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      Covid Hero or ‘Lockdown Ron’? DeSantis and Trump Renew Pandemic Politics

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      The Florida governor has recently highlighted his state’s response to the coronavirus in hopes of striking some distance from Donald Trump.Hank Miller, a 64-year-old Iowa farmer, started paying attention to Gov. Ron DeSantis during the coronavirus pandemic, when the Florida governor was a constant presence on Fox News highlighting the reopening of his state.While Mr. Miller voted for former President Donald J. Trump in 2016 and 2020, he now plans to support Mr. DeSantis, in part, he said, because he was “disappointed” with Mr. Trump for following the advice of the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, whom Mr. DeSantis has said should be prosecuted.“I liked how DeSantis responded to the pandemic,” Mr. Miller said at a coffee shop in Grundy Center, Iowa, where Mr. DeSantis campaigned on Saturday. “He didn’t just shut things down.”Mr. DeSantis, far behind Mr. Trump in the polls in Iowa and nationally, is clearly hoping that such feelings are widespread among Republican primary voters. The governor’s record on Covid-19 provides perhaps his strongest contrast with the former president, whose administration spearheaded the development of the coronavirus vaccines that are now deeply unpopular with the Republican base.The virus could be an important wedge issue for Mr. DeSantis, who at times has struggled to provide voters with a clear case for why he would be a better president than Mr. Trump, the Republican front-runner. But there are questions about whether a pandemic that many Americans see as long over will resonate with the electorate in 2024.Now, a recent resurgence of Covid-19 cases is giving Mr. DeSantis a chance to press the argument. In response to the uptick, a small number of schools, universities and hospitals have told students, patients and employees to wear masks again. Mr. DeSantis and other Republicans have seized on that as evidence that the Covid-19 debate, which they frame as a civil rights battle, is far from over.Mr. DeSantis emphasized that point during his swing through Iowa on Saturday. “When you have people going back to restrictions and mandates, this shows that this issue has not died,” he told reporters outside the coffee shop in Grundy Center. “This shows that if we don’t bring accountability with my administration, they are going to keep trying to do this.”Since returning to the campaign trail after Hurricane Idalia, which hit Florida last month, Mr. DeSantis has seemingly made the virus his No. 1 issue. He has appeared repeatedly this past week on Fox News and other conservative media outlets lauding his pandemic policies, and has done interviews with local news media outlets in Iowa and New Hampshire. He even held a news conference in Jacksonville — in his role as governor — to promote the way he handled the virus.“I can tell you here in Florida, we did not and we will not allow the dystopian visions of paranoid hypochondriacs to control our health policies, let alone our state,” Mr. DeSantis said on Thursday at the event in Jacksonville, which, in the absence of formal policy announcements, had the feel of a campaign rally.Mr. DeSantis is taking advantage of an apparent shift in the national mood on the virus, even among Democrats. Only 12 percent of Americans say they typically wear a mask in public, according to a poll conducted in August by Yahoo News and YouGov.President Biden joked with reporters at the White House about the fact that he was not wearing a mask days after the first lady, Jill Biden, was diagnosed with Covid-19.Al Drago for The New York TimesAfter the first lady, Jill Biden, was recently diagnosed with Covid-19, President Biden joked with reporters at the White House about the fact that he was not wearing a mask. Although he had tested negative, Mr. Biden said he was told he needed to continue masking for 10 days.“Don’t tell them I didn’t have it on when I walked in,” Mr. Biden said, holding up his mask.As Mr. DeSantis has elevated the issue of Covid-19 once more, the Trump campaign has responded by accusing Mr. DeSantis of hypocrisy, pointing out that he did issue shut down orders and at one point praised Dr. Fauci.“Lockdown Ron should take a look in the mirror and ask himself why he’s trying to gaslight voters,” Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said in a statement.But while many Republican governors shut down their states at the pandemic’s start, Mr. DeSantis was early to fully reopen.Mr. Trump, who was always skeptical of masking and other public health measures, has also begun talking about Covid-19 restrictions on the trail.“The radical Democrats are trying hard to restart Covid hysteria,” Mr. Trump said on Friday at a rally in Rapid City, S.D. He has also downplayed the role Dr. Fauci played in his administration.Still, as Republican candidates try to resuscitate the pandemic as a political issue, they may face virus weariness.During Mr. DeSantis’s Saturday bus tour through Iowa, several voters said in interviews that the pandemic was not a top concern for them going into 2024, even if they admired the governor’s record.“We don’t need to hear about it,” said Dave Sweeney, a retired farmer who said he was trying to decide between supporting Mr. DeSantis, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. “It’s not really an issue anymore.”It’s possible that audiences in places like New Hampshire, which imposed more stringent public health measures than Iowa, may be more receptive.In the run-up to his presidential campaign, Mr. DeSantis signed a series of public health laws in Florida that he often points to on the trail, including ones banning mask and vaccine mandates. He also instigated a state grand jury investigation into possible “misconduct” by scientists and vaccine manufacturers. (No charges have been brought.)While Mr. DeSantis says his Covid-19 policies protected Floridians from government overreach and kept the economy going, the state suffered a disproportionate number of coronavirus deaths during the Delta wave of the virus in 2021, after Mr. DeSantis stopped preaching the virtues of vaccines, a New York Times investigation found.During Mr. DeSantis’s recent bus tour through Iowa, several voters said in interviews that the pandemic was not a top concern for them going into 2024.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesStill, such criticisms are unlikely to matter in a Republican primary where many voters discount the severity of a virus that has killed more than a million Americans since 2020.“I think it’s a common cold,” said Roger Hibdon, 32, an engineer from Grundy Center. “I’m not worried about it.”Michael Gold More

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      At Iowa’s Biggest Game, Football and Politics Collide

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      Donald J. Trump and Ron DeSantis played off each other at the Iowa-Iowa State game, where the tables appeared to turn on the former president.Two ardent rivals faced off on Saturday. Thousands of fans cheered and jeered from the sidelines. Tension and hope, celebration and outrage all around.There was also a college football game.The event itself was highly anticipated, as is normal for the Iowa-Iowa State game. But this year’s matchup also featured a bitter head-to-head clash of a political kind that started even before kickoff occurred.Former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the front-runners in the Republican primary, both appeared at the game: Mr. Trump, in a private suite, and Mr. DeSantis, in the stands alongside the state’s popular governor, Kim Reynolds.It was the first time the two were at the same event since the Iowa State Fair, at which Mr. Trump and his supporters taunted Mr. DeSantis, who was heckled and cursed at as he strolled the fairgrounds with his family.A month later, at Jack Trice Stadium, the roles appeared to be reversed, with Mr. Trump on the receiving end.The former president entered the game to a mix of applause and audible boos, as a plane with a banner reading “Where’s Melania?” flew overhead — a nod to the absence of his wife from the campaign trail. Some attendees gave him the middle finger from the stands while he looked on from the glass-paneled box from which he watched the game.Two people wearing inflatable costumes resembling Mr. Trump and Anthony Fauci, who managed the Covid response during the Trump administration and has been a target of Mr. DeSantis’s — took photos with game attendees.People wearing inflatable costumes resembling Mr. Trump and Anthony Fauci posed for photos with fans.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesStill, Mr. Trump is dominating Iowa in the polls, despite eschewing the town-to-town retail politicking that is tradition in the state.Before kickoff, a crowd of several hundred gathered near the loading dock where Mr. Trump was expected to enter the stadium. Another large group crowded around the suite from which he watched the game during halftime, simply hoping for a glimpse of the former president.While Iowa voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 with an eight-percentage-point margin, the state’s two major college towns — Ames, where the game took place, and Iowa City, home of the rival Iowa Hawkeyes — are quite blue.A crowd gathered to get a glimpse of Mr. Trump arriving at the game.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe attacks came out early, before either candidate arrived at the game. Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down, released a new online ad ahead of the game — which was devised to reach digital devices in the area around the stadium — criticizing the former president’s previous support for transgender women competing in the Miss America pageant as “insanity.” Ripped-up DeSantis posters were strewn across the grounds outside the stadium.Ahead of the game, Mr. DeSantis appeared for roughly 15 minutes at a tailgate for the Iowa State wrestling team, where Cyclones fans played cornhole and sipped beer from red and gold koozies.Asked by a reporter about Mr. Trump, who is leading him by double digits in the state, Mr. DeSantis made a glancing reference to the former president’s four criminal indictments, saying that “Iowans don’t want the campaign to be about the past or to be about the candidates’ issues.” Instead, he continued, “They want it to be about their future and the future of this country. And that’s what I represent.”At the game, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida appeared in the stands alongside the state’s popular governor, Kim Reynolds.Jeffrey Becker/USA Today Sports,via ReutersBut even voters who are strongly considering supporting Mr. DeSantis questioned whether he could beat Mr. Trump.“How do you overcome this deficit?” said Richard Abrams, 38, a middle school teacher from Iowa City. “How do you persuade these Trump voters to come to your side? You’ve got to win some of those people over.”Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis weren’t the only candidates who vied for attention at the game. Vivek Ramaswamy, the political newcomer who has surged in the polls in recent weeks, strolled through the tailgate after several earlier appearances in the state. He garnered some attention, taking a quick shot of water from a “shot ski,” a ski to which shot glasses were attached, and shaking hands as he went. But he didn’t stay for the game, instead trying to jet off to a town hall in New Hampshire that was canceled after his plane was grounded “due to inclement weather.”Vivek Ramaswamy posed for photos with attendees at a tailgate.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesAsa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor running on a stridently anti-Trump platform, also appeared briefly at the tailgate. In remarks to reporters, he attacked Mr. Trump’s character and took a swipe at Mr. DeSantis, who allied himself closely with the former president while running for governor in 2018.“Donald Trump’s not going to speak the truth in this election,” said Mr. Hutchinson, who is barely making an impression in the polls. “But America needs to move in a different direction, and we don’t need a ‘Trump-lite,’ either.”Few tailgaters seemed to notice his presence.Asa Hutchinson speaking with reporters at the tailgate.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe day was almost a game within a game. The heckling, the fly-over and the anti-Trump ads were reminiscent of the Iowa State Fair in August, when Mr. DeSantis faced taunting from the Trump campaign and its supporters, including with a plane flying a banner that read: “Be likable, Ron!” At a sprint car race later that day, a crowd of 25,000 greeted Mr. DeSantis’s appearance with a chorus of boos.But many in attendance at the Iowa standoff — despite the candidates’ crowds and the hubbub around their arrivals — were far more interested in the rivalry on the field than the one off it.The game itself was highly anticipated, as is normal for the Iowa-Iowa State game.Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press“I just don’t think that the focus should be on them because it’s a rivalry between colleges,” said Melanie Frueh, from St. Charles. “Granted, there’s a lot of people out there, but I just don’t see that there’s that much importance to come here and try to make a name for themselves when people are having fun in this in this context.”Still, the game itself may not have maintained its level of appeal. The score sat at 14-3 at halftime, in favor of the Hawkeyes, who went on to win, 20-13. Scores of crowd members left with half the game still to go. More

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      Why Is Joe Biden So Unpopular?

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      Joe Biden is an unpopular president, and without some recovery, he could easily lose to Donald Trump in 2024.By itself, this is no great wonder: His two predecessors were also unpopular at this stage of their presidencies, also endangered in their re-election bids.But with Trump and Barack Obama, there were reasonably simple explanations. For Obama, it was the unemployment rate, 9.1 percent in September 2011, and the bruising battles over Obamacare. For Trump, it was the fact that he had never been popular, making bad approval ratings his presidency’s natural default.For Biden, though, there was a normal honeymoon, months of reasonably high approval ratings that ended only with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. And since then, it’s been hard to distill a singular explanation for what’s kept his numbers lousy.The economy is better than in Obama’s first term, inflation is ebbing, and the feared recession hasn’t materialized. The woke wars and Covid battles that disadvantaged Democrats are no longer central, and the post-Roe culture wars seem like friendlier terrain. Biden’s foreign policy team has defended Ukraine without (so far) a dangerous escalation with the Russians, and Biden has even delivered legislative bipartisanship, co-opting Trumpian promises about industrial policy along the way.This has created mystification among Democratic partisans as to why all this isn’t enough to give the president a decent polling lead. I don’t share that mystification. But I do think there’s real uncertainty about which of the forces dragging on Biden’s approval ratings matter most.Start with the theory that Biden’s troubles are mostly still about inflation — that people just hate rising prices and he isn’t credited with avoiding a recession because wage increases have been eaten up by inflation until recently.If this is the master issue, then the White House doesn’t have many options beyond patience. The administration’s original inflationary sin, the overspending in the American Rescue Plan Act, isn’t going to be repeated, and apart from the possibility of an armistice in Ukraine relieving some pressure on gas prices, there aren’t a lot of policy levers to pull. The hope has to be that inflation continues to drift down, real wages rise consistently and in November 2024, Biden gets the economic credit he isn’t getting now.But maybe it’s not just the economy. Across multiple polls, Biden seems to be losing support from minority voters, continuing a Trump-era trend. This raises the possibility that there’s a social-issues undertow for Democrats, in which even when wokeness isn’t front and center, the fact that the party’s activist core is so far left gradually pushes culturally conservative African Americans and Hispanics toward the G.O.P. — much as culturally conservative white Democrats drifted slowly into the Republican coalition between the 1960s and the 2000s.Bill Clinton temporarily arrested that rightward drift by deliberately picking public fights with factions to his left. But this has not been Biden’s strategy. He’s moved somewhat rightward on issues like immigration, in which progressivism’s policy vision hit the rocks. But he doesn’t make a big deal about his differences with his progressive flank. I don’t expect that to change — but it might be costing him in ways somewhat invisible to liberals at the moment.Or maybe the big problem is just simmering anxiety about Biden’s age. Maybe his poll numbers dipped first in the Afghanistan crisis because it showcased the public absenteeism that often characterizes his presidency. Maybe some voters now just assume that a vote for Biden is a vote for the hapless Kamala Harris. Maybe there’s just a vigor premium in presidential campaigns that gives Trump an advantage.In which case a different leader with the same policies might be more popular. Lacking any way to elevate such a leader, however, all Democrats can do is ask Biden to show more public vigor, with all the risks that may entail.But this is at least a strategy, of sorts. The hardest problem for the incumbent to address may be the pall of private depression and general pessimism hanging over Americans, especially younger Americans, which has been worsened by Covid but seems rooted in deeper social trends.I don’t see any obvious way for Biden to address this issue through normal presidential positioning. I would not recommend updating Jimmy Carter’s malaise speech with the therapy-speak of contemporary progressivism. I also don’t think the president is suited to be a crusader against digital derangement or a herald of religious revival.Biden got elected, in part, by casting himself as a transitional figure, a bridge to a more youthful and optimistic future. Now he needs some general belief in that brighter future to help carry him to re-election.But wherever Americans might find such optimism, we are probably well past the point that a decrepit-seeming president can hope to generate it himself.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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      Trump’s Resilience Leaves Major Republican Donors in Despair

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      The party’s big donors have made clear their distaste for the former president. Now, as he barrels toward the nomination, they are reacting with a mix of hand-wringing, calls to arms and fatalism.On Labor Day, Eric Levine, a New York lawyer and Republican fund-raiser, sent an email to roughly 1,500 donors, politicians and friends.“I refuse to accept the proposition that Donald Trump is the ‘inevitable’ Republican nominee for President,” he wrote. “His nomination would be a disaster for our party and our country.”Many of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors share that view, and the growing sense of urgency about the state of the G.O.P. presidential primary race. Mr. Trump’s grip on the party’s voters is as powerful as ever, with polls in Iowa and New Hampshire last month putting him at least 25 percentage points above his nearest rivals.That has left major Republican donors — whose desires have increasingly diverged from those of conservative voters — grappling with the reality that the tens of millions of dollars they have spent to try to stop the former president, fearing he poses a mortal threat to their party and the country, may already be a sunk cost.Interviews with more than a dozen Republican donors and their allies revealed hand-wringing, magical thinking, calls to arms and, for some, fatalism. Several of them did not want to be identified by name out of a fear of political repercussions or a desire to stay in the good graces of any eventual Republican nominee, including Mr. Trump.“If things don’t change quickly, people are going to despair,” Mr. Levine said in an interview. He is among the optimists who believe Mr. Trump’s support is not as robust as the polls suggest and who see a quickly closing window to rally behind another candidate. In Mr. Levine’s 2,500-word Labor Day missive, he urged his readers to pick Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Other schools of thought exist. Some donors have backed Mr. Trump’s rivals despite believing that he is unbeatable in the primaries. These donors are banking, in part, on the chance that Mr. Trump will eventually drop out of the race because of his legal troubles, a health scare or some other personal or political calculation.Fred Zeidman, a Texas businessman who is an enthusiastic backer of Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, said he had given her a blunt assessment of her prospects last month.“You’re at 2 percent, and he’s at 53 percent,” he recalled telling her, in only a slight exaggeration of Mr. Trump’s polling advantage. “He ain’t going to erode that much. Something needs to happen to him for you to overtake him.”Privately, many donors said that the primary contest so far — especially the first Republican debate last month, in which Mr. Trump did not take part — had felt like a dress rehearsal for a play that would never happen. One donor’s political adviser called it “the kids’ table.”One Texas-based Republican fund-raiser, who has not committed to a candidate and insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations, said he regularly told major donors that like it or not, Mr. Trump would be the nominee.“Intellectually, their heads explode,” the fund-raiser said. He said many donors were “backing off” rather than supporting a candidate, reflecting a fundamental belief that nobody can defeat Mr. Trump.Many donors have said that the primary contest so far — especially the first Republican debate last month, in which Mr. Trump did not take part — has felt like a dress rehearsal for a play that will never happen.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesLarge-dollar Republican donors, even those who enthusiastically or reluctantly backed Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020, have made no secret of their wish to move on in 2024.Some big donors have stuck with Mr. Trump, though not nearly as many as in past cycles, at least not so far — a super PAC backing Mr. Trump has reported just 25 contributions of $100,000 or more. They include $2 million from the casino magnate Phil Ruffin and $1 million from the former real estate developer Charles Kushner, the father of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Mr. Trump pardoned the elder Mr. Kushner on his way out of office.Major donors, particularly those in the tier just below the billionaire power players, have seen their influence wane in recent elections, a trend inextricably bound up in Mr. Trump’s continued hold on Republican voters. The explosive growth of small-dollar contributions — a phenomenon that, on the Republican side, has overwhelmingly favored Mr. Trump — reflects a widening disconnect between voters’ sympathies and the interests of big donors.The conservative commentator Bill Kristol, who has become a pariah in his party over his longstanding opposition to Mr. Trump, said he told donors and their advisers at the beginning of the year that if they were serious about defeating Mr. Trump, they had to spend money in a concerted effort to persuade Republican voters that he should not be the nominee.The hope was that, by Labor Day, Mr. Trump’s poll numbers would be in the 30s, Mr. Kristol explained. Instead, he said, “they’ve done nothing, and Trump is at 50 percent.”Mr. Kristol said he was not sure if donors had a kind of “learned helplessness,” or if they were just wary of offending Mr. Trump and his supporters. “I think, ultimately, they tell themselves they could live with him,” he said.“We know what a world would look like if real conservative elites really decided they wanted to get rid of Donald Trump,” Mr. Kristol said. “And that’s not the world we are living in.”If there was any hope among big donors that the various investigations into Mr. Trump would undermine his popular support, such dreams have faded. Each successive indictment — four since late March — has brought waves of financial contributions and new energy to his poll numbers.Some donors expressed incredulity that Mr. Trump would be able to run for president while fighting off the charges. He faces a busy calendar of trials next year that is likely to grow only more complex.“I don’t see how he’s going to deal with these huge legal problems,” said the Long Island-based metals magnate Andy Sabin, who is backing Mr. Scott. “I don’t really care about his numbers. I think he’s got enough other stuff going on. All of these trials start — who knows? We are in uncharted territory.”Mr. Sabin conceded that Mr. Trump had a “very solid base,” adding that he would “almost have to murder somebody” for people to turn on him. “People think he’s God.”Many major donors, even those who believe Mr. Trump committed crimes and who think his actions surrounding Jan. 6, 2021, were abhorrent, said they believed the indictments were politically motivated. Some also suggested that the indictments had temporarily inflated his poll numbers, by keeping him in the news and fueling voter outrage on his behalf.“I fundamentally believe Trump’s numbers are artificial,” said Jay Zeidman, a Texas-based health care investor and major fund-raiser for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida (and the son of Fred Zeidman). “I’m not saying they are making them up — I don’t think there’s real strength behind those numbers.”He continued: “I think you have to be patient, and let the gravity of the situation he’s in take hold. This election is not about vindicating one man. This is not a referendum on Trump.”Mr. Zeidman, like others, said he believed Mr. Trump would lose the presidential race and drag down Republican candidates for Senate and the House. “I believe that Republican primary voters need to understand the opportunity they have to win a very winnable presidential election.”Dan Eberhart, a private equity and energy executive who is also backing Mr. DeSantis, said that he expected Mr. Trump’s legal troubles to weigh him down, and that he believed most voters were looking for a second choice.“By the time Super Tuesday comes around, Trump is going to have been beaten in Iowa, and the dam is going to burst,” he predicted. “Once someone else is viable, I think you’re going to see him quickly melt.”Then, Mr. Eberhart said, donors who have not committed to a candidate will come out of the woodwork: “They are actively holding their breath, wanting a solution to Trump but not knowing what it is.”As some donors have cast about for a late entrant to the race who could challenge Mr. Trump, the name that comes up most often is Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.Mr. Levine addressed the Youngkin question in his essay, saying: “Waiting for someone else to get into the race is not an option.” (Mr. Youngkin has not ruled out a run and has said he is focused on Virginia’s state legislative elections this fall; with each passing day, the logistical barriers to entry grow higher.)Bill Bean, an Indiana-based real-estate executive and backer of former Vice President Mike Pence, said the field would narrow until there was a “clear alternative” to Mr. Trump.Mr. Bean backed Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign in 2020, and supported the policy decisions he made as president. “But I would like to see us move forward,” he said. “I want to look at the future in a positive way. I hear that a lot more than maybe the poll numbers show.”Ruth Igielnik More

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      ‘I’m Being Indicted for You,’ Trump Tells South Dakota Rally

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      In his first rally since his fourth indictment, the former president focused on his Republican rivals and President Biden, as some in the crowd wore Mr. Trump’s mug shot on their T-shirts.When Donald J. Trump came to South Dakota in July 2020, then a president in the middle of his re-election campaign, he stood in front of Mount Rushmore and outlined a dark vision of what he claimed his opponents on the left would do to the country.Three years, an election defeat and four indictments later, Mr. Trump returned on Friday to South Dakota for a rally, where he struck a similar message: that he was the sole bulwark keeping America from falling into ruin.“They’re just destroying our country,” Mr. Trump told a crowd of roughly 7,000, this time at a hockey arena in Rapid City, S.D. “And if we don’t take it back — if we don’t take it back in ’24, I really believe we’re not going to have a country left.”Appearing at a large-scale event for the first time since he stood for a mug shot in Georgia late last month, Mr. Trump acknowledged that his circumstances had changed. Yet he referred to the four criminal cases against him proudly — and as an applause line.“I’m being indicted for you,” Mr. Trump, the front-runner in the G.O.P. presidential primary race, said to the audience. “That’s not part of the job description,” he added, “but I’m being indicted for you.”Mr. Trump did not mention the Georgia indictment or the booking photo even as his campaign has used it in fund-raising appeals and began selling merchandise with the image as soon as it was released. A smattering of attendees were wearing T-shirts featuring Mr. Trump’s mug shot and the phrase “Never Surrender.”“The mug shot did good for him,” said Lydia Lozano of Summerset, S.D., who wore Mr. Trump’s mug shot on a blue T-shirt with the outline of an American flag. The charges in Georgia, she added, did not bother her, nor did Mr. Trump’s other indictments.“They’re just grasping at straws to try and get him to stop running,” Ms. Lozano said. “And he’s running anyway.”Mr. Trump’s mug shot appeared on T-shirts, which his campaign began selling immediately after his Georgia indictment.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Trump, too, marveled that his poll numbers in the primary had seemed to rise after his indictments. “I’m the only person in the history of politics who has been indicted whose poll numbers went up,” he said.Still, polls have shown that a majority of Americans believe his criminal cases were warranted, and some Republicans worry that the 91 total charges against him could hurt him in the general election. Mr. Trump’s legal issues could also create logistical and financial challenges that could make it difficult for him to campaign effectively.South Dakota, where Republicans have a firm stronghold, is a curious choice for an event during a political campaign. It does not hold an early nominating contest, and it does not qualify as a battleground state. The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state was 1964.Still, as Mr. Trump’s campaign has tried to reduce its costs, especially as Mr. Trump’s legal fees mount, it has welcomed opportunities for the former president to attend large-scale events held by other groups rather than staging its own expensive ones.Friday’s rally was organized by the South Dakota Republican Party. The Republican governor of the state, Kristi Noem — who endorsed Mr. Trump’s campaign in her remarks introducing him — said that organizers had invited other candidates but that Mr. Trump was the only one who had accepted.Ms. Noem also worked to bring Mr. Trump to Mount Rushmore for the Independence Day celebration in 2020. A looping video of that appearance greeted the crowds filing into the arena on Friday.Speaking for about 110 minutes, Mr. Trump largely doubled down on his 2020 remarks, repeatedly saying that Democrats were threatening to rewrite history, replace America’s foundational values and deface monuments like Mount Rushmore. But he was less vague on Friday about the perceived threats to the nation, singling out specific political opponents.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a political rival in the Republican primary, was an “unskilled politician” who “sided with the communists” against farmers. Television networks were “evil.” President Biden, he said, was “grossly incompetent and very dangerous,” if not “the most crooked president in history.”As he has repeatedly, he claimed without evidence that all four cases against him were part of a politically motivated campaign by Mr. Biden. (Two of the cases are being brought by local prosecutors in New York and Georgia, while the two federal cases are being led by an independent special counsel.)The speakers who preceded him advanced his view.“How many indictments does it take to steal the presidential election in 2024?” Josh Haeder, South Dakota’s treasurer, rhetorically asked. “Here’s the answer: There’s not enough, because Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States of America.” More

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      Kristi Noem, Likely to Endorse Trump, Kicks Off Fight to Be His V.P.

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      At a rally on Friday, Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota threw her support behind the former president, whose large lead in polls has stirred speculation about the No. 2 job.Donald J. Trump’s resilience in polls of the Republican presidential primary field is shifting attention to what, for the moment at least, is the only truly competitive national race for 2024: the contest to be his running mate.Speculation over Mr. Trump’s potential vice president — a decision that would rest solely with him — has remained an undercurrent in the primary race as his rivals for the nomination, including former Gov. Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott, a pair of South Carolina Republicans, regularly distance themselves from questions about their possible interest in the No. 2 job.One Republican welcoming those questions has been Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota. She isn’t running for the White House, and she recently told Fox News that “of course” she would consider joining a ticket with Mr. Trump.Ms. Noem, 51, fueled further vice-presidential conjecture by endorsing the former president at a rally on Friday evening in her home state.“Tonight, Mr. President, my message is clear: It is an honor to have you with us in South Dakota,” Ms. Noem said in front of a crowd of thousands in Rapid City. “You made America great again once. Let’s do it again.”Mr. Trump took the stage, briefly hugging Ms. Noem and exchanging words. Then, for a quick second, a graphic reading “TRUMP NOEM 2024” flashed on the giant screen above the stage.“Kristi is a warrior for American values,” Mr. Trump said, going on to compliment her handling of the coronavirus pandemic and her policies in South Dakota.“I get endorsements, some good, some bad,” he said. “Some don’t mean anything. Hers means a lot.”While South Dakota holds little sway in the Republican presidential primary contest — and even less in a general election — Ms. Noem’s endorsement is noteworthy, because only eight of the nation’s 26 Republican governors have publicly picked sides so far.Beyond Ms. Noem, just three — Mike Dunleavy of Alaska, Jim Justice of West Virginia and Henry McMaster of South Carolina — have backed Mr. Trump. Two others — Ron DeSantis of Florida and Doug Burgum of North Dakota — are running against him.“Everybody should consider it,” Ms. Noem told Fox News about a potential vice-presidential slot. “If President Trump is going to be back in the White House, I’d do all I can to help him be successful.”Still, Mr. Trump is said to be giving little direct thought to a running mate.Some close to the former president said that was most likely rooted in superstition that such consideration would jeopardize his own nomination. Others said he had devalued the position, viewing it as little more than a White House staff position that carries little political sway with voters.Mr. Trump raised eyebrows among some associates with private, offhand comments that Mr. Scott had not received much coverage for his performance during the first Republican presidential debate. Mr. Scott has been mentioned as a potential vice-presidential pick even though he is currently running against Mr. Trump, who didn’t participate in his party’s first debate.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said the vice-presidential speculation showed that “everyone knows President Trump will be the nominee and he continues to dominate every single poll.”Along with Mr. Scott, other Republican candidates mentioned as potential running mates for Mr. Trump have included Ms. Haley and the businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. Mr. Trump’s two-time running mate, former Vice President Mike Pence, has split with the former president over the 2020 election results. This week, he cast Mr. Trump’s populism as “a road to ruin” for the party.In a radio interview this week, Mr. Trump told Hugh Hewitt, a conservative talk show host, that he was unlikely to make an early decision on a vice president — brushing aside the idea that his running mate could help campaign next spring when the former president is facing multiple criminal trials.“There’s never been a vice president that got a president elected, because it doesn’t work that way,” Mr. Trump said. “It sounds good and everything, but the president gets himself elected.”Mr. Trump endorsed Ms. Noem for governor in 2018, and she was an ardent ally during his presidency. When she hosted him in 2020, her laudatory public remarks prompted speculation that she was hoping to replace Mr. Pence on the Republican ticket.Ms. Noem changed her tune somewhat after Republicans fell short of expectations in last year’s midterm elections. In an interview with The New York Times at the time, Ms. Noem — who was frequently cited as a potential 2024 candidate — floated the thought that she did not believe Mr. Trump offered “the best chance” for Republicans.Still, Ms. Noem stayed out of a crowded Republican primary in which Mr. Trump is far and away the front-runner, and she has more recently voiced support for him in cable news appearances.On Thursday, she told the conservative news channel Newsmax that she would “in a heartbeat” consider being Mr. Trump’s running mate if asked.Maggie Haberman More

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      Judge Denies Mark Meadows’s Request to Move Georgia Case to Federal Court

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      Moving the case to federal court would have given Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, one key advantage: a jury pool that was more favorable to Donald J. Trump.Georgia prosecutors leading the criminal election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and 18 of his allies notched a victory on Friday when a judge rejected an effort by Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, to move his case from state court to federal court.Mr. Meadows would have faced the same state felony charges had his case been heard by a federal judge and jury, including a racketeering charge for his role in what prosecutors have described as a “criminal organization” that sought to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state. But removal to federal court would have given him key advantages, including a jury pool that was more favorable to Mr. Trump.Conducting a trial in federal court would have also increased the likelihood that the United States Supreme Court, a third of whose members were nominated by Mr. Trump, would ultimately get involved in the case.The setback for Mr. Meadows came in the first of many rulings that are expected for the defendants who are seeking to have their cases moved out of state court. Mr. Trump has not filed for a removal to federal court, but he is widely expected to do so.However, the ruling, by Judge Steve C. Jones of the Northern District of Georgia, does not bode well for any of those efforts. An early trial is already scheduled to start in state court on Oct. 23 for two defendants, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who have invoked their right for a speedy trial under Georgia law.The question of where the trials will take place is significant in another way as well. Unlike in federal court, the proceedings in state court will be televised, setting the stage for long-running public trials focused on efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to cling to power.“There is no federal jurisdiction over the criminal case,” Judge Jones, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, wrote in his ruling. “The outcome of this case will be for a Fulton County judge and trier of fact to ultimately decide.”A lawyer for Mr. Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Read the documentJudge Steve C. Jones of the Northern District of Georgia rejected an effort by Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff, to move his racketeering case from state court to federal court.Read Document 49 pagesThe ruling, which Mr. Meadows appealed on Friday night, came after his lawyers took the unexpected step of putting their client on the witness stand to make the case for removal in a hearing on Aug. 28 in Judge Jones’s courtroom in downtown Atlanta.“Meadows had the strongest of the removal cases,” said Norman Eisen, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. “If Meadows has failed, then there’s little hope for Clark, or for that matter Trump,” he added, referring to Jeffrey Clark, a defendant and former Justice Department official who has also filed to move his case to federal court.In a filing this week, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Steven H. Sadow, notified the presiding Fulton County Superior Court judge, Scott McAfee, that Mr. Trump might seek to move his case; he has until the end of the month to decide.A key issue for Judge Jones was whether Mr. Meadows’s actions, as described in the 98-page indictment, could be considered within the scope of his job duties as White House chief of staff, which would qualify his case for removal under federal law. Removal is a longstanding legal tradition meant to protect federal officials from state-level prosecution that could impede them from conducting federal business; it is rooted in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law “supreme” over contrary state laws.In the hearing on Mr. Meadows’s request, Fulton County prosecutors argued that he had overstepped the bounds of his chief-of-staff duties by acting as a de facto agent of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. They noted that he had arranged and participated in the now-famous Jan. 2, 2021, call between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which Mr. Trump said he wanted to “find” roughly 12,000 votes, enough to reverse his election loss in the state.The prosecutors said that with such actions, Mr. Meadows had violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are on the job. Among the examples they noted was a text message that Mr. Meadows sent on Dec. 27, 2020, to an official in Mr. Raffensperger’s office, in which he offered financial assistance from the “Trump campaign” for a ballot verification effort.Mr. Meadows’s lawyers emphasized that a chief of staff’s job often occupies a messy place where policy and politics converge — and that was among the reasons that some observers thought he had the best shot at removal to federal court.But Judge Jones decided that the actions ascribed to Mr. Meadows in the indictment were not within the scope of his federal duties.The evidence, he ruled, “establishes that the actions at the heart of the state’s charges against Meadows were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures.”Mr. Meadows testified at the hearing before Judge Jones that he believed there were outstanding allegations of election fraud that Mr. Trump was concerned about that needed further investigation in the weeks after the election even after William P. Barr, the attorney general at the time, met with Mr. Meadows and told him that many of the allegations were “bullshit.”In a likely preview to his defense strategy, Mr. Meadows also said he wanted to help Mr. Trump look into election fraud allegations as a way to “hopefully get this off of the president’s concern list.” That way, he could “land the plane,” he said, referring to facilitating a smooth and peaceful transfer of power to an incoming President Biden.Mr. Trump’s lawyers unsuccessfully sought removal in his state criminal case in New York, in which he is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from a hush money payment made to a porn star in 2016. Mr. Trump is also facing two federal criminal cases in Florida and Washington, D.C.Besides Mr. Meadows and Mr. Clark, three other co-defendants in the Georgia case have asked for their cases to be moved to federal court. The others were Republican Party electors who submitted Electoral College votes for Mr. Trump despite his loss in Georgia: State Senator Shawn Still; Cathy Latham, a party activist from rural Georgia; and David Shafer, the former head of the Georgia Republican Party. Their claim is seen as particularly tenuous, because they did not work for the federal government.For cases that remain in the state court system, the jury will be drawn from Fulton County, which covers most of Atlanta; Mr. Trump received just over 26 percent of the vote there in 2020. Cases removed to federal court would get a jury from a 10-county area where Mr. Trump received nearly 35 percent of the vote — a not-insignificant advantage for defendants, given the fact that it takes only one not-guilty vote to hang a jury.In addition to racketeering, Mr. Meadows is charged with one count of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer for his participation in the phone call with Mr. Raffensperger, the secretary of state. Prosecutors accuse Mr. Meadows of having “unlawfully solicited, requested and importuned” Mr. Raffensperger to engage in the illegal act of changing the certified vote returns in the state.Prosecutors subpoenaed Mr. Raffensperger to testify at Mr. Meadows’s removal hearing. Mr. Raffensperger recounted how he was not swayed by Mr. Trump’s arguments that there were problems with the election results, which at that point had been subject to multiple recounts.When asked to characterize the conversation with Mr. Trump and Mr. Meadows, Mr. Raffensperger said, “I thought it was a campaign call.” More

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      Trump Is Said to Have Told Blake Masters He’d Lose Senate Primary to Kari Lake

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      Neither potential candidate has entered the race to unseat Senator Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona.Former President Donald J. Trump on Sunday called Blake Masters, the failed Arizona Senate candidate considering a second run next year, and told him he didn’t think Mr. Masters could win a primary race against Kari Lake, the former news anchor who ran unsuccessfully for governor last year, according to two people briefed on the conversation.Mr. Trump’s delivery of this blunt political assessment — which could indicate that Mr. Trump may endorse Ms. Lake if she has a relatively open path to the nomination — is at odds with Mr. Trump’s posture so far this political cycle, in which he has shown more restraint in endorsing candidates than he had in the 2022 midterms.Mr. Trump’s call on Sunday came days after a report that Mr. Masters, a 37-year-old venture capitalist, was preparing to make a second run for the Senate in the swing state after his loss to Senator Mark Kelly, the Democratic incumbent, in 2022.Ms. Lake, who lost a bitter contest with Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, is looking at announcing a Senate campaign in the first half of October, two people familiar with the matter said. The race to unseat Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat who last year became an independent, is expected to be a crowded one in a state where the Republican Party is fractured.Last year, Mr. Trump endorsed both Mr. Masters, a political newcomer and an anti-immigration hard-liner who has close ties to the populist New Right, and Ms. Lake, who embraced Mr. Trump’s false claims of a stolen election with particular intensity.Mr. Masters parlayed Mr. Trump’s endorsement and around $15 million from the billionaire Peter Thiel into a victory in a hard-fought Republican primary. At the time, Republican leaders resented Mr. Trump’s intervention, believing he had propped up a weak candidate.Mr. Trump went on an endorsement spree ahead of the 2022 midterms, backing several candidates who won their primaries only to go on to lose what Republican leaders considered to be winnable Senate races, including Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, the former football star Herschel Walker in Georgia and Mr. Masters.By contrast, so far in this cycle, Mr. Trump, the dominant front-runner for the G.O.P. presidential nomination, has endorsed only one Republican Senate candidate who isn’t an incumbent, and it was a safe choice: Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, who is backed by the Republican establishment and is regarded as a lock for that seat.Mr. Trump’s comparative caution is by design and serves not only his own interests but also those of the same Republican leaders who despaired of his interventions in 2022 midterm primaries.A spokesman for Mr. Trump, Steven Cheung, said he would not comment on any private conversations “that the president may or may not have had.” Mr. Masters did not respond to a request for comment.The call between the former president and Mr. Masters was described by two people familiar with it who insisted on anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the private conversation. One of the people said Mr. Trump had not definitively ruled out supporting Mr. Masters’s candidacy and that in conversations with others, Mr. Trump had left open the possibility that Ms. Lake might not run.In a statement shared by an aide, Ms. Lake said, “I am strongly considering getting in the race and will be making my final decision in the coming weeks,” and cast herself as someone who would be loyal to Mr. Trump in the Senate. Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County is already in the race.A person close to Mr. Masters who was not authorized to speak publicly stressed that Mr. Masters “believes the party needs a candidate with a proven ability to fund-raise and campaign and is prepared to run in the absence of such a candidate.”Mr. Masters has told associates that he thinks another “bloody” primary would hurt the party’s chances of winning the seat — and that a battle against Ms. Lake would surely be bloody, according to the person close to him. Mr. Masters has also privately questioned whether Ms. Lake will run, that person said.The person said Mr. Masters had seriously considered announcing his candidacy shortly after Labor Day but that no plans were set.Mr. Trump’s skepticism about Mr. Masters long predates their weekend conversation. The former president has told associates he thinks Mr. Masters was a “bad candidate” in 2022, according to two people who have spoken to the former president.Among Mr. Trump’s complaints about Mr. Masters was that he had tempered some of his comments related to Mr. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. When Mr. Masters said in a debate in October 2022 that he hadn’t seen evidence of widespread fraud in the state, Mr. Trump called him, in a moment captured by a Fox News camera.“If you want to get across the line, you’ve got to go stronger on that one thing,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Masters. “That was the one thing, a lot of complaints about it.” Then he mentioned Ms. Lake, then the Republican nominee for governor.“Look at Kari — Kari’s winning with very little money,” Mr. Trump said. “And if they say, ‘How is your family?’ She says, ‘The election was rigged and stolen.’ You’ll lose if you go soft. You’re going to lose that base.”Regardless of Mr. Trump’s motivations, his more cautious approach to endorsements has been appreciated by party leaders. Mr. Trump has told several people that he made too many endorsements in the 2022 midterms — including some for people who have yet to endorse him in his own race for president — and that he plans to be less involved this time, according to two people with direct knowledge of his comments.Mr. Trump has established a strong relationship with Senator Steve Daines of Montana, the chair of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm. Mr. Daines’s endorsement of Mr. Trump for president months ago was a strategic move: It gave him entree with the Republican Party’s most influential figure in the hopes of getting him to support the committee’s favored candidates, or at least to refrain from attacking them.To that end, Mr. Trump has quietly helped Mr. Daines by telling two House Republicans running for Senate — Representatives Matt Rosendale of Montana and Alex Mooney of West Virginia — that he would not endorse them in Senate primaries in their states. In West Virginia, Mr. Daines has issued a statement supportive of a different candidate: the state’s governor, Jim Justice.A person with direct knowledge confirmed those conversations, adding that part of Mr. Trump’s motivation for delivering the messages was his anger at the anti-tax Club for Growth, a one-time ally that more recently has attacked him. The Club for Growth is spending money to support Mr. Mooney and potentially could do the same for Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Trump’s conversations with Mr. Rosendale and Mr. Mooney were first reported by CNN.A spokesman for Mr. Rosendale could not be reached for comment.In a statement attacking Mr. Justice as part of the “big-spending D.C. swamp uniparty,” Mr. Mooney’s campaign manager, John Findlay, noted that “the congressman has endorsed President Trump and would of course like to have his endorsement again.” He added, “As of now, President Trump has chosen to stay neutral.” More