Primaries and Caucuses

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Christie, in New Hampshire, Reconnects With 2016 Supporters

      by

      The former New Jersey governor is testing a campaign as Donald Trump’s most vocal critic in the Republican field.Don’t ask Chris Christie what “lane” there is for him in the Republican primary. Don’t ask how someone polling at 1 percent, who is sharply critical of Donald J. Trump, could possibly win the 2024 nomination when the party base has no tolerance for attacks on the former president.“I think there’s this fiction about lanes,” Mr. Christie said on Thursday in New Hampshire, his second exploratory visit in a month. “There is one lane, OK? There are not multiple lanes. At the front of that lane right now is Donald Trump. If you want to win the Republican nomination for president, you have to beat Donald Trump and get to the front of that lane.”Mr. Christie, the former two-term governor of New Jersey and unsuccessful 2016 presidential candidate, was visiting the Republicans’ first primary state as part of a trial period that he said would culminate by mid-May in a decision about a 2024 run.He spoke to a small group of reporters who came to observe him in a discussion with a dozen people at a residential treatment program for drug-addicted pregnant women. Addiction is an issue Mr. Christie has long been passionate about, and he visited the same program, Hope on Haven Hill, eight years ago while running for president. “I thought before Covid that this is the public health crisis of our generation, and I’m even more convinced now the Covid has passed that it is,” he told the group.Afterward, he portrayed the visit as an exercise in reconnecting with people who had supported his 2016 campaign, which ended abruptly after his sixth-place finish in the New Hampshire primary, despite intensive campaigning in the state. He also met this week in Washington with former donors and campaign employees to gauge their reactions to a new run.It’s clear that Mr. Christie sees potential in being the most outspoken critic of Mr. Trump, whom he has bashed over 2020 election lies as well as for Republican defeats in the past three national elections.But that tack may be a losing proposition. Republicans have been abandoning the most prominent Trump alternative, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, to rally around the former president. A poll this week of likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center showed Mr. DeSantis falling to 22 percent, from 43 percent in a January survey by the same pollster. Mr. Trump far outdistanced rivals, at 42 percent. Mr. Christie was at 1 percent.“I don’t think that anybody is going to beat Donald Trump by sidling up to him, playing footsie with him and pretending that you’re almost like him,” Mr. Christie said. “I’m going to tell people the facts about his presidency and about his conduct. If they decide they want that again, that’s up to them.”Later on Thursday, Mr. Christie held a town hall-style event at New England College in Henniker, N.H. He spoke to about 100 students and a smattering of adults seated in a semicircle of white folding chairs.He ran through a menu of what he identified as Mr. Trump’s policy failures in office, then took aim at his urging supporters to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which Mr. Trump passively watched on TV. “And when he saw that, you know what he did? He ate his well-done cheeseburger, and sat there and did nothing.”He expressed disgust that Republicans would think of renominating Mr. Trump. “Donald Trump is a TV star. Nothing more, nothing less,” Mr. Christie said. “And let me suggest to you that if we put it back to the White House, the reruns will be worse than the original show.”Mr. Christie, who was one of the most combative governors of the modern era — eager to joust with lawmakers, hecklers or New Jersey residents who confronted him in forums — claimed, nonetheless, that what the country needed is a return to civility, and he was just the one to restore it.It did not prevent him, though, from getting in a jab at President Biden’s age. Should the president win a second term, Mr. Christie suggested, he might well die in office and be succeeded by his vice president. “A vote for Donald Trump,” he said, implying that he would surely lose, “is a vote for Kamala Harris.”Taking questions, Mr. Christie was asked by a teenager whether, given Mr. Trump’s attempt to subvert democracy, he would have voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Mr. Christie demurred. He still would have supported Mr. Trump, he said, because he preferred his policies.Afterward, voters said that they appreciated Mr. Christie’s candor but that it was too early to commit to backing him.“I hope he runs. I think it’d be good to see him in the mix this year,” said J.P. Marzullo, a retiree and former Republican state representative from Deering, N.H., who supported Mr. Christie in 2016. But he wanted to play the field. “I’m still looking at some other people right now,” he said.Josh Merriam, 19, a student from Gilford, N.H., said the evening was “the first presidential hearing-thing I’ve ever been to,” and said his interest was piqued by Mr. Christie. “I do like Trump,” he said, but then he quoted back Mr. Christie’s warning that a Trump vote was akin to a vote for Ms. Harris. That was not a prospect he cared to contemplate. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis’s Electability Pitch Wobbles, Despite G.O.P. Losses Under Trump

      by

      The former president’s rivals are seeking to tap into Republican frustration with recent election disappointments to urge a new face for the party in 2024, but it is proving to be a tough sell.Ron DeSantis knows the statistics by heart.He ticks them off as he contrasts his sweeping re-election as Florida governor with Republican losses nationwide last fall: a flip of traditionally “very blue” Miami-Dade County; the narrowness of his 2018 victory versus his landslide in 2022; the remarkable Republican voter registration gains in the state on his watch.“There is no substitute for victory,” Mr. DeSantis said last week during his first trip to New Hampshire in his still-undeclared presidential bid. He denounced the “culture of losing” that he said had engulfed Republicans in recent years, swiping at Donald J. Trump in all but name.“If the election of 2024 is a referendum on Joe Biden and his failed policies — and we provide a fresh vision for American renewal — Republicans will win the White House, the House and the U.S. Senate,” he told the crowd. “So we cannot get distracted, and we cannot afford to lose, because freedom is hanging in the balance.”Electability has emerged as one of the early pressure points in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.That amorphous, ill-defined, eye-of-the-beholder intangible — the sense of whether voters believe a politician can actually win — was supposed to be one of Mr. DeSantis’s strengths, tapping into the genuine Republican frustration with years of ballot box disappointments to urge a new face for the party in 2024. Republicans lost with Mr. Trump, the argument goes, but can win with Mr. DeSantis.But there are growing questions about Mr. DeSantis’s own ability to win over the independent and suburban voters who delivered the White House to President Biden, and whether the hard-line stances the governor has taken, including on abortion, will repel the very voters he promises to win back. His feuding with Disney — including an offhand remark this week suggesting he would put a state prison next to Disney World — has raised alarms, even among would-be allies.For years, electability has been the fool’s gold of Republican politics.Since the rise of the Tea Party more than a decade ago, Republican primary voters have consistently cast ballots with their hearts, sneering at so-called experts to select uncompromising hard-liners as nominees. Even as losses in winnable races have mounted, the mere perception of running as electable has repeatedly backfired, giving off for many Republicans the stench of the reviled establishment.Core to Mr. DeSantis’s particular electability pitch is that he won in Florida despite not shifting to the middle.Scott McIntyre for The New York Times“It has sounded like an excuse to get conservative voters to support somebody they don’t really want, even though the argument may very well be true,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster. Citing G.O.P. losses while Mr. Trump has defined the party — in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022 — Mr. Ayres added of the former president and the G.O.P. 2024 front-runner, “There is no education in the fifth kick of a mule, and yet it appears that’s where we’re headed.”For Mr. Trump’s rivals, hitting him as an electoral loser is central to chiseling away at the crucial bloc of voters who liked his presidency but might be willing to move on. It also allows them to create contrast without directly crossing him; Nikki Haley, for instance, talks about the need for a “new generation” to win.Core to Mr. DeSantis’s particular electability pitch is that he won in Florida despite not tacking to the middle: that voters, in other words, can have both a fighter and a winner.But his recent signing of a six-week abortion ban puts him on the far right on an issue that Democrats have used to mobilize their base with great success since Roe v. Wade was overturned. And congressional Republicans, who have had a front-row seat to the party’s Trump-era struggles, have pointedly delivered far more endorsements to Mr. Trump, including from Mr. DeSantis’s home state delegation during his visit to Washington this week, in a sign of the governor’s slipping traction.Mr. Trump’s team has pushed an electability case against Mr. DeSantis. A Trump-allied super PAC has run ads warning that Mr. DeSantis would go after Social Security and Medicare, touchstone issues that Democrats have used to defeat Republicans nationwide.“If anyone thinks throwing seniors under the bus is a winning argument, they are seriously out of touch,” said Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman. “There is only one electable candidate in 2024, and that is President Trump.”The DeSantis team did not respond to a request for comment.Sarah Longwell, a Republican who holds regular focus groups with G.O.P. voters, said in the immediate aftermath of the 2022 midterm losses, many Republicans had come to view Mr. Trump as an electoral loser.“Baggage is the word you’d hear,” she said.Mr. DeSantis was the beneficiary, rising as voters looked for a less polarizing alternative. “Trump with a mute button,” one voter memorably described a dream Republican candidate, she recalled.Vivek Ramaswamy, a former biotechnology executive, said the belief that electability would carry the day in 2024 was “somewhere between a wish and a mirage.”Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesThat trend, however, has dissipated of late, said Ms. Longwell, who is involved with several groups that oppose Mr. Trump.“The electability pitch really only works if there is lots and lots of polling showing Trump losing by a wide margin,” she said. In a 50-50 nation, Mr. Trump remains competitive with Mr. Biden in almost every public poll, even if Mr. DeSantis often performs marginally better.Then there are the known unknowns of 2024 for Republican voters. If Mr. Trump loses the primary, would he sabotage the winner? And what would be the impact of further potential criminal indictments?Vivek Ramaswamy, a former biotechnology executive running a long-shot Republican presidential campaign, said the belief that electability would carry the day in 2024 was “somewhere between a wish and a mirage.”“It is fatally hubristic for anybody to think they can run that math equation,” Mr. Ramaswamy said in an interview aboard his campaign bus, adding that whoever was strongest would shift with debates and world events in the coming months.Mr. Trump’s pundit-defying victory in 2016 has uniquely inoculated him from charges that he cannot win. And as Mr. Trump’s rivals in 2016 learned — like when Jeb Bush called him the “chaos candidate” — it can be especially hard to press a case about electability when trailing badly in the polls, as Mr. DeSantis does now.In interviews, Trump supporters note that he only narrowly lost in 2020 despite a pandemic that crippled American life for months, circumstances that almost certainly won’t repeat. For all the turbulence Mr. Trump creates, they say he has been tested on the national stage in a way his opponents have not.The who-can-win debate plays out strikingly differently between the two parties. In 2020, Democratic primary voters obsessed over electability before nominating Mr. Biden, who made his strength against Mr. Trump a centerpiece of his candidacy.In New Hampshire, interviews with Republican voters, activists and party officials revealed both the fertile ground for and the challenges of any electability campaign against Mr. Trump. Mr. DeSantis arrived in the state for his first appearance on Friday, headlining a dinner for the state party that the chairman said had broken fund-raising records. More than 500 people attended, arriving from across New Hampshire and beyond, as Trump loyalists waved flags outside the downtown Manchester hotel.“If I had a magic wand, I would like Trump,” said Sue Higgins, 53, a dental hygienist from Belknap County, a conservative stronghold in central New Hampshire. “He’s the only person who has the chutzpah to save America. But I’m not sure he’s the most electable.” As she waited for Mr. DeSantis to speak, she said she might support Mr. Trump again anyway.Trump supporters at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference this year.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesAllison Chaffee, 36, who drove up two hours from Massachusetts to see Mr. DeSantis, described herself as an emissary “from the group that sways elections: suburban moms.” And her message was to move on.“I hear what the moms say,” she said. “They are speaking Republican and then they vote Democrat. They only just hate Trump.”But Lynda Payette, 68, of Bethlehem, N.H., waved away any talk of Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities. “I believe that God placed him there and no man is going to take him down,” she said. “He’s electable, same as 2015.”Then she turned the electability question on Mr. DeSantis, pointing to his decision to sign a six-week abortion ban, which she called extreme. “I really think we’ve got to give a little on this abortion thing,” she said, as a friend nodded in agreement.For the sizable faction of the G.O.P. that has swallowed Mr. Trump’s falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen, electability is a particularly moot argument. They don’t think he lost.If an anti-Trump electability message were to gain ground anywhere, it might be New Hampshire, where multiple competitive seats were fumbled away in 2022 by Republican candidates whom party leaders had warned were out of the mainstream, including in a marquee Senate race.The state’s governor, Chris Sununu, who has teased a possible 2024 bid of his own, warned that Don Bolduc, the Republican who ran for Senate in New Hampshire, was a “conspiracy-theory type” candidate who would lose. Mr. Bolduc won the primary and lost in November.“What I hear from some of our activists is we’re tired of losing,” said Christopher Ager, who took over the chairmanship of the New Hampshire Republican Party in a contested fight.Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire Republican Party chairman, is less sanguine. He is the lone elected Republican on the City Council in Dover, where he needs to win over Democratic voters in a ward carried by Mr. Biden.“I don’t see any signs of pragmatic, strategic voting among primary voters,” said Mr. Cullen, a critic of Mr. Trump. “I fully believe he has the ability to get the lemmings to follow him off the cliff again, no matter how far down it goes.” More

    • 75 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Republicans Hit DeSantis Over Disney Feud

      by

      As Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida escalates a fight against his state’s largest private employer, his potential rivals for the White House see an opening to attack.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is taking heat from fellow Republicans over his feud with Disney, as his potential rivals for the White House see an opportunity to call him out as flouting traditional conservative values.Former President Donald J. Trump this week slammed the governor’s efforts as a “political stunt” and said Mr. DeSantis was being outplayed by the company.“DeSanctus is being absolutely destroyed by Disney,” Mr. Trump wrote on Tuesday on Truth Social, his media site, using a dismissive nickname for the governor. Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey also took a shot, suggesting Mr. DeSantis’s talk of punishing a business defied principles about small government.“I don’t think Ron DeSantis is conservative, based on actions towards Disney,” he said at an event on Tuesday hosted by the news outlet Semafor. “Where are we headed here now that, if you express disagreement in this country, the government is now going to punish you? To me, that’s what I always thought liberals did, and now all of a sudden here we are participating in this with a Republican governor.”The criticism reflects a growing effort by Mr. Trump and other prospective candidates to try to undermine the core argument of Mr. DeSantis’s case for the nomination: that he is the Republican most likely to win a general election. Advisers to Mr. Trump and other possible rivals believe moves like going after Disney will be damaging in a general election, if not necessarily in the G.O.P. primary.Some Republican strategists even argued that the move risked turning off the party’s primary voters, saying they were confused by Mr. DeSantis’s decision to dig into a fight against a company with broad appeal and considerable resources to fight back.The dispute between Mr. DeSantis and Disney — Florida’s largest private employer and corporate taxpayer — started when company officials criticized a bill that Mr. DeSantis signed into law last year. The law, which critics called a “Don’t Say Gay” bill, curtails instruction and discussion of gender and sexuality in some elementary school grades. (It was extended to cover all grades, including high school, on Wednesday.)In response to the criticism, Mr. DeSantis moved to exert greater control over the company through a district board, but officials at the company quietly found a way to strip that board of power. Mr. DeSantis has since moved to try to take control again, and floated the possibilities of imposing new taxes on Disney — which would most likely be passed along to people using Disney’s park — as well as building a state prison nearby.A spokesman for the governor said Mr. DeSantis believed Disney had “an unfair special advantage” over other businesses in the state.“Good and limited government (and, indeed, principled conservatism) reduces special privilege, encourages an even playing field for businesses, and upholds the will of the people,” said Bryan Griffin, the governor’s press secretary.In his post, Mr. Trump suggested that the threats could backfire and that the company could respond by pulling out of Florida. “Watch!” he wrote. “That would be a killer. In the meantime, this is all so unnecessary, a political STUNT!”The former president himself has never shied away from attacking companies he doesn’t like.Despite a steady stream of criticism from fellow Republicans — former Vice President Mike Pence, who is considering a campaign of his own, chided Mr. DeSantis on the issue in February — it’s not clear that Mr. DeSantis’s actions have hurt him uniformly on the right.The Wall Street Journal editorial board, on Tuesday evening, criticized the governor for the arc of the feud with Disney but took greater issue with Mr. Trump for his attack.“You’d think the former president would be critical of Disney’s woke turn, but his only abiding political conviction is personal advantage,” the board wrote. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Pro-DeSantis PAC Makes Hires in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina

      by

      The Florida governor has not entered the 2024 race yet, but a super PAC supporting him is laying the groundwork for his likely run.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and his allies are expanding his political footprint in key states that will begin the 2024 presidential nominating contest, with the main super PAC backing his bid making hires in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and an operative with recent Iowa experience joining the payroll of the Republican Party of Florida.The Iowa strategist, Sophie Crowell, managed the successful re-election campaign of Representative Ashley Hinson, Republican of Iowa, in 2022, and is now working for the state party in Florida, according to people familiar with her hiring. The party is serving as a way station where Mr. DeSantis has been adding strategists and policy advisers who are expected to eventually work on his likely 2024 run.Mr. DeSantis has not yet declared his bid, but a pro-DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, has acted as something of a campaign-in-waiting, hiring staff members and responding to regular attacks from former President Donald J. Trump. Almost as significantly, it has engaged with mainstream news organizations that Mr. DeSantis instinctively shuns.The super PAC previously announced that it had raised $30 million in its first three weeks, as major donors poured money into the group in a bid to slow the momentum of Mr. Trump, the Republican polling front-runner.Never Back Down has begun answering a pro-Trump group’s ads on television and is now building out a team in the important states that kick off the race. David Polyansky, who held senior posts on the 2016 presidential campaigns of former Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, is overseeing the hiring, according to people briefed on the process. The recent hires are expected to constitute only the first wave of additions in early states.In Iowa, the pro-DeSantis group has hired Tyler Campbell, who previously served as campaign manager for the state’s agriculture secretary, Mike Naig, and now runs his own political consulting firm.In New Hampshire, the PAC has hired Ethan Zorfas, another veteran of the Cruz campaign and a close ally of the strategist Jeff Roe, who is overseeing Never Back Down’s strategy.Mr. Zorfas, who served as chief of staff to the state’s last Republican congressman, Frank Guinta, attended Mr. DeSantis’s speech on Friday in New Hampshire at a state party dinner. Mr. Zorfas worked for the congressional campaign of Karoline Leavitt in New Hampshire last year. Ms. Leavitt won the primary but lost the general election and is now working for a pro-Trump super PAC.In South Carolina, the group has hired Michael Mulé, who runs a political consulting firm in Charleston that has done extensive work in the state and beyond.Mr. DeSantis’s allies have made clear that he is unlikely to formally enter the race before the end of the Florida legislative session in early May. Mr. DeSantis has more than $85 million remaining in his state-level PAC, which is widely believed to be eligible to be transferred to the super PAC if and when he enters the 2024 contest.Mr. DeSantis has already traveled to all three early states in 2023 and was in South Carolina on Wednesday, speaking in North Charleston and talking about his “Florida blueprint” for the nation. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Trump and DeSantis Super PACs Duel in TV Ads

      by

      As the Republican primary field takes shape, the groups supporting the top two hopefuls are already spending millions.The super PACs supporting the top two Republican presidential hopefuls have opened a wave of TV attack ads, part of a multimillion-dollar attempt to control the political narrative in the early days of an increasingly likely primary matchup.The two groups — MAGA Inc., which is backing former President Donald J. Trump, and Never Back Down, supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — have already spent over $7.5 million combined.MAGA Inc. has spent exclusively on cable networks, while Never Back Down has targeted states that have traditionally held the party’s earliest presidential nominating contests, according to spokesmen for the two super PACs and data from AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm.The groups’ opposing methods reflect the politicians’ disparate standings in the party. Mr. Trump, a businessman-turned-TV star who has led two national political campaigns and announced his third last year, is universally recognized inside the party and seeking to leverage that advantage with a broad attack against Mr. DeSantis.Mr. DeSantis, who has all but declared his 2024 candidacy and who remains a distant second to Mr. Trump in most public opinion polls, is still introducing himself to voters. A poll by the Republican research firm Cygnal in Iowa this month showed 18 percent of respondents said they had either never heard of Mr. DeSantis or didn’t know much about him.If he opens a presidential campaign in the coming months, as expected, his chance of defeating Mr. Trump will depend largely on his performance in the early primary states.Mr. DeSantis should have the resources to make up ground. Never Back Down has said it has already raised $30 million, part of a $110 million war chest available to his allies.MAGA Inc. reported $54.1 million on hand at the end of 2022. The group has been criticizing Mr. DeSantis in ads for more than a month. The first spot targets Mr. DeSantis’s support for cutting Social Security and increasing the retirement age for Medicare benefits while he was a member of Congress. “The more you learn about DeSantis, the more you see he doesn’t share our values,” the narrator says in the ad.The most recent spot attacks him over his supposed eating habits and his policy positions. It has aired on CNN, Fox and Newsmax.The ad accuses Mr. DeSantis of sticking his “dirty fingers” into senior entitlement programs, referring to his support for changes to Medicare and Social Security when he was a member of Congress. The spot also mocks Mr. DeSantis, a fast-food and snack enthusiast, for supposedly once eating pudding with three fingers instead of waiting for a spoon. (Mr. DeSantis has denied this.)“Ron DeSantis loves sticking his fingers where they don’t belong, and we’re not just talking about pudding,” a narrator says as an anonymous man in a suit sloppily eats pudding with his hands. “DeSantis has his dirty fingers all over senior entitlements like cutting Medicare, slashing Social Security, even raising the retirement age.”The super PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis, Never Back Down, returned fire this weekend with a spot aiming at Mr. Trump. Its ads are focused on Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, all likely to hold early primaries.The pro-DeSantis ad opens by reminding viewers of Mr. Trump’s legal troubles. The former president was arrested on April 4 and charged with 34 felonies as part of an investigation into hush-money payments to a porn actress during the 2016 presidential campaign.The spot, titled “Fight Democrats, Not Republicans,” argues that Mr. Trump should be focused on those legal fights instead of attacking a fellow Republican and asks, “What happened to Donald Trump?”“Donald Trump has been attacked by a Democrat prosecutor in New York. So why is he spending millions attacking the Republican governor of Florida?” the narrator asks. “Trump’s stealing pages from the Biden-Pelosi playbook, repeating lies about Social Security.” More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      The Republican Search for Alternatives to Trump

      by

      More from our inbox:Assad Should Be Reviled, Not RecognizedThe Overuse of Guardianship Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “How to Make Trump Go Away,” by Frank Luntz (Opinion guest essay, April 10):Republicans are tying themselves in knots trying to come up with candidates who can appeal to Trump voters but who are not Donald Trump. The latest effort is this essay by the Republican strategist Frank Luntz.I laughed and groaned when I read about the search for “a candidate who champions Mr. Trump’s agenda but with decency, civility and a commitment to personal responsibility and accountability.” Really? How could such a thing be possible?Mr. Trump’s agenda — if one can say he has an agenda other than himself — is one of building a power base by stoking grievance, resentment and division. It is inherently based on indecency and incivility.The last thing this country needs is a smoother, more effective version of Donald Trump. We need an agenda that brings us together to make America a better place for everyone, not just for some at the expense of others. We don’t need an agenda that divides, debases and weakens us, whoever the candidate.John MasonSanta Rosa, Calif.To the Editor:Frank Luntz’s eight suggestions to the Republican leadership on how to dump Donald Trump are well considered and rational. But one other rational thought that he omitted is the threat that Mr. Trump would run as an independent if he isn’t nominated for the 2024 presidential race. Even a small percentage of his hard-core base could crush the chances for a normal Republican candidate to win the general election.Mr. Trump is irrational enough to spend the funds he has raised already plus some of his own in a vindictive, spoiler candidacy. It’s not a mystery why Republican leaders don’t know how to escape their dilemma.Davis van BakergemSt. LouisTo the Editor:As one of the steadily increasing body of independents, I read Frank Luntz’s column avidly to see where there might be a case to be made on behalf of the Republicans. Unfortunately, there is an underlying premise that Donald Trump did a lot of good things for the country during his term.I fail to see them.True, the economy was in good shape before the coronavirus, but I ascribe that in large part to the hard work of the Obama years. The only program of note that Mr. Trump initiated was the tax cuts that sharply increased an already swollen deficit and that benefited our citizens who least needed the help. Far from helping the disenfranchised, he milked them for his personal benefit and widened the divide.Internationally, he alienated our longstanding allies in Europe. We are left with his “impact on the bureaucracy and judiciary.” Mr. Luntz must mean rendering governance ineffectual through starvation and converting the judiciary into a political body.Not my idea of a record to run on.Tony PellBostonTo the Editor:Thank you for this great piece. Everything Frank Luntz said resonated with me, a liberal residing among some very strong conservatives. He went the extra mile to really understand Trump voters and describe in great detail how a Republican candidate could succeed with them in a future election.It was very thought-provoking, and helped me gain an even deeper insight into my neighbors and their concerns. I will remember what he wrote.Mary HollenGreenbank, Wash.To the Editor:Frank Luntz offers messaging advice for Republican presidential candidates to attract MAGA voters away from Donald Trump: Listen and sympathize with Trump supporters, he says, emphasize decency, civility and personal responsibility. Acknowledge Mr. Trump’s successes and offer the mildest criticisms of his presidential record and personal behavior. “Make it more about the grandchildren” because these mature right-wing voters care about the kids’ future.No doubt there are disillusioned Trump voters who are ready for a different message, but how many? Racism, misogyny and apocalyptic nihilism are the hallmarks of Trumpism. Mr. Luntz’s advice is not only risible — adopt a liberal demeanor without the Enlightenment values — but also paradoxical. It presumes an electorate yearning for a kinder, gentler fascism. ​Geraldine MurphyNew YorkAssad Should Be Reviled, Not Recognized /EPA, via ShutterstockTo the Editor:Re “After Shunning Assad for Years, the Arab World Changes Its Tune” (news article, April 14):It is troubling to see that several Arab nations have chosen to embrace President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whose tenure has been marked by unspeakable atrocities and egregious human rights violations. His reign of tyranny and terror should result in ongoing condemnation, not the newfound credibility that is being bestowed upon him by Syria’s Arab neighbors.Mass killings and widespread violence that have forced millions of people to flee their homes cannot and should not be overlooked when assessing the strategic importance of re-establishing formal relations with Syria and its rogue leader.Mr. al-Assad should be reviled, not recognized.N. Aaron TroodlerBala Cynwyd, Pa.The Overuse of Guardianship Rozalina BurkovaTo the Editor:Thank you for “A Better Alternative to Guardianship,” by Emily Largent, Andrew Peterson and Jason Karlawish (Opinion guest essay, April 5).As they note, the overuse of guardianship robs people of agency in their own lives. Those with guardians are left out of important conversations about their future, they don’t develop the skills necessary to make life choices and they are prohibited from entering into legal agreements, managing their money or getting married without the guardian’s consent.Because the individual has been deemed legally incompetent, the guardian signs any legally binding contracts, co-signs any disbursements and, depending on the state, may have to sign the marriage license.For people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, families are all too often counseled when their family member leaves school to seek guardianship.Nationwide data from the National Core Indicators indicates that among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities receiving services, a staggering 45 percent are under some form of guardianship. Supported decision-making, described in the essay, provides a much-needed alternative to this denial of rights and agency.Valerie J. BradleyCambridge, Mass.The writer is president emerita of the Human Services Research Institute. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      The ‘Diploma Divide’ Is the New Fault Line in American Politics

      by

      The legal imbroglios of Donald Trump have lately dominated conversation about the 2024 election. As primary season grinds on, campaign activity will ebb and wane, and issues of the moment — like the first Trump indictment and potentially others to come — will blaze into focus and then disappear.Yet certain fundamentals will shape the races as candidates strategize about how to win the White House. To do this, they will have to account for at least one major political realignment: educational attainment is the new fault line in American politics.Educational attainment has not replaced race in that respect, but it is increasingly the best predictor of how Americans will vote, and for whom. It has shaped the political landscape and where the 2024 presidential election almost certainly will be decided. To understand American politics, candidates and voters alike will need to understand this new fundamental.Americans have always viewed education as a key to opportunity, but few predicted the critical role it has come to play in our politics. What makes the “diploma divide,” as it is often called, so fundamental to our politics is how it has been sorting Americans into the Democratic and Republican Parties by educational attainment. College-educated voters are now more likely to identify as Democrats, while those without college degrees — especially white Americans, but increasingly others as well — are now more likely to support Republicans.It’s both economics and cultureThe impact of education on voting has an economic as well as a cultural component. The confluence of rising globalization, technological developments and the offshoring of many working-class jobs led to a sorting of economic fortunes, a widening gap in the average real wealth between households led by college graduates compared with the rest of the population, whose levels are near all-time lows.According to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, since 1989, families headed by college graduates have increased their wealth by 83 percent. For households headed by someone without a college degree, there was relatively little or no increase in wealth.Culturally, a person’s educational attainment increasingly correlates with their views on a wide range of issues like abortion, attitudes about L.G.B.T.Q. rights and the relationship between government and organized religion. It also extends to cultural consumption (movies, TV, books), social media choices and the sources of information that shape voters’ understanding of facts.This is not unique to the United States; the pattern has developed across nearly all Western democracies. Going back to the 2016 Brexit vote and the most recent national elections in Britain and France, education level was the best predictor of how people voted.This new class-based politics oriented around the education divide could turn out to be just as toxic as race-based politics. It has facilitated a sorting of America into enclaves of like-minded people who look at members of the other enclave with increasing contempt.The road to political realignmentThe diploma divide really started to emerge in voting in the early 1990s, and Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016 solidified this political realignment. Since then, the trends have deepened.In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden defeated Mr. Trump by assembling a coalition different from the one that elected and re-elected Barack Obama. Of the 206 counties that Mr. Obama carried in 2008 and 2012 that were won by Mr. Trump in 2016, Mr. Biden won back only 25 of these areas, which generally had a higher percentage of non-college-educated voters. But overall Mr. Biden carried college-educated voters by 15 points.In the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats carried white voters with a college degree by three points, while Republicans won white non-college voters by 34 points (a 10-point improvement from 2018).This has helped establish a new political geography. There are now 42 states firmly controlled by one party or the other. And with 45 out of 50 states voting for the same party in the last two presidential elections, the only states that voted for the winning presidential candidates in both 2016 and 2020 rank roughly in the middle on educational levels — Pennsylvania (23rd in education attainment), Georgia (24th), Wisconsin (26th), Arizona (30th) and Michigan (32nd).In 2020, Mr. Biden received 306 electoral votes, Mr. Trump, 232. In the reapportionment process — which readjusts the Electoral College counts based on the most current census data — the new presidential electoral map is more favorable to Republicans by a net six points.In 2024, Democrats are likely to enter the general election with 222 electoral votes, compared with 219 for Republicans. That leaves only eight states, with 97 electoral votes — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — up for grabs. And for these states, education levels are near the national average — not proportionately highly educated nor toward the bottom of attainment.The 2024 mapA presidential candidate will need a three-track strategy to carry these states in 2024. The first goal is to further exploit the trend of education levels driving how people vote. Democrats have been making significant inroads with disaffected Republicans, given much of the party base’s continued embrace of Mr. Trump and his backward-looking grievances, as well as a shift to the hard right on social issues — foremost on abortion. This is particularly true with college-educated Republican women.In this era of straight-party voting, it is notable that Democrats racked up double-digit percentages from Republicans in the 2022 Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania governors’ races. They also made significant inroads with these voters in the Senate races in Arizona (13 percent), Pennsylvania (8 percent), Nevada (7 percent) and Georgia (6 percent).This represents a large and growing pool of voters. In a recent NBC poll, over 30 percent of self-identified Republicans said that they were not supporters of MAGA.At the same time, Republicans have continued to increase their support with non-college-educated voters of color. Between 2012 and 2020, support for Democrats from nonwhite-working-class voters dropped 18 points. The 2022 Associated Press VoteCast exit polls indicated that support for Democrats dropped an additional 14 points compared with the 2020 results.However, since these battleground states largely fall in the middle of education levels in our country, they haven’t followed the same trends as the other 42 states. So there are limits to relying on the education profile of voters to carry these states.This is where the second group of voters comes in: political independents, who were carried by the winning party in the last four election cycles. Following Mr. Trump’s narrow victory with independent voters in 2016, Mr. Biden carried them by nine points in 2020. In 2018, when Democrats took back the House, they carried them by 15 points, and their narrow two-point margin in 2022 enabled them to hold the Senate.The importance of the independent voting bloc continues to rise. This is particularly significant since the margin of victory in these battleground states has been very narrow in recent elections. The 2022 exit polls showed that over 30 percent of voters were independents, the highest percentage since 1980. In Arizona, 40 percent of voters in 2022 considered themselves political independents.These independent voters tend to live disproportionately in suburbs, which are now the most diverse socioeconomic areas in our country. These suburban voters are the third component of a winning strategy. With cities increasingly controlled by Democrats — because of the high level of educated voters there — and Republicans maintaining their dominance in rural areas with large numbers of non-college voters, the suburbs are the last battleground in American politics.Voting in the suburbs has been decisive in determining the outcome of the last two presidential elections: Voters in the suburbs of Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Phoenix determined the winner in the last two presidential elections and are likely to play the same pivotal role in 2024.These voters moved to the suburbs for a higher quality of life: affordable housing, safe streets and good schools. These are the issues that animate these voters, who have a negative view of both parties. They do not embrace a MAGA-driven Republican Party, but they also do not trust Mr. Biden and Democrats, and consider them to be culturally extreme big spenders who aren’t focused enough on issues like immigration and crime.So in addition to education levels, these other factors will have a big impact on the election. The party that can capture the pivotal group of voters in the suburbs of battleground states is likely to prevail. Democrats’ success in the suburbs in recent elections suggests an advantage, but it is not necessarily enduring. Based on post-midterm exit polls from these areas, voters have often voted against a party or candidate — especially Mr. Trump — rather than for one.But in part because of the emergence of the diploma divide, there is an opening for both political parties in 2024 if they are willing to gear their agenda and policies beyond their political base. The party that does that is likely to win the White House.Doug Sosnik was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and is a senior adviser to the Brunswick Group.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Tim Scott Sets a Positive Tone for 2024. Will His Party Come Along?

      by

      The all-but-declared 2024 candidate hosted supporters and donors in his home state of South Carolina with a kill-them-with-kindness message. But will it resonate with the Republican base?Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, two days after announcing an exploratory committee for president, brought his message to friendly territory.After greeting supporters on Friday at Alex’s Restaurant, a Charleston-area eatery, the senator made the case for his candidacy to a group of donors at a private retreat that took place over two days at a high-end hotel near the heart of Charleston’s downtown.Among the most pressing questions from his backers at the retreat — both longtime supporters and relative newcomers — was how his message, at this stage a mostly positive and Bible-backed homage to America’s future, might play in what many expect to be a vitriolic Republican presidential primary.Mr. Scott defended his strategy, according to two people who attended the retreat, saying he would take a kill-them-with-kindness approach, and he maintained that positivity is core to his personality and to his potential campaign. But, he added, he would be able to defend himself if he should face negative attacks.The assembled group, a mix of South Carolina-based donors and national funders committed to Mr. Scott, left the two-day event on Saturday afternoon seemingly bought in to his potential presidential candidacy. His challenge now will be getting a broader Republican audience to follow suit.“I haven’t seen him do anything offensive that would annoy anybody,” said Jim Morris, a Charleston-based retiree who attended Mr. Scott’s restaurant visit on Friday. Mr. Morris said he had not decided whom he would support in the Republican primary but criticized the party’s widespread infighting.“The party needs to get back together a little bit,” he said. “We don’t have to be the same, but we don’t have to hate each other.”Should he formally begin a presidential campaign, as is widely expected, Mr. Scott will face an uphill battle to the Republican nomination. Public polling shows that former President Donald J. Trump maintains a hold on a majority of the party’s base, with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida capturing much of the rest. And though Mr. Scott has the advantage of outsize name recognition in this must-win state, he will still have to fight for support from donors and voters with another South Carolina powerhouse, former Gov. Nikki Haley, who has already declared her candidacy.But the senator would enter the presidential primary with a financial advantage: He has roughly $21.8 million in his Senate campaign account. A handful of big-name Republican donors, including the tech magnate Larry Ellison, have given to the super PAC supporting him.Mr. Scott, the son of a single mother and the grandson of a man forced to drop out of elementary school to pick cotton, has made his compelling personal story a feature of his public speeches and interviews. He often mentions his background to highlight a rise he believes would only be possible in America.“It’s a blessing to come from a state like South Carolina, where a kid who grows up in a single-parent household mired in poverty can one day even think about being president of the United States,” he told reporters on Friday. “Only made in America is my story.”Mr. Scott’s history and positive message, however, can sometimes seem at odds with the mood of many in his party. Mr. Trump, long known for crafting insulting descriptors for his competitors, goes after Democrats and Republicans alike. The super PAC supporting Mr. Trump’s campaign has spent nearly $4 million on television ads — most critical of Governor DeSantis — in the last three weeks, according to the advertising tracker AdImpact. Mr. DeSantis’s PAC has returned fire, running an ad suggesting that the former president joined Democrats in supporting gun control.“The ones who are negative are the ones who are loudest,” said Kathy Crawford, 67, an independent voter and lifelong Charleston resident who said she would support Mr. Scott in the Republican primary if he ran. Voters, she said, “want to bring the country back together, and they want a positive message.”And Mr. Scott’s message could resonate with a key audience in the Republican primary: conservative evangelical Christians. Mr. Scott has spent significant time focusing on evangelical voters in his tour of early primary states, often meeting with small groups of religious leaders in between quasi campaign stops. His public remarks are often peppered with quotes from the Bible. And in the video announcing his presidential exploratory committee, he pledges to “defend the Judeo-Christian foundation our nation is built on and protect our religious liberty.”Mr. Scott’s Friday restaurant appearance had all the makings of a campaign stop, as he greeted employees, worked the room around a swarm of reporters and hugged patrons. Outside, supporters held signs that read “Please Run 4 President” and “Cotton to Congress to White House,” alluding to his biography.“It is always good to come home,” Mr. Scott said to applause.But Mr. Scott has already gotten a taste of the added pressure that comes with being a possible presidential contender. At stops in Iowa and New Hampshire this week, the senator did not directly answer reporters’ questions about which abortion restrictions he might support as president, at one point saying he would support a ban on the procedure after 20 weeks and another time offering a vague answer, only claiming that he was anti-abortion.In an interview with NBC News on Friday, he promised to sign “the most conservative, pro-life legislation” that Congress passes if elected president, without throwing his support behind a specific time frame.Mr. Scott will travel to Iowa and New Hampshire again next week and told reporters he also planned to make stops in Nevada in coming weeks. When asked if he was considering a presidential campaign to juice a vice-presidential nod — a belief his advisers widely reject — he disputed the claim with an air of optimism.“If you’re going to go for it, go for it all,” he said. “Period.” More