Presidential Election of 2024

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      Vivek Ramaswamy Takes Aim at Political Fund-raising Oligopoly

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      The longshot Republican candidate is seeking to raise an army of fund-raisers — by giving them a cut of any money they collect for his campaign.The Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants to disrupt the “oligopoly” of political fund-raising.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesRamaswamy rethinks political giving As a biotech entrepreneur, investor and conservative activist, Vivek Ramaswamy cuts a different profile from the veteran politicians who are also seeking the Republican presidential nomination.With the plan that he announced on Monday — in which fund-raisers will get 10 percent of what they drum up for him — Mr. Ramaswamy told DealBook that he’s trying to shake up the business of politics now, too.How it works: Called “Vivek’s Kitchen Cabinet,” the system will give participants a personal link they can share with others, and the campaign will pay them as independent contractors.Mr. Ramaswamy said he’s taking aim at a political norm. After announcing his candidacy in February, he said he had met with professional fund-raisers who promised that they could find wealthy donors in Palm Beach, Fla., in Silicon Valley, and on Wall Street.He wasn’t impressed with their work, he said, but he found their fee structure, in which they are paid up to 20 percent of what donors give, interesting. That got him thinking about disrupting the model: “Anytime there’s an oligopoly, there’s a need and an opportunity to break it up,” he said.It’s a novel way of attracting support, since it goes against how candidates traditionally spend money to get donors. (Most campaigns will spend heavily on marketing to draw donors, though the Republican hopeful Doug Burgum is trying something different by doling out $20 gift cards.) News coverage of the plan could also help bump up awareness of Ramaswamy, who’s currently polling at about 4 percent.Drawing more donors isn’t necessary for Mr. Ramaswamy to qualify for the first Republican presidential debate — he told DealBook that he had amassed about 65,000 already, more than the 40,000 minimum. But it could help alleviate his need to self-fund his campaign, to which he has given more than $10.5 million in loans and contributions as of the first quarter.Is it legal? Campaign finance experts told DealBook that the plan didn’t appear to raise any legal issues. Ramaswamy said that it had been vetted by the Federal Election Commission.But some experts see other problems. For instance, supporters may pressure and coerce others in their networks to give to the candidate, according to Saurav Ghosh, director of campaign finance reform at the advocacy group Campaign Legal Center and a former F.E.C. enforcement attorney. (Some on social media have jokingly compared it to a multilevel marketing campaign.)HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING China reportedly plans tighter rules for artificial intelligence. Beijing officials will compel companies developing A.I. services to obtain a license before releasing their products to the public, according to The Financial Times. Regulators are seeking a balance between controlling content while allowing domestic tech companies to innovate.Foxconn withdraws from a $19.5 billion chip venture in India. The electronic components giant said it wouldn’t move forward with plans to partner with the conglomerate Vedanta to build factories in Gujarat. The decision is a blow to India’s efforts to become a hub for chip making and to seize on desires by Apple and others to diversify their supply chains away from China.Tucker Carlson’s Twitter show isn’t holding onto its audience. Views of his broadcasts on the social network have fallen as much as 85 percent since their debut last month. It’s bad news for Carlson, who had counted on his strong viewership at Fox News to carry over to his Twitter show after the network fired him this spring.Hollywood faces the prospect of a second strike. Actors are set to join writers on the picket lines if their union, SAG-AFTRA, doesn’t reach a deal with studios by midnight on Wednesday. Another strike could completely shut down Hollywood, disrupting local communities depending on movie and TV production. At issue are disagreements over streaming payments and the use of artificial intelligence.The heat grows on Twitter’s chief Just a month into the job as the social media platform’s C.E.O., Linda Yaccarino has had to deal with a major new competitor, unpopular limits placed on power users and the unpredictability of Elon Musk. It hasn’t been a smooth debut by any means.She has set herself a tough task. Ms. Yaccarino, the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal aims to repair relations with Madison Avenue, no small feat in the middle of a global ad slump. In her favor is her strong reputation: “Linda was a good hire and the right hire as long as she has the freedom to do what’s necessary,” Martin Sorrell, an advertising mogul, told DealBook last week.But many suspect that Twitter’s owner will be reluctant to relinquish control. Indeed, Mr. Musk hasn’t made things easier for Ms. Yaccarino, tweeting juvenile content and apparently neglecting to copy her on his threat to sue Threads, Meta’s rival short-messaging platform. (Referring to Ms. Yaccarino, Bill Grueskin, a Columbia Journalism School professor, tweeted that he was “trying to think of a worse career decision.”)A request for comment to Twitter’s P.R. team was answered with an auto-reply of a poop emoji.And Threads keeps growing. The Twitter competitor has now surpassed 100 million users, setting a record for an app to reach that milestone. Analysts at Evercore ISI have estimated that Threads could add $8 billion to Meta’s annual revenue by 2025. It’s worth noting that Threads currently doesn’t feature any advertising.Its rise appears to be hurting Twitter: Traf­fic to Twit­ter’s web­site fell 5 percent week-on-week in the first two days of Thread’s existence, ac­cord­ing to The Wall Street Journal, citing Sim­i­lar­Web.Ms. Yaccarino sought to rally the Twitter faithful. “Twitter, you really outdid yourselves!” she posted on Monday. “Last week we had our largest usage day since February. There’s only ONE Twitter. You know it. I know it. 🎤” (That said, the tech journalist Casey Newton expressed skepticism of her claim.)Inflation nation Americans’ spending spree on cars, airline tickets and hotel stays appears to be cooling off. Markets are anxiously waiting to see if that restraint will be born out in Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index reading.What to watch: Economists polled by Bloomberg expect the headline inflation number to drop to 3.1 percent, a huge decline from last July’s reading of 9 percent. (That said, more frugal consumers could crimp Amazon’s annual Prime Day shopping bonanza, which starts today.)But progress from here is expected to be tough. Core inflation, which excludes more volatile food and fuel prices, is predicted to drop to 5 percent, well above the Fed’s 2 percent target. In an investor note on Monday co-written by Jan Hatzius, Goldman Sachs’s chief economist, the firm said that it expected further gradual progress in the inflation fight in the coming months, but didn’t see core inflation dipping below 3 percent until 2025.The Fed is also still worried about inflation. On Monday, three officials said that more interest rate increases were needed to bring down prices. “Inflation is our No. 1 problem,” said Mary Daly, president of the San Francisco Fed and a nonvoting member of the central bank. She added that she believed two more rate raises were needed this year.The futures market is betting on that as well, pricing in a quarter-percentage-point increase at this month’s Fed rate-setting meeting and, increasingly, anticipating another raise this fall.But that uncertainty over inflation, as well as worries about recession and a slowing labor market, has led some on Wall Street to warn that the S&P 500 is overvalued and that a stock sell-off is coming. (Investors will keep an eye on corporate earning reports, which begin this week, for more clues on how businesses are faring.)“It’s also important to set the record straight: This is not a merger. The PGA Tour remains intact.” — Ron Price, the C.O.O. of the PGA Tour, in a preview of his testimony today before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations about the proposed tie-up with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit. Price added that there would be no changes to the PGA Tour’s C.E.O. or on the board level should the framework deal move forward.A fight over banking rules draws closerThe Fed’s top banking overseer, Michael Barr, outlined on Monday major parts of his plan to update regulations in the wake of the regional lender crisis that was prompted by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank this spring.Among them are tougher capital requirements meant to make banks more resilient in turbulent times — but the financial industry is warning that the proposals go too far.Mr. Barr wants banks to hold more in capital reserves, to the tune of an additional $2 for every $100 of risk-weighted assets, he said in a speech. He also wants to extend his stricter rules to all institutions with $100 billion or more in assets; the toughest requirements currently apply only to lenders that are internationally active or have at least $700 billion in assets.It’s a recognition of “gaps in the current rules,” he said, since even midsize lenders — which are more lightly regulated — can pose dangers to the American financial system.Banks are threatening a fight. Washington and Wall Street appear to have been surprised by how tough Mr. Barr is being: “It’s definitely meaty,” Ian Katz, an analyst at Capital Alpha, told The Times. But industry figures said that tougher restrictions would come at a price. “Further capital requirements on the largest U.S. banks will lead to higher borrowing costs and fewer loans for consumers and businesses,” said Kevin Fromer, head of the banking group Financial Services Forum.The rules aren’t a done deal yet. Up next is the public comment period. If the Fed’s board approves, it will still take time to implement the rules.THE SPEED READ DealsBerkshire Hathaway will buy control of a liquefied natural gas export project in Maryland for $3.3 billion. (Bloomberg)Banks including Citigroup, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase are said to be seeking potential investors for the seed giant Syngenta’s $9 billion I.P.O. in China, which is expected to be the biggest market debut this year. (Bloomberg)Morgan Stanley has reportedly hired Marco Caggiano, JPMorgan’s head of North American mergers, as a vice chairman of M.&A. (Reuters)PolicyThe United States and the European Union reached a deal to let tech giants continue sharing user data between their jurisdictions. (NYT)Jay Clayton, former head of the S.E.C., and Tim Massad, former chair of the C.F.T.C., offered a road map to regulating the crypto markets. (WSJ)Best of the restEuropean regulators are investigating whether the popular weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Saxenda increase the risk of suicidal thoughts among users. (WSJ)India’s economy could surpass that of the United States in size by 2075, Goldman Sachs predicts — though high taxes and bureaucracy could stand in the way. (Insider)“Disney World Hasn’t Felt This Empty in Years” (WSJ)We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. More

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      Los ricos están más locos que tú y yo

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. está delirando. Sus posturas son una mezcla de fantasías de derecha con remanentes del progresista que fue alguna vez: veneración al bitcoin, teorías de conspiración antivacunas, afirmaciones de que el Prozac ocasiona tiroteos masivos, oposición al apoyo estadounidense a Ucrania, pero además habla bien del seguro médico de pagador único. Si no fuera por su apellido, nadie le prestaría atención y, a pesar de ese apellido, tiene cero posibilidades de ganar la nominación presidencial demócrata.Sin embargo, ahora que la campaña de Ron DeSantis (con su lema: “Concienciados, inmigrantes, concienciados, ‘woke’”) parece estar derrapándose, de repente Kennedy está recibiendo el apoyo de algunos de los nombres más importantes de Silicon Valley. Jack Dorsey, fundador de Twitter, le dio su apoyo, mientras que otras figuras destacadas de la tecnología han organizado actos de recaudación de fondos en su nombre. Elon Musk, quien está en proceso de destruir lo que Dorsey construyó, fue su anfitrión en un evento en un Espacio de Twitter.Pero ¿qué nos dice todo esto sobre el papel de los multimillonarios de la industria tecnológica en la vida política moderna de Estados Unidos? Hace poco escribí sobre una serie de tech bros, algo así como hombres alfa de la tecnología, que se han convertido en truthers, quienes creen conocer la verdad, sobre la recesión y la inflación, y han insistido en que las noticias sobre la mejora de la economía son falsas (olvidé mencionar la declaración de Dorsey en 2021 de que la hiperinflación estaba “sucediendo”, ¿cómo va eso?). Lo que el pequeño auge de Kennedy en Silicon Valley muestra es que esto es en realidad parte de un fenómeno más amplio.Lo que parece atraer a algunos de los magnates de la tecnología a RFK Jr. es su gusto por llevar la contra, su contrarianismo: su desprecio por la sabiduría convencional y la opinión de los expertos. Así que antes de adentrarme en los aspectos específicos de los hombres de la tecnología de este momento político tan extraño, permítanme decir algunas cosas sobre llevar la contra.Un hecho triste pero cierto de la vida es que la mayoría de las veces, la sabiduría convencional y la opinión de los expertos están en lo correcto; sin embargo, puede que encontrar los puntos en los que se equivocan tenga grandes beneficios personales y sociales. El truco para conseguirlo consiste en mantener el equilibrio entre un escepticismo excesivo y una credulidad excesiva.Es muy fácil caer en el filo de la navaja en cualquier dirección. Cuando era un académico joven y ambicioso, solía reírme de los economistas mayores y aburridos cuya reacción ante cualquier idea nueva era: “Es banal, está mal y lo dije en 1962”. Estos días, a veces me preocupa haberme convertido en ese tipo.Por otra parte, como lo dice el economista Adam Ozimek, el contrarianismo reflexivo es una “droga que pudre el cerebro”. Quienes sucumben a esa droga “pierden la capacidad de juzgar a otros que consideran contrarios, se vuelven incapaces de distinguir las buenas pruebas de las malas, lo cual provoca un desapego total de la creencia que los lleva a aferrarse a modas contrarias de baja calidad”.Los hombres de la tecnología parecen ser en particular susceptibles a la podredumbre cerebral del contrarianismo. Su éxito financiero suele convencerlos de que son excepcionalmente brillantes, capaces de dominar al instante cualquier tema, sin necesidad de consultar a personas que realmente han trabajado duro para entender los problemas. Y en muchos casos, se hicieron ricos desafiando la sabiduría convencional, lo que los predispone a creer que ese desafío está justificado por dondequiera que se le mire.A esto hay que añadir el hecho de que una gran riqueza hace que sea demasiado fácil rodearse de personas que te dicen lo que quieres oír y validan tu creencia en tu propia brillantez, una suerte de versión intelectual del traje nuevo del emperador.Y si los hombres de la tecnología que llevan la contra hablan, es entre ellos. El empresario tecnológico y escritor Anil Dash nos dice que “es imposible exagerar el grado en que muchos directores ejecutivos de grandes empresas tecnológicas y capitalistas de riesgo se están radicalizando al vivir dentro de su propia burbuja cultural y social”. Llama a este fenómeno del capitalismo de riesgo, venture capitalism en inglés, “VC QAnon”, un concepto que me parece que ayuda a explicar muchas de las extrañas posturas adoptadas últimamente por los multimillonarios tecnológicos.Permítanme añadir una especulación personal. Pudiera parecer extraño ver a hombres de una inmensa riqueza e influencia creyéndose teorías de la conspiración sobre élites que dirigen el mundo. ¿No son ellos las élites? Pero sospecho que los hombres famosos y ricos pueden sentirse especialmente frustrados por su incapacidad para controlar los acontecimientos o incluso para evitar que la gente los ridiculice en internet. Así que en lugar de aceptar que el mundo es un lugar complicado que nadie puede controlar, son susceptibles a la idea de que hay conspiraciones secretas que los tienen en la mira.Aquí hay un precedente histórico. Viendo el descenso de Elon Musk, sé que no soy el único que piensa en Henry Ford, quien sigue siendo en muchos sentidos el ejemplo definitivo de empresario famoso e influyente y que también se convirtió en un teórico de la conspiración furibundo y antisemita. Incluso pagó la reimpresión de Los protocolos de los sabios de Sión, una falsificación que probablemente fue promovida por la policía secreta rusa (el tiempo es un círculo plano).En todo caso, lo que estamos viendo ahora es algo extraordinario. Podría decirse que la facción más alocada de la política estadounidense en este momento no son los obreros de gorra roja en los comedores; son los multimillonarios de la tecnología que viven en enormes mansiones y vuelan en jets privados. De cierto modo, es bastante divertido. Pero, por desgracia, esta gente tiene dinero suficiente para hacer mucho daño.Paul Krugman ha sido columnista de Opinión desde 2000 y también es profesor distinguido en el Centro de Graduados de la Universidad de la Ciudad de Nueva York. Ganó el Premio Nobel de Ciencias Económicas en 2008 por sus trabajos sobre comercio internacional y geografía económica. @PaulKrugman More

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      This Republican Candidate Is Offering $20 Gift Cards for $1 Donations

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      The candidate, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, is one of several Republican presidential candidates going to great lengths to reach a crucial threshold to qualify for the first primary debate.How much is a dollar worth?To Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, quite a lot.Mr. Burgum is one of several Republican presidential candidates going to great lengths to reach a crucial threshold to qualify for the party’s first primary debate on Aug. 23 — the requirement that only candidates with at least 40,000 individual donors to their campaigns will be allowed on the stage.A long-shot contender at the bottom of recent polls, Mr. Burgum is offering $20 gift cards to the first 50,000 people who donate at least $1 to his campaign. And one lucky donor, as his campaign advertised on Facebook, will have the chance to win a Yeti Tundra 45 cooler that typically costs more than $300 — just for donating at least $1. The unusual offer was earlier reported by FWIW, a newsletter that tracks digital politics.Mr. Burgum’s push to prioritize donors over actual dollars is a sign of some candidates’ desperation to make the debate stage and to seize some of the national spotlight from the Republican front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, and his top rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, another Republican candidate, recently ended a campaign ad with a direct plea that flashed on the screen to “Donate today, get Chris Christie on the debate stage.”Mr. Burgum’s campaign acknowledged that its requests were directly tied to the debate and spun the gift-card giveaways into attacks on President Biden.“Doug knows people are hurting because of Bidenflation, and giving Biden Economic Relief Gift Cards is a way to help 50,000 people until Doug is elected President to fix this crazy economy for everyone,” said Lance Trover, a spokesman for the Burgum campaign.Mr. Trover added that the efforts allowed the campaign to “secure a spot on the debate stage while avoiding paying more advertising fees to social media platforms who have owners that are hostile to conservatives.”Kyle Tharp, the author of the FWIW newsletter that reported on the solicitations, said that as part of his reporting process, he had donated $1 to the Burgum campaign. He did not receive any follow-up information about how he would receive the gift card, he said. The campaign later clarified on Twitter that 50,000 donors would receive a Visa or Mastercard gift card to their mailing address.The campaign did not respond to a request for comment about how many donors had contributed so far.The campaign’s donations-for-cash strategy could raise potential legal concerns, said Paul Ryan, a campaign finance lawyer. Voters who make donations in exchange for gift cards, he said, might be considered straw donors because part or all of their donations are being reimbursed by the campaign.“Federal law says ‘no person shall make a contribution in the name of another person,’” Mr. Ryan said. “Here, the candidate is making a contribution to himself in the name of all these individual donors.” Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in election law, said that typically, campaigns ask the Federal Election Commission when engaging in new forms of donations.The Burgum campaign’s maneuver, he said, “certainly seems novel” and “raises concerns about whether it violates the prohibition on straw donations.”But some of the legal uncertainty, Mr. Hasen added, stems from the fact that “functionally, campaigns spend a lot of money to get small donations, especially in cases like this where they’re trying to reach a debate threshold.”Mr. Burgum isn’t alone in using his immense wealth — he’s a billionaire former software executive — to bolster his campaign.Perry Johnson, a businessman who also announced a hopeful bid for the Republican presidential nomination and who ran for Michigan governor last year, has spent $80,000 to $90,000 on ads promoting $1 hats that read, “I identify as ‘Non-Bidenary,’” Facebook records show. His campaign said in a recent ad that it had reached 10,000 donors.To qualify for the first presidential debate, candidates must have a minimum of 200 unique donors per state or territory in 20 states and territories, according to the Republican National Committee, which set the rules. They must also garner at least 1 percent in multiple national or early-voting state polls recognized by the committee.Shane Goldmacher More

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      Nikki Haley Raises $7.3 Million, With More in an Allied Super PAC

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      The amount showed Ms. Haley’s strength with small donors, but fell well below numbers broadcast by her leading Republican presidential rivals, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, raised $7.3 million through her presidential campaign and affiliated committees from April through June, a modest sum that still showcased her robust appeal to small donors.The total included $5.3 million reported by her campaign, as well as money from two allied committees, according to reports provided by her campaign to The New York Times in advance of a filing deadline with the Federal Election Commission on Saturday.Separately, a super PAC supporting her candidacy said on Monday that it had raised $18.7 million since its inception this year, and that it had $17 million in cash on hand at the end of June. Reports for super PACs are not due with the F.E.C. until the end of the month.Her campaign’s fund-raising numbers fell below those of the two men leading the polls for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and former President Donald J. Trump. Last week, the DeSantis campaign said it had raised $20 million, while a super PAC supporting him had raised $130 million since March.Mr. Trump’s joint fund-raising committee, his primary fund-raising vehicle, said it had raised $35 million in the second quarter; it is not clear how much went to his campaign committee.Neither the Trump campaign nor the DeSantis campaign provided the reports. When they are filed this weekend, they will provide greater clarity on how each candidate’s money has been raised and spent.By her campaign’s account, Ms. Haley is above the minimum threshold of 40,000 individual donors that candidates must reach to take part in the first Republican debate on Aug. 23. Her campaign said it had received 160,000 donations from all 50 states since she entered the race in February, the vast majority of which were under $200.Ms. Haley raised money through three committees: her presidential campaign, a joint fund-raising committee called Team Stand for America, and a multicandidate PAC. The joint fund-raising committee also transfers money to the other two committees — the $5.3 million received by her campaign in the second quarter, for example, includes a $1 million transfer from Team Stand for America.In April, Ms. Haley came under criticism after her campaign broadcast that $11 million had been raised in its opening six weeks. In fact, the committees had together taken in about $8.3 million, including $2.7 million in transferred money that was counted twice.Together, the three committees had $9.3 million in cash on hand at the end of June, according to the latest filings; her campaign accounts for $6.8 million of that. More

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      Ron DeSantis Doesn’t Know Whether He’s Coming or Going

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      Gail Collins: Bret, about Ron DeSantis. Last week, I criticized him for weenie stuff like big book advances and questionable road repair materials. At the time, I definitely felt like I was carping.Then his people shared an ad on L.G.B.T.Q. issues that … wow.Bret Stephens: “Wow” just about covers it.Gail: It began with a clip of Donald Trump defending gay rights in days of yore, which was very clearly supposed to make viewers … hate Trump. Followed by praise for Florida laws DeSantis signed that “literally threaten trans existence.” Followed by a super-duper weird montage showing men flexing muscles, Brad Pitt in Trojan-warrior garb and Governor Ron with lightning flashes coming out of his eyes.Pete Buttigieg, who is President Biden’s secretary of transportation and one of the best-known gay figures in politics, rightly pointed out “the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up, shirtless bodybuilders.”Any thoughts?Bret: I guess my main takeaway is that DeSantis isn’t going to be the next president. He makes Trump seem tolerant, Ted Cruz seem likable, Mitch McConnell seem moderate, Lauren Boebert seem mature and Rick Santorum seem cool. Not what I would have expected out of the Florida governor six months ago, but here’s where I confess: You were right about him, and I was wrong.Gail: My other takeaway is that Republicans are focusing more on L.G.B.T.Q. issues now that they’ve come to understand that attacking abortion isn’t a national winner — or even a state winner in most places.In the long run, stomping on gay rights isn’t going to do it either, because such a huge number of people — even conservative Republicans — have friends, family, colleagues who are gay. May take a while to come to grips with that, but once you realize someone you care about is gay, the idea of persecuting them presumably seems way less attractive.Just recalling how my conservative Catholic mother wound up, in old age, riding on a float in Cincinnati’s Gay Pride parade.Bret: As you mentioned last year in that wonderful column you wrote about Allen Ginsberg.Gay bashing is morally intolerable as well as politically inept. But a lot of people — including many Democrats and independents — have honest and serious concerns about some aspects of the trans issue, especially as it concerns the integrity of women’s sports, the morality of drastic medical interventions in teenagers and the anti-scientific denial of basic biology when it comes to questions of sex. I also detest terms like “bodies with vaginas” as a substitute for “women.” It isn’t a sensitive or inclusive use of language; it’s misogynistic and Orwellian.DeSantis could have addressed these issues in a sober and nuanced way. Instead, he went full Trojan, and I suspect his campaign will meet a similar fate to Troy’s.Gail: Full Trojan? Just like Brad Pitt in that ad!Bret: Switching topics, Gail, can we talk about homelessness? The problem just keeps getting worse, particularly out west, and it’s doing real damage to urban life. Your thoughts on what does and does not work?Gail: What works is pretty simple: more housing and outreach for the mentally ill. Both are difficult, of course, ranging from pretty darned to stupendously.Bret: What also works are ordinances forbidding “camping” on public lands so that homeless people are required to use shelter beds, which some liberal judges have blocked cities from doing. One of the problems of our public discussion of the issue is that we treat homelessness as a problem of the homeless only. It’s also a public safety issue and a quality-of-life issue. People ought to have a right to walk down urban sidewalks that haven’t been turned into tent cities and open-air toilets.Gail: New York is still dealing with a flood of new migrants, mainly from Latin America, who have been coming in huge numbers for more than a year. Most of them are ambitious and hopeful, and they could be a great shot to our local economy — if they had permanent places to stay.Bret: Completely agree. I also think the migrant problem is qualitatively different from the kind of homelessness issues that cities like San Francisco or Portland, Ore., are experiencing. Migrants are struggling with poverty but not, generally, mental health or drug-dependency issues. What migrants typically need is a room and a job.Gail: Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, has talked about finding some of them homes in the suburbs, where there’s obviously more room and housing prices are sometimes a lot lower. Said suburbs rose up in rage to stop an incursion of needy people. It’s so irritating, although I have to admit that my liberal Manhattan neighborhood — which has plenty of programs for the homeless — consistently rebels against talk of any big new housing projects for any income group.Your turn.Bret: I’m skeptical of the theory that we could solve the crisis just by building a lot more housing. First, because we can’t build quickly and cheaply enough to keep up with the growing number of homeless people. Second, because even when the homeless are housed, they often fall back into the kinds of behaviors that ultimately lead them to return to the streets.My own view is that people living on the street should be required to go into shelters, which can be built much more quickly and cheaply than regular housing, be required to get mental health screenings and be required to be treated if they have drug or alcohol dependencies.Gail: Well, if the mental health treatments were great, that might be an argument. But they often aren’t — just because there’s a terrific shortage of personnel.And the shelters are no picnic either. A lot of the people you see on the street have been, at one time or another, threatened by a mentally troubled co-resident, gotten into a fight as a result of shared emotional problems or in some other way come to feel that living on the street is safer.Bret: The other big story from last week, Gail, is the ruling by a federal judge that forbade the Biden administration to work with social media companies to remove content it didn’t like, mainly connected to alleged Covid misinformation. What the administration was doing seems to me like a serious infringement on people’s freedom of speech, but I’d like to know your view.Gail: Gee, I was under the impression one of the jobs of the executive branch was to make sure people were getting the right information about health issues. And it’s not as if the Biden folks marched in and removed a bunch of posts themselves. Conferring with the social media companies seems like something they ought to do.Bret: One good way of thinking about the issue is putting the shoe on the other foot. For instance, we now know that the Steele dossier was malicious partisan misinformation, secretly and illicitly paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and that some of its most salacious allegations, like the pee-tape stuff, were false. How would you react if you had learned that the Trump administration had been putting heavy pressure on executives at MSNBC to forbid Rachel Maddow from ever mentioning it back when she had her show?Gail: Hey, it’s hot and humid outside. No fair trying to take me down the Hillary Clinton road. Look — the whole world changed with the advent of social media. If you’ve got influencers with millions of followers warning that, say, giving milk to babies is dangerous, you’ve got to do something more than issue a press release.Bret: I’m pretty sure we could get the word out that milk is generally fine for babies or vaccines are generally safe without setting a precedent that the federal government can work with Big Tech to censor individual speech.Gail: Of course I agree with you about freedom of expression. But in the process of protecting it, it’s natural to argue about specific cases with particular details. We will pursue this again soon. Well, forever probably.But let me be boring for a second and ask you about Congress. Just got through that deficit crisis, and another one will be coming around the bend this summer. What’s your long-term advice? Spend less? Tax more? Ignore the whole thing and figure it’ll work out somehow like it always does?Bret: My advice: Talk less, smile more. Seriously, what we need from Congress and the president is to get through the next 18 months without another manufactured domestic crisis. Between the war in Ukraine, Iran’s creeping nuclearization and China’s saber-rattling over Taiwan, we have more than enough to worry about abroad.Gail: Hmm. One writer’s manufactured domestic crisis is maybe another’s reasonable disagreement. And while Congress isn’t always fascinating, it’s at the top of the critical-if-possibly-boring ladder.Bret: Before we go, Gail, I have to put in a word for Penelope Green’s funny, fabulous obituary in The Times of Sue Johanson, a Canadian sex educator who died last month at 92. It has the single most memorable paragraph to appear in the paper for at least a month, if not a year. I have to quote it in full:Is it weird to put body glitter on your boyfriend’s testicles? Is it safe to have sex in a hot tub? Could a Ziploc baggie serve as a condom? If condoms are left in a car and they freeze, are they still good? Answers: No. No (chlorinated water is too harsh for genitals, particularly women’s). Definitely not. And yes, once they’ve been defrosted.I mean, after that, what else is there to say?The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Nikki Haley Is Focused on New Hampshire — and Moving Up in the Republican Primary

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      The former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador is intensely focused on the state. But her brand of politics may not resonate in the 2024 political climate.Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, five months into her first run for president, acknowledges the position she is in.Though she was the first Republican to announce a challenge to former President Donald J. Trump, she hasn’t spent a dime on television ads, is polling well behind Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and has struggled at times to make a case for her campaign.But in an interview on Friday, at a picnic table outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in the small town of Lancaster, N.H., Ms. Haley downplayed concerns about her standing in the primary. It’s early in the race, she said, and many voters have yet to tune in to the campaigns.“I look at it like one goal after another; I don’t look at the end,” she said. “I know that by mid-fall, this is going to be totally different. Once you pass Labor Day, the numbers start to shift. And you can look at history for that. That’s not me just hoping, that’s me knowing.”As she traversed small towns in the mountainous North Country region of New Hampshire last week, she tacitly acknowledged the uphill race, while also telling her story of overcoming long political odds to win South Carolina’s governorship in 2010, making her the first woman to serve as governor of the state and the second governor of Indian descent.During her appearances, Ms. Haley also mixed in subtle digs at her primary rivals.“I did not go to an Ivy League school like the fellas that are in this race,” she told voters in a North Conway community center on Thursday. “I went to a public university.” Touting her degree in accounting from Clemson University, she said: “I’m not a lawyer. Accountants are problem solvers.”Ms. Haley’s most recent swing through New Hampshire, which holds the party’s first primary, was billed by her campaign as a grass-roots-focused trip, and one intended to introduce her to voters in this part of the state as a former state executive with roots in the rural South, rather than an establishment figure with Washington ties.Frank Murphy, 54, who moved to northern New Hampshire from South Carolina in 2016, knows Ms. Haley as his former governor. When she introduced herself to the voters crowded into the Lancaster V.F.W. post, he raised his hand within the first few minutes of her speech to tell her he was from Charleston.“I got to see firsthand what she did to help the economy down there,” he said, adding that he was elated to see her running for president. “To come into a small town meeting like this and to speak to people and to get them to engage and to talk and ask questions? That’s what you want from a politician,” he said.The challenge for Ms. Haley is that her credentials might be more of a liability than an asset in a Republican primary that seems to be geared more toward personality than policy, with much attention concentrated on Mr. Trump’s legal troubles and Mr. DeSantis’s focus on social and cultural issues.In small events and meet-and-greets, Ms. Haley spoke as much about her family and personal background as she did about the economy and foreign policy.She complimented the scenery of the North Country, adding that its close-knit communities reminded her of her hometown, Bamberg, S.C. Her upbringing as a member of the only Indian American family in town — “We weren’t white enough to be white, we weren’t Black enough to be Black,” she said — taught her to look hard for the similarities she shared with others.Ms. Haley sought to connect with New Hampshire voters by noting her small-town roots.John Tully for The New York TimesSpeaking to voters at the V.F.W. outpost in Lancaster on Friday, she poked fun at the southern accents she is used to hearing in South Carolina and tested out a New England twang, asking those present if her saying “Lan-cah-stah” made her sound local.“Somebody said I sounded like I was from Boston,” she acknowledged, to sympathetic laughs.Ms. Haley has focused intensely on New Hampshire. By the end of this week she will have made 39 stops in the Granite State, far outpacing most of the Republican field. She is one of the few 2024 Republican contenders — along with Vivek Ramaswamy — to visit the counties in the state’s North Country region, which sits less than 200 miles from the Canadian border and has woodsy, winding roads stretching through the White Mountain range.Her campaign says it is hanging its hopes on a growing network of supporters and volunteers in the far corners of the state, rather than spending money on radio or television ads — a longstanding tradition of glad-handing and retail politicking.The strategy has yet to generate much momentum. Most polls of the primary in New Hampshire show her in fourth place, behind Mr. Trump, Mr. DeSantis and former Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, who has also spent a significant amount of time in the state.Ms. Haley’s supporters have expressed frustration and confusion that their preferred candidate — whose past roles as U.N. ambassador and governor prompted an event moderator to ask a crowd on Thursday to decide by applause which title he should use to introduce her — has barely polled above 4 percent in most national public polls.“We don’t understand that because she’s doing so well,” said Beverly Schofield, an 84-year-old Republican voter, clad in red, white and blue, who drove from Vermont with her daughter to see Ms. Haley in New Hampshire on Friday. “It’s very impressive that she’s doing as well as she is. But I’d like to see her move up that ladder quickly.”Ms. Haley’s standing reflects the challenges of campaigning in this particular primary more than it does her political capabilities, her supporters say. The Republican field has ballooned to a dozen candidates, splintering the anti-Trump vote, while his recent and prospective indictments seem to have only put the former president closer to capturing the nomination. Ms. Haley’s supporters are wondering how the campaign intends to turn things around“That’s the question I wanted to ask her,” said Ted Kramer, 81, a retired marketing executive who attended Ms. Haley’s town hall in North Conway. “She’s got to get the profile up.”Ms. Haley said she was comfortable with her current position in the primary race, which she described as “a marathon, not a sprint.”John Tully for The New York TimesMs. Haley pointed to previous Republican front-runners who later fizzled out, such as Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and former Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin. The race so far has been painted largely as a two-man race between Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis, Ms. Haley said, but voters are likely to sour on one.“I know the reality of how quickly somebody can go up and how quickly they can fall,” she said. “The shiny object today is not the shiny object tomorrow. So it’s about not peaking too soon.”She added, “I’m very realistic about what the benchmarks are and what we need to overcome.”Those markers include securing the required number of donors and funds to make the debate stage in August — which she has done. She also said she would continue to focus on Iowa and New Hampshire while building on the base she has in South Carolina, another early state, where she and Senator Tim Scott, who represents the state, are aiming to leverage similar voter bases and donor networks. The two have not spoken since he launched his campaign, she said.Ms. Haley also admitted to feeling underestimated in the race. She is often included in conversations about vice-presidential contenders, though she has emphatically said she is not eyeing the position. She also said that many, particularly in the news media, failed to recognize “the street cred that I have,” listing political wins and averted crises seen during her tenure as South Carolina governor and as United Nations ambassador. “I mean, these were no small jobs,” she said.Republicans longing for an alternative to Mr. Trump made up a large portion of the crowds at Ms. Haley’s events, along with moderate Republicans and independent voters. Few who attended Ms. Haley’s events this week said they were fully committed to supporting her, and many said they wanted to test the political waters, a signature of campaigning in New Hampshire, where most primary voters can expect to hear from every candidate in person, usually more than once.Ms. Haley, eager to sway some of those who were on the fence, made policy points on the stump and condemned Democrats on race, education and inclusion of transgender athletes. She criticized both Democrats and Republicans for the handling of Covid-19 and chastised Congress, asking voters if they could point to anything their representatives in Washington had done for them.She also drew on her foreign policy background, saying that the biggest threat to the United States is China and repeatedly criticizing the Biden administration on its approach, folding in terse words for Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who is visiting the country this week.Joanne Archambault, an independent voter who lives near North Conway, said she liked Ms. Haley’s message and saw her as an authoritative speaker on policy issues. Still, she said that Ms. Haley’s talk of foreign policy distracted from domestic priorities.“I think there’s too much focus about overseas stuff, too much talk about the border and about China,” she said. “Let’s talk about the problems we are facing — you know, gun violence, abortion, let’s talk about those things. Let’s focus on this country and not what other countries are doing.”Her closing message to voters has been an entreaty to them to tell others to support her. That was good news to Mr. Murphy the South Carolina Transplant who said he was committed to voting for Ms. Haley in the primary in January.“She said tell 10 people. I’ll probably tell 20,” he said. More

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      Vivek Ramaswamy Leans Into His Hindu Faith to Court Christian Voters

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      Bristol Smith, a manager at a McDonald’s in Maryville, Tenn., came across Vivek Ramaswamy’s name this spring, shortly after Mr. Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, announced he was running for president. Mr. Smith was intrigued. He liked the way Mr. Ramaswamy “stands up against the wokeness” and his plan to send the military to the southern border to combat drug cartels. He respected Mr. Ramaswamy’s acumen as a businessman worth hundreds of millions of dollars.Then Mr. Smith, 25, searched for Mr. Ramaswamy’s faith. Mr. Smith is an evangelical Christian who recently started a small church that meets at his parents’ house.“I looked up his religion and saw he’s Hindu,” he recalled. “I was going to vote for him until that came up.” What the country needs is to be “put back under God,” as Mr. Smith sees it, and he doesn’t want to take a chance on someone who is not a Christian.At that point, he said, “I got back on President Trump’s train.”Mr. Ramaswamy, 37, was raised by Indian immigrants and is a practicing Hindu. That poses a dilemma for some of the conservative Christian voters who make up a significant share of the Republican primary electorate and are accustomed to evaluating candidates not just on their policy proposals but also on their biographies and personal beliefs, including religious faith. For many conservative voters, a candidate’s faith is a signifier of his or her values, lifestyle, loyalties and priorities as a leader. It’s the Sunday-morning version of the classic question of which candidate you would most enjoy having a beer with: Who would fit in at your church? “It’s another hurdle people need to cross to go to him,” Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in Iowa, said of Mr. Ramaswamy.Mr. Ramaswamy stood for a prayer at the Veterans Freedom Center during a morning pancake breakfast in Dubuque, Iowa.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Vander Plaats recently had Mr. Ramaswamy’s family over for Sunday supper at his house, where the meal opened with a prayer and the reading of a passage from the Bible. He came away impressed with Mr. Ramaswamy and said that his message aligned with the priorities of many evangelical voters. He mentioned Mr. Ramaswamy’s list of 10 core “truths,” the first of which is: “God is real.” (The second: “There are two genders.”)“I think he’s really connecting with the audiences in Iowa,” said Mr. Vander Plaats, who has not endorsed a candidate. “He welcomes the deeper questions.” Mr. Ramaswamy is polling under 5 percent in most recent national polls.Mr. Ramaswamy’s approach has been to confront the issue directly and argue that he has more in common with observant Christians than they might think.“I’m not Christian. I was not raised in a Christian household,” he told Mr. Vander Plaats in June in front of a small audience at the headquarters of his organization, the Family Leader. “But we do share the same Christian values that this nation was founded on.”In an interview in late June, after leaving a meeting with a few dozen pastors in New Hampshire, Mr. Ramaswamy said his faith taught him that Jesus was “a son of God, absolutely.” (That “a” is a sharp distinction from the central Christian belief that Jesus is the son of God. Hinduism is a fluid and expansive tradition, and many believers embrace scores of deities, with some seeing Jesus as one teacher or god.)Although he is not a Christian, Mr. Ramaswamy pointed out, he speaks openly about why belief in God matters and why rising secularism in America is bad for the country, and about values like marital fidelity, duty, religious liberty and self-sacrifice.“I don’t have a quick pitch to say, ‘No, no, that doesn’t matter,’” he said of the theological differences between Hinduism and Christianity. “It’s that I understand exactly why that would matter to you.”At campaign stops, Mr. Ramaswamy refers to Bible stories, including the crucifixion of Jesus, and quotes Thomas Aquinas. He frequently mentions his experience attending a “Christian school” in Cincinnati (St. Xavier High School, a Catholic school). And he contrasts “religions like ours,” which have stood the test of time, with the competing worldviews of “wokeism, climatism, transgenderism, gender ideology, Covidism,” as he put it to an audience in New Hampshire.Iowa voters asked questions to Mr. Ramaswamy in Dubuque.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Ramaswamy’s campaign has disseminated clips of an Iowa pastor comparing him to the biblical figure of King David, and of his lengthy answer to a New Hampshire man who asked about his “spiritual beliefs” at a town hall. In Iowa, a woman pressed her hand to Mr. Ramaswamy’s chest and blessed him in the name of Jesus Christ.“Amen,” Mr. Ramaswamy said as she concluded her prayer.If Mr. Ramaswamy comes to have a chance with evangelical primary voters in the crowded Republican field, it will be thanks in part to forces beyond his campaign. Many conservative voters for whom a shared faith might have once been a litmus test now say they are looking not for a “pastor-in-chief” but for someone who shares their political and cultural goals, and who will fight on their behalf.“Theology matters, but the culture has changed. America has changed,” said David Brody, the chief political analyst for the Christian Broadcasting Network, who has interviewed Mr. Ramaswamy. The biggest objective now, Mr. Brody said, is combating “cultural Marxism” and correcting the course of “a country gone haywire.”He contrasted evangelical priorities in next year’s Iowa caucuses with those in 2008 and 2012, when Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum won on the strength of their conservative Christian bona fides.“The lazy narrative that he’s Hindu so he can’t appeal to evangelicals, I don’t buy it at all,” Mr. Brody said.In recent years, theological lines have blurred as political divides have hardened. Few churches split these days over old debates like the exact timing of the end times or the role of free will in salvation. About half of American Protestants now say they prefer to attend a church with people who share their political views, according to polling from Lifeway Research.Mr. Ramaswamy taking a question at a campaign event in Windham, N.H.John Tully for The New York TimesMr. Ramaswamy’s emphasis on his belief in one God has a long history for Hindus in the United States, especially those speaking to white Christian audiences, said Michael Altman, a professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama.Swami Vivekananda, who represented Hinduism at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893, took pains to depict his faith as monotheistic, in contrast to the stereotypes of its followers as “heathen” polytheists. Although the faith has many deities, they are generally subordinate to one ultimate “reality.” Many Hindus and scholars say its theology is too complex to be described as either wholly monotheistic or wholly polytheistic.“The polytheism hurdle is the first thing that has to be addressed” for many American Christian audiences, Mr. Altman said. He sees Mr. Ramaswamy’s pitch against “wokeism” as a way to counter stereotypes associating Hinduism with hippies, yoga and vegetarianism.Some evangelical observers say it was former President Donald J. Trump who opened up a new lane for Republican candidates who were not necessarily people that voters would expect to sit next to in church on Sunday morning. Many evangelical voters embraced the crude, thrice-married casino magnate not because he was one of them but because they believed he would fight in the public square on their behalf.Most Indian Americans, including Hindus, are Democrats. But some conservatives see an opening with a population that prioritizes family life, marriage and education. As president, Mr. Trump hosted Diwali celebrations at the White House, and in April the Republican National Committee announced a new Republican Hindu and Indian American Coalition. Prime minister Narendra Modi of India is a popular figure among a rising cohort of right-wing Indian Americans, attracting a crowd of 50,000 when he appeared with Mr. Trump in Houston in 2019. Mr. Ramaswamy spoke last year at a gala organized by the right-wing U.S. group HinduPACT, which is aligned with Mr. Modi’s style of nationalism.President Donald J. Trump lit the ceremonial diya lamp during Diwali celebrations in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in 2018.Doug Mills/The New York TimesNikki Haley, another Indian American contender in the 2024 primary, has similarly emphasized her background as the daughter of immigrants. But although Ms. Haley was raised Sikh, she converted to Christianity and now attends a large Methodist church in South Carolina. Bobby Jindal, a Louisiana Republican who ran for president in 2016, was raised Hindu but has described himself as an “evangelical Catholic.”Mr. Ramaswamy attends the same temple in Dayton, Ohio, that he did as a child and that his parents still do.One of the temple’s priests officiated his wedding in New York City in 2015. He and his wife and their two young sons attend temple on holidays and to mark special occasions, including the younger son’s first birthday in early July, his wife, Dr. Apoorva Ramaswamy, said. Dr. Ramaswamy, who has publicly discussed the family’s faith on the campaign trail, said there were more similarities among committed believers across traditions than between serious and nominal adherents within the same faith.“The fact that we are believers, that we have that sense of humility, that we raise our children with true respect and fear and love of God — that’s so much more unifying than the name of the God people pray to,” Dr. Ramaswamy said.The question for her husband’s campaign is whether enough Christian voters will agree.Ken Bosse, the pastor of New Life Church in Raymond, N.H., described himself as “an extreme follower of Jesus Christ” who would prefer to have a Christian in the White House, all things considered. But he would be open to the right candidate who is not a Christian, noting that “we have had some professing Christians in that position who didn’t follow biblical principles.”Mr. Bosse invited Mr. Ramaswamy to deliver a brief speech at his church on a Sunday morning in April. He liked the candidate’s emphasis on reclaiming a positive American identity, he said, and on his story as a self-made millionaire who is the child of immigrants.At the moment, however, Mr. Bosse is leaning toward supporting Mr. Trump. More

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      Iowa Republicans Set the Date for the Party’s Caucuses — and It’s Early

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      The state party will hold a nominating contest in January, the earliest it has been held in recent campaign cycles.The NewsIowa Republicans voted on Saturday to hold their caucuses on Jan. 15, 2024, pushing the state’s first-in-the-nation nominating contest weeks earlier than in recent years.The state party voted unanimously to hold the elections on the third Monday of the month, which coincides with the federal holiday recognizing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the state party, said in a statement after the vote that the Republicans “remain committed to maintaining Iowa’s cherished first-in-the-nation caucuses and look forward to holding a historic caucus in the coming months and defeating Joe Biden come November 2024.”Iowa Democrats were “aware of the decision” but “did not have a chance to have any input” on the date selection, according to a statement from Rita Hart, the chair of the state party.“No matter what, Iowa Democrats are committed to moving forward with the most inclusive caucus process in Iowa’s history,” Ms. Hart said.Republican voters at a caucus location in Pella, Iowa, in February 2016.Eric Thayer for The New York TimesWhy It Matters: Republicans Reaffirm While Democrats ReorderRepublican presidential hopefuls have been campaigning aggressively in the state, which is seen as crucial to many candidates, including former President Donald J. Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, former Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, all of whom are courting the state’s more rural and evangelical voters in an effort to gain early momentum in the race.The selected day is also the date that a judge has set for a defamation trial against Mr. Trump filed by E. Jean Carroll. Ms. Carroll (who also has filed a separate defamation suit) won a civil case against Mr. Trump in May.Iowa’s status as the first presidential contest was seemingly upended last year, when Democrats reordered their nominating calendar to prioritize states with more racial diversity and move away from the caucus system.With Mr. Biden’s approval, the D.N.C. in February voted in favor of a new calendar that propelled South Carolina — the state that saved his candidacy in 2020 — to the first primary spot on Feb. 3, 2024, from the fourth position it held in 2020. Democrats in New Hampshire and Nevada would then hold their contests three days later.Republicans did not follow suit, keeping Iowa in first position, meaning the Midwestern state remains a key battleground for Republicans as the large field of contenders try to dislodge Mr. Trump from his position as the front-runner for the party’s nomination.Background: Iowa Isn’t Always Right, but It’s Still ImportantThe date chosen by the state party is weeks earlier than it was for the past several caucuses: In 2020 the contest was held on Feb. 3, and in 2016 it fell on Feb. 1. The last time the state held its caucuses in January was in 2012, when they occurred just three days into the new year.Iowa has not selected the party’s eventual nominee, excluding incumbent presidents, since 2000, when George W. Bush won the caucuses and then the general election.Still, many Republican candidates, and voters nationwide, see the now-firmly-red state as crucial to gaining early momentum and national attention. In a year when Mr. Trump maintains a considerable lead in the primary polls, performing well with a constituency well-accustomed to being courted by politicians is seen by many candidates in the 2024 race as vital to any chance at success.What’s Next: The Date Has Changed, but Not Much ElseRepublican presidential hopefuls will continue to court Iowans in the six remaining months before the caucuses, as front-runners and long-shot candidates alike have ramped up their appearances in the state.Mr. Trump held a rally in Iowa on Friday, where he made farming issues central to his pitch for why voters should select him, a clear nod to the state’s agriculture-based economy. And Mr. DeSantis’s wife, Casey, visited Iowa on Thursday for an event held alongside the state’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds.Several candidates will appear in the state next week for the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, advertised as “the Midwest’s biggest gathering of Christians seeking cultural transformation.” The event will feature appearances from candidates including Mr. Scott and Mr. Pence, as well as an interview with Mr. DeSantis and the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. More