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      Is Trump Steaming Toward a Candidacy-Sinking Iceberg? Three Writers Look at Iowa and Beyond.

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      Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Mike Murphy, a co-director of the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California, a former Republican strategist for John McCain and others and a host of the podcast “Hacks on Tap” and Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster and a moderator of the Times Opinion focus group series, to discuss their expectations for the Iowa caucus. They also banter about the road ahead for the G.O.P. primary and what the general election might look like after the primary.Frank Bruni: Mike, Kristen, happy Iowa caucuses. I’m sitting here at my kitchen table in a parka and earmuffs, in honor of the freezing temperatures that caucusgoers are expected to brave. And I thank you for joining me.Have any of the developments of recent days (Donald Trump’s appearance in two different courtrooms, Chris Christie’s exit from the race, the Nikki Haley-Ron DeSantis debate, some other twist) potentially altered the trajectory of the race or set up caucus results that might surprise us?Kristen Soltis Anderson: I doubt that the events of the last few days have done much. This is still Trump’s caucus to lose.Bruni: But will he win as big as some people believe? And if he does stage a blowout, is there only one, or more than one, ticket out of Iowa?Soltis Anderson: I wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump get a majority of votes. And I think there’s only one ticket out of Iowa. DeSantis would need to dominate handily, winning or coming near Trump’s share, to have a prayer of gaining the momentum he’d need to thrive in New Hampshire or South Carolina. Without that, DeSantis has nowhere to go besides looking ahead to 2028.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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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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      Even in Washington, Weasel Words Will Only Get You So Far

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      Gail Collins: Hey, Bret, would you hate it if I asked for a couple of predictions for 2024?Bret Stephens: Gail, it would be better if you asked me for my prediction for the year 2112. That way, hardly anybody will remember how wrong I was and I won’t be around for them to remind me. But here’s my 2024 prediction anyway: Trump is elected president again, and we become neighbors in Toronto.Now your turn.Gail: OK, Donald Trump is going to be campaigning for president while on trial for an astonishing range of crimes. Meanwhile, we’ll shiver with fear every time Joe Biden coughs. But in the end, I predict the nation will square its collective shoulders and elect the better man, even if he’s beginning to look like an old 81.Bret: Biden has a 37 percent approval rating, according to Gallup, and Trump is running four points ahead of him in the latest Wall Street Journal poll — or six points, if you factor in third-party and independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West. This is beginning to have the makings of an epochal disaster, not just for the country but for Western civilization. Yet Democrats are driving at high speed toward a rock wall because they don’t want to tell Grandpa that he no longer should be allowed to get behind the wheel or even suggest he replace his vice president with someone more … confidence-inducing.Gail: Here’s a pre-new year prediction: In stores around the nation, children — and their parents — will stand in line to sit on Santa’s lap and beg him to bring them a different presidential race.Bret: Nikki Haley against Gretchen Whitmer — how much fun would that be? But we are where we are. Pass the absinthe.Changing the subject: Did you watch the testimony of the university presidents?Gail: Yeah, Claudine Gay of Harvard is probably going to be haunted for the rest of her life for having said “it depends on the context” when asked whether calling for genocide of the Jews violated Harvard’s rules against bullying and harassment.Bret: Along with Elizabeth Magill, the now-former president of Penn, and Sally Kornbluth, the president of M.I.T. Just imagine the reaction to any university president saying “it depends on the context” as to whether calling for the genocide of, say, Black or Asian people is permissible. It was heartening to see Democrats and Republicans alike taking them to task for such colossally stupid answers, even if it’s hard to find myself on the same side with an election denier like Elise Stefanik.Gail: In the world of higher education, free speech is a cardinal virtue and leaders learn how to get past questions that would force them to call for anything that sounds like censorship.Magill framed her answer in what sounded like a weaselly dodge, but I’m sorry she felt compelled to resign.Bret: I’m against cancel culture on principle, so I hope Gay, who apologized for her remarks, and Kornbluth, who hasn’t — at least as far as I know — don’t follow Magill out the door. There needs to be space for contrition and learning.I’m also a fervent believer in free expression, including at private universities that don’t have a legal obligation to abide by the strictures of the First Amendment. The problem is that universities like Harvard often enforce rules against hate speech when it comes to heinous statements against some minority groups, but they invoke free speech when it comes to heinous statements about Jews. That double standard lies at the root of the antisemitism that pervades too many campuses. If colleges were truly serious about free speech, they would work a lot harder to pierce the left-wing bubble that so many college campuses have become.The other big national story from last week is Hunter Biden’s indictment on tax evasion charges. Your thoughts?Gail: Well, we’ve been down this road before. Hunter is certainly in a ton of trouble on the tax front, but I don’t believe voters will hold his problems against his father.Bret: We’ll see.Gail: Joe Biden is a man who, early in his political career, lost his wife and daughter in a terrible car accident. Then later he lost a beloved son — the star of the next generation of Bidens in the political world — to cancer.Hunter was the offspring who was always getting into trouble. Many families have one and God knows he’s caused his father a lot of grief. The message the country should be getting from all this is that our president is a leader who can work through incredible personal pain for the common good.Bret: I think we both recognize that the president has suffered through a lot — and having a surviving son with a longstanding drug habit has been part of the suffering. He has my sympathy.But Joe’s political problem is that Hunter’s story keeps getting worse — and parts of it suggest attempts to conceal the full truth. Before the election, Joe claimed that Hunter’s lost-and-found laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign. False. He said he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings and never got involved. False. David Weiss, the special counsel appointed by Merrick Garland, Biden’s attorney general, was about to give Hunter a sweetheart plea bargain. The judge rejected it, and now Hunter has been hit with tax evasion charges that could end up in a long prison sentence.Gail: The last was a punishment for being Joe’s son. A normal defendant would have had no problem getting that deal approved. A normal well-lawyered defendant, anyway.Bret: He’s accused of evading more than $1 million in taxes and spending it on drugs and, uh, companionship. And Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm that paid Hunter a fortune to sit on its board when Joe was vice president — with a special responsibility to help clean up Ukrainian corruption — cut Hunter’s salary in half after Obama left office.Gail: Don’t think even the Bidens’ best friends believed Burisma hired Hunter for his depth of knowledge on energy issues in post-Soviet republics. But let’s just say it’s not unusual for the children of powerful men and women to get jobs because of their names.If there were serious stories about Joe using his political muscle to, say, get Burisma a special government contract, that would be a different matter.Bret: At a minimum, all of this will help Trump neutralize some of the ethical and legal charges against him, at least with some wavering voters, the way Bill Clinton’s record of sexual misconduct neutralized Trump’s vulnerabilities on that score. But if there are other shoes to drop, it will turn into an even bigger political liability for an already vulnerable president.Gail: Praying all the shoes are already on the floor. But I think the Republicans are flirting with trouble when they tie all this into an impeachment crusade. Just gonna remind the public that Trump was the only president in American history to be impeached twice.Bret: Do they even remember? Stalin supposedly said that the death of one man is a tragedy but the death of a million is a statistic. I propose a corollary for Trump: A single criminal indictment against a former president is a disgrace, but 91 counts is a blur.Gail: OK, gonna quote that one in 2024.Bret: Gail, we’ve made it a December tradition to mention charities we admire and support. Do you have a recommendation for our readers?Gail: First, can I say kudos to the many readers who provide ongoing support for projects that help the poor, educate the neglected, protect the environment and do so many other great things?Bret: You may indeed.Gail: I’m happy to recommend La Mision Children’s Fund in El Cajon, Calif. It fights hunger and works to improve education in impoverished communities in Mexico near the California border. With all the current hysteria over border politics, it’s a particularly good time to encourage something so sensible.Your turn.Bret: Rails-to-Trails conservancy. It has been around since the 1980s, working for the creation of biking and walking trails across the country, including a trail that will eventually connect Washington, D.C., to the state of Washington. Conservatives and liberals will always have differences, but we should be able to agree on the importance of conservation, of urban and rural renewal, and creating great public spaces that can be enjoyed by everyone.Gail: Once again we’re in accord. Although the disaccords are always fun, too. Happy holidays on both fronts, Bret.Bret: Gail, before we go, I want to put in a word for our colleague Megan Stack’s brilliantly reported and beautifully written essay on life for Palestinians in the West Bank. I’ve known Megan for more than 20 years, when we both worked in Jerusalem. And while we are on opposite sides of this subject, politically speaking, I have nothing but respect for the deep sense of humanity she brings to everything she writes. We need to preserve our intellectual humility by paying attention to those with whom we disagree, sometimes passionately. The alternative really is the abyss.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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      Elise Stefanik Files Ethics Complaint Against Trump Fraud Trial Judge

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      Justice Arthur Engoron imposed a narrow gag order on Donald Trump. Right-wing allies are going after the judge on his behalf, through official channels and online.Representative Elise Stefanik, a member of the House Republican leadership and an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, filed an ethics complaint Friday attacking the judge presiding over Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial, the latest salvo in a right-wing war against the case.Echoing the courtroom rhetoric of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, the letter complains that the Democratic judge, Arthur F. Engoron, has been biased against the former president, who testified this week in New York State Supreme Court. The New York attorney general, Letitia James, has accused Mr. Trump of fraudulent business practices, and in a pretrial ruling Justice Engoron agreed, validating the heart of her case.The letter, to a judicial conduct commission, is unlikely to have any immediate repercussions in the trial, which will determine the consequences Mr. Trump and his company will face as a result of the fraud. But it represents the latest Republican attempt to tar Justice Engoron, and to meddle with Ms. James’s case. The judge has placed narrow gag orders on both the former president and his lawyers, but nothing bars Mr. Trump’s allies from their criticism.They have taken up the effort with gusto.“I filed an official judicial complaint against Judge Arthur Engoron for his inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance in New York’s disgraceful lawsuit against President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization,” Ms. Stefanik said in a statement Friday.“Judge Engoron’s actions and rulings in this matter are all part of the public record and speak for themselves,” Al Baker, a spokesman for the New York court system, said in an email. “It is inappropriate to comment further.”Robert H. Tembeckjian, the administrator of the state commission on judicial misconduct, noted in a statement that all matters before the body are confidential unless a judge is found to have committed misconduct and a decision is issued.Mr. Trump, 77, has repeatedly implored his allies to fight on his behalf. And Ms. Stefanik, who has close ties to Mr. Trump’s team, has portrayed herself as one of his chief defenders, thrusting herself into the former president’s controversies dating back to the first impeachment he faced while president.The civil fraud trial, which is separate from the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump, began early last month and is at its halfway point. After the former president and his daughter, Ivanka, testified this week, the attorney general’s office rested its case, which accuses Mr. Trump and his company of filling annual financial statements with fraudulent asset values in order to receive favorable treatment from banks and insurers. The defense case will start on Monday, with Donald Trump Jr. scheduled to return to the stand, and is expected to last into December.Justice Engoron, 74, has not responded to the attacks outside the courtroom, though at one point this week he lost his temper when a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, suggested, as he has throughout the trial, that the judge had been biased.“I object now, and I continue to object, to your constant insinuations that I have some sort of double standard here. That is just not true,” the judge said, adding, “I just make the rulings as I see them. You know, like the umpire says, call them as I see them.”Representative Elise Stefanik of New York has become one of the former president’s paladins, vociferously attacking those he sees as enemies. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesStatements like those are unlikely to satisfy Mr. Trump’s allies, and Ms. Stefanik’s attack is just one of many hurled at the judge this week. Laura Loomer, a far-right activist whom Mr. Trump considered hiring to work on his third presidential campaign and has since praised, has targeted the judge and his family in numerous social media posts. Commentators on Fox News and elsewhere in right-wing media have attacked him for shirtless photos that appeared in an alumni newsletter.Ms. Stefanik and others have also attacked the judge’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, who has experience as a trial attorney and whom the judge consults during proceedings when considering rules of evidence and other trial matters.Mr. Trump attacked Ms. Greenfield on the second day of the trial, saying that she was a partisan and was running the case against him. Justice Engoron placed a gag order on the former president barring him from discussing the court staff; Mr. Trump has twice violated that order, incurring $15,000 in fines.After the former president was barred from speaking about Ms. Greenfield, his lawyers took up the cause, continuing to complain about the judge’s practice of consulting her during the trial. Justice Engoron barred the lawyers from commenting on his private communications with Ms. Greenfield. He expressed concern about the safety of his staff and noted that his office had received “hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters and packages.”Republican critics have taken particular issue with donations that Ms. Greenfield, who is also a Democrat, has made over the past several years, accusing her of violating rules governing the conduct of judicial staff members. But Ms. Greenfield has been campaigning for a judgeship and New York’s judicial ethics rules allow candidates to make certain donations, such as purchasing tickets to political functions.Mr. Trump’s congressional allies have taken on a number of the law enforcement officials who have brought cases against the former president. After the former president was criminally indicted in Manhattan in March, Representative Jim Jordan, who has worked closely with Mr. Trump, demanded information about the case from the prosecutor, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg. Mr. Jordan also subpoenaed Mark F. Pomerantz, a prosecutor who had worked on the criminal case, compelling Mr. Pomerantz to testify in a closed-door congressional session.Mr. Jordan has also said he would investigate a Georgia prosecutor who also indicted Mr. Trump, accusing him of interfering with the 2020 election results in the state. The prosecutor, Fani Willis, fired back, writing in a letter that Mr. Jordan’s “attempt to invoke congressional authority to intrude upon and interfere with an active criminal case in Georgia is flagrantly at odds with the Constitution.” More

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      Trump Privately Encouraged Republican Lawmakers to Impeach Biden

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      The former president has talked regularly with members of the House Freedom Caucus and other congressional Republicans who pushed for impeachment.On a sweeping patio overlooking the golf course at his private club in Bedminster, N.J., former President Donald J. Trump dined Sunday night with a close political ally, Marjorie Taylor Greene.It was a chance for the former president to catch up with the hard-right Georgia congresswoman. But over halibut and Diet Cokes, Ms. Greene brought up an issue of considerable interest to Mr. Trump — the push by House Republicans to impeach his likely opponent in next year’s election.“I did brief him on the strategy that I want to see laid out with impeachment,” Ms. Greene said in a brief phone interview.Mr. Trump’s dinner with Ms. Greene came just two nights before Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced his decision on Tuesday to order the opening of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, under intense pressure from his right flank.Over the past several months, Mr. Trump has kept a close watch on House Republicans’ momentum toward impeaching Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump has talked regularly by phone with members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and other congressional Republicans who pushed for impeachment, according to a person close to Mr. Trump who was not authorized to publicly discuss the conversations. Mr. Trump has encouraged the effort both privately and publicly.Ms. Greene, who has introduced articles of impeachment against Mr. Biden, said she told Mr. Trump that she wanted the impeachment inquiry to be “long and excruciatingly painful for Joe Biden.”She would not say what Mr. Trump said in response, but she said her ultimate goal was to have a “long list of names” — people whom she claimed were co-conspirators involved in Biden family crimes. She said she was confident Mr. Trump would win back the White House in 2024 and that she wanted “to go after every single one of them and use the Department of Justice to prosecute them.”While Mr. Biden’s son Hunter was charged in June with two misdemeanor tax offenses and a felony firearm offense, Republicans have not shown that Mr. Biden committed any crimes. House Republicans are proceeding with the impeachment inquiry without proof that Mr. Biden took official actions as vice president to benefit his son’s financial interests or that he directly profited from his son’s foreign deals.Mr. Trump has also spoken weekly over the past month to Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the third-ranking House Republican, according to a person familiar with the conversations who was not authorized to discuss them publicly. During those conversations, Ms. Stefanik also briefed Mr. Trump on the impeachment inquiry strategy, this person said.The former president thanked Ms. Stefanik for publicly backing the impeachment inquiry in July, the person added. Ms. Stefanik, who talked to Mr. Trump again on Tuesday after Mr. McCarthy ordered the impeachment inquiry, had been the first member of House Republican leadership to publicly call for taking the first step in the process of impeaching Mr. Biden.A person familiar with Mr. Trump’s thinking said that despite his eagerness to see an inquiry move forward, the former president has not been twisting Mr. McCarthy’s arm. Mr. Trump has been far more aggressive in pushing several members to wipe his own impeachment record clean, the person said, potentially by getting Congress to take the unprecedented step of expunging his two impeachments from the House record.Under intense pressure from his right flank, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy opened an impeachment inquiry into President Biden on Tuesday.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesMr. Trump has not been expressing concern about the possibility that the McCarthy impeachment effort might backfire and benefit Mr. Biden, according to two people with direct knowledge of his private statements over several months. Instead, he wondered to an ally why there had been no movement on impeaching Mr. Biden once he learned that the House was back in session.A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy did not respond to a question about his interactions with the former president regarding impeachment.When asked for comment, Mr. Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, pointed to Mr. Trump’s public statements about impeaching Mr. Biden.The former president’s public commentary on the possibility of a Biden impeachment has escalated from wistful musings about the Justice Department’s supposed inaction to explicit demands.“They persecuted us and yet Joe Biden is a stone-cold criminal, caught dead to right, and nothing happens to him. Forget the family. Nothing happens to him,” the former president said at a rally in March.In a June town hall with the Fox News host Sean Hannity, Mr. Trump lamented what happened after authorities found boxes of classified documents in both Mar-a-Lago and the Bidens’ Delaware residence.“It is a dual system of government,” Mr. Trump said. “You talk about law and order. You can’t have law and order in a country where you have such corruption.”That same month, after Mr. Trump was arraigned on charges that he had improperly retained sensitive national security documents and obstructed investigators, he declared that if re-elected he would appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Mr. Biden and his family.By July, Mr. Trump had begun suggesting that Republicans should impeach the president, and as the summer wore on, he conveyed his desire with greater urgency.“So, they impeach me over a ‘perfect’ phone call, and they don’t impeach Biden for being the most corrupt president in the history of the United States???” Mr. Trump wrote in all caps on his website, Truth Social.In yet another nearly all-cap Truth Social post in late August, the former president wrote, referring to congressional Republicans: “Either impeach the bum, or fade into oblivion. They did it to us!” More

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      G.O.P. Leaders Stand by Santos as New York Republicans Call on Him to Resign

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      Republican congressional leaders badly need the newly elected representative’s vote, but local officials and lawmakers are eager to distance themselves from his scandal.WASHINGTON — New York Republicans are ready to rid themselves of Representative George Santos, the newly elected congressman from Long Island who has admitted to fabricating parts of his résumé and is under multiple local and federal investigations into his yearslong pattern of political deception.House Republican leaders, not so much.Amid mounting calls for his resignation from Republican members of Congress from New York and state party officials, Mr. Santos still has the backing of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other House Republican leaders.In a news conference at the Capitol on Thursday, Mr. McCarthy made it clear that he had no intention of barring Mr. Santos from congressional committees or otherwise penalizing him for winning election under false pretenses.“The voters of his district have elected him,” Mr. McCarthy said. “He is seated. He is part of the Republican conference.”Mr. McCarthy downplayed the likelihood that allowing Mr. Santos to serve might put national security at risk, even though members of Congress routinely receive classified briefings from top military and other government officials.“I don’t see any way that he’s going to have top secret” information, Mr. McCarthy said Thursday at his first news conference since winning the speaker’s gavel, adding, “He’s got a long way to go to earn trust.”He added that Mr. Santos would face the House Ethics Committee, which considers allegations of misconduct by members.“If anything is found to be wrong, he will be held accountable exactly as anybody else in this body would be,” Mr. McCarthy said.The disconnect between the reaction from Nassau County Republicans and those in Washington reflects the differing political realities for both groups. In Congress, Republicans, who hold a paper-thin majority in the House, do not feel directly culpable for Mr. Santos’s misdeeds and have much more on the line if they lose his seat. Mr. McCarthy can’t spare a single vote in the House — least of all one who was a reliable supporter during the 15 rounds it took for him to secure the speakership.In the 2020 presidential election, President Biden won Mr. Santos’s district by 8.2 points. If he were to resign from Congress, prompting a special election for the seat, there is no guarantee that Republicans would be able to win it again.More on the George Santos ControversyBehind the Investigation: The Times journalists Michael Gold and Grace Ashford discuss how he was elected to Congress and how they discovered that he was a fraud.Going to Washington: Despite being under scrutiny for lies about his background, George Santos brings his saga to Capitol Hill, where he will face significant pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.Facing Inquiries: Federal and local prosecutors are investigating whether Mr. Santos committed crimes involving his finances or made misleading statements, while authorities in Brazil said they would revive a 2008 fraud case against him.Embellished Résumés: While other politicians have also misled the public about their past, few have done so in as wide-ranging a manner as Mr. Santos.The New York Republicans who have repudiated Mr. Santos, by contrast, fear suffering by association with a man whose scandals threaten to tarnish what was a resurgent year for the party throughout the state. Five of the six representatives who have called on Mr. Santos to step down won seats in competitive districts where they are expected to face fierce challenges from Democrats in 2024.Other local Republicans have suggested that newly installed leaders in Washington are more concerned with their own short-term survival than the potential long-term consequences of backing Mr. Santos.“We have to think about our brand as a party,” said Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive. “Are we a party that’s behind people of good character and integrity who are transparent? Or are we a party that, for cynical reasons, we are going to allow this to continue?”With Mr. McCarthy consumed by his own political future last week as he struggled for five days to secure the votes he needed to become speaker, the confounding issue of what was to be done with Mr. Santos was left up in the air.Speaker Kevin McCarthy can’t afford to lose a seat in the House, where his party holds a sliver of a majority.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesBut now that the speakership has been settled, Republicans are split on how to punish a member who is under active investigation by federal and local prosecutors into potential criminal activity during his two congressional campaigns, as well as fraud charges from Brazilian law enforcement officials.Representatives Anthony D’Esposito, Nick LaLota, Nick Langworthy and Brandon Williams, all newly elected from New York, have called for Mr. Santos’s resignation on Wednesday. Of those, only Mr. Langworthy, who serves as the state party chair, is in a safely Republican district. The Nassau County G.O.P. chairman, Joseph G. Cairo Jr., has also called for Mr. Santos to step down.On Thursday, two more Republican freshmen from New York, Representatives Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro, said that they, too, believed Mr. Santos should resign.Mr. Lawler said in a statement that his fellow newcomer had “lost the confidence and support of his party, his constituents and his colleagues,” adding that Mr. Santos could not fulfill his duties as a member of Congress.At the news conference on Wednesday where a host of local Republican elected officials demanded Mr. Santos’s resignation, Mr. Cairo said he had not spoken with Mr. McCarthy.But, he added, he hoped that House Republican leaders “would support us.”Instead, they have taken a hands-off stance. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 4 Republican who endorsed Mr. Santos during his campaign, notably sided with her fellow party leaders rather than her state’s congressional delegation, defending her new colleague.“It will play itself out,” Ms. Stefanik told CNN. “He’s a duly elected member of Congress. There have been members of Congress on the Democrat side who have faced investigations before.”Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and majority leader, brushed off questions about Mr. Santos, declaring it a matter that would be settled “internally.”Mr. Santos may be benefiting from the fact that his district is not further to the right. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill speculated privately that leaders might have made a different political calculation if Mr. Santos represented a district that former President Donald J. Trump had won by double digits in the presidential race.Mr. D’Esposito on Thursday tried to play down any tension within the fractured conference.“We are unified,” Mr. D’Esposito said. He and other local officials, he said, had felt that “we need to make our position known based on the fact that we have constituents that we represent there who are personally offended by the lies that George Santos has told or made.” But he said he had faith that Mr. McCarthy would make sure Mr. Santos was properly held “accountable.”Joseph G. Cairo Jr., the Nassau County G.O.P. chair, called for Mr. Santos’s resignation. The New York Republicans who have repudiated Mr. Santos fear being tarnished by his scandal.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesWhat may unify them is a political gene for self-protection.“They may be bailing on Santos faster because it’s a better topic for them than why the vetters didn’t vet him,” said Stu Loeser, a former press secretary to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, referring to party operatives’ failure to dig into any of Mr. Santos’s claims that turned out to be brazenly fabricated, choosing instead to blindly back his candidacy.At the news conference in New York, Mr. Cairo was quick to dub Mr. Santos an outsider, saying he was not representative of Long Island Republicans because he initially came from neighboring Queens. (His district does encompass part of Queens.)“I think George Santos is an exception to the rule,” Mr. Cairo said, adding that he hoped Nassau County voters would make judgments in future elections based on the issues and not “one individual who, unfortunately, was not truthful and ran on Long Island.”Mr. Santos, for now, is defying calls to resign and portraying himself as a partisan warrior. In an interview on the podcast “Bannon’s War Room” with Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida on Thursday, Mr. Santos said he was in Washington to “serve the people” and that he planned to continue doing so.“I was elected by 142,000 people,” Mr. Santos said. He said we would “find out in two years” if those voters didn’t want him.Mr. Santos also said confidently that he had outperformed the politicians calling for his resignation, saying “I beat them by double their margins in the victory.”Though he did outperform Mr. Lawler significantly, he fell far short of Mr. Langworthy’s 30-point win. Mr. LaLota won his race with a double-digit margin. Mr. Santos won his race by 7.6 points.Mr. Santos, who initially appeared out of his depth when he arrived in Washington last week, sitting alone in the House chamber and dodging the media as he got lost in the basement corridors of the Capitol complex, has quickly learned his way around Congress.By the end of the week, he was sitting on the House floor next to the center of the action, alongside Mr. Gaetz and at another point laughing with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia.On Thursday, he portrayed himself as a fighter.“I just pray for all of you,” he said, “when they come for you, that you have the strength I have.”Michael Gold More

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      Here Are the House Republicans to Watch if McCarthy’s Bid for Speaker Falters

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      Representative Kevin McCarthy has so far faced no viable challenger for the speakership. But if he is unable to secure the votes, an alternative could quickly emerge.WASHINGTON — A big factor in Representative Kevin McCarthy’s favor as he labors to become speaker of the House is that no viable candidate has emerged to challenge him.A group of hard-right lawmakers has pledged to block Mr. McCarthy, Republican of California, in his ascent to the speakership, imperiling his path to the top job. But he was nominated by a lopsided majority of his conference and has remained the only broadly supported candidate for the post.The threat that some of Mr. McCarthy’s allies have dangled — that moderate Republicans could band together with Democrats to elect a Democratic speaker should he fail — is highly improbable.But the landscape could quickly change should Mr. McCarthy falter on Tuesday, when the new Congress convenes and lawmakers vote to elect a new speaker. House precedent requires that lawmakers continue voting on ballot after ballot if no one is able to win the gavel. If Mr. McCarthy is unable to quickly win election, Republicans would be under immense pressure to coalesce around an alternative, ending a potentially chaotic and divisive fight on the floor that could taint the start of their majority in the House.Here are the Republicans to watch:Anna Rose Layden for The New York TimesThe Deputy: Representative Steve Scalise of LouisianaMr. Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, is in some ways Mr. McCarthy’s obvious successor.Deeply conservative and always on message, Mr. Scalise began his ascent up the leadership ranks in Congress when he became the chairman of the influential right-wing Republican Study Committee and beat out a candidate who endorsed a more combative approach to dealing with party leadership. Speculation about his ambition to one day become speaker has followed him ever since.The party’s hard-right flank is not altogether trusting of Mr. Scalise, in part because the whip has sometimes quietly staked out neutral or mainstream positions when his colleagues have gone the other way. He broke with most other top House leaders in declining to endorse the primary challenger to Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who was exiled by Republicans for repudiating former President Donald J. Trump’s election lies.A New Congress Takes ShapeAfter the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats maintained control of the Senate while Republicans flipped the House.George Santos: The Republican congressman-elect from New York, who is under scrutiny for lies about his background, is set to be sworn in even as records, colleagues and friends divulge more about his past.Elise Stefanik: The New York congresswoman’s climb to MAGA stardom is a case study in the collapse of the old Republican establishment, but her rise may also be a cautionary tale.Retirements: While each legislative session always brings a round of retirements, the departure of experienced politicians this year is set to reverberate even more starkly in a divided Congress.At the internal conference election to choose party leaders in November, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida pressed Mr. Scalise about comments he made on a private conference call days after the Jan. 6 riot. During that call, Mr. Scalise agreed with Mr. McCarthy that Mr. Gaetz’s comments about conservatives he deemed insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump had been dangerous and “potentially illegal.”Still, many rank-and-file lawmakers regard Mr. Scalise as a solid alternative and one seen by some conservative lawmakers as a more palatable option than Mr. McCarthy.Michael A. McCoy for The New York TimesThe Firebrand: Representative Jim Jordan of OhioMr. Jordan, a founder of the Freedom Caucus, helped upend Mr. McCarthy’s last bid to become speaker in 2015. He continued to be an irritant to the California Republican when he challenged Mr. McCarthy, unsuccessfully, for the top leadership position in 2018.But Mr. McCarthy worked to mend fences with Mr. Jordan when he paved the way for him to take the top seat on the Judiciary Committee and dispatched him as a pugilistic defender of Mr. Trump during two impeachments.It is unclear whether the more moderate lawmakers in the party would back a bid by Mr. Jordan for speaker. But he has a number of disciples among the far-right group of lawmakers who have vowed to oppose Mr. McCarthy.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesThe Dark Horse: Representative Patrick T. McHenry of North CarolinaMr. McHenry came to Congress in 2005 at the age of 29 as a conservative rabble-rouser, and was frequently seen yelling on the House floor or on cable news shows.But in the years that followed, the silver-haired, bow-tie-wearing Mr. McHenry underwent a metamorphosis. He became chief deputy whip to Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who later predicted that Mr. McHenry would become speaker himself one day. He pointedly took a lower-profile, behind-the-scenes approach to the job. And he developed a reputation among other lawmakers for his braininess and interest in tax and financial policy.“What changed for me was once I slowed down enough to respect the process and to respect the people that I served with in the institution,” Mr. McHenry once told a local newspaper. “I was able to get more done when I slowed down and had respect for others.”Mr. McHenry, who has for years been an informal adviser to Mr. McCarthy, has previously tried to scuttle the notion that he was interested in any top leadership post, saying he would rather lead the Financial Services Committee. He once gave the Republican leader a silver bowl in a joking reference to a famous scene from the crime drama series “The Wire,” in which a former mayor tells an incoming one that the vaunted top job is akin to eating silver bowls of feces all day.He is the only Republican lawmaker whose name has been floated as a possible candidate for speaker who voted to certify the 2020 presidential election.Anna Rose Layden for The New York TimesThe MAGA Warrior: Representative Elise Stefanik of New YorkWhen Ms. Stefanik first came to the House in 2014 as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, she was viewed as a rising star in the mold of Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who had hired her to work on his 2012 campaign for vice president.She presented herself as a moderate pragmatist willing to work with Democrats and hoping to expand the party’s appeal. When Mr. Trump’s star began to rise in the Republican Party, she remained so skeptical of his inflammatory style that she refused to say his name in 2016 when she rolled out a tepid endorsement of her party’s presidential nominee.But she has undergone a profound political metamorphosis. Ms. Stefanik is now one of the former president’s most vociferous and aggressive defenders in Congress. She became the No. 3 House Republican in May 2021 after the party ousted Ms. Cheney from the post for her vocal criticism of Mr. Trump. More

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      Elise Stefanik Believes She Can Turn New York Into a Republican State

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      AMSTERDAM, N.Y. — The event, hard by the Mohawk River, was a meet-and-greet opportunity for some of the Republican Party’s most notable candidates in New York. But Representative Elise Stefanik’s focus clearly extended far beyond her re-election bid.“We are seeing the results of one-party Democrat rule both in Albany and in Washington, and it has created crisis, after crisis, after crisis,” Ms. Stefanik said, with her attacks on the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats drawing the biggest applause lines.“The bad ideas that start in Albany, often times they percolate to Washington,” she added.Ms. Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference, is at the forefront of a push for her party to regain control of Congress, and she believes that New York — perennially a Democratic state — can lead the way. She predicts that Republicans will win 15 of the state’s 26 House seats.And her efforts in New York — appearing at fund-raisers and news conferences across the state — are predicated on a message that New York’s Rockefeller-era Republicanism, with moderate positions on social issues girded by fiscal and budgetary austerity, is over.“America First is here to stay,” said Ms. Stefanik, 38, adding, “and parties are determined not by the political leaders, they’re determined by the people.”Indeed, of the eight Republican members of the state’s current congressional delegation, only one, Representative John Katko of central New York, is generally considered a consistent moderate, and he is retiring, a decision that the former president greeted with joy.“Great news,” former President Donald J. Trump said after Mr. Katko announced he would not run in 2022. “Another one bites the dust.”Veterans of the party — which hasn’t won a statewide race in two decades — say the move away from Rockefeller Republicanism is a part of larger shift, as moderate Republicans from urban areas moved away and the party’s faithful increasingly began to be found in more conservative, rural areas.Ms. Stefanik drew applause as she criticized Nancy Pelosi at a recent political event in Amsterdam, N.Y.Cindy Schultz for The New York Times“A lot of the Republican base, what was part of that movement, has left the state,” said the former congressman Tom Reed, a Republican who served as chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and who resigned last spring from a district encompassing the state’s Southern Tier. “They are just not there anymore.”Others were even more blunt about the status of the Rockefeller model.“That’s over,” said Al D’Amato, the former Republican senator from New York. “That’s over.”The shift in the Republican Party echoes the arc of Ms. Stefanik’s political career.A Harvard-educated striver from upstate New York, Ms. Stefanik was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress in 2014, running as a moderate in a district that had previously been represented by Representative Bill Owens, a centrist Democrat.She rose fast in the ranks, banking right with the election of Mr. Trump as president in 2016 and quickly earning his approbation after she staunchly defended him during his first impeachment hearing.By May 2021, she had effectively deposed Representative Liz Cheney to become chair of the House Republican Conference, making her the third-highest ranking Republican in that chamber. She voted against certifying the vote confirming President Biden’s victory and now describes herself as “Ultra MAGA” and “proud of it.”If, as is expected, Ms. Stefanik wins a fifth term next month, she will be the most senior member of the state’s Republican delegation. She is also the first New Yorker to hold a position of leadership in the Republican Party since Representative Tom Reynolds, from western New York, served as chair of National Republican Congressional Committee from 2003 to 2006. And she’s proven a potent draw for donors, raising more than $10 million, often in small dollars, for congressional races and party committees nationwide, according to her campaign, while giving money to conservative candidates from Rhode Island to California.Her influence on candidates has already been seen across the state, with candidates in races in Long Island trumpeting and raising funds off Ms. Stefanik’s endorsement, including Nicholas J. LaLota, a former Navy lieutenant who is running to fill Mr. Zeldin’s seat, and George Santos, a financier who attended the Jan. 6 rally and is running in the Third Congressional District.With New York potentially being a battleground for control of the House, Ms. Stefanik’s efforts have also been backed by national party leaders: At a September fund-raiser in Washington, D.C., for Mike Lawler, who is trying to knock off Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, she appeared alongside Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.In early October, Ms. Stefanik also co-hosted a $1,000-a-ticket reception at the Women’s National Republican Club in Manhattan, alongside Representative Tom Emmer, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, raising more than $120,000 for seven of the state’s Republican congressional candidates.Her principal campaign committee — Elise for Congress, currently home to a $3 million bankroll — has also given steadily to other congressional candidates across New York, as well as to county committees and small-bore races like county judgeships. She also leads the Elise Victory Fund (a joint fund-raising committee), and E-Pac, which works to elect female Republicans.That sort of beneficence, as well as her outspoken appearances on conservative cable news shows and constant critiques of President Biden and Democratic policies, have positioned Ms. Stefanik to become one of New York’s few Republican kingmakers, on par with Mr. Trump and, previously, Mr. D’Amato.“She’s one of the coolest rock stars we have,” said Sally Hogan, who leads a Republican women’s organization in the Capital region which expresses “100 percent support” for Mr. Trump. “She stands up for women and for Republican values.”Ms. Stefanik, addressing farmers at a recent event in Fultonville, N.Y., has also traveled across the state to bolster the chances of her Republican colleagues.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesThe embrace of Trumpism is not complete among Republicans in New York. Representative Andrew Garbarino of Long Island, and a pair of competitive candidates in the Hudson Valley, Mr. Lawler and Marc Molinaro, have taken some centrist positions, while Representative Nicole Malliotakis of Staten Island — who is in a rematch against Max Rose, the former Democratic congressman — has expressed measured support for new gun laws and abortion rights, while remaining a staunch Trump backer.And there are Republicans who still identify with the Rockefeller era, including Mr. Katko, the soon-to-be congressional retiree who espouses a bipartisan philosophy, and was one of just 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump in 2021.“My bread and butter is always that the other side is not the enemy,” he said in an interview earlier this fall. “The Democrats love the country just as much as we do. They just have a different approach.”Another New York Republican who strayed from the party’s orthodoxy — Representative Chris Jacobs — is also retiring, after embracing gun control policies in the wake of a racist massacre in Buffalo, adjacent to his district in western New York.Mr. Jacobs’s decision led Ms. Stefanik to a somewhat surprising endorsement of Carl Paladino, a Buffalo-area developer and former candidate for governor with a long history of racist and sexist slurs, in a June primary to fill that seat. (Among other remarks, Mr. Paladino, who lost to Andrew Cuomo in the race for governor in 2010, commented that Hitler is “the kind of leader we need today.”)The endorsement of Mr. Paladino signaled Ms. Stefanik’s willingness to take on the status quo in the state party: Mr. Paladino’s opponent was Nick Langworthy, the party’s chairman, who was assailed by one of Ms. Stefanik’s top aides who called on him to resign. Mr. Langworthy fired back, accusing Ms. Stefanik of a “vendetta.” she did not back down, lending staff to Mr. Paladino during his primary campaign.He did not win, though he has continued to criticize Mr. Langworthy, calling him a “nightmare” for the state party in a recent interview, while lavishing praise on Ms. Stefanik.“She’s very bright. She’s got that North Country thing going for her: She’s so practical and down to earth,” Mr. Paladino said. “And yeah, she helped me and I’m very thankful for that and all the help that she sent me. I can’t say enough good things about her.”Mr. Langworthy, who is expected to be elected to Congress next month, declined to comment on Mr. Paladino or Ms. Stefanik, who, for her part, says the feud is settled. “We haven’t spoken,” she said, of Mr. Langworthy, “but we’re working great with the New York G.O.P.”Jay Jacobs, the Democratic state party chair, said that Ms. Stefanik’s predictions of a “red tsunami” were overblown. “My advice to the congresswoman is, ‘Don’t count your chickens till they hatch,’” Mr. Jacobs said. “A lot can happen in the last 10 days of any campaign, particularly because that is when most voters really begin to pay attention.”In her own race, Ms. Stefanik, who lives in Schuylerville, in Saratoga County, N.Y., is expected to prevail in the 21st Congressional District, an enormous, solidly Republican district that encompasses all or part of 15 counties in northern New York. Her opponent is Matt Castelli, a former C.I.A. officer specializing in counterterrorism, who has attacked Ms. Stefanik for the very ambition that has made her famous, claiming it has come at a cost to her constituents.“She sold out her district in order to advance her career, and that is readily transparent to voters across the political spectrum,” Mr. Castelli, 41, said. “And people are really turned off by it.”Matt Castelli, a former C.I.A. officer making his first run for office, has raised more than $1 million in the last quarter in his run against Ms. Stefanik.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesMr. Castelli, a first-time candidate and a Democrat, established a third-party line — the Moderate Party — to appeal to voters that might be put off by Ms. Stefanik’s complete embrace of Trumpism, and he has brought in more than $1 million in donations between July and September, a haul he says been helped by donors nationwide who understand “the stakes of this particular race.”“I’ve made the argument that this is the frontline in the battle for the soul of America, because there is no person on the ballot this November that probably represents this ongoing threat to our democracy, more so, than Elise Stefanik,” he said.Ms. Stefanik insists she is not a pure partisan, noting her work on northern border issues as well as on veterans affairs, as part of her role on the House Armed Services Committee. “It’s to the media’s detriment that they don’t want to focus on that,” she said.By the same token, she also reminded voters at the recent meet-and-greet in Amsterdam of her prominence in Republican circles, something she said “gives this district a seat at the highest levels.”“And I’m never going to apologize for that,” she said. “You deserve more than a backbencher.”Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting. More