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      On the Campaign Trail, an Impossible Task: Ignoring Trump’s Latest Charges

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      Voters pressed them to weigh in. Reporters asked about pardons. Mike Pence was heckled. Republicans found it’s not easy to escape the fallout from Donald J. Trump’s legal peril.Days after the front-runner was indicted on charges of trying to subvert an election, Republican candidates in their presidential primary returned to the campaign trail acting as if nothing had changed.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida scooped ice cream in Iowa as he pitched his economic plans. Senator Tim Scott met community leaders at the southern border with a promise to get tough on immigration. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, showed up in Ukraine, a dramatic attempt to focus on foreign policy. And former Vice President Mike Pence talked up the “Trump-Pence administration” record at a town hall in New Hampshire.But their dogged attempts to create a political safe space — an indictment-free zone, where they are not asked to defend or attack former President Donald J. Trump, the dominant leader in the race and the party’s most powerful figure — kept failing.Reporters asked questions about stolen-election lies and presidential pardons. Voters wanted to know what they thought of the new charges. Trump supporters greeted Mr. Pence with a sign calling him a “traitor.” Mr. Trump, too, had thoughts.“Every time they file an indictment, we go way up in the polls,” he said at a Republican Party dinner in Montgomery, Ala., on Friday night. “We need one more indictment to close out this election.”The scenes demonstrated the nearly impossible challenge before the Republican field as the candidates soldier on in a primary like no other. As Mr. Trump rallies Republicans to his side against what he says is a political persecution, how can they move beyond a past election to talk about the future?For months, their strategy has been simple: Ignore, deflect and change the subject. But it’s an approach that became significantly harder this week, as the felony counts against Mr. Trump grew to number 78 across three criminal cases with the addition of a federal indictment in a Washington, D.C., federal court accusing him of conspiring to defraud the government and to obstruct an official proceeding, as well as other crimes.Addressing voters at a brewery in northeast Iowa on Friday morning, Mr. DeSantis focused on his usual themes: his record as Florida governor, his biography as a father and a military veteran, and his plans on immigration and economic policy. But he could not entirely escape the drumbeat of news from Washington.When a member of the audience asked whether he thought Mr. Trump’s latest indictment was a “witch hunt,” Mr. DeSantis responded that the case was “politically motivated, absolutely,” and pledged to end the “weaponization” of federal government.Mr. DeSantis tried to steer the conversation away from former President Donald J. Trump while at a brewery in Decorah, Iowa.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesLater, a reporter asked whether he would pardon Mr. Trump, should the former president be convicted in the election case. Mr. DeSantis suggested he would — before quickly trying to recast the race as about the future.“I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the country to have a former president that’s almost 80 years old go to prison,” the governor, 44, told reporters at a tire shop in Waverly, Iowa. “And just like Ford pardoned Nixon, sometimes you’ve got to put this stuff behind you, and we need to start focusing on things having to do with the country’s future.”He added: “This election needs to be about Jan. 20, 2025, not Jan. 6, 2021.”Still, there were some signs that the newest charges had pushed Mr. DeSantis, whose campaign is under pressure to appeal to more moderate voters, to inch toward criticism of Mr. Trump. After his event, he acknowledged that claims about the 2020 election’s having been stolen were “unsubstantiated” — a more direct response than he typically gives when asked about Mr. Trump’s defeat.“All those theories that were put out did not prove to be true,” Mr. DeSantis said in response to a reporter’s question.Part of the challenge for Mr. Trump’s opponents is that even Republicans who want to move past the former president defend him. Sandy Lloyd, a 61-year-old fourth-grade teacher, said she did not plan to vote for Mr. Trump, having grown tired of the frequent controversies surrounding him. Yet she said that she thought the election had been stolen and that she didn’t want to see Mr. DeSantis attack Mr. Trump.“If I’m going for a new job, I don’t go into my interview and attack everybody else — I tell them why they want me,” Ms. Lloyd said. “That’s what I want to hear. Why do I want you as president?”Others took a different view, arguing that the criminal charges against Mr. Trump would weaken him in a general election.James Smith, a supporter of Mr. DeSantis who drove from Wisconsin to see the governor, said he wanted the Florida governor to be aggressive.“I would love for him to go harder against Trump,” Mr. Smith said. “You’re not going to win the Republican nomination by not going after the leader. The only way to shake up the race is by attacking.”Supporters of Mr. Trump outside a town hall event featuring former Vice President Mike Pence in Londonderry, N.H.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesBut no candidate has a harder time escaping the political realities of the Trump indictments than Mr. Pence, who told prosecutors that Mr. Trump had pressured him to reject electoral votes in an attempt to disrupt the transfer of power.About a dozen Trump supporters gathered outside the American Legion post where Mr. Pence spoke Friday evening. They heckled him as he entered.“What Pence did is, he committed treason — that’s the bottom line,” said Derek Arnold, a protester from Derry, N.H. “He had the choice to do the right thing. And that man knows right from wrong, and we’re here to let him know that he did us wrong.”When Mr. Pence told a standing crowd of around 100 people that he had “stood loyally by President Trump,” his comment prompted scoffing from some in the room. But he was applauded after he finished his thought: “And I never changed my commitment to him until the day came that my oath to the Constitution required me to do otherwise.”Mr. Pence answering questions during a campaign town hall event Friday night in Londonderry, N.H.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesAsked if he would pardon Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence was noncommittal.“I really don’t understand why some candidates in the Republican primary are assuming that the president is going to be found guilty in these various cases,” Mr. Pence said. “Let him make his case in court, and if I have the privilege of being president of the United States, whatever pardon request comes before me, I’ll always give a thoughtful, prayerful consideration.”Around a dozen people in the crowd said they were still making up their minds on whom to support. Some were looking for a Trump alternative, but not all considered the charges against him disqualifying.“I feel bad that the country has to go through that, never mind Trump himself,” Fran York said of the prosecutions of Mr. Trump. “I’m not sure that what he did was so bad that he should be indicted.”Mr. York, who is supporting Mr. Pence, said he would vote for Mr. Trump again if he won the nomination.Mr. Scott, who has said little about the election indictment, went to Yuma, Ariz., to promote his plan to spend $10 billion on the border wall started by Mr. Trump. There, too, he repeated his accusation that the Justice Department was “hunting Republicans.”“My perspective is that the D.O.J. continues to weaponize their power against political opponents,” he said, deflecting a question from an NBC reporter about whether Mr. Trump’s legal cases were dominating the campaign.Perhaps the only candidate other than Mr. Trump who was eager to talk about the indictment was Mr. Christie, who has focused his campaign on undercutting the former president. Mr. Christie has struggled to break 3 percent in recent polling of the contest.“It’s an aggressive indictment,” he said from a train headed to Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday night. “But what I believe is a much more important question than the criminality, in the context of this campaign season, is the fact that he’s morally responsible for Jan. 6.”Charles Homans More

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      Mississippi Primary Election 2023: Live Results

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      Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, is seeking a second term in office against two long-shot primary challengers. He is expected to face off in November against a state public service commissioner, Brandon Presley, a Democrat and a second cousin of Elvis Presley. More

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      Some Democrats Don’t Like Eric Adams. But Can They Beat Him in 2025?

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      A group of mostly left-leaning Democrats held an early strategy meeting to discuss how they might defeat Mr. Adams in 2025. It won’t be easy.On a warm July evening, as Mayor Eric Adams visited Staten Island to highlight his work on public safety at a town hall meeting, a cross section of some of New York City’s progressive class was nearby, plotting how to make the mayor’s first term his last.The group had been summoned for a “completely confidential” dinner meeting to discuss how to take on “a dangerous man,” according to an invitation obtained by The New York Times.The dinner included members of some of the city’s most important left-leaning institutions, including the Working Families Party, and staffers from former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. There was also a potential challenger they were hoping to recruit: Antonio Reynoso, the 40-year old Dominican American lawmaker who succeeded Mr. Adams as Brooklyn borough president.As the group dined on a vegetarian menu of homegrown squash Parmesan and beet salad, they strategized over how to harness festering discontent and assemble a coalition capable of beating the mayor in the 2025 Democratic primary — an unusual pushback to a party incumbent, especially this early in his tenure.“This is a room full of people who truly believe in the ability to go up against Adams and win,” said Cristina González, one of the hosts, on Thursday, after word of the meeting leaked.Mr. Adams will likely be a heavy favorite to capture a second term.He remains broadly popular with the coalition of Black and Latino voters outside of Manhattan that sent him to Gracie Mansion. He has already built a campaign war chest that is expected to hit $4.6 million with matching funds, and barring a dramatic reversal, the incumbent mayor would likely enjoy the support of the city’s most powerful labor unions.Evan Thies, a spokesman for the Adams campaign, said in a statement that the mayor had lowered crime and “invested billions of dollars in working people” and that polls showed he had strong support from New Yorkers.“The fact that these folks would rather play politics in some back room two years before the election, instead of help the mayor help working people, tells you all you need to know about what they really care about: their own power,” he said.Liberal and progressive Democrats have made little secret of their dismay over Mr. Adams, a centrist former police captain who ran on a public safety message. They have assailed his moves to cut library funding and universal prekindergarten, his efforts to delay the closing of the Rikers Island jail complex, and his response to the migrant crisis, among other policies.The dinner was perhaps the clearest sign yet that they are now openly strategizing how best to put forward a formidable challenger.Ms. González, an alumni of the de Blasio administration who hosted the dinner with her partner Janos Marton, a civil rights advocate who ran for Manhattan district attorney in 2021, at their Staten Island home, described the event as part of a “serious effort” to rally around a progressive candidate who can actually win.Mr. Reynoso, the only elected official at the dinner, acknowledged that the left was “trying to coalesce early to find one candidate. The strategy is to start early and find one strong candidate this time.”In an interview, Mr. Reynoso said he was not interested.Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president, said he was uninterested in challenging Mr. Adams, but understood the desire for the left to coalesce behind one candidate as early as possible.Hilary Swift for The New York Times“I got elected to be the borough president of Brooklyn,” Mr. Reynoso said. “It’s a big borough, and I have a big job.”Mr. Adams, the city’s second Black mayor, has made a habit of using the left as a foil, blaming progressives for spikes in crime because they support policies like bail reform and favor reducing the amount of money spent on policing. The mayor has challenged the definition of what it means to be a progressive and often refers to himself as the “original progressive.”But Mr. Adams has also faced a series of negative headlines in recent weeks and has struggled to respond to the migrant crisis — a situation that has soured his relationship with President Biden and led to people sleeping on the streets in Midtown Manhattan.Progressives are broadly unhappy with Mayor Adams and are looking for a challenger to face him in 2025. Dave Sanders for The New York Times“It’s clear that Adams is vulnerable. What remains to be determined is, if there’s a viable candidate to challenge him,” said Rebecca Katz, a liberal operative who has not been part of the anti-Adams discussions, but works with Representative Jamaal Bowman, whose name has been floated as a possible opponent.Some progressive leaders appear to be coalescing around the idea that the ideal candidate would be a Black or Latino Democrat running to the left of Mr. Adams, but with appeal to a broader ideological range of voters. Even so, that candidate would face a daunting challenge.Jessica Ramos, a state senator from Queens, has discussed running with people in politics, but has not made a decision, according to a person familiar with the matter.Zellnor Myrie, a state senator who represents the Brooklyn district Mr. Adams once did, is also said to be in the early stages of considering a run. Mr. Myrie, a lawyer who has made affordable housing a top priority in Albany, declined to comment. But a person familiar with his thinking said he had not moved toward assembling a campaign — despite being pushed by political allies.Others have tried to convince Mr. Bowman to enter the race. Mr. Bowman, an outspoken former middle school principal, has made no secret of his differences with Mr. Adams over policing and city resources for schools and libraries, but he currently lives in Yonkers in Westchester County and told The Times this spring that he was not interested in running.New York City officials were criticized for forcing migrants to sleep and stay outside for days, outside the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesOther attendees at the July dinner included Rodrigo Camarena, director of Immigration Advocates Network, and Nisha Agarwal, a former commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs under Mr. de Blasio.Ms. González, who is Puerto Rican, said it was important that a viable challenger to Mr. Adams be a person of color. The mayor has already said that certain attacks against him were based on his race. He has begun to lean heavily on his base of religious supporters.“It needs to be a person of color to inoculate them against specific kinds of attacks,” she said. “Those are also the people who are most impacted by his policies right now — it’s important to have someone from the community who is most impacted.”In the 2021 mayoral primary, the city’s progressives had a disastrous showing. The former city comptroller, Scott Stringer, faced sexual harassment allegations and was abandoned by many of his progressive endorsers. Some on the left supported Dianne Morales, who faced a revolt from her staff. Much of the left finally threw their support behind Maya Wiley, a former top lawyer for Mr. de Blasio; she finished a distant third.“Whoever challenges this mayor has to be equipped — nothing amateurish,” said Councilwoman Shahana Hanif, a co-chairwoman of the Council’s progressive caucus. “We really need to prop up someone who will unite a broad coalition, understand the progressives and work in collaboration with us.”Alyssa Cass, a political strategist with Slingshot Strategies who worked on Mr. Yang’s campaign, said the mayor’s opponents should be looking someone with broad ideological appeal.“Any challenge to Mayor Adams that hopes to be anything other than a pipe dream requires a candidate who can make the case that the functioning of the city is reaching a point of no return — and can make that case with just about every voter who did not support the mayor in 2021,” Ms. Cass said.Another dinner guest was Bill Neidhardt, a former press secretary for Mr. de Blasio who worked on Brandon Johnson’s winning mayoral campaign in Chicago. He said the discussion focused on “frustrations with the Adams administration,” including his response to wildfire smoke that darkened the skies this summer.There was “a lot of shared urgency about the moment we’re in right now,” he said, adding: “Also Cristina might be the best chef in all of Staten Island.” More

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      Is Trump Leaving an Opening in Iowa?

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      The former president’s poll numbers are still strong. But the caucuses could be his rivals’ best chance to make him look vulnerable.Donald J. Trump’s standing in our Iowa poll is weaker than in our national results.Christopher Smith for The New York TimesDonald J. Trump has dominated the Republican Party for eight years, and our recent poll results show that he is dominating the Republican primary race again. So it’s not wrong to wonder whether Mr. Trump is simply undefeatable — even after his third criminal indictment.But there was one moment — one fleeting moment — when it really did look like Republicans might move on. It was in the aftermath of the 2022 midterm election, when Mr. Trump’s party and his preferred candidates fared far worse than expected. It undermined the perception of his strength and dominance. He was a loser.With that in mind, consider our first New York Times/Siena College survey of the Iowa caucus, released Friday. It is by no means a bad survey for Mr. Trump: He leads Ron DeSantis by a comfortable margin, 43 percent to 20 percent. Tim Scott sits even further back, at 9 percent.But Mr. Trump’s position is unequivocally weaker in our Iowa poll than in our nationwide survey. His support is well beneath 50 percent in Iowa, and his opponents seem stronger. Mr. DeSantis has the highest favorability ratings in the poll, and clear majorities of likely caucusgoers consider him more “likable” and “moral” than the former president. Mr. Trump’s electability advantage over Mr. DeSantis is also far smaller — just 9 points — than it is nationwide.A 23-point deficit is still a daunting gap for Mr. DeSantis. But unlike the national poll, our Iowa poll has revealed a few cracks in Mr. Trump’s armor. If Mr. DeSantis (or another challenger) could ever pry those cracks open and win the Iowa caucuses — the first nominating contest of the race — one wonders what kind of effect that might have on Republican voters.After all, the only time Republicans were prepared to move on from Mr. Trump was the one time he and his supporters had to accept that he lost, after the 2022 midterm election.A few other tidbits from our polling this week (moderately wonky)Will Hurd, the former Texas congressman, narrowly missed the qualifying threshold for the first G.O.P. debate on Aug. 23 in our national poll earlier this week. He had the support of 0.57 percent of Republican primary voters, near the 1 percent needed to help him qualify for the event (Mr. Hurd has not yet qualified for the debate; The Times is tracking who has qualified, here). Usually, 0.57 percent would be rounded to 1 percent, but while the poll was being conducted we decided that wasn’t appropriate for this survey. Republicans had set a 1 percent threshold to winnow the debate field; rounding to the nearest whole number didn’t seem like it was in the spirit of the cutoff for candidates in this case.Vivek Ramaswamy also had cause to be disappointed in our polls. He received 2 percent of the vote in our national survey, compared with about 6 percent in the FiveThirtyEight polling average and over 10 percent in some online polls. I’ll offer two basic theories for why he did worse in our poll.One is that it’s about survey administration: In an online survey, you see a long list of candidates, read them over, and then you choose one. In our phone survey, you either immediately volunteered your preference after hearing the question, or you heard a list of more than a dozen candidates and chose an answer at the end. If you’re an undecided voter, the online setting might help you find and choose someone you’re not especially familiar with. You may be overwhelmed on the phone, and even if you liked Mr. Ramaswamy when he was mentioned 20 seconds earlier, you could forget by the time the interviewer is done asking the question.A second possibility is that it’s about the kind of voters who participate in the big online panels that power so many polls today. Maybe they’re, shall we say, a little too online — and perhaps unusually likely to be aware of Mr. Ramaswamy’s campaign. My guess is that this is probably a factor: Online polls recruited by mail and by YouGov, the gold standard of this kind of polling, don’t show Mr. Ramaswamy doing so well, even though they were also conducted online.This Times/Siena national poll used an elaborate model of the likely Republican primary electorate, but it’s hard to say it made any difference in the result. Mr. Trump would have held a commanding lead with at least 50 percent of the vote no matter how we defined G.O.P. primary voters.The Democratic primary, however, is a case where more sophisticated modeling of the primary electorate might make a huge difference. While President Biden leads Robert F. Kennedy Jr. by a wide margin, 64 percent to 13 percent, among Democratic leaners, he enjoys a far wider lead — 74 percent to 8 percent — among those Democratic leaners who have ever actually voted in a primary, including 92 percent to 4 percent among those who voted in a Democratic primary in 2022.My guess: if we had done an elaborate Democratic primary poll — and we did not, in the absence of a competitive race — Mr. Biden’s lead would have grown.As I mentioned a few days ago, we’ve started to mull whether and how we can use respondents who begin to take our polls but don’t complete the interview. In our longer national surveys, about 15 percent of our respondents fall into this category, and they’re the kind of less educated and less reliable voters whom we want included in our polls.Interestingly enough, including these voters might have made a slight difference in our national poll this week. Rather than being tied, Mr. Trump would have led Mr. Biden by one point, 43 percent to 42 percent, if the survey had included respondents who decided to stop taking the survey before it was completed.It’s not clear whether this is just a random blip or indicative of a systematic tendency for these drop-off voters to back Republican candidates. Until now, we haven’t had the data necessary to fully evaluate this issue. In particular, we haven’t had the self-reported educational attainment of these respondents. But it’s something we’ve begun to track and may ultimately incorporate into our design. More

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      Who Are Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Donors?

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      A super PAC backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bid for the Democratic nomination received $5 million from a major Republican donor who has supported Donald J. Trump in the past.As he cut into steak frites at the recent fund-raiser he hosted for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long-shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, the financier Omeed Malik surveyed the crowd.What he saw on that July evening was unusual, he said: Environmentalists and admirers of Mr. Kennedy’s family were mingling at a restaurant in Sag Harbor, N.Y., alongside Hollywood figures, hippies and right-wing conservatives.“It was a complete hodgepodge of characters that I have never seen at a political event,” recalled Mr. Malik, an investor and merchant banker based in Palm Beach, Fla. “Because everyone is attracted to him for a different reason.”Fueled by an unusual combination of views — passionate environmentalism, for example, alongside a deep distrust of the pharmaceutical industry and public health orthodoxy — Mr. Kennedy’s campaign has stood out for its curious coalition of Democrats, Republicans and independents of varying backgrounds.Financial filings this week from two super PACs supporting him, which together have raised nearly $10.5 million, seemed to underscore this theme. The pro-Kennedy super PAC American Values 2024 received the bulk of its money from two megadonors: one who has contributed tens of millions to Republican causes, and another who has backed both Democrats and Republicans.Timothy Mellon, a Wyoming Republican who contributed $53 million in stock to a Texas fund paying for construction of a new border wall, gave that super PAC $5 million. Gavin de Becker, a security executive who describes himself as a Democrat and consulted for the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos during Mr. Bezos’s text message scandal, donated $4.5 million.“The fact that Kennedy gets so much bipartisan support tells me two things,” Mr. Mellon, previously a top donor to former President Donald J. Trump, said in a statement issued by American Values 2024. “That he’s the one candidate who can unite the country and root out corruption, and that he’s the one Democrat who can win the general election.”In 2019 and 2020, Mr. Mellon gave $70 million combined to super PACs pushing for Republican control of the House and Senate and to one supporting Mr. Trump, records show.The support from Republicans is likely to heighten suspicions about Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy among Democrats who see him as a pawn in an effort to undermine President Biden. Dozens of venture capitalists, tech executives, real-estate builders and investors with varying political alliances also contributed to the Kennedy-aligned PACs.Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com — and one of the most prominent supporters of the effort to overturn the 2020 election — gave $100,000 in Bitcoin to Common Sense, another PAC supporting Mr. Kennedy.Abby Rockefeller, a daughter of the investment banker David Rockefeller who runs a cannabis farm in upstate New York, gave $100,000 to the American Values 2024 PAC. She said in a statement that she always voted for Democrats.Common Sense reported a total fund-raising haul of about $711,000 in the three-month period ending in June.A photo of Mr. Kennedy with his father, Robert F. Kennedy, was shown at a speech the Democratic presidential candidate gave in Boston in April. Many of the Kennedys have expressed anguish at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s political stances. Brian Snyder/ReutersMr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, the scion of a storied American political dynasty and a hero of the so-called medical freedom movement — which has seeded public skepticism about vaccines and other public health measures — is unlikely to prevail in his quest for the Democratic nomination.More than five months before the Iowa caucuses, he is trailing far behind Mr. Biden. He has the support of just 13 percent of registered voters compared with Mr. Biden’s 64 percent, according to a recent New York Times/Siena poll.And his financial support is likely to pale in comparison with the powerhouse of fund-raising and institutional support behind the incumbent president.But the fact that some of deep-pocketed supporters include some who favored Mr. Trump in the past suggest that those numbers may have room to grow.“I don’t think he has the influential tech leaders,” said Charles Phillips, a venture capitalist who co-founded a nonpartisan PAC to support candidates with strategies for economic growth in Black communities. Mr. Kennedy, he added, “won’t get broad support. Most of the tech guys supporting him are really Republicans.”Mr. Mellon, the grandson of former Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, also gave $5 million last quarter to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC dedicated to electing Republicans to the House of Representatives, and $1 million to Fair Courts America, a committee backed by other major Republican donors that has supported conservative candidates for state supreme court seats.Patrick Byrne, the former head of Overstock.com and a supporter of the effort to overturn the 2020 election, is one of the largest donors to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesSome of Mr. Kennedy’s smaller-scale supporters said their admiration was driven by Mr. Kennedy’s unfiltered quality as well as his willingness to take on legacy institutions like the mainstream news media (which he says has censored him), the banking system (which he believes takes advantage of consumers), the medical establishment (he has said that big government has been co-opted by the pharmaceutical industry), and the government’s response to Covid-19, which he has said was both overreaching and ineffective.Some are willing to set aside his more extreme views — including his vaccine skepticism and his conspiracy theories about anti-depressants and “Deep State” corruption — because they admire what they see as his integrity.The Sag Harbor dinner last month drew more than 30 attendees who each pledged $6,600 to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, the maximum amount that can be contributed by individuals to a campaign for a primary and a general-election bid combined, according to Mr. Malik. During the evening, Mr. Kennedy took questions on subjects including Russia’s war in Ukraine and cryptocurrency.In June, Common Sense PAC hosted a fund-raiser in San Francisco with two tech investors, David Sacks — a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Republican donor who has supported Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — and Chamath Palihapitiya, a former senior executive at Facebook.Nick Corasaniti More

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      The Republicans Who Could Qualify for the First Presidential Debate

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      At least seven candidates appear to have made the cut so far for the first Republican presidential debate on Aug. 23. Trump(may not attend) Trump(may not attend) The latest polling and fund-raising data show that the playing field is narrowing for the Republican presidential debate scheduled for later this month. Although former President Donald J. […] More

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      Pro-Haley Group Plans $13 Million Ad Push in Iowa and New Hampshire

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      Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, has been struggling to gain traction in a crowded Republican field dominated by Donald Trump.A super PAC supporting Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign said on Tuesday that it had reserved more than $13 million in television and digital ads in Iowa and New Hampshire starting in August. The outlay is the first major advertising push in support of Ms. Haley since she became the first Republican to challenge former President Donald J. Trump this year.The group, SFA Fund Inc., is pouring $7 million into ads in Iowa and $6.2 million into ads in New Hampshire that will run over the next nine weeks. The first television ad features Ms. Haley, 51, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, talking tough on China at a political rally, arguing that the country’s leaders “want to cover the world in communist tyranny.”A voice-over says, “Nikki Haley: tough as nails, smart as a whip, unafraid to speak the truth.”Polls show Ms. Haley stuck in the single digits in a primary race that has been dominated by Mr. Trump.The first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign showed Mr. Trump with the support of 54 percent of likely Republican primary voters, while Ms. Haley trailed far behind with just 3 percent, the same level of support as former Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Ms. Haley has until now relied on free television and press coverage that has come from her brisk clip of events and appearances in Iowa and New Hampshire, where she has spent more time campaigning than most of her rivals.In a memo published this month, Mark Harris, SFA Fund’s lead strategist, said the group was gearing up to begin “an aggressive voter contact campaign” as Ms. Haley enters the next phase of the race. “Nikki Haley understands that China’s growing influence poses a monumental threat to the United States,” Mr. Harris said in a statement announcing the ads.In Iowa, Republican campaigns have spent $31.8 million so far this year, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. The $7 million campaign would make SFA Fund the second-largest spender in the state, behind only Mr. Scott’s Trust in the Mission PAC, or TIM PAC, which has spent more than $15.3 million. Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has spent the next-highest amount, with $3.4 million in ads.Spending in New Hampshire has totaled only $3.4 million. TIM PAC has been the largest spender there, too, having invested $1.1 million in ads.Ms. Haley raised $7.3 million through her presidential campaign and affiliated committees from April through June, a modest sum that nevertheless revealed her robust appeal to small donors. SFA Fund had $17 million in cash on hand as of the end of June. More