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    Audit Questions Purchase of $19,000 Lectern by Arkansas Governor’s Office

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    The legislative audit found several ways that the heavily scrutinized purchase potentially violated state law. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders criticized the findings.Legislative auditors in Arkansas found that the purchase last year of a $19,000 lectern by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s office potentially violated state laws, according to a report released on Monday.But the findings may be moot after the state attorney general, Tim Griffin, said last week that state purchasing laws do not apply to the governor or other executive branch officials.Ms. Sanders, a Republican, faced sharp scrutiny for the purchase, even from members of her own party. But on Monday, she appeared eager to fling away those attacks, posting a video montage seemingly mocking the lectern controversy on social media, complete with hype music and dramatic edits.Her office described the report as “deeply flawed” and said that “no laws were broken.”The potential violations found by the audit include shredding a document that should have been preserved and mishandling the purchase process. The legislative auditors said that their report would be forwarded to the Sixth Judicial District prosecuting attorney and to Mr. Griffin’s office.State lawmakers approved the audit last year after it was revealed that the governor’s office had purchased the lectern and an accompanying traveling case in June, using a state-issued credit card to pay $19,029.25 to Beckett Events L.L.C., an event management company with ties to Ms. Sanders.Matthew Campbell, a lawyer and blogger who had filed a broad public records request, was the first to obtain the information.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Another Red-Blue Divide: Money to Feed Kids in the Summer

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      The governor was firm: Nebraska would reject the new federal money for summer meals. The state already fed a small number of children when schools closed. He would not sign on to a program to provide all families that received free or cut-rate school meals with cards to buy groceries during the summer.“I don’t believe in welfare,” the governor, Jim Pillen, a Republican, said in December.A group of low-income youths, in a face-to-face meeting, urged him to reconsider. One told him she had eaten less when schools were out. Another criticized the meals at the existing feeding sites and held a crustless prepackaged sandwich to argue that electronic benefit cards from the new federal program would offer better food and more choice.“Sometimes money isn’t the solution,” the governor replied.A week later, Mr. Pillen made a U-turn the size of a Nebraska cornfield, approving the cards and praising the young people for speaking out.“This isn’t about me winning,” he said. “This is about coming to the conclusion of what is best for our kids.”After meeting with young people, Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska reversed himself and accepted federal money for summer meals.Kenneth Ferriera/Lincoln Journal Star, via Associated PressMr. Pillen’s extraordinary reversal shows the conflicts shaping red-state views of federal aid: needs beckon, but suspicions run high of the Biden administration and programs that critics call handouts.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Stefanik? Noem? Haley?! The Trump V.P. Chatter Has Begun.

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      With presidential primaries, it ain’t over till it’s over. Still, given the Republicans’ enduring devotion to their MAGA king, it’s best to mentally prepare oneself for the likelihood that the guy who has long been the prohibitive front-runner will, in fact, win the nomination. And a particularly juicy part of that preparation is obsessing over who Donald Trump will pick as his new pain sponge — erm, running mate — and what that choice could tell us about his strategy and state of mind this time around.Will Mr. Trump go with a white man who has displayed MAGA fealty? That would be the easiest, most comfortable fit for a guy who favors unchallenging mini-mes. Many people think he should go bolder, picking a Latino or Black man — paging Tim Scott! — in an effort to deepen the inroads he has already made with these demographics.And then there is the woman option, which is the one that most intrigues me.The Trump years have not helped the G.O.P.’s longstanding lady troubles. Many suburban soccer moms and other moderate Republican women aren’t so crazy about the former president’s ultratoxic politics. And the Trump-stacked Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 did little to improve the situation. Could a woman on the ticket help Mr. Trump win back some of these defectors, who may have soured on President Biden? Even if some women could not bring themselves to go full Trump, might they at least feel less driven to turn out to oppose him? Also, how pro-MAGA could a female V.P. pick be and still serve as a bridge to non-MAGA women? How non-MAGA could she be and still satisfy Mr. Trump?I am not the only one noodling over such matters. Steve Bannon, part of Mr. Trump’s original political brain trust, in an appearance last month on “The Sean Spicer Show,” said he thinks Mr. Trump will choose a female running mate this time and ticked through multiple boldfaced names he considered promising options: Kristi Noem, Elise Stefanik, Kari Lake, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Nancy Mace and Marsha Blackburn. He also declared Nikki Haley a nonstarter, warning that she would be “a viper” in the administration and vowing that any attempt to “force” her onto the ticket would lead to a big fight.A serpent in the Trump garden! How delicious. How biblically twisted.While obviously not the only women in the possible selection pool — in fact, I feel compelled to toss in Marjorie Taylor Greene — several of these are among the most discussed. Each brings with her a unique mix of pros and cons, in terms both of the more traditional measures by which running mates are often chosen and of the Trumpian particulars. So many factors to consider. So much to process. Here is a handy tip sheet, with an eye toward what each possible veep candidate says about Mr. Trump himself.Kari Lake. The former TV news anchor, former nominee for governor of Arizona and current Senate candidate clearly has the right stuff when it comes to MAGA zeal. It’s hard to find a Republican player with more passion or flair for promoting election-fraud claims. She is super media savvy, which Mr. Trump considers important, not to mention easy on the eyes — which we could all pretend doesn’t matter to him, but why bother? (Slamming a woman’s looks is a go-to Trump move.) She clearly knows how to throw a political punch, which is a quality generically valued in running mates and certainly one Mr. Trump fancies. She also hails from a crucial swing state, which once upon a time was considered a plus, though these days, who can say?She has no experience in public office, though, and little credibility with major donors or other establishment players. She is unlikely to hold much appeal for non-MAGA voters. And as weird as it sounds, she may be a smidge too flamboyantly Trumpy. Because the one thing you never want in a No. 2 — and which Mr. Trump in particular cannot abide — is someone who threatens to upstage the No. 1.Elise Stefanik. The chair of the House Republican conference is in no danger of ever outshining Mr. Trump. Her past as a more moderate, business-friendly Republican might offer comfort to some non-MAGA voters. Her leadership post has given her a national profile, and over the years she has worked aggressively to improve the party’s standing with female voters and to advance female candidates. She has solid relationships with the party elite, including big donors.While those establishment ties and history might raise some eyebrows in certain corners of Trump world, the congresswoman has undergone a total MAGA makeover in recent years. And there is little Mr. Trump loves more than having a former apostate grovel before him. As a bonus: Her assault on the heads of three elite universities during a December hearing on campus antisemitism, which played a role in the subsequent resignation of two of them, has given her a bit of conservative sparkle, at least for now. Mr. Trump appreciates someone who knows how to work the TV cameras.Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Mr. Trump surely considers the White House press secretary turned governor of Arkansas to be his political creation, which is one of his favorite kinds of people, as long as they don’t step out of line. (Just ask Meatball Ron DeSantis.) Ms. Sanders knows how to swim with the national media sharks. She hails from a traditional Republican (mini) dynasty and enjoys ties to the party establishment. She has proved herself willing to say pretty much whatever nonsense Mr. Trump wants, and there is zero chance she would outshine him.There is always a slight chance Ms. Sanders could have a problem with #PodiumGate, the kerfuffle over the $19,029.25 in taxpayer money she spent on … something — ostensibly a fancy lectern — that the Arkansas G.O.P. promptly reimbursed the state for after a journalist noted the purchase. But in Mr. Trump’s protective aura, she could probably just brush it off as witch hunting.Marsha Blackburn. An early, fervid Trump supporter, the Tennessee senator was buzzed about as a possible V.P. in 2016, back when she was just a lowly House member. She has decades of experience in Congress and knows how to navigate the party establishment and Washington’s corridors of power. She is plenty feisty and media savvy yet unlikely to overshadow Mr. Trump.That said, as a rock-ribbed conservative from a solidly red Southern state and (at least) a generation older than the other prime V.P. possibilities, she wouldn’t bring much in the way of balance to the table. Does Mr. Trump care anything about balance these days?Kristi Noem. The South Dakota governor has political experience both inside and outside Washington, where she served four terms in the House. She has impressive media skills and undoubtedly meets Mr. Trump’s attractiveness standards. She was one of his early endorsers this cycle, which speaks to his loyalty obsession, a move that raised her standing in the veepstakes guessing game. During the pandemic, she aggressively toed the it’s-no-big-deal, we’re-keeping-this-state-open line favored by conservative governors. And she obviously knows how to stroke the MAGA king’s ego, as so deftly captured by her gift to him of a $1,100 replica of Mount Rushmore with his face added. (I swear. That man is so basic.)Her tenure as governor has had its bumps, including a nepotism controversy. She also seems to really want the job, which isn’t always helpful to an aspiring veep. Last week she suggested Mr. Trump’s pick should be willing to tell him the truth — and that she filled the bill. Terrific! Except Mr. Trump might see this more as a bug than a feature. More generally, does he find it admirable or distasteful that she has long been seen as lobbying for the job and has even begun publicly issuing advice on the matter? She, like Mr. Bannon, recently smacked down the idea of Mr. Trump going with Ms. Haley.Nancy Mace. This may feel like a counterintuitive pick. The South Carolina congresswoman’s politics aren’t reliably MAGA, she has waffled on the loyalty thing, and she digs the limelight a little too much. Mr. Bannon nonetheless praised her “Trumpian attitude,” her “brashness,” her “set of titanium balls.”Marjorie Taylor Greene. The bomb-throwing congresswoman from Georgia is in many ways the female embodiment of Trumpism. She knows how to grab the media spotlight, and her belligerent, anti-elite, anti-expertise, anti-everything ’tude thrills the party base. Her attack-dog credentials are unimpeachable. She even voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results. So MAGA.She may, in fact, be a smidge too in your face. She doesn’t play well with the traditional wing of the party and, more recently, even managed to alienate fellow extremists in the House. Getting herself booted from the Freedom Caucus took some doing! And talk about a woman unlikely to win over voters beyond Mr. Trump’s existing fan base. Geesh.Which brings us to Nikki Haley.Let us first tackle the potential disqualifiers. The former governor of South Carolina may have served as Mr. Trump’s U.N. ambassador, but she does not rate well on his loyalty meter. Running against him? Criticizing his presidency? Suggesting competency tests for older pols? People have been put on his enemy’s list for less. Worse still, she could very well outshine him, at least in terms of basic intellect and verbal coherence.Still, refer to Mr. Trump’s love of humiliating and subjugating his critics: Having her serve as his No. 2 could tickle the Trump id. She has leadership experience and fits in with the establishment — though without being saddled with a congressional record, with all those pesky votes that can be weaponized by opponents. As an Indian American born to immigrant parents, she could help dilute the G.O.P’s image as the party of angry white racists. She’s attractive and media savvy and has foreign policy experience.Beyond that, a Trump-Haley ticket would signal that the former president is at least vaguely interested in soothing skittish, non-MAGA women. Ms. Haley is not looking to blow up the system. She is selling a more pragmatic, coalition-minded political approach and a more old-school Republicanism than what today’s base wants. Her selection would be a clear sign that Mr. Trump isn’t worried about making his MAGA base any happier. And why should he be? He is their adored, infallible leader.Still, it’s hard to see how Mr. Trump gets past that whole disloyalty thing with her. Especially after Mike Pence turned out to be such a disappointment to him in the end. And perhaps nothing would be a greater sign of Mr. Trump’s confidence in himself and his chances in November than if he went with his heart (like a Noem) rather than with a more calculated, conventional choice (like a Haley). The MAGA king isn’t one to let too much strategic thinking spoil his fun.Source photographs by Kevin Dietsch, Anna Moneymaker, Scott Olson and Christian Monterrosa/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images, Will Newton and Alex Brandon/Associated Press.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      Sarah Huckabee Sanders Has a Funny Idea of What the Republican Party Should Be

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      The most striking thing about the Republican response to President Biden’s State of the Union last week, delivered this year by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, was that it wasn’t actually pitched to the American public at large.Of course, most people do not watch this particular ritual. But it is one of the few times each year (outside of a presidential election year) when the opposition party has the undivided attention of a large part of the voting public. The State of the Union response reaches enough people — an estimated 27.3 million watched Biden — to make it worthwhile for the opposition party to put its best face forward. That’s why, when it’s its turn to deliver the response, a party tends to elevate its youngest, most dynamic leaders and showcase its broadest, most accessible message.Sanders is a young and dynamic leader in the Republican Party, a point she emphasized herself, citing her age, 40, in comparison with the president’s, which is 80, but her message was neither broad nor accessible.“In the radical left’s America,” she said, “Washington taxes you and lights your hard-earned money on fire, but you get crushed with high gas prices, empty grocery shelves, and our children are taught to hate one another on account of their race but not to love one another or our great country.”Sanders attacked Biden as the “first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is” and decried the “woke fantasies” of a “left-wing culture war.” Every day, she said, “we are told that we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags and worship their false idols, all while big government colludes with big tech to strip away the most American thing there is: your freedom of speech.”Sanders’s folksy affect notwithstanding, this was harsh and hard and was delivered with an edge. But then, there’s nothing wrong with giving a partisan and ideological State of the Union address; that is part of the point. The problem was that most of these complaints were unintelligible to anyone but the small minority of Americans who live inside the epistemological bubble of conservative media. Sanders’s response, in other words, was less a broad and accessible message than it was fan service for devotees of the Fox News cinematic universe and its related properties.It was not the kind of speech you give if you’re trying to build a political majority. The best evidence for this is that her speech was a version of the message Republicans used in last year’s midterm elections. The result was a historic disappointment, if not a historic defeat, for an opposition party against a relatively unpopular incumbent.Yes, Republicans won the House of Representatives, but it was a slim victory despite expectations of a red wave. And the most unsuccessful candidates, in races across the country, were, in the main, the right-wing culture warriors who tried to make the midterms a referendum on their reactionary preoccupations.Here, I should say that this critique of Sanders’s response rests on the supposition that Republican politicians want to build a national political majority. And why wouldn’t they? Political parties are supposed to want to win the largest possible majority. “Unless there’s a countervailing force,” the historian Timothy Shenk notes in “Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy,” “parties bend toward majorities like sunflowers to the light.” A large majority, after all, means a mandate for your agenda. With it, you can set or reset the political landscape on your terms.But what if there is a countervailing force? What if the structure of the political system makes it possible to win the power of a popular majority without ever actually assembling a popular majority? What if, using that power, you burrow your party and its ideology into the countermajoritarian institutions of that system so that, heads or tails, you always win?In that scenario, a political party might drop the quest for a majority as a fool’s errand. There’s no need to build a broad coalition of voters if — because of the malapportionment of the national legislature, the gerrymandering of many state legislatures, the Electoral College and the strategic position of your voters in the nation’s geography — you don’t need one to win. And if your political party also has a tight hold on the highest court of constitutional interpretation, you don’t even need to win elections to clear the path for your preferred outcomes and ideology.Sanders did not deliver a broad and accessible response to the State of the Union for the same reason that congressional Republicans refuse to moderate or even acknowledge the existence of the median voter; she doesn’t have to, and they don’t have to. The American political system is so slanted toward the overrepresentation of the Republican Party’s core supporters, rural and exurban conservatives, that even when their views and priorities are far from those of the typical voter, the party is still more competitive than not.Unfortunately, there’s no one weird trick to change this state of affairs. Republicans may not need to win consistent majorities, but anyone who hopes to build a more humane country must still find and assemble a majority coalition of the willing — and pray that it is large enough not just to win power or hold power but to use power.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Deliver Republican Response to State of the Union

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      Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, one of the relatively few high-profile Trump administration officials who bolstered their careers through the experience, will step into the national spotlight again on Tuesday night when she delivers the Republican response to President Biden’s State of the Union address.Ms. Sanders was still editing her address on Tuesday morning, but a spokeswoman said the speech would lean into the contrast in age between Ms. Sanders, who at 40 is the nation’s youngest governor, and Mr. Biden, 80, who in 2021 became the oldest president to be sworn into the office.Ms. Sanders campaigned last year with the promise of “a new generation of leadership” and referred to a “new generation” six times in her inauguration speech on Jan. 10. Her speech on Tuesday night will return to this theme, as she encourages a younger crop of leaders to fight for conservative ideals, said Alexa Henning, the spokeswoman for the governor. (While some allies of Donald J. Trump, 76, have mentioned Ms. Sanders as a possible running mate for the former president, she has not endorsed anyone in the shadow 2024 Republican primary.)Ms. Sanders plans to highlight the differences between the two parties by pointing to some of her actions during her short time in office.On her first day, she signed several executive orders, including one that banned the term “Latinx” from official use in Arkansas government. Another prohibited the use of TikTok on state government devices, and a third required the state to review education policies that eliminate teaching that would, in the order’s words, “indoctrinate students with ideologies” like critical race theory.Ms. Sanders, the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, rose to national prominence during her two years serving as Mr. Trump’s White House press secretary. Survival — more often than success — was the daily goal while working for a president eager to react to cable news headlines and social media posts.Mr. Trump cycled through seven communications directors and four press secretaries during his four years in office, but Ms. Sanders was often a stabilizing force in the West Wing and became one of his trusted advisers.She also became a polarizing figure herself. She suspended the White House pass of a CNN reporter, Jim Acosta, who angered the president, though a judge later ordered the pass reinstated. In a separate episode, Robert S. Mueller III wrote in his special counsel report that Ms. Sanders had acknowledged it was untrue when she claimed the White House had heard from “countless” agents who complained about James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director fired by Mr. Trump.While many of Mr. Trump’s aides were new to government, Ms. Sanders had spent a lifetime in Republican politics.She was 9 when her father opened his first campaign for public office, and she has talked about helping him stuff envelopes, knock on doors and put up yard signs. She also worked on her father’s next five campaigns, including two successful bids for governor and two presidential campaigns, in 2008 and 2016.She worked in the Bush administration’s Education Department and had an active role in electing both of Arkansas’s senators. She served as campaign manager, at the age of 27, for John Boozman’s first Senate race in 2010, and was a senior adviser for Tom Cotton’s first Senate contest in 2014.Ms. Sanders will be the first Arkansas governor to give the high-profile State of the Union response since Bill Clinton in 1985. She is also one of the few people to deliver the address so soon after being sworn into her first elected office.In 2018, Elizabeth Guzmán, a Virginia state delegate, delivered the Spanish-language response to Mr. Trump’s State of the Union speech just 20 days after she had taken her first oath of office.The last person to deliver the English-language response to a State of the Union address in the same year as his first inauguration was Senator Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat, in 2007. More

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      Who won, who lost and what was too close to call on Tuesday.

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      Ever since former President Donald J. Trump lost in the state of Georgia during the 2020 presidential election, he has sought revenge against the Republican incumbents there whom he blamed for not helping him overturn the results. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump lost in Georgia again, with his endorsed candidates losing in their Republican primaries for governor, secretary of state and attorney general.But those weren’t the only races that voters decided on Tuesday. Here is a rundown of the winners and losers in some of the most important contests in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas:Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, won his primary despite Mr. Trump’s best efforts against him.The Georgia governor who stood up to Mr. Trump, Brian Kemp, easily defeated a Trump-backed challenger. Mr. Kemp will face Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee, whom he narrowly defeated four years ago.Chris Carr, Georgia’s attorney general, also defeated his Trump-backed challenger, John Gordon, to win the Republican nomination for that office. Mr. Gordon had embraced Mr. Trump’s election lie and made that a key part of his appeal to voters. Herschel Walker, the former football star and a Trump-backed candidate to represent Georgia in the Senate, defeated a crowded field of Republican rivals. In Georgia, one House Democrat beat another House Democrat in a primary orchestrated by Republicans. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene won the Republican primary for her House district in Georgia.In Texas, a scandal-scarred attorney general defeated a challenger named Bush. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former White House press secretary under Mr. Trump and the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, won the Republican nomination for governor of Arkansas.Representative Mo Brooks made it into an Alabama Senate runoff after Mr. Trump pulled back his endorsement.In Texas, a Democratic House runoff between Representative Henry Cuellar, a Democrat who opposes abortion rights, and his progressive challenger, Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney, was too close to call. (Results are being updated in real time here). More

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      Why Arkansas Is a Test Case for a Post-Trump Republican Party

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      Sarah Huckabee Sanders seems likely to bring the Trump brand to Arkansas politics in a big way. But the state is a testing ground for different possible futures for the party.LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — For decades, Arkansas punched above its weight in politics and business.In the 1990s, it was home to the president and the world’s wealthiest family. In the 2000s, three onetime Arkansans ran for president. A decade later, the state claimed its sixth company on the Fortune 500 list.But Arkansas may be entering its most consequential period yet, as a test case for the future of the Republican Party.Having undergone a lightning-quick transformation in the last decade from Democratic dominance to Republican rule, how closely the state clings to former President Donald J. Trump and his style of politics will offer insights about the party he still dominates.Arkansas represents the full spectrum of today’s G.O.P.There are Trump devotees fully behind his false claims of a stolen election and his brand of grievance-oriented politics. That faction is now led by the former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the daughter of Mike Huckabee, the state’s onetime governor. More ideological, and less Trump-centric, conservatives include Senator Tom Cotton.And then there are pre-Trump Republicans, like Gov. Asa Hutchinson, hoping against hope the moment will pass and they can return the party to its Reaganite roots. Finally, some Republicans are so appalled by Trumpism, they have left or are considering leaving the party.Perhaps most significant, each of these factions are bunched together in a state powered by a handful of corporations that are increasingly uneasy with the culture-war politics that define Trump Republicanism. In a meeting of Walmart’s Arkansas-based executives last month, a number of officials cited state measures limiting transgender rights to express concern about how such bills could hamper their ability to recruit a diverse work force, according to a business leader familiar with the discussion.Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas at the state Capitol in Little Rock.Liz Sanders for The New York Times“They’ve got to recruit people to this state, and this makes it harder for them,” said Mr. Hutchinson, alluding to transgender measures that he opposed in this year’s legislative session. “And there’s many in the base of the party that just don’t care,” he said. “They would rather fight the cultural war and pay the price in terms of growth.”In the next year and a half, Ms. Sanders will road-test Trumpism in state politics as she runs for governor in a state the former president carried by 27 points last year. She will initially face a longtime friend and former aide to her father, the state’s Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who unsuccessfully pleaded with Mr. Trump not to endorse Ms. Sanders.Then, if Ms. Sanders prevails, she may prompt a long-shot challenge in the general election from a Republican-turned-independent who left the party in disgust with Mr. Trump, and just happens to be Mr. Hutchinson’s nephew.At the same time, Mr. Cotton and Mr. Hutchinson will be circling one another, perhaps in Iowa as often as in Arkansas, as they both eye 2024 presidential bids with very different bets about the future of the party.“There will be a lot of complicated relationships,” State Senator Jonathan Dismang, an influential lawmaker, said with maximum delicacy.For many veterans of Arkansas politics, the intra-Republican competition is a full-circle moment, reflecting the state’s rapid shift from an overwhelmingly Democratic state to an overwhelmingly Republican one. This period is also eerily familiar to an earlier era when it was Democrats like then-Governor Bill Clinton and former Senators Dale Bumpers and David Pryor who were vying for supremacy. What’s different about today is how much politics in a small, mostly rural state at the intersection of the Deep South, Midwest and Southwest is shaped by a figure who has almost certainly never let the phrase “Woo Pig Sooie” slip from his lips.“Arkansas Republicanism is defined by President Trump right now,” said Trent Garner, a south Arkansas state lawmaker who defeated one of the remaining rural white Democrats when Mr. Trump was first elected.If there was any doubt about that after Mr. Trump’s romp in the state last year, it was erased in February when Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin abruptly pulled out of the 2022 governor’s race. A longtime political operative and former House member, Mr. Griffin had been collecting chits for what many here assumed was an inevitable run for the state’s top job after returning home from Congress in 2014 to serve as lieutenant governor.Former President Donald J. Trump with the former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in June 2019.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThen Ms. Sanders, who has never served in elective office, made clear she would run for governor, and Mr. Trump quickly endorsed his former spokeswoman.The combination of her connection to Mr. Trump, her father’s legacy and her own celebrity from being a Fox News regular made her seemingly unbeatable, according to a private survey Mr. Griffin took, Republicans familiar with the findings said.Now running for attorney general, Mr. Griffin, an Army Reserve colonel, sought to put the best face on his climb-down. “If bio and résumé was key to politics, then George H.W. Bush would’ve been re-elected, Bob Dole would’ve won and John McCain would’ve won,” he said.Mr. Hutchinson put a finer point on how Ms. Sanders had derailed Mr. Griffin. “It shows you the power of media and personality,” he said.Ms. Sanders does still have competition for governor, particularly from Ms. Rutledge, a conservative who, in the friends-and-neighbors world of Arkansas politics, served as Mr. Huckabee’s general counsel as governor and in the same capacity when he ran for president in 2008.“She’s never made decisions,” Ms. Rutledge said of Ms. Sanders. “It’s a big difference answering questions behind a podium versus making decisions behind a desk.”She insisted primary voters would ultimately value her experience, and dismissed State Capitol speculation that she would eventually follow Mr. Griffin to the exits, perhaps to run for lieutenant governor or the state Supreme Court.Asked about Ms. Rutledge’s criticism, Ms. Sanders ignored her rival and trumpeted her own record-setting early fund-raising. “I take nothing for granted,” she said via text message.Ms. Sanders will initially face a longtime friend and former aide to her father, the state’s Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, in the Republican primary for governor.Liz Sanders for The New York TimesShould Ms. Sanders emerge as the Republican standard-bearer, she may face a third-party opponent from well outside the pro-Trump orbit. State Senator Jim Hendren, who left the G.O.P. after the Jan. 6 riot, and Davy Carter, a former state House speaker, are both considering bids.In separate interviews, they said they would not compete with one another in the same race. “I’m convinced that even in Arkansas, Trump and Trumpism is a slow-sinking ship,” said Mr. Carter, who as speaker helped push through Medicaid expansion. He said that a successful challenge to Trumpism would not happen unless liberals, moderates and anti-Trump Republicans “organize in one lane.”Asked who he’d ultimately back in the governor’s race, Mr. Hutchinson said, “I expect to support the Republican nominee.”But he acknowledged talking extensively with his nephew, Mr. Hendren, saying they share “the same frustrations” about the party, except that Mr. Hutchinson is determined to fight from within the tent. Offering some barely veiled advice for Ms. Sanders, he said: “Leadership is about bringing people along and not giving in to a lie.”The governor, and most observers, are deeply skeptical that an independent could win statewide. Indeed, more than a year and a half before Ms. Sanders would even take office, many insiders have moved on to discussing what sort of governor she would be.Would she repurpose Mr. Trump’s media-bashing and grievance-oriented politics to stay in the national headlines, and perhaps propel a presidential run of her own, or would she mirror her father’s more pragmatic approach to the office? While he is now known for his own Fox News and social media profile, Mr. Huckabee governed in the political center, even incurring the wrath of the far right, whom he labeled “Shiite conservatives.”“I think she’s going to be very eager to prove that she’s a competent executive who cares about the state,” said John Burris, a state legislator-turned-lobbyist.While shunning the state media and declining an interview for this story, Ms. Sanders has quietly reached out to state Republican lawmakers to discuss state policy and convey her desire to work with them, according to Mr. Garner.Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas at a Trump campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., last year. Christopher Lee for The New York TimesFew in the state will be watching as closely as the business titans at companies like Walmart, Tyson Foods and J.B. Hunt, the transportation and logistics giant, which are headquartered in the Northwest corner of the state. Once the only Republican region of Arkansas — even Bill Clinton couldn’t win a House seat there in the aftermath of Watergate — it is now the state’s economic engine.The area is booming, will gain about a half-dozen new state legislative seats in redistricting, and is becoming more diverse. As the local business alliance, the Northwest Arkansas Council, notes, from 1990 and 2019, the nonwhite population of the region grew from less than 5 percent to over 28 percent.To lure more transplants, the business giants have showered the region with money, helping develop local attractions like the Crystal Bridges art museum, which was founded by Alice Walton, daughter of the Walmart founder Sam Walton.But this transformation is coming into conflict with the state’s shift right.At the height of the transgender legislation debate this spring, Tom Walton, a grandson of Sam Walton, issued a statement decrying “policy targeting L.G.B.T.Q. people in Arkansas” and spoke directly to what he saw as the threat presented. “This trend is harmful and sends the wrong message to those willing to invest in or visit our state.”Mr. Hendren, who represents a swath of the region in the State Senate, said the business community would have to do far more to slow Arkansas’s sprint right.“Continuing to do the same thing is going to lead to the same results,” he said, dismissing the companies’ strategy of sending the maximum allowable donations to candidates “and thinking that’s going buy you any loyalty.”As for the Arkansans eying 2024, neither is willing to expound on their ambitions before the midterm elections. But both are attempting to carve out space for their potential bids.Mr. Cotton is quick to jump on issues he knows will animate core Republicans — from introducing legislation to address anti-Semitic hate crimes, to lambasting what he calls “woke corporations” — while Mr. Hutchinson has become a frequent presence on the national television circuit.“I don’t want to sit back idly and let the division grow greater and let our party just become more angry,” Mr. Hutchinson said. More

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      As Trump Seeks to Remain a Political Force, New Targets Emerge

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAs Trump Seeks to Remain a Political Force, New Targets EmergeAs Donald Trump surveys the political landscape, there is a sudden Senate opening in Ohio, an ally’s bid for Arkansas governor, and some scores to settle elsewhere.Former President Donald J. Trump has an enduring base of Republican support across the country.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMaggie Haberman and Jan. 25, 2021Updated 10:00 p.m. ETFormer President Donald J. Trump, determined to remain a force in G.O.P. politics, is gaining new opportunities with a crucial Senate seat unexpectedly coming open in Ohio, an ally announcing for governor of Arkansas and rising pressure on Republicans in Congress who did not stand with him during this month’s impeachment vote.The surprise announcement on Monday by Senator Rob Portman of Ohio that he would not seek a third term sparked a political land rush, with top strategists in the state receiving a flood of phone calls from potential candidates testing their viability. One consultant said he had received calls from five would-be candidates by midday.That opening, along with another statewide contest next year in which Gov. Mike DeWine is expected to face at least one Trump-aligned primary challenger, is likely to make Ohio a central battleground for control of the Republican Party, and an inviting one for Mr. Trump, who held on to Ohio in the election while losing three other Northern battleground states.Mr. Portman’s announcement came hours after Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mr. Trump’s former White House press secretary, began her campaign for Arkansas governor. The Republican primary there already includes the state’s lieutenant governor and attorney general, but private polling indicates that Ms. Sanders is beginning well ahead, and Mr. Trump endorsed her candidacy on Monday night. Mr. Trump has only been out of the presidential office five days and has little in the way of political infrastructure. He has told aides he would like to take a break for several months. But the former president has remained the party’s strongest fund-raiser, with tens of millions in PAC money at his disposal, and he retains an enduring base of Republican support across the country. Perhaps most important, he harbors a deep-seated desire to punish those he believes have crossed him and reward those who remain loyal.So far he has focused primarily on Georgia, where he believes the Republican governor and secretary of state betrayed him by certifying his loss there. Both are up for re-election in 2022. And he took something of a test run over the weekend by getting involved in the leadership fight in Arizona’s Republican Party, after Kelli Ward, the firebrand chairwoman, asked for his help in gaining re-election, according to a person familiar with the discussions.Already there is a movement at the state and local levels to challenge incumbent members of Congress seen as breaking with the former president, starting with the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach him this month.The overwhelming consensus among Ohio Republicans is that a Trump-aligned candidate would be best positioned to win a competitive Senate primary, and no potential candidate has a better claim to Mr. Trump’s voters in the state than Representative Jim Jordan, who was Mr. Trump’s chief defender during his first impeachment trial and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the former president’s final days in office.“Jim is well positioned if in fact he’s ready to take that leap; I’m not sure there’s anybody that would beat him,” said Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state and longtime Portman ally who last month served as an Electoral College voter for Mr. Trump. Referring to Mr. Trump’s legion of supporters, Mr. Blackwell added: “In Ohio, it’s going to be who has the track record to show that their agenda respects the newly realigned party base.”Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio was Mr. Trump’s chief defender during his first impeachment trial and could seek the Republican nomination for an open Senate seat in 2022.Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesMr. Trump is now ensconced at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where aides are building something that can serve as an office. He’s been golfing several times, and was spotted by people at his club in Florida playing with the brother of the former tennis star Anna Kournikova on Sunday.His advisers have had discussions about whether to get him back on some form of social media platform, although they insist that he does not need to be on Twitter or Facebook to raise money, and that his email solicitations continue to work well. On Monday he formally opened the Office of the Former President, to manage his “correspondence, public statements, appearances, and official activities.”As President Biden’s inauguration approached, Mr. Trump began telling some allies that he was considering forming a third party if Republicans moved to convict him in the Senate trial. But by Saturday, after his own advisers said it was a mistake, Mr. Trump started sending out word that he was moving on from his threat.“He understands that the best thing for his movement and conservatism is to move forward together, that third parties will lead to dominance by Democrats,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who is a close ally of Mr. Trump.Advisers to the president say he has just over $70 million in his PAC, Save America, with few restrictions on what he can do with it. For now, most of his staff is on a government payroll afforded to former presidents for a period of time after they leave office.Officials are working to mend Mr. Trump’s relationship with Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the House minority leader, whom Mr. Trump called a vulgarity for his House floor speech denouncing the former president’s rally address before the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. A senior Republican said that aides to the two men were trying to arrange a meeting or a call in the coming days.Mr. Trump would like to seek retribution against House members who voted against him, and he has been particularly angry with Representatives Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Fred Upton of Michigan, advisers said. He will also at some point focus on the governor’s race in Arizona, where Doug Ducey cannot seek re-election; Gov. Greg Abbott’s re-election bid in Texas; and the Senate race in North Carolina, as places where he can show strength, the advisers said. (One adviser disputed that Mr. Trump would have an interest in the Texas race.)In Ohio, Mr. Gonzalez faces a potential primary challenge from Christina Hagan, a former state legislator whom he defeated in a 2018 primary. Ms. Hagan lost in the general election last year to Representative Tim Ryan, a Democrat, in a neighboring district. She said in an interview Monday that she would decide which, if any, race to enter in 2022 after Ohio redraws its congressional districts; the state is likely to lose one seat and Republicans control all levers of redistricting.“A lot of people elected what they thought was conservative leadership and now are witnessing somebody cutting against their values,” Ms. Hagan said, alluding to Mr. Gonzalez’s vote to impeach. Mr. Gonzalez’s office did not respond to emails seeking comment.Mr. Trump’s deepest hostility is reserved for Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, advisers said, and they expect he will expend the most energy trying to damage Mr. Kemp’s re-election bid. The governor’s original sin was in choosing Kelly Loeffler over Mr. Trump’s favored candidate, Doug Collins, to fill a vacant Senate seat in 2019, but it evolved into something more consuming as Mr. Trump repeated his debunked claims of widespread fraud in the state and held Mr. Kemp responsible for not doing enough to challenge the election results.Mr. Collins, a hard-line Trump backer, hasn’t decided whether to challenge Mr. Kemp or seek the Republican nomination against Senator Raphael Warnock, the Democrat who defeated Ms. Loeffler in a special election and will face voters again in 2022, or if he will choose not to run for anything, a Collins aide said Monday.Mr. Trump is likely to support a primary challenge to Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, in Georgia.Credit…Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesNext on Mr. Trump’s personal hit list is Representative Liz Cheney, the Republican from Wyoming, people close to him said. Ms. Cheney was the only member of the House G.O.P. leadership to vote to impeach. It’s unclear whether Mr. Trump will target her seat, or simply her leadership post in the House, but advisers said they anticipated that he would take opportunities to damage her.Sarah Longwell, the executive director of the Republican Accountability Project, an anti-Trump group, said she and her colleagues planned to raise and spend $50 million to defend the 10 pro-impeachment House Republicans in primary contests and attack those who voted to object to the Electoral College results after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. She said the group would aim to defeat Mr. Jordan in an Ohio Senate primary if he runs against an establishment-minded Republican.Mr. Jordan’s spokesman did not respond to messages on Monday.The 2022 map will be the first real test of Mr. Trump’s durability in the party. While Ms. Sanders is running for governor in Arkansas, rumors that his daughter Ivanka would run for Senate in Florida are unlikely to develop further. And though his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, was said to be considering a Senate run in North Carolina, people close to the family say it is less clear what she will do now that Mr. Trump lost.Mr. Trump’s advisers are more focused on the looming impeachment trial. He is working closely with Mr. Graham, who has argued to his colleagues that Mr. Trump’s Senate trial sets a bad precedent.Mr. Graham helped him retain a South Carolina-based lawyer, Butch Bowers, who is also working to fill out a legal team with colleagues from the state, Mr. Graham and others said. Mr. Bowers is expected to work with a Trump adviser, Jason Miller, on some kind of response operation.Unlike his first impeachment trial, when the Republican National Committee engaged in a constant defense of the president, including paying for his lawyers, this time it is expected to focus only on rapid response, including calling the Senate trial unconstitutional and a procedural overreach, two people familiar with the committee’s plans said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      What We Know About Trump Allies Like Sarah Huckabee Sanders Running for Office

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySarah Huckabee Sanders Is Running for Office. Will Other Trump Allies Follow?The names of Lara Trump, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and others have been floated as potential political candidates. Here’s what we know about the chances they could run and their considerations.Sarah Huckabee Sanders has already started to build a statewide operation in her campaign for governor of Arkansas.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesJan. 25, 2021, 8:22 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who served as White House press secretary under former President Donald J. Trump, announced Monday that she was running for governor in Arkansas, her home state, competing for a seat once held by her father.“I took on the media, the radical left and their cancel culture, and I won,” Ms. Sanders, 38, said in a nearly eight-minute video, signaling that she planned to frame herself not as a policy-driven candidate but as a vessel for Republican rage, in a test of the endurance of Mr. Trump’s grievance politics.Ms. Sanders, who was encouraged by Mr. Trump to run when she left the White House in 2019 and had long planned her announcement, is one of several former Trump officials and family members whose names have been floated for political races of their own. But as of now, she appears to be alone in hatching firm plans for a campaign after Mr. Trump’s defeat.Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, is in the process of moving to Florida, where there had been talk of a potential primary challenge to Senator Marco Rubio, her onetime partner on a child care tax credit. While she is not ruling anything out, she is unlikely to seek office.While her sister-in-law, Lara Trump, had been eyeing an open Senate seat in North Carolina, her home state, in 2022, it is now less clear if she will enter the race.Vice President Mike Pence is still wondering if he can carry the Trump mantle in a Republican presidential primary in 2024, a gambit that would depend on Mr. Trump’s choosing not to run or being convicted in the coming Senate impeachment trial.Ms. Sanders may be a unique case study. She is stepping over both the Arkansas lieutenant governor and the state attorney general, who waited their turn and supported Mr. Trump but who can’t claim as close a connection to him as Ms. Sanders can. Mr. Trump was expected to endorse her on Monday night, an adviser to the former president said. She also has powerful family connections in the deep-red state, where the only race that really matters is the Republican primary.“The Republican base is not interested in serious governing candidates,” said Tim Miller, who served as an adviser to former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida. “They want people who will ‘own the libs,’ and Sarah is perfect for that.”While a grievance-first strategy may be ruinous to the party’s chances in swing states like Pennsylvania and Virginia, it resonates in a conservative state like Arkansas. “Pro-coup Trumpism is a meal ticket to success in a Republican primary,” Mr. Miller said.Ms. Sanders has already started to build a statewide operation, and because of her father, former Gov. Mike Huckabee, she has high name recognition and a political identity in Arkansas beyond an association with Mr. Trump.Here are other Trump officials and family members who have been seen as possible contenders for higher office, but who may face a more difficult path.Lara Trump is married to former President Donald J. Trump’s son Eric.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesLara TrumpMs. Trump, 38, the president’s daughter-in-law, who emerged during the 2020 presidential campaign as a fierce defender of Mr. Trump, has been eyeing an electoral future of her own in North Carolina, her home state. She and her husband, Eric Trump, have yet to relocate their family from New York, but in the months leading up to the presidential election, she had been actively considering a rare Senate seat that will open there in 2022, when Senator Richard Burr retires at the end of his term, people familiar with her plans said.Ms. Trump’s combativeness was seen as potentially appealing to Republican primary voters. During the 2020 campaign, she went where Ivanka Trump would not: repeating Mr. Trump’s ad hominem attacks on Hunter Biden and casting doubt on the integrity of the election. Political strategists have compared her to Kelly Loeffler, the recently defeated Georgia senator, but say that she has more skill on the campaign trail.The upsides of a Lara Trump candidacy were that she would immediately have more name recognition and an ability to raise cash online that would most likely dwarf that of the more experienced Republicans in the race. Her last name already prompted Mark Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina who served as Mr. Trump’s final White House chief of staff, to say publicly that he would not run for Senate in the state, a race that his advisers had expected him to consider.But since Mr. Trump’s defeat, it is less clear whether his daughter-in-law will enter the race, perhaps a concession to the fact that simply aligning herself with the former president to win the Republican primary would not gird her for the potential backlash in a general election in a swing state.Ivanka Trump, the former president’s elder daughter, served as a senior aide in his White House.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesIvanka TrumpIn October, when Ivanka Trump described herself as “pro-life, and unapologetically so,” her comment was seen as the surest sign to date that the ambitious, spotlight-seeking Trump daughter was serious about a career of her own in Republican politics.Over the past four years, Ms. Trump, 39, has undergone a political transformation, from a registered New York Democrat to what she has described as a “proud Trump Republican.” During the 2020 campaign, she was considered by Trump campaign officials to be the top surrogate for her father, often speaking on his behalf to suburban women. For years, she has promoted articles and had her staff pitch stories about how she rivaled top Democratic presidential candidates in her fund-raising abilities.She is still packing up her mansion in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, but will relocate in the coming weeks to Florida, where her advisers say she is weighing her options when it comes to elected office. That includes not popping a trial balloon about a potential primary challenge next year to Mr. Rubio, who Republican critics note could be vulnerable because he did not vote to sustain any objections to the state’s electors.Other observers have dismissed that scenario as a difficult way to begin a political career and said Mr. Rubio needed to take it less seriously after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. Running for state office is off the table for Ms. Trump because Florida law requires seven years of residency. Some people who know her say that her ambitions are higher, that she likes the ring of “first female president” and that there’s simply no downside to keeping her name afloat.She has surprising allies promoting it for her. “Ivanka would be a terrific candidate, with her presence, grace and beauty,” said Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief White House strategist who received a pardon from Mr. Trump. Once an enemy of Ms. Trump’s in the White House, he is now intent on propping her up. “She’s also the most populist because she’s fully focused on working families,” he said.“From Huckabee to Lara Trump to Don Jr. to Kayleigh McEnany, this is the new vanguard of the MAGA movement,” Mr. Bannon added. “I anticipate these people will be either running in 2022 or 2024.”Ms. McEnany, for her part, has already relocated to her home state, Florida, and there was briefly some talk of her mounting her own bid for the Senate, a person familiar with those conversations said. But it’s not clear how serious it was.Donald Trump Jr. has spent time campaigning for Republicans around the country in recent years.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesDonald Trump Jr.Over the past four years, Donald Trump Jr., 43, the president’s eldest son, has carved out a political lane for himself as a top surrogate and fund-raiser who can channel the emotional center of the MAGA movement. With 11 million followers on his various social media streams, he has been seen as a key player in the Republican messaging ecosystem, someone with a strong connection to his father’s supporters and to conservative voters who are passionate about the Second Amendment.His advisers insist that he’s not interested in being a candidate anytime in the near future — partly because there is not a clear office for him to run for right now. That hasn’t stopped strategists from floating his name as a potential candidate in states including Montana and Florida. For now, the advisers said, he wants to stay engaged and relevant politically, along with his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, helping to elect conservatives he likes and to take down the ones he doesn’t.On Monday he tweeted an article from The Federalist, a right-wing publication, that called for Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming to “Step Away From Leadership For GOP Voters.” He also vowed to help Ms. Sanders win her race.Before serving as Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows was a congressman from North Carolina.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMark MeadowsMr. Meadows, 61, has told people he has ruled out running for office again. But his friends and his own wife don’t believe him, or don’t want to. Others say they haven’t been able to get a straight answer out of him about his future plans. During his tenure in the White House, Mr. Meadows, the former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, competed with Vice President Mike Pence to be seen as the heir to the president’s agenda and as Mr. Trump’s right hand. He even slept at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center when the president was being treated there for the coronavirus.Mr. Meadows still lives in Washington and has no immediate plans to move back to North Carolina, his home state. His wife has speculated that he should run for president in 2024, according to people familiar with those conversations. But his friends have not ruled out a future run for Senate or governor in North Carolina, and Ms. Trump’s fading interest in the North Carolina Senate race could give him back an opening.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More