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      New York GOP Donors Await 2024 Presidential Candidates

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      Donald Trump’s support in the city’s wealthy political circles is waning, as 2024 rivals and potential candidates, including Nikki Haley and Mike Pence, make the rounds.New York City’s heavy-hitting Republican-leaning donors in recent years were frozen in place at the presidential level by a fellow New Yorker, Donald J. Trump. But that was before Mr. Trump’s decampment to Florida, his plethora of legal entanglements, and his fall from grace after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.Now, as the 2024 presidential field takes shape, uncommitted donors and prospective political supporters in one of the country’s wealthiest areas are again opening their doors to Republicans seen as prospective candidates — and the candidates are pouring in.Last week, Mike Pence, the former vice president who’s considering a presidential campaign, arrived to meet with a Jewish group and held meetings with donors. On Tuesday, Nikki Haley, who became the second Republican to declare a presidential candidacy, will hold a fund-raiser with financial industry executives. Wednesday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia is scheduled to meet with donors and other influential figures in the city.“Most of these people are coming in only because they are looking to raise money,” said Alfonse D’Amato, New York’s longtime Republican senator turned lobbyist. “Where is the money? The money is in New York.”Former Vice President Mike Pence held private meetings this month with New York’s top Republican donors.Winnie Au for The New York TimesMr. Pence held private meetings in New York City with an undisclosed number of potential donors, part of his efforts as he considers running for president. He has been in New York a number of times, making media appearances but also forging connections with Republican donors who liked aspects of the Trump-era policies but did not care for Mr. Trump’s behavior.This week, Mr. Youngkin will sit with a string of people. Among them will be John Catsimatidis, a grocery store magnate who has historically been a politically ambidextrous donor, but who had a long history with Mr. Trump.Who’s Running for President in 2024?Card 1 of 6The race begins. More

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      Indian Americans Rapidly Climbing Political Ranks

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      In 2013, the House of Representatives had a single Indian American member. Fewer than 10 Indian Americans were serving in state legislatures. None had been elected to the Senate. None had run for president. Despite being one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States, Americans of Indian descent were barely represented in politics.Ten years later, the Congress sworn in last month includes five Indian Americans. Nearly 50 are in state legislatures. The vice president is Indian American. Nikki Haley’s campaign announcement this month makes 2024 the third consecutive cycle in which an Indian American has run for president, and Vivek Ramaswamy’s newly announced candidacy makes it the first cycle with two.In parts of the government, “we’ve gone literally from having no one to getting close to parity,” said Neil Makhija, the executive director of Impact, an Indian American advocacy group.Most Indian American voters are Democrats, and it is an open question how much of their support Ms. Haley might muster. In the past, when Indian Americans have run as Republicans, they have rarely talked much about their family histories, but Ms. Haley is emphasizing her background.Activists, analysts and current and former elected officials, including four of the five Indian Americans in Congress, described an array of forces that have bolstered the political influence of Indian Americans.Vice President Kamala Harris was first elected to the Senate in 2016, a watershed year for Indian Americans in federal office.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesIndians did not begin moving to the United States in large numbers until after a landmark 1965 immigration law. But a range of factors, such as the relative wealth of Indian immigrants and high education levels, have propelled a rapid political ascent for the second and third generations.Advocacy groups — including Impact and the AAPI Victory Fund — have mobilized to recruit and support them, and to direct politicians’ attention to the electoral heft of Indian Americans, whose populations in states including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Texas are large enough to help sway local, state and federal races.“It’s really all working in tandem,” said Raj Goyle, a former state lawmaker in Kansas who co-founded Impact. “There’s a natural trend, society is more accepting, and there is deliberate political strategy to make it happen.”When Mr. Goyle ran for the Kansas House in 2006 as a Democrat against a Republican incumbent, he was told that the incumbent’s reaction to learning she had a challenger had been, “Who is Rod Doyle?”Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.In New York: The state almost single-handedly cost Democrats their House majority in the midterms. Now, a leading Democratic group is hoping New York can deliver the party back to power.Blue-Collar Struggles: A new report from Democratic strategists found that the economy was a bigger problem than cultural issues for the party in the industrial Midwest. It also found hopeful signs for Democrats.Black Mayors: The Black mayors of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston have banded together as they confront violent crime, homelessness and other similar challenges.Wisconsin Supreme Court: Democratic turnout was high in the primary for the swing seat on the court, ahead of a general election that will decide the future of abortion rights and gerrymandered maps in the state.“It was inconceivable that someone named Raj Goyle — let alone Rajeev Goyle — would run for office in Wichita,” he said. Today, “the average voter’s a lot more familiar with an Indian American face on TV, in their examining room, in their classroom, at their university, leading their company.”In retrospect, the watershed appears to have been 2016, just after then-Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana became the first Indian American to run for president.Representative Pramila Jayapal speaking last year at a rally for Senator Raphael Warnock alongside two fellow representatives, Grace Meng and Raja Krishnamoorthi.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThat was also the year Representatives Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Ro Khanna of California and Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois were elected, bringing the number of Indian Americans in the House from one — Representative Ami Bera of California, elected in 2012 — to four. It was also the year Kamala Harris became the first Indian American elected to the Senate.Since then, the number in state legislatures has more than tripled. This January, the four House members — who call themselves the Samosa Caucus — were joined by Representative Shri Thanedar of Michigan.Political scientists have long found that representation begets representation, and that appears to have been true here.“Within the Indian American community, political involvement wasn’t really a high priority, because I think people were much more focused on establishing themselves economically and supporting their community endeavors,” said Mr. Krishnamoorthi, the Illinois congressman. “I think that once they started seeing people like us getting elected and seeing why it mattered, then political involvement became a part of their civic hygiene.”Notably, the increase in Indian American representation is not centered on districts where Indian Americans are a majority. Ms. Jayapal represents a Seattle-based district that is mostly white. Mr. Thanedar represents a district in and around Detroit, a majority-Black city, and defeated eight Black candidates in a Democratic primary last year.“This is quite a different kind of phenomenon than what we often are seeing from Latino and Black representation,” said Sara Sadhwani, an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College in Southern California and a senior researcher at AAPI Data, a group that provides information about Asian Americans. “It means they’re pulling a coalition of support behind them.”She and Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside, and the founder of AAPI Data, pointed to characteristics of Indian American communities that may have eased their movement into politics.Immigrants from India are often highly educated and, because of the legacy of British colonization, often speak English, “which lowers barriers to civic engagement,” Professor Ramakrishnan said.India is also a democracy, which Professor Ramakrishnan’s research has shown means Indian Americans are more likely to engage in the American democratic system than immigrants from autocratic countries.By and large, Indian Americans have been elected on the Democratic side of the aisle. All five Indian Americans in Congress, and almost all state legislators, are Democrats. Ms. Haley’s candidacy could be a case study in whether an embrace of Indian immigrant heritage can resonate among Republicans, too.Before Ms. Haley, the most prominent Indian American to seek office as a Republican was Mr. Jindal, who made a point of discussing his background as little as possible during his presidential run.“My dad and mom told my brother and me that we came to America to be Americans, not Indian Americans,” Mr. Jindal said in a speech in 2015. Representative Ro Khanna of California said young, highly educated Indian Americans were likely to be turned off by Republican stances on abortion and guns.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMr. Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire entrepreneur, author and “anti-woke” activist, has taken a similar tack so far, but Ms. Haley has not. Since her time as governor of South Carolina, she has repeatedly invoked her life experience as the daughter of a man who wore a turban and a woman who wore a sari. In the first line of her campaign announcement video, over images of her hometown, Bamberg, S.C., she told voters: “The railroad tracks divided the town by race. I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Not Black, not white. I was different.”Mr. Bera, the California congressman, called that “smart politics,” saying Ms. Haley seemed to be tapping into a desire for upward mobility among immigrant communities.It’s an approach Democrats have taken for some time.“I ran as an immigrant, South Asian American woman,” Ms. Jayapal said of her first campaign. “I really ran on my story, I ran on my experience, and even though I represent a district that is largely white, I think that that story is a big part of the reason that people elected me.”But whether Republican voters are interested is an open question, given the party’s criticism of discussions of race and ethnicity as “identity politics.”Vikram Mansharamani, a New Hampshire Republican who ran for Senate last year and recently hosted an event for Ms. Haley, said that Ms. Haley’s life story — being a child of working-class immigrants whose parents could never have imagined her success — reminded him of his own, and that this drew him to her. But he didn’t see representation as a goal to strive for.“Insofar as identity impacts experience, it’s relevant, but I would never lead with identity,” he said. Harmeet Dhillon, a former co-chair of the election-denying group Lawyers for Trump and a Republican National Committee member who recently lost a bruising battle to lead the committee, emphasized that Ms. Haley would be running on her track record as a popular governor of her home state and member of the Trump administration. “I think most Republican voters are not motivated by race or gender,” she said. Although Ms. Dhillon and her parents immigrated from India, she said she did not identify as Indian American.Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana receives applause from Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina at the Heritage Action Presidential Candidate Forum in fall 2015 in Greenville, S.C.Sean Rayford/Getty ImagesIndian American voters are overwhelmingly Democratic: 74 percent voted for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the 2020 presidential race, more than voters of other Asian backgrounds, according to a survey by AAPI Data, APIAVote and Asian Americans Advancing Justice. In primaries, that means fewer Indian American voters for Republicans to draw on. In general elections, it makes it harder for Republicans to tap into a base excited to promote its own representation.In a 2020 study, nearly 60 percent of Indian Americans did say they would be open to voting for an Indian American candidate “regardless of their party affiliation.”“Indian Americans really want to see more Indian Americans elected to office, and in the survey that we conducted, that was true even if it meant someone from another party,” said Professor Sadhwani, one of the 2020 study’s authors. “My sense is that there will be a lot of excitement amongst Indian Americans to see Nikki Haley stepping into this role.”But that willingness is not absolute — particularly if, to compete with former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Ms. Haley adopts more of their anti-immigration rhetoric.Experts and politicians said support for an easier immigration process, and opposition to nativism and xenophobia, were major factors in Indian Americans’ political preferences. Mr. Makhija said climate change and other scientific issues resonated, too.Raman Dhillon, chief executive of the North American Punjabi Trucking Association, said his interest in Ms. Haley had been piqued by the fact that her family is from the same city he is, in the northern Indian state of Punjab, where a significant portion of truckers in Canada and the United States trace their roots.But he had more important questions for politicians than ones about shared heritage: How will the government address a shortage of big-rig parking along Highway 99, a main artery through California’s agricultural heartland? What policies will improve driver retention?Ironically, the very increase in representation that Ms. Haley is part of could make her ethnicity less compelling to voters not convinced by her policies.“I do think that the more we have diversity, the more the actual ideological views will be paramount,” Ms. Jayapal said. “Once we’re not sort of wowed by the fact that there’s an Indian American woman running for whatever office it is, I think we’ll be able to focus more on the actual ideas. And that should be the way it is.” More

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      Nikki Haley Hits the Campaign Trail

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      John Tully for The New York TimesIn New Hampshire, where she also leaned into her age, calling for “new generational leadership,” she was endorsed by Don Bolduc, a Trump ally and on-again, off-again election denier who was the state’s G.O.P. Senate nominee last year. More

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      East Palestine Crisis Tests a Trump-Backed Senator

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      J.D. Vance, the freshman senator from Ohio, is in the spotlight for the first time in his tenure as he responds to the train derailment and its aftermath.EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — As Donald J. Trump criticized the federal response to the train derailment that has shaken this Ohio town, there was one leader in Washington he praised repeatedly — the man he helped propel to Congress, Senator J.D. Vance.“J.D. Vance has been incredible,” Mr. Trump told reporters and local officials on Wednesday at an East Palestine firehouse, as Mr. Vance stood behind him.While a fight brews between Democrats and Republicans over the role of the federal government in the derailment’s aftermath, Mr. Vance, 38, has been at the center of it all. Some of his actions have been the conventional response of any seasoned politician. He has drafted letters calling on federal officials for more oversight and met with some of the residents most affected by the derailment and chemical spill. But he also has joined far-right Republican figures in depicting the deep-red village in northeastern Ohio as a forgotten place, taking a page from Mr. Trump’s grievance-politics playbook.“I grew up in a town that was neglected by the national media and was affected by a lot of dumb policies,” Mr. Vance said in a brief interview, as he briskly left the firehouse on Wednesday. “I worry that unless we keep the pressure on the federal policymakers and the corporations that caused this problem, a lot of people are going to be forgotten and left behind.”The White House has pushed back on such criticism from Republicans, accusing both the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers of dismantling the Obama-era rail safety measures meant to prevent episodes like the East Palestine derailment. And at least one media critic has accused Mr. Vance of fanning the flames of white grievance by attacking the Biden administration as deserting white Americans.For Mr. Vance, the response to the derailment could serve as a pivot point. It is the first major crisis in his tenure as a newly elected senator and it has provided him with the chance to show the voters who viewed him with skepticism during his campaign that he has not strayed far from his humble Ohio roots.Officials are cleaning up in East Palestine, including Sulphur Run, a creek that flows through the town.Brian Kaiser for The New York TimesThe derailment has also given him an opening to tap into a theme that first brought national attention to his Senate ambitions: speaking up for working-class Ohioans, many of them white, who he has suggested have been victimized by the politics of the left.In one of his first campaign ads, he bluntly played to white grievance, looking at the camera and asking voters a question: “Are you a racist?” He argued in the ad that Democratic voters were “pouring into this country” through unchecked borders, echoing the “great replacement theory,” the far-right notion that undocumented immigrants are coming to America to usurp the political power of native-born white voters.In a red state that Mr. Trump won in both 2016 and 2020, many residents in East Palestine and its surrounding towns were not following the national back-and-forth over the government response as they worried about the potential effects of the spill. But they had followed Mr. Vance’s attempts to bring attention to their plight on local media outlets and approved of his handling of the crisis, even as some said there was more work to be done.The Train Derailment in East Palestine, OhioWhen a freight train derailed in Ohio on Feb. 3, it set off evacuation orders, a toxic chemical scare and a federal investigation.A Heated Town Hall: Hundreds of Ohio residents gathered to demand answers about the fallout from the derailed train. Officials for the railroad company pulled out hours earlier, infuriating locals.Cleanup Costs: The Environmental Protection Agency ordered Norfolk Southern, the operator of the derailed train, to clean up any resulting contamination and pay all the costs.Farmers Fear a ‘Forever Scar’: The train derailment has upended a region of Ohio where generations of families could afford to buy acres of land, raise livestock and plant gardens.Trump’s Visit: In East Palestine, the former president attacked the Biden administration’s handling of the train derailment, even as his own environmental policies while in office have been criticized.“I think a lot of people are watching him right now to see how he is handling it,” said Kayla Miller, 31, who owns a farm in nearby Negley. “I think he genuinely cares about our situation and cares about our town.”Mr. Vance, a venture capitalist turned first-time politician, became a sought-after voice on the white working-class after the release of his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which explored his family ties to Appalachia and traced his path from humble origins in southwestern Ohio to the military and later to Yale Law School.When he returned to Ohio, he was initially viewed as an outsider. He was funded by Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire, and had spent much of his time in San Francisco after leaving his home state. Ahead of the state’s Republican primary in May 2022, more than three dozen Republican county and state committee leaders urged Mr. Trump in a letter to not endorse Mr. Vance. They questioned his Republican credentials and noted he had often denounced Mr. Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.Mr. Vance has been a sharp critic of the Biden administration on inflation and border policies, largely falling in line with Republicans pushing for isolationism as the answer to loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs. As residents coped with the derailment, Mr. Vance sent letters to the company that operated the freight train, Norfolk Southern, asking it to broaden its criteria for reimbursements to residents beyond a one-mile radius of the derailment zone..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.He has worked with Republicans and Democrats — including two of the region’s top Democrats, Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — to call on federal public health officials to provide resources to help the state monitor people’s health. They have also pressed federal environmental agencies to monitor the hazardous chemical compounds, or dioxins, that the derailment released into the region’s air and soil.He has met with business owners and affected residents. He also visited a creek near the derailment site, releasing a video in which he used a stick to stir a filmy substance in the water that he described as evidence of possible contamination.“I’ve just been doing a lot of talking to people on the ground here,” he said, speaking to reporters in downtown East Palestine last week. “Obviously, I am more concerned about the public safety component of this here. Is the air breathable? Is the water drinkable?”“I think a lot of people are watching him right now to see how he is handling it,” Kayla Miller said of Mr. Vance. “I think he genuinely cares about our situation and cares about our town.” Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesOn Wednesday, Mr. Vance reinforced his loyalty to the former president even as some of Mr. Trump’s staunchest supporters now privately worry about his grip on the party and his chances of winning the presidency again. Mr. Vance and Donald Trump Jr., Mr. Trump’s son, followed the former president as he made stops at local businesses to shake hands with customers and pass out Make America Great Again hats. In short remarks at the fire station, Mr. Vance thanked Mr. Trump for visiting and bringing national attention with him.“The most important thing that we can take from this visit is that we can’t forget about the people of East Palestine,” Mr. Vance told reporters.He said later that he believed Mr. Trump’s presence would help keep the pressure on federal officials to take action. Asked about criticism from the White House on the Republican opposition to rail safety measures, Mr. Vance said attempts to politicize the issue would not help East Palestine residents. According to the website PolitiFact, a rail safety rule repealed as part of a broad regulatory rollback under the Trump administration would have had no impact on the East Palestine derailment.Mr. Vance and other Republicans have subtly evoked white disaffection by portraying a largely white, rural and conservative area as neglected by federal officials. On a Fox News interview this month, he accused Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, of focusing on “how we have too many white male construction workers” instead of talking about the frequency of train derailments and railroad safety.On Wednesday, he rejected the notion that he was playing to racial grievance. “I don’t know how I am doing that or anybody else is doing that,” Mr. Vance said outside the firehouse. “This is a community that has been affected by the problem, and they deserve help.”At the same time, far from East Palestine, Mr. Vance has used his brief time in the Senate to go on the offensive on race, accusing Democrats of injecting it into politics.This month, he criticized Gigi B. Sohn, Mr. Biden’s nominee to the Federal Communications Commission, for playing into “this weird racialization of American political rhetoric in the last few years.” And in his campaign ad on the border, he criticized Democrats for calling people racists because they wanted to talk about Mr. Biden’s border policies and the impact those policies were having on the opioid crisis, which has ravaged largely white, rural parts of the industrial Midwest and across the nation.East Palestine residents said that before the freight train derailed on Feb. 3, many Ohioans seemed to know little about their hometown, which sits just below the manufacturing hub of Youngstown, near the Pennsylvania border. Now, the village of 4,761 in a red county Mr. Vance handily won has been under the national glare.Residents have been concerned about the air quality, and especially worried if the local water is safe to drink.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe crisis has spurred complicated feelings among residents about the necessity of government oversight, but many said federal agencies should take on a greater role holding Norfolk Southern accountable.In interviews this week, several residents said they had developed coughs or odd rashes, and some had farm animals die. Ms. Miller and her husband, Chase Miller, said that they had lost two chickens and three rabbits and that more farm animals had fallen ill. One of the main side effects of a gas released, vinyl chloride, they read, is cancer.“So, in five years, am I going to have liver cancer? Am I going to be able to see my kids graduate?” she said.Her husband added, “My biggest worry is that they are going to forget about Negley, they are going to forget about the local towns where the water runs to.”State and federal officials have said that they have yet to detect dangerous levels of chemicals in the air or municipal water, and tests are continuing.Leaving a grocery store with stacks of water bottles on Monday, Butch Foster, 76, a farmer and former school custodian, said he refused to leave his home after the spill until federal officials declared the air safe to breathe. But after spending some time outside, he noticed black mucus coming out of his nose, so he did not want to drink the municipal water.Mr. Foster had watched the video of Mr. Vance stirring the waters in the creek. He said the senator he had done a good job of calling attention to his and other residents’ concerns.“I just know they need to do more,” he said. More

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      Let’s All Do the DeSantis Shimmy!

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      I suppose all contemporary young politicians dream of meeting their moment. At the enthusiastic dawn of their politico careers, they entertain a fantasy that some day, as a great historical challenge looms into view, their future selves will rise to the occasion — and masterfully dodge it!They envision themselves bobbing and weaving, triangulating and feinting — filling the air with meaningless clichés so that no one knows where they stand and no one can hold them accountable. Their political career sails on, soaring upward, their electoral viability unbruised and glorious!Ron DeSantis is now trying to live out that dream.There are two dominant views on Ukraine within the Republican Party. The first one, embraced by, say, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, holds that Russia’s assault on Ukraine threatens the liberal world order. Helping the Ukrainians push back is in America’s vital national interest.The second view, embraced by the populist wing, is that the United States has no vital national interests in Ukraine. Tucker Carlson has said he doesn’t really care what Vladimir Putin does in Ukraine. Donald Trump has suggested that the war will last longer if the United States continues to send aid.DeSantis has magically cast himself in between these two positions. In the past, DeSantis was tougher on Russia than Trump. In 2017, he noted that Putin “wants to reconstitute the Russian Empire,” and chided Trump for being too soft on Putin, saying that “you’re better off dealing with Putin by being strong.” If Putin thinks he can gain an inch, DeSantis argued, “he’s apt to take a mile.”But this week DeSantis went on “Fox & Friends,” where great statesmen have always gone to unfurl their foreign policy doctrines, and he feinted in a Trump-like direction.He said the war wouldn’t have happened if Joe Biden weren’t so weak. He said he didn’t want to give the Ukrainians a “blank check” (as if anyone does). He said Biden should be more concerned with securing the border at home and less concerned with borders far away. He minimized the threat Putin poses to the West, adding, “I don’t think it’s in our interests to be getting into a proxy war with China, getting involved over things like the borderlands or over Crimea.”It was like that Richard Gere character in the musical “Chicago” — giving them the old razzle-dazzle, even if his dance steps are more plodding. It’s not clear if DeSantis is for more Ukraine aid or not. No one can quite pin him down. Tippity tap. Tappity tip.This has been DeSantis’s general approach to Trump. He doesn’t want to take on Trump directly, so he shimmies. This month, Trump insinuated that DeSantis behaved inappropriately with high school girls while he was a teacher. Instead of slamming Trump, DeSantis shimmied. Trump calls DeSantis “Ron DeSanctimonious” and “Meatball Ron.” DeSantis glides blithely by.The problem with running a campaign in which you are trying to be Trumpy-but-not-Trump is that you’re never your own man. You have to compete with the king without crossing him. You’re always trying to find that magic sweet spot between just-MAGA and plain-crazy.If he were more of a strategic thinker and less a tactician, I think DeSantis would realize that he’s either going to have to fight Trump directly on some issue or copy him right down the line. And I think he’d realize that he’s already locked himself into a position in which he’s going to have to copy him.On Ukraine policy, for example, I suspect that DeSantis will soon be enthusiastically parroting the Trump position. I say that for two interrelated reasons.First, DeSantis, for better or worse, has hitched his wagon to the populist movement. This movement is now broad and deep in the Republican Party and has deep roots running back through American history. This movement has long been opposed to the cosmopolitan East Coast elites, has long adopted the posture that we need to pull inward and take care of our own, and is now allergic to talk about America being actively involved in preserving a liberal world order. This is where populist voters are, and this is where DeSantis, running as a populist, needs to be.Then there is Tucker Carlson. The DeSantis campaign won’t be able to survive if Carlson and the rest of the right-wing media sphere start blasting him for being a “globalist,” the way Trump already is.“Globalist” is to foreign policy what “C.R.T.” is to education. No one knows precisely what it means but everybody in MAGA-world knows it’s really bad. DeSantis has to take whatever position will get that label off his back.This week’s dancing makes me realize DeSantis is in a weaker position than I thought. The G.O.P. is evenly split on foreign policy and significantly split on whether the party should be fiery populist or more conventionally conservative. According to a Pew survey, 40 percent of Republicans think the United States is giving too much aid to Ukraine, while 41 percent believe America is giving Ukraine the right amount of aid or not enough. This data illustrates something also evident in the 2022 election results — that while there are a lot of populists in the party, there are still a lot of normie Republicans who are not.As the campaign wears on, and the debate on Ukraine continues, DeSantis will be condemned to playing Mini-Me to Trump in trying to win that populist 40 percent. Meanwhile, he’ll be cutting ties to many in the nonpopulist 41 percent. That will leave room for some normie Republican in the Brian Kemp/Tim Scott mold to rise.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

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      Republicans Will Hold Their First Presidential Debate in Milwaukee

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      The debate is set for August, in the same city that will host the party’s 2024 convention.The Republican National Committee will hold its first presidential primary debate in Milwaukee in August, its debates committee decided in a vote on Thursday.The committee is seeking to have all candidates sign a loyalty pledge vowing to support the eventual nominee in order to be part of the debates.Milwaukee will also be the site of the Republican National Convention in 2024. Another location that had been under consideration for the first debate was the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, according to people briefed on the matter.“At this time, no other debates have been sanctioned, nor has the final criteria for the first debate been decided,” Ronna McDaniel, the R.N.C. chairwoman, said in an email to members on Thursday. “The committee will continue its work and will release updates as they become available.”Only two major candidates — former President Donald J. Trump and the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley — have entered the race for the Republican nomination. (Lesser-known candidates include Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and author, and Steve Laffey, a former mayor of Cranston, R.I.)But several more are expected to announce campaigns in the coming months. The field could eventually include Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Among the other issues the debate committee has been discussing is having candidates sign a pledge vowing to support the eventual nominee.Such a pledge came about during the 2016 campaign, after then-candidate Donald J. Trump, who had previously considered a third-party candidacy in 2000, declined during an early debate to join the other contenders in saying that they would back the nominee. Mr. Trump, already the front-runner in polls in the crowded field, claimed to be concerned about being treated “fairly” by the party.It is unclear whether he would sign such a pledge this time — or whether he would abide by it even if he lost the nomination.The R.N.C. is also interested in a donations requirement, meaning each candidate would need a specific number of individual donors in order to qualify for the debate stage. More

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      Ex-Attorney General in Arizona Buried Report Refuting Voter Fraud Claims

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      Under Mark Brnovich, a Republican who left office in January, a 10,000-hour review did not see the light of day. His Democratic successor, Kris Mayes, released investigators’ findings.Mark Brnovich, a Republican who served as Arizona’s attorney general until January, buried the findings of a 10,000-hour review by his office that found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, newly released documents reveal.The documents were released on Wednesday by Mr. Brnovich’s successor, Kris Mayes, a Democrat who took office last month as the top law enforcement official in the battleground state, which remains at the forefront of the election denial movement.The sweeping review was completed last year after politicians and other conspiracy theorists aligned with former President Donald J. Trump inundated Mr. Brnovich’s office with election falsehoods. They claimed baselessly that large numbers of people had voted twice; that ballots had been sent to dead people; and that ballots with traces of bamboo had been flown in from Korea and filled out in advance for Joseph R. Biden Jr., who won Arizona by a little over 10,000 votes.But investigators discredited these claims, according to a report on their findings that was withheld by Mr. Brnovich. (The Washington Post reported earlier on the findings.)“These allegations were not supported by any factual evidence when researched by our office,” Reginald Grigsby, chief special agent in the office’s special investigation’s section, wrote in a summary of the findings on Sept. 19 of last year.The summary was part of documents and internal communications that were made public on Wednesday by Ms. Mayes, who narrowly won an open-seat race in November to become attorney general.“The results of this exhaustive and extensive investigation show what we have suspected for over two years — the 2020 election in Arizona was conducted fairly and accurately by elections officials,” Ms. Mayes said in a statement. “The 10,000-plus hours spent diligently investigating every conspiracy theory under the sun distracted this office from its core mission of protecting the people of Arizona from real crime and fraud.”Efforts to reach Mr. Brnovich, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate last year, were not immediately successful.His former chief of staff, Joseph Kanefield, who was also Mr. Brnovich’s chief deputy, did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.In the eight-page summary of investigators’ findings, Mr. Grigsby wrote that the attorney general’s office had interviewed and tried to collect evidence from Cyber Ninjas, a Florida firm that conducted a heavily criticized review of the 2020 election results in Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa, at the direction of the Republican-controlled State Senate.Investigators also made several attempts to gather information from True the Vote, a nonprofit group founded by Catherine Engelbrecht, a prominent election denier, the summary stated..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“In each instance and in each matter, the aforementioned parties did not provide any evidence to support their allegations,” Mr. Grigsby wrote. “The information that was provided was speculative in many instances and when investigated by our agents and support staff, was found to be inaccurate.”When investigators tried to speak to Wendy Rogers, an election-denying Republican state lawmaker, they said in the summary that she refused to cooperate and told them she was waiting to see the “perp walk” of those who had committed election fraud.Ms. Rogers, who was censured by the State Senate in March 2022 after giving a speech at a white nationalist gathering, declined to comment on Thursday.In a series of emails exchanged by Mr. Brnovich’s staff members last April, Mr. Grigsby appeared to object several times to the language in a letter drafted on behalf of Mr. Brnovich that explained investigators’ findings. Its intended recipient was Karen Fann, a Republican who was the State Senate’s president and was a catalyst for the Cyber Ninjas review in Arizona.One of the statements that Mr. Grigsby highlighted as problematic centered on election integrity in Maricopa County.“Our overall assessment is that the current election system in Maricopa County involving the verification and handling of early ballots is broke,” Mr. Brnovich’s draft letter stated.But Mr. Grigsby appeared to reach an opposite interpretation, writing that investigators had concluded that the county followed its procedures for verifying signatures on early ballots.“We did not uncover any criminality or fraud having been committed in this area during the 2020 general election,” a suggested edit was written beneath the proposed language.Ms. Fann did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.In his role in Arizona, Mr. Brnovich was something of an enigma. He defended the state’s vote count after the 2020 presidential election, drawing the ire of Mr. Trump. The former president sharply criticized Mr. Brnovich in June and endorsed his Republican opponent, Blake Masters, who won the Senate primary but lost in the general election.But Mr. Brnovich has also suggested that the 2020 election revealed “serious vulnerabilities” in the electoral system and said cryptically on the former Trump aide Stephen K. Bannon’s podcast last spring, “I think we all know what happened in 2020.”In January, as one of Ms. Mayes’s first acts in office, she redirected an election integrity unit that Mr. Brnovich had created, focusing its work instead on addressing voter suppression.The unit’s former leader, Jennifer Wright, meanwhile, joined a legal effort to invalidate Ms. Mayes’s narrow victory in November.Ms. Mayes has said that she did not share the priorities of Mr. Brnovich, whom she previously described as being preoccupied with voter fraud despite isolated cases. The office has five pending voter fraud investigations. More

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      Nikki Haley’s Run for the Presidency

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      More from our inbox:Tucker Carlson’s Spin on the Jan. 6 TapesA Descent Into DementiaAgeism and CovidRisk Management Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Run by Haley Is a Tightrope in the G.O.P.” (front page, Feb. 19):Nikki Haley has no choice but to to use her gender to promote her candidacy. It is the only thing that distinguishes her from the pack of hypocritical, unprincipled Republican politicians likely to run for president.She long ago joined the ranks of Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, etc., who discarded their justifiable contempt for Donald Trump in favor of attaining or retaining elective office. In her singular pursuit of the presidency she’s discarded any integrity she might have once had.Ms. Haley is unqualified to be president not because she is a woman, but because she became “one of the boys” — the boys who sold their souls for power and position.Jay AdolfNew YorkTo the Editor:Re “Could Haley Be Our Next President?” (Opinion, Feb. 19):It’s independents who often swing elections, and not one of the Times Opinion writers discussing Nikki Haley’s chances considered her appeal to these voters. By thinking only of how she does or doesn’t fit within the current Republican Party, they miss her considerable appeal as a non-Trumpian traditional Republican, which will attract swing independents.Thomas B. RobertsSycamore, Ill.To the Editor:As an immigrant from India, a woman and an independent voter who sometimes voted Republican pre-Trump, I was excited when Nikki Haley became governor of South Carolina. But I do not support Ms. Haley’s presidential candidacy.David Brooks nailed it, saying “there was an awful lot of complicity and silence when she served under Trump.” She subverted her independence and her fighting spirit by becoming part of Donald Trump’s establishment.No self-respecting Democrat would ever cross party lines to vote for Ms. Haley even if she miraculously manages to secure the nomination. She would not beat Joe Biden!Mona JhaMontclair, N.J.To the Editor:Nikki Haley kicked off her campaign by suggesting that politicians over 75 should be required to take mental competency tests, implying that Donald Trump and President Biden were too old to be president.She would do well to remember Ronald Reagan’s quip during the 1984 presidential debates with Walter Mondale: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”Robert BatyOakland, Calif.To the Editor:Re “The Fox Newsification of Nikki Haley,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, Feb. 22):Mr. Friedman isn’t taking into account what Nikki Haley must do to win the Republican nomination.Questions about the pandemicCard 1 of 4When will the pandemic end? More