The Run-Up

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Everything You Need to Know About New Hampshire Jan 23, 2024

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Warning: this episode contains strong language.

On Sunday, after a disappointing finish in the Iowa caucuses and with just two days to go before the New Hampshire primary, Ron DeSantis ended his campaign for president.

His decision made it official: The race for the Republican nomination is now a head-to-head contest between two wildly different candidates, Nikki Haley and Donald Trump.

And now, the famously independent New Hampshire voters are going to determine how serious a contest it is.

We’re looking for three big things.

First, how Haley’s recent change in tone and sharpening attacks on Trump will play with independents. Second, whether Trump is as dominant here as he was in Iowa. And third, what the Democrats are up to — since there’s a contest here on that side too.

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com

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It Was Only One State, Right? So Why Does This Primary Feel Over? Jan 18, 2024

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Going into the Iowa caucuses, there were a handful of key things we were watching for: Would the frigid weather hamper turnout? Would his overwhelming dominance in the polls translate to a decisive victory for Donald Trump? And finally, could the other candidates muster enough of a showing to keep the race alive?

Today: Through conversations with Iowa caucus goers — especially those who preferred another candidate to Trump — we get answers to our questions. And we check in with our colleague Nick Corasaniti in New Hampshire about how the state’s independents are approaching the primary next week — and how confident Trump is of a second early state victory.

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com

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The 'Run-Up' Guide to Iowa Jan 15, 2024

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Finally. More than a year after Donald Trump first announced his 2024 presidential run, six months after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida refocused his campaign strategy to be all-in on Iowa, and right in the midst of debilitating winter weather, the Iowa caucuses are upon us.

And “The Run-Up” has everything you need to know to understand what might happen today — and what it will mean for the race going forward.

What’s at stake is clear: Anyone who is going to slow Mr. Trump on his path to clinching the nomination has to get started in Iowa, with at least a close second-place finish. Going into the caucus, Mr. Trump has a dominant polling lead. But now it’s up to the voters.

Iowa voters tend to care more about candidates who can speak more to small-town and religious values. The state’s evangelical leaders have largely backed Mr. DeSantis, but evangelical voters themselves — including people coming out to Trump events in freezing temperatures in the last week — have largely backed Mr. Trump.

There are three big questions going into caucus day. One, will people come out and participate despite the weather? Two, are the campaigns organized enough to have made a successful last-minute push, to turn interest into actual votes? And three, will any of it matter, or will the freezing temperatures and snowdrifts mean that no matter the result, campaigns will excuse it away?

We’ll know the answers later this week.

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com

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‘Right Where We Want Him, 30 Points Up’: Chasing Trump in Iowa Jan 11, 2024

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At the start of the 2024 Republican primary campaign, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida was considered by many in his party to be the biggest threat to Donald Trump. He was seen as someone who could win over the voters who were tired of Trump’s antics, and also bring along the MAGA movement. But it didn’t work out that way. And as Mr. DeSantis has struggled, one main opponent, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, has seen her star — and her standing in the polls — rise.

Still, as the Trump alternatives crisscross Iowa and New Hampshire trying to appeal to voters, polling averages put the former president ahead by an average of 35 points.

Now, with just days to go until the Iowa caucuses, we ask: Did anti-Trump Republicans rally around the wrong candidates? And have they run out of time to fix it?

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com

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Is the 2024 Election Already Heading to the Supreme Court? Jan 04, 2024

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It’s the start of the actual election year — and a new chapter in the campaign.

Voting in early states is less than two weeks away. But, amid the crunchtime campaigning, another story line is unfolding.

Two states are saying that Donald Trump can’t be on the ballot … at all.

Officials in Colorado and Maine are basing this on a clause of the 14th Amendment, which bars candidates from holding office if they have engaged in insurrection.

The Trump campaign is appealing. And other states, like California and Michigan, have ruled the opposite way on the same issue. But with more than a dozen similar cases pending, the question is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court.

We speak to Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, about her decision to disqualify Trump from the 2024 primary ballot and to Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com

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In a Song of the Summer, Clues for January in Iowa Dec 28, 2023

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Last summer, politics, country music and cultural grievance collided with the growing popularity of a new song from recording artist Jason Aldean.

Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk

Carjack an old lady at a red light

Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store

Ya think it’s cool, well, act a fool if ya like

In the lyrics, Aldean lists behaviors he associates with cities, like lawlessness and disrespect for the flag or the police. And then he warns listeners of the consequences if they “try that in a small town.”

The song quickly hit the country music charts. Then, the music video was released.

In it, images of Aldean singing alternate with newsreel footage of looting, violence and scenes from the racial justice protests that took place during the summer of 2020.

The video was quietly edited to remove some of the more contested footage, but the battle lines had already been drawn. The song quickly gained popularity on the political right. And Republican primary candidates, including Donald Trump, began praising Aldean and playing the song at their events.

And so as we were thinking about how to understand the G.O.P. presidential primary, we saw that Jason Aldean would be performing at the Iowa state fair. And we knew we had to go.

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com

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How Iowa Learned to Love Trump Dec 21, 2023

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Iowa was supposed to be fertile ground for Donald Trump’s primary challengers. Its population is disproportionately evangelical, and voters were expected to coalesce around a more faith-driven alternative. But that’s not what’s happened.

This past summer, Trump was polling at around 42 percent in the state, a lead that has only continued to grow. Increasingly, it looks like Iowa is on track to coronate the former president.

So when we visited the state fair in August, it was less to follow around a bunch of the candidates while they were milking a cow or flipping a pork chop, but rather to ask Iowa’s voters: What’s different this time?

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com

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Why Anti-Trump Republicans Can’t Get on the Same Page Dec 14, 2023

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Watching the Republican primary debates can feel like a study in self sabotage. In the latest one, which Donald Trump skipped, the candidates spent most of their time attacking one another — not the guy who is 50 points ahead in the polls.

But there is a logic to it. Candidates are trying to position themselves as the party’s alternative to the former president. And to do that, they have to push one another aside and unite the roughly 40 percent of Republicans who are still up for grabs.

This week, we ask anti-Trump Republicans: What’s stopping their coalition from getting on the same page? And with the early contests fast approaching, is it too late? We travel to a debate night watch party for Nikki Haley in New Hampshire and check in with Bob Vander Plaats, an influential Iowa evangelical and supporter of Ron DeSantis.

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Inside Donald Trump’s Dominance of the G.O.P. Primary Dec 07, 2023

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There was a moment in early 2023 when Donald Trump seemed like a politician in decline.

And it wasn’t just his political opponents who thought so. National Republicans, who blamed Mr. Trump for the party’s run of bad results in the midterms, largely agreed.

But now it’s starting to set in: It appears the former president’s staying power was underestimated … again. Mr. Trump is the overwhelming favorite to be the Republican presidential nominee — and his supporters remain the most influential force in the party’s politics.

This week, through conversations at an event with South Carolina Republicans, we try to understand why the party continues to back an embattled Mr. Trump — and how it came to feel as though this primary ended before it even began. Then, Astead talks with Jonathan Swan, a New York Times political reporter, about how the Trump team has approached this campaign with discipline and strategy, and what it is planning should he win back the White House.

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Is Donald Trump Going to Prison? Nov 30, 2023

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The former president’s legal status is one of the biggest wild cards heading into 2024.

Even as he dominates the Republican primary and his party, Trump has been indicted on 91 felony charges, across four criminal cases in state and federal courts.

We spent a day talking to our colleagues in The Times’s newsroom, trying to get answers to questions it’s surreal to even be asking.

Among them: Are Republicans coalescing around a man who may soon be a convicted felon? And how much will Trump’s legal troubles collide with an election cycle that is unlike any we’ve seen before?

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