January 21 - 2024 campaign updates

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley greets supporters at a campaign event in Exeter, New Hampshire, on Sunday.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Sunday night touted a two-person race as she battles with former President Donald Trump for the GOP nomination after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ended his campaign.

During her rally in Exeter, New Hampshire, Haley greeted the crowd by boasting about the state of the race with only two days until the first-in-the-nation primary.?

“Can you hear that sound? That’s the sound of a two-person race,” the former South Carolina governor said as the crowd cheered. ?

Haley was joined by Judy Sheindlin, star of “Judge Judy,” who gave her pitch to Granite State voters as to why they should back Haley.

“For me, finding the person that we can be proud of … is probably the most important decision that all of us are going to have to make in our current history. Nikki Haley has to be that candidate,” Judge Judy said.?

New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu also attended, saying he’s “tired of losing … and I’m sure as hell tired of Donald Trump.”

“If you will join with us on Tuesday, if you will bring five friends with you to the polls, I will spend every day proving to you that you made a good decision,” Haley said.

Former President Donald Trump on Sunday touted the recent endorsements he has received from one-time GOP 2024 rivals, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and flexed his lead in the polls over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ahead of the New Hampshire primary Tuesday.?

“Vivek just came with us and now Ron just came with us, they’re all coming with us,” Trump said, referring to Vivek Ramaswamy and DeSantis, at a campaign event in Rochester, New Hampshire.

Trump also touted the endorsement he received from South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, noting Haley appointed Scott to his Senate seat when she was the state’s governor. In the final days ahead of the New Hampshire primary, Trump has sought to highlight support he has in Haley’s home state of South Carolina, where she was twice elected governor.?

The former president also spoke about his upcoming court appearance in his civil defamation case Monday in New York before he flies to New Hampshire for a campaign rally on the eve of the primary.

“Tomorrow … I do the court thing, then I come back and I make a speech tomorrow night and hopefully that should wrap it up because we are so far ahead, it’s incredible,” Trump said.?

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Sunday.

Former President Donald Trump on Sunday congratulated Ron DeSantis for running what he described as “a really good campaign,” hours after the Florida governor announced he was ending his presidential campaign and backing Trump.

It was the first time in months Trump used DeSantis’ real name as opposed to the nickname he had been using, Ron DeSanctimonious, as he attacked him.

“He was very gracious and he endorsed me, so I appreciated that. I appreciate that and I also look forward to working with Ron and everybody else to defeat Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump said.

Some more context: Trump viciously attacked DeSantis throughout his White House bid, focusing the majority of his attacks on the governor before the Iowa caucuses. Many of those attacks stemmed from Trump’s personal animosity toward DeSantis for being “disloyal” by running against him after Trump had endorsed DeSantis for governor in 2017, according to multiple Trump campaign advisers and people close to the former president.

Just hours after Ron DeSantis ended his presidential campaign and endorsed Donald Trump, the former president’s campaign on Sunday sent a fundraising text to supporters to raise money off the Florida governor’s support.?

“Ron DeSantis endorses ME! It was a hard-fought race, but now it’s time for us TO UNITE AS A PARTY AND DEFEAT JOE BIDEN!” the fundraising appeal read.?

The message also called on voters to help wrap up the Republican primary early by donating to Trump’s campaign.

“The New Hampshire primary is ON TUESDAY. If we’re going to wrap up the primaries, it will be all because of what you do?right here, right now,”?it said.

President Joe Biden delivers remarks at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 8.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna told progressives to vote for the President Joe Biden even if they don’t fully agree with him, becoming is the latest surrogate to join the grassroots effort in New Hampshire to write in Biden’s name on the Democratic primary ballot Tuesday.

The California lawmaker, who appeared at multiple events this weekend, said a win in New Hampshire would set the course for the president’s reelection campaign. Khanna repeated the mantra many involved in the effort have adopted when asked how well the president needs to perform as a write-in candidate: “A win is a win.”

Khanna said though he is more politically progressive than Biden, “you can be more progressive and support this president for what he has achieved and what he’s going to achieve, in contrast to the alternative, which is gonna be Donald Trump.”

He told young voters and progressives, groups where the president’s approval rating has been suffering, that “you don’t have to agree 100%.”

Read more about the write-in effort here.

Inside the Farm Bar & Grille in Manchester, New Hampshire, where Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was set to appear Sunday night — before he dropped out of the race —supporters, state representatives and some campaign staff gathered in a private room.?

“People feel like they gave it their all,” Michael Gorecki, the DeSantis campaign’s New Hampshire state director, told CNN. “While there’s disappointment, there’s great hope for the future.”?

One DeSantis supporter at the restaurant said she was surprised when he dropped out of the race.?

“Well, I was surprised like everybody else,” Jeanine Notter told CNN. “I was under the impression that he was going to stay in it until Super Tuesday.”?

Notter, who had a “DeSantis for President” sign tucked under her arm, said she would now be voting for former President Donald Trump in New Hampshire’s Republican primary.

“President Trump is so far ahead of everybody else, I think he realized, that’s what he said, that there was no path to victory,” Notter said, adding she hopes DeSantis runs in four years.

At the restaurant, people were drinking beers around tables and chatting with one another as the Tampa v. Detroit football game played. Pizza, chicken tenders and other small plates were passed out. The gathering is open to supporters and anyone who RSVP’d to the event but closed to press.?

The race for the Republican presidential nomination is down to two major candidates. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he is ending his campaign Sunday, nearly a week after his underwhelming performance in?Iowa.

In a?video?on X, DeSantis said there was no clear path to presidential success for his campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump.

The announcement comes just days before Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire, where former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley hopes to close the gap with Trump.

Here’s what to know:

Other headlines from the campaign trail:

Former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ supporters in the latest CNN New Hampshire poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire are reallocated to their second choice candidate, former President Donald Trump’s double-digit lead over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley among likely Republican primary voters widens slightly.

Trump’s support ticks up from 50% to 54%, while Haley shifts from 39% to 41%. Another 3% of likely GOP primary voters say they’d vote for someone else.

The poll asked voters who they would support if their top choice was no longer in the race. DeSantis suspended his campaign Sunday, a few hours after the poll’s findings were first released.

The Florida governor was the first choice of 6% of likely New Hampshire GOP primary voters, and his supporters generally tilted toward Trump over Haley in their second choices. The survey was fielded from January 16 through January 19.

Shifting DeSantis backers to their second choices doesn’t materially change the dynamics of the race, and if anything, pushes Trump and Haley’s opposing coalitions a bit further apart.

Among registered Republicans, for example, Trump’s support ticks to 72% from 67%, while Haley’s backing among those who are registered as undeclared stands at 60% instead of 58%. And Trump’s support among the state’s conservative likely GOP primary voters climbs to 77% from 71%, while Haley holds 72% among moderate likely Republican primary voters, similar to her level of support initially.

The CNN poll conducted by UNH was conducted online among 2,348 New Hampshire adults drawn from a probability-based panel. The 1,210 likely Republican primary voters were identified through survey questions about their intention to vote. Results for that group have an error margin of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announces he is dropping out of the presidential race in a video posted to X on January 21.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sunday dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. In a video announcing his exit, he quoted Winston Churchill. Or did he?

In a video?posted to X, DeSantis said, “Winston Churchill once remarked that ‘success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.’ While this campaign has ended, the mission continues down here in Florida. We will continue to show the country how to lead.”

The International Churchill Society, which dubs itself “the world’s preeminent member organisation dedicated to preserving the historic legacy of Sir Winston Churchill,” maintains a list of quotes falsely attributed to the legendary World War II British prime minister.

The society’s website says that it can find no attribution for the “success is not final” quote, nor for a related statement sometimes attributed to Churchill: “Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”

According to the International Churchill Society, those lines “are found nowhere in his canon.”

“An almost equal number of sources found online credit these sayings to Abraham Lincoln — but we have found none that provides any attribution in the Lincoln Archives,” it adds.

Following Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ exit from the GOP presidential primary, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said she hopes to bring in some of DeSantis’ supporters by pitching herself as the most electable candidate, arguing voters backed DeSantis in part because “they don’t want to lose.”??

“I think that they love America, and I think they want a new generational leader,” Haley told CNN’s Dana Bash after a campaign stop in Seabrook, New Hampshire.

“Look at the fact that we could actually win, and I think that’s what Ron DeSantis’ supporters want. They don’t want to lose,” she added.?

Haley said she plans to stay in the race through Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary and next month’s primary in her home state of South Carolina.

Haley said she sees President Joe Biden as equally unfit for the presidency as former President Donald Trump, leaning into her pitch for a new generation of leadership by arguing “if either one of them was good, I wouldn’t be running.”?

Former President Donald Trump said Sunday he is “very honored” to have the endorsement of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after he announced he is suspending his presidential campaign.?

Trump and his campaign team had been preparing for DeSantis to drop out of the race over the past 24 hours, according to a senior adviser. Still, DeSantis did not give the former president’s team a heads-up before the endorsement.

President Joe Biden speaks at an event in Raleigh, North Carolina, on January 18.

President Joe Biden’s campaign had, at one point, binders of research on all Republican candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. And they had taken opportunities earlier in the race to lambast the governor’s record on education and “anti-woke” policies in Florida.

But it had long become clear to Biden’s advisers that DeSantis was unlikely to become the Republican nominee, and they have increasingly turned their attention to Donald Trump as their likeliest rival in November, with less attention paid to other contenders.

While the Biden campaign responds in near-real time to Trump at his rallies and his media appearances on Twitter, they have mostly ignored DeSantis for a while.

This Biden campaign is eager for the race to become a one-on-one choice — fulfilling Biden’s long-stated entreaty to voters to not “compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative.”

The campaign has been grappling with the research showing many undecided voters still don’t believe Trump will emerge as the nominee. Until those voters begin paying more attention, Biden advisers believe it will be difficult to convince people of the stakes of the election.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ short trip back to Florida on Thursday was a resetting moment for him where, for the first time, he seriously entertained conversations about dropping out,?according to a source with knowledge of the matter.?

DeSantis met with a very small group of his closest advisers, collected his thoughts, and ultimately “determined it’s in his best interest to get back to governing,” the source said. They described the mood around DeSantis’ advisers as “disappointing, but the belief had set in” that his campaign was over.

DeSantis called top donors personally Sunday and told them that he woke up in the morning and decided there was no path to winning and it was time to get out, two Republican donors with knowledge of the calls told CNN.?

DeSantis told the donors there was no reason to waste his time and money staying in a race with former President Donald Trump, recalling how he kept hearing from attendees at his events that, “If it wasn’t for Trump, I would vote for you.”

The two sources said DeSantis knows he is young — and if he is to have a chance at winning the GOP presidential nomination in 2028, he needed to endorse Trump.

CNN’s Steve Contorno reports:

- Source: cnn " data-fave-thumbnails="{"big": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/d14a8fe3-f712-404c-b29b-d4bfb5ec941c.png?c=16x9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill" }, "small": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/d14a8fe3-f712-404c-b29b-d4bfb5ec941c.png?c=16x9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill" } }" data-vr-video="false" data-show-html="" data-byline-html="" data-timestamp-html="" data-check-event-based-preview="" data-is-vertical-video-embed="false" data-network-id="" data-publish-date="2024-01-21T20:55:35.420Z" data-video-section="" data-canonical-url="" data-branding-key="" data-video-slug="contorno-desantis" data-first-publish-slug="contorno-desantis" data-video-tags="" data-details="">

Video Ad Feedback

e41e6b5d-c823-4efe-9760-893578d8d517.mp4

02:34 - Source: cnn

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley holds up two fingers as she speaks in Seabrook, New Hampshire, on January 21. Haley addressed the news of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropping out of the presidential race, gesturing to indicate that it is now a two-person race.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, reacting to Ron DeSantis ending his presidential campaign Sunday, said the Florida governor “ran a great race,” while her campaign said his exit will mean little for Haley’s chances in the election.

She added, “This comes down to: What do you want? Do you want more of the same or do you want something new?”

Haley’s campaign says it does not think DeSantis dropping out means much for Haley because they believe that DeSantis supporters are likely to split evenly for Donald Trump and Haley. They also point to how low DeSantis is polling, meaning that any support he has isn’t hugely significant.

Campaign officials say this means there is truly only one other option now for voters who don’t want Trump or President Joe Biden.?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his team did not give former President Donald Trump or his senior advisers a heads up that DeSantis was going to endorse Trump, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.?

Earlier Sunday, one of Trump’s senior advisers was asked by reporters about a potential endorsement from DeSantis. “That would be news to me,” the adviser quipped.?

Former President Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on January 17.

Former President Donald Trump and his campaign team had been preparing for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to drop out of the race over the past 24 hours.

Trump is expected to release a statement on social media addressing the suspension of DeSantis’ campaign, two sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.

“The rumors were hot and heavy throughout the weekend, so we had expected this,” a senior Trump campaign adviser told CNN shortly after DeSantis announced he was dropping out of the race.

Trump viciously attacked DeSantis throughout his White House bid, focusing the majority of his attacks on the governor in the lead up to the Iowa caucuses. Many of those attacks stemmed from Trump’s personal animosity toward DeSantis for being “disloyal” by running against him after Trump had endorsed DeSantis for governor in 2017, according to multiple Trump campaign advisers and people close to the former president.

A big question now is whether Trump can look beyond his personal grievances and view DeSantis as a potential surrogate, Trump’s allies and advisers said.

“It’s always been personal with Trump,” a person close to Trump told CNN, noting that the former president and his team didn’t just want to hurt DeSantis’s presidential candidacy, but also his political future beyond 2024.

Immediately after DeSantis suspended his campaign, a Trump adviser maintained that despite DeSantis’s endorsement of Trump, it’s still unclear whether the former president may ultimately embrace the Florida governor moving forward.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a campaign visit in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on January 20.

The decision by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to end his presidential campaign came after days of conversations with donors and as his campaign and a trio of allied super PACs spent tens of millions of dollars organizing and advertising for his bid.?

DeSantis and his wife, Casey, made the decision Sunday afternoon, surprising many of his rank-and-file staffers and supporters.?

“The money wasn’t there to continue,” one top DeSantis donor told CNN.?

According to AdImpact data, through Sunday, the DeSantis campaign and three super PACs formed to support him – Never Back Down, Fight Right and Good Fight – had spent more than $60 million on pro-DeSantis advertising.?

Never Back Down, the first super PAC formed to support DeSantis’ White House bid, had?faced criticism?of its resource management, and went through significant staff turmoil.?

That’s despite the fact that the super PAC?initially received?more than $80 million that DeSantis had amassed during his time as governor of Florida, a massive stockpile of funds that allowed the group to hit the ground running with lavish TV ads, a large staff and even to provide some campaign infrastructure.?

Including that haul, Federal Election Commission records show that Never Back Down raised $130 million during the first half of 2023, and entered July of last year with nearly $100 million in cash on hand.?

Meanwhile, the DeSantis campaign itself had raised more than $31 million through midyear, per FEC records, but a portion of those funds were available for use only in the general election. And the campaign entered the fourth quarter of last year facing a real cash crunch, with only $5 million in cash on hand for use in the presidential primary as of September 30. The campaign had not yet announced how much it raised in the fourth quarter of last year.?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis endorsed former President Donald Trump in the video ending his campaign.

“I’m proud to have delivered on 100% of my promises and I will not stop now. It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance. … While I’ve had disagreements with Donald Trump, such as on the coronavirus pandemic and his elevation of Anthony Fauci, Trump is superior to the current incumbent Joe Biden. That is clear,” he said in his video on X.

“I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge. He has my endorsement, because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear or repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.”

At this point there are no plans for DeSantis to appear with Trump in New Hampshire before Tuesday’s primary, according to two sources familiar.?One source cautioned that could always change.?

A CNN poll released earlier Sunday found Trump with 50% support among likely Republican primary voters in the New Hampshire, while his closest competitor, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, stood at 39%.?

DeSantis stood at just 6% in the poll, below the 10% minimum support he would need to win delegates there per the Republican Party’s rules.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds a town hall in Hampton, New Hampshire, on January 17.

Florida Gov. Ron?DeSantis, who entered the Republican presidential primary as Donald Trump’s greatest threat, announced?Sunday?he is?ending?his White House bid nearly a week after his underwhelming performance in?Iowa.

In a?video?on X, DeSantis said there was no clear path to presidential success for his campaign.

“If there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome, more campaign stops, more interviews, I would do it, but I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don’t have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign,” DeSantis said.

“Winston Churchill once remarked that success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. While this campaign has ended, the mission continues down here in Florida. We will continue to show the country, how to lead. Thank you and God bless.”

It’s a devastating blow to the promising career of a once-rising GOP star, and his failure to reach the lofty expectation of his candidacy has already sparked a wave of second-guessing from close allies and advisers. Some believe?DeSantis?took too long to attack Trump. Others think his team underestimated former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

More remain convinced that there was nothing?DeSantis?could have done to wrestle the party from Trump’s loyal and sizable followers.

DeSantis is in Florida tonight following his decision to suspend his campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

CNN’s Jessica Dean and Kit Maher contributed to this report.

Video: Dana Bash calls it a stunning decline

- Source: cnn " data-fave-thumbnails="{"big": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/d4da2e23-3c26-4469-a183-6b5be46c4447.png?c=16x9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill" }, "small": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/d4da2e23-3c26-4469-a183-6b5be46c4447.png?c=16x9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill" } }" data-vr-video="false" data-show-html="" data-byline-html="" data-timestamp-html="" data-check-event-based-preview="" data-is-vertical-video-embed="false" data-network-id="" data-publish-date="2024-01-21T22:44:47.232Z" data-video-section="" data-canonical-url="" data-branding-key="" data-video-slug="bash-desantis-reaction" data-first-publish-slug="bash-desantis-reaction" data-video-tags="" data-details="">

Video Ad Feedback

00d487bb-2109-4f83-964c-72849c627b0f.mp4

01:02 - Source: cnn

As we approach the New Hampshire primary, here’s a look at the participation rules for Republican nominating contests between now and the end of March.

Thirty-six states and territories will hold Republican nominating contests between New Hampshire on Tuesday and Louisiana on March 23.?

Of those, 11 are closed, meaning only registered party members can participate (although some allow party switching on the day of the contest), and 22 are either open to all voters or semi-open, meaning that Republicans and unaffiliated voters can participate.

In many states with open primaries, voters don’t formally register with a party with the state. Information for three contests isn’t currently available.

While the early states are important for building momentum, the bulk of the delegates will be awarded in March.?

By the end of Super Tuesday, on March 5, 1,205 of the Republican convention’s 2,429 delegates will have been awarded, or 99% of the 1,215 needed to win the nomination.?

Former President Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Atkinson, New Hampshire, on January 16.

Former President Donald Trump defended his mocking of GOP rival Nikki Haley’s given name, telling Fox News in an interview that aired Sunday that it’s “a little bit of a takeoff on her name … wherever she may come from.”

Haley is the daughter of Indian immigrants and was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She has gone by “Nikki” since her childhood and took her husband Michael Haley’s last name after they married.

Trump first referred to Haley’s first name by misspelling it as “Nimrada” in a post to his social media platform Truth Social last week and later referred to her as “Nimbra,” in the latest examples of him using racist dog whistles to attack his opponents.

“I do that with a lot of people, like (former Arkansas Gov. Asa) Hutchinson. I mean, he was polling at zero for one year, and I called him — rather than Asa, I called him Aida Hutchinson, and it just felt good to me,” Trump told Brett Baier during an interview on the sidelines of his rally in Manchester on Saturday.

During the interview, Trump also responded to Haley’s claim that the name-calling is a sign the former president feels threatened by her, arguing he’s “not concerned with her at all.”

President Joe Biden on Sunday latched on to Donald Trump confusing Nikki Haley with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when talking about the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Biden, in a post on X, said, “I don’t agree with Nikki Haley on everything, but we agree on this much: She is not Nancy Pelosi.”

The post included a video of Haley’s response to Trump’s confusion and a number of other instances of Trump appearing or sounding incoherent.?

Biden’s campaign has been ramping up its portrayals of Trump as confused, rambling or weakened mentally. It’s a strategy that appears at least in part designed to blunt attacks on Biden for his age.??

The New Hampshire Republican presidential primary is just two days away, and representatives for the major candidates were busy Sunday with TV appearances and campaign events.

Here’s a roundup of recent comments from key players:

DeSantis surrogate Rep. Massie says, “We never had high expectations for New Hampshire anyway”

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a surrogate for Ron DeSantis’ campaign, said Sunday the Florida governor “never had high expectations for New Hampshire anyway,” after a?new CNN poll?showed him standing?at just 6%, below the 10% minimum support he would need to win delegates in the Granite State, per the Republican Party’s rules.

When asked whether DeSantis canceled his appearances on the Sunday shows because he did not want to talk about his “dire” poll numbers, Massie focused his attention on former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who stands with 39%?support among likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire to Donald Trump’s 50%.

Massie said Haley is “going to miss expectations and not even win her own state.”

Haley surrogate Rep Norman: Trump is attacking Haley because “he knows she is a serious threat”

Haley campaign surrogate Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina said Trump is escalating attacks against the former South Carolina governor “because she’s gaining in the polls and he knows she is a serious threat,” adding, “it’s a two-person race now.”

Norman is one of the South Carolina’s notable Republicans still sticking with Haley, even after South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott recently threw his support behind Trump. The state’s governor, Henry McMaster, has also endorsed the former president, as has Sen. Lindsey Graham.?

Norman credited his pivot to supporting Haley over Trump to her youth, telling Fox News on Sunday, “She’s got the ‘it’ factor.”?

Trump surrogate Sen. Vance says Haley “just hasn’t faced” attacks that Trump has

Trump campaign surrogate Sen. JD Vance of Ohio brushed off voter concerns that the former president has too much baggage and argued that Haley is “the candidate the Democrats haven’t teed off on.”

“Nikki does have baggage, she just hasn’t faced the onslaught of years of media attacks, of super PAC attacks, that Donald Trump has faced,” Vance said.

As for the upcoming contest in New Hampshire, a state that allows independents to participate in the primary process, Vance accused some of those voters of being “liberals” who moved to New Hampshire from Massachusetts and insinuated Haley’s campaign strategy is “getting liberals to vote for you in a Republican primary,” adding “it doesn’t work nationally.”?

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said abortion is “on this ballot for all of us” in 2024 and that it wouldn’t hurt for President Joe Biden to speak on the issue more.?

“If a Donald Trump is president, or any of the people on the Republican side right now, unfortunately, they are going to promote an abortion ban for all of us,” she said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.?

The Democratic governor reiterated her support — and the president’s — for legal abortion rights. But she said “I think it would be good”?if Biden were more vocal about the issue.

“I think people want to know that this is a president that is fighting. And I think he has said that, to use maybe more blunt language, maybe that would be helpful. But that’s his position. And that’s why I am absolutely confident that when people see this matchup and really understand the stakes of this upcoming election, that, too, could be a motivator for people to come out and vote.”

The Biden campaign is aiming to put reproductive rights front and center in the 2024 race,?CNN reported, including with events headlined by the president and vice president, and beginning with an abortion-focused ad featuring stark, emotional testimony from a woman personally affected by a state abortion ban who?lays the blame directly on former President Donald Trump.

Campaign signs asking voters to write in President Joe Biden in the New Hampshire primary election stand along the road in Loudon, New Hampshire, on January 19.

New Hampshire?Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan?said Sunday the Democratic National Committee made a “terrible decision” by not including President?Joe Biden?on the state’s Democratic primary ballot.

Hassan said there is a “passionate commitment to democracy” on the ground in New Hampshire despite Biden’s being a write-in candidate.

Hassan?added that Democrats are optimistic?Biden will still?do well in the state.

“Write-in campaigns are really tough, but we are feeling really good about what we’re seeing on the ground,” Hassan said. “But again, write-in campaigns are tough — but that’s why it’s so important for Democrats and Independents, given the stakes in this election, to go to the polls on Tuesday, go down the list, fill in the circle for write-in and write in Joe Biden’s name.”??

Rep. Anne McLane Kuster?of?New Hampshire called the move “shortsighted” as she made the case for why New Hampshire should have remained the first in the nation primary for Democratic politics.?

“I think it’s something that could’ve been avoided and we certainly did everything that we could to make the case,”?Kuster told CNN.?“The New Hampshire primary is part of a rich tradition in Democratic politics of a big tent.”??

When asked if she was worried this could hurt Biden electorally come November, Kuster warned that it could put the state’s four electoral votes at risk.?

“By the way, four electoral voters but they’re precious, if Al Gore had had the four electoral votes, he wouldn’t have needed Florida to win the presidency. So this could be a very close election next November,”?she said.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley continued on Sunday to cast doubt on former President Donald Trump’s mental fitness, denying that doing so is “disrespectful.”

“There have been multiple things,” the former South Carolina governor told CBS’s “Face the Nation,” listing off recent Trump gaffes including his saying that President Joe Biden would get the country into World War II; that he ran against former President Barack Obama; and that Haley interfered with Capitol security on January 6, appearing to confuse her with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“Look, I don’t know if he was confused. I don’t know what happened. But it should be enough to send us a warning sign,” she continued. Haley also claimed Biden is “very different than he was two years ago.”

“Are we really gonna go into a situation where we have wars around the world and we’re trying to prevent war, and we’re gonna have someone who we can or can’t be sure that they’re gonna get confused?” she asked, adding “It’s a real issue. That’s not being disrespectful. It’s just a fact.”

Pressed whether she ever questioned Trump’s mental fitness when she served in his cabinet, she answered, “I called him out if he was doing something wrong.”

“But this is different. I mean, we’re seeing he’s just not at the same level he was in 2016. I think we’re seeing some of that decline,” she said.

President Joe Biden departs after attending Mass in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on January 20.

Michigan Democrats are concerned about President Joe Biden’s standing in their critical swing state as the 2024 presidential election looks increasingly like a Biden-Trump rematch.?

Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan told CNN’s Manu Raju there’s “no question” that “we’ve got work to do” as Democrats face a potential enthusiasm problem with Biden on the top of the ticket.?

And Rep. Hillary Scholten, who represents Michigan’s third district, acknowledged concerns about Biden’s polling and said that “absolutely” she believes he needs to be visiting the state more as the election goes into full gear.?

“You know, obviously we see the polls and they’re not good. But you know, we, we see a trend happening particularly in the west side of the state where individuals are increasingly rejecting the type of extremism that you, is embodied in today’s Republican party,” Scholten said.?

Scholten also said that Biden can “absolutely not” win the presidency without Michigan, adding: “And I don’t think he can win without West Michigan.”

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley shows her appreciation for the crowd singing "Happy Birthday" to her during a campaign event in Peterborough, New Hampshire, on January 20.

Republican presidential candidate?Nikki?Haley?picked up the endorsement of the?New?Hampshire?Union?Leader’s editorial board on Sunday, just days before the first-in-the-nation primary.

The paper’s typically conservative editorial board not only touts?Haley’s background and credentials, but also contrasts her with the leading two candidates in each party – incumbent President Joe Biden and GOP frontrunner former President Donald Trump.

“Nikki?Haley?is an opportunity to vote for a candidate rather than against those two,” it says.

Underscoring?Haley’s central argument that she can bring generational change that the country needs, the endorsement argues, “putting?forward a rematch of the last election means putting an octogenarian in the White House and putting a less-than-capable vice president in the on-deck circle.”

“New?Hampshire?can prove that nothing is inevitable,” it reads, as?Haley?faces a showdown with Trump, who remains widely popular in her home state of South Carolina.

The paper’s editorial board backed Joe Biden in the 2020 general election, endorsing a Democrat for the first time in more than 100 years.

Sen. Tim Scott is pictured on CNN's "State of the Union" during an interview on January 21.

Fresh off his recent endorsement of former President Donald Trump, Sen. Tim Scott is defending the former president’s recent attacks against Nikki Haley, including references to her birth name and questioning her citizenship.

When asked if he thinks Trump’s comments are appropriate, Scott said:?“I think there’s so much negativity and toxicity in this aim to becoming president again,?or for the first time,?that we should be very clear, and look at both sides of the comments made.”?

Scott told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday that he endorsed Trump for president because he has worked with?him?in the past and while he was president the country had a “stronger economy, a healthy military and a safer world.”?

“I say that because I worked with President Trump on really important issues impacting American voters and American families,” Scott said.?

Scott’s endorsement earlier this week surprised?some, as Haley had appointed Scott to the Senate?when she?was the governor of South Carolina. Haley indicated yesterday she was disappointed in Scott’s endorsement. Scott told CNN he texted Haley the day before he made his announcement endorsing Trump for president.?

Republican lawmakers are split on whether to support former President Donald Trump if he’s convicted of a crime before Election Day, even as Trump is getting a rush of endorsements on Capitol Hill.?

Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, who has come out to endorse Trump, said he would “absolutely” support Trump “even if he’s convicted.”?

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, another staunch Trump ally, echoed the unfounded allegations that the charges against Trump are purely political.?

“I fully expect one of these political prosecutions they’re going to manage to get a prosecution somewhere, somehow, some way,” he told CNN, adding: “Yeah, on totally trumped up charges.”?

But while other members of Congress have been less full throated in their support for Trump, they wouldn’t say if they would support the former president if he was convicted.?

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who’s part of the Senate GOP leadership team, said he would “cross that bridge when we come to it.”?And Rep. Dusty Johnson said that, for him, it depends ultimately on what the conviction would be.?

Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee said he wasn’t endorsing Trump yet but “I plan on very soon.” And Senator Mike Braun of Indiana emphasized that he would support whoever the Republican nominee is and that it’s likely to be Trump.?

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is endorsed by New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu at a campaign town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, on December 12.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said he believes former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley can still win the New Hampshire Republican primary, but reiterated that she doesn’t “have to win” in order to gain momentum heading into future primary contests.??

Sununu clarified his expectations for Haley’s performance in New Hampshire in an interview with NBC News on Sunday after initially forecasting a victory for Haley in the state shortly after he announced his endorsement of Haley last year.

Sununu touted the strength of Haley’s campaign, pointing to her gains in New Hampshire, the narrowing of the primary field and the relatively underwhelming poll numbers for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as evidence.?

“The fact that she’s knocked all the other candidates out, nobody thought that was possible, but she’s really knocked everybody out. Even Ron, I mean, he’s in it, but he’s not really in it,” he said.?

Sununu said it won’t be critical for Haley to win primary contests until the slate of Super Tuesday primaries in March.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum speaks at an event in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 28.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a former longshot GOP presidential candidate, characterized former President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on Nikki Haley’s heritage as “the norm for politics” in a Sunday interview.

“Joe Biden launched his campaign a couple weeks ago with a set of personal attacks on President Trump,” Burgum said on ABC “This Week.”

His defense of Trump comes as the former president used Nikki Haley’s birth name, “Nimarata,” in a post?on his social media platform Truth Social?(though he misspelled Nimarata as Nimrada) and disseminated false conspiracy theories that the former UN ambassador is ineligible from holding office because of her immigrant parents’ citizen status at the time of her birth in South Carolina.

Haley was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, and is a US citizen.

Burgum, who endorsed the former president on the eve of his decisive victory in the Iowa caucuses, initially dodged an inquiry about Trump’s attacks, saying, “All I know is that I believe the primary election is going to be over after Tuesday.”

Pushed by ABC’s Martha Raddatz to offer a reason for the former president’s rhetoric, Burgum said, “I think it’s politics.” He argued former Biden challengers – such as Vice President Harris – said “vicious things” about the president during national debates leading up to the 2020 election.

Former President Donald Trump, left, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron Desantis.

If the New Hampshire primary results come in on Tuesday night looking like our final CNN/UNH poll results today, there is going to be one question hanging over the race for the Republican presidential nomination: Is it over?

Nikki Haley has said plainly that “the road is never going to stop.” Ron DeSantis has indicated that he intends on competing for delegates at least through the month of March.

But it is hard to imagine how Haley and DeSantis continue to fund their campaigns at a competitive level, never mind convincing Republican voters and power brokers that there is a rationale to continue onward following?back-to-back sizable Donald Trump victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, where the former president collects a majority of the votes and the delegates.

There has never been a non-incumbent Republican candidate for president who has won both Iowa and New Hampshire.?In fact, in modern presidential campaign history, since the Iowa caucuses have served as the official kickoff followed by the New Hampshire primary, the two people who have won both contests outright were Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry, both of whom went on to become their party’s nominee.

In the new CNN/UNH poll, there is one finding that really pops out to me as a very telling element in this race: When we asked likely GOP primary voters for their overall opinion of the candidates, Donald Trump’s favorability rating is in a different stratosphere than his competitors.

The relentless pounding of DeSantis by Trump and his allies for the better part of the last year and the more recent takedown of Haley by Trump and his allies in the last two to three months have had their intended effect in bringing up their negative ratings.

But the strategic decision by both DeSantis and Haley to only sharpen their criticism of Trump at the very end of these contests is also on display here.

The constant concern that taking on Trump directly would push away some of the very voters they were spending much of 2023 trying to attract has left Trump’s popularity with Republicans largely unscathed, if not improved.

Perhaps there was no way for any candidate to truly chip away at Trump’s incredible bond with the majority of Republican voters, but it is also clear that not attempting to do that for the entire year before voting began leaves these non-Trump candidates with very limited options for a path forward in this campaign.

A top Biden?campaign manager said Sunday this election is not “going to be about age” when asked about recent polling that suggests that President Joe Biden’s mental acuity is a big concern among voters.

Biden principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks told ABC’s “This Week”?that Biden’s age has helped him bring “people together from both sides of the aisle to deliver results for the American people.”

“Our opponents are hammering that because they have no platform and nothing else to think about,” he?said. “I’m sure it’s much easier for them to talk about age than it is to talk about the fact that they want to rip away a woman’s right to choose or take away reproductive freedom from a third of women across this country that are living under a national abortion ban because of Donald Trump.”?

He continued: “This election is about freedom and democracy and the fact that Democrats under President Biden’s leadership believe that people deserve more freedom, not less and Republicans want to roll that back and rip it away.”

These comments come just a?couple?days before Biden is expected to hold a joint event with Vice President Kamala Harris where they will focus on abortion rights.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris hold an event at the White House in Washington, DC, on September 22.

The Biden campaign will hit the airwaves in battleground states with its first abortion-focused ad of the year,?featuring stark,?emotional?testimony?from a woman personally affected by a state abortion ban who lays the blame directly on former President Donald Trump.

It comes as the campaign is launching a full-court press this week to put abortion rights front and center in the 2024 race, including with?events headlined?by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The push?marks the campaign’s first organized effort to?emphasize the issue, seeking to further galvanize voters?around reproductive rights in the first presidential election?after the Supreme Court ended the federal constitutional right to an abortion.

The minutelong ad, titled “Forced” and shared first with CNN,?features an emotional direct-to-camera testimonial from Dr. Austin Dennard, a Texas?OB-GYN and mother who traveled out of her state, which has a strict abortion ban, to terminate her pregnancy after learning her fetus had a fatal condition. Dennard calls the situation “every woman’s worst nightmare” and criticizes Trump for?the overturning of Roe v. Wade.?The former president has taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade?due to the justices he appointed to the Supreme Court, recently saying in a Fox News town hall, “For 54 years they were trying to get?Roe?v.?Wade?terminated, and I did it. And I’m proud to have done it.”

“Two years ago, I became pregnant with a baby I desperately wanted,” Dennard says in the ad. “At a routine ultrasound, I learned that the fetus would have a fatal condition and that there was absolutely no chance of survival.

“In Texas you are forced to carry that pregnancy, and that is because of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade,” Dennard says as an image of Trump flashes across the screen. “The choice was completely taken away.”

Biden campaign officials hope stories like Dennard’s will resonate with voters heading into November’s election as the campaign looks to stress Trump and other Republicans have worked to limit reproductive rights. Democrats saw success around the issue of abortion in the 2022 midterms and other recent elections, which the Biden campaign hopes to replicate in 2024.

About two-thirds, or 63%, of likely New Hampshire primary voters on the Democratic side say they plan to write in President Joe Biden on Tuesday’s ballot.

Biden did not file to be a candidate on the state’s primary ballot because the primary is in violation of the Democratic National Committee’s rules for the nomination process, but supporters have mounted a write-in effort on his behalf.

Most in the Democratic primary electorate say they would be at least satisfied with Biden as their party’s nominee – 70% say they would be enthusiastic or satisfied – but enthusiasm for Biden among Democratic primary voters, which is at 31%, is lower than enthusiasm for Trump on the GOP side, which is at 46%.

Read more from CNN’s New Hampshire poll here.

The race for the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary appears to be?former President Donald Trump’s to lose, according to a?new CNN poll?conducted by the University of New Hampshire following Trump’s 30-point win in Iowa’s caucuses last week.

For Trump’s opponents, New Hampshire has long appeared to be the place in the early primary calendar that offered the best shot at knocking him off track in his bid for a third straight GOP presidential nomination.?

Read more from CNN’s New Hampshire poll here.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, left, and former President Donald Trump.

Republican presidential candidate?Nikki Haley?on Saturday questioned Donald Trump’s mental fitness after he appeared to confuse her with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when talking about the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

“Last night, Trump is at a rally and he’s going on and on mentioning me several times as to why I didn’t take security during the Capitol riots. Why I didn’t handle January 6 better. I wasn’t even in DC on January 6. I wasn’t in office then,” Haley said.

Nancy Pelosi holds her final weekly press conference as Speaker of the House in Washington, DC, on December 22, 2022.

Her comments come after Trump said at a campaign rally in New Hampshire: “By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley … did you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it? All of it, because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security, we offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, national guards, whatever they want. They turned it down.”

Beyond confusing Haley with Pelosi, Trump’s contention that the speaker of the House?is responsible for US Capitol security is not accurate, as CNN previously?fact-checked.

Read more about Haley’s comments on Trump.

President Joe Biden speaks in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, on January 5.

Joe Biden’s?supporters would prefer that he win Tuesday’s Democratic?primary in New Hampshire. State Democratic leaders want that too. But?the trick for everyone involved has been figuring out how to make that happen, since?the president’s name doesn’t appear on the ballot.

That’s left the state’s Democratic establishment trying to spread the word about an unofficial campaign to write in Biden’s name — but not spread it so loudly that they risk embarrassing the president, and themselves,?if someone else — like?Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips?— wins.

Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips speaks during a campaign event at Post & Beam Brewing in Peterborough, New Hampshire, on January 17.

Biden did not register for the New Hampshire ballot following an internal party dispute over the date of the primary and the Democratic National Committee’s decision that the election?effectively won’t?count.?Still, the fear is that not winning here would feed the narrative that he is weak heading into the general election. And state Democratic leaders want to avoid a win by a newcomer that could undermine their case to the DNC that their first-in-the-nation primary should be reinstated in 2028.

The deliberately low-key effort has so far been mostly about setting up signs, hosting Zoom calls and a few house parties, like one last weekend when a state representative’s 60th?birthday party doubled as an organizing event. Hundreds of people have now trained on how to stand outside polling places on primary day and explain to voters how and why to write in Biden’s name.

Keep reading more about what Democrats are doing Tuesday.