Presidential Election of 2024

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      Biden Team Isn’t Waiting for Impeachment to Go on the Offensive

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      The White House has enlisted two dozen attorneys, legislative liaisons and others to craft strategies in the face of Republican threats to charge the president with high crimes and misdemeanors.Just before 8 p.m. on Thursday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a video of herself at a town hall in her Georgia district declaring that she “will not vote to fund the government” unless the House holds a vote to open an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.It took just 68 minutes for the White House to fire back with a blistering statement that such a vote would mean that House Republicans had “caved to the hard-core fringe of their party in prioritizing a baseless impeachment stunt over high-stakes needs Americans care about deeply” like drug enforcement and disaster relief.The White House, as it turns out, is not waiting for a formal inquiry to wage war against impeachment. With a team of two dozen attorneys, legislative liaisons, communications specialists and others, the president has begun moving to counter any effort to charge him with high crimes and misdemeanors with a best-defense-is-a-good-offense campaign aimed at dividing Republicans and taking his case to the public.The president’s team has been mapping out messaging, legal and parliamentary strategies for different scenarios. Officials have been reading books about past impeachments, studying law journal articles and pulling up old court decisions. They have even dug out correspondence between previous presidential advisers and congressional investigators to determine what standards and precedents have been established.At the same time, recognizing that any impeachment fight would be a political showdown heading into an election season, outside allies have been going after Republicans like Ms. Greene and Speaker Kevin McCarthy. A group called the Congressional Integrity Project has been collecting polling data, blitzing out statements, fact sheets and memos and producing ads targeting 18 House Republicans representing districts that voted for Mr. Biden in 2020.“As the Republicans ramp up their impeachment efforts, they’re certainly making this a political exercise and we’re responding in kind,” said Kyle Herrig, the executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project. “This is a moment of offense for Democrats. They have no basis for impeachment. They have no evidence. They have nothing.”The White House preparations do not indicate that Mr. Biden’s advisers believe an impeachment inquiry is inevitable. But advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal thinking said that it was important to take on the prospect aggressively and expressed hope that the situation could be turned to their advantage.Republican congressional investigations have turned up evidence that Hunter Biden traded on his family name to generate multimillion-dollar deals and a former partner, Devon Archer, testified that Mr. Biden would put his father on speakerphone with potential business clients to impress them.Republican congressional investigations have turned up evidence that Hunter Biden traded on his family name to generate multimillion-dollar deals.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut Mr. Archer testified that the elder Biden only engaged in idle chitchat during such calls, not business, and no evidence has emerged that the president directly profited from his son’s deals or used his power inappropriately while vice president to benefit his son’s financial interests.Republicans have not identified any specific impeachable offenses and some have privately made clear they do not see any at the moment. The momentum toward an impeachment inquiry appears driven in large part by opposition to Mr. Biden’s policies and is fueled by former President Donald J. Trump, who is eager to tarnish his potential rival in next year’s election and openly frames the issue as a matter of revenge. “Either IMPEACH the BUM, or fade into OBLIVION,” he demanded of Republicans on his social media site this past week. “THEY DID IT TO US!”That stands in sharp contrast to other modern impeachment efforts. When impeachment inquiries were initiated against Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Bill Clinton and Mr. Trump, there were clear allegations of specific misconduct, whether or not they necessarily warranted removal from office. In Mr. Biden’s case, it is not clear what actions he has taken that would be defined as a high crime or misdemeanor.Mr. McCarthy, the California Republican, cited “a culture of corruption” within the Biden family in explaining on Fox News last weekend why he might push ahead with an impeachment inquiry. “If you look at all the information we’ve been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry,” he said.Even if Republican investigators turned up evidence that Mr. Biden had done something as vice president to help his son’s business, it would be the first time a president was targeted for impeachment for actions taken before he became president, raising novel constitutional issues.For now, though, it is hardly certain that Republicans would authorize an inquiry. Mr. McCarthy told Breitbart News on Friday that if they pursued such an inquiry, “it would occur through a vote on the floor,” not through a decree by him, and veteran strategists in both parties doubt he could muster the 218 votes needed to proceed.The speaker’s flirtation with holding such a vote may be simply a way of catering to Ms. Greene and others on his right flank. He has used the thirst to investigate Mr. Biden as an argument against a government shutdown, suggesting that a budgetary impasse would stall House inquiries.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has vowed to oppose funding the government unless the House holds a vote to open an impeachment inquiry against President Biden.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBut some Republicans have warned that a formal impeachment drive could be a mistake. Representative Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado, has said that “impeachment theater” was a distraction from spending issues and that it was not “responsible for us to talk about impeachment.” Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, said impeachment could “unleash an internal Republican civil war” and if unsuccessful lead to “the worst, biggest backfire for Republicans.”The White House has been building its team to defend against Republican congressional investigations for more than a year, a team now bracing for a possible impeachment inquiry. Richard Sauber, a former federal prosecutor, was appointed special counsel in the spring of last year, and Ian Sams, a longtime Democratic communications specialist, was brought on as spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office. Russell Anello, the top Democratic staff member for the House Oversight Committee, joined last year as well.After Republicans won control of the House in the November midterm elections, more people were added to handle the multitude of congressional investigations. Stuart Delery, the White House counsel who is stepping down this month, will be replaced by Ed Siskel, who handled Republican investigations into issues like the Benghazi terror attack for President Barack Obama’s White House.A critical adviser for Mr. Biden will be his personal attorney, Bob Bauer, one of the most veteran figures in Washington’s legal-political wars. As a private lawyer, he advised the House Democratic leader during Mr. Clinton’s impeachment and then the Senate Democratic leader during the subsequent trial, helping to shape strategies that kept Democrats largely unified behind their president.Mr. Biden himself has seen four impeachment efforts up close during his long career in Washington. He was a first-term senator when Mr. Nixon resigned rather than face a seemingly certain Senate trial in 1974 and a fifth-term senator when he voted to acquit Mr. Clinton in 1999. It was Mr. Biden that Mr. Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating, leading to the former president’s first impeachment in 2019. And it was Mr. Biden’s victory in 2020 that Mr. Trump tried to overturn with the help of a mob that attacked Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, leading to a second impeachment.The Clinton impeachment battle has provided some lessons for the Biden team, although the circumstances are significantly different and the political environment has shifted dramatically in the 25 years since then. Much as the Clinton White House did, the Biden White House has tried to separate its defense against Republican investigators from the day-to-day operations of the building, assigning Mr. Sams to respond mostly off camera to issues arising from the investigations rather than Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, during her televised briefings.As in the late 1990s, the strategy now is to paint Republicans as rabid partisans only interested in attacking the president of the other party out of political or ideological motives in contrast to a commander in chief focused on issues of importance to everyday voters, like health care and the economy.The approach worked for Mr. Clinton, whose approval ratings shot up to their highest levels of his two terms, surpassing 70 percent, when he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice. Mr. Biden’s approval ratings remain mired in the low 40s, but advisers think a serious impeachment threat would rally disaffected supporters.Mr. Herrig’s Congressional Integrity Project, founded after last year’s midterm elections, hopes to turn the Republican impeachment drive against them. His group’s board chairman, Jeff Peck, is a longtime Biden ally, and it recently hired Kate Berner, the former White House deputy communications director.The group has teams in New York and California and plans to expand to other battleground districts. “This is a political loser for vulnerable Republicans,” Mr. Herrig said. “McCarthy’s doing the bidding of Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene and putting his majority at risk.” More

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      In Florida, a Hurricane Can’t Bring DeSantis and Biden Together

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      President Biden said he would meet with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida during a visit to tour the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia. An aide to the governor said he had no such plans.In normal times, the politics of disaster dictate that a president and a governor from opposite parties come together to show the victims of a natural disaster — and potential voters across the country — that they care.These are not normal times.On Friday, a spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican seeking his party’s nomination for president, said the governor doesn’t “have any plans” to meet President Biden on Saturday when he visits a Florida community ravaged by Hurricane Idalia.At a news conference, Mr. DeSantis said he had told Mr. Biden that it “would be very disruptive to have the whole kind of security apparatus” that comes along with a presidential visit. He said he told the president that “we want to make sure that the power restoration continues, that the relief efforts continue.”The governor’s statement came just hours after Mr. Biden confirmed to reporters that he would meet with the governor during his visit to the state. White House officials responded by saying the president had told Mr. DeSantis he planned to visit before announcing it publicly — and that the governor had not expressed any concerns at that time.“President Biden and the first lady look forward to meeting members of the community impacted by Hurricane Idalia and surveying impacts of the storm,” said Emilie Simons, a deputy press secretary at the White House. “Their visit to Florida has been planned in close coordination with FEMA as well as state and local leaders to ensure there is no impact on response operations.”The discrepancy underscored the tensions between the two politicians, whose campaigns have been lashing out at each other for months. A recent Biden for President email called Mr. DeSantis a politician who oversees an “inflation hot spot” and supports an “extreme MAGA blueprint to undermine democracy.” At the Republican debate last month, Mr. DeSantis said the country is in decline under Mr. Biden and accused Mr. Biden of staying “on the beach” while the people of Maui suffered through devastating fires.The stakes are high for both men. Mr. Biden has struggled with mediocre approval ratings and arrives in Florida following criticism that his initial response to reporters on the Maui wildfires was a lackluster “no comment.” Mr. DeSantis has seen his polling numbers plummet as his onetime benefactor, former President Donald J. Trump, has become a fierce rival, attacking at every turn.Jason Pizzo, a Democratic state senator from South Florida, said Mr. DeSantis’s decision smelled like politics.“Campaign strategy has replaced civility and decorum,” Mr. Pizzo said.Politicians have been caught out in the past for acting cordial with their opponents.In 2012, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican who was considering an eventual run for president, greeted President Barack Obama warmly on a visit to New Jersey in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.“That’s what civilized people do when someone comes to your state to offer help,” Mr. Christie argued later on Fox News. “You shake their hand and you welcome them, which is what I did.”But Republicans thought the greeting — wrongly called a hug in some quarters — was too warm, and Mr. Christie suffered for it. Some of his conservative critics never forgave him for what they saw as being too friendly with the enemy.President Biden, at the White House on Friday, has struggled with mediocre approval ratings.Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesEarlier this week, before Mr. Biden announced his trip, Mr. DeSantis suggested that it was important to put politics aside in the interests of his state.“We have to deal with supporting the needs of the people who are in harm’s way or have difficulties,” Mr. DeSantis said earlier this week when asked about Mr. Biden. “And that has got to triumph over any type of short-term political calculation or any type of positioning. This is the real deal. You have people’s lives that have been at risk.”White House officials appeared to take his comments at face value. On Thursday, Liz Sherwood-Randall, the president’s top homeland security adviser, told reporters that Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis “are very collegial when we have the work to do together of helping Americans in need, citizens of Florida in need.”But 24 hours later, that collegiality appeared to have faded.Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis have put politics on hold — for the most part — in the past when faced with disaster. Mr. Biden and the governor met in the aftermath of the collapse of a condominium building and later were cordial together after Hurricane Ian.A visit on Saturday would have been their first joint event since Mr. DeSantis officially announced he was running for president.After Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida on Sept. 28, Mr. Biden waited seven days before visiting Florida on Oct. 5. Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida on Wednesday.Mr. Biden and Mr. DeSantis in Florida last year following the far more devastating Hurricane Ian.Doug Mills/The New York TimesHurricane Idalia, which hit Florida as a Category 3 storm, forced Mr. DeSantis off the campaign trail. But it also allowed him an opportunity to project strength, which he has not always done as a presidential candidate. Mr. DeSantis launched his candidacy with a disastrously glitchy event on Twitter. He has at times struggled to take on the front-runner for the Republican nomination, Donald J. Trump, and has repeatedly rebooted his campaign amid a fund-raising shortfall, layoffs and a shake-up of his senior staff.Facing the powerful hurricane, however, the governor sprang into action, as many Florida governors have done in the past.He blanketed local and national airwaves with hurricane briefings, telling residents in the storm’s path that they needed to evacuate. His official schedule showed that he started his workdays at 4 a.m. And early surveys after the storm had passed showed that the damage was not as severe as originally feared, even though many homes and businesses were flooded and the area’s cherished fishing industry may be in long-term peril.Mr. Biden’s administration also moved quickly to confront the storm. Officials said that by Friday there were 1,500 federal personnel in Florida dealing with the storm, along with 540 Urban Search and Rescue personnel and three disaster survivor assistance teams.FEMA made available more than 1.3 million meals and 1.6 million liters of water, officials said. Other efforts were underway by more than a half-dozen other federal agencies.So far, state officials have confirmed only one death as being storm-related as of Friday. Power had been restored to many homes. Roads and bridges were being reopened.A family sifts through belongings in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., on Thursday.Emily Kask for The New York Times“We were ready for this,” Mr. DeSantis told Sean Hannity on Fox News on Wednesday night, as he spoke in front of a historic oak tree that had fallen on the governor’s mansion. “Most of the people did evacuate, and so we’re cautiously optimistic that we’re going to end up OK on that.”(Mr. Hannity set up the interview by showing images of Mr. Biden vacationing on a beach in Delaware in mid-August.)Undoubtedly, Mr. DeSantis was helped that Idalia, while it made landfall as a Category 3 storm, struck a sparsely populated section of the Gulf Coast known as Big Bend. In contrast, Ian overwhelmed a far more dense and developed part of Florida, killing 150 people in the state and becoming its deadliest storm in decades. Rebuilding efforts from that storm are still far from over.Now, having put on a solid display in last week’s Republican debate, Mr. DeSantis will likely hope to return to the campaign trail from a position of strength. He often tells voters in Iowa and New Hampshire about his response to Ian, particularly his efforts to immediately repair bridges and causeways to barrier islands that had been cut off from the mainland. The quick return of power and low number of fatalities from Idalia may be added to that litany.And with the storm gone, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has started to resume normal operations. On Friday, his campaign sent out a fund-raising appeal, offering signed baseball caps with the phrase “Our Great American Comeback” on them.“He autographed 10 hats for us to launch a new contest for YOU to win and raise the resources we need to defeat Joe Biden,” the text appeal said. “Let’s show the nation that we have what it takes to defeat Joe Biden and the far Left.” More

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      On the Economy, Biden Struggles to Convince Voters of His Success

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      Wages are up, inflation has slowed and the White House has a new slogan. Still, President Biden’s poor marks on the economy are making Democrats worried.When a chant slamming President Biden spread from a NASCAR race to T-shirts and bumper stickers across red America two years ago, the White House pulled off perhaps its savviest messaging feat to date. Biden aides and allies repackaged the “Let’s Go Brandon” insult and morphed it into “Dark Brandon,” a celebratory meme casting Mr. Biden as some sort of omnipotent mastermind.Now, the White House and the Biden campaign is several weeks into another appropriation play — but it isn’t going nearly as well. Aides in July announced that the president would run for re-election on the virtues of “Bidenomics,” proudly reclaiming the right’s derisive term for Mr. Biden’s economic policies.The gambit does not appear to be working yet. Even as Mr. Biden presides over what is by all indicators a strong economy — one on track to dodge the recession many had feared — he is still struggling to convince most of the country of the strength of his economic stewardship. Wages are up, inflation has slowed, but credit to the president remains in short supply.Polling last month from the Democratic organization Navigator found that 25 percent of Americans support Mr. Biden’s major actions, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, but still think the president is doing a poor job handling the economy. It’s a group that tends to be disproportionately younger than 40 and is more likely to be Black or Latino — voters critical to Democratic victories.“This is the thing that’s vexing all Democrats,” said Patrick Gaspard, the president of the Center for American Progress.Democratic economists, pollsters and officials have a variety of explanations for why voters don’t credit Mr. Biden for the economy. Inflation remains elevated, and interest rates have made home buying difficult. There is also evidence that voters’ views on the economy are shaped as much by their political views as by personal experiences.And then there is the regular refrain that people don’t know about Mr. Biden’s successes. Even Mr. Biden’s supporters say that he and his administration have been too reluctant to promote their record and ineffective when they do.“I’ve never seen this big of a disconnect between how the economy is actually doing and key polling results about what people think is going on,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.Mr. Biden on Friday attempted another victory lap in a White House speech celebrating the latest jobs report, which found no sign of an imminent recession and a slight increase in the unemployment rate as more people sought work. He credited the heart of his economic plan, including investment in infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing and climate-related industries along with caps on the price of insulin medication.Bidenomics, Mr. Biden said, “is about investing in America and investing in Americans.”Mr. Biden said his economic plan was to credit for the latest jobs report, which found no sign of an imminent recession and a slight increase in the unemployment rate as more people sought work.Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesThe term Bidenomics emerged as a pejorative in conservative media and has been widely adopted by Mr. Biden’s rivals. “One of the most important issues of the campaign will be who can rescue our country from the burning wreckage of Bidenomics,” former President Donald J. Trump said in a recent video, “which shall henceforth be defined as inflation, taxation submission and failure.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida offered his definition at a recent campaign stop in Rock Rapids, Iowa. “Bidenomics is basically: You have a lower standard of living so he can pursue the left’s ideological agenda,” he said.Behind the rhetoric, there is some debate over whether the economy will be the driving force it has been in past presidential elections. Some Democrats argue that their party’s resilience in last year’s midterm elections showed that the fight over abortion rights and Mr. Trump’s influence over Republicans can trounce more kitchen-table concerns.The White House argues that Democrats’ strong showing last year is a sign the Mr. Biden’s electoral performance isn’t strictly tied to the economy.“By all metrics, his economic record has improved since then,” said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman.Still, nearly all of Mr. Biden’s campaign advertising this year sells his economic record. The ads — which don’t use the term Bidenomics — cast the president’s policies as a work in progress. “All of the things that Biden fought to get passed helped the middle class,” a cement mason from Milwaukee says in an ad the campaign released last week.“It’s no secret that a lot of Americans are struggling with the cost of living, and that’s a reality that shapes their views about the economy more broadly,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster who conducts surveys for the Democratic National Committee.Explaining why Mr. Biden’s policies will help, Mr. Garin said, “is what campaigns are for.”This summer Mr. Biden has promoted “Bidenomics” at events around the country, often speaking in factories or with labor groups. Even some in friendly audiences of local Democratic leaders and supporters questioned whether his emphasis would resonate with the coalition that elected him in 2020.“Is Bidenomics the right thing to sell?” Mayor Katie Rosenberg of Wausau, Wis., said after seeing Mr. Biden speak in Milwaukee last month. “I just keep thinking, why aren’t they just doing Build Back Better still? That was a really good slogan. Bidenomics is just an effort to capitalize on the negativity around him.”Build Back Better, the mix of economic, climate and social policy that Mr. Biden ran on in 2020, was a bumper-sticker-length encapsulation of Mr. Biden’s ambitions as president. Significant elements became law, but the branding exercise failed, doomed in part by rising inflation.Mr. Biden’s “Build Back Better” slogan was a bumper-sticker-length encapsulation of his ambitions as president.Hannah Yoon for The New York TimesDemocrats rebranded their climate legislation as the Inflation Reduction Act, even though the bill had little to do with inflation. Even Mr. Biden recently said that he regretted the name, suggesting that it promised something the bill was not devised to deliver.Though the rate of inflation has slowed, it remains the chief drag on Mr. Biden’s economic approval ratings, said Joanne Hsu, the director of Surveys of Consumers at the University of Michigan.“We track people who have heard negative news about inflation,” Dr. Hsu said. “Over the past year, that number has been much higher than in the 1970s and ’80s, when inflation was so much worse.”One theme of Mr. Biden’s aides, advisers and allies is to plead for time. The economy will get better, more people will hear and understand what Bidenomics means and credit will accrue to the president, they say.“The public more and more is going to be seeing low unemployment and will continue to get more bullish on the economy,” said Representative Robert Garcia of California, a member of the Biden campaign’s national advisory board. “But I also understand it’s very hard for people now. We just can’t expect overnight for people to feel better about the economy.”For most Americans, their views on the economy are directly tied to their partisan leanings — a phenomenon that is particularly acute for Republicans. In 2016, before Mr. Trump took office, just 18 percent of Republicans rated the economy excellent or good, according to a Pew Research survey. By February 2020, just before the pandemic shut down public life in America, 81 percent of Republicans said the economy was excellent or good.An Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll last month found just 8 percent of Republicans, along with 65 percent of Democrats, approved of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy.Mr. Biden’s sympathizers say part of his problem on the economy is an unwillingness to promote its bright spots out of fear of seeming insensitive to Americans struggling with higher prices. Mr. Trump had no such restraint, describing the economy as the best in history and the envy of the world. Using “Bidenomics” as a framework lets the president take ownership of the economy, but it doesn’t exactly tell voters that the economy is great.“Trump chose people who were probably less experienced in terms of making policy, but some of them are quite good about talking up the president,” said Ben Harris, a former top Treasury official in the Biden administration who played a leading role in outlining the Build Back Better agenda during the 2020 campaign. “Biden’s taken a more modest and humble approach, and there’s a chance that’s come back to haunt him.”Jason Furman, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration, said there was a regular debate in that White House about how much to sell the public on the idea that the economy was improving even if people didn’t feel in their own lives.Now he said it was difficult for the Biden administration to take victory laps over slowing inflation because wages haven’t kept pace, leaving a typical worker about $2,000 behind compared with before the pandemic.“The way to think about that is people were in an incredibly deep hole because of inflation and we’re still not all the way out of that hole,” Mr. Furman said. “The fact that you protected people in the bad times means the good times don’t feel as good.”Nicholas Nehamas More

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      For Politicians, Vacations Can Be a Lot of Work

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      Taking a break from the campaign trail is risky. History is littered with cautionary tales of candidates who got it wrong.Labor Day weekend, once the official kickoff of campaign season, now comes almost a year after most candidates have hit the trail and after the first primary debate.The occasion lays out a basic fact of modern presidential campaigns: Politicians need vacations, too. But while taking a break can create an opportunity for campaigns to show that their candidates are just like the rest of us, it also carries potential peril.The “right” vacation can give a candidate time to rest and recharge, to reconnect with family after weeks on the road, and a chance to look presidential while doing it. A tone-deaf vacation — too elite, too disconnected, too much beach bod — is tabloid catnip and can alienate voters. And the wrong vacation can upend a campaign faster than a wave topples a windsurfer.So it’s no surprise that the presidential candidates this year, by and large, are lying low.Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, will be at home on Kiawah Island, S.C. (“Vacation? LOL,” a spokeswoman said. Ms. Haley, she noted, is heading back to New Hampshire on Tuesday.)Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has no scheduled public events, but a campaign spokesman said Mr. Scott planned to play pickleball, a game that can make even the deftest of athletes look ridiculous.A spokesman for the campaign of former President Donald J. Trump, an avid golfer who counts two vacation properties as homes, did not respond to requests for comment about where Mr. Trump would spend the weekend.President Biden is scheduled to go to Florida on Saturday, not for a vacation but to see the damage from Hurricane Idalia. He will then head to his house in Rehoboth Beach, Del., with his family, before going to Philadelphia on Monday.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whose state was badly battered by the storm, will also be working through the weekend. But there will probably be no beach outing for the two potential rivals: Jeremy Redfern, press secretary for Mr. DeSantis, said Friday that there were no plans for the governor to meet with the president.Some of the 2024 candidates already have experience with the awkward vacation moment. In the summer of 2017, when a state government shutdown forced the closure of New Jersey beaches before the July 4 holiday, Chris Christie, then the governor, was infamously photographed lounging on a deserted strip of sand at Island Beach State Park.A spokesman for Mr. Christie’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment about his plans, though he got an early start on the holiday weekend Wednesday by attending a Bruce Springsteen concert, the first of the rocker’s three shows in New Jersey this week.Vivek Ramaswamy will spend the weekend campaigning in New Hampshire. A spokeswoman for his campaign said he had a town hall Friday night, a breakfast and a rally Saturday, a few meet-and-greets and a Labor Day parade on Monday in Milford. The spokeswoman for Mr. Ramaswamy said his most recent vacation was around Christmas, and he had not taken a day off since before launching his campaign.Former Vice President Mike Pence will also be in New Hampshire on Monday, attending a “smoke-off” at a Baptist church, a picnic and a barbecue. (While in office, one of Mr. Pence’s family’s preferred vacation destinations was Sanibel Island in Florida.)While most of the 2024 candidates have chosen to emphasize that they are at work rather than at play, vacations were once seen as an opportunity to burnish a politician’s image. Ronald Reagan chopped wood and rode horses at his California ranch. George W. Bush cleared brush in Texas. John F. Kennedy, perhaps the embodiment of the artful presidential vacation, sailed.John F. Kennedy on a vacation in Rhode Island in 1962.American Photo Archive, via AlamyRonald and Nancy Reagan at their ranch in California in 1982.White House, via Associated PressGeorge W. Bush clearing brush at his Texas ranch in 2007.Charles Ommanney/Getty ImagesThese days, it seems, the risks are not worth the reward.Stories of vacations restoring the candidate but tanking the campaign are many. When Michael S. Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for president, went on vacation in late August 1988, he was seen by some as checking out of the race as George H.W. Bush gathered momentum from the Republican convention. Mr. Dukakis was also once pilloried for reading a book called “Swedish Land Use Planning” on the beach.Vacations can even be perilous after you win. As president, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were each criticized for palling around with donors on Martha’s Vineyard. In 2015, Hillary Clinton went to the Hamptons for an August vacation, despite concerns about the political optics.Bill Clinton with Hillary Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, on Martha’s Vineyard in 1993.Marcy Nighswander/Associated PressBarack Obama with Michelle, left, and Malia on Martha’s Vineyard in 2014.Jacquelyn Martin/Associated PressA getaway can also become a fashion meme or a wardrobe minefield. In August 2008, Mr. Obama, then a candidate, was photographed without a shirt on a beach in Honolulu. People swooned. In 1993, Mr. Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were photographed in short shorts. People cringed. Both appearances drew comparisons to Richard Nixon in a suit and wingtips on the beach. More recently, Mr. Biden took the internet by storm when he went shirtless at the beach, with his trademark aviators and baseball cap.And then there are those moments of R & R that can cause real problems for a campaign. During John Kerry’s 2004 presidential run, he spent time at the family house on Nantucket, where he engaged in one of his favorite pastimes: windsurfing. What might, in some circumstances, have created the impression of athleticism, strength and adventure was instead turned against him by the Bush campaign to illustrate, memorably, that his political stances shifted with the wind.John Kerry windsurfing off the coast of Nantucket, Mass., in 2004.Laura Rauch/Associated PressEven parades, a Labor Day staple, seem to have fallen out of favor.No candidates plan to take part in the parade in Chapin, S.C., which is billed as the largest in the state and has been a traditional stop for Republican presidential hopefuls. According to The Post and Courier, this will be the first Chapin Labor Day parade held the year before a contested Republican primary since at least 1996 in which no candidates make an appearance — though several campaigns will have “a presence” there, with walkers, trucks and probably a few flags.Maya King, Michael D. Shear and Nick Corasaniti contributed reporting. More

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      Brian Kemp, Raphael Warnock and Georgia’s Post-Trump Present

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      Georgia’s 16 electoral votes and a voting population that has supported both Democrats and Republicans at the top of the ticket in recent years keep the state one of few true battlegrounds.Georgia is, of course, also the place where Donald Trump called and asked a Republican to “find” votes. And Georgia is the place where the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, filed criminal charges that led to the indictment of Mr. Trump and 18 others for a conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election. For all these reasons, Georgia is also home to conflicting visions about the present and future of the Republican Party, demonstrated by differing responses to the fourth indictment this year. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Mr. Trump’s most enduring defenders representing one of the country’s more conservative districts, posted an image of an American flag upside down, signaling distress.And in one second-floor wing of Georgia’s State Capitol, a pair of Republican executives most likely shed few tears. The offices of Gov. Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, secretary of state, sit just off a grand rotunda of the gold-covered dome in downtown Atlanta, and in 2020 the duo found themselves at the heart of a tsunami of threats and harassment.“The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen,” Mr. Kemp said last month on social media in response to Mr. Trump’s claims that he would unveil a report demonstrating the state’s election was fraudulent. “The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus.” Mr. Raffensperger, who withstood pressure from Mr. Trump to “find” the votes that were not there, offered a more succinct response: “The most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution and rule of law. You either have it, or you don’t.”Enter a new paradox of Georgia politics: Even as voters and top leaders signal a desire to enter a post-Trump era, the former president’s antics in the courts and his hold on Republican politics keep him stuck squarely in the discourse like sweat on a humid Georgia summer afternoon.To understand the outsize influence Georgia will have on shaping the pathways of American politics once Mr. Trump is no longer the dominant force, one must look at the state’s recent electoral history that had voters send two Democrats to Washington and kept Republicans in charge back home.In the aftermath of the 2020 election, some savvy political operators and Washington insiders saw Republicans like Mr. Kemp and especially Mr. Raffensperger as dead men walking. The governor, a masterful retail politician, never wavered from his message touting a booming economy, looser coronavirus restrictions and a raft of conservative legislation around concealed carry, abortion restrictions and election administration. The secretary of state, a mild-mannered engineer, opted for Rotary Club speeches and smaller gatherings where he patiently explained that Georgia’s Republican-endorsed voting system was safe, accurate and one of the best in the country.Even as individuals like Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger saw personal success with an out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach, the larger Republican apparatus in the state has only further embraced Mr. Trump, purging the ranks of nonbelievers and elevating election deniers into key party posts.But it’s clear that Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger benefited from being diametrically opposed to Mr. Trump’s temperament and obsessive focus on his 2020 defeat. Despite signature accomplishments and ideological underpinnings lying farther to the right than a battleground state’s electorate should theoretically support, each earned some degree of crossover support from Democratic-leaning voters.That electorate’s tiring of Trump also paved the way for Senator Raphael Warnock to win a full six-year term in a December 2022 runoff against the Republican Herschel Walker. Mr. Warnock was the only statewide Democrat to win. The two-time nominee for governor, Stacey Abrams, a rising star in the Democratic Party, and the rest of the slate failed to gain an effective foothold against the Republican nominees’ strong economic messaging and general lack of Trumpiness.In other words: The disarray on the right has not meant an equal and opposite opportunity for those on the left. But under that same lens, a key bloc of Kemp-Warnock voters who perceived Mr. Warnock as a less extreme option propelled him to victory.Mr. Warnock’s success came from largely avoiding direct attacks on Mr. Walker, his Trump-backed policies and often nonsensical stances and statements. Mr. Warnock focused instead on a more positive message, centered on tangible governance like lowering insulin costs, promoting Democratic economic projects like the bipartisan infrastructure bill and casting himself as a more moderate figure representative of Georgia — while still speaking to the more progressive base of the party.To see Georgia’s post-Trump electoral strategy play out in the real world, look at the state’s rise as a hub for clean energy and electric-vehicle manufacturing, touted by Democrats and Republicans alike (and opposed by Mr. Trump these days, naturally) as good for the state.Mr. Kemp’s broad mandate at the start of his second term has allowed him to loudly trumpet the growth in electric-vehicle manufacturing and associated suppliers as a result of incentives and a friendly business climate (despite being an un-conservative industry). Mr. Warnock, Mr. Biden and Democrats have celebrated the boom in green tech as a direct impact of federal investment in infrastructure. Global companies have also smartly praised their state and federal partners in announcing their multibillion-dollar expansions built around generous tax incentives.Though Georgia may be emerging as a pioneer in post-Trump politics, the pathways of politicians like Mr. Kemp, Mr. Raffensperger and Mr. Warnock are not necessarily replicable in other states. Georgia’s electorate is more diverse than those in some other parts of the country, for starters. More challengingly, the political latitude enjoyed by these politicians and the broader constituency that elected them can primarily be measured by its distance from Mr. Trump.So where does that leave Georgia and its crucial electoral votes heading into the 2024 presidential election cycle, where recent polling (and not-so-recent polling) suggests a rematch between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump?For the case against the former president, it’s not entirely clear yet when a trial might take place, but the legal updates seem to come weekly.For the state’s electoral system, the lingering effects of 2020 have manifested in closer scrutiny over voting procedures and those who help oversee them, as well as renewed preparation by local officials.For Mr. Kemp, the past is prologue: On Thursday, he found himself yet again facing calls for a special legislative session pushed by an ally of Mr. Trump’s, this time seeking to punish Ms. Willis because of the charges against the former president, in a plan that other officials have called impractical and possibly unconstitutional. Yet again, Mr. Kemp refused, warning his fellow conservatives against siding with what he called an effort “somebody’s doing to help them raise a few dollars into their campaign account.”“In Georgia, we will not be engaging in political theater that only inflames the emotions of the moment,” he said. “We will do what is right. We will uphold our oath as public servants and it’s my belief that our state will be better off for it.”It’s unclear what the future holds, for Mr. Trump in court, for the direction of the Republican Party and for the ability of Democrats to continue winning battlegrounds. But all the answers might be in Georgia.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.Stephen Fowler is the political reporter for Georgia Public Broadcasting and a regular contributor to National Public Radio. He also hosts the “Battleground: Ballot Box” podcast, which has chronicled changes to Georgia’s voting rules and political landscape since 2020. More

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      DeSantis Super PAC’s Urgent Plea to Donors: ‘We Need 50 Million Bucks’

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      In an audio recording made just before the first G.O.P. debate, the super PAC’s chief strategist disparaged rivals and described an expensive attempt to thwart Donald Trump in Iowa.Hours before the Republican Party’s first presidential debate, the chief strategist for the super PAC that has effectively taken over Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign met with donors in Milwaukee.“Now let me tell you a secret — don’t leak this,” the strategist, Jeff Roe, told the donors last Wednesday, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by The New York Times. “We need to do this now. We’re making a move now.”Then Mr. Roe made a bold sales pitch: “The day after Labor Day we’re launching and we need your help to stay up and go hard the rest of the way. We need 50 million bucks.”With urgency in his voice, Mr. Roe told the donors he required much of the $50 million in the next month before the second G.O.P. debate on Sept. 27. He said he needed $5 million a month just to sustain his Iowa operations. And he said Mr. DeSantis needed to beat Donald J. Trump in “the next 60 days” and separate from all of his other rivals “now.”The audio revealed that the people running the DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, are placing big bets now in the hope that donors will cover them later. And it underscored just how steep a task the group confronts as it heads into the fall with its candidate far behind Mr. Trump in the polls, a campaign that is low on cash and a growing recognition that a Trump victory in Iowa could accelerate the end of the Republican race.In his meeting with the donors — a portion of which was reported on earlier Thursday by CNN — Mr. Roe made a cutting assessment of much of the Republican field competing against Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, Mr. Roe said, was deemed nice by voters but not seen as presidential. Nikki Haley, he added, was “not actually a lovely person” and also viewed as unpresidential. He mocked former Vice President Mike Pence, recalling the fly that landed on his head during his only debate with his ultimate successor, Kamala Harris, in 2020. And Mr. Roe said that Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the nomination by a wide margin, was certain to lose the general election and drag down other Republicans on the ballot.While Mr. Roe predicted multiple paths to victory ahead of Super Tuesday in early March, it was his plaintive warnings about when the race would be “moving” that made clear he sees Mr. DeSantis’s chances as resting on winning Iowa.In addition to being the top strategist for Never Back Down, Mr. Roe runs Axiom Strategies, the highest-grossing consulting firm in Republican politics. He is comfortable with asking candidates and their donors to part with large sums of cash, and made light of doing so at the meeting.“Now the good news is that we have all the money we need in this room,” Mr. Roe told the donors. “The bad news is it’s still in your wallet.”Even so, his request for a quick $50 million was an audacious ask given that Never Back Down has already taken $82.5 million out of Mr. DeSantis’s state political committee, raised an additional nearly $50 million and spent nearly $34 million through the end of June, according to federal filings.There are clear signs the super PAC is shifting its spending: It is ending its highly promoted door-knocking program to sway voters in Nevada, one of the early states, as well as in some Super Tuesday states, a development first reported by NBC News on Thursday.Mr. Roe leaned heavily on the donors to give more money and quickly — telling them he would meet them in the T.S.A. line at the airport to collect their checks.“This doesn’t run on, you know, fumes,” Mr. Roe told the donors. “And so we’re going to go spend this money right now, betting that our donors won’t let us down. And I’ve been let down by donors a lot. And I’ve already lost once to Trump and we can’t do it again.”That loss happened in 2016, when Mr. Roe ran the presidential primary campaign of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who came closer than any other candidate to toppling Mr. Trump.For his 2024 rematch against Mr. Trump, Mr. Roe and his colleagues at Never Back Down are trying something that has never been done before at this scale in American politics: They are running almost every aspect of the DeSantis presidential effort out of a group that is barred by campaign finance laws from coordinating strategy with either Mr. DeSantis or his campaign team.Super PACs are allowed to raise unlimited sums but because of the prohibition against coordination they are usually used as a piggy bank to buy advertising. Everything else that’s part of a modern presidential campaign — from events, to bus tours, to the labor intensive business of calling voters and knocking on their doors — is usually handled by the campaign. But because the DeSantis campaign has relatively little cash and the super PAC has had plenty, Never Back Down has taken over all of those functions.The unusual arrangement has necessitated an awkward tap dance around campaign finance laws. Mr. DeSantis insists he is technically separate from this super PAC even as he travels around on a bus funded by the super PAC and even as he attends his own events as a “special guest” of the super PAC.In July, Mr. DeSantis laid off more than a third of his campaign staff. Donors had slowed giving as he slid in the polls and as his first campaign manager, Generra Peck, spent early and aggressively. The campaign’s cash crunch has meant that the health of Never Back Down is more important to Mr. DeSantis’s fortunes than the structure of his own campaign.Officials with Never Back Down and the DeSantis campaign declined to comment.In the presentation to donors last Wednesday, Mr. Roe described several data points about how the super PAC has helped collect commitments from caucusgoers in Iowa to support Mr. DeSantis on Jan. 15.While Mr. Roe trashed most public polling, he suggested that the Des Moines Register poll this month showing Mr. Trump at 42 percent and Mr. DeSantis at 19 percent was “right along the path where our numbers show.”Then, he said, there was a drop-off to a lower tier of candidates.“Tim Scott is a wonderful human being, a nice man. He’s a moderate, a squish, but he’s a nice guy. He doesn’t have a name I.D. problem. He has a not-being-viewed-presidential problem,” Mr. Roe said.A spokesman for the Scott campaign, Matt Gorman, declined to comment.“Nikki Haley is not actually a lovely person,” Mr. Roe continued in the recording, adding that she has higher name identification. Still, he said, she has a “not-being-viewed-presidential problem.”A spokeswoman for the Haley campaign, Chaney Denton, responded by email, writing, “Lol, if anyone ever thought that, her debate performance put it to rest.”As the donors prepared to watch the first debate, Mr. Roe forecast who might attack Mr. DeSantis or anyone else. To watch “Mike Pence attack somebody, that’d be kind of weird,” he said, adding, “He might get his fly out to kind of help him.”A spokesman for Mr. Pence did not respond to an email seeking comment.Mr. Roe said that Mr. Trump, whose campaign did not respond to a request for comment, had a lower ceiling of support than the 42 percent backing him in the Des Moines Register poll. He claimed the real number was 37 percent and that Mr. DeSantis still needed to chase that core Trump bloc for its votes. He said that an additional 37 percent liked Mr. Trump but wanted to move on from him.“We want to show them we’re a better option — never back down, give it to the elite, like be who we are,” he said in the recording. “But the 37 percent that like Trump but want someone new, we’ve got to give them what they want, and that’s policies. Show them what the governor has done. These folks — we’ve got to get them what they need, which is common sense, which is durability and stability and a leader, vision, optics, family, Casey.”His mention of Mr. DeSantis’s wife, Casey, recalls a strategy memo that Mr. Roe wrote ahead of the debate in which he implored the candidate to “invoke a personal anecdote story about family, kids, Casey, showing emotion.” The memo was posted on the website of Mr. Roe’s firm to get around laws restricting how super PACs and candidates can coordinate. A person not affiliated with the DeSantis operation alerted The New York Times to its existence. Mr. DeSantis was furious about the memo, according to people with knowledge of his reaction.In the presentation to donors last Wednesday, Mr. Roe described Mr. Trump as a surefire loser who cannot win the four states he said the race would come down to.“It’s Arizona, and it’s Georgia and it’s Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And we have Senate races there that cannot overcome him on the ballot,” Mr. Roe said, though he later clarified that there was no Senate race in Georgia, according to a person familiar with the comments. “We’re going to lose them. This is not in dispute. We have to beat him and we’ve got to beat him in the next 60 days and we’ve got to beat everybody else nipping at our heels. Now. And we’ve got to separate further — now.” More

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      ¿Cómo influirán los juicios a Trump en la confianza hacia los jurados?

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      Casi el 60 por ciento de los ciudadanos dice confiar en los jurados. Un nuevo sondeo brinda un vistazo a los pensamientos de cierto tipo de personas, que podrían decidir el destino del expresidente.En un momento en que la confianza en las instituciones está en su punto más bajo, los estadounidenses parecen seguir confiando en sus conciudadanos que conforman los jurados.Según una nueva encuesta, casi el 60 por ciento de los estadounidenses afirma tener por lo menos bastante confianza en los jurados, más que en cualquier otro grupo del sistema judicial.Pero es posible que pronto esa confianza se ponga a prueba porque todo apunta a que el expresidente Donald Trump tendrá que enfrentar varios juicios el año próximo.Cuando se les preguntó en específico sobre los próximos juicios contra Trump, la mayoría de los estadounidenses —demócratas, republicanos e independientes— dijeron que no creían que los tribunales pudieran conformar jurados imparciales.Y, sin duda, esos jurados se enfrentarán a un intenso escrutinio, lo cual para muchos es razón suficiente para no querer prestar este servicio a la nación. De hecho, la mayoría de los estadounidenses dijeron no estar interesados en formar parte de un jurado en un juicio contra Trump.El estudio, realizado en julio por la empresa de encuestas Ipsos y que se centró en los estadounidenses que han formado parte de un jurado en algún momento de los últimos 10 años, proporciona un retrato del tipo de estadounidense que suele formar parte de los jurados y un raro vistazo a los pensamientos del tipo de personas que podrían decidir el destino de Donald Trump.Se reveló que quienes ya habían desempeñado esta actividad eran mucho más propensos que el público en general a confiar en quienes forman parte del sistema de justicia penal, como los jueces federales, estatales y los magistrados de la Corte Suprema, los abogados, los miembros del personal no jurídico y las autoridades policiales.Los datos demográficos de quienes han actuado como jurados también difieren bastante de los del público en general. Es más probable que sean mayores, más ricos y con un nivel educativo más alto. Dos terceras partes de quienes han formado parte de un jurado tienen más de 50 años, en comparación con menos de la mitad del público en general. Además, tienden a ser un poco más demócratas que el resto de los estadounidenses y los hombres son más propensos a formar parte de un jurado que las mujeres.Pero, al parecer, los elevados niveles de confianza en el sistema judicial que mostraron los exmiembros de jurados (la encuesta no preguntaba por grupos e instituciones no jurídicos, como el Congreso) se debían más a su experiencia dentro del sistema que a un reflejo de sus diferentes características demográficas.Quienes formaron parte de algún jurado fueron 20 puntos porcentuales más propensos que los estadounidenses en general a afirmar que confiaban en los abogados defensores y 30 puntos porcentuales más propensos a decir que confiaban en los fiscales, como los de distrito o estatales.También fueron más propensos que el público en general a decir que confiaban en los jueces, aunque surgió una brecha partidista cuando se les preguntó acerca de su confianza en los magistrados de la Corte Suprema: los republicanos expresaron más confianza que los demócratas. Sin embargo, cuando se les consultó por los jueces estatales y federales, no hubo brecha partidista entre quienes habían sido miembros de un jurado ni entre el público en general.“Luego de haber entrevistado a muchos jurados, puedo decir que su servicio les ha aportado una visión más positiva del sistema”, afirmó Stephen Adler, ex redactor jefe de Reuters y periodista jurídico que escribió un libro sobre el sistema de jurados, The Jury: Trial and Error in the American Courtroom, y colaboró con Ipsos en el estudio.“Si uno forma parte de un jurado, aunque solo sea por un día o dos, se adentra en un entorno muy serio y enfocado”, explicó Adler. “Tener ese contacto real hace que la gente, sin importar sus nociones preconcebidas, tenga una mejor opinión de cada actor del proceso, hasta llegar a los jueces”.Aunque el 58 por ciento de los estadounidenses dijo confiar en los jurados, el 71 por ciento, incluida una mayoría de demócratas y republicanos, dijo que no confiaba en que los tribunales pudieran encontrar jurados “dispuestos a dejar de lado sus opiniones previas sobre Donald Trump y decidir el caso basándose en las pruebas presentadas”.Y cuando se les preguntó sobre el trato que reciben los diferentes grupos por parte del sistema judicial, el 71 por ciento de los estadounidenses afirmó que los funcionarios electos actuales o anteriores obtienen beneficios especiales, incluidos porcentajes similares de demócratas y republicanos. Quienes habían formado parte de un jurado fueron incluso más propensos que el público en general a decir que los funcionarios reciben un trato especial.El público general fue más propenso a señalar como beneficiarios de un trato especial a los ricos.Los próximos juicios de Trump convocarán a residentes de los lugares donde se presentaron los casos para que sean parte del jurado y, dependiendo del sitio, su composición podría presentar dificultades para el expresidente. En el caso de Georgia, los posibles jurados procederán del condado de Fulton, que tiende a ser de izquierda. El caso federal sobre los sucesos del 6 de enero de 2021 se celebrará en Washington, una ciudad liberal donde ese día aún genera reacciones viscerales y el caso del pago en el que está implicada Stormy Daniels se celebrará en el distrito de Manhattan, en Nueva York, también conocido por ser muy demócrata en su composición. No obstante, es probable que el caso de los documentos clasificados se celebre en Fort Pierce, Florida, y el jurado podría provenir de los condados circundantes, en los cuales Trump ganó en 2020.Sin duda, los fiscales y los abogados defensores serán muy cuidadosos para seleccionar al jurado. En esos casos, los fiscales necesitarán un veredicto unánime para tener éxito; pero Trump solo necesita una negativa para lograr que se anule un juicio.Adler señaló que las posturas políticas no impiden formar parte de un jurado. “La ley no dice que debes desconocer el caso”, afirmó. “La ley dice que tienes que tener la capacidad de ser justo e imparcial”.Los estadounidenses se mostraron divididos en cuanto a su propio interés en formar parte de alguno de los jurados de Trump. Un poco más del 50 por ciento dijo no estar interesado en formar parte, con escasas diferencias entre los simpatizantes de los dos partidos.Haber sido miembro de un jurado no aumentó las expectativas de los estadounidenses de que Trump pueda conseguir un jurado imparcial, pero quienes ya lo hicieron se mostraron más abiertos a participar: poco más de la mitad dijo que estaría interesado en ser jurado de uno de sus juicios.Ruth Igielnik es editora de encuestas del Times, donde redacta y analiza estudios. Antes fue investigadora principal en el Centro de Investigaciones Pew. Más sobre Ruth Igielnik More

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      In Iowa, Pence Preaches Old-School Conservatism to a Dwindling Flock

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      The former vice president’s time in the spotlight at the debate did not lift his position in the polls, where he continues to languish in the low-single digits.Mike Pence sat on Wednesday in a cavernous machine shop that was humming with activity as he preached old-time Republican religion: the dangers of the swelling national debt, the need to overhaul Social Security and Medicare, the perils of price controls on prescription drugs and the necessity of projecting military might across the globe.No more than two dozen Iowans had come to C & C Machining in Centerville to hear the last Republican vice president as he pursues his party’s nomination for president. And the ones who showed weren’t so sure how many G.O.P. voters still believed in a gospel that his former running mate, Donald J. Trump, has spent eight years rendering largely obsolete.“The old conservative Republicanism, those are my ideals,” Art Kirchoff, 53, an insurance agency owner, said approvingly to explain why he would vote for Mr. Pence in the Iowa caucuses this January. He had come at the behest of the machine shop’s owner, Gaylon Cowan, a friend, and, Mr. Kirchoff conceded, he wasn’t sure how many of his kind are left in the party. “That’s a good question.”“The old conservative Republicanism, those are my ideals,” said Art Kirchoff, who is supporting Mr. Pence’s bid and was in the modest crowd at an Iowa campaign stop.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Pence says often that there is no one more qualified to be the nominee — and more battle tested — than him, a former House member, former Indiana governor and former vice president. There is, of course, a former president in the race: Mr. Trump, the man Mr. Pence stood behind and supported for four tumultuous years. But when Mr. Trump asked his loyal vice president to violate his oath of office, Mr. Pence says, he stood by the Constitution.By force of will, Mr. Pence grabbed the microphone at the first Republican primary debate this month more than anyone else onstage, speaking for 12 minutes and 37 seconds, much of that time devoted to his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, the day he certified his own defeat at the hands of Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris after a pro-Trump mob had ransacked the Capitol and called for his death. At the debate in Milwaukee, the former vice president stretched his airtime by demanding the other seven candidates onstage to his left and right attest to his righteousness.“It was a fun night,” Mr. Pence said on Wednesday.And by dint of his time in the White House, he holds real celebrity status on the hustings. On Thursday, at the Old Threshers Reunion, a sprawling fair and farm-equipment showcase in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, he was mobbed by well-wishers.But then there was Jamison Plank, a 25-year-old pastor, who grabbed Mr. Pence’s hand and demanded to know whether he would vote for Mr. Trump if the former president was the nominee. Mr. Pence demurred, saying he was confident the question was moot, that Mr. Pence would win.Mr. Plank was not.“I’m worried that the Republican establishment is going to destroy Trump,” he said. “I appreciate Mike Pence. I appreciate his faith. I just don’t see him winning.”Mr. Pence met Jamison Plank, a 25-year-old pastor, who questioned his ability to win.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe former vice president’s time in the spotlight at the debate did not lift his position in the polls, where he continues to languish in the low-single digits. He is far behind Mr. Trump, but also behind Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and a political newcomer, Vivek Ramaswamy, whose position on the issues — and perhaps in national polling averages — seems to inspire Mr. Pence on the attack.“He’s wrong on foreign policy. He’s wrong on American leadership in the world. He’s wrong on how we get this economy moving again,” Mr. Pence said on Wednesday of his 38-year-old rival, adding, “I’ve been in the room in the West Wing, and I can tell you, the president doesn’t get to decide what crises he faces.”The crisis he was referring to was the debt and Mr. Ramaswamy’s refusal to grapple with the cost of Social Security and Medicare, entitlement programs groaning under the weight of the retiring Baby Boom generation. But Mr. Trump has said he too will not touch the popular social benefit programs for retirees, as has Mr. DeSantis.And those three brawlers, who have elevated their battles with “deep state” bureaucrats, “left-wing” socialists and “globalist” hawks far above the green eyeshade concerns of federal budgeting, have for now captured the allegiance of 75 percent of Republican primary voters, leaving the more traditional Republicans in the race like Mr. Pence fighting over the crumbs.“If they started listening to the message and not just the hoorah, maybe” traditional conservatism could rise again, Mr. Cowan, 53, said of Republican voters after Mr. Pence spoke at his factory.Mr. Pence likes to say he was conservative before it was cool, a low-tax, small-government Republican willing to fight his own party. Mr. Pence’s positions have the same throwback feel as his pleated khakis, blue blazers and light-blue broadcloth shirts. In Iowa this week, Mr. Pence railed against the Biden administration’s landmark legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices — the same policy Mr. Trump endorsed, though failed to achieve.In a survey late last year by KFF, a health policy research organization, 89 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans said they favored the plank of the Inflation Reduction Act that authorizes negotiations.Mr. Pence greeted a worker at a machine shop campaign stop Wednesday in Centerville, Iowa.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesHis warnings against overspending come as companies like C & C brace for a huge infusion of new work funded by Mr. Biden’s infrastructure law, another achievement that the Trump-Pence administration promised but did not secure. Mr. Cowan said once repair and replacement orders started rolling in from the companies building new roads, bridges, tunnels and rail lines, “it’s going to help our business tremendously.”On Thursday morning at Weaton Companies in Fairfield, Iowa, Cory Westphal, an executive at Dexter Laundry, an industrial washer and dryer maker, fretted that aggressive union negotiators could drive up wages and labor costs. Mr. Pence answered that he cut the corporate income tax rate to 15 percent, from 21 percent.Beyond the issues is a more existential question dogging Mr. Pence’s candidacy: If a majority — or at least a strong plurality — of Republican primary voters believe the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, how can the man who certified it secure their support? Mr. Pence has tried to turn the liability of his certification into an asset, a profile in courage on the fateful day of Jan. 6, 2021.It works for some.“Everything he went through with Trump, I just admire that he did the right thing,” Julie Vantiger Hicks, 58, said after getting her picture with Mr. Pence at Threshers Reunion. “He’s an admirable man.”But Mr. Pence was hardly outspoken among the few Republican leaders in the weeks and months before and after the attack on the Capitol who tried to dispel the conspiracy theories around the election that continue to divide the nation.“My objective — once the violence was quelled, the Congress reconvened and finished our work under the Constitution of the United States, and after the president denounced the riot and committed to a peaceful transfer of power — was to see to that orderly transition,” Mr. Pence answered when asked if he could have done more to head off the division that he now faces. More