone that Mr. Morris uses to scan for photographers and intruders, he and the president’s son huddle together in anger and isolation, assessing the day’s damage. The collapse of a plea deal. A special counsel investigation. A looming indictment. A likely trial.Every day, on and on, there is a new crisis.President Biden only occasionally makes the trip out West to raise money or deliver remarks on his policy agenda. His political ethos is rooted more in middle-class Scranton, Pa., than in the wealth that surrounds his son’s home in the hills of Malibu.There is tension between Mr. Biden’s allies, who favor a cautious approach in Hunter’s legal proceedings, and Mr. Morris, who prefers a more aggressive approach.That tension reached a boiling point last winter, when Mr. Morris pushed to remove Joshua A. Levy, an attorney recommended by Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, from Hunter’s legal team.Kevin Morris, a Malibu-based entertainment lawyer, has funded Hunter Biden’s legal team and is said to have a brotherly bond with the president’s son.Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty ImagesAfter Mr. Levy resigned, Mr. Morris replaced him with Abbe Lowell, one of Washington’s best-known scandal lawyers, who has a reputation for bare-knuckle tactics. (He had also recently represented Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald J. Trump.) For now, the strategic command center is at Mr. Morris’s dining room table in Malibu, not in Washington.Mr. Biden does not believe that Republican attacks on his son will hurt him with voters as he runs for re-election in 2024, and there is data to suggest that is largely true, at least for now. A June poll by Reuters and Ipsos found that 58 percent of Americans would not factor Hunter Biden into their decision in the presidential race.The White House declined to comment for this article, as did Hunter Biden and his attorneys.“Joe Biden’s been around politics all his life,” said the Democratic strategist David Axelrod, who noted that Mr. Biden’s decisions about Hunter were not made by advisers or consultants. “This is about him and how he feels and his relationship with his son.”Mr. Biden told MSNBC in May that his son had done nothing wrong.“I trust him,” he said. “I have faith in him.”Last month, when asked by reporters at Camp David about the special counsel investigation into his son, Mr. Biden’s response was terse.“That’s up to the Justice Department,” Mr. Biden said, “and that’s all I have to say.”Mr. Biden then left Camp David and rode aboard Air Force One to Lake Tahoe for vacation. Hunter joined him there.That time, the president’s son flew commercial. More

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      G20 Declaration Omits Criticism of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

      by

      A painstakingly negotiated declaration Saturday evening at the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi omitted any condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or its brutal conduct of the war, instead lamenting the “suffering” of the Ukrainian people.It was an eye opening departure from a similar document agreed to less than a year ago in Bali, when leaders acknowledged different views over the invasion but still issued a strong condemnation of the Russian invasion and called on Moscow to withdraw its troops.This year, amid low expectations that the divided group would reach any sort of consensus with Ukraine, the declaration pointed to past United Nations resolutions condemning the war and noted the “adverse impact of wars and conflicts around the world.” The statement also called on Russia to allow the export of grain and fertilizer from Ukraine and “to support a comprehensive, just and durable peace.”American officials defended the agreement, saying it built on the statement released last year and that the United States was still pressing for peace in Ukraine.“From our perspective, it does a very good job of standing up for the principle that states cannot use force to seek territorial acquisition or to violate the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of other states,” Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, told reporters.But Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, said on Facebook that the omission of Russian aggression was “nothing to be proud of.”Mr. Biden and his advisers focused on what the new declaration had achieved: It included new language on the issue of global debt and on overhauling institutions like the World Bank to address the growing strains on poorer countries; an invitation to the African Union to join the G20; and a push for more financing to help vulnerable nations deal with the costs of dealing with climate change. The declaration also underscored the potential of digital technologies to increase inclusion in global economies.The president joined other leaders in announcing a project to create a rail and shipping corridor linking India to the Middle East and, eventually, Europe. It was a promise of new technological and trade pathways, they said, in a part of the world where deeper economic cooperation was overdue.The project lacked key details, including a time frame or budget. Even so, it represented much softer than usual rhetoric about Russia from Mr. Biden and other Western leaders, who have spent the better part of two years spending billions on arming Ukraine and burning untold domestic political capital building support for the war. Facing a summit rife with deep divisions, Mr. Biden did not speak publicly about the war or almost anything else, except to say “it would be nice” if President Xi Jinping of China, who skipped the summit along with the Russian leader, Vladimir V. Putin, had attended.Mr. Biden spent most of his time at the summit quietly nurturing his relationship with Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, who has continued his country’s traditional practice of abstaining from superpower skirmishes, but who has his own tensions with China. He is also keenly interested in presenting himself — and his country — as an ascendant global player.“Biden, like previous presidents, is trying to bring India closer,” Richard N. Haass, a foreign policy veteran and former president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “He’s having limited success, but that’s the nature of the relationship. That’s baked into the cake here.”Mr. Haass said that joint declarations often take on the characteristics of the host country. In this case, he said, it seemed that “the host determined not to antagonize either China or Russia.” He called the statement — and the economic summit — an example of “incremental diplomacy” and not a forum where the conflict could be resolved.White House officials did not publicly say why the United States would sign onto a joint agreement that did so little to keep pressure on Russia, though the Russians had loudly complained about the focus on them. (Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, cited the “Ukrainization” of the summit to explain Mr. Putin’s absence.)Besides Ukraine, there were other points of contention over the declaration. Mr. Sullivan was asked about reports that the Chinese had objected to language in a draft that confirmed that the United States would host the G20 meeting in 2026. “On the issue of China, all I can say is the communiqué is done,” he said.The absence of two of the group’s most influential leaders, coupled with the ongoing war in Ukraine, had raised questions about whether the summit meeting could achieve much of anything given the current geopolitical divisions. Biden administration officials spent much of their time with reporters assuring them that the summit was still effective.Mr. Biden’s advisers pointed to to the announcement of plans to build a rail and shipping corridor from India through the Middle East to Europe as evidence that the group could build connections even in fraught territory.At the event presenting the initiative, Mr. Biden shook hands with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, which has agreed to participate, something he had pointedly avoided doing when visiting the kingdom last year.The announcement comes as the Biden administration has worked, so far unsuccessfully, to broker an ambitious diplomatic agreement that would help the Saudis normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. The United States and the European Union also announced on Saturday a project that would explore the creation of a rail line between Zimbabwe and Angola.Unlike in years past, where he held high-stakes meetings with individual allies and competitors, Mr. Biden stayed in the background for most of his time in India, content to let Mr. Modi take the lead. On Sunday, Mr. Biden will travel to Vietnam, where he is expected to celebrate a new upgrade in relations with Vietnam, despite concerns about the country’s recent authoritarian crackdown and repression.Unlike his predecessor and possible 2024 competitor, former president Donald J. Trump, Mr. Biden’s brand of personalized statesmanship has long been centered around the belief that the best relationships — and even some of the worst ones — are best handled through one-on-one interactions and private negotiations. At forums like the G20, Mr. Biden has often presented his version of leadership as a steadier alternative to Mr. Trump’s bombastic and unpredictable style.Mr. Modi, for his part, was so intent on showcasing the promise and potential of India to the rest of the world that his government effectively shut down a city of 20 million people for the occasion. Leading up to the event, Mr. Modi’s likeness was plastered on thousands of posters throughout New Delhi.On Saturday, speaking in Hindi, Mr. Modi began his inaugural address to the group of leaders by paying respects to the people of Morocco, where an earthquake killed hundreds. He ended his remarks by announcing the invitation to the African Union and hugging Azali Assoumani, the chairman of the bloc and the president of Comoros. Officials offered Mr. Assoumani a flag, a country nameplate and a seat at the table.India’s G20 presidency comes at a moment of contradiction for the country: Its rise to a bigger role on the world stage coincides with increasing divisions at home. While Mr. Modi is tapping into India’s strengths — a rapidly growing economy, a young work force and a strong tradition of technological and scientific innovation — to transform it into a developed nation, he is making sure that nation is reshaped along Hindu-first lines.The increasing aggression of his right-wing support base has created a combustible reality, with religious tensions between Hindus and Muslims frequently erupting in clashes.Mr. Biden notably stayed away from the democracy-versus-autocracy themes that shape much of his messaging overseas and at home. (At one point, Mr. Biden did pose for a photo with the leaders of several other democracies, including India, Brazil and South Africa.) And, his advisers stressed that the G20 was not competing with forums like the group of nations known as BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.They pointed out that reaching a consensus on the declaration, even if it was a softer one, was a labor of effective diplomacy.“The G20 is just a more diverse body with a wider range of views,” Jon Finer, the president’s deputy national security adviser, said. “It gives us a chance to interact with and work with and take constructive steps with a wider range of countries, including some we don’t see eye-to-eye with on every issue.”Mujib Mashal, Peter Baker, Alex Travelli and Damien Cave contributed reporting from New Delhi. More

    • 75 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Why Is Joe Biden So Unpopular?

      by

      Joe Biden is an unpopular president, and without some recovery, he could easily lose to Donald Trump in 2024.By itself, this is no great wonder: His two predecessors were also unpopular at this stage of their presidencies, also endangered in their re-election bids.But with Trump and Barack Obama, there were reasonably simple explanations. For Obama, it was the unemployment rate, 9.1 percent in September 2011, and the bruising battles over Obamacare. For Trump, it was the fact that he had never been popular, making bad approval ratings his presidency’s natural default.For Biden, though, there was a normal honeymoon, months of reasonably high approval ratings that ended only with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. And since then, it’s been hard to distill a singular explanation for what’s kept his numbers lousy.The economy is better than in Obama’s first term, inflation is ebbing, and the feared recession hasn’t materialized. The woke wars and Covid battles that disadvantaged Democrats are no longer central, and the post-Roe culture wars seem like friendlier terrain. Biden’s foreign policy team has defended Ukraine without (so far) a dangerous escalation with the Russians, and Biden has even delivered legislative bipartisanship, co-opting Trumpian promises about industrial policy along the way.This has created mystification among Democratic partisans as to why all this isn’t enough to give the president a decent polling lead. I don’t share that mystification. But I do think there’s real uncertainty about which of the forces dragging on Biden’s approval ratings matter most.Start with the theory that Biden’s troubles are mostly still about inflation — that people just hate rising prices and he isn’t credited with avoiding a recession because wage increases have been eaten up by inflation until recently.If this is the master issue, then the White House doesn’t have many options beyond patience. The administration’s original inflationary sin, the overspending in the American Rescue Plan Act, isn’t going to be repeated, and apart from the possibility of an armistice in Ukraine relieving some pressure on gas prices, there aren’t a lot of policy levers to pull. The hope has to be that inflation continues to drift down, real wages rise consistently and in November 2024, Biden gets the economic credit he isn’t getting now.But maybe it’s not just the economy. Across multiple polls, Biden seems to be losing support from minority voters, continuing a Trump-era trend. This raises the possibility that there’s a social-issues undertow for Democrats, in which even when wokeness isn’t front and center, the fact that the party’s activist core is so far left gradually pushes culturally conservative African Americans and Hispanics toward the G.O.P. — much as culturally conservative white Democrats drifted slowly into the Republican coalition between the 1960s and the 2000s.Bill Clinton temporarily arrested that rightward drift by deliberately picking public fights with factions to his left. But this has not been Biden’s strategy. He’s moved somewhat rightward on issues like immigration, in which progressivism’s policy vision hit the rocks. But he doesn’t make a big deal about his differences with his progressive flank. I don’t expect that to change — but it might be costing him in ways somewhat invisible to liberals at the moment.Or maybe the big problem is just simmering anxiety about Biden’s age. Maybe his poll numbers dipped first in the Afghanistan crisis because it showcased the public absenteeism that often characterizes his presidency. Maybe some voters now just assume that a vote for Biden is a vote for the hapless Kamala Harris. Maybe there’s just a vigor premium in presidential campaigns that gives Trump an advantage.In which case a different leader with the same policies might be more popular. Lacking any way to elevate such a leader, however, all Democrats can do is ask Biden to show more public vigor, with all the risks that may entail.But this is at least a strategy, of sorts. The hardest problem for the incumbent to address may be the pall of private depression and general pessimism hanging over Americans, especially younger Americans, which has been worsened by Covid but seems rooted in deeper social trends.I don’t see any obvious way for Biden to address this issue through normal presidential positioning. I would not recommend updating Jimmy Carter’s malaise speech with the therapy-speak of contemporary progressivism. I also don’t think the president is suited to be a crusader against digital derangement or a herald of religious revival.Biden got elected, in part, by casting himself as a transitional figure, a bridge to a more youthful and optimistic future. Now he needs some general belief in that brighter future to help carry him to re-election.But wherever Americans might find such optimism, we are probably well past the point that a decrepit-seeming president can hope to generate it himself.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

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      In Post-Roe America, Nikki Haley Seeks a New Path on Abortion for G.O.P.

      by

      In crafting an anti-abortion message that doesn’t alienate moderate Republicans and swing voters, her approach has won both supporters and detractors.In May 2016, Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina walked down the aisle of the statehouse, beaming and shaking hands, after signing legislation that would largely outlaw abortion in the state after 20 weeks of pregnancy.Still, she wanted to be sure social conservatives knew where she stood. So her office arranged a second, entirely ceremonial signing a few weeks later at Hidden Treasure Christian School, an evangelical academy for children with disabilities in the heart of South Carolina’s conservative Upstate region.Standing alongside the staunchly anti-abortion lawmakers who sponsored the bill, and flanked by dozens of children, Ms. Haley made clear that her support for their cause was not just political, but also personal.“I am not pro-life because the Republican Party tells me to be,” she said, promoting her support for the ban, which prohibited abortion even in cases of rape or incest. “I’m pro-life because all of us have had experiences of what it means to have one of these special little ones in our life, to lose one, to know what it takes and how hard it is to get one.”Seven years later, Ms. Haley’s abortion politics have not changed much. The same cannot be said for the country.As governor of South Carolina in 2016, Ms. Haley signed a law banning abortion after 20 weeks. She held a ceremonial signing a few weeks later at a Christian school, surrounded by children. Lauren Petracca/Greenville News, via USA Today NetworkAt campaign events, in speeches before anti-abortion groups and from the primary debate stage, Ms. Haley has cast herself as an empathetic seeker of compassionate “consensus” on one of the nation’s most divisive social issues.“We need to stop demonizing this issue,” she said at the first Republican debate in Milwaukee last month. “It’s personal for every woman and man. Now, it’s been put in the hands of the people. That’s great.”The Supreme Court’s overturning of federal abortion rights transformed an issue long considered settled by broad swaths of the American public into a political hammer for Democrats. The rapid shift has forced Ms. Haley and other Republicans to thread the needle between what she calls her “unapologetically pro-life” record and the broad majorities of American voters who support some form of abortion rights.Some Republicans see Ms. Haley as pioneering a path forward on what’s become a damaging issue for their party since the 2022 decision. They believe her message could be acceptable to their party’s conservative, anti-abortion base without alienating moderate Republicans and swing voters. For Ms. Haley, the approach is part of a larger strategy to position herself as a more electable alternative to Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Tudor Dixon, the Republican candidate for governor in Michigan last year, warned that Republicans would lose the messaging fight over abortion again in 2024 unless they adopted a stance similar to Ms. Haley’s that is more focused on compassion and finding common ground. Ms. Dixon lost her own race after facing a barrage of Democratic attacks over her opposition to abortion, including in cases of rape or incest.“Democrats are trying to make anybody who is pro-life the enemy of women,” Ms. Dixon said in an interview. “It felt so good to see a strong, caring woman come at this message from a personal and loving perspective.”Ms. Haley’s approach to abortion is part of a broader campaign strategy to cast herself as a more electable alternative to some of her Republican rivals. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesIn a closed-door meeting this week that was first reported by NBC News, Senate Republicans discussed new polling indicating that voters now saw the term “pro-life” as synonymous with being against abortion with no exceptions, according to a person who attended.The polling, conducted by a super PAC tied to Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, also found that female politicians such as Ms. Haley were better received as messengers for the Republican position on the issue. The group urged Republican senators to do a better job of explaining more nuanced and broadly popular positions, including supporting exceptions to restrictions for rape, incest and the health of the mother.Mr. Trump, the front-runner in the 2024 G.O.P. primary race, has also urged Republicans to embrace less stringent restrictions, while resisting pressure from anti-abortion activists to embrace a 15-week federal ban. Such a ban is widely unpopular: Polling conducted last month by The New York Times/Siena College found that 64 percent of independent voters and 57 percent of female voters oppose it.While she offers little in the way of policy specifics, Ms. Haley flatly dismisses the push for a 15-week federal ban as unrealistic, given that Republicans fall short of the margin needed to pass such a proposal through the Senate. Instead, Ms. Haley stakes out broad areas of what she sees as national agreement, including a ban on “late term” abortions, encouraging adoption, providing contraception and not criminalizing women who have the procedure.Those efforts by Ms. Haley and others to soften their approach face opposition from more strident anti-abortion activists, who view the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe as a starting point on the issue, not the end of it.“We need a national defender of life who will boldly articulate their pro-life position,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the head of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a prominent anti-abortion political group. “The pro-life movement must have a nominee who will boldly advocate for consensus in Congress, and as president will work to gather the votes necessary in Congress. Dismissing this task as unrealistic is not acceptable.”Supporters and campaign strategists say Ms. Haley’s approach reflects her personal experiences. In college, she watched a friend worry that her rape would result in an unwanted pregnancy. She later struggled with infertility, and underwent fertility treatments to have her two children. Her husband, Michael Haley, was adopted as a young child, an experience that made him, she said, “reason No. 1” for her opposition to abortion.“I don’t know if any of the others on that debate stage or Trump can do what she has done, and go out there and talk about this in this way where it’s understanding and compassionate and empathic and it’s coming from a position of real knowledge,” said Jennifer Nassour, the former head of the Massachusetts Republican Party, who is backing Ms. Haley. “She’s the only leader who can take such a divisive issue and bring everyone together on it.”Ms. Haley’s record tells a slightly more complicated story. During her time in South Carolina, Ms. Haley pushed her conservative state to restrict and limit abortion access.As a state legislator, she backed bills mandating ultrasound tests and a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion could be performed. In 2005, she voted for a bill granting constitutional rights of due process and equal protection to a zygote, the fertilized egg cell that forms after conception. And, four years later, she co-sponsored legislation mandating that a “right to life” begins at the point when a sperm cell fertilizes an egg, several weeks before a pregnancy can generally be detected.Such bills have been used by opponents of abortion to try to grant constitutional rights to embryos and fetuses. Those fetal personhood laws, as they are broadly known, could provide a legal framework not just for banning abortion but for limiting access to in vitro fertilization and contraception.“My record on abortion is long and clear,” Ms. Haley said in an April speech to the Susan B. Anthony anti-abortion group. “I voted for every pro-life bill that came before me.”After she became governor in 2011, Ms. Haley backed legislation granting a fetus that survives a failed abortion — a rare occurrence — the same medical treatment rights as a person. She signed a law prohibiting private insurance companies from covering an abortion procedure without the purchase of a separate policy rider. And she signed the 20-week ban in 2016.In 2016, Wendy Nanny, the sponsor of the 20-week ban in the state legislature, saw the legislation as a step toward the ultimate goal of ending abortion rights in America. Ms. Haley, she said, backed that effort.“She was always supportive of anything we tried to do that was pro-life,” Ms. Nanny said. “I never had any kind of pushback from her office.”That anti-abortion record could be hard for Ms. Haley — and other Republicans who supported similar legislation across the country for years — to outrun in a general election. In the decade before Roe was overturned, Republican legislators enacted roughly 600 laws restricting abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group that supports abortion rights. Voters view those records differently in the post-Roe world, in which abortion is now all but banned in 18 states, including South Carolina.Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster, doubted whether Ms. Haley could square her “respectful and middle-ground, compromise approach” with a decade-long record of “actually not doing that when in office.” Republicans, she said, have far to go before voters will give them the benefit of the doubt on the issue.“Those candidates trying to walk back their previous positions on abortion look incredibly political and non-trustworthy,” Ms. Murphy said. “Their credibility is so low on this issue that voters just fundamentally believe Republicans want to ban abortion.”But for now, as she tries to win a Republican primary, Ms. Haley’s message is finding an audience among voters seeking an alternative to Mr. Trump. As she waited for Ms. Haley to speak in Manchester, N.H., on Wednesday, Betty Gay, a Republican former state representative, praised her approach.“I think abortion is a horrible form of birth control, but there are some circumstances that require it,” said Ms. Gay, who was still undecided about the primary but does not plan on backing Mr. Trump. “I don’t want either of the extremes.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Gavin Newsom Promotes Biden and Himself in a Delicate Dance

      by

      The California governor has made himself the most visible Democrat-in-waiting. Still, he says that it’s time Democrats “buck up” and get behind President Biden.Over the past four months, Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, has traveled to six Republican-led states. He has goaded Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Republican presidential candidate from Florida, to debate on Fox News. He has assembled a small staff of political advisers and created a political action committee to distribute $10 million to Democratic causes and candidates.And this week, he raised $40,000 for a long-shot candidate for the United States Senate in Tennessee, one of the red states he has criticized his own party for neglecting.By all appearances, Mr. Newsom is a man with an eye on the White House, building a national network of supporters and accumulating the kind of good will among donors, party operatives and voters that could prove critical should he decide to move beyond Sacramento. Mr. Newsom said in an interview that he was not running for president, and that the time has come for Democrats to rally around President Biden.“The train has left the station,” Mr. Newsom said. “We’re all in. Stop talking. He’s not going anywhere. It’s time for all of us to get on the train and buck up.”But it may be difficult for Mr. Newsom to quiet speculation about his own future. He has spent months positioning himself as one of his party’s leading voices during a time of deep Democratic worry and lingering unease about the political strengths of Mr. Biden, who is 80, and his vice president, Kamala Harris.A CNN poll released on Thursday found that 73 percent of all respondents were “seriously concerned” that the president’s age might affect his mental and physical competence. Some 67 percent of Democrats said the party should nominate someone else.Mr. Newsom has, by his account, sought to reassure the White House in both public and private that he is no threat to Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign. And in turn, Mr. Biden’s team has appeared to pull him closer. The governor will be a top Democratic surrogate defending Mr. Biden when Republican candidates debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library later this month.This dance — of raising one’s profile without undercutting the president — is the challenge for a class of Democrats-in-waiting, which also includes Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. But Mr. Newsom, a 55-year-old telegenic, popular-in-his-own-state leader, has made himself the most visible in this group, and he may serve as a reminder of Mr. Biden’s shortcoming as he seeks re-election.Mr. Newsom has raised $3.5 million for Democratic candidates, Mr. Biden among them.Doug Mills/The New York Times“He’s got to be careful about it,” Joel Benenson, a pollster who advised Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, said of Mr. Newsom’s effort to raise his profile. “You don’t want to be too cute by half. If you are going to run, do it. If not, go out there and make the connections and talk to Democrats, learn about these states. The worst mistake would be the way to do it and seem sly about doing it.”Mr. Newsom presents his travel to Republican states as an attempt to build up the Democratic Party in places he argues it has neglected. And while defending Mr. Biden, particularly on questions about his age and fitness, he also engages in a debate over cultural issues — transgender rights and gun control, to name two — that Democrats have sometimes avoided.Mr. Newsom spent nearly an hour with Sean Hannity on Fox News in June to make the case for Mr. Biden and to defend his own record in California. “You have to give Gavin Newsom a lot of credit,” Mr. Hannity said in an interview. “He knew it wasn’t going to be an easy interview.”Mr. Newsom recently turned up at a Boise, Idaho, bookstore to denounce “the insane book bans happening across the country. ” He has picked arguments with Republican governors like Mr. DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, on abortion, gun control and trans rights.“He is taking the fight to the Republicans,” said Jared DeLoof, the executive director of the Democratic Party in Idaho, where Mr. Newsom appeared in July. “Too often Democrats shy away from things like critical race theory or transgender rights or some of these issues that Republican like to pop off about. The governor showed he was really effective on this issues — we can take them on, and we can win.”On his tour of Republican states, Mr. Newsom has engaged in the kind of cultural issues — transgender rights and gun control, to name two — that Democrats have at times avoided.Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesMr. Newsom said his activities were done with the consultation and approval of the White House, an assertion confirmed by White House aides.“I am sensitive to that,” he said, noting that he has made a point of not visiting states that are at the center of the presidential battleground. “I am trying not to play into the presidential frame.”(Mr. Newsom, however, did suggest that his still-unscheduled debate with Mr. DeSantis take place in, among other states, Nevada and Georgia, both of which are likely to be in play in 2024.)A spokesman for Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, T.J. Ducklo, said in a statement Friday that Mr. Newsom had “forcefully and effectively makes the president’s case publicly and is an enormous asset to our fund-raising and organizing operations.”There are other potential sources of friction as Mr. Newsom’s profile rises. Mr. Newsom and Ms. Harris are both ambitious Democrats from the same state who are of similar ages — she is 58 — and have, over the years, had to navigate around each other as they traveled down the same political roads. Ms. Harris would almost certainly be a rival in a Democratic presidential primary in 2028.Mr. Newsom said he and Ms. Harris speak regularly and rejected the suggestion that his success comes at her expense. “This is a true story — I shouldn’t even share it. There were a couple of unknown numbers on my voice mail the other day, and it was Kamala checking in,” he said. “I am really proud of her, and I don’t say that to be patronizing.”Ms. Harris’s aides said she had most recently called the governor to ask how California was faring after it was struck by Hurricane Hilary and an earthquake.Mr. Newsom, who is barred from seeking a third term as governor, has assembled a skeleton structure of campaign aides, in effect a campaign-in-waiting.He has raised $3.5 million for Democratic candidates, Mr. Biden among them. He is also distributing money from his political action committee, Campaign for Democracy, further enhancing his standing with Democrats candidates and political operatives around the country. “If he ever ran for national office, he has a record to run on,” said Sean Clegg, one of Mr. Newsom’s top advisers.Still, should Mr. Newsom seek to expand his political ambitions, he faces some serious obstacles.Mr. Newsom has rejected the notion that his rising profile was undercutting Vice President Kamala Harris, about whom Democrats have expressed doubt.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesMr. Newsom won a second term as governor in 2022 with nearly 60 percent of the vote. But he is a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Democratic state and has never had to face a tough Republican opponent.Mr. Newsom has become the face of a state with a long history of innovation and prosperity, but that state also brings with it some of his party’s biggest challenges: homelessness, a housing crisis and what may be the end the kind of growth that has defined the California dream. California has always been a political and cultural outlier and has, more than ever, become a rallying point of the right on issues like crime.Jessica Millan Patterson, the leader of the California Republican Party, said Mr. Newsom could prove an appealing national candidate, but that he would not play well with swing voters in many states.“It’s a really difficult sale,” she said. “I don’t think most of the country is looking at California and saying, ‘That’s what we should be doing.”The last California governor elected president was Ronald Reagan, a Republican; but by the time of that election, in 1980, he had been out of office for five years.Jerry Brown, a former California governor who ran for the White House and lost three times, said that none of the hurdles Mr. Newsom faced were insurmountable. “The most important thing is the candidate and the times,” Mr. Brown said. “If the candidate fits the time, I don’t think the geography and the cultural differences matter as much.”Mr. Newsom acknowledged all the hurdles. “It’s the surround-sound nature of the anger machine that is 24/7, wall-to-wall anti-California,” he said. “People’s entire careers are built on tearing this state down.”But Mr. Newsom argued — while insisting he was engaging in a hypothetical discussion, since he is not running for president — that being governor of a state like California would make someone particularly qualified to run the nation.Not that it matters, by the governor’s telling. Mr. Newsom said becoming president was “never on my list” and that he was not one of those Democrats who grew up with a photograph of John F. Kennedy on his wall, as he put it, drawing an unstated comparison to Bill Clinton and Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary who ran for president in 2020 and may well run again in 2028.“Look, in 2028, 99.9999 percent of people will not remember a damn thing about what we did in this election,” he said. “They will all fall in love with whomever it is — and there will be 30 of them on the stage. No one is naïve about that.”Michael D. Shear More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Trump’s Resilience Leaves Major Republican Donors in Despair

      by

      The party’s big donors have made clear their distaste for the former president. Now, as he barrels toward the nomination, they are reacting with a mix of hand-wringing, calls to arms and fatalism.On Labor Day, Eric Levine, a New York lawyer and Republican fund-raiser, sent an email to roughly 1,500 donors, politicians and friends.“I refuse to accept the proposition that Donald Trump is the ‘inevitable’ Republican nominee for President,” he wrote. “His nomination would be a disaster for our party and our country.”Many of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors share that view, and the growing sense of urgency about the state of the G.O.P. presidential primary race. Mr. Trump’s grip on the party’s voters is as powerful as ever, with polls in Iowa and New Hampshire last month putting him at least 25 percentage points above his nearest rivals.That has left major Republican donors — whose desires have increasingly diverged from those of conservative voters — grappling with the reality that the tens of millions of dollars they have spent to try to stop the former president, fearing he poses a mortal threat to their party and the country, may already be a sunk cost.Interviews with more than a dozen Republican donors and their allies revealed hand-wringing, magical thinking, calls to arms and, for some, fatalism. Several of them did not want to be identified by name out of a fear of political repercussions or a desire to stay in the good graces of any eventual Republican nominee, including Mr. Trump.“If things don’t change quickly, people are going to despair,” Mr. Levine said in an interview. He is among the optimists who believe Mr. Trump’s support is not as robust as the polls suggest and who see a quickly closing window to rally behind another candidate. In Mr. Levine’s 2,500-word Labor Day missive, he urged his readers to pick Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Other schools of thought exist. Some donors have backed Mr. Trump’s rivals despite believing that he is unbeatable in the primaries. These donors are banking, in part, on the chance that Mr. Trump will eventually drop out of the race because of his legal troubles, a health scare or some other personal or political calculation.Fred Zeidman, a Texas businessman who is an enthusiastic backer of Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, said he had given her a blunt assessment of her prospects last month.“You’re at 2 percent, and he’s at 53 percent,” he recalled telling her, in only a slight exaggeration of Mr. Trump’s polling advantage. “He ain’t going to erode that much. Something needs to happen to him for you to overtake him.”Privately, many donors said that the primary contest so far — especially the first Republican debate last month, in which Mr. Trump did not take part — had felt like a dress rehearsal for a play that would never happen. One donor’s political adviser called it “the kids’ table.”One Texas-based Republican fund-raiser, who has not committed to a candidate and insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations, said he regularly told major donors that like it or not, Mr. Trump would be the nominee.“Intellectually, their heads explode,” the fund-raiser said. He said many donors were “backing off” rather than supporting a candidate, reflecting a fundamental belief that nobody can defeat Mr. Trump.Many donors have said that the primary contest so far — especially the first Republican debate last month, in which Mr. Trump did not take part — has felt like a dress rehearsal for a play that will never happen.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesLarge-dollar Republican donors, even those who enthusiastically or reluctantly backed Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020, have made no secret of their wish to move on in 2024.Some big donors have stuck with Mr. Trump, though not nearly as many as in past cycles, at least not so far — a super PAC backing Mr. Trump has reported just 25 contributions of $100,000 or more. They include $2 million from the casino magnate Phil Ruffin and $1 million from the former real estate developer Charles Kushner, the father of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Mr. Trump pardoned the elder Mr. Kushner on his way out of office.Major donors, particularly those in the tier just below the billionaire power players, have seen their influence wane in recent elections, a trend inextricably bound up in Mr. Trump’s continued hold on Republican voters. The explosive growth of small-dollar contributions — a phenomenon that, on the Republican side, has overwhelmingly favored Mr. Trump — reflects a widening disconnect between voters’ sympathies and the interests of big donors.The conservative commentator Bill Kristol, who has become a pariah in his party over his longstanding opposition to Mr. Trump, said he told donors and their advisers at the beginning of the year that if they were serious about defeating Mr. Trump, they had to spend money in a concerted effort to persuade Republican voters that he should not be the nominee.The hope was that, by Labor Day, Mr. Trump’s poll numbers would be in the 30s, Mr. Kristol explained. Instead, he said, “they’ve done nothing, and Trump is at 50 percent.”Mr. Kristol said he was not sure if donors had a kind of “learned helplessness,” or if they were just wary of offending Mr. Trump and his supporters. “I think, ultimately, they tell themselves they could live with him,” he said.“We know what a world would look like if real conservative elites really decided they wanted to get rid of Donald Trump,” Mr. Kristol said. “And that’s not the world we are living in.”If there was any hope among big donors that the various investigations into Mr. Trump would undermine his popular support, such dreams have faded. Each successive indictment — four since late March — has brought waves of financial contributions and new energy to his poll numbers.Some donors expressed incredulity that Mr. Trump would be able to run for president while fighting off the charges. He faces a busy calendar of trials next year that is likely to grow only more complex.“I don’t see how he’s going to deal with these huge legal problems,” said the Long Island-based metals magnate Andy Sabin, who is backing Mr. Scott. “I don’t really care about his numbers. I think he’s got enough other stuff going on. All of these trials start — who knows? We are in uncharted territory.”Mr. Sabin conceded that Mr. Trump had a “very solid base,” adding that he would “almost have to murder somebody” for people to turn on him. “People think he’s God.”Many major donors, even those who believe Mr. Trump committed crimes and who think his actions surrounding Jan. 6, 2021, were abhorrent, said they believed the indictments were politically motivated. Some also suggested that the indictments had temporarily inflated his poll numbers, by keeping him in the news and fueling voter outrage on his behalf.“I fundamentally believe Trump’s numbers are artificial,” said Jay Zeidman, a Texas-based health care investor and major fund-raiser for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida (and the son of Fred Zeidman). “I’m not saying they are making them up — I don’t think there’s real strength behind those numbers.”He continued: “I think you have to be patient, and let the gravity of the situation he’s in take hold. This election is not about vindicating one man. This is not a referendum on Trump.”Mr. Zeidman, like others, said he believed Mr. Trump would lose the presidential race and drag down Republican candidates for Senate and the House. “I believe that Republican primary voters need to understand the opportunity they have to win a very winnable presidential election.”Dan Eberhart, a private equity and energy executive who is also backing Mr. DeSantis, said that he expected Mr. Trump’s legal troubles to weigh him down, and that he believed most voters were looking for a second choice.“By the time Super Tuesday comes around, Trump is going to have been beaten in Iowa, and the dam is going to burst,” he predicted. “Once someone else is viable, I think you’re going to see him quickly melt.”Then, Mr. Eberhart said, donors who have not committed to a candidate will come out of the woodwork: “They are actively holding their breath, wanting a solution to Trump but not knowing what it is.”As some donors have cast about for a late entrant to the race who could challenge Mr. Trump, the name that comes up most often is Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.Mr. Levine addressed the Youngkin question in his essay, saying: “Waiting for someone else to get into the race is not an option.” (Mr. Youngkin has not ruled out a run and has said he is focused on Virginia’s state legislative elections this fall; with each passing day, the logistical barriers to entry grow higher.)Bill Bean, an Indiana-based real-estate executive and backer of former Vice President Mike Pence, said the field would narrow until there was a “clear alternative” to Mr. Trump.Mr. Bean backed Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign in 2020, and supported the policy decisions he made as president. “But I would like to see us move forward,” he said. “I want to look at the future in a positive way. I hear that a lot more than maybe the poll numbers show.”Ruth Igielnik More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      ‘I’m Being Indicted for You,’ Trump Tells South Dakota Rally

      by

      In his first rally since his fourth indictment, the former president focused on his Republican rivals and President Biden, as some in the crowd wore Mr. Trump’s mug shot on their T-shirts.When Donald J. Trump came to South Dakota in July 2020, then a president in the middle of his re-election campaign, he stood in front of Mount Rushmore and outlined a dark vision of what he claimed his opponents on the left would do to the country.Three years, an election defeat and four indictments later, Mr. Trump returned on Friday to South Dakota for a rally, where he struck a similar message: that he was the sole bulwark keeping America from falling into ruin.“They’re just destroying our country,” Mr. Trump told a crowd of roughly 7,000, this time at a hockey arena in Rapid City, S.D. “And if we don’t take it back — if we don’t take it back in ’24, I really believe we’re not going to have a country left.”Appearing at a large-scale event for the first time since he stood for a mug shot in Georgia late last month, Mr. Trump acknowledged that his circumstances had changed. Yet he referred to the four criminal cases against him proudly — and as an applause line.“I’m being indicted for you,” Mr. Trump, the front-runner in the G.O.P. presidential primary race, said to the audience. “That’s not part of the job description,” he added, “but I’m being indicted for you.”Mr. Trump did not mention the Georgia indictment or the booking photo even as his campaign has used it in fund-raising appeals and began selling merchandise with the image as soon as it was released. A smattering of attendees were wearing T-shirts featuring Mr. Trump’s mug shot and the phrase “Never Surrender.”“The mug shot did good for him,” said Lydia Lozano of Summerset, S.D., who wore Mr. Trump’s mug shot on a blue T-shirt with the outline of an American flag. The charges in Georgia, she added, did not bother her, nor did Mr. Trump’s other indictments.“They’re just grasping at straws to try and get him to stop running,” Ms. Lozano said. “And he’s running anyway.”Mr. Trump’s mug shot appeared on T-shirts, which his campaign began selling immediately after his Georgia indictment.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Trump, too, marveled that his poll numbers in the primary had seemed to rise after his indictments. “I’m the only person in the history of politics who has been indicted whose poll numbers went up,” he said.Still, polls have shown that a majority of Americans believe his criminal cases were warranted, and some Republicans worry that the 91 total charges against him could hurt him in the general election. Mr. Trump’s legal issues could also create logistical and financial challenges that could make it difficult for him to campaign effectively.South Dakota, where Republicans have a firm stronghold, is a curious choice for an event during a political campaign. It does not hold an early nominating contest, and it does not qualify as a battleground state. The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state was 1964.Still, as Mr. Trump’s campaign has tried to reduce its costs, especially as Mr. Trump’s legal fees mount, it has welcomed opportunities for the former president to attend large-scale events held by other groups rather than staging its own expensive ones.Friday’s rally was organized by the South Dakota Republican Party. The Republican governor of the state, Kristi Noem — who endorsed Mr. Trump’s campaign in her remarks introducing him — said that organizers had invited other candidates but that Mr. Trump was the only one who had accepted.Ms. Noem also worked to bring Mr. Trump to Mount Rushmore for the Independence Day celebration in 2020. A looping video of that appearance greeted the crowds filing into the arena on Friday.Speaking for about 110 minutes, Mr. Trump largely doubled down on his 2020 remarks, repeatedly saying that Democrats were threatening to rewrite history, replace America’s foundational values and deface monuments like Mount Rushmore. But he was less vague on Friday about the perceived threats to the nation, singling out specific political opponents.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a political rival in the Republican primary, was an “unskilled politician” who “sided with the communists” against farmers. Television networks were “evil.” President Biden, he said, was “grossly incompetent and very dangerous,” if not “the most crooked president in history.”As he has repeatedly, he claimed without evidence that all four cases against him were part of a politically motivated campaign by Mr. Biden. (Two of the cases are being brought by local prosecutors in New York and Georgia, while the two federal cases are being led by an independent special counsel.)The speakers who preceded him advanced his view.“How many indictments does it take to steal the presidential election in 2024?” Josh Haeder, South Dakota’s treasurer, rhetorically asked. “Here’s the answer: There’s not enough, because Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States of America.” More