Republican Party

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Nikki Haley Wants to Run on Her Record, Not Her Gender

      by

      The Republican presidential candidate would be the first woman to enter the White House, but she has so far tried to avoid the identity politics that could repel some voters.Inside the warehouse for an upscale department store chain in eastern Iowa, Michele Barton, wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with “Women for Nikki” in bright pink letters, mused excitedly about the prospect of sending the first woman to the White House.But Ms. Barton, 52, a mother of four and a lifelong Republican, was quick to insist that she was not supporting Nikki Haley because she is a woman.“I think she is the right candidate,” she said on Wednesday as she waited for Ms. Haley to appear at a town-hall event in Davenport. “It just so happens that she is a woman.”It’s a familiar refrain from some of Ms. Haley’s most enthusiastic female supporters, who, like the candidate herself, downplay the importance of her gender in the 2024 presidential race, even as they celebrate the potentially historic nature of her bid.Ms. Haley is performing this balancing act at a striking moment in U.S. politics. Her climb in the polls and the struggles of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida mean that the Republican candidate with the best hope of pushing the party beyond former President Donald J. Trump — who has a long history of misogynist remarks and sexual misconduct allegations — might well be a woman.Throughout her campaign, Ms. Haley has sought to tread a fine line in talking about her gender. She emphasizes elements of her life and career that inherently set her apart in an otherwise all-male field, but avoids leaning into identity politics in ways that might repel the largely white and graying base of conservative voters she needs to court in order to win the nomination.“I don’t want to just be a woman,” she told Charlamagne Tha God on “The Daily Show” last month. “I don’t want to just be Indian. I don’t want to just be a mom. I don’t want to just be a Republican. I don’t want to just be all of those things. I’m more than that. And I think every person is more than that.”Her stump speech includes nods to her experiences as a mother and a military spouse. Her pithy rejoinders to her rivals invoke her five-inch heels. Her list of close-out songs at town-hall events includes Sheryl Crow’s “Woman in the White House.”A Haley campaign event in Iowa last month. When Ms. Haley mentions that she was the first woman and first person of color to serve as governor of South Carolina, it’s largely to argue that the United States is not “rotten” or “racist.”Jordan Gale for The New York TimesBut Ms. Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, seldom, if ever, mentions directly that she is vying to shatter the highest glass ceiling in American politics. (In her campaign announcement video, she said she did not believe in the idea of such ceilings.)On the campaign trail in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, she rarely brings up her gender, which her allies believe could be a potent asset to win over college-educated voters and suburban women in a general election, if she were to beat Mr. Trump in the primary.Chris Cournoyer, an Iowa state senator and Ms. Haley’s state chairwoman there, said these demographics could also help Ms. Haley become more competitive in the state, where she has trailed Mr. Trump in polls by a wide margin and until recently also lagged behind Mr. DeSantis.“I’ve heard from a lot of women who are independents, a lot of women who are Democrats, that they are going to switch parties to caucus for her on Jan. 15,” Ms. Cournoyer said.Although she often mentions her barrier-breaking victory to become the first woman and first person of color to serve as governor of South Carolina, Ms. Haley does so mainly to argue that the United States is not “rotten” or “racist.”Her event on Wednesday at the Von Maur warehouse in Davenport may have been billed as a Women for Nikki event, but aside from three coalition T-shirts on display near the entrance, the venue carried few signs of the all-female, grass-roots groups that have helped spread her message.Both Republican strategists and gender studies scholars say that Ms. Haley’s relatively muted approach to gender on the trail makes sense: The path to higher office for women is often paved with double standards and gender biases, regardless of a candidate’s party or ideology. But it can be particularly difficult for Republican women. Conservative voters tend to harbor traditional views about femininity while expecting candidates to seem “tough.”A recent study from the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University found that Republicans were less likely than Democrats to see distinct barriers to women’s political representation, support targeted efforts to increase diversity in politics and pressure party leaders to embrace strategies to expand the ranks of women in power.Kelly Dittmar, who as the center’s research director worked on the report and has analyzed Ms. Haley’s political bids, said she saw parallels between Ms. Haley’s campaigns for governor and president. In both, Ms. Haley’s ads have talked about being “new” and “different,” offering cues to voters about her race and gender but, Ms. Dittmar said, allowing them to interpret the words as they wished.“It is both strategic and in line with her own conservative identity,” Ms. Dittmar said, adding that as a candidate for governor Ms. Haley rejected calls from her constituents to promise that she would appoint an even number of men and women to her administration.No woman has ever won the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, or even a state Republican presidential primary, and Ms. Haley is only the fifth prominent Republican woman to run for her party’s nomination. Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, last made the attempt in 2016, and she made gender central to her campaign.With her own calibrated approach, Ms. Haley has sought to lean into her foreign policy and executive experience, challenge misconceptions about women and electability and position herself as one of her party’s most effective messengers on abortion, despite having signed some of the nation’s toughest anti-abortion restrictions as governor of South Carolina. She recently said that as governor she would have signed a six-week ban on the procedure.The path to higher office for women is often paved with double standards and gender biases, regardless of party or ideology. Conservative voters, in particular, tend to harbor traditional views about femininity.Sophie Park/Getty ImagesThe approach has won her some of her most devoted supporters and often unpaid volunteers — women willing to drive for hours to set up chairs, collect contact information and hype up her bid. Campaign officials say that Women for Nikki chapters have now emerged in all 50 states. At recent town halls in Iowa, at least two women asked her to reiterate her stance on abortion, though they had already heard it, so that others in the room could hear it, too.“I don’t think the fellas know how to talk about it properly,” she said both times.And yet, the issue of gender has remained inescapable. In the fourth Republican presidential debate, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy lobbed gendered attacks, accusing her of benefiting from “identity politics,” as former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey went the other direction, defending her in what some of her supporters saw as playing the white knight. Then, there is Mr. Trump, who calls her a “Birdbrain” and remains popular among Republican women.A poll from The New York Times and Siena College released this month found that 63 percent of female Republican primary voters supported Mr. Trump. Ms. Haley had 12 percent support from that group. Other surveys show her garnering more support from men than women. But in hypothetical matchups, Ms. Haley has beaten President Biden by the widest margin of any Republican challenger, roughly splitting female votes with him.“Nikki has potent electability against Biden, but she needs to find potent electability against Trump,” said Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist who has been working to defeat Mr. Trump. “Right now, voters just don’t believe she can do it, and so she has to change that perception.”Perhaps Ms. Haley best captured her approach in response to a question from a prospective voter while campaigning this week in Agency, Iowa. Listening to Ms. Haley on the warehouse floor of a corn seed company, Sarah Keith, 28, a chemical engineer, wanted to know how the candidate would draw more women into the party, particularly those dissatisfied with the liberal agenda.“They talk about women’s issues,” Ms. Haley said, referring to the Democrats and defining those concerns as the same ones that worry most voters, including the economy and national security. “I think women are tired. I think everybody is tired of the noise, and what they want is just to see results.” More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis Says Trump’s Indictments ‘Sucked Out All the Oxygen’ From Primary

      by

      Ron DeSantis seemed to acknowledge that the former president’s legal woes were making it harder for his rivals to break through in the Republican primary.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said that the indictments of former President Donald J. Trump had “distorted” the Republican presidential primary, tacitly admitting that the former president’s legal problems have helped him.“If I could have one thing change, I wish Trump hadn’t been indicted on any of this stuff,” Mr. DeSantis told David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network in an interview that aired on Thursday. He added that the indictments had “just crowded out, I think, so much other stuff and it’s sucked out all the oxygen.”With just weeks until Iowans cast the first votes in the race, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has struggled to gain ground on Mr. Trump and has had to focus more on battling former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina for second place.When Mr. DeSantis entered the race in May, he was widely regarded as the most viable challenger to Mr. Trump. That reputation frayed as his campaign struggled to articulate an effective message, organize in key early primary states and guard against internal turmoil. Last week, the top strategist for Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC, Jeff Roe, stepped down from his post.Mr. DeSantis did not elaborate on his comments during a campaign appearance at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Coralville, Iowa, on Thursday morning, and he barely mentioned Mr. Trump. He did not take questions from reporters after the event.But Mr. DeSantis has previously expressed frustration over how much attention Mr. Trump’s various legal troubles have attracted. “That is not what we want from this election,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters during a campaign stop outside Des Moines on Wednesday. “What we want is a referendum on the failures of the Biden administration.”Mr. Trump’s allies and supporters have maintained that the charges against him have only fueled his rise and fortified his strength as a candidate.In August, days before Mr. Trump was charged in Georgia over his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, he boasted to a crowd of supporters in Alabama that he needed “one more indictment” to solidify his win in the race.Now facing four indictments and 91 felony counts, Mr. Trump has maintained a significant lead. A new poll from The New York Times and Siena College found that even as a growing number of Republican voters believe he has committed serious federal crimes, they still support his return to office.And Mr. Trump’s legal problems continue to grow. On Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that he was ineligible to hold office again because of his actions related to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The decision could strike him from the state’s primary ballot, but Mr. Trump’s campaign has pledged to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.In the CBN interview, Mr. DeSantis also singled out the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who has brought one of the cases against Mr. Trump, and accused him of “distorting justice” and abusing his power.He also railed against Democratic prosecutors more broadly — and, as governor, he has taken a particularly hard line against them. He has removed two Democratic prosecutors from their posts over the last two years, citing their stances on abortion and lenience on violent crime.Nicholas Nehamas More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Pushes Pro-Police Agenda, With a Big Exception: His Criminal Cases

      by

      Long a loud supporter of the police, Donald Trump is floating new protections for them. At the same time, he is raging against law enforcement officials who have brought felony charges against him.Former President Donald J. Trump has long spoken admiringly of police officers who use aggressive force on the job. For years, he has pointed to his unwavering support for local law enforcement, presenting himself as a “law and order” candidate who would help the police tackle violent crime.But now, as Mr. Trump campaigns again for the White House, he has added a new promise to his speeches on the trail: to “indemnify” police officers and protect them from the financial consequences of lawsuits accusing them of misconduct.“We are going to indemnify them, so they don’t lose their wife, their family, their pension and their job,” he said during a speech this month in New York.Legal experts say Mr. Trump’s proposal — which he first raised in an interview in October and has floated five times this month — would have little effect and would largely enforce the status quo. Police officers in most jurisdictions are already protected from being held financially responsible for potential wrongdoing. They also benefit from a legal doctrine that can shield officers accused of misconduct from lawsuits seeking damages.Since entering politics, Mr. Trump has often pledged his allegiance to the police as a way to attack Democrats, accusing them of being more concerned about progressive ideas than public safety. For decades, he has batted down calls for police reform, arguing that such changes hinder officers from using aggressive crime-fighting tactics.His promise to indemnify officers also reveals a contradiction at the heart of his current campaign. Even as he proclaims his steadfast support for rank-and-file officers, he has been raging against federal and state law enforcement officials who have led the four criminal cases against him, resulting in 91 felony charges.Two Capitol Police officers who were injured during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, have sued him, accusing him of inciting violence, and Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled this week that there was enough evidence that he engaged in insurrection to disqualify him from holding office again.Those realities have not stopped Mr. Trump from courting the police, meeting with law enforcement groups on the trail and posing with officers who are part of his motorcade. He and his aides often post photos and videos of the interactions on social media.Supporters of Mr. Trump at an event in Edinburg, Texas, last month honoring service members who were working on the border over the Thanksgiving holiday.Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesDuring a speech on Sunday in Nevada, he proudly told the crowd that he “shook so many hands of policemen” before arriving. Later, when he promised to indemnify officers, he called them out: “All those policemen that were shaking my hand back there, you better be listening.”Mr. Trump frequently criticizes Democrats as too critical of law enforcement. He conjures up images of big cities as lawless and unsafe, laying the blame on liberal politicians whose calls for police reform, he says, have deterred officers from carrying out their duties. The police, he has argued in recent speeches, are being “destroyed by the radical left.”“They’re afraid to do anything,” Mr. Trump said recently. “They’re forced to avoid any conflict, they’re forced to let a lot of bad people do what they want to do, because they’re under a threat of losing their pension, losing their house, losing their families.”But legal scholars who have studied the issue say that police officers are already largely shielded from personal financial consequences when it comes to lawsuits brought against them.“The idea that officers need indemnification is frankly absurd,” said Alexander A. Reinert, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. “Because they already have it.”Indemnification, in a legal context, refers to a process by which one party agrees to cover the liability of another party, essentially agreeing to pay for any wrongdoing by the second party.In the case of policing, many state and local governments have laws in which they agree to indemnify police officers for lawsuits. In other cases, police unions obtain indemnification agreements as part of their bargaining.Joanna Schwartz, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, published a study in 2014 looking at lawsuits against the police in 81 jurisdictions over six years. She found that 99.98 percent of the money paid to plaintiffs in these cases came from local governments or their insurance companies — not from the officers themselves.“Officers virtually never pay anything in settlements or judgments entered against them,” Ms. Schwartz said in an interview.Mr. Trump, as is often the case, has been vague about the specifics of his plan, making it difficult to know whether such a move would be feasible, though experts say that enacting it might require legislation from Congress rather than an executive order.In Nevada on Sunday, Mr. Trump said the government would pay the police “for their costs, for their lawyers.” Earlier this year, he said he would protect states and cities from being sued, a remark that suggested a broad expansion of existing legal protections for police officers accused of violating constitutional rights.Under a legal doctrine known as qualified immunity, someone who accuses the police of using excessive force or discriminating against them must not only show that misconduct occurred, but also generally be able to cite a closely similar previous case in which officers were held responsible.Critics say that qualified immunity offers blanket protections that prevent officers from being held accountable. Policing groups say these protections are necessary to keep officers from being so worried about personal liability that they fail to do their jobs.Mr. Trump has long expressed staunch support for qualified immunity for police officers, particularly during his 2020 re-election bid, when the nation was racked with protests after the murder of George Floyd. Several major police unions endorsed him during that campaign.A rally for Mr. Trump in Latrobe, Pa., during his re-election bid in 2020, when protests over George Floyd’s murder made policing a front-and-center political issue. Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesIn 1989, well before he entered the political arena, Mr. Trump bought advertising in New York claiming that concern over civil liberties had hampered the police and led to a rise in crime.In a newspaper ad, he wrote of being young and watching “two young bullies” harass a waitress in a diner. “Two cops rushed in, lifted up the thugs and threw them out the door, warning them never to cause trouble again,” he wrote. In 2017, when Mr. Trump was president, he urged the police not to be “too nice,” telling them not to protect the heads of people suspected of being gang members when putting them into squad cars. Law enforcement authorities across the country criticized those remarks.In 2020, as protests rocked Minneapolis, Mr. Trump called the demonstrators “thugs” on social media and wrote, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The post was criticized for encouraging violence against protesters. Mr. Trump later said he meant to convey that looting generally led to violence, an interpretation that ignored the phrase’s racist history.As the protests spread across the country, he threatened to send the military to cities and states if he believed their leaders were failing to maintain order.This year, at a gathering of Republicans in California, Mr. Trump said he thought shoplifters should be shot on their way out of stores. “If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store,” he said, to which the crowd responded with uproarious applause.Then, after calling for the extrajudicial shootings of petty criminals, Mr. Trump returned to a familiar message.“You know, our law enforcement is great,” he said. “But they’re not allowed to do anything.”Kitty Bennett More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Indicted or Barred From the Ballot: For Trump, Bad News Cements Support

      by

      The former president has perfected a playbook of victimhood, raising cash off each of his indictments and encouraging Republican officials to defend him, as his rivals did after the Colorado ruling.It may take weeks to find out whether the decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to declare Donald J. Trump ineligible to be on the state primary ballot will hold.But its short-term political impact was clear by the time Mr. Trump stepped off a stage on Tuesday night in Iowa, where he learned of the ruling shortly before a scheduled campaign rally began.Allies of the former president posted on social media that the ruling was an indignation, one that the U.S. Supreme Court needed to rectify.Colorado’s top court found that Mr. Trump had incited an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and should be barred from the ballot under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Mr. Trump could remain on the ballot regardless — the Colorado justices put their ruling on hold as appeals are likely to proceed — but Mr. Trump’s team was hardly dwelling on that detail.Even if Mr. Trump remains on the ballot, any court having said that Mr. Trump incited an insurrection will be used against him in a general election, in ways his advisers know could be damaging. But the Republican primary is different. Officials with Mr. Trump’s rival G.O.P. campaigns privately feared that the decision would be seen as an overreach by Democrats, one that could bolster his current lead among Republicans in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15, and in the primaries immediately after.For years, events that would thwart other politicians have at best slowed Mr. Trump’s forward motion, with the prominent exception of his loss in the 2020 election to Joseph R. Biden Jr. Throughout 2023, Mr. Trump has exploited as political fodder events that would have sunk other candidates — such as being indicted four times, on 91 felony charges — with a Republican electorate that has been told Democrats are threatening their way of life.Since March, Mr. Trump has perfected a playbook of victimhood, raising campaign funds off each indictment and encouraging Republican officials to defend him. Many — including some who are fearful of Mr. Trump’s hold on the party’s core voters — have obliged.Democrats and the comparatively few Republicans who want to see Mr. Trump stopped have described his criminal legal travails as of his own making, and tried to highlight the details of the crimes he is accused of committing. They vary widely and include charges he conspired to defraud the United States with months of election lies aimed at subverting the transfer of power as well as charges stemming from mishandling classified documents.Trump supporters in Waterloo, Iowa, on Tuesday, the day the Colorado Supreme Court barred him from that state’s primary ballot.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesBut Mr. Trump has repeatedly collapsed all those cases into what he has called a “witch hunt,” one aimed at stopping his candidacy as opposed to holding him accountable. He and his allies are already folding the Colorado ruling into that same narrative.Even people who dislike Mr. Trump intensely feared the ruling to toss him off the ballot will merely help him with a Republican electorate that will see it as interfering with an election, at a time when Mr. Trump is regularly described by Democrats as a threat to democracy.“This vindicates his insistence that this is a political conspiracy to interfere with the election,” Ty Cobb, who worked as a lawyer in the Trump White House and who has since condemned his behavior, told CNN. “That’s the way he tries to sell this,” added Mr. Cobb, who mocked that claim of a broad conspiracy but nonetheless predicted the U.S. Supreme Court might unanimously overturn the Colorado ruling.Mr. Trump’s campaign emailed out that portion of the interview.“REMOVED FROM THE BALLOT — FIGHT BACK!” was the subject line of a second fund-raising email from Mr. Trump later in the night.Mr. Trump said nothing about the ruling at his Iowa rally, as Republicans filled the void for him. His Republican opponents — the few who remain from a once-crowded field — once again were left having to walk a line around the man they’re trying to beat.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is mocked daily by Mr. Trump’s team for his footwear and who has struggled to replace the former president as the new generation of the MAGA movement, may as well have been articulating Mr. Trump’s own defense in his statement.“The Left invokes ‘democracy’ to justify its use of power, even if it means abusing judicial power to remove a candidate from the ballot based on spurious legal grounds. SCOTUS should reverse,” Mr. DeSantis wrote in a social media post.Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey whose core message has been that Mr. Trump is unfit for office, said that voters, not the courts, should decide whether he is president. Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who has made significant gains in recent polling, made a similar statement.Vivek Ramaswamy, the most vocally pro-Trump of any of the candidates this cycle, said he would withdraw from the Colorado ballot unless Mr. Trump is restored.Mr. Trump’s team is confident such a restoration will happen. Privately, several of his advisers agreed with Mr. Cobb’s assessment that the U.S. Supreme Court will take up his appeal and side with him. It remains to be seen if that happens, or if the justices decide to let the ruling stand. If they do the latter, similar lawsuits would most likely be filed in other states, although a number of 14th Amendment suits have already failed elsewhere.Regardless of the eventual outcome, Mr. Trump’s team, which was surprised by the Tuesday ruling, made quick work of trying to turn it into another galvanizing moment of victimhood. Their approach echoed something Mr. Trump’s oldest mentor, the ruthless lawyer and fixer Roy M. Cohn, who battled prosecutors himself, once said.“I bring out the worst in my enemies,” Mr. Cohn once told the columnist William Safire, “and that’s how I get them to defeat themselves.” More

    • 175 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Will Haley or a Trial Bring Trump Down? For Now, Our Poll Says No.

      by

      Republican primary voters seem unbothered by a coming trial, but a new obstacle looms.Nikki Haley and Donald Trump in warmer times, in 2018. Olivier Douliery/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDonald J. Trump is still leading in the race for the Republican nomination.By a lot.In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll Wednesday, he holds a 64-11 lead over Nikki Haley, with Ron DeSantis in third place at 9 percent.Does the poll provide any indication that Ms. Haley or a criminal trial will bring Mr. Trump down, as our headline asks?No, but given the latest news, let’s look at it anyway.Legal issuesWith Mr. Trump leading his nearest rival by more than 50 points, it will probably take something unprecedented for him to lose the nomination.But all year, there has been something unprecedented looming over the race: Mr. Trump’s legal problems. Tuesday night, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Mr. Trump was ineligible to serve as president under the 14th Amendment. That’s unprecedented. And so is the coming trial and possible conviction of Mr. Trump, right in the heart of the Republican primary season.I know you’re all wondering about the Colorado case, but our poll was concluded before the Colorado ruling and so we couldn’t ask people about it. Realistically, Mr. Trump will argue that the decision is only the latest example of the legal system treating him unfairly, and Republican voters will probably rally to his side, as they have done so many times before. If the Supreme Court decides that he remains eligible, it will be yet another victory in the eyes of many Republican primary voters. If the court concludes he’s ineligible, well, that’s a different story. As such, I must refer you to Adam Liptak, our Supreme Court correspondent, for the most relevant information.What our poll did ask about was Mr. Trump’s coming criminal trial, and the poll offered few signs that it was poised to undo his candidacy.In fact, 62 percent of Republican primary voters say he should be the party’s nominee even if he’s convicted after winning the primaries, while just 32 percent say he shouldn’t be the nominee if convicted. It’s enough support that it would be very challenging for Republicans to overturn the result of the primaries at the convention.It’s easy to see why these voters might still back Mr. Trump, even if convicted:Three-quarters of Republican primary voters do not believe Mr. Trump will receive a fair trial.Four-fifths say the charges against him are mostly politically motivated, not mostly because the prosecutors actually believed he committed a crime.Three-quarters of Republican primary voters say Mr. Trump should be found “not guilty,” and 70 percent say he should be sentenced to prison if found guilty.Four-fifths say he genuinely believed his claims that the election was stolen.Most voters aren’t paying attention yet, and Republicans say they don’t believe he’ll be convicted, so it’s possible their attitudes will shift once a trial gets underway.But while things certainly could change, it’s notable that the charges themselves certainly haven’t wound up hurting him.Nikki HaleyAs we mentioned a few weeks ago, Ms. Haley is becoming Mr. Trump’s primary rival, thanks to her natural appeal among Trump-skeptical, moderate and highly educated Republicans.In this particular poll, that’s exactly how she has overtaken Mr. DeSantis to claim (an extremely distant) second place. Just consider her lopsided appeal among voters on the periphery of the Republican electorate:She has 56 percent of Republican primary voters who do not back Mr. Trump against President Biden in the general election, compared with 4 percent of those who prefer Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden. Mr. DeSantis has a mere 2 percent of these Not Trump voters — voters who almost by definition had to be part of a serious coalition to challenge Mr. Trump.She has the support of 39 percent of college graduates compared with a mere 3 percent of those without a degree. (I think I actually said “wow” aloud when I first saw that.)Ms. Haley has the support of 19 percent of moderates compared with 8 percent of conservatives.A candidate of moderate, highly educated Never Trumpers is not a candidate who will have an easy time winning over a populist working-class MAGA party. In fact, only 42 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of Ms. Haley, while a pretty sizable 28 percent view her unfavorably.But Ms. Haley’s narrow base of support might just let her keep things interesting in states that play to her strengths — especially states with a high percentage of college graduates and with open primaries, where independent voters and even some Democrats might just vote.New Hampshire, where a CBS/YouGov poll this past weekend gave Ms. Haley 29 percent of the vote, is one of those states. Her home state, South Carolina, is one where Democrats and independents can vote.Plenty of primary polls limit themselves to self-identified Republican-leaning voters or people with a history of voting in Republican primaries (the Times/Siena poll allows any respondents to say they’ll vote in the Republican primary). It wouldn’t surprise me to see a candidate like Ms. Haley outperform the polls a bit in the states where other kinds of voters can participate. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Endorses Bernie Moreno, Ex-Car Dealer, in Ohio Senate Race

      by

      The endorsement could give Mr. Moreno a crucial lift in a competitive three-way race for the Republican nomination to take on Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, next year.Former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday endorsed Bernie Moreno in the Ohio Republican Senate primary, bolstering the candidacy of Mr. Moreno, who has accumulated several high-profile endorsements in his tight race against two more experienced politicians.With just three months until the primary, public polls show a close contest involving State Senator Matt Dolan, Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Mr. Moreno, a former car dealer from Cleveland.The winner will challenge Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who is seeking a fourth six-year term. Several recent public polls have shown Mr. Brown leading any of the three Republicans and having the easiest time beating Mr. Moreno.A poll from Emerson College and WJW-TV, a Cleveland Fox affiliate, on Nov. 13 showed Mr. Brown 11 points ahead of Mr. Moreno, more than double his lead over Mr. Dolan and Mr. LaRose. A poll on Oct. 19 from the Ohio Northern University Institute for Civics and Public Policy showed Mr. Brown 22 points ahead of Mr. Moreno.Mr. Trump, in a series of social media posts, did not directly mention Mr. Moreno’s Republican competitors, but pointed to Mr. Moreno’s status as a “political outsider” as a valuable asset in a race against Mr. Brown. Mr. Moreno has never held elected office, but has been an active Republican donor in recent years and ran unsuccessfully for the party’s Senate nomination last year.Mr. Moreno will “fight the corrupt Deep State that is destroying our Country,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post.Mr. Moreno had been skeptical of Mr. Trump’s political rise, referring to him as a “lunatic invading the party” in 2016. But he has since reversed his thinking. Emily Moreno Miller, his daughter, was a Republican National Committee official during Mr. Trump’s re-election bid, and her husband, Representative Max Miller of Ohio, is a former Trump White House aide who won his first election last year.“I could not be more grateful or humbled to have the complete and total endorsement of President Donald Trump at this vital moment in the campaign,” Mr. Moreno said in a statement, adding that a Republican takeover in the Senate and a victory from Mr. Trump in the presidential contest “will Make America Great Again!”Mr. Trump’s imprimatur proved valuable last year in Republican primaries ahead of the midterm elections, but less so in general election contests.Across the country, his handpicked candidates lost close races, including a crushing blow in Pennsylvania, where Democrats flipped a Senate seat and helped ensure Republicans would remain in the minority for the next two years. Trump-endorsed candidates in the five most competitive House races all lost.Democrats downplayed Mr. Trump’s endorsement, and predicted that the Republican primary would become more divisive.“Bernie Moreno has made it clear he won’t fight for Ohioans and doesn’t understand the issues facing their daily lives,” said Reeves Oyster, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Democratic Party. “As this primary heats up, it’s clear this slugfest is only going to get messier, nastier and more expensive from here.”In Mr. Moreno’s previous Senate primary race, Mr. Trump’s endorsement proved decisive for J.D. Vance, who won the Republican nomination before defeating Tim Ryan, the Democratic candidate, in the general election. Mr. Vance endorsed Mr. Moreno this year.Mr. Moreno has also been endorsed by Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      McConnell and Other Senate Republicans Criticize Trump’s Talk on Immigrants

      by

      The minority leader took an oblique swipe at Donald Trump’s rhetoric about migrants “poisoning the blood” of the country, but others like Senator Tommy Tuberville defended him.When Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, was asked about former President Donald J. Trump’s now-standard stump line claiming that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” Senator McConnell delivered an indirect but contemptuous response.“Well, it strikes me it didn’t bother him when he appointed Elaine Chao secretary of transportation,” Mr. McConnell, the Senate minority leader, said. Ms. Chao, who was born in Taiwan and immigrated to America as a child, is married to Mr. McConnell.Mr. McConnell referred to a feud that has simmered for more than a year over the former president’s racist attacks against Ms. Chao. Mr. Trump, often referring to her by the derisive nickname “Coco Chow,” has suggested that she — and by extension her husband, Mr. McConnell — are beholden to China because of her connections to the country.Mr. Trump repeated his “poisoning the blood” claim at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday, prompting an outburst of criticism from Senate Republicans this week.Senator Susan Collins of Maine told a reporter for The Independent that the former president’s remarks were “deplorable.”“That was horrible that those comments are just — they have no place, particularly from a former president,” Ms. Collins said.Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, denounced Mr. Trump’s language as “unacceptable.”“I think that that rhetoric is very inappropriate,” Mr. Rounds said, according to NBC News. “But this administration’s policies are feeding right into it. And so, I disagree with that. I think we should celebrate our diversity.”Mr. McConnell’s own oblique retort, which did not directly criticize Mr. Trump’s language, signaled that even some of the former president’s boldest Republican critics on Capitol Hill are treading lightly, as he dominates the polls in the Republican presidential race.Mr. McConnell has spent years trying to steer the party away from Mr. Trump after the riot at the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, in large part because he views the former president as a political loser. Often when Mr. McConnell criticizes Mr. Trump he does so by saying his behavior would make it hard for him to win another presidential election.Senate Republicans are also trying to negotiate a deal with the White House, proposing sweeping restrictions on migration in exchange for approving additional military aid to Ukraine and Israel, a top priority for President Biden.Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Senate majority leader, denounced Mr. Trump’s remarks on Tuesday as “despicable” but signaled that Senate Democrats would push forward with negotiations on border restrictions.“We all know there’s a problem at the border,” Mr. Schumer said. “The president does. Democrats do. And we’re going to try to solve that problem consistent with our principles.”Other Senate Republicans more delicately admonished Mr. Trump for his remarks, referring to either their own immigrant heritage or the principle that America is a nation of immigrants.“My grandfather is an immigrant, so that’s not a view I share,” John Thune, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said in a CNN interview on Monday. He added, “We are a nation of immigrants, but we’re also a nation of laws,” describing illegal immigration as “a runaway train at the Southern border.”But other Senate Republicans embraced Mr. Trump’s language. Senator Tommy Tuberville, who had defended white supremacists serving in the military before retracting his remarks this year, said that Mr. Trump’s attacks on immigrants did not go far enough.“I’m mad he wasn’t tougher than that,” Mr. Tuberville told a reporter for The Independent. “When you see what’s happening at the border? We’re being overrun. They’re taking us over.”Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio said it was “objectively and obviously true” that “illegal immigrants were poisoning the blood of the country.” He also scolded the reporter who asked him about Mr. Trump’s remarks, accusing her of using Mr. Trump’s words to try to “narrow the limits of debate on immigration in this country.”Representative Nicole Malliotakis, the lone Republican in a House seat in New York City, denied that Mr. Trump’s remarks were referring to immigrants.“He didn’t say the words ‘immigrants,’ I think he was talking about the Democratic policies,” she said in a CNN interview on Monday. “Look, I know that some are trying to make it seem like Trump is anti-immigrant. The reality is, he was married to immigrants, he has hired immigrants.” More

    • 50 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Defining Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

      by

      More from our inbox:Just Keeping Trump From the White House Won’t Save DemocracyPolicies on Curbing Drug AddictionLights Dim Off BroadwayAsia’s Disappearing SeaPartidarios de Israel en Los Ángeles, el mes pasadoLauren Justice para The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Is Anti-Zionism Antisemitism, by Definition?” (front page, Dec. 12):What is Zionism? To me, being a Zionist in 2023 means that I accept the right and the necessity of the survival of the Jewish people and the existence of a Jewish state that ensures their survival.Anything that undermines or threatens Israel’s survival also undermines or threatens the existence of the Jewish people and is, ipso facto, antisemitic.Philip B. BergerTorontoTo the Editor:I am a Jew by culture and ancestry, albeit a secular one. I abhor contemporary violence by both Hamas and Israel. Historically, however, I have found that in recent years, Israel’s aggressive behavior has been the more objectionable, and Israel seems more determined to demoralize and destroy the Gaza population than to surgically remove Hamas.In the 1950s, when I was a young child and Israel a struggling young state, I paid small sums to buy leaves that I pasted on a picture of a tree until I had bought enough for a tree to be planted in Israel in honor of my grandmother. My father bought Israel bonds — hardly the best monetary investment — in my name and those of my siblings. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, when I had my own children and when Israel had become an expansionist power, I asked him to stop.Although a Jew, I am emphatically not a Zionist, and I resent and fear the conflation of the two.Mark CohenPlattsburgh, N.Y.The writer is distinguished emeritus professor of anthropology at the State University of New York.To the Editor:Jonathan Weisman describes radically different interpretations of Zionism as, alternately, a movement ensuring Jewish sovereignty and safety, or an oppressive colonialism. What is often lost in the debate is the historic diversity among many Zionisms (plural), which continue to struggle with one another for primacy today.One version of Zionism is expansionist, deeply nationalistic and largely unconcerned about the human rights of non-Jews, while another version on the Zionist spectrum is profoundly humanist at its core and envisions an equitable coexistence between Jews and Palestinians.Supporting a Zionism that promotes pluralism and shared society is the only vision for a better future for these two peoples whose fates are intertwined.Andrew VogelNewton, Mass.The writer is the senior rabbi at Temple Sinai in Brookline, Mass.Just Keeping Trump From the White House Won’t Save Democracy Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Resolute Liz Cheney,” by Katherine Miller (Opinion, Dec. 10):While I appreciate former Representative Liz Cheney’s relentless opposition to Donald Trump because of the danger he poses to the nation, keeping him out of the White House won’t alone save democracy. We also desperately need to stop Ms. Cheney’s fellow Republicans from undermining elections in their pursuit of permanent political power.Republicans have used extreme means to draw House districts in their favor and refused to join Democrats to stop those gerrymanders even though they deprive voters of fair representation and promote polarization by increasing the number of safe seats.Almost all Republicans voted against restoring provisions of the Voting Rights Act that would help assure protection against racial discrimination. They opposed measures to enact basic ballot access standards, instead allowing states to impose restrictive rules and locate polling places to make it harder for groups they don’t favor to vote.And they refused to support bills to stop the pernicious influence of big donors, opposing even basic disclosure rules to stop secret “dark” money from warping our political priorities.Standing up to Mr. Trump does little good if we allow Republicans to destroy our democracy by other means. Voters need to elect people to protect free and fair elections before Republicans succeed in rigging them in their favor. Otherwise, we will have rule by a party instead of rule by the people, and our experiment in self-governance will be at an end.Daniel A. SimonNew York Policies on Curbing Drug AddictionPolice respond to a man who died of a suspected overdose in downtown Portland in July.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Rethinking Drug Policies in an Ailing Portland” (front page, Dec. 12):As a law enforcement veteran, I believe that the police have an important role in supporting community safety. But policymakers can’t keep relying on the police as a Band-Aid to every problem. We cannot arrest our way out of addiction. And increasing criminalization to solve public drug use, as some suggest in the article, won’t work.I worked and supervised police narcotics and gang units. Eventually, I saw that the laws I was charged with enforcing didn’t make my neighbors safer. No matter how much we ramped up enforcement or how many people we arrested, it didn’t stop the flow of drugs into our community or prevent people from dying.For over 50 years, the United States has prioritized criminalization as a response to drug use, yet stronger drugs like fentanyl have emerged, and our country is facing a health crisis with record-setting overdose deaths.To make any progress toward curbing addiction, we need to increase access to the addiction services and support people need: treatment, overdose prevention centers, outreach teams to connect people to care, and housing. More criminalization is a false promise of change.Diane M. GoldsteinLas VegasThe writer, a retired police lieutenant, is the executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership.Lights Dim Off BroadwaySignature Theater, an important Off Broadway institution, had no shows this fall.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Off Broadway, Vital to Theater Scene, Struggles” (front page, Dec. 8):It saddens me to read about the struggles and closures of our city’s intimate theaters. These are the institutions that nurture new work. Losing them darkens our future.During this crisis, I hope artistic directors will remember that it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to put on a play. Even a bare-bones staging gives us something Netflix never can: a story shared by strangers in person in real time.Rob AckermanNew YorkThe author is a playwright.Asia’s Disappearing SeaRusting boats in the sand in Muynak, Uzbekistan. Muynak was once a thriving port on the Aral Sea but is now a desert town since the sea disappeared.Carolyn Drake/MagnumTo the Editor: Re “A Giant Inland Sea Is Now a Desert, and a Warning for Humanity,” by Jacob Dreyer (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Nov. 28), about the shrinking Aral Sea in Uzbekistan:Together, we — an archaeologist, a geographer and a historian — have extensive experience in the Aral Sea region. We take exception to Mr. Dreyer’s description of this place as resembling “hell.” Rather than stereotyping the region as a wasteland that people should flee from (Mr. Dreyer stresses his desire to leave the region as quickly as possible), we must recognize the meaning and value that the Aral Sea and its environs still hold for its residents today, and we should center those residents’ desired futures.We also need to consider the Aral Sea region a vital knowledge zone. As we confront shrinking bodies of water in many other regions around the globe, we can learn from the perseverance of Aral Sea residents. If we listen, what lessons can we learn from them as we prepare for future ecological disasters?Elizabeth BriteKate ShieldsSarah CameronDr. Brite is a clinical associate professor at Purdue University, Dr. Shields is an assistant professor at Rhodes College, and Dr. Cameron is an associate professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. More