Republican Party

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis Takes Fight for Second Place to Nikki Haley’s Home State

      by

      After ignoring each other for much of the campaign, the two candidates now engage in near-daily attacks and have sparred with increasing intensity on the debate stage.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Friday swept through South Carolina, his rival Nikki Haley’s backyard, seeking to blunt the rise of the state’s former governor in the Republican primary while capitalizing on his slugfest with the Democratic governor of California.The fight to claim the mantle of the most viable Republican alternative to former President Donald J. Trump intensified this week. Ms. Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, won the endorsement of the political network founded by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch and secured the backing of key donors like Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. The upheaval in Mr. DeSantis’s campaign apparatus continued unabated on Friday with the departure of his super PAC’s chairman, Adam Laxalt.But Mr. DeSantis’s prime-time face-off on Fox News with Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday night seemed to buoy him as he barnstormed through South Carolina’s Upstate region near Greenville and its midsection outside Columbia before ending in Charleston and the Lowcountry.On Ms. Haley’s home turf, the Florida governor and his surrogates appeared unfazed by all the developments, blasting the support from Mr. Dimon as a nod from a Hillary Clinton supporter and dismissing the Koch network’s decision as evidence that Ms. Haley represents only the incremental change backed by Wall Street.“I don’t know what you could say about her tenure as governor here, but I’ve never heard of any major accomplishment that she had,” Mr. DeSantis told a town hall in Greer, S.C. “And I don’t think she’s shown a willingness to fight for you when it’s tough. It’s easy when the wind’s at your back.”Mr. DeSantis and his team have long cast the Republican nominating contest as a two-man race between him and Mr. Trump. But Ms. Haley’s rise in the polls and her successful drawing in of big-money donors have punctured that notion. After ignoring each other for much of the summer and the early fall, the two candidates now engage in near-daily attacks and have sparred with increasing intensity on the debate stage.They and their allied super PACs have clashed on a sometimes bewildering variety of fronts, from standard disputes over subjects like the strength of their conservative bona fides to more niche topics like dissecting each other’s records on recruiting Chinese businesses in their home states. Fact checkers have rated many of their attacks as false or misleading.Mr. DeSantis has been especially aggressive. On Fox News this week, he called Ms. Haley an “establishment” politician who was “fundamentally out of step with Republican voters” on core conservative issues, including immigration, where she has called for more legal pathways to recruit foreign workers. His campaign set up a website that accuses Ms. Haley of supporting “every liberal cause under the sun.”The Florida governor has also falsely claimed that Ms. Haley wanted to bring Gazan refugees to the United States. And he has mounted attacks on past statements by Ms. Haley that have sometimes mirrored his own, including her expression of sympathy after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. (Mr. DeSantis said at the time that he was “appalled” by Mr. Floyd’s death.) He has also criticized Ms. Haley for saying in 2016 that her state did not need a law banning transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice, even though Mr. DeSantis had said during his first run for governor in 2018 that “getting into bathroom wars” was not “a good use of our time.”In addition, Mr. DeSantis’s allies have established a new super PAC to attack Ms. Haley in Iowa. Last month, the group, Fight Right, produced a misleading ad showing clips of Ms. Haley praising Hillary Clinton. The clips had been edited to excise her simultaneous criticisms of Mrs. Clinton.The Haley campaign counterpunched with an ad of its own called “Desperate Campaigns Do Desperate Things.”As Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis joust for second place, Mr. Trump’s position in the Republican primaries, even in South Carolina, remains dominant. Mr. DeSantis may have been willing to call out Ms. Haley by name in her home state, but he continued to tiptoe around the former president using the passive voice.On Friday, for instance, he insisted he could get Mexico to pay for the rest of a border wall.“I know that was promised — it didn’t happen,” he said, without naming the promiser, Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis also failed to identify that same promiser when he said: “We were promised we’d be tired of winning. Unfortunately, as a Republican, I’m tired of losing.”He was less reluctant when a voter asked about Ms. Haley’s suggestion last month that social media platforms verify all users and ban people from posting anonymously. Mr. DeSantis and others had criticized her comments as unconstitutional and a threat to free speech.“What Haley said was outrageous,” Mr. DeSantis responded, adding, “Honestly, it’s disqualifying.”In an interview on Fox News, Ms. Haley responded to Mr. DeSantis’s recent critiques about her record as governor.“Well, I think he went after my record as governor because he’s losing,” Ms Haley said. “I mean, who else can spend a hundred million dollars and drop half in the polls?”For some in South Carolina, Ms. Haley’s tenure — from 2011 to 2017 — is beginning to feel like a long time ago. Tim Vath, 54, who moved to Greer toward the end of Ms. Haley’s second term, found the support from the Koch network “questionable.” Suzanne Garrison, also 54 and from Greer, raised the specter of backroom politicking and suggested that Ms. Haley had not always followed through in implementing conservative policies.“I wish more people knew the real Nikki Haley,” said Ms. Garrison, a DeSantis supporter. “I just don’t trust her.”But in the tiny town of Prosperity, outside Columbia, the crowd was more mixed. Cathy Huddle, 61, of Chapin, S.C., said Ms. Haley’s accomplishments as governor “pale in comparison” to the wholesale conservative changes wrought by Mr. DeSantis in Florida.But Alice and Robert Tenny appeared unmoved by Mr. DeSantis’s pitch. Both said Ms. Haley’s experience at the United Nations gave her global knowledge and stature. And Mr. Tenny, 69, found Mr. DeSantis’s gloating over his performance against Mr. Newsom to be off-putting.“We’re kind of getting ahead of ourselves if we’re sitting down with the governor of a different party” before the first primaries, Mr. Tenny said. More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Paleoconservative or Moderate? Questions for Staffing the Next G.O.P. White House.

      by

      The Heritage Foundation asks applicants for a future Republican administration a series of questions about their ideology, showing the extent to which “America First” has shaped the modern G.O.P.An influential conservative group is using a questionnaire to test the ideology of potential recruits for the next Republican presidential administration — and the questions reveal the extent to which former President Donald J. Trump has transformed the conservative movement in his image.The questionnaire by the group, the Heritage Foundation, includes questions that suggest it is screening for applicants who want to embrace tariffs, reduce America’s military footprint overseas and remove executive branch officials who obstruct the president’s agenda. The job-application questionnaire was first reported by Axios.Candidates are asked whether they agree or disagree with the statement that “the president should be able to advance his/her agenda through the bureaucracy without hinderance from unelected federal officials.”Mr. Trump and his allies have promised to “demolish the deep state” and increase presidential power over every part of the federal government that currently operates with any degree of independence from White House political control.A Questionnaire for Applicants to the Next Conservative White HouseThe Heritage Foundation, which has been staffing Republican administrations since the Reagan era, has a list of questions for job applicants that shows how Donald Trump has transformed the party.Read DocumentHeritage, the most powerful think tank on the right, has been staffing Republican administrations since the Reagan era and is leading a $22 million presidential transition operation called Project 2025 to develop policies and personnel for the next conservative government.As a nonprofit group, Heritage cannot endorse political candidates, but its vast personnel recruitment project — a collaboration by more than 80 conservative groups — is being driven by former senior Trump administration officials who remain close to the former president. Heritage’s work will most likely end up in the hands of whomever the Republican Party nominates as its presidential candidate next year.Much of the Heritage questionnaire is unremarkable. It quizzes candidates on their political philosophy and on private school vouchers and other standard-issue Republican policies. But in subtle ways, the questionnaire shows the extent to which Mr. Trump’s “America First” ideology has infused the Republican Party. Those changes are most pronounced in the wording of the questions that relate to foreign policy and trade.(The questionnaire inquires about the applicant’s political philosophy, providing a number of possible selections such as Traditional Conservative, Libertarian, Paleoconservative and Moderate.)Heritage used to promote American leadership around the world and a hawkish foreign policy in line with the views espoused by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.But under the leadership of its president, Kevin Roberts, Heritage has in recent years argued that American tax dollars could more usefully be spent at home than in supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion. And in another departure from the pre-Trump Republican orthodoxy, Heritage has expressed openness to cutting the military budget.In that vein, the Heritage questionnaire asks potential recruits whether they agree or disagree that “the U.S. should scale back its strong military presence overseas.”Once a promoter of free trade — and still internally divided on the subject — Heritage now asks recruits for the next Republican administration whether they agree that “the U.S. should impose tariffs with the goal of bringing back manufacturing jobs, even if these tariffs result in higher consumer prices.”Heritage’s shift toward an “America First” ideology has opened up rifts within the conservative movement and has caused tensions inside the organization. Several foreign policy analysts left Heritage disillusioned by the changes afoot there.In a statement to The New York Times, Heritage’s president, Mr. Roberts, said that “the radical left has lapped the political right when it comes to preparing men and women to serve in presidential administrations.”“Project 2025,” he added, “is committed to recruiting and training a deep bench of patriotic Americans who are ready to serve their country on day one of the next administration.” More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis Super PAC Suffers Another Big Staff Loss, This Time Its Chairman

      by

      The departure of Adam Laxalt, a longtime friend of the Florida governor, is the latest shake-up inside Never Back Down as it faces questions over the group’s strategy and spending.The main super PAC supporting Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign has been rocked by another significant departure, as Adam Laxalt, a friend and former roommate of the Florida governor, has stepped down as chairman of the group.Mr. Laxalt, who unsuccessfully ran to become a Republican senator in Nevada in 2022, lived with Mr. DeSantis when he was training as a naval officer. He joined Never Back Down in April, soon after his own campaign ended and before Mr. DeSantis officially joined the presidential race, in a move that was widely seen as Mr. DeSantis and his wife seeking to have someone they trusted monitoring the activities of the well-funded group. He also suffered the unexpected death of his mother over the summer, a friend said.“After nearly 26 straight months of being in a full-scale campaign, I need to return my time and attention to my family and law practice,” Mr. Laxalt wrote in a letter to the board on Nov. 26 that was reviewed by The New York Times. He said in the note that he was still committed to Mr. DeSantis’s becoming president.The departure represents the second major departure from Never Back Down in the last two weeks. On the eve of Thanksgiving, the group’s chief executive, Chris Jankowski, resigned. In a statement put out by the group after the resignation, Mr. Jankowski said that his differences at the group went “well beyond” strategic arguments, without explaining more.It was Mr. Laxalt who announced that Kristin Davison, previously the chief operating officer, would replace Mr. Jankowski in an email that evening. “We look forward to hitting the ground running with all of you after the holiday,” Mr. Laxalt wrote.But now Mr. Laxalt is gone, as well.With the Iowa caucuses less than seven weeks away, people associated with the DeSantis campaign encouraged the creation of a new outside group called Fight Right to take over negative attacks on his closest competition in the nomination contest, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      George Santos Is Gone. What Happens to His Seat in Congress?

      by

      The expulsion of George Santos from Congress on Friday swept away one major political headache for Republicans, but it immediately set the stage for another: The party will have to defend his vulnerable seat in a special election early next year.The race in New York is expected to be one of the most high-profile and expensive off-year House contests in decades. It has the potential to further shrink Republicans’ paper-thin majority and offer a preview of the broader battle for House control next November.With towering stakes, both parties have been preparing for the possibility for months, as Mr. Santos’s fabricated biography unraveled and federal criminal charges piled up. More than two dozen candidates have already expressed interest in running, and labor unions, super PACs and other groups have begun earmarking millions of dollars for TV ads.“It’s going to be like a presidential election for Congress,” said Steve Israel, a Long Island Democrat who once led his party’s House campaign arm. “It becomes ground zero of American politics.”Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has 10 days to formally schedule the contest after Friday’s lopsided vote to remove Mr. Santos. But both parties expect the election to take place in mid-to-late February, just over a year after he first took the oath of office.Unlike in a normal election, party leaders in Washington and New York — not primary voters — will choose the Democratic and Republican nominees. They were moving quickly to winnow the field of potential candidates, and could announce their picks in a matter of days.George Santos Lost His Job. The Lies, Charges and Questions Remaining.George Santos, who was expelled from Congress, has told so many stories they can be hard to keep straight. We cataloged them, including major questions about his personal finances and his campaign fund-raising and spending.Democrats were expected to coalesce around Thomas R. Suozzi, a tested centrist who held the seat for six years before Mr. Santos but gave it up for a failed run for governor in 2022. Mr. Suozzi, 61, is a prolific fund-raiser and perhaps the best-known candidate either party could put forward. Anna Kaplan, a former state senator, is also running and has positioned herself to Mr. Suozzi’s left.The Republican field appeared to be more fluid. Party leaders said they planned to interview roughly 15 candidates, though officials privy to the process said they were circling two top contenders, both relative newcomers: Mike Sapraicone, a retired New York Police Department detective, and Mazi Pilip, an Ethiopian-born former member of the Israel Defense Forces.Political analysts rate the district, stretching from the outskirts of New York City into the heart of Nassau County’s affluent suburbs on Long Island, as a tossup. President Biden won the district by eight points in 2020, but it has shifted rightward in three consecutive elections since, as voters fearful about crime and inflation have flocked to Republicans.Democratic strategists said they would continue to use the embarrassment of Mr. Santos to attack Republicans, blaming them for aiding the former congressman’s rise. But recapturing the seat may be more difficult than many Democrats once hoped.Local Republicans moved decisively to distance themselves from Mr. Santos last January, and the strategy has shown signs of working. When Long Island voters went to the polls for local contests last month, they delivered a Republican rout that left Democrats scrambling to figure out how to rehabilitate a tarnished political brand.“Anyone who thinks a special election on Long Island is a slam dunk for Democrats has been living under a rock for the last three years,” said Isaac Goldberg, a strategist who advised the losing Democratic campaign against Mr. Santos in 2022.“Politics is a pendulum,” he added. “Right now, it’s on one side, and it’s unclear when it’s going to swing back.”Republicans face their own challenges, though, particularly in an idiosyncratic contest likely to favor the party that can turn out more voters. Democratic voters in the district have spent months bemoaning their ties to Mr. Santos and are highly motivated to elect an alternative. It is unclear if Republican supporters will feel the same urgency their leaders do.“It’s been a frustrating year,” said Joseph Cairo, the G.O.P. party chairman in Nassau County. “I look at this as just the beginning to right a mistake, to move forward, to elect a Republican to serve the people the proper way, to elect somebody who is for real — not make believe.”The outcome promises to have far-reaching implications for the current Congress and the next.After Mr. Santos’s ouster, Republicans have a razor-thin majority. Thinning it further could hamper their short-term ambitions to pursue an impeachment inquiry into President Biden and negotiate around a major military aid package for Israel.Whoever emerges as the winner in February would also likely become the front-runner for next fall’s elections and lend their party momentum as they prepare to fight over six crucial swing seats in New York alone, including a total of three on Long Island.Democrats believe Mr. Suozzi, who is currently working as a lobbyist, is best positioned to deliver. In his stints as a congressman and Nassau County executive, he took conservative stances on public safety and affordability that are popular among suburban voters. And his combative primary campaign for governor just last year may help him shake the anti-Democratic sentiment that has sunk other candidates.Jay Jacobs, the Democratic leader for the state and Nassau County, said he still intended to screen multiple candidates, including Ms. Kaplan, a more progressive former state senator who remains in the race, even as other candidates dropped out and coalesced behind Mr. Suozzi.Ms. Kaplan could get a boost from Ms. Hochul, who faced Mr. Suozzi in an ugly 2022 primary fight, during which he questioned her husband’s ethics and referred to her as an unqualified “interim governor.”The governor has pushed Mr. Jacobs and Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, to reconsider whether Mr. Suozzi was their strongest candidate, particularly given his hesitancy to fully embrace abortion rights in the past, according to four people familiar with the conversations.But it is unclear if the governor would have the power to block Mr. Suozzi. Mr. Jeffries personally worked to lure the former congressman into the race earlier this fall, and Mr. Suozzi is close friends with Mr. Jacobs, who has told associates he is the likely pick.Republicans are proceeding more cautiously. They are wary of repeating their experience with Mr. Santos, who secured the party’s backing in 2020 and 2022 despite presenting them with a fraudulent résumé and other glaring fabrications that they failed to catch.This time, Republicans appear to only be considering candidates already known to party officials, and plan to engage a research firm to more formally vet potential nominees.Campaign strategists in Washington were said to favor Mr. Sapraicone, the former police detective who made a small fortune as the head of a private security company. Mr. Sapraicone, 67, could afford to spend a portion of it in a campaign, but he would also enter a race with almost no name recognition or electoral experience.Local Republicans were pushing Ms. Pilip, a potentially mold-breaking rising star with a remarkable biography. She moved to Israel from Ethiopia as a refugee in the 1990s, later served in the Israel Defense Forces and flipped a legislative seat in Nassau County in her 40s as a mother of seven.Other wild card candidates included Elaine Phillips, the Nassau County comptroller; Kellen Curry, an Air Force veteran and former banker; and Jack Martins, a well-known state senator who has run for the seat before.Mr. Santos himself could theoretically run for the seat as an independent. But the task would be arduous and might jeopardize a more urgent priority: fighting charges that could put him in prison for up to 22 years. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis-Newsom Debate: What We Learned and Key Takeaways

      by

      Ron DeSantis showed a feistier side, using a friendly moderator to go on offense. Gavin Newsom defended California and President Biden, and jabbed right back.For an hour and a half on Thursday night, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California shouted at and interrupted each other, trying to leave an impression on Fox News viewers beyond the din of their slugfest.The debate in Alpharetta, Ga., was a chance for Mr. DeSantis to hold the spotlight without other candidates for the Republican presidential nomination on the stage. It was a chance for Mr. Newsom to bring his smooth persona and quick wit to a national — and conservative — audience.Here are five takeaways.It was DeSantis and Hannity vs. Newsom and Biden.The debate’s moderator, Sean Hannity, wanted the night to be a showdown between the liberal governor of the most populous state in the nation and the conservative governor of the third most populous state over starkly different views of governance.From the beginning, Mr. Hannity pressed Mr. Newsom on his state’s high tax rates, its loss of residents over the past two years and its relatively higher crime rate. And Mr. DeSantis backed up the moderator in his challenges to how California is run.It was an odd, mismatched conversation, since Mr. Newsom, who is not running for president, tried hard to focus on the 2024 campaign in which Mr. DeSantis is currently running. Mr. Newsom talked up President Biden’s record on the economy, health care and immigration and took swipes at Mr. DeSantis’s flagging campaign in the face of former President Donald J. Trump’s dominance.“We have one thing in common: Neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024,” Mr. Newsom said early in the debate, only to follow later with a left hook about Mr. Trump’s polling lead in Florida. “How’s that going for you, Ron?” he taunted. “You’re down 41 points in your own state.”An exasperated Mr. Hannity asked Mr. Newsom at one point: “Is Joe Biden paying you tonight? I thought this was state versus state.”DeSantis was far feistier than in the Republican debates.Mr. DeSantis showed more assertiveness on Thursday night than he has onstage at the Republican presidential debates. Fox NewsThrough three Republican primary debates, Mr. DeSantis has struggled to make an impression on a crowded stage with several deft campaigners. On Thursday night, a different Mr. DeSantis was onstage.He kept Mr. Newsom on his heels for much of the night. With Mr. Hannity’s help, he hit Mr. Newsom on subject after subject: crime, immigration, taxes, education.And he appeared prepared. When Mr. Newsom predictably brought up Mr. DeSantis’s fruitless war with Disney, the Florida governor didn’t defend his actions but went after his California counterpart over his Covid policies: “You had Disney closed inexplicably for more than a year,” he said.Newsom was determined to take down DeSantis’s 2024 campaign.If Mr. DeSantis wanted to take the sheen off the Golden State, Mr. Newsom seemed determined to bury Mr. DeSantis’s White House aspirations. The Californian was definitive in dismissing speculation that he was running for president, and was just as definitive in saying the Floridian was going nowhere.“Joe Biden will be our nominee in a matter of weeks,” Mr. Newsom said before adding of Mr. DeSantis, “In a matter of weeks, he will be endorsing Donald Trump.”It was not a one-off jab. Mr. Newsom told his onstage rival that “Donald Trump laid you out” on Florida’s initial Covid restrictions. He accused Mr. DeSantis of caving to the far right in lifting the restrictions and allowing tens of thousands of Floridians to die.Mr. Newsom invoked Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and one of Mr. DeSantis’s competitors for the Republican nomination, when he said the Florida governor opposed fracking.“You were celebrated by the Sierra Club for that action until you weren’t,” he said.To conclude the debate, Newsom stuck in the knife: “When are you going to drop out and give Nikki Haley a chance to take on Donald Trump?” he asked. “She laid you out.”A debate watch party at an event space in San Francisco.Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesSean Hannity, a neutral moderator? Fuhgeddaboudit.As the debate began, Mr. Hannity allowed that he was a conservative, but stipulated that as a moderator, he would be fair and nonpartisan.About an hour later, he began one question with this assertion: “Joe Biden has experienced significant cognitive decline.”Fair he wasn’t.Protestations aside, Mr. Hannity didn’t even try to be evenhanded. Again and again, he served up softballs to Mr. DeSantis, while shutting down Mr. Newsom’s attempts to defend himself.And he trotted out a series of well-prepared graphics to show Florida in the best possible light, and California in the worst: on education, crime, tax rates and population loss and gain. Mr. Newsom tried to rebut those graphics, but all Mr. DeSantis had to do was turn to the graphics to say the Californian was a slick spinmeister.Despite Newsom’s efforts, Biden had a tough night.The California governor wanted to shine a rosy light on Mr. Biden’s record before a Fox News audience unused to hearing anything positive about the president.Inflation was down to 3.2 percent, he noted. Wage growth had topped 4 percent, and economic growth in the last quarter was a blistering 5.2 percent, he said, adding, “Those are facts you don’t hear on Fox News.”But in a two-on-one fight, those facts probably didn’t get through, especially when both the moderator and the Florida governor were double-teaming Mr. Newsom on their repeated assertions of the president’s cognitive decline. Mr. Newsom did not come up with a particularly good defense on the matter, though he did say he would take Mr. Biden at 100 years old over Mr. DeSantis at any age in the White House.Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Hannity also teamed up on the dangers of an uncontrolled border, and when Mr. Newsom tried to hit Mr. DeSantis on having gladly taken money from Mr. Biden’s signature achievements, including millions of dollars from the law he signed to promote a domestic semiconductor industry and revive commercial science, Mr. Hannity just moved the conversation along. More

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis to Debate Newsom at a Tenuous Time in His 2024 Campaign

      by

      Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is accustomed to crushing Democrats in his home state.He romped to a re-election victory last year over a weak Democratic opponent, as Republicans also picked up supermajorities in the State Legislature. Since he became governor, Republican voter registration numbers have surged statewide, leapfrogging those of Democrats, who traditionally held the edge.But on Thursday Mr. DeSantis will face something new: a brash, confident Democrat, in the form of his California counterpart, Gov. Gavin Newsom, in a debate this evening on Fox News. Mr. Newsom, who has feuded with Mr. DeSantis for years, has recently been sharpening his attacks, preparing for the encounter with appearances on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. (Mr. Hannity is set to moderate the debate.)For Mr. DeSantis, taking on Mr. Newsom is fraught with risks at a time when his presidential campaign seems to be gasping for air. While Mr. Newsom has little to lose from a poor showing — he is not running for anything, few Democrats are likely to be watching Fox News, and he has plenty of time to live down any missteps — Mr. DeSantis is fighting for his survival as a serious Republican contender.Having boastfully agreed to the matchup with Mr. Newsom, Mr. DeSantis now would seem to need to live up to the expectations that he has set for himself, by landing devastating rhetorical blows on the Californian, or at least by reaping a triumphant exchange or two that he can display to his social-media followers with pride. Should he come away embarrassed, by contrast, it would fuel his rivals’ arguments that he was a better candidate on paper than he has shown himself to be in real life.“Unless DeSantis does great, it will be more of the same narrative that he’s underperforming,” said Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist. Still, Mr. Murphy said, given the state of the race, Mr. DeSantis could use the exposure. “There’s nowhere to go but up,” he said.Although Mr. DeSantis entered the nomination contest as the strongest challenger to former President Donald J. Trump, he is now fighting former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina for second place. His personal mannerisms have been picked apart on the campaign trail and the debate stage. And the well-funded super PAC that was supposed to bolster his campaign has been splintered by infighting, leading to the resignation of the group’s chief executive.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Donald Trump Still Wants to Kill Obamacare. Why?

      by

      Donald Trump hasn’t talked much about policy in this election cycle, except for vague assertions that he’ll somehow bring back low unemployment and low inflation — which, by the way, has already happened. (Unemployment has been at or below 4 percent for almost two years. Thursday’s report on consumer spending showed the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of underlying inflation getting close to its 2 percent target.) Most of his energy seems to be devoted to the prospect of wreaking revenge on his political opponents, whom he promises to “root out” like “vermin.”Nonetheless, over the past few days, Trump has declared that if he returns to the White House, he’ll once again seek to do away with the Affordable Care Act, the reform that has produced a significant decline in the number of Americans without health insurance.Why this renewed assault? “Obamacare Sucks!!!” declared the former and possibly future president. For those offended by the language, these are Trump’s own words, and I think I owe it to my readers to report what he actually said, not sanitize it. Trump also promised to provide “MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE” without offering any specifics.So let’s discuss substance here. Does Obamacare, in fact, suck? And can we believe Trump’s promise to offer something much better?On the latter question, remember that Trump and his allies came very close to killing the A.C.A. in 2017 and replacing it with their own plan — and the Congressional Budget Office did a detailed analysis of the legislation that almost passed. The budget office predicted that by 2026, the Republican bill would cause 32 million people to lose health insurance, and that the premiums paid by individuals buying their own insurance (as opposed to getting it through their employers) would double.There is, as far as I can tell, no reason to believe that Trump has come up with a better plan since then, or that a new analysis of his plan would be any less dismal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Nikki Haley’s First TV Ad Calls to Move Beyond ‘the Chaos of the Past’

      by

      The 30-second spot, part of a $10 million advertising effort in Iowa and New Hampshire, does not mention her front-running rival, Donald Trump, or President Biden.Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign released its first ad of the Republican primary race on Thursday, a spot that calls for “a new generation of conservative leadership” and presents her as a steady hand in the face of domestic and international threats.The ad, titled “Moral Clarity,” comes as Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor, aims to build on her momentum in the polls ahead of the first nominating contests in January. Former President Donald J. Trump, however, maintains a wide lead in surveys.The 30-second ad, part of a $10 million purchase in Iowa and New Hampshire, will air on broadcast and cable TV starting Friday. A super PAC backing Ms. Haley, SFA Fund Inc., has spent more than $20 million on television advertising time, including reserved spots well into January.Ms. Haley narrates the ad, and she does not mention Mr. Trump or President Biden. She twice refers to “chaos” — “chaos on our streets and college campuses,” and a need to leave behind “the chaos of the past,” reflecting concerns about Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump that have animated centrist Republicans.To drive home the point, the ad shows security-camera footage of hooded figures shooting guns on a street as well as images of pro-Palestinian protests and American flags being burned.Buoyed by strong debate performances, Ms. Haley has emerged in recent weeks as a challenger to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for the No. 2 spot in the primary field as both seek to dislodge Mr. Trump. She has largely sought to stake out nuanced positions on domestic issues like abortion (which she does not mention in the ad), while taking a hard-line stance on foreign policy, particularly China, Russia and Iran (which she does mention).Mr. Trump’s campaign has told supporters it expects to air its first broadcast TV ads in Iowa and New Hampshire starting on Friday. He has previously focused on national ads attacking Mr. Biden. More