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      Moms for Liberty’s School Board Antagonism Draws G.O.P. Heavyweights

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      Five presidential candidates will appear at the group’s national convention in Philadelphia this week, after a local group provoked outrage for quoting Hitler.Before the Hamilton County, Ind., chapter of Moms for Liberty achieved national notoriety this month for quoting Adolf Hitler in its newsletter, it was already at war over education in the schools of Indianapolis’s suburbs.School board meetings blew up over “critical race theory” and “social emotional learning.” A slate of conservative school board candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty faced off last year against a slate opposed to the group’s efforts to commandeer the school system. The diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator of Carmel Clay Schools was under attack. Transgender students, or the theoretical threat such students could pose, were suddenly front and center.“It was bad,” said Carmella Sparrow, the principal at a charter school in Indianapolis who had moved to suburban Carmel for the public schools but found herself doing battle with Moms for Liberty and its supporters at local school board meetings. “They were screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs. You could not conduct any meaningful business.”The group’s reputation for confrontation and controversy is very much intact, but as Moms for Liberty convenes on Thursday in Philadelphia, it is doing so not as a small fringe of far-right suburban mothers but as a national conservative powerhouse — precisely because of chapters like Hamilton County’s and their energized members.The Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-leaning human rights organization, deemed Moms for Liberty an anti-government “extremist group” this year. But five Republican presidential candidates, including former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, will be addressing its Joyful Warriors National Summit.“Looking forward to seeing all my fellow moms on a mission this Friday at the @Moms4Liberty’s Joyful Warriors summit,” Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and current presidential candidate, wrote on Twitter this week. “Nothing will stop us from using the power of our voices to shake up Washington!”Tiffany Justice, left, and Tina Descovich, two of the founders of Moms for Liberty, gave opening remarks before Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida spoke at the group’s first summit meeting in 2022.Octavio Jones/Getty ImagesThe group draws power from its diffusion — 275 chapters in 45 states with nearly 115,000 members, it claims — and the social issues that animate it. These include the teaching of L.G.B.T.Q. issues, critical race theory, and school books that it considers pornographic — all of which have captivated the base of the Republican Party.“The vote of the American parent is important,” said Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty and former school board member from Indian River County, Fla. Moms for Liberty almost certainly would not have been formed in January 2021, by three Florida mothers, were it not for the coronavirus pandemic. Disparate parents’ groups on the right had for years tried to cajole, harangue or even take over school boards, but the pandemic galvanized parental rage — first over school shutdowns, then over mask mandates and finally over curriculums that parents could see firsthand through the computer screens their children were glued to.“What Covid did was fast-tracked and expedited the concern about the materials in our children’s education,” said Christian Ziegler, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, whose wife, Bridget Ziegler, was a Moms for Liberty co-founder. “It forced parents to basically become assistant teachers. We all became teacher aides.”Conservatives who flocked to school board meetings in places like Carmel, Ind., and Franklin, Tenn., either on their own or under the auspices of local groups like Unify Carmel, soon formed chapters of Moms for Liberty, whose funding sources remain mysterious but seemingly plentiful. As the pandemic receded, issues of race, gender and sexuality rose to the fore among these parents, just as they did in the Republican Party.Critics of these groups saw their activism as demagogy, violence and opposition to public education masquerading as parental concern. At one meeting of the Carmel Clay Schools board in Indiana, a conservative protester was arrested after a handgun fell out of his pocket.Diane Hannah, a Rutgers religion professor and a parent in the school district battling the Hamilton County chapter of Moms for Liberty, said many of the members showing up at school board meetings were not parents of children in the public schools.“The problem is they have an audience of people who watch Fox News, who read the sensationalist reporting and who don’t have kids in the schools,” she said, “so they believe there are litter boxes for students who identify as cats. They believe that gay kids are bullying straight kids to be gay.”Moms for Liberty held a protest outside the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia in early June.Hannah Beier/ReutersMs. Justice pushed back on that hard, denying any violent intent from her group and accusing opponents of trying to silence conservatives.Parents “came to the schools to express their concern and to try to see what could be done,” she said, “and instead of the schools listening to the primary caregiver of that child, the person that is responsible for directing the upbringing of the child, they shut them down.”Beyond Mr. Ziegler and the Florida G.O.P., the ties that bind Moms for Liberty, which is ostensibly nonpartisan, to the Republican Party, are tight. Mr. DeSantis has long been a supporter of the group hatched from his home state, but more moderate Republican voices like Ms. Haley and Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, will also be in Philadelphia to lend their support.Vivek Ramaswamy, the self-funded entrepreneur in the race, already addressed a chapter in New Hampshire this month. He will speak to the national conference on Saturday.The speaking schedule included one Democrat, the anti-vaccine gadfly Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but he backed out on Tuesday, citing a “family holiday obligation.”The candidates who are going were undeterred by the negative attention the group received when its Hamilton County chapter published a quotation from Hitler in its newsletter: “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”After initially defending the quote, the chapter was forced to apologize.“We condemn Adolf Hitler’s actions and his dark place in human history,” Paige Miller, the chapter’s chairwoman, said in a statement. “We should not have quoted him in our newsletter and express our deepest apology.”Ms. Miller did not respond to interview requests, but Ms. Justice said the swarm of attention only proved how the news media, teachers’ unions and the liberal establishment were trying to stifle parental voices.“Never in a million years did this mom think she supported Hitler,” Ms. Justice said. “That was maybe naïve, but the death threats we’re getting now — you should see the things people send me. They want to put a bullet in my children’s head because I’m a Nazi.”But, she said, the quote pointed to the efforts by the “genocidal monsters of history,” like Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, to control their nations’ youth. She added: “This is like a slippery slope here, people. You’ve got Joe Biden saying they’re not your children. They’re all of our children.” More

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      Republicans’ Problem in Attacking Biden: They Helped Pass His Economic Bills

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      No doubt they will take swings at him anyway. But it may be more difficult to land punches given that plenty of them voted for the bipartisan infrastructure and semiconductor manufacturing bills.President Biden isn’t the only one doing a full summer embrace of federal spending on infrastructure and semiconductor manufacturing — so are some of the Republicans aiming to remove him from office next year.The White House has labeled the president’s new economic campaign Bidenomics, a portmanteau that until now has been a pejorative used by Republicans and conservative news outlets primarily to underscore inflation.But in a speech on Wednesday in Chicago about the economy, Mr. Biden latched on, with a renewed focus on the two most significant bipartisan legislative accomplishments of his term, the infrastructure bill and the CHIPS and Science Act. He hopes these measures will help brand him as the cross-aisle deal maker he sold to voters in 2020, appeal to political moderates who formed a core of his winning electoral coalition and impress upon tuned-out voters what he has done in office.One significant benefit for Mr. Biden: Republicans helped pass those bills.While G.O.P. presidential candidates and the Republican National Committee continue to paint Mr. Biden’s economic stewardship as a rolling disaster, Republican senators who helped shape the legislation say they anticipated that those accomplishments would accrue to Mr. Biden’s political advantage — as well as to their own.Senator Todd Young, an Indiana Republican who helped write the enormous bill aimed at revitalizing the domestic semiconductor industry, said the work on a law that he called “off-the-charts popular” had started with Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, during President Donald J. Trump’s administration.“The Biden administration deserves credit for advancing the proposal and, irrespective of the timing of its origin, helping it become law,” Mr. Young said.“The Biden administration deserves credit for advancing the proposal and, irrespective of the timing of its origin, helping it become law,” Senator Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, said of the CHIPS and Science Act.Al Drago for The New York TimesSenator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, more grudgingly acknowledged the president’s role in securing a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that had eluded the past two administrations.“When senators from different parties come together to work on solutions to our nation’s problems and then the president jumps in front of the parade, it does not mean he’s the grand marshal,” Mr. Cassidy said.Mr. Biden’s infrastructure bill won votes from 19 Republican senators and 13 Republican House members. Sixteen Senate Republicans and 24 Republicans in the House voted for the semiconductor legislation.It will be difficult for Republicans to land criticism when they themselves are taking credit for the same achievements. The White House on Wednesday highlighted praise for the Biden administration’s broadband spending from Representatives Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington and Gus Bilirakis of Florida, Republicans who both voted against the infrastructure legislation that funded it, along with Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.But perhaps no Republican acclaim for the infrastructure legislation brought Mr. Biden more joy than a tweet from Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama that said it was “great to see Alabama receive crucial funds.”“To no one’s surprise, it’s bringing along some converts,” Mr. Biden said on Wednesday of his bipartisan legislation. “There’s a guy named Tuberville from Alabama, a senator from Alabama, who announced that he strongly opposed the legislation. Now he’s hailing its passage.” Mr. Biden then dryly drew the sign of the cross on his chest.Steven Stafford, a spokesman for Mr. Tuberville, said that Mr. Biden and his allies had “twisted” the senator’s words. “Now that the bill is law of the land, the people of Alabama deserve their fair share,” he said.And even as Mr. Biden on Monday played up the $42 billion of broadband spending in the infrastructure law, another Republican senator who did vote for it, Susan Collins of Maine, was trumpeting the $272 million from it that is going to her state.Of course, the White House’s celebration of Republican plaudits for legislation Mr. Biden signed will matter little unless the president can persuade voters that these achievements are improving their material well-being.Mr. Biden’s defenders have long maintained that the economic policies he is highlighting in the Bidenomics rebrand are very popular with voters. The problem, these allies say, is that few people connect them with Mr. Biden.And Wednesday’s speech came at a moment when Mr. Biden’s approval ratings on the economy are in dangerous territory.“When senators from different parties come together to work on solutions to our nation’s problems and then the president jumps in front of the parade, it does not mean he’s the grand marshal,” said Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesAn Associated Press/NORC poll released Wednesday found that just 34 percent of adults approved of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy. Among Democrats, only 60 percent — and a mere 47 percent of those 45 years old or younger — approved of his economic stewardship.The millstone is inflation, which has tempered sharply from its peak last year but remains above the norm. Whether inflation is at 9 percent or 4 percent, prices remain high, which may be why the president speaks less about the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan, which passed early in his tenure and has been blamed even by the Federal Reserve for part of the surge of inflation. It is also why Republicans continue to mock what they call the inaptly named Inflation Reduction Act, which passed in 2022 on strictly Democratic votes.“It makes sense for him to emphasize the bipartisan bills that passed that should have economic impact as opposed to the totally partisan bills that drove inflation,” said former Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, who voted for both the infrastructure and semiconductor bills before his retirement early this year.Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, made clear that his party intended to lump all of the achievements being promoted by Mr. Biden into the inflationary maw, including the infrastructure and semiconductor legislation.“Both of those bills caused inflation, which is Biden’s biggest albatross in the upcoming election,” he said, “so I don’t think they did him any favors,” referring to Republicans who helped pass the measures.In his speech on Wednesday, Mr. Biden said that the pandemic relief plan had driven unemployment down from above 6 percent to below 4 percent. He suggested that his economic leadership would achieve an even broader goal he placed at the center of his 2020 campaign: restoring the soul of America.“It’s going to help lessen the division in this country by bringing us back together,” Mr. Biden said. “It makes it awful hard to demagogue something when it’s working.”The Republicans aiming to unseat Mr. Biden weren’t buying the economic kumbaya. The Trump campaign on Wednesday said “Bidenomics has created the worst economic decline since the Great Depression.” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, in a Fox News appearance, said Mr. Biden’s policies mean “everybody pays more for basic staples of life.”Republicans are loath to concede that the passage of two major bills makes Mr. Biden a bipartisan statesman. Those bills are “not only not emblematic, it’s the exception,” said Josh Holmes, a longtime political adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who voted for the infrastructure bill.In truth, more bills than those passed with bipartisan support in the last Congress. Mr. Biden enters the 2024 election cycle as the beneficiary of an extraordinary bout of productivity that included a modest gun control law, a legal codification of same-sex marriage, and a revamping of procedures for counting Electoral College votes after Mr. Trump tried to hijack that obscure process.Senators from both parties put aside their tendency to push for only the legislation they want or pocket the issue for the next election.“We can’t get in a place in the country where you don’t vote for something you believe needs to pass because you think it might help the other side,” Mr. Blunt said.Democrats point to the circumstances that Mr. Biden inherited in 2021 — the attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters determined to overturn the election results.“There was a sizable group of Senate Republicans who looked the death of democracy in the eye on Jan. 6 and decided to try to show people that democracy could still work,” said Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut.But Mr. Murphy also credited the legislative skills of Mr. Biden, honed over 36 years in the Senate.“A lot of my progressive friends were angry he wasn’t punching Republicans in the mouth so much,” Mr. Murphy said, “but he kept the door open for Republicans to work with us on infrastructure, guns and industrial policy.”Cecilia Kang More

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      Ron DeSantis Helicopter Photo Spurs Questions About Campaign Ethics

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      It’s not the first time that the Florida governor has faced accusations of inappropriately blurring the lines between his official duties and his presidential campaign.It was a photo op intended to turbocharge Republican voters, one showing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida posing in front of a helicopter on Sunday at the southern border in Texas.But the display is creating an unwanted spotlight for Mr. DeSantis: The helicopter is funded by Texas taxpayers, raising questions about the political nature of the flight and its cost.Federal law requires presidential candidates to pay the fair-market rate for noncommercial air travel and reimburse providers of flights. In this case, the Texas Department of Public Safety owns the 2008 Eurocopter, according to a Federal Aviation Administration database of aircraft tail numbers.Additionally, ethics rules in Texas bar officials there from using state resources in support of political campaigns.Mr. DeSantis’s office suggested that he was visiting the border in a dual capacity, as both governor and presidential candidate, but his official schedule as governor omitted mention of it. Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis in the governor’s office, referred questions on Wednesday about the helicopter flight to the Texas Department of Public Safety.That agency said Mr. DeSantis was briefed during his visit about joint immigration enforcement activities between Florida and Texas at the border, part of a program known as Operation Lone Star.“The briefing included an aerial tour which was provided by D.P.S. in order to give Gov. DeSantis a clearer understanding of how Florida’s resources are being utilized along our southern border and see the challenges first hand,” Ericka Miller, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said in an email on Wednesday. Mr. DeSantis’s campaign shared the helicopter photo on Twitter on Monday, the same day that he proposed a series of hard-right immigration policies in a campaign speech in Eagle Pass, a small Texas border city.Reflecting the split nature of his duties, Mr. DeSantis on Sunday wore a short-sleeve white shirt that said “Governor Ron DeSantis” on the right and “DeSantis for President” on the left.Mr. DeSantis’s use of the taxpayer-funded helicopter was first reported by The Daily Beast, which also noted that he took a boat tour of the Rio Grande as part of his visit. A Fox News reporter accompanied him by air and by water.That boat is owned by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, The New York Times confirmed. The state agency had already deployed the vessel there through a mutual-aid arrangement, and as part of the Operation Lone Star program.Mr. Redfern, in a statement, challenged that there was anything inappropriate about Mr. DeSantis’s ride on the Florida taxpayer-owned boat.“Participating in a routine patrol with F.W.C. is not outside the purview of the governor’s job as the state’s chief executive,” he said.Myles Martin, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission, said in an email on Wednesday that he was not able to comment about specific candidates or their activities. But he pointed out that federal campaign finance rules require candidates to reimburse federal, state or local government entities when using aircraft owned by them to campaign.Political committees must also pay back costs associated with others means of transportation, including boat travel.Mr. DeSantis has previously faced accusations that he is inappropriately blurring the lines between his official duties and his campaign.As Mr. DeSantis prepared to sign Florida’s record-breaking budget earlier this month, lobbyists and state lawmakers said the governor’s staff called them seeking either campaign contributions or political endorsements — outreach that would normally be made by members of Mr. DeSantis’s campaign. The conversations left the lobbyists and lawmakers afraid that Mr. DeSantis would veto their projects from the budget if they did not comply, they said.And when Mr. DeSantis signed the budget, he vetoed several projects sponsored by state Senator Joe Gruters, a Republican who has endorsed former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner. Mr. Gruters accused the governor of retribution, calling him “meanspirited” and saying he had chosen to “punish ordinary Floridians” because of a political disagreement.The governor’s office denied that the vetoes were political. And at a news conference in Tampa last week, Mr. DeSantis said there was nothing wrong with aides in his office supporting his campaign in their “spare time.”But Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, filed state ethics and elections complaints against three top staffers in the governor’s office. “Any reasonable person could infer from the reporting that our governor was holding the state budget hostage in exchange for political endorsements and donations — actions that are both unethical and illegal,” Ms. Fried said in a statement.Earlier this year, Mr. DeSantis also signed a bill shielding his travel records from public disclosure, preventing an accounting of the taxpayer funds being used to cover security and other costs during his campaign trips. More

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      New York’s Primary Elections 2023: What to Know

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      Primaries were being contested Tuesday for a range of New York City Council seats, district attorneys in the Bronx and Queens, and offices throughout New York State.Several Democratic incumbents in New York saw unusual challenges from more conservative candidates in Tuesday’s primary, with the opponents hoping to benefit from a demographic change, as an influx of immigrants is shifting some districts to the right.Incumbents easily held off primary challenges in Democratic primaries for district attorney in Queens and the Bronx; further north, a Council race in Buffalo was won by a woman whose son was shot in the Tops supermarket racist massacre.In New York City, just over 149,000 people had cast their ballots as of 6 p.m., according to the City Board of Elections. That includes 44,611 votes that were cast during the nine-day early voting period that began June 17 and ended on Sunday — less than a quarter of the early-voting turnout two years ago, when candidates for mayor were competing in the primary.There were contested primaries in New York City Council contests across the boroughs, with the races for a two-year term instead of the usual four years because of redistricting. Every seat on the City Council is up for re-election, but less than half of the 51 Council seats are being contested in primaries, and of those, 13 races feature more than two candidates — making ranked-choice voting, where voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference, necessary.Ranked-choice voting will not be used in the races for district attorney.How Ranked-Choice Voting Will Affect the ResultsThe New York City Board of Elections will reveal the first-place vote totals each candidate receives on Tuesday; if one of the candidates in the 13 Council contests where there are three or more contestants draws 50 percent of the vote or more, a winner should be declared.If no candidate hits the 50 percent mark, the board will use the ranked-choice system, but not until July 5. The board usually runs the first ranked-choice calculation seven days after the vote, but because that day falls on the Fourth of July, the tabulation will be delayed a day.If necessary, additional ranked-choice tabulations will be held each week afterward, on July 11 and July 18, said Vincent Ignizio, the deputy executive director of the Board of Elections.About 15,000 absentee ballots have already been filed, but additional absentee ballots can be received a week after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by June 27.Under recent changes to state law, voters will also have an opportunity to cure or fix mistakes on their absentee ballots. The tentative last day to receive absentee ballot cures is July 17.Because of the low turnout, Board of Elections officials don’t expect that more than three rounds of ranked-choice voting tabulations will be required.Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, a government watchdog group, said ranked-choice voting gave people more options. “We heard some voters in our 2021 exit polling say that because they knew they had the ability to rank, they actually paid more attention to more candidates,” she said.Some Key Races to WatchNew York City District Attorney RacesThe incumbent district attorneys of the Bronx and Queens both fended off challengers to win their respective Democratic primaries, according to The Associated Press.In the Bronx, Darcel Clark defeated Tess Cohen, a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, who was the first person to challenge Ms. Clark in a primary. With 65 percent of the votes counted, Ms. Clark led Ms. Cohen by more than 12,000 votes.In Queens, Melinda Katz, rebuffed a challenge from her right, defeating George Grasso, a former Police Department first deputy commissioner who attacked Ms. Katz as being soft on crime. Ms. Katz disputed the accusation by pointing to her focus on retail theft, gang takedowns and gun seizures.The challenge from Mr. Grasso came four years after Ms. Katz narrowly defeated a democratic socialist who wanted to abolish the police and end cash bail. Ms. Katz was leading Mr. Grasso and another opponent, Devian Daniels, by 27,000 votes with 71 percent of the vote counted.Ms. Clark, whose tenure began in 2016, was the first Black woman to be elected district attorney in New York. She grew up in the Bronx, was raised in public housing and went to public schools.She said that her biggest accomplishment as district attorney has been “putting humanity into the criminal justice system.”Central Harlem City Council RaceIn Harlem, three moderate Democrats are running in one of the most competitive races in the city to replace Kristin Richardson Jordan, a democratic socialist who dropped out last month.Ms. Jordan faced questions about her belief that the police should be abolished and about her far-left stance on housing development. Her name will remain on the ballot.The three Democrats running to replace her have sought to distance themselves from Ms. Jordan. They are: Inez Dickens, 73, who held the Harlem Council seat for 12 years before joining the State Assembly; Yusef Salaam, 49, one of five men exonerated in the rape of a female jogger in Central Park in 1989; and Al Taylor, 65, who is serving his sixth year in the Assembly.All three candidates gathered at Lenox Avenue and West 134th Street on Tuesday afternoon to try to woo voters. Ms. Dickens’s staff used a bullhorn, while Mr. Salaam’s team rang a bell every time a voter said they had ranked him first.Chantel Jackson, an assemblywoman from the Bronx who grew up in Harlem, came out with her nearly 2-year-old son to hand out fliers for Mr. Taylor. Mr. Salaam and Mr. Taylor had cross-endorsed each other, asking voters to rank them first and second. Ms. Dickens was endorsed by Mayor Eric Adams.The major issues in the historically Black neighborhood include the loss of Black residents, lack of affordable housing and a saturation of drug treatment centers and social service providers.The candidates have struggled to differentiate themselves. All three say they would have supported a new housing development on West 145th Street that Ms. Jordan initially rejected because it was not affordable enough.Ms. Dickens and Mr. Taylor have contended that their experience would make a difference, while Mr. Salaam, who moved back to the city from Georgia to run for the seat, has argued that it is time for a generational shift.“Knowledge is power,” Ms. Dickens said while campaigning. “If you don’t have the knowledge, working in the system is difficult.”Other City Council RacesIn Lower Manhattan, the incumbent Chris Marte, a progressive Democrat, was leading challengers Susan Lee, a consultant; Ursila Jung, a private investor; and Pooi Stewart, a substitute teacher. All the challengers emphasized public safety and education and argued that Mr. Marte was too far to the left.In the Bronx, incumbent, Councilwoman Marjorie Velázquez, was leading her opponents who criticized her because she backed the rezoning of Bruckner Boulevard in Throgs Neck, which will bring affordable housing to the area.In southern Brooklyn, three Asian American Democrats are running in a newly formed district.The candidates are Wai Yee Chan, the executive director at Homecrest Community Services; Stanley Ng, a retired computer programmer; and Susan Zhuang, the chief of staff for Assemblyman William Colton.In a district that has swung to the right in recent years, the winner of the Democratic primary is expected to face a tough general election challenge from the Republican primary winner.Vito J. LaBella, a conservative Republican and former Police Department officer, is facing Ying Tan, who works in senior services, in that primary.Buffalo Common CouncilIn Buffalo, Zeneta Everhart, a political newcomer whose son was a victim of a racist shooting at a Tops supermarket last May, appeared on track to defeat a well-known progressive, India Walton, in a primary race for a seat on the city’s Common Council.The seat represents Masten, an East Side district where the Tops is located and which is a traditional base of Black political power in Buffalo, New York’s second largest city and a Democratic stronghold.Ms. Everhart, a former television news producer who works for State Senator Timothy Kennedy, testified in front of Congress after the shooting, in which her son, Zaire Goodman, was shot in the neck but survived. Ten other people — all Black — were killed by the gunman, who targeted East Buffalo because of its large Black population.Ms. Walton, a democratic socialist, became a liberal star after she defeated Mayor Byron Brown in a primary in 2021, only to lose the general election that fall after Mr. Brown mounted a write-in campaign.In this campaign, Ms. Walton had criticized Ms. Everhart’s connections to the Democratic establishment, which included endorsements from the county Democratic Committee and Senator Chuck Schumer. But returns on Tuesday showed Ms. Everhart leading with about two-thirds of the vote, with about 85 percent of precincts reporting.Jesse McKinley More

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      Hunter Biden Isn’t Hiding. Even Some Democrats Are Uncomfortable.

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      Hunter Biden’s public appearances came across as a message of defiance by the president, who is determined to show that he stands by his son.During last week’s state dinner at the White House, Hunter Biden seemed to be everywhere. Upbeat and gregarious, he worked the pavilion with grins and gusto, shaking hands and hugging other guests.One guest who surely did not want to chitchat with him, though, was Merrick B. Garland, the attorney general whose Justice Department just two days earlier reached a plea agreement in which the president’s son will likely avoid prison time.The presence of the younger Biden at such a high-profile event so soon after the plea deal proved to be the buzz of the evening. It was all the more attention-grabbing given the risk of an accidental encounter with the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, who would rather cut off a thumb than be caught looking chummy with the target of an investigation that he had guaranteed would be conducted by the book.It did not go unnoticed either when, just days later, there was Hunter Biden getting on and off Marine One with the president heading to and from Camp David for the weekend.In the nation’s capital, where such things are rarely accidental and always noticed, the oh-so-public appearances came across as an in-your-face message of defiance by a president determined to show that he stands by his son in the face of relentlessly toxic attacks. Yet some Democrats, including current and former Biden administration officials, privately saw it as an unnecessary poke-the-bear gesture.“He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was willing to sustain the appearance issues to send a message to his son that he loves him,” said Norman Eisen, who was the ethics czar in President Barack Obama’s White House when Mr. Biden was vice president.Had he been advising Mr. Biden, Mr. Eisen said, he would have warned him about “the flak they were going to take” but added that it would be a matter of optics, rather than rules. “That’s probably more of a question for an etiquette czar than an ethics czar,” he said. “Certainly, there’s no violation of any ethics rule as long as they didn’t talk about the case.”The White House said Mr. Biden was simply being a father.“In all administrations, regardless of party, it’s common for presidential family members to attend state dinners and to accompany presidents to Camp David,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said on Tuesday. “The president and first lady love and support their son.”The visuals at the White House in the week since Hunter Biden’s plea deal was announced highlight the thorny situation for a president with a 53-year-old son traumatized by family tragedy and a devastating history of addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine. While Democrats scorn the conspiratorial fixation of the hard right on Hunter’s troubles, some of the president’s allies privately complain that, however understandably, he has a blind eye when it comes to his son. They lament that he did not step in more assertively to stop the younger man from trading on the family name in business dealings.It is not a subject that advisers raise with Mr. Biden easily, if at all, and so many of them are left to watch how he handles it and react accordingly. They take solace in the belief that many Americans understand a father’s love for his son, even one who makes mistakes, and in the assumption that it will not significantly hurt Mr. Biden’s bid for re-election next year any more than it did his victory over President Donald J. Trump in 2020. And they recognize that no matter what the family does, Hunter will be a target for the next 16 months.The plea deal last week was fraught for many reasons. It meant that the president’s son was admitting to criminal behavior by failing to file his taxes on time and would be subject to a diversion program on a felony charge of illegal gun possession, but would be spared time behind bars if a judge approves. Republicans immediately denounced it as a “sweetheart deal” by the Biden team.In fact, the decision was announced by a Trump appointee, David C. Weiss, a U.S. attorney who was kept on by the Biden Justice Department so as not to appear to interfere in his inquiry into Hunter Biden. Mr. Garland and Mr. Weiss have both insisted that Mr. Weiss had what he called “ultimate authority” over the case.There is no evidence that the president or the White House has played any role — unlike Mr. Trump, who while in office openly and repeatedly pressured the Justice Department to prosecute his perceived enemies and drop cases against his allies.But congressional Republicans have been promoting two I.R.S. “whistle-blowers” who assert that the Justice Department restrained Mr. Weiss, despite his own denial. Republicans plan to call Mr. Weiss to testify in coming days and are threatening to impeach Mr. Garland.One of the I.R.S. agents produced a message sent by Hunter Biden in 2017 invoking his father, who was then out of office, in pressuring a potential Chinese business partner to agree to a deal. While repeating that the president “was not in business with his son,” the White House has not disputed the authenticity of the message nor commented on the impression that Mr. Biden, as a former vice president, may have been used to secure business.Asked by a reporter on Monday whether he had lied when he previously said he did not discuss Hunter’s business dealings with him, the president said simply, “No.”Hunter Biden has appeared with his father since the start of his presidency, including previous trips to Camp David or the family home in Delaware. Hunter attended the first state dinner of the Biden presidency in December and accompanied his father on a trip to Ireland this spring.So in that sense, it might not have been all that surprising that he showed up last Thursday for the state dinner for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. But it quickly set off Republicans and conservative media.“Hunter and Merrick hanging out at Joe’s place?” Representative Andy Ogles, Republican of Tennessee, wrote on Twitter. “Classic Biden Crime Family.”Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri, said on Fox Business: “We saw a fancy state dinner at the White House, and you have the person who’s accused of these criminal allegations and also the department that has slow-walked these allegations, the leader of that department, seated and dining at the same table. All of this smells bad.”The tuxedo-clad Hunter Biden appeared in high spirits at the dinner, making his way around the pavilion set up on the South Lawn. He put his arm around Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator and former senator from Florida, and gave a friendly shoulder grip to Andy Moffit, the husband of Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary. Contrary to Mr. Smith, Mr. Garland was not at the same table and stayed resolutely on the other side of the pavilion, at least while reporters and photographers were there to watch.While Mr. Garland was invited weeks beforehand, some who know him suspected he must not have known that Hunter Biden would be there and likely would have been upset to be put in such an awkward position. One person familiar with the dinner said those not on the White House staff were not given the guest list in advance. Representatives for the White House and Justice Department would not say whether the president’s staff gave the attorney general a heads up.Still, even Democrats who would have preferred that Mr. Biden had not made such a public display of his son in the immediate aftermath of the plea deal bristle at criticism from Republicans who have shown little interest in nepotism involving Mr. Trump, who put his daughter and son-in-law on the White House staff and whose children have profited off his name for years.David M. Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, said the state dinner made clear what Mr. Biden wanted to make clear — that he would not walk away from his son. “That may cause him problems, but it also reinforces a truth about a guy who has suffered great loss in his life and loves his kids,” he said.Richard W. Painter, who was the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, later ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Democrat and has been critical at times of ethical decisions by the Biden team, said the president is forced to balance his personal and campaign imperatives.“These are the political calls that are made by the president,” said Mr. Painter, who according to media reports has been consulted by Hunter Biden’s lawyers about setting up a legal defense fund. “He wants to protect his political position running for re-election. He also wants to be a good father. That was his decision. You’re going to get heat. But I understand why he made the decision.”Glenn Thrush More

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      McCarthy Questions Strength of Trump’s Candidacy, Then Quickly Backtracks

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      The House speaker angered Donald J. Trump’s allies by saying he did not know whether the former president was the strongest candidate to beat President Biden.Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday declared Donald J. Trump the “strongest political opponent” against President Biden, rushing to make clear his loyalty to the former president just hours after suggesting in a televised interview that Mr. Trump might not be the Republican presidential candidate best positioned to prevail in the 2024 election.The hurried attempt at ingratiating himself to Mr. Trump underscores Mr. McCarthy’s fear of alienating the former president as he struggles to keep together his fractious House majority and withstand mounting pressure from right-wing lawmakers loyal to Mr. Trump. And it reflected the precarious position of Mr. McCarthy, who has not endorsed Mr. Trump or any other candidate, as the G.O.P. presidential primary takes shape.His latest difficulties began on Tuesday morning when, during an interview with CNBC, Mr. McCarthy wondered whether it would be good for the party to have Mr. Trump as its presidential nominee given his legal troubles.“Can he win that election? Yeah, he can win that election,” Mr. McCarthy said. “The question is, is he the strongest to win the election; I don’t know that answer.”The comment irked Mr. Trump’s allies, setting off an urgent effort by Mr. McCarthy to walk it back. He contacted Breitbart News, the right-wing news outlet, to offer an exclusive interview in which he said the former president was “stronger today than he was in 2016” and blamed the media for “attempting to drive a wedge between President Trump and House Republicans.”“The only reason Biden is using his weaponized federal government to go after President Trump is because he is Biden’s strongest political opponent, as polling continues to show,” Mr. McCarthy told Breitbart in comments he later provided as a written statement.Mr. McCarthy also called Mr. Trump Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the exchange, two of whom characterized the conversation as an apology.The immediate damage control reflected how dependent Mr. McCarthy remained on Mr. Trump as he faced criticism from his right flank, and how his alliance with the conservative media ecosystem has helped to insulate him. In the past, Breitbart has helped wage public campaigns against mainstream Republican leaders, including Mr. McCarthy’s predecessors John A. Boehner and Paul D. Ryan, who refused to bend to the will of the party’s hard right.But Mr. McCarthy has cultivated a relationship with the website. Its story on Tuesday highlighted Mr. McCarthy’s full-throated defense of Mr. Trump and accused mainstream media of taking his comments out of context.Mr. McCarthy has not officially endorsed Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and has been advised by people like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a frequent outside adviser, not to do so.Still, his speakership at critical inflection points has depended on the support of Mr. Trump, who could easily exacerbate tensions between Mr. McCarthy and hard-right lawmakers by encouraging them to defy his leadership. Mr. McCarthy has been careful to show no daylight between him and the former president.In trying to keep his fragile majority together, Mr. McCarthy has at key moments allowed the House to become Mr. Trump’s instrument of revenge and retaliation.He savaged Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, even before Mr. Trump was officially indicted in New York on charges that he orchestrated the cover-up of a $130,000 hush-money payment made to the porn star Stormy Daniels. He also authorized three of his committee chairmen to insert themselves into the criminal inquiry, demanding that the prosecutor provide communications, documents and testimony.Mr. McCarthy has likewise raged against the Justice Department for indicting Mr. Trump over his handling of classified documents. He said last week that he supported a resolution calling for Mr. Trump’s two impeachments to be expunged.Mr. McCarthy has a cordial, if not close, relationship with Mr. Trump, whom he has credited with helping him win the fraught race for speakership.Tuesday’s dust-up recalled another, far more dramatic instance when Mr. McCarthy rushed to paper over a potential rift between himself and Mr. Trump.After taking to the House floor after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol to say that Mr. Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack, Mr. McCarthy famously sought to mend his relationship with the man who remained the most popular political force on the right.Just over a week after Mr. Trump left the White House, Mr. McCarthy paid him a visit at Mar-a-Lago, smiling and presenting what has continued to be a united front. More

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      DeSantis’s Pitch to New Hampshire Focuses Heavily on Florida

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      Focusing heavily on Florida at his first town-hall event in the Granite State, Ron DeSantis drew a reception that was sometimes warm, sometimes more skeptical — especially on the issue of abortion.At his first town-hall event in New Hampshire, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida talked on Tuesday about illegal immigration in Texas, crime in Chicago, disorder on the streets of San Francisco and the wonders of nearly every aspect of Florida — a state he mentioned about 80 times.Roughly an hour into the event, Mr. DeSantis finally got around to saying “New Hampshire.”His relentless focus on Florida was at times well received in a state that will play a key role in deciding who leads the Republican Party in the 2024 election against President Biden. Mr. DeSantis’s comments seemed to especially resonate when he connected his actions at home to issues of importance to New Hampshire residents, like the flood of fentanyl and other deadly drugs into their communities.Still, his self-confident lecture about his record as Florida’s governor left the distinct impression that he believes Republican voters need what he is offering them more than he is interested in what he could learn from their questions.“Every year I’ve been governor, we’ve decreased the assumptions in our pension fund,” he boasted, digging deep into the Florida policy weeds. “In other words, you know, whatever it was when I came in was rosier. And we always reduced down to ensure that no matter what happens, our pension system is going to be funded. I think we’re like eighth-best in the country with that.”Even his jokes were Florida-centric, sometimes to the point of obscurity to the crowd of roughly 250 people who packed a carpeted banquet hall in Hollis, a few miles from the Massachusetts border. The audience reaction was muted when he joked about property prices rising in Naples, Fla., to make a point about Chicago residents fleeing south to his state.After facing criticism in recent weeks for not answering questions from voters at his rallies, Mr. DeSantis has held recent town hall-style events in South Carolina, Texas and now New Hampshire. David Degner for The New York TimesThe main ideological skepticism in the audience concerned Mr. DeSantis’s hard-line stance against abortion — a position that is popular in heavily evangelical states like Iowa but less so in more secular New Hampshire.Like several other Republican women in attendance, Jayne Beaton, 65, of Amherst, N.H., said she came with questions about the candidate’s position on abortion, and the six-week ban he signed in Florida.“I predict it’s going to be an issue for him,” she said. “With everything else” in his platform, she added, “I’m onboard and excited, but I’m less sure about abortion, and the six-week ban.”After taking criticism in recent weeks for not answering questions from voters at his rallies, Mr. DeSantis has held town hall-style events in South Carolina, Texas and now New Hampshire since Thursday. Although he has rarely faced tough questions, he has seemed relatively comfortable in these unscripted moments, asking voters their names, thanking military veterans for their service and occasionally cracking jokes.Such casual interactions are especially important in New Hampshire — the first-in-the-nation primary state whose residents are accustomed to vetting presidential candidates over and over in intimate settings.“It is a little different here than it is in any other state,” Jason Osborne, the Republican majority leader of the New Hampshire House, who has endorsed the Florida governor for president, said in a phone interview before the event on Tuesday. “We’re so small, we’re the first, so the most candidates are going to touch the state than any others.”Mr. DeSantis, who has a reputation for being somewhat socially awkward, is working hard to overcome a deficit of roughly 30 percentage points in the Granite State against former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner. He spent more time answering questions from voters in Hollis than he has at any event since announcing his candidacy in May.The audience, which included many out-of-staters who traveled hours to see Mr. DeSantis, seemed to appreciate that he had showed up. Several told him they admired his handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Florida. In a veterans-heavy state, he was also thanked for his military service and received applause when he said he was the only veteran running in the Republican field.Mr. DeSantis ducked only one question. A teenage boy invited him to condemn Mr. Trump’s efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. DeSantis declined to do so. All he would say was that he did not “enjoy seeing, you know, what happened” that day, but that he had nothing to do with it and Republicans needed to look forward, not backward, because if they dwelled on the past they would lose elections.When he was finally asked about Florida’s six-week abortion ban, Mr. DeSantis seemed comfortable answering the question and, unlike Mr. Trump, he made no effort to contort himself to appeal to more moderate voters. He said he believed that in America, “life is worth protecting,” and it was important to provide services to support low-income and single mothers.Doreen Monahan, 65, of Spofford, N.H. — who asked Mr. DeSantis the question about abortion, and the burden placed on taxpayers when women who cannot get abortions bear unwanted children — said later that she had been reassured by his answer, including his mentions of beefed-up postnatal care and adoption programs.“It’s nice that they have some options,” she said. “I have friends who waited years to adopt.”She said she had reached out to Mr. DeSantis’s campaign to ask about exceptions to the six-week ban, and felt more comfortable after hearing details.Mr. DeSantis pitched two main arguments against Mr. Trump, without naming him. The first was that change could not come to Washington if Republicans kept losing elections. The second was his theme of “no excuses” — a shot at Mr. Trump’s failure to deliver on core promises such as completing a wall along the southern border.An older man told Mr. DeSantis that he had voted twice to “drain the swamp,” but that it never happened. He wanted to know what Mr. DeSantis would do differently from Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis opened his response by recalling how exciting it was in 2016 to hear the rally chants of “drain the swamp.” But then he took two unsubtle shots at the former president.Mr. DeSantis said that “the swamp” in Washington was worse now than ever and that to “break the swamp,” a president must be disciplined and focused, and have the “humility” to understand he cannot do it on his own. The audience cheered when he promised to fire the Trump-appointed F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, and turn the Justice Department “inside out.”Mr. DeSantis made a campaign stop on Monday in Eagle Pass, a Texas city on the border.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis seemed at his most animated toward the end of the rally when a woman asked him about Covid vaccines. In response, the governor denounced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, calling their efforts to promote vaccines a “total disaster.” He also attacked big pharmaceutical companies, and highlighted a study by Florida’s health department that purported to show elevated health risks for young men who took mRNA vaccines but that was widely criticized by scientists.“These Covid restrictions and mandates were not about your health,” Mr. DeSantis said. “It was about them controlling your behavior.”The DeSantis campaign has leaned heavily into criticizing how Mr. Trump handled the pandemic, seeing widespread anger among Republicans over vaccines, masking, school closures and social-distancing measures as an opportunity to peel voters away from the former president.The crowd responded approvingly to Mr. DeSantis’s eight-minute tirade against what he called “the medical swamp.”Mark Pearson, a Republican state representative in New Hampshire who has endorsed Mr. DeSantis, said in an interview this month that he had seen the governor grow more confident as a retail politician.In May, Mr. Pearson said, he told Mr. DeSantis that he needed to engage directly with New Hampshire voters.“I told him, ‘Here’s what I suggest you do: You walk the rope line, you drop into the diners, you go to the small venues,’” he recounted. “‘But it better be real, Ron, because we can smell a phony from a mile away, because we’ve been doing this for a hundred years.’” More

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      Can DeSantis Break Trump’s Hold on New Hampshire?

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      Donald Trump is looking to the state as an early chance to clear a crowded field, while Ron DeSantis’s camp is banking on winnowing the Republican race to two.Former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are holding dueling events on Tuesday in New Hampshire, but from vastly different political positions: one as the dominant front-runner in the state, the other still seeking his footing.Strategists for both campaigns agree that the state will play a starring role in deciding who leads the Republican Party into the 2024 election against President Biden.Mr. Trump sees the first primary contest in New Hampshire as an early chance to clear the crowded field of rivals. And members of Team DeSantis — some of whom watched from losing sidelines, as Mr. Trump romped through the Granite State in 2016 on his way to the nomination — hope New Hampshire will be the primary that winnows the Republican field to two.“Iowa’s cornfields used to be where campaigns were killed off, and now New Hampshire is where campaigns go to die,” said Jeff Roe, who runs Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down. Mr. Roe retains agonizing memories from 2016, when he ran the presidential campaign of the last man standing against Mr. Trump: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.New Hampshire’s voters are known for being fickle and choosy, sometimes infuriatingly so. The joke is that when you ask a Granite Stater whom they’re voting for, they say, “I don’t know, I’ve only met the candidate three times.”Mr. DeSantis is campaigning in Iowa, another early-voting state.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesYet midway through 2023, the state — more secular than Iowa and with a libertarian streak — appears frozen in place. Mr. Trump, now twice indicted and twice impeached, is nowhere near as dominant with Republicans as he was in 2020, but he is stronger than he was in 2016, and his closest challenger is well behind him.In 2016, Mr. Trump won New Hampshire with a blunt and incendiary message, fanning flames about terrorist threats and without doing any of the retail politicking that’s traditionally required. But local operatives and officials believe that Mr. Trump, with his decades-long celebrity status, is the only politician who could get away with this.“It’s definitely not going to be something that someone like Ron DeSantis can pull off,” said Jason Osborne, the New Hampshire House majority leader who endorsed the Florida governor for president. “He’s got to do the drill just like everybody else.”Polls suggest there is an opening for a Trump alternative. But to be that person, Mr. DeSantis has miles of ground to make up.As recently as January, Mr. DeSantis was leading Mr. Trump in the state by a healthy margin, according to a poll by the University of New Hampshire. But Mr. DeSantis has slipped considerably, with recent polling that suggests his support is in the teens and more than 25 percentage points behind Mr. Trump.In a move that some saw as ominous, Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, went off the airwaves in New Hampshire in mid-May and has not included the state in its latest bookings, which cover only Iowa and South Carolina.DeSantis allies insist the move was intended to husband resources in the Boston market, which they said was an expensive and inefficient way to reach primary voters. And they said Mr. DeSantis would maintain an aggressive schedule in the state.“We are confident that the governor’s message will resonate with voters in New Hampshire as he continues to visit the Granite State and detail his solutions to Joe Biden’s failures,” Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, said in a statement.Still, so much of Mr. DeSantis’s early moves seem aimed at Iowa and its caucuses that are dominated by the most conservative activists, many of whom are evangelical. In contrast, New Hampshire has an open primary that will allow independents, who tend to skew more moderate, to cast ballots. And without a competitive Democratic primary in 2024 they could be a particularly sizable share of the G.O.P. primary vote.Iowa is where Mr. DeSantis held his first event and where his super PAC has based its $100 million door-knocking operation.Mr. DeSantis’s signing of a six-week abortion ban is unlikely to prove popular in New Hampshire, where even the state’s Republican governor has described himself as “pro-choice.” Trump supporters at a DeSantis event in Manchester, N.H., this month. David Degner for The New York TimesThe clashing Trump and DeSantis events this week have jangled the nerves of local officials. Mr. DeSantis’s decision to schedule a town hall in Hollis on Tuesday at the same time that the influential New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women is hosting Mr. Trump at its Lilac Luncheon has prompted a backlash. The group’s events director, Christine Peters, said that to “have a candidate come in and distract” from the group’s event was “unprecedented.”Mr. DeSantis’s town hall will mark his fourth visit to New Hampshire this year and his second since announcing his campaign in May.Mr. DeSantis did collect chits in April when he helped the New Hampshire Republican Party raise a record sum at a fund-raising dinner. And he has gathered more than 50 endorsements from state representatives. But before the town hall on Tuesday, he had not taken questions from New Hampshire voters in a traditional setting.During his last trip to the state — a four-stop tour on June 1 — Mr. DeSantis snapped at a reporter who pressed him on why he hadn’t taken questions from voters.“What are you talking about?” Mr. DeSantis said. “Are you blind?”New Hampshire’s governor, Chris Sununu, said in an interview that there was “a lot of interest” in Mr. DeSantis from voters who had seen him on television but wanted to vet him up close.“Can he hold up under our scrutiny?” Mr. Sununu said. “I think he’s personally going to do pretty well here,” he added, but “the biggest thing” on voters’ minds is “what’s he going to be like when he knocks on my door.”New Hampshire’s voters will indeed be subjected to thousands of DeSantis door-knocks — but not from the man himself. He has outsourced his ground game to Never Back Down, which is expected to have more than $200 million at its disposal. The group has already knocked on more than 75,000 doors in New Hampshire, according to a super PAC official, an extraordinary figure this early in the race.But Mr. DeSantis still faces daunting challenges.Mr. Trump remains popular among Republicans, and even more so after his indictments. And he is not taking the state for granted. Unlike in 2016, his operation has been hard at work in the state for months, with influential figures like the former Republican state party chairman Stephen Stepanek working on Mr. Trump’s behalf.Mr. Trump’s super PAC has hammered Mr. DeSantis with television ads that cite his past support for a sales tax to replace the federal income tax — a message tailored to provoke residents of the proudly anti-tax state. The large field in the Republican race is a key challenge for Mr. DeSantis, as he seeks Republican voters looking for a Trump alternative.Sophie Park for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis’s biggest problem is the size of the field. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, camped out in the state in 2016 and appeared to be making headway in consolidating some of the anti-Trump vote in recent polls.The entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has already spent around 20 days campaigning in the state, according to his adviser Tricia McLaughlin. Former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina is another frequent visitor. Both have events in the state on Tuesday. Additionally, the campaign of Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has already spent around $2 million in New Hampshire.If these candidates stay in the race through early next year, a repeat of 2016 may be inevitable. In a crowded field, Mr. Trump won the state with over 35 percent of the vote. In the meantime, Mr. DeSantis needs “a defining message that gets beyond the small base he has,” said Tom Rath, a veteran of New Hampshire politics who has advised the presidential campaigns of Republican nominees including Mitt Romney and George W. Bush. “He needs to do real retail, and so far there is no indication that he can do that.”Ruth Igielnik More