January 5, 2024 - US election campaign news

The Biden campaign is seizing on former President Donald Trump’s comments in a speech he made today about the recent shooting in Iowa.

The Biden campaign posted the clip of Trump’s comments on X.

Some background: A 17-year-old gunman killed a sixth grade student and wounded five other people Thursday morning at Perry High School near Des Moines, Iowa, authorities said.

The five people wounded include four students and one school administrator, officials said. The school’s principal, Dan Marburger, was among the injured, according to officials in another school district where Marburger was an alumnus.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said he didn’t know Caitlin Clark, the University of Iowa women’s basketball star, in response to a voter question on Friday, drawing exasperated gasps from some members of the crowd. 

A woman attending Ramaswamy’s town hall in Maquoketa, Iowa, on Friday asked Ramaswamy if he knew “the name of the Iowa women’s basketball player who has been setting records.” 

 “I should?,” he asked the crowd, responding to their reaction.  

The woman who asked the question told him her name is Caitlin Clark. 

“Actually I’ve been hearing about it, people have been bringing up the name,” he said after a pause. “That’s who that is, good.”

Clark’s cult status in the first-in-the-nation caucus state has infiltrated the Republican presidential race in recent days.

At a University of Iowa women’s basketball game last month, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley mistakenly called the team’s star player by the wrong name, identifying her as “Caitlin Collins.”

In a veiled jab at Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis presented CNN’s Kaitlan Collins with a replica Clark jersey at a CNN town hall in Iowa on Thursday.

Former President Donald Trump on Friday said he hopes the three Supreme Court justices he appointed would be “fair” as the high court considers whether Trump can be barred from holding office.  

Trump argued that judges he appointed “go out of their way to be fair and unbiased and even to a point where they hurt you,” as he addressed a crowd of supporters in Sioux Center, Iowa.

The US Supreme Court said Friday it would review the Colorado Supreme Court’s unprecedented decision to remove Trump from the state’s ballot. Trump remains on the primary ballot as the lower-court ruling disqualifying him has been put on hold pending Supreme Court action.

If the justices do conclude Trump is ineligible for public office, then any votes cast for him wouldn’t count.

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie reacted on Friday to the US Supreme Court’s announcement that it will review the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove former President Donald Trump from that state’s ballot, telling New Hampshire voters that “it’s not the job of the nine members of the Supreme Court to keep our republic. It’s ours.”

The former federal prosecutor reiterated his view at a town hall in Keene that there are “good legal arguments” as to why Trump doesn’t qualify to be on state ballots, but he hopes the court doesn’t kick Trump off “because it’s our responsibility, not the nine Justices of the Supreme Court.” 

Christie recalled founding father Benjamin Franklin’s words that the United States is “a republic, if you can keep it.” 

“This is the moment. A republic, if you can keep it. It’s not the job of the nine members of the Supreme Court to keep our republic. It’s ours. It’s our republic, it’s our job. And for better or for worse for all of you, it’s your job,” Christie said.

Christie brought up Trump’s comment that he would be a dictator only on the first day of his presidency, and told the room of New Hampshire voters “you voted for him in ’16,” prompting one voter to call out “no, we didn’t.”

“Unfortunately, you’re saddled with it, babe, you’re saddled with it,” Christie responded, continuing to detail Trump’s winning record in past New Hampshire primaries.

“You vote for him in 24 … Live Free or Die sounds like bull to me. Right? Because this guy doesn’t want you to have freedom,” he said.

Christie called Trump angry, bitter and “backward looking,” warning that he will “continue to be even worse.”

“If you want to try to turn that page, it’s not going to fix itself. We have to fix it. The Supreme Court’s not going to come in and save us. We’re gonna have to save ourselves,” he said.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy reflected on the campaign event he held in Perry, Iowa, as the news broke Thursday of a shooting at nearby Perry High School, calling it “one of the most meaningful events” he’s held on the campaign trail.  

Ramaswamy talked about his experience learning of the shooting as he arrived in Perry for a campaign event Thursday morning, and speaking with Perry residents as the community learned of the tragedy.

“I was in Perry when it happened, actually. We had an event about five minutes away from the shooting and we were there. I only heard about it literally as we’re pulling up — we see ambulances, we see police cars, we see helicopters, you know something is happening,” Ramaswamy said. 

Ramaswamy talked about the decision to shift the event from a traditional campaign town hall to a community prayer gathering and shared the reactions of two Perry residents who said they had long-held concerns about threats at the high school. 

“That was probably one of the most meaningful events we’ve had. We said a prayer at the beginning of the event and gave people permission to say whatever needed to be said. And let’s just say it was a tearful event in that community,” Ramaswamy said.

“The first two people who spoke were both people who lived in Perry, one of them was a guy, a young man who had just gone to Perry High School, and both of them independently said the same thing … He said we’re not shocked that this happened,” he added.

 A sixth grade student was killed and five others were wounded in the shooting, police said.

Colorado’s top election official has now certified the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballots with former President Donald Trump’s name on the Republican ballot.

Secretary of State Jena Griswold had previously made clear Trump’s name would remain on the state’s primary ballot given his appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove him unless the US Supreme Court said otherwise. 

“The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments to the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision that Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the Colorado Presidential Primary ballot,” a statement from her office said Friday. “His name will appear on the 2024 Presidential Primary ballot as a result.”

Former President Donald Trump campaign says it welcomes a “fair hearing” at the Supreme Court over the 14th Amendment challenge to Trump appearing on the Colorado ballot.

“The so-called ‘ballot-challenge cases’ are all part of a well-funded effort by left-wing, political activists hell-bent on stopping the lawful reelection of President Trump this November, even if it means disenfranchising voters,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “We are confident that the fair-minded Supreme Court will unanimously affirm the civil rights of President Trump, and the voting rights of all Americans.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis assured Iowans he can unite the Republican Party – including those that stand firmly for former President Trump – if they put their faith in him at the caucuses just 10 days from now.

One voter asked how DeSantis plans to “beat the bullying from the MAGA group and Trump?”

“You guys come out for me in the caucus, we will, we will get it done,” DeSantis replied. “We will unify the party. You know, that’s not an issue. I mean, if you think about America First policies, you know, Donald Trump has been associated with those. I’ve delivered on those more than anybody in the whole country.”

DeSantis said his record delivering “conservative principles and conservative policies” would unify the party, since it’s about results, not any one individual. 

“When Trump ran in ‘16, it was really you know, America First. There was a lot of energy behind that, because we needed things shaken up,” DeSantis said. “Now, this campaign has really been about Trump First, and that doesn’t – that’s not ultimately going to be sustainable, because it’s got to be rooted in some principles.”

DeSantis stressed how consequential Iowans would be in this election, thanking those who already committed to caucus for him and tasking them with recruiting more support. 

He told voters he’s keeping his “eye on the prize” in Iowa which “can set the tone,” for New Hampshire, South Carolina and other early primary states. 

DeSantis also commented on Florida receiving FDA approval of its Canadian Prescription Drug Importation Program, which will allow the import of cheaper drugs from Canada to his state. 

“We’ve been fighting with Biden for now for three years over this,” DeSantis said. “Just today, we got the decision that our program is approved, and that the state of Florida is going to be able to purchase pharmaceuticals from Canada. So it’s the same drug. We now have a big warehouse we’ve found to relabel.”
“We think it’s gonna save between $100 and $200 million a year for taxpayers in the State of Florida,” he said. 

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie called the top GOP House leaders, who have endorsed Donald Trump for president, “cowards” who “just fall in line.”

He said Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Majority Whip Tom Emmer backed the former president because they feared him.

“Not because they believe in him. Because believe me, I haven’t spoken to Speaker Johnson but I’ve spoken to Steve Scalise and Tom Emmer. They don’t believe in him,” he said.

Christie suggested Trump was right when he told the New York Times that GOP lawmakers “always bend the knee” in response to securing the support of Emmer, after tanking the Minnesota Republican’s speakership bid. 

The former New Jersey governor also said he wished “Nikki Haley would be stronger about it,” again criticizing his rival for saying she would pardon Trump and vote for him if he was a convicted felon. 

“And she won’t refuse his offer to be vice president with the office. That doesn’t sound to me like somebody who’s serious about beating Donald Trump,” he continued.

He also said Ron DeSantis was “never serious about beating Donald Trump” and Vivek Ramaswamy was “competing with Nikki to be vice president.”

“So the only person in this race anymore who’s running against Donald Trump is standing right in front of you,” Christie told a few dozen people gathered at MaryAnn’s Diner. He also took questions for close to an hour, including on LGBTQ rights, China and Ukrainian refugees.

The US Supreme Court is now confronting an election case of unparalleled weight that will determine Donald Trump’s prospects to regain the White House and influence public regard for an increasingly embattled court.

The new controversy from Colorado arrives as the nine justices face more scrutiny and the country is more polarized than in 2000, the last time the court was at the center of a presidential election battle, in the case of Bush v. Gore.

The justices’ handling of the fight over Trump’s disqualification from the Colorado ballot – the first moves of which were made on Friday – could intensify the tumult surrounding them or, in the end, give them an opportunity to inspire confidence regarding the norms of democracy as the 2024 elections approach.

The Colorado Supreme Court decision Trump is appealing said Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — adopted after the Civil War and aimed at former Confederate officials — disqualifies him from state ballots. The state voters challenging Trump struck back immediately to his arguments characterizing an insurrection, asserting in a Thursday evening filing that “this attack was an ‘insurrection’ against the Constitution by any standard.”

Lower court judges have found that Trump incited violence when he implored allies on January 6 to “fight like hell” to “take back our country.”

But Trump contended in his filing to the justices that “his only explicit instructions” on January 6 were for peaceful protests. His legal team even attached a copy of Trump’s speech on the Ellipse that day.

Trump and the others involved in the new paired controversies – voters challenging him on the ballot and the Colorado Republican State Central Committee – want the justices to resolve the unprecedented dispute quickly.

Norma Anderson, a former Republican Colorado legislative leader, and the five other GOP voters who began the case against Trump want it decided by February 11, before a scheduled February 12 mailing of primary ballots in Colorado. The Colorado Republican Committee, backing Trump’s interests, has asked the justices to rule by at least March 5, which is when ballots in the state have to be submitted. That is also Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen other states hold their primaries.

Trump’s lawyers offered no specific timetable but stressed the urgency of the issue, writing that the Colorado Supreme Court decision disqualifying him “would unconstitutionally disenfranchise millions of voters in Colorado and likely be used as a template to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters nationwide.”

For instance, the Maine secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, in December determined that Trump should not be on the ballot. Trump has appealed her decision in Maine state courts, and it could be similarly bound for the US Supreme Court.

Read more.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Friday she would “maybe” consider Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as her running mate if she becomes the eventual GOP nominee, adding that she welcomes him to “join forces.” 

When asked by NBC’s Dasha Burns if she would consider DeSantis her running mate, Haley responded: “Maybe … I am going to defeat Donald Trump on my own, that’s the goal that we have. If he [DeSantis] wants to join forces with me, I welcome that. But right now, we’ve got a race that we feel good about. We’ve got a surge, we’ve got momentum … We’re going to keep on fighting.”

On Thursday, DeSantis called Haley the “darling of the never-Trumpers,” but said it runs inconsistent with her failing to explicitly rule out serving as Trump’s vice president.

When pressed during a joint interview with NBC News and The Des Moines Register to categorically answer if she would accept an offer to be Trump’s vice president, Haley claimed that she doesn’t partake in her “opponents’ games.”

“The reason I don’t answer that question is I don’t play my opponents’ games. I am running my own race. They want me to do that so that you guys [the media] talk about it for the next two days. I am not running to be vice president. I have said that in every way I know possible,” Haley said.
“I don’t play for a second. I’ve never done it my life. I’m not doing it now. You don’t put yourself, your family and everything that goes into running for president to be second. And so, we are going to be first and we’re not even going to have to answer that question,” she said. 

Haley said she will never tell former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to drop out of the presidential race, though she acknowledged his lack of campaigning outside of New Hampshire and said he has “left everybody scratching their heads.”

“He’s not playing in Iowa. He’s not playing in South Carolina. If he wants to defeat Trump, I think he can see exactly how you do that, but that’s for him to see, and that’s for him to decide. I’m not going to tell anybody to get out of the race, I’m just going to run my own,” she said.

Haley went on to dismiss claims that she is not the “right candidate” for today’s Republican party and defended her record as a “hardcore conservative.”

And as the three year anniversary of the Capitol insurrection approaches, Haley called the Capitol riots on January 6 a “terrible day,” adding people should be held accountable for their actions. 

Former President Donald Trump fired back at President Joe Biden and attempted to argue Biden was the “true threat to democracy” after the president argued in a speech Friday that Trump could destroy American democracy. 

“The only insurrection is the insurrection that is taking place at our border where he is allowing millions of people from parts unknown to invade our country at a level far worse than even a military invasion,” Trump said.

“Joe Biden is the worst president in the history of the United States — he is incompetent, he is crooked, and in many respects, he is Benedict Arnold,” Trump said, according to Fox News Digital. “He is destroying our country like no one else has done before.” 

“This is not a time for us to have a mentally challenged president,” Trump said. 

Biden argued in a speech kicking off his 2024 campaign in Pennsylvania on the eve of the third anniversary of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol that the value Americans place on democracy is the “most urgent question of our time.”

The former president later told a crowd of supporters in Sioux Center, Iowa, that Biden’s warning of Trump destroying American democracy was “pathetic fearmongering.” He also mocked Biden’s lifelong struggle with stuttering.

“They’ve weaponized government, he’s saying I’m a threat to democracy. He’s a threat to de- de- democracy, wow, OK, couldn’t read the word,” Trump said.

He argued Biden’s presidency was marked by “weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure,” and “that’s why crooked Joe is staging his pathetic fear-mongering campaign event in Pennsylvania today.”

This post has been updated to reflect additional comments from Donald Trump.

The Supreme Court set an extraordinarily fast schedule to hear former President Donald Trump’s ballot dispute. 

Trump is set to file his opening brief in the case by January 18. The Colorado voters challenging his eligibility for office will file their opening arguments to their justices by January 31.

This timeline compresses the normal briefing schedule to one-third of its typical length. 

For now, Trump remains on the ballot as a lower-court ruling. Disqualifying him has been put on hold pending appeal.

Before the Supreme Court justices hear the case, the first ballots in Colorado will have been mailed to military and overseas voters.  

On Friday, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold faced a deadline to certify the names on the state’s primary ballot. She previously said she would include Trump unless the US Supreme Court resolved the matter first. 

The Colorado state primary is set for Super Tuesday on March 5. 

Per the Supreme Court’s usual practice in these kinds of cases, the order does not say how individual justices voted. It takes four justices to agree to hear a case. 

The US Supreme Court said Friday it will review the Colorado Supreme Court’s unprecedented decision removing former President Donald Trump from the state’s ballot.  

The court has set oral arguments for February 8.

“Coloradans, and the American people, deserve clarity on whether someone who engaged in insurrection may run for the country’s highest office,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a statement Friday. “I urge the Court to prioritize this case and issue a ruling as soon as possible.”

The high court’s decision to hear the case puts the nine justices squarely in the middle of the 2024 election weeks before voting starts in the early primary contests, and represents the court’s most significant involvement in a presidential race since its highly consequential decision 23 years ago in Bush v. Gore.   

The state court’s ruling last month all but ensured that the justices would have to take up the politically fraught case and resolve the controversial question of whether Trump can be removed from the ballot. 

Though the Colorado ruling only applies to that state, courts in several other states have also reviewed challenges to Trump’s eligibility, though no such case made it as far as the one in Colorado. 

A look at the polls nationally or in any state shows former President Donald Trump ahead of his competition. Perhaps the only state where anyone is anywhere close to the former president right now is New Hampshire.  

Trump was ahead of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley 44% to 29% in a CBS News/YouGov poll last month. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie were way back at 11% and 10%, respectively. 

This might make you think that Haley would benefit from DeSantis leaving the race — something that could happen if the Florida governor has a disappointing finish in Iowa. After all, if you add DeSantis’ 11% to Haley’s 29% in that New Hampshire poll, you get 40%. That’s nearly equal to Trump’s 44%. 

The problem with that math is that DeSantis supporters haven’t historically been likely to prefer Haley over Trump. A CNN/University of New Hampshire poll from November found that 50% of DeSantis backers selected Trump as their second choice, and just 24% of them went for Haley. 

DeSantis has been far more likely to attract self-identified conservative voters than moderate voters, while Haley has done the exact opposite. Trump, too, has been a favorite of conservatives in the polling. 

Haley supporters have instead been far more similar to Christie’s — more moderate leaning than the electorate as a whole. Not surprisingly, a majority of Christie voters said Haley was their second choice. 

This would explain why Christie has faced calls to leave the race to help Haley. He has rebutted those calls. 

Remember: This math could change depending on what happens in Iowa. If Haley exceeds expectations, history suggests that she’ll receive a big bump in New Hampshire.

But these numbers show why her catching Trump in New Hampshire will be easier said than done. Other candidates dropping out could be good for her — but they have to be the right candidates.

President Joe Biden said he will not let former President Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans” force the United States to “walk away from democracy.”

“I refuse to believe that in 2024, we Americans will choose to walk away from what has made us the greatest nation in the history of the world: freedom, liberty,” he said during a speech in Pennsylvania Thursday. “Democracy is still a sacred cause, and there’s no country in the world better positioned to lead the world than America.”

President Joe Biden slammed former President Donald Trump for refusing to denounce political violence, especially after the January 6 insurrection.

“Hear me clearly: I will say what Donald Trump won’t. Political violence is never, ever acceptable in the United States political system, never, never, never. It has no place in a democracy, none,” Biden said, raising his voice to cheers from the crowd.

Biden said people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 were insurrectionists, not patriots and that the riot was a “violent assault,” not a peaceful protest.

“Trying to rewrite the facts of January 6, Trump is trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election. But we knew the truth because we saw it with our own eyes,” Biden said.

President Joe Biden criticized former President Donald Trump’s handling of the insurrection that took place at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“He retreated to the White House as America was attacked from within,” Biden said in Pennsylvania during his first major speech of the 2024 campaign year. “The entire nation watched in horror. The whole world watched in disbelief and Trump did nothing.”

Biden went on to say that Trump’s attempt at overturning the 2020 presidential election and lack of action on January 6 “was among the worst derelictions of duty by a president in American history.”

“Imagine if he had gone out and said stop. Still, Trump did nothing,” Biden said.

Just a day ahead of the anniversary of the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol, President Joe Biden said the upcoming 2024 presidential election is about American democracy.

“The choice is clear, Donald Trump’s campaign is about him — not America, not you. Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He is willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power,” Biden said during remarks in Pennsylvania in his first campaign stop of 2024.

Biden said his campaign is about the voters of every “age and background” and the future.

“Our campaign is about preserving and strengthening our American democracy,” he said.

The president talked about George Washington fighting a war against Britain just before the birth of the United States. He said the country’s first president was fighting for a clear mission: liberty and freedom.

“Their mission, George Washington declared, was nothing less than a sacred cause. That was the phrase he used, sacred cause. Freedom, liberty, democracy. American democracy,” Biden said.

He asked the crowd if democracy is still the country’s “sacred cause” as Washington said, adding that is the “most urgent question of our time.”

President Joe Biden is delivering a speech now in the battleground state of Pennsylvania during his first campaign stop of 2024.

The president is set to argue in the speech that Republicans have “abandoned our democracy,” and that the upcoming presidential election is about “the most urgent question of our time,” according to excerpts released by his campaign for reelection.

He is delivering the speech at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, which is located near the historic Revolutionary War site Valley Forge, where George Washington and the Continental Army were housed nearly 250 years ago.

Biden had originally been scheduled to deliver remarks on Saturday – the third anniversary of the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol – but they were moved a day earlier due to “impending inclement weather,” according to the Biden campaign.

In his first campaign stop of 2024, President Joe Biden will argue that Republicans have “abandoned our democracy,” and that the upcoming presidential election is about “the most urgent question of our time.” 

“Today we are here to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” Biden is set to say Friday near the historic Revolutionary War site of Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, according to excerpts released by his campaign for reelection. 

“This isn’t rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time,” Biden is expected to say. “It is what the 2024 election is all about.”

Just a day ahead of the anniversary of January 6, the president will focus on the storming of the Capitol, saying that when it happened in 2021, “there was no doubt about the truth.” 

“At the time, even Republican members of Congress and Fox News commentators publicly and privately condemned the attack. And as one Republican senator said, Trump’s behavior was embarrassing and humiliating for the country,” Biden will say.
“But now as time has gone on — politics, fear, money – have all intervened. And those MAGA voices who know the truth about Trump and January 6th have abandoned the truth and abandoned our democracy. They’ve made their choice. Now the rest of us – Democrats, Independents, mainstream Republicans – we have to make our choice,” he will say.

He will also repeatedly call out his potential presidential rival, former President Donald Trump and say that in America, “our leaders don’t hold on to power relentlessly.”

“Our leaders return power to the people – willingly,” he’ll say. “You do your duty. You serve your country. And ours is a country worthy of service. We are not perfect, but at our best, we face head on the good, the bad, the truth of who we are. That’s what great nations do, and we are a great nation – the greatest of nations.” 

Biden will also bring in some optimism, saying that the US is “not weighed down by grievance. We don’t foster fear. We don’t walk around as victims. We take charge of our destiny.”

“We get the job done – to help people find their place in a changing world and dream and build the future we all deserve,” the president will say. “We don’t believe America is failing. We know America is winning. That’s American patriotism.”

Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips is criticizing President Joe Biden ahead of the incumbent’s Pennsylvania speech on protecting democracy Friday.

“Joe Biden wants to talk about democracy when he thinks it benefits him politically, but he’s not too interested when he thinks it doesn’t,” he said in a statement.

Phillips has been critical of Biden and the Democratic Party for not intervening when states like Florida and North Carolina have submitted lists of Democratic primary candidates that only include the president.

The Minnesota Democrat told CNN last month he thinks Biden is a threat to democracy.

The Iowa caucuses are less than two weeks away, but the first split-screen of the general election is set for Friday, when President Joe Biden touches down in Pennsylvania to warn Americans about the perils of a second Trump presidency and former President Donald Trump ramps up his pre-caucus blitz with a pair of get-out-the-vote rallies in northern Iowa.

Biden’s first proper foray into the 2024 campaign fray had initially been scheduled for Saturday, the third anniversary of the January 6, 2021, US Capitol insurrection, but got bumped up, his camp said, because of weather concerns. The speech, to be delivered near the historic Revolutionary War site of Valley Forge, is expected to register as a stark warning about empowering Trump, whom Biden’s campaign views as the most likely GOP nominee – and an existential threat to US democracy.

The words and symbolism of George Washington, who commanded his troops during a long winter in Valley Forge, are expected to play a central role in the president’s speech, according to a senior Biden aide who previewed the remarks.

Biden is expected to speak to the sacrifices made to build the country and seek to frame the 2024 presidential election as a “sacred cause” to preserve democracy and freedom, drawing from a phrase Washington used to describe the resolve and mission of his troops during the winter they spent at Valley Forge.

“The fundamental question that the president is going to pose,” the aide explained, “is this: Is Democracy still a sacred cause in America? And his answer to that is yes. And he believes that America’s answer to that is yes, but he also believes that the election in 2024 is fundamentally about that question.”

Read more about Biden opening his 2024 presidential campaign with a speech from the historic Valley Forge. 

Americans for Prosperity, the influential conservative organization funded by the megadonor Koch family, has begun booking TV time in Iowa and New Hampshire following its high-profile endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley late last year.

According to AdImpact data, AFP Action, the organization’s independent expenditure arm, has so far booked about $80,000 worth of satellite TV airtime in Iowa and about $40,000 worth of satellite TV airtime in New Hampshire over the next few weeks. 

It’s the group’s first TV spending since endorsing Haley, though AFP Action not yet released any newly produced ads.

The new ad spending highlights the benefits of AFP’s backing, which also includes a robust field organization infrastructure across the country boasting a large cohort of paid staff and volunteers.

And the well-funded group, with access to deep-pocketed donors, has the capacity to spend heavily – AFP Action spent at least $60 million on federal races in each of the last two election cycles.

The group’s first TV ad for Haley casts the former South Carolina governor as the strongest candidate to beat Joe Biden in the general election.

“Poll after poll shows Trump is the weakest candidate against Joe Biden. Nikki Haley crushes Biden by double digits. She even beats him in the swing states that Trump lost in 2020,” the ad says.

The super PAC is not only making the electability argument for Haley in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The TV ad is part of a $27 million mail, digital, and grassroots campaign that includes outreach in a handful of super Tuesday states. Those states include: Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, AFP action said in a press release.

The first test of the 2024 presidential election hits January 15, when Iowa Republicans gather to caucus in high school gyms, community buildings and churches.

The first event of the party primary calendar for the past half century, the caucuses will provide an initial moment of truth for former President Donald Trump’s comeback bid and could help Republicans tired of Trump decide which of his challengers to rally behind.

What is a caucus? Caucuses are not primaries. Primary elections are conducted like other US elections – at polling places and by secret ballot, held throughout the day and usually also with absentee and early voting.

Caucuses are something else. They are essentially meetings run by political parties, convened at a specific time – 7 p.m. CT in Iowa. Since it isn’t a traditional election, a candidate’s performance in Iowa is often viewed as a test of his or her campaign’s organizational strength.

How are votes cast at a caucus? For Republicans, surrogates for candidates give final pitches after the caucuses get underway and then paper ballots are distributed to caucusgoers. They’re counted on-site, and the results are shared with the party.

Does the winner in Iowa usually win the White House? In an open year, when there’s no incumbent running for a party’s nomination, Iowa has a spotty record at picking the president, particularly for Republicans.

Only one Republican, George W. Bush in 2000, won a contested Iowa face-off and then went on to win the White House.

On the Democratic side, Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 and went on to win the White House. Jimmy Carter was the top Democrat in 1976, but he placed second to a slate of “uncommitted” delegates. Still, the momentum propelled him to the party nomination and ultimately the White House.

Some notable losses include when the Republican Ronald Reagan placed second in 1980 to George H.W. Bush, who ultimately became his running mate. Reagan, interestingly, had won the Iowa caucuses in 1976, although then-President Gerald Ford won the GOP nomination and subsequently lost the White House.

The elder Bush, despite winning the caucuses in 1980, lost them in 1988 to then-Sen. Bob Dole even though Bush was running as the sitting vice president. Bush went on to secure the GOP nomination.

And Trump, although he’s the favorite in pre-caucus polling this year, lost the Iowa caucuses in 2016 to Cruz.

Read more about the Iowa caucuses here.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Friday made the case for registered Democrats and Independent voters who are considering switching parties ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

Asked by a voter during an event hosted by the Des Moines Rotary Club what Haley would say to Iowans who are leaning toward switching to the Republican party, Haley said she understands why voters are weighing their options as she continued to point to “Democrat chaos.” 

“I get it…It’s Democrat chaos, whether it’s the economy, whether it’s education, whether it’s the border, there’s a reason 75% of Americans don’t want a Trump-Biden rematch. They’re tired…I’m not talking about just Republicans, I’m talking about winning the majority of Americans, because if we’re going to save our country, we’ve got to stop all the division and the fighting,” Haley said. 

“That’s why we’re getting so many Independents. That’s why conservative Democrats are coming on board with us, is they don’t want to see the division and the hatred. They just want to see some sanity back again. And that’s what I’ll give you,” she added.

Haley again called out both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump for their recent attacks, calling their ads a “lie.”

“Every one of those commercials is a lie. Ron DeSantis knows it…That’s why he keeps flipping different commercials because we keep calling them out on them. Donald Trump has been throwing temper tantrums about me because he sees what we see and more surging,” she added.

Haley urged the crowd at the Holiday Inn Express in Des Moines to participate in the caucus, emphasizing the importance of their support.

“Don’t complain about what happens in a general election if you don’t play in this caucus,” Haley said, later adding, “If you join with me in this fight I promise you, our best days are yet to come.”

Haley will campaign later today with New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu at an event in Des Moines.

Former President Donald Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis qualified for CNN’s January 10 Republican presidential primary debate in Iowa, the network announced Tuesday. The debate is a final opportunity for candidates to make an impression in front of a national audience before voting begins.

Haley and DeSantis have said they will participate in the debate, which will take place at 9 p.m. ET at Drake University in Des Moines.

Just days before the Iowa caucuses kick off the GOP’s nominating race, will be a one-on-one clash between two candidates vying to emerge as the party’s lone, clear alternative to the former president.

DeSantis’ path to the GOP nomination likely depends on a strong showing in Iowa’s January 15 caucuses. Haley, meanwhile, has climbed in polls in New Hampshire, where a strong performance in the January 23 primary there could also prove as a springboard ahead of her home state’s February 24 primary.

Trump, who holds a commanding lead over the rest of the field and has skipped the first four 2024 GOP primary debates, will participate in a Fox News town hall in Iowa on January 10.

Haley and DeSantis also appeared on CNN for back-to-back town halls on Thursday.

On the campaign trail in recent days, DeSantis has repeatedly criticized Trump for refusing to participate in GOP primary debates.

“He’s not been willing to come here and answer questions,” DeSantis told reporters last week in Elkader, Iowa. “He parachutes in for 30, 45-minute, hour speech and then just leaves, rather than listening to Iowans answering questions and doing, I think, what it takes to win.”

CNN’s Iowa debate will be moderated by CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.

To qualify for participation in the Iowa debate, candidates must receive at least 10% in three separate national and/or Iowa polls of Republican caucusgoers or primary voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting, according to the network. One of the three polls must be an approved CNN poll of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers. The qualifying window for polls to count toward the Iowa debate closed at noon Tuesday.

Three current candidates who have appeared on stage in some previous debates — entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson — did not meet those qualification requirements.

CNN will hold a second debate on January 21 in New Hampshire at New England College, ahead of that state’s primary. The location was originally announced as St. Anselm College.

CNN’s Kit Maher contributed reporting to this post.

The presidential election is about to become inextricably entangled with Donald Trump’s criminal turmoil as his crushing calendar of legal obligations collides with the race to the Iowa caucuses in less than two weeks.

The juxtaposition of the courtroom and campaign trail will set the tone for an unprecedented White House race overshadowed by the ex-president’s four looming criminal trials. When the first votes are cast in the Republican primary race, the country will embark on a political test that will again stretch its unity, democracy and legal institutions to the limit. Trump is leaving no doubt that he would use a second term to punish his political enemies and would likely seek to use the powers of the presidency to evade accountability for his attempt to steal the 2020 election.

The election could even see Trump, the GOP frontrunner, run as a convicted felon in November, depending on the timing of his trials and if he wins the nomination. As the primary season begins for real this month, the most likely scenario in November is a tight rematch, which polls show most voters don’t want, between the ex-president and the current one.

Trump is determined to make an unmistakable statement by winning Iowa, after failing to do in 2016, as the first step in an extraordinary political comeback. It’s only been three years since he left Washington in disgrace after refusing to accept the result of the 2020 election and whipped up a mob that attacked the US Capitol in a stunning assault on democracy. Now, Trump – who faces 91 criminal charges – is well positioned to become only the second ex-president after Grover Cleveland in 1892 to claim a non-consecutive second term that would rock the country and the world.

The ex-president rang in the New Year with a wild social media post filled with falsehoods about the 2020 election and unsubstantiated accusations that President Joe Biden had committed criminal acts. His enraged and defensive tone previewed how Trump plans to conduct the 2024 presidential race and the national ordeal ahead. He claimed on Truth Social that his successor had “attacked his Political Opponent at a level never seen before in this Country, and wants desperately to PUT ‘TRUMP’ IN PRISON. He is playing a very dangerous game, and the great people of America WILL NOT STAND FOR IT.”

Keep reading the full analysis.

CNN’s inaugural “Road to 270” electoral map shows President Joe Biden struggling to recreate his Electoral College majority from his successful 2020 run and former President Donald Trump with enough states solidly in his corner or leaning in his direction to put him in a position to win the presidency again.

This first look at a potential Biden vs. Trump rematch – and the electoral math each would need to capture 270 electoral votes – captures the dynamics at play 10 months from Election Day.

We should be very clear about what this electoral outlook is and, more importantly, what it is not. It is the first snapshot of the Electoral College landscape in what will likely prove to be another very close and extraordinarily consequential presidential election. It is not a prediction of how things will turn out in November. It’s not even a prediction of what things may look like when the parties gather for their nominating conventions this summer.

Here’s CNN’s inaugural electoral map. It will undoubtedly change as the race takes shape:

This is an exercise designed to capture where the race stands today. We base this current outlook on public and private polling, conversations with campaign advisers, Republican and Democratic political operatives, members of Congress, and political professionals involved with outside groups poised to be active in the race.

The map will undoubtedly change as the race formally takes shape and campaigns place their strategic bets on where to spend tens of millions of dollars on advertising, build organizations on the ground, and dedicate candidate and surrogate time on the trail. It will also shift as the issue set evolves for Americans over the course of the election year.

Build your own map here.

A week and a half from the Iowa caucuses, two 2024 Republican presidential primary contenders attempted to convince voters that former President Donald Trump isn’t a lock to win — and prove their own electability during back-to-back CNN town halls.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley warned Iowa Republican voters Thursday night that nominating former President Donald Trump again could cost their party the White House in November.

Here are key takeaways from the CNN town halls:

The candidates set expectations: Polls show Trump with a clear lead in Iowa. But DeSantis and Haley both insisted they will compete to win the state until the last possible moment. “Don’t let the media or the pundits make the decision. Vote for who you think will be the best president of the United States,” DeSantis said, touting his appearances in all 99 of Iowa’s counties. Haley’s hopes of winning the GOP nomination are widely seen as more dependent on the outcome of the New Hampshire primary on January 23. She even quipped Wednesday while campaigning in New Hampshire: “You know how to do this. You know Iowa starts it. You know that you correct it.” But she didn’t downplay her chances in Iowa, telling voters Thursday night her comment had been a joke.

DeSantis and Haley take on Trump: Both DeSantis and Haley made the case that nominating Trump for a third consecutive time is a risk Republican voters should not take. Both were careful not to knock Trump over the specifics of the indictments he faces in federal court as well as Georgia and New York. But they portrayed him as a candidate whose personal drama would doom the GOP. “Chaos follows him. And we can’t have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it,” Haley said. She said he used to tell Trump that he is “his own worst enemy.”

DeSantis’ evolution: The DeSantis that showed up Thursday night for the town hall was not the same DeSantis from earlier in the 2024 Republican primary. He started out by giving Collins a basketball jersey. He used folksy language like “willy nilly” and “appreciate ya.” He didn’t immediately delve into social issues that he likes to talk about, like transgender healthcare bans or abortion. And the Florida governor argued that while Trump was running on issues important only to him and Haley was running for her donors, DeSantis was running for “you” — the average voter.

Candidates discuss guns hours after Iowa shooting: Thursday’s town hall took place hours after a school shooting in Perry, Iowa in which a middle school student was killed and five others were injured. DeSantis was asked how, in light of the attack, he would address the issue of gun violence at schools without limiting gun rights. DeSantis referred to gun reforms passed by his predecessor, GOP Gov. Rick Scott, in the weeks after the February 2018 Parkland, Florida, shooting, in which a gunman killed 17 people. “We’ve done everything like school resource officers, help with hardening, but also help identify students that are exhibiting really problematic behavior,” DeSantis said. “We’re getting more information about what happened in Perry, but it seems like this student had some serious, serious problems.” Haley also focused her answer on mental health and security. “We have got to deal with the cancer that is mental health,” she said.

Read more takeaways here.

President Joe Biden will use the backdrop of two historic sites in Pennsylvania and South Carolina in the coming week to lay out some of the central arguments of his 2024 reelection bid, including protecting democracy and personal freedoms, as he prepares for a possible rematch with former President Donald Trump in November.

The January push, which will also include separate events for Vice President Kamala Harris, marks Biden’s first public campaign appearances of 2024 after spending most of last year traveling for official White House events and closed-door political fundraisers.

It comes as campaign officials are eager to ramp up a contrast with Trump, who they view as the likely Republican nominee, as the GOP primary contests kick off this month.

Biden on Friday will travel to the battleground state of Pennsylvania to deliver a speech near Valley Forge, the historic Revolutionary War site that housed George Washington and the Continental Army nearly 250 years ago.

The president had been originally scheduled to deliver remarks on Saturday – the third anniversary of the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol – but they were moved a day earlier due to “impending inclement weather,” according to the Biden campaign.

Biden will deliver the speech at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.

“The president will make the case directly that democracy and freedom, two powerful ideas that united the 13 colonies and that generations throughout our nation’s history have fought and died for a stone’s throw from where he’ll be Saturday, remains central to the fight we’re in today,” said Quentin Fulks, the Biden-Harris deputy campaign manager.

The president will then travel to Charleston, South Carolina, on Monday to speak at Mother Emanuel AME Church, a historically Black church where nine people were killed after a gunman opened fire on a Bible study group in 2015.

Read more.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley each participated in CNN town halls on Thursday in Iowa ahead of the state’s caucuses later this month.

The candidates, who are vying to emerge as the main alternative to former President Donald Trump, took questions from likely GOP caucus-goers and from moderators Kaitlan Collins and Erin Burnett at Grand View University in Des Moines.

DeSantis and Haley both made several claims worth checking.

DeSantis touts Florida’s economy

DeSantis once again touted Florida’s economic strength, saying “our economy’s ranked No. 1 in our own 50 states by CNBC” and “income growth is top of the charts.”

Facts First: DeSantis’ first claim is accurate: CNBC declared Florida the nation’s top economy in a July article. It’s worth noting, of course, that various media rankings use differing subjective methodologies. But his second claim about income growth is inaccurate, at least by one recent measure.

There are multiple ways to measure income growth, and DeSantis did not specify the measure, nor the time period. But according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, personal income in Florida grew by 3.5% between the second and third quarters of 2023, earning it a rank of 21 among states. Texas ranked No. 1 with a growth rate of 5.2%.

— From CNN’s Tami Luhby and Daniel Dale

Haley on the national debt

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley voiced concerns about the nation’s mounting debt and interest payments.

“As of now, in a couple years, we’ll be paying more money in interest payments than we are in our defense budget,” she said.

Facts First: Haley‘s projection is right. If rates remain high, as expected, interest payments could overtake defense spending within a few years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a government watchdog group.

The increase in the nation’s debt and the Federal Reserve’s repeated rate hikes have prompted a meteoric rise in interest payments. Net interest costs soared to $659 billion in fiscal year 2023, which ended September 30, according to the Treasury Department. That’s up 39% from the previous year and is nearly double what it was in fiscal year 2020.

Interest payments now rank as the fourth largest government program in spending, behind Social Security, Medicare and defense, according to CRFB. Defense spending totaled $821 billion in fiscal year 2023, according to the Treasury Department.

The government spent more on net interest than on Medicaid, veterans programs and all spending on children in the last fiscal year, according to CRFB.

-From CNN’s Tami Luhby  

DeSantis and the pandemic

DeSantis criticized former President Donald Trump and Anthony Fauci, who served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, for their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, claiming they had locked down the nation and then said: “Florida led the way in dragging this country out of lockdown.”

Facts First: DeSantis’ claim is misleading at best. Before he became a vocal opponent of pandemic restrictions, DeSantis imposed significant restrictions on individuals, businesses and other entities in Florida in March 2020 and April 2020; some of them extended months later into 2020. He did then open up the state, with a gradual phased approach, but he did not keep it open from the start. 

DeSantis received criticism in March 2020 for what some critics perceived as a lax approach to the pandemic, which intensified as Florida beaches were packed during Spring Break. But that month and the month following, DeSantis issued a series of major restrictions. For example, DeSantis: 

• Closed Florida’s schools, first with a short-term closure in March 2020 and then, in April 2020, with a shutdown through the end of the school year. (In June 2020, he announced a plan for schools to reopen for the next school year that began in August. By October 2020, he was publicly denouncing school closures, calling them a major mistake and saying all the information hadn’t been available that March.)

Keep reading the fact checks here.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley reiterated her support for Israel when asked by an undecided voter if she believes if the operations of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza are disproportionate to the Hamas attacks on October 7.  

Haley reflected on her time as a United Nations ambassador, telling the audience she’s haunted by the attacks. She then called for the elimination of Hamas.

“We have got to do three things when it comes to Israel. We need to give them whatever they need, whenever they need it. We need to eliminate Hamas, finish them, so they can never do this horrific stuff again. And we need to do whatever it takes to bring our hostages home,” she said during the CNN town hall Thursday night.

Haley also described her firsthand experience visiting the Gaza tunnels, emphasizing she is familiar with how Hamas operates.

“I’ve been there, I’ve been in those tunnels, they are very sophisticated. That’s probably where the hostages are being held now. Gazans would be so much better off without Hamas. But I know, and I trust, that Israel would do whatever it takes to make sure that they save as many people as they can. You have to know the difference between terrorists and civilians. That’s what civilized countries do. America’s a civilized country. Israel’s a civilized county. Hamas is not civilized,” Haley said.

Asked if she would support relocating Palestinians from Gaza if she were elected president, Haley instead suggested removing Hamas from the enclave.

“I don’t think you have to remove Palestinians from Gaza. I think you have to remove Hamas from Gaza. But I think you also need to make sure that Israelis can feel safe again,” she said.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley argued that pardoning and “moving on” from former President Donald Trump “is in the best interest of our country.”

“I don’t think our country will move forward with an 80-year-old president sitting in jail that allows our country to continue to be divided. We have to move on past that.” she said when asked by voter Kathryn Duffy to explain her rationale.

Haley explained that pardons are generally not for innocent people — so people are assuming Trump is guilty — but noted that “it’s not about guilt or innocence” for her.

“It’s about what’s in the best interest for the country,” she said.

She compared Trump’s hypothetical pardon to that of former President Richard Nixon, who was granted a full pardon on 1974 by then President Gerald Ford.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley defended comments she made at a recent New Hampshire town hall, where she said that while Iowa votes first during the primary process, New Hampshire “corrects it.”

“We banter against each other on different things,” she said when asked about it by CNN’s Erin Burnett. “New Hampshire makes fun of Iowa. Iowa makes fun of South Carolina. It’s what we do.”

She said she doesn’t “live, eat and breathe politics all the time” and that people were taking everything too seriously.

Haley went on to emphasize her love for Iowa and that her comments didn’t reflect a lack of confidence in how she thought she’d do in the upcoming caucuses.

“I have been coming here for months, going to every part of Iowa, shaking every hand, answering every question, being the last person to leave at every one of these town halls. You are going to see me fight until the very end on the last day in Iowa,” she said.

Some background: Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie joined influential political figures like Gov. Kim Reynolds, Bob Vander Plaats, and their chosen candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis in criticizing Haley’s remarks about the Iowa caucuses.

Christie called Haley “immature,” and accused her of being “willing to say anything to an audience to try to curry their favor.”

DeSantis said it was “incredibly disrespectful to Iowa.” In response to his comment, Haley said during Thursday’s town hall, “Of course he did.”

CNN’s Kit Maher and Ali Main contributed reporting.

This post has been updated with background on the criticism of Haley from other figures.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said that America has been ready for a female president, but she has to be the right woman.

Asked by a voter if she feels that the US has evolved enough to accept a female president, Haley said that she believes the country is.

The GOP candidate added that she does not believe in tokenizing women.

“We don’t support women just because they’re women. I mean we love to see woman do well. I love — I think women are rock stars. I love to women do well. But a president is a big deal. And it’s a serious issue,” she said, adding that she thinks politics has been using labels too much.

“Well that’s what’s gotten us into this mess,” Haley said, referencing President Joe Biden’s vice president pick and Supreme Court Justice pick.

“That’s a mistake. I do think America is ready for a female president. I do think that America’s been ready. But it’s got to the right one,” she said.

Haley then said that a candidate should be chosen based on their experience and moral clarity and listed her accomplishments as South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador.

“So is America ready for a female president? You bet they’re ready for a female president, and I’m going to be the one that makes them proud,” Haley said as she wrapped her answer.

Addressing the backlash she faced over comments in New Hampshire over the causes of the Civil War, Nikki Haley said she “should have said slavery right off the bat.”

Haley faced intense backlash inside and outside the GOP after she told a town hall crowd last month that the Civil War was about government interfering in people’s freedoms. She was criticized for not mentioning slavery in her answer.

In the days after the comments, Haley has sought to walk that back quickly, even as allies such as New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu conceded her remarks were a mistake.

“If you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third grade you learn about slavery. You grow up and you have — you know, I had Black friends growing up. It is a very talked-about thing,” she said.

She pointed to her home state’s long history with slavery and said that in her initial comments about the Civil War, she was “thinking past slavery and talking about the lesson that we would learn going forward.”

Some context: Her response during the town hall in Berlin, New Hampshire was:

“I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.” 

The former South Carolina governor then asked the voter who had asked her about the Civil War what he thought the cause was, to which the voter responded, “I’m not running for president.”

“I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are,” Haley added. “I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people,” she added.

The voter criticized her for not mentioning slavery in her answer. “In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word slavery,” the voter said.

Haley sought to clarify her comments about the Civil War one day after, telling radio host Jack Heath “I mean, of course, the Civil War was about slavery.”

CNN’s Ebony Davis contributed reporting to this post.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley highlighted her electability as a presidential candidate when asked by voter Josh Lemon on her strategy for overtaking former President Donald Trump in the polls.

She called Trump “the right president at the right time,” admitting that she agrees with many of his policies.

“But the reality is rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him and we all know that’s true. Chaos follows him,” Haley said during CNN’s town hall in Iowa. “And we can’t have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it.”

She went on to say that “you don’t defeat Democrat chaos with Republican chaos,” and called for a “new generational leader.”

Haley pointed out that she is currently beating President Joe Biden in prediction polls by 17 points — a feat she claims neither Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or Trump has done.

“Americans don’t want another nail-biter of an election,” she said.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley began the CNN town hall by detailing her two solutions in addressing the issue of school shootings — following the school shooting in Iowa on Thursday.

A 17-year-old gunman killed a sixth grade student and wounded five other people Thursday morning at Perry High School near Des Moines, Iowa, authorities said. The shooting at Perry High School happened just about 40 miles away from where CNN’s town halls are taking place. Haley offered condolences to those impacted by the shooting.

In solving the crisis of gun violence at schools, Haley said the solution is two-fold — addressing mental health and security in schools.

“It is time that we deal with this in the way that we should deal with this. Instead of living in fear, let’s do something about it. We have got to deal with the cancer that is mental health. We have to,” Haley said.

The second solution Haley offered is securing schools the same way the US secures airports and courthouses.

“That means we make sure that we have whatever we need to make sure that nothing comes through — bullet-wise or otherwise. We need to have a security officers at the front of every school, we need to have one point of entry — no side or rear entries. And then we need to make sure that we have somebody on staff, not a guidance counselor, but a mental health counselor that does nothing but to look to see which kids maybe in crisis,” Haley said.

The CNN town hall featuring former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has begun at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa.

Haley is fielding questions from CNN’s Erin Burnett and an audience of Iowa voters who say they intend to vote in the upcoming Iowa Republican caucuses, which are less than two weeks away. The Iowa caucuses are critical in the primary election calendar and can make or break a campaign’s momentum.

Haley launched her presidential campaign in February 2023, calling for a new generation of leadership in the Republican Party. Her campaign has heavily focused on economic responsibility, national security and strengthening the southern border. 

Earlier tonight, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis answered questions from voters at a CNN town hall at the same location.

If former President Donald Trump does not win the caucuses in Iowa and claims that they were stolen, Republican voters will not believe him, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said.

“I think Iowans know that this is an important process. I think Iowans know there’s a lot of work that goes into it. It’s going to be done very well,” DeSantis said, in response to a question from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

He praised the people who live in Iowa, saying “you just have honest people here.”

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said that his biggest strength is that he sticks to his word.

“Look, I think that my strength is that if I tell you I’m going to do something, I don’t just say that flippantly. I am not just saying it to win an election. There are things that I could be promising that would probably get me some more votes that I know I couldn’t deliver on. So, if I tell you if I’m going to do something then you take it to the bank. We are going to deliver on it,” DeSantis said.

The Florida governor then claimed that he’s the only candidate that has “overdelivered” on his promises. DeSantis then went on to claim that he’s “beaten” the teachers union on school choice, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Covid and George Soros on crime.

“On issue after issue, I’ve delivered results,” he said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis touted his state’s response to Covid-19 Thursday night during CNN’s town hall.

When asked to provide an example where as governor he implemented a plan that failed and how he corrected it by Iowa voter Bob Peters, DeSantis instead highlighted successful measures taken by his administration to address the pandemic in its early stages.

He brought up how he protected nursing homes, visitation for patients in hospitals, and continued elective procedures in Florida during the pandemic.

“There was more to life than just one virus,” he said.

He said former President Donald Trump and former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci “plunged this country into lockdown,” and said “Florida led the way in dragging this country out of lockdown.”

GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis commended President Joe Biden for his response to Hurricane Ian when it hit the state of Florida in 2022.

“I’ll give him credit, he didn’t try to politicize it,” DeSantis said.

The Florida governor was answering a question from Chad Ryan, an undecided Republican voter, who asked him what of Biden’s leadership he would hope to emulate if he was in the White House.

If he is elected president, DeSantis said he will work with all governors, regardless of policy differences, to respond to natural disasters.

“When you have these situations, leaders got to lead and you’ve got to put politics aside,” he said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis shared how the sudden loss of his sister, Christina, in 2015 taught him to seize opportunities and never take anything for granted. 

“What it shows you is don’t take anything for granted. You just never know what’s gonna happen. And so, if there’s ever a time when you feel you need to do something, don’t just sit back on the sidelines,” DeSantis said. 

DeSantis urged the town hall audience in Des Moines to “tell the people close to you that you love them, and just try to live your best life every single day. And understand ultimately, every day is a gift from God.” 

After being hospitalized in London in 2015 for a blot clot, Christina, 30, developed a fatal pulmonary embolism and died a couple days later. 

“When you go through having somebody that’s in your immediate family, I mean, that’s the loss that hits you the most. Part of it was just how sudden it was. She was living a great life. She was having fun and she got checked into the hospital, she seemed to be stable, and then a couple days later, it did that,” DeSantis said. 

DeSantis said he thinks about how “she would have been a great and to her nieces and nephews” and wished how his three young kids, Madison, Mason and Mamie could have known her.

DeSantis rarely speaks about the loss of his sister Christina. In March, he spoke publicly about it for the first time in an interview with Piers Morgan before he was a presidential candidate, something he called a “shattering experience.”  

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said insurrectionists did not display patriotism on January 6, 2021, when they broke into the US Capitol.

“That was not a good day for the country,” DeSantis said during Thursday’s CNN town hall.

DeSantis defined patriotism as when someone is “willing to put yourself out there and put service above self” when asked by voter Ronald Langel what the word means to him.

DeSantis then moved quickly to address what he called recruiting problems currently in the military. The Navy veteran said he believes one of the reasons for low recruitment is due to the US not having an elected president who has served in a foreign conflict since 1988.

If elected, DeSantis said he would “hold up military service as being something that’s a noble cause,” he said.

Some context: DeSantis has said the January 6 Capitol insurrection has been “politicized by the left” and the upcoming anniversary on Saturday is like “Christmas Day for the media.”

“It’s been politicized by the left. You know, I don’t think it was supposed to be what that was not supposed to happen. I think people went to protest, and I think it got out of hand,” DeSantis told NBC News and the Des Moines Register in a joint interview earlier today. “I know it’s a big deal in a lot of the corporate outlets, I get that. I’ve not had a single question in Iowa, about January 6. I mean, I’ve taken hundreds and hundreds of questions. I think people are focused looking forward, so I’m not going to spend time you know in my campaign, either now or in the general election, you know, talking about, you know, rehashing that,” he said.

DeSantis has received questions about whether he would pardon non-violent people who went to the Capitol that day, which he has said he would, and criticized former President Donald Trump for not doing anything in his final days of office.

Since the start of his candidacy, DeSantis has said he would give anyone who is a victim of “weaponization” the opportunity to apply for clemency. DeSantis also told Russell Brand over the summer that January 6 “was not an insurrection.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said if he were president, he would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and instead create a flat tax rate, as opposed to a federal income tax.

“I think that would be the ideal tax system to be able to do,” he said, though clarifying to the audience that he would only enact that plan if it meant individuals would pay lower taxes.

“I want to eliminate the IRS and I would like a flat, one single rate flat tax,” DeSantis said.

He pointed to Florida as an example of a place that has a lower tax rate, attributing that to more investment coming into the state.

“I think other high tax states, they tax, they cause businesses to flee and individuals to flee, then they go back to the well and they tax more and it’s like a vicious cycle,” DeSantis said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said interest rates need to be lowered so the American Dream of owning a home can become a easier goal.

This was in response, in part, to Mary Lou Nosco, an undecided Republican voter, who asked what DeSantis plans to do as president to make home ownership more accessible to the middle class.

DeSantis responded by saying that interest rates need to be lowered..

“The reason why we have high interest rates is because government has borrowed, printed and spent ungodly sums of money, starting in March of 2020 — both parties responsible for it — and that has driven the interest rates up,” he said.

He added that the US needs “more housing supply.”

DeSantis added that as Florida governor, he has signed legislation to address the issue, particularly for workforce housing.

The Florida governor also said the issue of home ownership is part of a larger issue.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis emphasized previous gun safety measures he implemented in his state’s schools following the 2018 Parkland shooting.

In response to voter Jennifer Lemon, who asked how DeSantis would address school shootings without taking away gun rights, he said he implemented measures like behavioral threat assessments in Florida “so that there can be an intervention.”

“I was charged with implementing reforms to be able to provide security for schools,” DeSantis said. “So we’ve done everything, like school resource officers, help with hardening, but also help identify students that are exhibiting really problematic behavior.”

He said he believes background checks for buying guns “should be instant” and that a person shouldn’t have to go through “a mandatory waiting period” to buy them.

His answer came as a 17-year-old gunman killed a sixth grade student and wounded five other people Thursday morning at Perry High School near Des Moines, Iowa, where the CNN town hall is being hosted.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis called out former President Donald Trump for not showing up on the debate stage and engaging with voters.

Curt Ellis, an undecided Republican voter, asked DeSantis what he thinks is a winning strategy in Iowa and beyond, given that Trump is currently leading in polls.

“Nobody’s leading until you guys get to vote. So, I actually believe in the process,” DeSantis said.

The Florida governor then touted that he’s visited all 99 counties in Iowa.

“I’ve shown up. I’ve answered questions. You’ll see me on the debate stage next week, here in Iowa, on January 10. Donald Trump’s not willing to show up on the debate stage. Has he come to communities and answered questions? Has he gone to all 99 counties? Heck, has he even gone to nine counties? That’s not the way to do it. So, voters get to make this decision,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis added he’s campaigned all around Iowa because people want to ask candidates questions and have the ability to shake a candidate’s hand.

“So I’ve done it because that’s what Iowans expect,” he said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis walked out to the CNN town hall with a gift for host Kaitlan Collins and a not-so-subtle dig at 2024 opponent Nikki Haley.

“I heard the other day someone say Kaitlan Collins had some basketball skills,” DeSantis said, alluding to how Haley flubbed Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark’s name at an event over the weekend. 
“I don’t know if that was a mistake or not, but I know in Iowa they have Caitlin Clark. So, I wanted to give you this as a memento,” DeSantis said, unfolding a Lady Hawkeyes T-shirt with “Clark” on the back and handing it to Collins.

On Saturday, Haley said at a tailgate ahead of the Iowa Lady Hawkeyes’ game: “We’re super excited to see the Lady Hawkeyes play. What a team they are. What a great coach they have. Caitlin Collins is phenomenal. But good, strong women. So we’re excited to see that,” she said. 

After the flub, Collins posted on X, “I can assure you her free-throw percentage is much better than mine.”

This morning, DeSantis joked that he might “congratulate” Collins on her “buzzer beater” in a radio interview with KFAB.

Clark recently registered her 3,000th career point in December, making her the 15th player in NCAA Division I women’s basketball history to accomplish the feat.

The CNN town hall with Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has begun.

DeSantis is facing questions from likely GOP caucus-goers and CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, tonight.

The town hall comes less than two weeks until voters head to the polls in Iowa— a critical early state in the primary election calendar that can make or break a campaign’s momentum.

DeSantis aims to position himself as the top GOP contender as national and state polling shows former President Donald Trump holding a commanding lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday said that he will join a caucus meeting probably in Des Moines, Iowa, on caucus night and urged his supporters not to sit back on January 15 because the polls show a wide lead.  

“We love you. I’m gonna be coming out there on Friday. I’m gonna be there Friday and Saturday, then I’m coming back the following week. And I’m gonna caucus probably in Des Moines. I’ll be doing caucus with you,” Trump told a crowd at a “Team Trump Iowa MAGA Event” via phone. 

Trump added: “We can’t take any chances and everybody has to get out because we don’t want to sit back and rely on the polls.”

Trump’s son Eric Trump, who headlined the event, called the former president who he said was at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

Eric Trump then put his cellphone on speaker and held it up to the microphone so the audience could hear his dad.  

Trump thanked his supporters and told them to “always remember we got the farmers of Iowa $28 billion dollars. I can’t think about Joe Biden doing that.”

The two Republicans most likely to emerge as the party’s alternative to former President Donald Trump in 2024 will make their cases Wednesday night to voters in Iowa, with just days until Hawkeye Republicans head to their caucus sites for the first contest of the GOP presidential primary season.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley have emerged from a field that once counted nearly 20 candidates as unofficial semi-finalists in the race to take on Trump, who continues to enjoy a healthy lead over both in state and national polling.

Here are five things to watch during CNN’s town hall with Iowa voters tonight:

Will DeSantis go directly at Trump?

Will Haley take on Trump?

Expectations management

Civil War comments

Abortion specifics

Read more about what to watch for ahead of tonight’s CNN town halls with DeSantis and Haley.

The Trump campaign and super PAC backing the former president are spending a combined $4.5 million targeting GOP presidential rival Nikki Haley in new television ads, a source familiar with the strategy told CNN. 

The campaign and Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc., however, are currently spending no money going after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the source said.

The Messenger first reported the new spending figures. 

The multi-million dollar spending underscores how the Trump campaign and pro-Trump outside groups are increasingly turning their attention to Haley as she continues to climb in the polls in New Hampshire. 

On Wednesday, Trump’s campaign spent $1 million on its first TV ad directly attacking Haley in the Granite state. In a 30-second spot, Trump went after Haley on immigration, attempting to tie her to President Joe Biden’s policies regarding security at the southern border. 

“Donald Trump must be seeing the same polls we’re seeing and is running scared. This is a two-person race between Nikki and Trump,” Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement to CNN, responding to latest ad from Trump.

MAGA Inc. also launched a new TV ad campaign in recent weeks targeting Haley in New Hampshire, specifically criticizing Haley’s position on taxes and attacking her position on a gas tax while she served as governor of South Carolina.

The Haley-focused advertising is a notable shift in strategy from Trump-aligned groups, who have spent tens of millions of dollars attacking DeSantis in recent months.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis praised local law enforcement for what he deemed a “robust response” to the Perry High School shooting in Iowa, just about 40 miles away from where he will be attending a CNN town hall, but said, as president, he would not support any federal policy changes to make shootings like these less frequent.

“We’re still getting the details of what happened here in Dallas County, but my sense was there was a pretty robust response, and if that’s the case, hats off to law enforcement for doing that,” DeSantis said in a joint interview with NBC News and the Des Moines Register. 

Asked what his message is to parents who are afraid of sending their kids to public schools, DeSantis said, “We obviously have a responsibility to create safe environments. Federal government’s probably not going to be leading that effort. I think it is more of a local and state issue, but we’ve shown how it’s done in Florida. The things that we’ve done have been very, very effective.”

DeSantis also said he spoke with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has endorsed him for president. Reynolds will be holding a press conference this afternoon, he said. 

“She’s all over it — got a great handle on it,” DeSantis said. 

Pressed on if he would support any federal changes, DeSantis said, “I don’t support infringing the rights of law-abiding citizens with respect to the ability to exercise their constitutional rights.” 

“I know these things can be used to try to target things, and a lot of the things that are proposed would not have even prevented any of these things,” DeSantis continued. “People can count on me to hold criminals accountable, be very serious about holding accountable people that represent a danger to society, but at the same time protecting their constitutional rights.” 

DeSantis, who has referred to himself as “the strongest Second Amendment candidate running,” said he differed with Donald Trump, who said in 2018, “Take the guns first, go through due process second,” using the Parkland, Florida shooter as an example. 

“That turns due process on its head,” DeSantis said. 

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley also reacted to the shooting Thursday as well, saying in a post on X that “no parent, student, or teacher should have to wake up and face news about a school shooting.”

“My heart aches for the victims of Perry, Iowa and the entire community,” she wrote.

Read more about Thursday’s school shooting here.

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign is up with its first TV ad in New Hampshire attacking GOP presidential rival Nikki Haley as the former South Carolina governor sees a rise in polling ahead of the key early voting state’s primary. 

The 30-second spot focused on immigration attempts to tie Haley to President Joe Biden’s policies as the Trump campaign continues to hammer the Biden administration over security at the US-Mexico border and illegal immigration. 

“Record numbers streaming across our border costing taxpayers billions and almost as many Americans killed from fentanyl as killed in World War II,” the narrator in the ad says. 

The campaign homed in on Haley’s opposition to Trump’s travel bans he implemented toward several Muslim-majority countries and African nations when he was president. 

Haley said at a recent GOP debate: “I don’t think that you have a straight-up Muslim ban as much as you look at the countries that have terrorist activity that want to hurt Americans. You can ban those people from those countries… It’s not about a religion, it’s about a fact that certain countries are dangerous and are threats to us.”

The narrator in the Trump ad says, “Haley’s weakness puts us in grave danger. Trump’s strength protects us.”

Haley’s campaign later responded to the Trump campaign ad attacking her.

“Donald Trump must be seeing the same polls we’re seeing and is running scared. This is a two-person race between Nikki and Trump,” Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement to CNN.

A super PAC supporting Trump’s candidacy, MAGA Inc., launched a new television ad campaign in New Hampshire in recent weeks targeting Haley.

Trump has been ratcheting up his anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail and has made the border a focal point of his political message. The former president recently doubled down on his assertion that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” —comments that earned him significant backlash and comparisons to Adolf Hitler.

GOP presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley likely aren’t going to win the Iowa caucuses. After all, previous candidates in an even somewhat comparable poll position to Donald Trump went on to first place in the caucuses. 

So what’s the goal in town halls like tonight for the Florida governor and the former South Carolina governor? Simple: Not getting embarrassed come voting time. Both are hoping they have some sort of semblance of momentum coming out of Hawkeye State. 

This may seem like a rather silly goal. You don’t get a medal for coming in second place (though you do get delegates). 

History shows us, however, that momentum is a real thing in presidential primary politics. The key is to outperform polling expectations.  

In 2016, we saw Sen. Marco Rubio’s numbers jump in New Hampshire, after coming in a surprisingly close third place in Iowa. Rubio ultimately faltered in the Granite State thanks in large part to a bad debate performance before New Hampshire voters cast their ballots. 

What DeSantis and Haley are hoping for is something closer to former Sen. Gary Hart in 1984. He finished over 30 points behind then-frontrunner former Vice President Walter Mondale, but did better than the polls said he would. Hart used Iowa to come from behind victory in New Hampshire and create a competitive Democratic primary race nationally overnight. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis elevated his attacks against former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a day after she joked that New Hampshire voters will “correct” the result of the Iowa caucuses. 

He continued to criticize her for flubbing Lady Hawkeyes basketball player Caitlin Clark’s name and said that she doesn’t resonate with Iowa voters. 

“She’s phony, you know, she doesn’t have core set of convictions. She’s coming in here, she’s trying to be relatable but just doesn’t get Iowa, and I think that’s becoming more and more apparent,” DeSantis said in an online joint interview with NBC News and the Des Moines Register.  
“I think for Nikki Haley to be in a different state and trying to virtue signal in ways that are, that diminish the voters of Iowa, I think it was honestly it was a mistake. But you know, sometimes these gaffes are what people really think. And I think that that’s what she really thinks,” DeSantis said. 

He called Haley the “darling of the never-Trumpers,” but said it’s inconsistent with her failing to explicitly rule out serving as Trump’s vice president. While Haley has not outright said that she would not serve as Trump’s vice president, she has consistently said she doesn’t “play for second.”

“She’s not playing to win,” DeSantis said.

Desantis said Haley’s rise was “media driven” and continued to argue he is the top challenger to Trump, even as he is closer to Haley in the polls. He said the money spent against him in negative advertisements proves that he is the biggest threat and argued that Haley can’t win over true conservative voters. 

“Trump has always been leading in the race. I mean, he’s the former president,” DeSantis said. “They wouldn’t be spending that money. If we weren’t the top. I’m the only one that has a chance to beat Trump and win the general election. Nikki Haley can’t get conservative voters. She’s playing for voters who are not even core Republicans.”

Groups of voters from Illinois and Massachusetts on Thursday filed motions to remove Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot, adding to the list of states where the former president faces a challenge to his candidacy under the 14th Amendment’s so-called insurrectionist ban.

In Illinois, the challenge filed in conjunction with the liberal advocacy group Free Speech For People, asks the Illinois Board of Elections to hold a hearing on the matter and bar Trump from appearing on both the primary and general election ballots because of his role in the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.

“Donald J. Trump, through his words and actions, after swearing an oath as an officer of the United States to support the Constitution, engaged in insurrection or rebellion, or gave aid and comfort to its enemies, as defined by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the voters wrote in their petition to the board of elections.

The petition adds that Trump “has never expressed regret that his supporters violently attacked the U.S. Capitol” and threatened lawmakers inside, and that “Trump has not apologized to anyone, either on his own behalf or on behalf of his supporters, for the January 6 attack.”

The party affiliation of the voters, if any, was not listed.

The same advocacy group on Thursday filed a challenge to Trump’s eligibility to appear on Massachusetts ballots for both the primary and general presidential elections in the state.

The challengers include former Boston Mayor Kim Janey, a Democrat, as well as “a mix of Republican, Independent, and Democratic voters,” the group says.

The challenges come as the US Supreme Court is widely expected to review a state court ruling in Colorado which found that Trump is ineligible to run for office. Though the Colorado ruling only applies to that state, any decision from the justices could settle the matter for the entire nation.

Read more about the motions in the two states.

This post has been updated to reflect additional reporting on the Massachusetts motion.

With TVs inside a packed central Iowa sports bar tuned to the Citrus Bowl, the phrase “dumpster fire” could be heard over the pub’s speakers midway through the second quarter. But the criticism wasn’t directed at the Iowa Hawkeyes’ lackluster performance in the New Year’s Day game.

Rather, it was a political ad attacking the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who walked into the bar later, hoping to convince Iowans the description was far from apt.

“We’re going to get it done,” he told one man after taking a swig of Guinness.

Just weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the airwaves here are filled with ads from allies of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley attacking DeSantis and vice versa. Indeed, after DeSantis exited the bar, a commercial calling Haley “Tricky Nikki” aired, paid for by a super PAC supporting the Florida governor, a representation of how the pair are mercilessly going after each other as the race intensifies.

But not once during the Citrus Bowl broadcast did an ad air targeting the front-runner in the race, Donald Trump – a recurring theme of the ad wars this presidential cycle. The former president is rarely the subject of the millions of dollars being spent to sway Republicans, nor is he lately the focal point of his rivals on the campaign trail.

As the Republican presidential contenders ready their closing arguments to Iowans, they have offered few indications that these dynamics will change before the January 15 caucuses. And having failed to emerge as the unquestioned alternative to Trump in 2023, the success of his challengers in 2024 now hinges on quickly pushing the others out of the picture.

Trump has ramped his appearances in the early nominating states, making four events in Iowa in a month toward the end of the year.

His outsize presence as a former president coupled with his ongoing legal troubles has overshadowed his latest presidential campaign. A dominating performance in the first nominating contest could be the first domino on the path to a quick victory by Trump. But even the rosiest of projections show Republicans remained divided over whether he should represent the party going forward. His campaign, intent on not getting caught flat-footed after he failed to win Iowa in 2016, has focused in recent months on recruiting and training close to 2,000 volunteers in the state.

Keep reading about how the GOP race is shaping up in Iowa.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his allies have hammered former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on the campaign trail and the airwaves – and she has fired back – as the two seek to emerge as the strongest alternative to former President Donald Trump.

But at least one Iowa voter wanted to know — why isn’t more of that energy being directed at the front-runner?

“Why haven’t you gone directly after him?” Chris Garcia, a voter who plans to caucus for DeSantis, asked during a town hall here on Wednesday. “In my viewpoint, you’re going pretty soft on him.”

The question sparked an extended back and forth between Garcia and DeSantis, who argued that he has made an effort to explain the differences between himself and the front-runner, but refuses to “smear him personally.”

The exchange highlighted how a potential race for second place, intensifying for months, has left Trump largely unscathed and in a lane of his own – much to the frustration of Republicans like Garcia.

Garcia was not satisfied, telling CNN he intended to support DeSantis, but was urging him to confront Trump more aggressively.

Read more about DeSantis as the Iowa caucuses loom.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis shot down a statement on Wednesday from a Nikki Haley campaign spokesperson, looking ahead to CNN’s Republican presidential primary debate next week as an opportunity to set the record straight with voters.

A Haley spokesperson said that if DeSantis doesn’t win Iowa, “there’s no rationale for him to move on.”

“We’re gonna do a debate, and we’re going to be able to have a sharp contrast in our visions, and I think she’s had very difficult time recently because … she had been pumped up by liberal media,” DeSantis told Fox News ahead of an event in Waukee, Iowa. “Now she’s come under scrutiny, and she’s not been able to handle basic questions that people are asking.”

“It’s just a contrast in visions, contrast in records, and clearly, Republican voters are going to prefer my vision to hers,” he said, also slamming Haley’s record on China when she was governor of South Carolina. 

The debate will take place at 9 p.m. ET on January 10 at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

Just days before the Iowa caucuses kick off the GOP’s nominating race, the debate will be a clash between two candidates vying to emerge as the party’s lone, clear alternative to former President Donald Trump.

As part of contrasting his record with Trump, DeSantis said he’s the only candidate who delivers on all his promises, then referenced Harvard President Claudine Gay announcing her resignation. “I’m the only one running for president that’s taken on the rot in higher education in Florida,” DeSantis said.

“Harvard, I think has totally dropped the ball,” said DeSantis, a Harvard Law alumnus. “The institution needs a total overhaul. It just, as somebody that hires people, I see someone come out of Harvard, usually you would think, ‘man, this is the best of the best.’ Now, I just wonder what kind of stuff was put into their head in terms of this ridiculous ideology.” 

Before Americans pick a president in November, they get to pick the candidates in a series of primaries and caucuses.

It’s a wonky process that has evolved over the course of the country’s history and continues to evolve today.

Here’s what to know:

What is a primary? It’s an election to select candidates, usually for a particular political party, to appear on the general election ballot.

Who is running in the primaries? For Democrats, Joe Biden is the sitting president and he’s running for reelection, which makes him the incumbent candidate.

Incumbents rarely face serious competition. There are some Democrats challenging him in the Democratic primaries, including Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and author Marianne Williamson. But they have not yet generated much support, at least in opinion polls.

For Republicans, former President Donald Trump has long been the front-runner, meaning he appears in polling to have a lead over five other candidates who are still in the race.

Trump, as a former president, also projects some of the power of an incumbent, although he lost the last election. His is the first serious campaign by a former president for his party’s nomination since Teddy Roosevelt tried and failed to reclaim the Republican nomination in 1912.

Anti-Trump Republicans appear to be interested in two main options: former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Haley has polled better in New Hampshire and DeSantis has focused on Iowa. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson have had more trouble gaining support.

Who can vote in a presidential primary? It varies by state. Primaries are generally conducted in polling places like any other election.

But some states have “open primaries,” meaning any registered voter can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary. Other states have “closed primaries,” meaning only people registered in a particular political party — usually Republicans or Democrats — can vote in that party’s primary.

Others offer voting day registration, which essentially opens the primaries to most registered voters.

When do the presidential primaries occur? The first date on the presidential primary calendar is January 15, although it is not technically for a primary.

On that day in Iowa, Republican Party members gather at events called caucuses, where they hear speeches from a campaign’s supporters and then vote for their preferred candidate. Unlike primaries in other states, these events are overseen by state parties and are not conducted like normal elections.

Democrats will also gather that day in Iowa, but their vote for president will be conducted by mail ending on March 5.

In some states, presidential primaries are conducted on one date and primaries for other offices are conducted later in the year. See the full calendar.

After Iowa, New Hampshire holds its “first-in-the-nation” primary on January 23, although Democrats are not sanctioning the event. Democrats want their first official primary to take place on February 3 in South Carolina, which is a more racially diverse state, and the first place Biden won a primary in 2020. That will then be followed by Nevada’s primary on February 6.

The calendar spreads out from there. Republicans compete in Nevada’s caucuses on February 8 and South Carolina on February 24.

Read more about the 2024 primaries.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign said Wednesday that it raised $24 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 across her political operation, hauling in more than double than any other previous quarter last year.

That’s up from around $11 million in the third quarter and $7.3 million in the second quarter, as she saw fresh interest from donors searching for a Trump alternative.

The latest numbers come as Haley has seen a surge in momentum following the first four GOP primary debates and an uptick in deep-pocketed donors coalescing behind her White House bid, including co-founder of Home Depot Ken Langone and billionaire LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman. In November, Haley was also endorsed by Americans for Prosperity Action, a network associated with billionaire Charles Koch.

The former UN ambassador’s campaign said she attracted more than 83,000 new donors in the fourth quarter alone – nearly the combined total of her unique donors in the previous quarters combined.

Haley is the first major GOP presidential contender to release their fourth quarter numbers. The candidates have until January 31 to file their quarterly campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission. Fox News first reported Haley’s fundraising totals.

Haley’s team touted her strong grassroots fundraising operation, saying $16.25 million was raised from digital and mail grassroots efforts.

“This is a two-person race between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump. Nikki is the only Trump alternative with the voter support, the operation, and the resources to go the distance. Our momentum continues to build as we head into 2024,” Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney said.

Since launching her presidential run, Haley has raised $50 million from 180,000 donors across her three campaign committees. The South Carolina Republican has $14.5 million cash on hand going into 2024, according to the campaign.

The 2024 GOP presidential primary kicks off in January with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump campaigning to win nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire while facing his own legal challenges.

Here are key dates to watch as some of the former president’s legal woes and important election dates come to a head this month:

January 9: Trump’s legal team on January 9 will begin making its case for the Washington, DC, Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court’s ruling that rejected the former president’s claim of immunity in special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion case.

January 10: CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will moderate a Republican primary debate at Drake University in Des Moines, lowa, on January 10 at 9 p.m. ET.

January 11: The judge in Trump’s New York civil fraud trial will hear closing arguments on January 11 with hopes of issuing a ruling in the case by the end of the month – though Trump’s team has already appealed the judge’s summary judgement and will likely appeal his ruling in the trial itself.

January 15: Iowa Republicans on January 15 will cast their votes in the first-in-the nation caucuses, a critical nominating contest that can make or break a campaign’s momentum.

January 16: The trial to determine damages in E. Jean Carroll’s second lawsuit against Trump is set to begin on January 16 after a judge found that he was liable for defamatory statements. A civil jury in a separate lawsuit has already ordered the former president to pay Carroll $5 million for battery and defamation after finding that he sexually abused her.

January 21: CNN will host a Republican presidential primary debate at New England College in New Hampshire on January 21.

January 23: Voters in New Hampshire will head to the polls on January 23 to cast their votes in the Republican presidential primary election.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley launched her presidential campaign in February 2023, calling for a new generation of leadership in the Republican Party. Her campaign has heavily focused on economic responsibility, national security and strengthening the southern border.

If successful in the primary, Haley would be the first woman and the first Asian American nominated by the GOP for president. She was first elected to the South Carolina House in 2004, and six years later, she became the first woman elected governor of the Palmetto State and the youngest governor in the nation when she took office in 2011. 

She resigned in the middle of her second term in 2017 to become US ambassador to the United Nations under President Donald Trump, now a rival for the 2024 GOP nomination. She served in that role until the end of 2018.

Haley was born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa in Bamberg, South Carolina, to Indian immigrants. She attended Clemson University, where she met her husband, Michael Haley. He served in Afghanistan as part of the South Carolina Army National Guard in 2013, making Haley the first governor in US history to have her spouse deployed. He is currently deployed overseas for a yearlong mission. The Haleys have two children.

Read about the other 2024 GOP candidates here.

Donald Trump has formally asked the US Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado state Supreme Court ruling that removed him from the state’s 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist clause.”

“In our system of ‘government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,’ Colorado’s ruling is not and cannot be correct,” attorneys for the former president wrote in the filing with the court, which was obtained by CNN.

The Supreme Court is facing mounting pressure to settle the question of whether Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, can be disqualified from holding public office, as state courts and election officials have come to differing conclusions across the country. The first contests of the 2024 primary begin in weeks.

The high court is separately involved in other matters that could impact the federal criminal case against the former president.

Trump’s appeal comes after the Colorado GOP, which is also a party in the case, filed a separate appeal, and two weeks after the Colorado ruling came down. The ruling has been put on hold while appeals play out and Colorado’s top election official has already made clear that Trump’s name will be included on the state’s primary ballot when it’s certified on January 5 – unless the US Supreme Court says otherwise.

But it’s unlikely the high court would resolve the case as quickly as this week. If the justices do take up the case and conclude Trump is ineligible for public office, then any votes cast for him wouldn’t count. The state’s primary is set for Super Tuesday on March 5.

Read more here.

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over, and that’s certainly true for the Iowa caucuses. Ronald Reagan was polling at 40% and had a 25-point lead in Iowa 11 days before the 1980 caucuses. He lost. 

George H.W. Bush’s triumph that year, however, just proves how strong of a frontrunner Donald Trump is. Trump is at more than 50% of the vote in recent polls and holds a more-than-30-point advantage over his nearest competitors, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.

There have been just four other candidates who were at least 45% in the Iowa polls at this point: Walter Mondale in 1984, George W. Bush in 2000, Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. All of them won Iowa and their party’s nomination. 

And Trump is in a better position than all of them. He’s the only one with such a large lead and the only one polling in with more than 50% of the vote. 

Indeed, think of the last time the national front-runner lost Iowa and her party’s nomination: Clinton in 2008. She was already trailing Barack Obama in numerous surveys, including the preeminent Des Moines Register poll.

The fact is that time is running out for someone not named Trump to pull off an Iowa miracle

The 2024 campaign year for President Joe Biden’s inner circle will largely be about carefully ratcheting up the intensity against Donald Trump, wary of voters becoming dulled to what they expect to be the former president’s ever wilder rhetoric and promises about what he would do if back in power.

Or, as some of the younger aides on Biden’s reelection campaign have been grimly joking, it’s about when to go “full Hitler” – when the leading Republican candidate’s speeches and actions go so far that the Biden team goes all the way to a direct comparison to the Nazi leader rather than couching their attacks by saying Trump “parroted” him.

The campaign so far, these aides believe, has essentially been Biden running against himself, and losing – with his approval ratings under 40%, anxiety about his age and the Democratic divide over his handling of the war the Israel-Hamas war. But they see the next few weeks of the Republican primary campaigns as an opportunity to persuade influencers and media into thinking about the race on their terms.

“You have this moment in the first quarter where he is continuing to go full MAGA extremist now in order to shore up support in his own base,” a senior campaign aide told CNN about Trump, asking for anonymity to discuss internal strategy. “While he may be successful in that effort, if we do our job, we’ll point out that everything he’s saying is extreme and unpopular.”

Biden campaign aides will be doing that as White House aides finalize the president’s State of the Union address, expected for early February, aiming to capitalize on his largest national audience of the year to lay out an agenda that he can quickly take out on the campaign trail – including protecting Obamacare, expanding efforts to relieve student debt and housing costs, and tax measures such as a 25% minimum tax for billionaires and quadrupling the stock buyback tax.

Read more about the Biden campaign’s strategy here.

Republican Donald Trump is in a better position against Democrat Joe Biden now than at any point during the entire 2020 campaign. The former president leads the current president in more than his fair share of polls of registered voters, including in a number of key swing states.

But it seems plausible that these initial polls may be underestimating Biden’s position. In a change from the usual expected dynamic in which Democrats are supposed to do better with higher turnout, Biden may benefit when pollsters look at likely voters instead of all registered voters.

Put another way, Trump may do better in an election in which turnout is higher.

Take a look at a New York Times/Siena College poll released in December. Trump had a 2 point advantage among registered voters. Biden was up 2 points among likely voters. Both of those are within the margin of error, but it’s a notable 4 point shift towards Biden when comparing likely and registered voters.

Now, I don’t want to make too much of a deal out of one poll, but another pollster found something analogous. An average of the last two Marquette University Law School surveys showed the former president up by 4 points among registered voters, while Biden and Trump were tied among likely voters. As with the Times data, this is a 4 point shift toward Biden when going from registered to likely voters.

An October Grinnell College poll conducted by Ann Selzer similarly found that 2020 Biden voters were 4 points more likely to say they would definitely vote than 2020 Trump voters.

This would be quite the shift from what had historically been seen. Normally, Republicans gain about 2 points when going from registered to likely voters.

It is possible, of course, that the recent poll data is just statistical noise.

The 2024 polling does make sense, though, in the context of both recent elections as well as the coalitions being put together by Biden and Trump ahead of a potential rematch.

Read more here.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose penchant for cultural clashes led him to declare his state as the place where “woke goes to die,” launched a bid for president in May 2023. DeSantis has said he is running to “reverse the decline” in America and to offer a new generation of leadership for the country.

A hard-charging leader who has stretched the boundaries of executive power in his state, DeSantis rose to national prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic. He made Florida one of the first states to reopen schools, and took measures to prohibit lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccine requirements.

Prior to the governor’s mansion, DeSantis represented a northeast Florida’s district in the US House from 2013 to 2018 and was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus. He was a vociferous defender of Trump as a congressman, but the two have since traded sharp attacks on each other on the campaign trail.

DeSantis grew up in Dunedin, Florida, and graduated from Yale University, where he was captain of the varsity baseball team before heading to Harvard Law School. He served as a JAG officer in the US Navy. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, have three children.

Read about the other 2024 GOP candidates here.

Republican presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley will participate in back-to-back live CNN presidential town halls tonight in Iowa.

Both will appear at Grand View University in Des Moines, less than two weeks until voters head to the polls in Iowa, a critical early state in the primary election calendar that can make or break a campaign’s momentum.

Here are key things to to know about tonight’s town halls:

The Republican presidential candidates are all vying to take on President Joe Biden in November 2024. But first, they’re competing in the GOP primaries and caucuses, which begin in January, to emerge as the party’s nominee.

The first event of the Republican primary calendar, the Iowa caucuses, will provide an initial moment of truth for former President Donald Trump’s bid and could help Republicans tired of Trump decide which of his challengers to rally behind.

The new Democratic presidential primary calendar upends decades of tradition in which Iowa and New Hampshire were the first two states to hold nominating contests and moves up South Carolina, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan. President Joe Biden has argued the new nominating order would better reflect the diversity of the nation and the Democratic Party.

Here’s a look at key dates in the primary race coming up in the first few months of the year:

January:

February:

March:

Access the full 2024 election calendar.