Republican Party

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

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

      by

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

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Biden Shores Up Democratic Support, but Faces Tight Race Against Trump

      by

      A New York Times/Siena College poll found that President Biden is on stronger footing than he was a year ago — but he is neck-and-neck in a possible rematch against Donald Trump.President Biden is heading into the 2024 presidential contest on firmer footing than a year ago, with his approval rating inching upward and once-doubtful Democrats falling into line behind his re-election bid, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.Mr. Biden appears to have escaped the political danger zone he resided in last year, when nearly two-thirds of his party wanted a different nominee. Now, Democrats have broadly accepted him as their standard-bearer, even if half would prefer someone else.Still, warning signs abound for the president: Despite his improved standing and a friendlier national environment, Mr. Biden remains broadly unpopular among a voting public that is pessimistic about the country’s future, and his approval rating is a mere 39 percent.Perhaps most worryingly for Democrats, the poll found Mr. Biden in a neck-and-neck race with former President Donald J. Trump, who held a commanding lead among likely Republican primary voters even as he faces two criminal indictments and more potential charges on the horizon. Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump were tied at 43 percent apiece in a hypothetical rematch in 2024, according to the poll.Mr. Biden has been buoyed by voters’ feelings of fear and distaste toward Mr. Trump. Well over a year before the election, 16 percent of those polled had unfavorable views of both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, a segment with which Mr. Biden had a narrow lead.John Wittman, 42, a heating and air conditioning contractor in Phoenix, is a Republican but said he would vote for Mr. Biden if former President Donald J. Trump were the Republican nominee. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times“Donald Trump is not a Republican, he’s a criminal,” said John Wittman, 42, a heating and air conditioning contractor from Phoenix. A Republican, he said that even though he believed Mr. Biden’s economic stewardship had hurt the country, “I will vote for anyone on the planet that seems halfway capable of doing the job, including Joe Biden, over Donald Trump.”To borrow an old political cliché, the poll shows that Mr. Biden’s support among Democrats is a mile wide and an inch deep. About 30 percent of voters who said they planned to vote for Mr. Biden in November 2024 said they hoped Democrats would nominate someone else. Just 20 percent of Democrats said they would be enthusiastic if Mr. Biden were the party’s 2024 presidential nominee; another 51 percent said they would be satisfied but not enthusiastic.A higher share of Democrats, 26 percent, expressed enthusiasm for the notion of Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee in 2024.Mr. Biden had the backing of 64 percent of Democrats who planned to participate in their party’s primary, an indicator of soft support for an incumbent president. Thirteen percent preferred Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and 10 percent chose Marianne Williamson.Among Democratic poll respondents who have a record of voting in a primary before, Mr. Biden enjoyed a far wider lead — 74 percent to 8 percent. He was ahead by 92 percent to 4 percent among those who voted in a Democratic primary in 2022.The lack of fervor about Mr. Biden helps explain the relatively weak showing among small donors in a quarterly fund-raising report his campaign released two weeks ago.A common view toward Mr. Biden is illustrated in voters like Melody Marquess, 54, a retiree and left-leaning independent from Tyler, Texas. Ms. Marquess, who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 as “the lesser of two evils,” was not happy about his handling of the pandemic, blaming him for inflation and a tight labor market. Still, she said she would again vote for Mr. Biden, who is 80 years old, over Mr. Trump, who is 77.“I’m sorry, but both of them, to me, are too old,” she said. “Joe Biden to me seems less mentally capable, age-wise. But Trump is just evil. He’s done horrible things.”More Democrats Support Biden As Nominee Than a Year AgoDemocrats who think their party should renominate Joseph R. Biden in 2024 More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      More Republicans Say Trump Committed Crimes. But They Still Support Him.

      by

      The share of Republicans saying the former president has committed “serious federal crimes” has grown modestly, according to a new poll from The New York Times and Siena College.Donald J. Trump famously marveled during his first presidential campaign that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and he would not lose any support.He now seems intent on testing the premise of unwavering loyalty behind that statement.The federal charges against the former president seem to have cost him few, if any, votes in the 2024 election, even as the number of Republicans who think he has committed serious federal crimes has ticked up.He continues to hold strong in a hypothetical general election matchup, despite the fact that 17 percent of voters who prefer him over President Biden think either that he has committed serious federal crimes or that he threatened democracy with his actions after the 2020 election, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll.“I think he’s committed crimes,” said Joseph Derito, 81, of Elmira, N.Y. “I think he’s done terrible things. But he’s also done a lot of good.”Despite his distaste for the former president, Mr. Derito said he was likely to vote for Mr. Trump again. The alternative, he said, is far less palatable.“I used to lean toward the Democratic Party because they were for the working middle class,” he said. Now, he added, “I don’t like Trump, but I like the Democrats a lot less.”Voter Attitudes About the Trump InvestigationsThinking about the investigations into Donald J. Trump, do you think that he has or has not committed any serious federal crimes? More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      The Biden Family Drama Is Far From Over

      by

      Gail Collins: Bret, I suspect our first big argument today will be about Hunter Biden. But I feel sorta obliged to start with Donald Trump. I mean, how often do you have a former president facing the threat of multiple indictments on alleged transgressions ranging from paying hush money over a sex scandal to prompting a riot that stormed the Capitol to trying to fix an election?Bret Stephens: While reportedly ordering an employee to delete potentially incriminating security camera footage in Mar-a-Lago. My preferred nickname for the 45th president, as you know, is Benito Milhous Caligula, but maybe we could switch that to G. Gordon Berlusconi.Gail: Said former president is, of course, the front-runner for the next Republican nomination.What’s your take on all this?Bret: Two thoughts. First, Trump belongs in prison, assuming Jack Smith, the special counsel in the documents matter, can prove his case in court. At a minimum, it looks to me like an open-and-shut case of obstruction of justice. Apparently, nobody told The Donald that the cover-up is usually worse than the crime.Gail: From your lips to God’s ears.Bret: Second, the more the legal system comes after Trump, the more the Republican rank-and-file will rally around him as both a truth-teller and a martyr. The hard right increasingly views the U.S. justice system in ways that the far left traditionally has: as a rigged, corrupt system in which sinister insiders use the levers of power to advance the interests of the elite at the expense of ordinary people.And of course, the Hunter Biden saga plays right into that narrative.Gail: Knew you’d be dying to go on to Hunter. I thought the plea deal was pretty reasonable. His crimes were tax evasion and lying when he bought a gun by failing to acknowledge he was a drug addict. I hate the idea of virtually anybody being able to obtain a gun. But even I do not expect drug addicts will voluntarily share that information when they attempt to buy one. So, definite criminal behavior but not a real shocker.Bret: If Hunter had been poor and Black, would the justice system have been as indulgent?Gail: A fair point. But in most places, a poor Black defendant from a responsible family who’s subsequently been living a sober, well-supervised life probably could have made this kind of deal. Or, OK, at least in some places.Bret: Hmmm.Maybe Hunter is a swell guy in private, and I have sympathy for anyone struggling with addiction. But what’s in the public record about him — from his obvious willingness to trade on the perception of access to make his living from dubious foreign sources to his reluctance to acknowledge paternity of one of his daughters to his career as a mediocre artist selling work at curiously astronomical prices to not paying taxes and then almost getting off with what seemed like a wrist slap — doesn’t exactly brighten the Biden family name. And while Republicans are jumping to conclusions without rock-solid evidence, I’m not entirely confident that Joe Biden really had no inkling of what his son was up to or that the larger Biden family didn’t benefit from Hunter’s shenanigans.Gail: Absolutely no evidence Joe Biden knew about Hunter’s lawbreaking. But one charge I’d bet on is that Hunter dropped dad’s name a lot when trying to do business with foreign honchos. Sort of hard to imagine him being saintly enough to avoid it. And the whole idea of his making deals with foreign honchos in the first place while his father was vice president is … bad.Bret: When it came to the Trump family’s finances — from his tax avoidance schemes to his foreign hotels to Jared Kushner’s sweetheart financing with Saudi Arabia — the news media left no stone unturned. It behooves journalists to be as aggressively curious about the Biden family’s finances. Especially since a federal judge wasn’t at all keen on Hunter’s plea deal, and I.R.S. agents are alleging political interference in the case.Gail: Absolutely. And news of Hunter’s unacknowledged daughter — brought to us by The Times’s great reporting — is a deeply depressing embarrassment for both father and grandfather. I was happy to see Joe Biden acknowledge her last Friday.But I still don’t believe anything on the Biden bad-behavior ledger compares to the way Trump built a personal real estate empire on smarmy-to-corrupt practices.Bret: Yeah — probably.Gail: And you know, as irritating as I find Donald Jr. and Eric making pots of money off their family name, I wouldn’t find that alone a major reason to violently oppose their father’s presidential ambitions.I think it’s the same with Hunter Biden — the House Republicans may be trying to make him a big campaign issue, but voters mostly don’t care.Bret: I bet plenty of voters would like to know how the extended Biden family raked in $17 million from foreign sources between 2014 and 2019, as a whistle-blowing I.R.S. agent testified. This was a period that seems to have coincided with Hunter’s crack binges. Just what expert services was he providing for that kind of income? Glassblowing?Gail: Well, we’re not gonna resolve every part of this today. Always enjoy having a Hunter fight with you, Bret, and we’ll undoubtedly turn back to this subject. But let’s move on to Congress. Lots to discuss there.Bret: Ad aspera per aspera, as some Roman must have said.Gail: Mitch McConnell seemed to go totally blank while talking with reporters last week. People are wondering if he’s developed serious aging problems that should make him step down from his job as Senate minority leader. What do you think?Bret: That one is between him and his physician, and he seemed to recover his faculties later during the press conference. But as with Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Grassley or, ahem, Joe Biden, elderly politicians do themselves no favors by trying to hang on to office for too long. Interesting question is who might replace him. Any free advice for the Senate Repubs?Gail: We both agreed long ago that we wished the president wasn’t intent on running for re-election in his 80s. As to McConnell, I’ll never forgive him for squatting on Barack Obama’s final nomination to the Supreme Court. Still, I have to admit he’s generally seemed at least non-crazy as minority leader.But proposing a successor is your territory. Any ideas?Bret: I don’t think McConnell will step down right away, but someone I know who knows things tells me that the likeliest replacements are either South Dakota’s John Thune, the current No. 2, or Texas’ John Cornyn. My own preference would be Cornyn: a smart and sober guy and a non-MAGA conservative. Whatever else you might say about Cornyn, he is to the junior senator from Texas what pumpkin pie is to a jack-o’-lantern.Gail: Love your Ted Cruz reference. Hehehehe.Bret: Can I switch the subject to cultural issues? First, Kevin Spacey’s acquittal in a London courtroom on nine charges of sexual assault.Gail: Bret, not having really kept up on the Spacey situation, I’m going to have to defer to you.Bret: This is Spacey’s second acquittal, following last year’s in a case brought in New York by the actor Anthony Rapp. What bothers me is that even now, Spacey will face an “uphill battle” to get major roles again, according to a report in The Times. He’s one of the greatest actors alive, the Laurence Olivier of our day. He’s spent the last six years as persona non grata. He’s been declared not guilty by two juries in two countries. I think his case, like that of Armie Hammer, will be remembered as another ugly instance of #MeToo opportunism. To borrow a line from Raymond J. Donovan, Ronald Reagan’s unjustly indicted labor secretary, to which office does he go to get his reputation back?Sorry, I had to rant. I hope some major Hollywood director has the guts and grace to give him a starring role.Gail: Rant away! And as I said, I’m following your lead on this one. Except for your #MeToo swipe. The whole #MeToo opportunism reference hurts me.On a far less somber note, I have to say I’m siding with the law-and-order crowd when it comes to the Biden family dog, Commander, who’s allegedly bitten Secret Service agents at least 10 times over the last few months.I’m sure Commander has his own side of the story, but he should be exiled to the countryside forever. No deal with the prosecutor where he pleads guilty and then gets nothing but probation.Bret: Maybe Commander got hold of that stash of white powder that was found in the White House? “Cocaine K-9” could make an interesting sequel to “Cocaine Bear.”The other subject I wanted to raise is Sinead O’Connor, the Irish singer who sadly passed away last week. She basically blew up her musical career in the United States when in 1992 she tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on “Saturday Night Live” in protest of the church’s cover-up of clerical sexual abuse. Your thoughts?Gail: I’d love to see Sinead O’Connor’s story enshrined with other celebrities who did something righteous and fell into career limbo as a result. Many celebrities have been outspoken with few repercussions. But messing with religious leaders will almost always get you in deep trouble. Even when they deserve it.Bret: O’Connor was calling attention to hideous facts about the church a decade before The Boston Globe’s Spotlight stories put it on the national agenda. She used her musical celebrity in exemplary fashion to call out monstrous evil. She went directly after one of the most beloved public figures of the time, now canonized, and she did so at heavy cost to her own career. It was an exemplary use of free speech and an extraordinary act of courage.Nothing compared 2 her. Rest in peace.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

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Why Trump Is So Hard to Beat

      by

      The first Times/Siena poll of the G.O.P. primary shows he still commands a seemingly unshakable base of loyal supporters.In the half century of modern presidential primaries, no candidate who led his or her nearest rival by at least 20 points at this stage has ever lost a party nomination.Today, Donald J. Trump’s lead over Ron DeSantis is nearly twice as large: 37 points, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll of the likely Republican primary electorate released Monday morning. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Crushing DeSantis and GOP Rivals, Times/Siena Poll Finds

      by

      The twice-indicted former president leads across nearly every category and region, as primary voters wave off concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy.Former President Donald J. Trump is dominating his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, leading his nearest challenger, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, by a landslide 37 percentage points nationally among the likely Republican primary electorate, according to the first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign.Mr. Trump held decisive advantages across almost every demographic group and region and in every ideological wing of the party, the survey found, as Republican voters waved away concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy. He led by wide margins among men and women, younger and older voters, moderates and conservatives, those who went to college and those who didn’t, and in cities, suburbs and rural areas.The poll shows that some of Mr. DeSantis’s central campaign arguments — that he is more electable than Mr. Trump, and that he would govern more effectively — have so far failed to break through. Even Republicans motivated by the type of issues that have fueled Mr. DeSantis’s rise, such as fighting “radical woke ideology,” favored the former president.Overall, Mr. Trump led Mr. DeSantis 54 percent to 17 percent. No other candidate topped 3 percent support in the poll.Below those lopsided top-line figures were other ominous signs for Mr. DeSantis. He performed his weakest among some of the Republican Party’s biggest and most influential constituencies. He earned only 9 percent support among voters at least 65 years old and 13 percent of those without a college degree. Republicans who described themselves as “very conservative” favored Mr. Trump by a 50-point margin, 65 percent to 15 percent.Republican voters are apparently not concerned about Donald J. Trump’s increasing legal peril.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesStill, no other serious Trump challenger has emerged besides Mr. DeSantis. Former Vice President Mike Pence, the former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina each scored 3 percent support. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, and Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, each received support from just 2 percent of those polled.Yet even if all those candidates disappeared and Mr. DeSantis got a hypothetical one-on-one race against Mr. Trump, he would still lose by a two-to-one margin, 62 percent to 31 percent, the poll found. That is a stark reminder that, for all the fretting among anti-Trump forces that the party would divide itself in a repeat of 2016, Mr. Trump is poised to trounce even a unified opposition.The survey comes less than six months before the first 2024 primary contest and before a single debate. In an era of American politics defined by its volatility, Mr. Trump’s legal troubles — his trials threaten to overlap with primary season — pose an especially unpredictable wild card.For now, though, Mr. Trump appears to match both the surly mood of the Republican electorate, 89 percent of whom see the nation as headed in the wrong direction, and Republicans’ desire to take the fight to the Democrats.“He might say mean things and make all the men cry because all the men are wearing your wife’s underpants and you can’t be a man anymore,” David Green, 69, a retail manager in Somersworth, N.H., said of Mr. Trump. “You got to be a little sissy and cry about everything. But at the end of the day, you want results. Donald Trump’s my guy. He’s proved it on a national level.”Both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis maintain strong overall favorable ratings from Republicans, 76 percent and 66 percent. That Mr. DeSantis is still so well liked after a drumbeat of news coverage questioning his ability to connect with voters, and more than $20 million in attack ads from a Trump super PAC, demonstrates a certain resiliency. His political team has argued that his overall positive image with G.O.P. voters provides a solid foundation on which to build.But the intensity of the former president’s support is a key difference as 43 percent of Republicans have a “very favorable” opinion of Mr. Trump — a cohort that he carries by an overwhelming 92 percent to 7 percent margin in a one-on-one race with Mr. DeSantis.By contrast, Mr. DeSantis is stuck in an effective tie with Mr. Trump, edging him 49 percent to 48 percent, among the smaller share of primary voters (25 percent) who view the Florida governor very favorably.In interviews with poll respondents, a recurring theme emerged. They like Mr. DeSantis; they love Mr. Trump.“DeSantis, I have high hopes. But as long as Trump’s there, Trump’s the man,” said Daniel Brown, 58, a retired technician at a nuclear plant from Bumpass, Va.Stanton Strohmenger, 48, a maintenance technician, said he was supporting Mr. Trump.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times“If he wasn’t running against Trump, DeSantis would be my very next choice,” said Stanton Strohmenger, 48, a maintenance technician in Washington Township, Ohio.A number of respondents interviewed drew a distinction between Mr. DeSantis’s accomplishments in Tallahassee and Mr. Trump’s in the White House.“Trump has proven his clout,” said Mallory Butler, 39, of Polk County, Fla. “And DeSantis has, but in a much smaller arena.”The truly anti-Trump faction of the Republican electorate appears to hover near one in four G.O.P. voters, hardly enough to dethrone him. Only 19 percent of the electorate said Mr. Trump’s behavior after his 2020 defeat threatened American democracy. And only 17 percent see the former president as having committed any serious federal crimes, despite his indictment by a federal grand jury on charges of mishandling classified documents and his receipt of a so-called target letter in the separate election interference case being brought by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith.“I think Donald Trump is going to carry a lot of baggage to the election with him,” said Hilda Bulla, 68, of Davidson County, N.C., who supports Mr. DeSantis.Yet Mr. Trump’s grip on the Republican Party is so strong, the Times/Siena poll found, that in a head-to-head contest with Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Trump still received 22 percent among voters who believe he has committed serious federal crimes — a greater share than the 17 percent that Mr. DeSantis earned from the entire G.O.P. electorate.Mr. DeSantis has made taking on “woke” institutions a centerpiece of his political identity. But when given a choice between a hypothetical candidate who prioritized “defeating radical woke ideology” or one who was focused on “law and order in our streets and at the border,” only 24 percent said they would be more likely to support the candidate focused on fighting “woke” issues.Equally problematic for Mr. DeSantis is that those “woke”-focused voters still preferred Mr. Trump, 61 percent to 36 percent.G.O.P. Primary Voters See Trump as Stronger, More Electable Than DeSantisTell me if you think this word or phrase better describes Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis:

      Based on a New York Times/Siena College poll of the likely electorate in the Republican primary, conducted July 23-27, 2023. Figures are rounded.By Christine ZhangThe ability to defeat Mr. Biden and to enact a conservative agenda is at the core of Mr. DeSantis’s appeal to Republicans. He has warned that Mr. Trump has saddled the party with a “culture of losing” in the Trump years and has held up his resounding 2022 re-election in the once purple state of Florida as a model for the G.O.P. As governor, he has pushed through a sweeping set of conservative priorities that have sharply reoriented the state and promised he would bring the same policymaking zeal to the White House.Yet these arguments do not appear to be working. A strong majority of Republicans surveyed, 58 percent, said it was Mr. Trump, not Mr. DeSantis, who was best described by the phrase “able to beat Joe Biden.” And again, it was Mr. Trump, by a lopsided 67 percent to 22 percent margin, who was seen more as the one to “get things done.”Mr. DeSantis narrowly edged Mr. Trump on being seen as “likable” and “moral.” Interestingly, the share of Republicans who said Mr. Trump was more “fun” than Mr. DeSantis (54 percent to 16 percent) almost perfectly mirrored the overall horse race.“He does not come across with humor,” Sandra Reher, 75, a retired teacher in Farmingdale, N.J., said of Mr. DeSantis. “He comes across as a — a good Christian man, wonderful family man. But he doesn’t have that fire, if you will, that Trump has.”Sandra Reher of New Jersey plans to support Donald Trump over Ron DeSantis. Of Mr. DeSantis, she said, “he doesn’t have that fire, if you will, that Trump has.”Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesIncreasingly on the trail, Mr. DeSantis is calling attention to his “blue-collar” roots and his decision to serve in the military as reasons voters should support him as he runs against a self-professed billionaire. But the poll showed Mr. Trump lapping Mr. DeSantis among likely Republican primary voters earning less than $50,000, 65 percent to 9 percent.As of now, Mr. DeSantis’s few demographic refuges — places where he is losing by smaller margins — are more upscale pockets of the electorate. He trailed Mr. Trump by a less daunting 12 points among white voters with college degrees, 37 to 25 percent. Among those earning more than $100,000, Mr. DeSantis was behind by 23 points, half the deficit he faced among the lowest earners.The fractured field appears to be preventing Mr. DeSantis from consolidating the support of such voters: In the hypothetical one-on-one race, Mr. DeSantis was statistically tied with Mr. Trump among white college-educated voters.On a range of issues, the poll suggests it will be difficult for Mr. DeSantis to break through against Mr. Trump on policy arguments alone.In the head-to-head matchup, Mr. Trump was far ahead of Mr. DeSantis among Republicans who accept transgender people as the gender they identify with, and among those who do not; among those who want to fight corporations that “promote woke left ideology,” and among those who prefer to stay out of what businesses do; among those who want to send more military and economic aid to Ukraine, and among those who do not; among those who want to keep Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are, and among those who want to take steps to reduce the budget deficit.Mr. Trump leads Mr. DeSantis among Republicans who believe abortion should always be legal, and among those who believe it should always be illegal.Mr. DeSantis signed a strict six-week abortion ban that Mr. Trump has criticized as “too harsh.” Yet Mr. Trump enjoyed the support of 70 percent of Republicans who said they strongly supported such a measure.Marcel Paba, a 22-year-old server in Miami, said he liked what Mr. DeSantis had done for his state but didn’t think the governor could overcome the enthusiasm for Mr. Trump.“There are just more die-hard fans of Trump than there are of Ron DeSantis. Even in Florida,” Mr. Paba said. “I don’t see people wearing a Ron DeSantis hat anywhere, you know?”Camille Baker More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      5 Applause Lines From Nikki Haley’s Stump Speech

      by

      In her stump speech, the former governor calls for common sense and experience in the White House, leaving crowds wanting more.Nikki Haley is not as loud or fiery as some of her pulpit-pounding rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. But her pleas for common sense and experience in the White House often leave crowds wanting more.Ms. Haley, 51, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, has been on the campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire as she seeks to challenge Donald J. Trump, the front-runner.Her stump speeches often stick to core Republican themes. Here are five of her most reliable applause lines in recent appearances.“When I’m president, we will no longer give foreign aid to countries that hate America. That’s a promise.”Ms. Haley, the only Republican woman running in the presidential race, has sought to lean into hawkish stances on China and her foreign policy credentials in an attempt to break out of a crowded field. A favorite anecdote on the stump tells of her tenure under Mr. Trump when she compiled a book revealing that the United States was giving money to countries that often did not support its interests. The story’s function is twofold, positioning her as a tough-talking envoy willing to break from the Washington establishment and someone not afraid to tell Mr. Trump harsh truths.“Instead of 87,000 I.R.S. agents, we’ll put 25,000 Border Patrol and ICE agents on the ground, and we will let them do their job.”The promise — and its reception — underscore the fixation of the Republican base with the nation’s Southwestern border. She also echoes misleading claims from Republican lawmakers that Democrats are seeking to hire an army of tax auditors under the Internal Revenue Service to scrutinize the financial filings of middle-class families. Like many of the other Republican candidates, Ms. Haley sides with Mr. Trump on border and immigration policy, pledging to build a wall, defund sanctuary cities and bring back a Trump-era program requiring asylum seekers to wait out their cases in Mexico. “Because guess what? Nobody wants to remain in Mexico,” she adds, sometimes garnering laughs.“We will make sure that every member of Congress has to get their health care through the V.A. You watch how fast it gets fixed.”Perhaps no other line in Ms. Haley’s stump speech draws a more passionate response from audiences than this one. She has pledged to tackle veteran homelessness and high suicide rates and to improve veterans’ access to health care. The issues are personal for Ms. Haley, whose husband, Michael, is a major in the South Carolina Army National Guard and served in Afghanistan in 2013. This summer, Ms. Haley joined other military spouses in seeing their partners off, as they deployed to Africa with the Army National Guard. The military tour is expected to last a year and for most of the G.O.P. primary race.“Don’t you think it’s time we have term limits in Congress? We have to do it. We have to have term limits in Congress, and I think we need to have mental health competency tests for anyone over the age of 75.”Ms. Haley, who has couched her campaign message in a call for “a new generation of leaders,” long sought to distinguish herself from competitors by taking an early stance on the issue of age limits among political leaders. Her shots are most directly aimed at President Biden, 80, whose age is cited as a top concern, as he seeks re-election. In an interview with Fox News, she suggested that Mr. Biden, would not live until the end of his second term if re-elected. On the stump, she often suggests that a vote for Mr. Biden is a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.“No more gender pronoun classes in the military. It is demoralizing to make them do that.”Ms. Haley has faced blowback from Democrats, women’s rights groups and transgender rights activists for proposing that transgender girls playing in school sports is the “women’s issue of our time,” and for appearing to suggest that allowing “biological boys” in girls’ locker rooms was connected with the high rate of teenage girls who have considered suicide. She has since modified her statements so as not to link the two separate issues, but she has not dropped her focus on gender issues and implications that women are being erased. “Johns Hopkins recently came out and defined what a woman was,” she said in Hollis, referring to the research university. “Did you see it? A ‘nonman.’” More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis Jabs at Trump’s Legal Trouble as He Resets His Campaign

      by

      Ron DeSantis’s remarks to a voter in New Hampshire suggest he may step up his attacks against the man who leads him in national polls by a wide margin.Two days after former President Donald J. Trump used a demeaning nickname to describe Ron DeSantis to a packed hall of Iowa Republican activists, Mr. DeSantis pointedly invoked the federal indictment against his chief rival, saying that if Mr. Trump had “drained the swamp like he promised,” then he probably “wouldn’t be in the mess that he’s in right now.”Speaking to reporters on Sunday after a campaign event in New Hampshire, Mr. DeSantis, the governor of Florida, added that Mr. Trump’s use of “juvenile insults” served as a reminder of “why there are so many millions of voters who will never vote for him going forward.”Mr. DeSantis has generally not used Mr. Trump’s legal troubles against him, and has instead focused on criticizing the Biden administration for what he terms the “weaponization” of federal law enforcement.But as Mr. DeSantis seeks to reset his ailing campaign by cutting staff and organizing more informal events in the face of a fund-raising shortfall, his comments suggest he may be taking a less timid approach against the man who leads him in national polls by a wide margin. Even allies have said that his campaign has lacked a coherent message about why voters should choose him over Mr. Trump.Part of the shift may also be a result of how Mr. DeSantis has changed his campaign tactics in the past week. Whereas he previously engaged with voters in more controlled environments, and kept the press at arm’s length, he is now regularly taking questions from both everyday Americans and reporters — meaning that he will be asked more often about Mr. Trump, who is dominating the Republican primary race.Mr. DeSantis’s campaign reboot took him on a bus tour through rural Iowa last week. On Friday, he and a dozen other Republican presidential candidates, including the former president, took turns addressing a dinner hosted by the Republican Party of Iowa. With Mr. DeSantis ensconced in a hospitality suite not far from the main stage, Mr. Trump mockingly referred to his rival as “DeSanctis” (short for “DeSanctimonious”) and bragged about his lead in the polls.On Sunday, Mr. DeSantis appeared at a barbecue in Rye, N.H., co-hosted by former Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who served as an ambassador in the Trump administration. Mr. Brown, who is staying neutral in the race for now, is hosting similar events for several Republican candidates, although Mr. Trump’s camp has not yet reached out about attending, Mr. Brown said.As is his normal practice, Mr. DeSantis did not mention Mr. Trump in his stump speech. But in a question-and-answer session afterward, one voter asked the governor, “Given Trump’s stronghold on what seems to be a majority of the party, what’s your strategy to show Trump supporters that you’re a better alternative?”Mr. DeSantis responded by saying he believed many Republicans were open to nominating someone other than Mr. Trump.“I think with me, you know, I’m the candidate that’s more likely to beat Biden,” he said. “I’m more reliable on policy. I think you’ve seen my record in Florida, and I’m much more likely to actually get all this stuff done.”“We ended the presidency with Fauci running the government,” Mr. DeSantis continued, referring to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s former top infectious disease expert, who is deeply unpopular with Republican voters. “That’s not draining the swamp.”Hank Bivins, the voter who asked the question, said the response left him somewhat underwhelmed.“He has to differentiate himself more,” said Mr. Bivins, 53, who is still undecided. “He’s going to have to fine-tune that answer.”Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, accused Mr. DeSantis of being “nothing more than an off-brand, bootleg version of America First.”“No matter how much time he spends cosplaying as President Trump, he will never be him or achieve a hundredth of what was achieved during the Trump administration,” Mr. Cheung said in a statement.A recent University of New Hampshire poll showed Mr. Trump leading the field in the state with 37 percent of the vote, followed by Mr. DeSantis with 23 percent.But Mr. Brown said Mr. DeSantis was doing the right things to close the gap, saying that of all the candidates in the race, only field workers representing Mr. DeSantis had knocked on his door so far.And he said that Mr. DeSantis had improved noticeably as a retail politician since he last saw the governor campaign in New Hampshire in June.“I see him today and he’s way better,” Mr. Brown said. “And he’s connecting better.” More