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      Iowa caucuses 2024: who are the Republican presidential candidates?

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      The Republican race for the 2024 presidential nomination began with a surprisingly large field but has rapidly winnowed down. Now voters are flocking to the Iowa caucuses – the first contest in the process.In a US election, Republican and Democrats hold contests in each state to decide who their nominee will be in the presidential election in November. The winner in each state gets delegates who vote at the party conventions in the summer to choose their nominee. The state elections are usually called primaries with a simple vote, but in some states the election follows a more complex, meeting-based format known as a caucus.So far the 2024 Republican race has been heavily dominated by former US president Donald Trump, who has had a strong poll lead in Iowa itself, as well as in national surveys. Many experts expect a rerun of the 2020 race with Trump facing off against Democratic incumbent Joe Biden for the White House.The trailing pack of Republican candidates has seen numerous highly regarded figures – such as former vice-president Mike Pence and South Carolina senator Tim Scott – drop out. Those remaining have now split into two distinct groups of those who are (just about) potential rivals to Trump and those who are also-rans.Here are the key candidates dueling it out in Iowa:The favoriteDonald TrumpThe former US president’s campaign to retake the White House and once again grab his party’s nomination got off to a slow start that was widely mocked. But his campaign has steadily moved into a position of dominance and never looked likely to be dislodged from that.Trump declined to attend any of the Republican debates, has used his court appearances and many legal woes as a rallying cry to mobilize his base, and has run a surprisingly well-organized campaign. His extremist rhetoric, especially around his plans for a second term and the targeting of his political enemies, has sparked widespread fears over the threat to American democracy that his candidacy represents.His political style during the campaign has not shifted from his previous runs in 2016 and 2020 and, if anything, has become more extreme. Many see this as a result of his political and legal fates becoming entwined with a return to the Oval Office being seen as Trump’s best chance of nixing his legal problems.The potential rivalsNikki HaleyThe former South Carolina governor and ex-US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump has mostly hewed a fine line between being an alternative to Trump, while not outraging his base with too much direct criticism.That has paid off as Haley has shone in debates and worked hard on the campaign trail and risen in the polls to give her a shot at coming second in Iowa and causing an upset in New Hampshire – where she is polling strongly. However, that prominence has now earned Trump’s ire and the two campaigns are openly hurling insults at each other.Ron DeSantisThe rightwing Florida governor was widely seen as the most likely rival to Trump but DeSantis has proved a disaster as a campaigner on the national stage. Positioning himself as an extreme culture warrior, DeSantis has run a campaign of hardcore rightwing politics but he himself has proved a serious turnoff to voters.He has failed to use the debate stage to break through and been subject to a brutal months-long assault from Trump and his surrogates as his stiff campaign trail style damaged his standings. The result has been a prolonged tanking in the polls and Haley has largely overtaken him as the main “non-Trump” candidate.The also-ransVivek RamaswamyThe entrepreneur and extreme Trump fan had a moment in the sun during the early debates where he briefly seemed to be emerging as someone even Trumpier than Trump – but with a younger, more dynamic candidacy. That did not last long though as his poll numbers never caught on and his extremist comments generated endless negative press. He failed to qualify for the final debate.Asa HutchinsonFormer Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson has remained in the race – but few people would really know why. He has not qualified for recent debates and is not expected to make any meaningful impression in Iowa or nationally and frequently dips below 1% in polls. 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      Ron DeSantis makes his pitch before Iowa caucuses amid faltering campaign

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      Amid a campaign that has, from its very first minutes, not gone quite as planned, Ron DeSantis took the stage on Saturday before a crowd of supporters in an Iowa office complex to inform them that the latest obstacle – a historically frigid winter storm – would not stop him from winning the first state to vote in the Republican presidential nomination process.“Are you ready to make some history on Monday night?” the Florida governor asked during a visit to the West Des Moines offices of Never Back Down, the Super Pac supporting his bid for president.“They can throw a blizzard at us, and we are gonna fight. They can throw wind chill at us, and we are gonna fight. They can throw media narratives at us, and we are gonna fight. They can throw fake polls at us, and we are gonna fight. We are gonna fight because we are going to turn this country around.”It was as good of a summation as any of the challenge he faces in Iowa’s Republican caucuses on Monday, where all signs point to Donald Trump clinching victory and throwing the viability of DeSantis’s campaign into jeopardy. Launched last May with a glitchy Twitter live event, the governor’s pitch to voters that he would replicate his conservative remaking of Florida on the national stage have not caught on the way he hoped.With an unapologetically rightwing pitch, DeSantis tried to turn Republicans away from the former president’s Maga agenda by recounting how he rejected the Trump administration’s efforts to stop the spread of Covid-19, and deploying his own draconian turns of phrase, such as his vow to have drug traffickers shot “stone-cold dead” at the border with Mexico.But in the days before the Iowa caucus, that message did not seem to resonate.“He’s perceived as trying to be a Trump wannabe, of bringing in bombastic rhetoric, copying some of Trump’s policies,” said Patrick McDonald, 19, a student at Hillsdale College, a private conservative Christian school in Michigan, who traveled to observe Iowa’s caucuses and says he is undecided on who to support when his state’s primaries occur.Other Republicans worry DeSantis does not have what it takes to beat Joe Biden in November’s general election.After hearing both DeSantis and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley speak at recent rallies, Nancy Wildanger, 70, came away with the impression that the latter would represent the best shot at getting a Republican back in the White House.“She said nothing wrong. DeSantis said nothing wrong. But, statistically, I think she has a better chance, and we need someone with a better chance,” Wildanger said at a rally for Haley in Iowa City on Saturday.Rather than a campaign for victory, DeSantis’s best-case scenario on Monday is a second-place finish that would improve his standing as the best Republican alternative to Trump.“It’s good to be an underdog,” DeSantis said in a Sunday morning interview with ABC News, where he cast doubt on the accuracy of polling in the race. “We’re going to do well, but I’d rather have people count us out. I’d rather have people lower expectations for us. I tend to perform better like that.”The governor may have been referring to an authoritative NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa survey released Saturday that showed DeSantis was the first choice of only 16% of voters, compared to 20% for Haley and 48% for Trump.It served as a testament to how effective Trump had been at consolidating support over the past year even as state and federal prosecutors issued a wave of criminal indictments against him. Beyond Iowa, polls show Trump in the lead among Republicans in other early voting states, and nationally.It also underscored how Trump’s rivals have failed to wrest the power of incumbency away from him, despite his re-election defeat to Biden in 2020, said Dave Peterson, a political science professor at Iowa State University, which has conducted its own polling of the state that shows an overwhelming Trump lead and a tie between Haley and DeSantis.“This race is a referendum in the Republican party on Donald Trump,” Peterson said. “And it is because nobody else has made the argument for why it should be a choice. Haley and DeSantis did not do an effective job, so far, of saying: ‘No, no, no, think about it this way, think about it as a choice between Donald Trump or me.’”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShould DeSantis finish lower than second place, it could prove fatal to his ability to continue competing in New Hampshire, the next state to vote, and later in the primaries.“If he doesn’t get second, I think it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy at that point, that the narrative out of the election, which is what tends to matter more than the actual outcome, is going to be, what the heck happened? Why did he fail? And that’s not the story that’s going to generate new momentum,” Peterson said.For all the hoopla they generate, the winner of the Iowa caucuses does not always go on to win the party’s nomination – Hawkeye state voters did not nominate Biden in 2020, or Trump in 2016.Meanwhile, turnout for this year’s vote could be upended by the aftermath of a colossal winter storm that dropped up to two feet of snow on parts of the state Friday and left behind bitter winds and temperatures that are expected to be in the negatives on Monday evening.“It’s not going to be pleasant,” DeSantis told the room cramped with supporters and press at the Super Pac’s offices. “But if you’re willing to go out there, and you’re willing to fight for me, if you’re willing to bring people to the caucus, if you’re willing to brave the elements and be there for the couple hours that you have to be there, if you’re willing to do that, and you’re willing to fight for me on Monday night, then as president, I’ll be fighting for you for the next eight years.”That would be four more years than Trump, who already served one term, could stay if voters send him back to the White House, and his potential longevity is a key plank of DeSantis’s appeal.Besides that, Trump’s long list of enemies and scandals is one reason why Connie Lendt, 69, has no plans to vote for Trump a third time, and will instead serve as a precinct captain for DeSantis in the town of Woodward on Monday.“Democrats have tried to … impeach him while he was in office. Out of the office, they’re taking him to court for hundreds of different things. If he gets in office again, are they not going to try to impeach him the entire time? So, that’s where all of his energy goes instead of running the country,” Lendt said. “Legally, he’s a mess right now.”Sam Levine contributed to reporting More

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      ‘A sad circus’: Iowa caucuses arrive with little doubt over likely Republican victor

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      Few people relish the Iowa caucuses, the first act of the greatest political show on earth, more than Mike Draper. Since 2008 the Iowa native has hosted US presidential candidates at his novelty retail store and made tongue-in-cheek political merchandise. But this time, he feels, something is missing.“We’ve always had a fairly good finger on the pulse and it’s normally a circus but this year is just a sad circus,” said Draper, owner of Raygun in the state capital, Des Moines. “People are still going through the motions but there’s no real drama to it.”That is because Donald Trump, a twice-impeached former president still facing 91 criminal charges, is poised to complete his political resurrection on Monday with victory in the first nominating contest to decide which Republican takes on the Democratic incumbent Joe Biden in November’s election.Opinion polls show Trump casting a giant shadow over the sparsely populated, snow-swept state despite campaigning far less there than his rivals Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley. Most analyses say the question is not if he will win but by how much.It is a rare anti-climax for political aficionados in Iowa, which takes its outsized role in vetting the world’s most powerful person very seriously. Draper, 41, who votes Democratic, reflected: “We make a lot of shirts about sports and it’s tricky because it’s hard to make product that sells for a losing team but it’s also hard to make product that sells for a team that’s blowing everybody out.“This year, even on the Republican side, it’s almost like an incumbent is running uncontested and then you had DeSantis and Haley having a two-person debate in Des Moines while the guy who’s blowing them out of the water doesn’t even show up.”Such is the lack of engagement that, when Draper’s staff mounted a display to celebrate the caucuses, curious onlookers assumed it must be related to Presidents’ Day in February or Independence Day in July. The store responded with characteristic dry wit on a T-shirt: “Election 2024: You’d think battling a fascist takeover of America would spark more interest from people.”Another T-shirt, based on a snatch of conversation overheard on the New York subway, says: “What the hell is a caucus? And where the hell is Iowa?” These are questions that get asked every four years. A caucus is a gathering at a neighbourhood location, such as a school, church or union hall, where representatives make speeches on behalf of their favoured candidates. People then vote by secret ballot.Iowa is a midwestern state with the same population size as Wales (3.1 million). Hogs outnumber people by more than seven to one. It is whiter and more rural than most of the US. It has hosted the official start of every presidential campaign for the last half-century, offering a test of humility as candidates brave the icy plains to visit churches, diners, farms and school gyms, look voters in the eye and make their pitch.But the old maxim that “all politics is local” applies less in today’s nationalised, media-driven political landscape. Trump, 77, is the first loser of a presidential election to compete in Iowa four years later. He has the infrastructure and money to run the organised ground game that caucuses demand. His celebrity status has overwhelmed his hard-toiling opponents and enabled him to campaign at arm’s length.He held only 24 events in 19 counties in Iowa between 1 January 2023 and 4 January 2024, according to data collected by the Des Moines Register newspaper. This was far fewer than DeSantis (99 events in 57 counties), Haley (51 events in 30 counties) and Ramaswamy (239 events in 94 counties). Even Trump’s campaign surrogates have been drawing bigger crowds in the state than actual candidates.Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said: “For people like Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis, first-time candidates, Iowa’s important to be there in person but Trump is campaigning on the persona and mythology of Trump as much as anything else.“People don’t even feel like they need to meet him in person. He’s become a standard bearer for people who feel disenfranchised by whatever they view as the establishment and, even though they get a lot of benefits from the Biden administration programmes, Biden has been terrible at selling them.”A recent survey put Trump 34 percentage points clear of the field, suggesting that voters here care little for warnings that he is a nascent dictator ready to shred democracy. One major reason is born-again or evangelical Christians, who made up nearly two-thirds of caucus-goers during the 2016 Republican presidential primary, according to exit polling.This group seems willing to overlook his moral shortcomings if it means electing a perceived fighter who will deliver its objectives. Karen Johnson, a 67-year-old evangelical Christian, told the New York Times: “Trump is our David and our Goliath,” – neatly capturing his combination of sacred and profane.Art Cullen, editor of the Storm Lake Times newspaper, said: “North-west Iowa, where I live, is the most conservative part of the state and it’s just very solidly pro-Trump, including a lot of evangelicals who Ron DeSantis has been trying to court.“Trump is just dominant in Iowa. It’s going to be a good night for him.” But elections are also an expectations game and, if Trump dips below 50% of the vote in Iowa, it will be seen as a disappointment. In recent days his advisers have been reminding reporters that no Republican presidential candidate has won a contested Iowa caucus by more than 12 points since Bob Dole in 1988.There is another wild card: weather.During the weekend, extreme weather made Iowa’s roads dangerous and wreaked havoc with the final sprint of the caucus campaign. On Friday the state patrol posted a warning on social media that said: “Please, don’t put yourself or others in danger.”Trump’s campaign was forced to cancel three out of four in-person rallies over the weekend, opting to hold tele-rallies instead “out of an abundance of caution amid severe weather advisories”. Haley, who cancelled all three of her events on Friday, quipped to voters during a virtual town hall: “I definitely know I’m not in South Carolina anymore.”DeSantis did manage to hold an event on Friday morning in Ankeny, close to Des Moines, and said of the caucuses: “I know it’s gonna be cold. I know it’s gonna be not the most pleasant, but I don’t think you’ll ever be able to pass a vote that has more impact.”Iowans are famously hardy but Monday is forecast to be a record cold caucus night with temperatures predicted to dip as low as -14F (-26C). Biting winds could make it feel as cold as -45F in some places.This could reduce turnout but again might favour Trump because he has a fiercely loyal base. He confidently predicted last weekend: “We won’t lose one vote, because our people, they’re going to walk on glass.”Two subplots of this year’s caucuses are the implosion of DeSantis, 45, and the rise of 51-year-old Haley. A year ago the Florida governor was being hailed as a new Republican saviour who could offer Trumpism without Trump: rightwing populist policies without legal baggage or crass antics. Tens of millions of dollars, countless air miles and several staff departures later, he has little to show for it.Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, said: “The biggest surprise in the past 12 months politically has been the steady weakening of the DeSantis candidacy. He was presented to the world as a person who had just about all Donald Trump’s virtues – as Republicans define them – with none of his vices and look at what’s happened to him.”A third-place finish for DeSantis on Monday could end his bid for the White House. Galston added: “Ron DeSantis has bet the farm on Iowa and, if he finishes an ignominious third, he will be a dead man walking and the only question is how long will he walk before he collapses. If he finishes a stronger than expected second, which you can’t rule out based on the amount of ground-level work he and his team have done there, that would be a surprise.”DeSantis has been criticised for lacking charm and charisma, more naturally predisposed to a scowl than a smile. One commentator memorably described him as the kind of guy who might unplug your life support to recharge his mobile phone.Schiller of Brown University said: “He’s not quite as good in person on the stump as people had hoped he would be and that was a problem. DeSantis tried to be Trump version two but the problem for him is that version one is running. At the end of the day, people like the original.“That happens in American politics: if you are unique – and Trump is, we can argue safely, unique – it’s hard to imitate it. You’ve seen all these candidates who try to imitate Trump fall flat on their face. Ron DeSantis is just an extended example of what happened to Senate candidates in 2022. As long as Trump is out there and is walking, talking and breathing, nobody wants the imitation.”Despite a recent gaffe over the cause of the civil war, when she failed to mention slavery, Haley has donor money and momentum on her side. A strong finish in Iowa would set her up well for New Hampshire, where some polls show her cutting Trump’s lead to single digits, and where the anti-Trump candidate Chris Christie’s recent decision to drop out could give her a further boost in support.John Zogby, an author and pollster, said: “She’s run the best campaign and she’s also the best candidate in terms of the tools and the rules. She is very good on her feet most of the time and she has a cheerful personality and is very subtly appealing to moderate and independent voters.”Normally, victory in Iowa is a step, not a leap, towards the White House. In 2008, Mike Huckabee won and John McCain trailed in fourth, but McCain became the nominee. In 2012, Rick Santorum edged out Mitt Romney but it was Romney who became the party’s standard bearer. And in 2016, Ted Cruz beat Trump into second place, only for Trump to secure the nomination and the presidency.But a big win for Trump on Monday will imply that his iron grip on the Republican party endures and a third consecutive nomination is his to lose. It will also signify a remarkable comeback for a man who suffered a crushing defeat by Biden in the 2020 presidential election, instigated a riot at the US Capitol in a desperate bid to overturn it and became the first former president hit by criminal indictments. And it will serve as a warning against complacency for Democrats and anyone around the world who fears a second Trump presidency.Joe Walsh, a former congressman who challenged the incumbent Trump in the 2020 Iowa caucuses and polled at 1%, said: “I expect him to win big. I expect Haley and DeSantis to be very distant. I expect maybe Haley to end up ahead of DeSantis and I wouldn’t be surprised if DeSantis gets out before New Hampshire and endorses Trump.”Walsh has not been surprised to see few Republican candidates directly attack Trump for most of the campaign. “Both Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, everybody in this primary, it’s been fucking mission impossible. This is Trump’s party and none of them have been trying to beat him. If you attack Trump, you’re done as a Republican. There’s no anti-Trump lane in that party. Period.” More

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      Two more DeSantis events postponed amid Iowa storm; Trump weather could dent caucus turnout – as it happened

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      Never Back Down, the Super Pac supporting Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, says it has had to postpone two more events with him in Iowa today over “unsafe weather conditions”.The Florida governor will not be making it to Pella or Coralville, the group said in a statement.Mother Nature weighed in ahead of Iowa’s presidential caucuses on Monday, and her decision is: no campaigning today, at least not in person. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have both called off events in the Buckeye state as a blizzard renders travel perilous, though Haley has shifted to holding town halls via telephone. Donald Trump’s campaign is reportedly worried the significant snowfall may dent caucus turnout, as he hopes for a big win in the state to cement his status as the Republican frontrunner. Back in a comparatively warmer Washington DC, House Republicans announced they will vote to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress next week, while his attorney said the president’s son will show up for a deposition, if lawmakers issue new subpoenas.Here’s what else happened today:
      Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor whose presidential campaign is the among the longest of long shots, says he is still on the road in Iowa.
      The House speaker, Mike Johnson, announced his spending deal with Democrats is still on despite rightwing opposition, lowering the chances of a government shutdown.
      Oregon’s supreme court declined to toss Trump from the state’s primary ballot, at least not yet. The former president cheered the decision.
      Joe Biden acknowledged that defense secretary Lloyd Austin made a lapse in judgment when he waited days to inform the White House he had been hospitalized.
      Kyrsten Sinema, an independent senator from Arizona, said negotiations over changes to the immigration system were making progress.
      The Republican leaders of two House committees investigating Hunter Biden say the president’s son must schedule a behind-closed-doors deposition with them before they will call off their plan to hold him in contempt for defying a subpoena.The statement from the oversight committee chair, James Comer, and the judiciary committee chair, Jim Jordan, comes after Biden’s attorney earlier today notified them that his client would sit for a deposition with them, if they issued new subpoenas. The two committees ordered the president’s son in November to appear for an interview in private, but Biden defied the summons and gave only a brief statement to reporters at the Capitol on the day he was to appear. That has led Republicans to move to hold him in contempt.“House Republicans have been resolute in demanding Hunter Biden sit for a deposition in the ongoing impeachment inquiry. While we are heartened that Hunter Biden now says he will comply with a subpoena, make no mistake: Hunter Biden has already defied two valid, lawful subpoenas,” Comer and Jordan said.“For now, the House of Representatives will move forward with holding Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress until such time that Hunter Biden confirms a date to appear for a private deposition in accordance with his legal obligation. While we will work to schedule a deposition date, we will not tolerate any additional stunts or delay from Hunter Biden.”The stunt they referred to was likely Biden’s brief and unexpected appearance in the audience of the oversight committee on Wednesday, just as lawmakers were considering whether to hold him in contempt.It’s unclear if Comer and Jordan’s statement will meet the requirements set out by Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell, who said in his letter to them that new subpoenas were required because the House has now voted to authorize impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden. The GOP claims the younger Biden can prove allegations of corruption against the president.Here’s video of Joe Biden in Pennsylvania taking questions from a reporter about the news of the day, including the defense secretary’s Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization and the airstrikes ordered against the Houthis in Yemen:During a visit to Pennsylvania to highlight his administration’s efforts to help small businesses, Joe Biden replied “yes” when asked by a reporter if the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, made a lapse in judgment when he waited to tell him he had been hospitalized, Reuters reports.News broke a week ago that the defense secretary was in the hospital, and in the days since, it has been revealed that Austin waited days to inform the White House of his hospitalization resulting from complications related to prostate cancer treatment.While some Republican lawmakers and one Democrat have called on Austin to step down, noting that the secretary is supposed to be constantly available to respond to crises, the White House says Biden continues to have confidence in him:The Iowa caucuses are one of America’s more unique political rituals, since most other states hold the comparatively straightforward primaries to choose their candidates.Here’s the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly with an explainer demystifying the process that is a key part of the road to the presidency:Here’s the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly and Sam Levine with a rundown of all the ways in which Iowa’s blizzard has disrupted presidential campaigning ahead of the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses on Monday:Candidates and caucus-goers faced extra challenges in Iowa on Friday as a second major snow event in a week hit the state, three days before Republicans are due to kick off their presidential nomination process for the critical election year.According to the National Weather Service in Des Moines, most of Iowa could expect significant, possibly record snowfall, high winds stoking blizzard conditions.“Life-threatening winter weather is expected beginning tonight with heavy snow,” the NWS said on Thursday. “White-out conditions likely Friday into Friday night. To follow, extreme wind chills as low as -45F [-43C] possible through early next week. Plan ahead for this dangerous stretch of winter weather!”In Washington DC and New York, reporters packed thermal underwear and tried to find flights still scheduled. In Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa, heavy snow covered streets overnight and continued to fall. Save for the occasional car, the streets were largely deserted as the temperature hovered at about 15F (-9C). At the local Target, students and other residents stocked up on supplies as snowplows worked outside.Schools and businesses closed. In the state capital, Des Moines Performing Arts announced the postponement of Civic Center shows by the percussion group Stomp.Joe Biden announced a new student loan forgiveness plan on Friday that will provide debt relief to some borrowers enrolled in the new Save plan.
      Starting next month, borrowers enrolled in Save who took out less than $12,000 in loans and have been in repayment for 10 years will get their remaining student debt canceled immediately.
      It’s part of our ongoing efforts to act quickly to give more borrowers breathing room,” Biden tweeted on Friday.
      In a separate statement released on Friday, the education department said that there are now 6.9 million borrowers enrolled in the Save plan as of early January, more than double the enrollment on the Revised Pay As You Earn (Repaye) plan that it replaced in August.Donald Trump’s campaign team has hailed the decision by the Oregon supreme court to turn down a petition to disqualify him from the state’s primary ballot over his involvement in the January 2021 Capitol insurrection.
      Today’s decision in Oregon was the correct one. President Trump urges the swift dismissal of all remaining, bad-faith, election interference 14th amendment ballot challenges as they are un-constitutional attempts by allies of Crooked Joe Biden to disenfranchise millions of American voters and deny them their right to vote for the candidate of their choice,” said a Trump spokesperson.
      He went on to add:
      President Trump will continue to fight these desperate shams, win in November and Make America Great Again.
      Equal Justice USA, a national criminal justice organization, has criticized federal prosecutors’ decision to seek the death penalty for the white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York in May 2022.In a statement released on Friday, Jamila Hodge, the executive director of EJUSA, said:
      The government’s decision to pursue a death sentence will do nothing to address the racism and hatred that fueled the mass murder.
      Ultimately, this pursuit will inflict more pain and renewed trauma on the victims’ families and the larger Black community already shattered by loss and desperately in need of healing and solutions that truly build community safety. Imagine if we invested in that instead of more state violence.
      Friday’s decision by federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty is a first for the justice department under Joe Biden’s administration.The Independent Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema has refused to share “differences of opinion” surrounding negotiations of a potential bipartisan border security package.In an interview with ABC 15, Sinema, who is a key negotiator in the talks, said:
      We’re down to the last one or two differences of opinion and I’m confident we’ll be able to resolve those and move forward with this legislation.
      Upon being asked if she could share what the differences in opinions are, Sinema replied: “No.”Mother Nature has weighed in ahead of Iowa’s presidential caucuses on Monday, and her decision is: no campaigning today, at least not in person. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have both called off events in the Buckeye state as a blizzard renders travel perilous, though Haley has shifted to holding town halls via telephone. Donald Trump’s campaign is reportedly worried the significant snowfall may dent caucus turnout, as he hopes for a big win in the state to cement his status as the Republican frontrunner. Back in a comparatively warmer Washington DC, House Republicans announced they will vote to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress next week, while his attorney said the president’s son will show up for a deposition, if lawmakers issue new subpoenas.Here’s what else is happening today:
      Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor whose presidential campaign is the among the longest of long shots, says he is still on the road in Iowa.
      The House speaker, Mike Johnson, announced his spending deal with Democrats is still on despite rightwing opposition, lowering the chances of a government shutdown.
      Oregon’s supreme court declined to toss Trump from the state’s primary ballot, at least not yet.
      Never Back Down, the Super Pac supporting Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, says it has had to postpone two more events with him in Iowa today over “unsafe weather conditions”.The Florida governor will not be making it to Pella or Coralville, the group said in a statement.The long-shot Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson says he is still campaigning, despite Iowa’s gnarly road conditions:The former Arkansas governor and avowed foe of Donald Trump is nowhere in the polls, yet has stayed in the race.Why Republican presidential candidates have called off campaigning today, from the Iowa State Patrol:With her schedule of campaign events in Iowa cancelled today due to the blizzard, Nikki Haley held a telephone town hall with voters in Fort Dodge.It was a fairly typical stump speech for the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, who took pains to point out the exceptionally bad snow storm, and the relief Iowans will feel in a few days, when politicians stop bugging them.“I definitely know I’m not in South Carolina anymore. It is beyond cold,” Haley began.Nodding to the fact that aspiring Republican presidential candidates have been criss-crossing the state for months, hoping to win its first-in-the-nation caucuses, Haley said:
      I know you are excited, because it is three days until the commercials stop, and the mail stops coming to you, and the text messages, everything else. And, so, I can tell you as a governor of the first in the south primary [state], we always loved to see presidential candidates come, and we always love to see them go, so I can appreciate where you’re coming from, and I appreciate you putting up with all of the activity that happens during this time. More

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      Who benefits as Christie ends presidential bid before Iowa caucus? – podcast

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      Hours before Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis took to the debate stage in Iowa on Wednesday night, more than 1,000 miles away in New Hampshire Chris Christie shocked his supporters by announcing he was dropping out of the race. The former New Jersey governor was the only candidate to consistently attack Donald Trump, in a field of Republicans trying to beat the former president, all the while keeping his base sweet.
      With only three days until the Iowa caucus, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Elaine Kamarck about who is most likely to come out on top

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Nikki Haley emerges from TV debate as Trump’s nearest rival as Iowa vote looms

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      The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley emerged from the last televised debate before the Iowa caucuses clearly Donald Trump’s strongest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, boosted by the withdrawal of Chris Christie, the only explicitly anti-Trump candidate to register significantly with voters.Voting begins in Iowa on Monday, before New Hampshire stages its primary a week on Tuesday. Haley has closed on Trump in New Hampshire and has hopes of seizing second place in Iowa at the expense of the rightwing Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.Nonetheless, the Trump camp remains bullish as the Iowa vote looms after having maintained hefty leads in the polls for months. On Wednesday night, one senior aide said the campaign “couldn’t have scripted any better ourselves” events in the Des Moines debate, delighting in the spectacle of the former US president’s rivals slogging it out on the CNN stage while Trump – who continues to refuse to debate – took an easy ride at a Fox News town hall.“If you watched any part of the ‘JV’ debate this evening, you see two campaigns that are beating the living hell out of each other,” Chris LaCivita told reporters after Haley fiercely debated DeSantis, while Trump performed on his own elsewhere.“Then you have a Donald Trump commercial that shows up and he’s talking about Joe Biden … we couldn’t have scripted any better ourselves.”“JV” stands for “junior varsity” – a designation for college athletes below first-team standard. At Drake University, Haley said, “I wish Donald Trump was up on this stage” but spent most of her evening fighting DeSantis, regardless of Trump’s whopping Iowa lead.Fox gave Trump an easy ride. On a network which has paid $787.5m to settle one lawsuit arising from his stolen election lie and faces other such threats, the subject never came up. Nor did Trump’s legal problems arising from that lie, including 17 criminal charges regarding election subversion. Nor were Trump’s other 74 criminal charges, for retention of classified information and hush-money payments, high on Fox’s agenda.Tim Miller, a Republican operative turned anti-Trump activist and writer for the Bulwark, a conservative Never-Trump website, delivered a withering assessment of the Fox News town hall.Describing “one big primetime infomercial for the frontrunner”, Miller described Trump’s hosts, the “‘straight news’ reporters Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum”, sitting “beside the disgraced former president listening to his Catskills stand-up bit and giggling like a couple of undergrads after a 5mg weed gummy”.Trump did not avoid every pitfall. Seeking to thread a particularly tricky needle, he questioned the harshness of abortion bans supported by Haley and DeSantis. But he also crowed that “for 54 years, [conservatives] were trying to get Roe v Wade terminated, and I did it, and I’m proud to have done it”.The remark drew applause from the Fox audience but delight from Democrats, given how the supreme court’s removal of the federal right to abortion last year (actually 49 years after Roe, the ruling which guaranteed the right) and other attacks on healthcare rights have fueled Democratic wins at the polls. Up and down the ballot, abortion is set to be a key election issue this year.Tommy Vietor, a former staffer to Barack Obama, posted Trump’s remark to social media and said: “Biden campaign is going to feature this in about a billion dollars’ worth of ads.”DeSantis, meanwhile, has spent hundreds of millions on his campaign but is widely seen to be in deep trouble, needing a strong second in Iowa to avoid having to drop out. He also stood to lose more than Haley from Christie’s decision earlier on Wednesday to bring an end to his own campaign.The former New Jersey governor was the only candidate to run on an explicitly anti-Trump platform, regardless of Trump’s hold on Republican voters.Ending his campaign in New Hampshire, the libertarian-minded state on which he pinned his hopes, Christie said: “Anyone who is unwilling to say that [Trump] is unfit to be president of the United States is unfit themselves to be president of the United States.”Haley and DeSantis have begun to attack Trump as caucus day looms but not in strong terms and while still reserving their harshest fire for each other. Christie also had harsh if unscripted words for both his rivals, in comments apparently picked up by accident on a hot mic before his speech was streamed.“She’s gonna get smoked and you and I both know it,” Christie said, presumably referring to Haley. “She’s not up to this.”He also said: “DeSantis called me, petrified that I would –” before the audio cut out.The remarks, which CNN confirmed were directed at Wayne MacDonald, Christie’s New Hampshire campaign chair, pointed to harsh political realities.Haley is clear in second in New Hampshire and has been reducing Trump’s lead. Most polling indicates Christie supporters will now turn her way. But Haley remains well behind Trump, particularly in her own state, South Carolina, which will be third to vote. Campaign wisdom says candidates who cannot win their home state cannot hope to win over their whole party.DeSantis is well behind Trump in Florida and everywhere else. He would certainly have reason to be “petrified” that Christie’s withdrawal will ensure Haley becomes the only competitor to Trump with any notion of viability at all.The DeSantis and Haley campaigns did not immediately comment. More

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      Republican debate: Haley and DeSantis clash on immigration and Ukraine but absent Trump is the winner – as it happened

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      Just days away from the Iowa caucuses, when the first voters will make their picks for a Republican presidential nominee, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis exchanged bitter barbs and often circuitous criticisms in a debate that yielded few memorable points.Meanwhile, Donald Trump carried on as usual in a televised Fox News town hall, comfortable in his spot as the top candidate.Thanks for following along. And stay tuned for more updates and analysis across the Guardian.Closing thoughts from each candidate are …“We can’t run under a banner of pale pastels of warmed-over corporatism, the likes of which is practice by Nikki Haley,” said Ron DeSantis, trying once again to make “pale pastels” stick as an insult.“We can’t go through four more years of chaos,” said Haley. Though her real catch-phrase tonight was “Desantislies.com”.A question about climate change, and what each candidate is willing to do about it, has – as expected – yielded little useful information.DeSantis promised to tear up the “Biden’s green new deal” while Haley said she opposed “extremes” in policy and transitioned the conversation over to the topic of crime.Last summer, during the first Republican presidential debate, a pointed question from a young activist elicited slightly more interesting results. Alexander Diaz, a young conservative who is part of the American Conservation Coalition (ACC), a youth conservative group that pushes for action on the climate crisis, asked candidates what they would do to improve the party’s standing on climate policy. None of the candidates at that time raised their hands to affirm that climate change was real.Demonstrating a careful balancing act, DeSantis both defends and critiques Trump, saying that the former president is being wrongly prosecuted but also, “if Trump is the nominee, it is going to be about Jan 6”.Haley, meanwhile, said that no president should be immune from all prosecution, but as she tends to do, cast her self as a leader who could restore civility after too much “chaos” surrounding Trump.With Chris Christie out of the running, there’s no one where willing to overtly or forcefully take down Trump. The resulting debate has been an odd, largely disengaging slog for for a silver medal.Meanwhile, on the debate stage, abortion has just come up.And DeSantis has started by questioning whether Trump and Haley are adequately pro-life. But he also mentioned that Republicans need to do a better job of highlighting support for mothers.“Republicans need to do a better job of lifting up folks who are having children,” he said. “It’s very difficult to raise kids in this environment. You need to help with medical care, you need to help with affordability and we need to help with education choice. You got to be pro life for the whole life.”In an implicit acknowledgment about how extreme anti-abortion restrictions are alienating voters, he claimed that abortion opponents do not support criminalizing women. That’s not quite right, as the Guardian has reported. Bills in state legislatures have proposed prosecuting women for seeking abortion care.Haley, meanwhile, said of Trump and DeSantis: “These fellas don’t know how to talk about abortion.“We’re not going to play politics with this issue any more. We’re going to treat it like the respectful issue that it is and the tropes that you want,” she said.Over at the Trump town hall, the former president is taking credit for ending the right to abortion.That’s a notable stance for the GOP frontrunner, at a time when it’s become increasingly clear that extreme anti-abortion policies are alienating voters. More than a dozen states could ultimately vote on abortion in 2024. And voters have already enshrined rights to abortion in state constitutions in Ohio, Arizona and Florida.My colleague Lauren Gambino reported recently:
      The supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade delivered Republicans one of their most significant policy victories in a generation. But in the year and a half since the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the ruling has also become one of their biggest political vulnerabilities.
      Over the last 18 months, voters have favored abortion rights in seven consecutive ballot measures, including in conservative states. Republicans underperformed in the 2022 midterm elections while Democrats scored off-year election wins in Wisconsin, Kentucky and Virginia – results that again emphasized the enduring power of abortion rights.
      “With abortion, there’s really a kind of catch-22 for Republicans,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis and a leading expert on the history of abortion in the US. “On the one hand, you have a lot of base Republican voters who really care about opposing abortion and on the other you have a huge group of something like 70% of Americans who don’t like abortion bans.”
      The crossfire has gotten away from the moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, struggling to rein in DeSantis shouting over Haley.“I think I hit a nerve,” Haley said.Over on Fox News, which is airing the Trump town hall, the former president was pressed on his recent warning that “it’ll be bedlam in the country” if he loses the election.Co-host Bret Baier asked: “Can you say tonight that political violence is never acceptable?”Trump replied: “Well, of course that’s right. And of course, I’m the one that had very little of it.”Later Trump offered some idle speculation on the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China. “I think it was done out of incompetence,” he said, “I believe that a scientist went out, said hello to his girlfriend, and that was the end of that. She died and then people started dying all over the place.”After a short break, we’re on to the issue of Ron DeSantis’s battle with Disney, following the company’s condemnation of Florida’s “don’t say gay” law.DeSantis was asked whether it aligns with conservative values to antagonize businesses. The Florida governor doubled down on his choice to go after the company for “trans-ing” kids, repeating a slew of baseless talking points about what education, parental and medical support for transgender children entails. “Most corporate Republicans would have caved. I stood and I fought,” he said.Haley accused DeSantis of supporting Disney until they came out against his policies. “When they went and criticized him he got thin-skinned and suddenly started to fight back,” she said.Here’s more context on DeSantis’s beef with Disney:The candidates are divided on Ukraine, and tonight reiterated views they’ve expressed before.Haley is for the US supporting Ukraine which she said is is “a pro-American, freedom-loving country”.DeSantis is against sending more money to Ukraine, preferring to “ focus on our issues here at home”.Both candidates are for sending aid to Israel. More

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      Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis to face off in Iowa Republican debate

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      Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis will face off one-on-one in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday night in their fifth and most high-stakes attempt to take support away from Donald Trump before Monday’s Iowa caucus, the country’s first state primary election.The former president has repeatedly declined to debate his party’s opponents, and will again forgo this debate, instead participating in a town hall hosted by Fox News, also in Iowa.Unlike the prior debates, this one was not coordinated by the Republican National Committee (RNC), which decided in December to stop hosting GOP debates for the rest of the primary season.The RNC debates narrowed the field of Republican contenders to five, and CNN’s debate requirement that candidates poll at 10% in at least three national or Iowa-based surveys has left only Haley, DeSantis and Trump qualifying. Chris Christie, Trump’s most vociferous critic among the Republican contenders, did not make the cut, but will likely qualify in New Hampshire.Vivek Ramaswamy, the rightwing tech entrepreneur who has billed himself as a youthful Maga answer to Trump and has peddled in conspiracy theories, including claiming the January 6 Capitol riot was an “inside job”, did not qualify. Ramaswamy, who has spent the most time in Iowa out of all the candidates, has said he will instead participate in a Des Moines taping of a podcast with the rightwing commentator Tim Pool.Florida governor DeSantis has thrown his campaign resources into Iowa before the caucuses, including visiting each of the state’s 99 counties.“I’d be a better president as a result of going through this,” DeSantis said wearily during an Iowa press conference.Meanwhile, Haley, who garnered the endorsement of the heavy-hitting, Koch-backed conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, could see a boost in Iowa as well. (The organization has promised to knock on doors for the former US ambassador to the UN every day ahead of the 15 January caucuses.)skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf DeSantis and Haley are fighting neck and neck, it is likely for second place. Polls show Trump holding an increasingly commanding lead in Iowa in the weeks before the caucuses – despite putting fewer campaign resources into the early primary than his opponents.If DeSantis fails to eat into Trump’s share of Iowa voters, his campaign – which has faltered repeatedly among gaffes and staffing shakeups – could shutter before he sees another primary. More