(WASHINGTON) — Sen. John Barrasso has became the highest-ranking Senate Republican to endorse former president Donald Trump’s reelection bid just days out from the Iowa caucuses.
“America was better off under President Donald Trump’s leadership,” Barrasso said in a statement Tuesday night. “Working with Republicans in Congress, President Trump created the strongest economy of a generation, secured our Southern Border against a lawless drug and crime invasion, and made America an energy dominant superpower.”
Barrasso also attacked Biden over inflation.
Trump thanked him on his social media platform.
“To know John is to both like and respect him, a truly extraordinary man,” Trump said on Truth Social.
The Wyoming lawmaker is the #3 Senate Republican, behind Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota. Barrasso, along with Thune and Texas Sen. Steve Daines, is viewed by some as one of McConnell’s possible successors should Senate Republicans lose confidence in their leader after the November election.
Thune previously backed South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s now-shuttered campaign, while McConnell has demurred from making a presidential endorsement so far.
But Barrasso, who is up for reelection himself this year in deep-red Wyoming, is not alone in the Senate. Twenty of the 49 Republican senators have publicly declared their support for Trump.
Trump remains the frontrunner ahead of the first state presidential ballots, continuing to consolidate support from key party figures such as Barrasso.
Not one senator has yet thrown support behind one of Trump’s nearest GOP rivals. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis both trail Trump by double digits in national polls and also have fewer endorsements in the House and from governors.
Speaker Mike Johnson is among almost 100 members of the House of Representatives who have endorsed Trump. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer endorsed him earlier this month, giving Trump an endorsement sweep of House GOP leadership.
Scalise and Emmer, the No. 2 and No. 3 House Republicans, endorsed Trump months after he helped sink their separate bids for House Speaker.
The former president spread doubts about Scalise’s health, invoking the congressman’s cancer diagnosis. And he publicly disparaged Emmer amid his speakership campaign. Emmer withdrew his candidacy hours after he was nominated.
Despite Barrasso’s backing, securing the endorsements of the full Senate GOP leadership heading into primary season may be more of a challenge for Trump. Along with McConnell and Thune, leadership members Sens. John Cornyn, Shelley Moore Capito and Joni Ernst are also still neutral.
ABC News’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Congressional Republicans are calling on top Defense Department officials to provide answers about who knew what and when about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s secret hospitalization for complications resulting from a prostate cancer treatment. This comes as the White House makes clear that despite making an “overt and genuine” effort to learn more about Austin’s condition, President Joe Biden did not find out about his cancer diagnosis until Tuesday.
“We are deeply troubled by the apparent breakdown in communications between your office and the rest of the Department of Defense, the White House, and Congress over the past two weeks,” Sen. Roger Wicker, the ranking Republican in the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote in a letter to Austin sent Wednesday.
“Further, the apparent failure to even notify your lawful successor in this case is a massive failure of judgment and negligence,” Wicker wrote in a letter signed by all the Republicans on the committee.
“It is an intolerable breach of trust with the American people at a dangerous moment for U.S. national security,” wrote Wicker.
Wicker labeled Austin’s initial public statement last week as “wholly insufficient.” Wicker requested that Pentagon officials who were involved in the notification process respond to his committee by Jan. 19 and answer questions related to the timing and notifications of Austin’s hospitalization and who made the decisions not to notify the White House and other senior Pentagon leaders.
The White House and President Joe Biden did not learn until Tuesday that Austin had prostate cancer and that complications from a surgical procedure to treat it had resulted in his ongoing hospitalization at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday.
Kirby told ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Selina Wang on Wednesday that Austin is a “key member of this administration, so we were all very curious as to what put him in the hospital.”
When asked what explanation the White House received from the Pentagon, Kirby simply reiterated that they didn’t get the information.
“There was no lack of curiosity on our part,” Kirby said.
On Tuesday, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., announced that he was also requesting answers from the Defense Department about the lack of transparency about Austin’s hospitalization.
Rogers wrote three letters to Austin, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and Austin’s chief of staff Kelly Magsamen requesting information regarding the events surrounding Austin’s hospitalization.
“It is unacceptable that neither the Department of Defense (‘Department’), the White House, nor the Congress were accurately informed of your position or capacity,” Rogers wrote in the letters. “With wars in Ukraine and Israel, the idea that the White House and even your own Deputy did not understand the nature of your condition is patently unacceptable.”
The Pentagon has launched a 30-day review of the circumstances behind the delayed notifications of Austin’s hospitalization and has put in place immediate changes to ensure that top Pentagon and White House leaders are notified promptly whenever the defense secretary’s authorities are transferred to the deputy secretary.
The White House has also ordered an administration-wide review of current policies for similar notifications at other federal agencies.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station on Jan. 8, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — House Republicans are moving ahead with impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as they continue to make immigration a key 2024 campaign issue.
House Homeland Security Committee Republicans opened Wednesday’s impeachment hearing against Mayorkas by rehashing familiar arguments that highlight the historically high levels of unauthorized migration across the southern border while Democrats continued to insist the proceedings are a sham.
The hearing comes after a yearlong probe to examine what the committee is calling the secretary’s “failed leadership” as the southwest border experienced a surge of migrants.
Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., played clips of Mayorkas discussing “operational control” of the U.S. border, which Congress has previously defined as zero illegal crossings. As Mayorkas has pointed out, under this definition, no administration has achieved operational control. At a previous hearing, Mayorkas said he believed there was a form of operational control and said he was not following the definition outlined in the dated statute.
Even still, Republicans have not identified a specific high crime or misdemeanor that Mayorkas committed. Chairman Green appeared to acknowledge as much.
“Secretary Mayorkas’ refusal to follow the law is sufficient grounds for impeachment proceedings,” Green said.
“The constitutional history is overwhelmingly clear on this subject,” he continued. “The founders designed impeachment not just to remove officials engaged in criminal behavior, but those guilty of such gross incompetence that their conduct had endangered their fellow Americans, betrayed the public trust and represented a neglect of duty.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, raised a number of procedural inquires about whether Mayorkas would have the ability to respond to evidence. Green dismissed the claim, saying the committee would “follow the rules of the House.”
Committee Democrats are united that the impeachment proceedings are unwarranted and purely the result of immigration policy disputes.
“It is now campaign season, and Republicans recently rolled out their impeachment proceedings against the secretary like the pre-planned, pre-determined political stunt it is,” Thompson said. “This is not a legitimate impeachment.”
“You cannot impeach a cabinet secretary because you don’t like the president’s policies,” Thompson said. “That’s not what impeachment is for. That’s not what the Constitution says.”
University of Missouri law professor and impeachment expert Frank Bowman, a witness at Wednesday’s hearing, echoed that argument, saying impeachable conduct does not apply to policy disputes or political debates.
“It is instead a measure of last resort reserved as one frame or put in for great and dangerous offenses,” Bowman said. “In other words, official misconduct, which is extraordinarily serious in degree and critically of a type that corrupts or subverts governmental processes or the constitutional order itself.”
Attorneys general of Montana, Oklahoma and Missouri also testified as witnesses. The three Republican leaders said Mayorkas has failed to enforce the law, and alleged he misled Congress when discussing “operational control” at the border.
Green, during a GOP visit to a Texas port of entry last week, accused Mayorkas of having “broken his oath to defend this country” and called him a threat to national security.
Mayorkas defended the administration’s work in his own visit to the Eagle Pass, Texas, entry point on Monday. He said the department’s taken “bold, necessary steps” while Congress has yet to pass legislation.
“Some have accused DHS of not enforcing our nation’s laws,” he said. “This could not be further from the truth.”
Migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border reached a record high in December. Sources told ABC News preliminary data showed there were 302,000 encounters last month.
Border Patrol apprehensions have decreased from the historic level, with agents apprehending about 3,244 migrants daily over the past week, according to internal data obtained and verified by ABC News. This past Sunday, agents recorded 2,729 apprehensions, a sharp decline from the two-decade record of nearly 11,000 in a single day last month.
House Republicans used a trip to the border last week to double down on their demands for tougher immigration restrictions as negotiations continue on a supplemental aid package focused on national security.
President Joe Biden last year laid out a package that included nearly $14 billion for the border to hire more agents and immigration judge teams, while also providing aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. But Republicans are tying the foreign aid to more sweeping legislative changes when it comes to immigration, such as more restrictive asylum guidelines.
“If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin by defending America’s national security,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
A group of senators have been working for weeks on finding compromise, and Congress returned to Washington this week after holiday recess. But disagreements over parole provisions has led to increasing pessimism that a deal can be struck by week’s end.
I just don’t see any way to be able to get that done this week,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said late Monday. “There’s a lot more that needs to get done. It starts speeding up, and they you hit a point that you realize now this is going a whole lot slower.”
Mayorkas has been involved in the negotiations, and said Monday the department needs more Border Patrol agents, case prosecutors, asylum officers and technology to combat the flow of fentanyl.
“We now need Congress to do their part and act,” he said. “Our immigration system is outdated and broken and has been in need of reform for literally decades. On this, everyone agrees.”
Mayorkas has long been a target of Republican ire over the border. The House GOP effort to oust him would be the first potential impeachment of a Cabinet official since Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876, though it’s unlikely Mayorkas would be convicted in a trial in the Democrat-led Senate.
ABC News’ Allison Pecorin and Mariam Khan contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Bob Menendez sought on Wednesday to dismiss the charges against him, arguing the government’s accusations that he sold his office and sold out his nation “are outrageously false, and indeed distort reality.”
Menendez has been charged with taking gifts — gold bars, wads of cash and luxury watches, among others — in exchange for doing official favors for New Jersey businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar. He is the first sitting member of Congress to ever be charged with conspiracy for a public official to act as a foreign agent.
Menendez has pleaded not guilty.
In his motion to dismiss, Menendez argued, “Every official act the Senator took represented his good-faith policy judgments based solely on appropriate considerations.”
The senator’s defense attorneys argued requiring him to stand trial would “offend the Constitution,” because the “Framers believed Members of Congress should be principally accountable to the people, not to other branches of government; legislators must explain their conduct to voters, not to overzealous prosecutors.”
There was no immediate comment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which brought the case and will file a response to the court.
The defense argued the second superseding indictment — there has since been a third — violated the Speech or Debate Clause that precludes drawing in question the legislative acts of a member of Congress.
“Yet the Second Superseding Indictment here does exactly that. It calls into question how the Senator, in his work with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, exercised his committee prerogatives. It casts doubt on how New Jersey’s senior Senator advised the President in connection with federal nominations in his State. And it heaps shade on how the Senator performed fact-finding and information-gathering in support of his legislative functions. All of this conduct is constitutionally immune,” Menendez argued.
The motion followed a lengthy speech on the Senate floor Tuesday in which Menendez declared his innocence and lashed out at prosecutors.
Menendez said he received “absolutely nothing” from Qatar and criticized what he argued is a relentless campaign by prosecutors to get him to resign.
“The United States Attorney’s Office is engaged not in a prosecution, but a persecution. They seek a victory, not justice,” Menendez said Tuesday. “It’s an unfortunate reality but prosecutors sometimes shoot first before they even know all the facts.”
(NEW YORK) — Hunter Biden made a surprise appearance Wednesday on Capitol Hill, defiantly walking into a House committee hearing centered on whether to hold him in contempt.
The move sparked outrage from Republicans, who’ve issued a congressional subpoena for him to sit for a closed-door deposition in their ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. The president’s son has said he would testify only in a public forum, and has previously castigated the probe as “illegitimate.”
“You’re the epitome of white privilege, coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a congressional subpoena to be deposed. What are you afraid of?” Republican Rep. Nancy Mace said just after he entered the room. She went on to say the younger Biden should be arrested and go “straight to jail.”
Mace was interrupted by another lawmaker, Democrat Jared Moskowitz, who said they could “hear from Hunter Biden right now” and called for a vote to have him speak.
Hunter Biden made his way into the hearing amid opening statements and took a seat in the front row. He was accompanied by his lawyer Abbe Lowell.
Hunter Biden left a short time after, when the chairman called on Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to speak.
“Excuse me, Hunter, apparently you’re afraid of my words,” Greene said.
Lowell then spoke to the press outside the hearing room, though Hunter Biden ignored shouted questions.
“Hunter Biden was and is a private citizen. Despite this, Republicans have sought to use him as a surrogate to attack his father,” Lowell said.
Lowell accused Republicans of caring “little about the truth” and trying to “hold someone in contempt, who has offered to publicly answer all their proper questions.”
Ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, the Oversight Committee released a 19-page report recommending he be held in contempt of Congress, as well as the text of the proposed resolution.
“Mr. Biden’s flagrant defiance of the Committees’ deposition subpoenas — while choosing to appear nearby on the Capitol grounds to read a prepared statement on the same matters — is contemptuous, and he must be held accountable for his unlawful actions,” the report stated.
Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News he has the votes to get the resolution out of committee.
A full vote on the House floor would be held at a later date. Comer said it could happen early next week.
Hunter Biden was subpoenaed to sit for the closed-door interview on Dec. 13 but instead held a defiant news conference just outside the U.S. Capitol.
“I am here to testify at a public hearing, today, to answer any of the committees’ legitimate questions,” he said. “Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say. What are they afraid of? I am here.”
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee’s top Democrat, also criticized Comer for “denying Hunter Biden the opportunity to answer all the Committee’s questions in front of the American people and the world.”
“Chairman Comer does not want Hunter Biden to testify in public, just as he has refused to publicly release over a dozen interview transcripts, because he wants to keep up the carefully curated distortions, blatant lies, and laughable conspiracy theories that have marked this investigation,” Raskin said in a statement.
Committee Republicans have countered that they are open to public testimony at an unspecified “future date” but “need not and will not accede to Mr. Biden’s demand for special treatment with respect to how he provides testimony.”
The Biden impeachment inquiry, launched unilaterally by ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy and then formalized months later by the House in a party-line vote, has yet to yield any concrete evidence to support GOP claims that Biden participated in and profited from his son and family’s foreign business dealings.
The House Oversight Committee report recommending a contempt charge stated Hunter Biden’s testimony is “necessary” to determine whether there are “sufficient grounds” for impeachment.
The committee has also subpoenaed President Biden’s brother, James Biden, and former Hunter Biden business associate Rob Walker. It also requested transcribed interviews with other members of the Biden family and Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter Biden.
ABC News’ Selina Wang and Lauren Peller contributed to this report.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station on Jan. 8, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — House Republicans are moving ahead with impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as they continue to make immigration a key 2024 campaign issue.
The House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday will hold its first hearing after a yearlong probe to examine what they are calling the secretary’s “failed leadership” as the southwest border experienced a surge of migrants.
Chairman Mark Green, R-Ga., during a GOP visit to a Texas port of entry last week, accused Mayorkas of having “broken his oath to defend this country” and called him a threat to national security.
Mayorkas defended the administration’s work in his own visit to the Eagle Pass, Texas, entry point on Monday. He said the department’s taken “bold, necessary steps” while Congress has yet to pass legislation.
“Some have accused DHS of not enforcing our nation’s laws,” he said. “This could not be further from the truth.”
Witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing will include attorneys general of Montana, Oklahoma and Missouri. The three Republican state officials have voiced criticism of the Biden administration’s handling of the border.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson blasted the hearing as a “political exercise” at taxpayers’ expense.
“There is no valid basis to impeach Secretary Mayorkas, as senior members of the House majority have attested, and this extreme impeachment push is a harmful distraction from our critical national security priorities,” the spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News.
Migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border reached a record high in December. Sources told ABC News preliminary data showed there were 302,000 encounters last month.
Border Patrol apprehensions have decreased from the historic level, with agents apprehending about 3,244 migrants daily over the past week, according to internal data obtained and verified by ABC News. This past Sunday, agents recorded 2,729 apprehensions, a sharp decline from the two-decade record of nearly 11,000 in a single day last month.
House Republicans used a trip to the border last week to double down on their demands for tougher immigration restrictions as negotiations continue on a supplemental aid package focused on national security.
President Joe Biden last year laid out a package that included nearly $14 billion for the border to hire more agents and immigration judge teams, while also providing aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. But Republicans are tying the foreign aid to more sweeping legislative changes when it comes to immigration, such as more restrictive asylum guidelines.
“If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin by defending America’s national security,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
A group of senators have been working for weeks on finding compromise, and Congress returned to Washington this week after holiday recess. But disagreements over parole provisions has led to increasing pessimism that a deal can be struck by week’s end.
I just don’t see any way to be able to get that done this week,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said late Monday. “There’s a lot more that needs to get done. It starts speeding up, and they you hit a point that you realize now this is going a whole lot slower.”
Mayorkas has been involved in the negotiations, and said Monday the department needs more Border Patrol agents, case prosecutors, asylum officers and technology to combat the flow of fentanyl.
“We now need Congress to do their part and act,” he said. “Our immigration system is outdated and broken and has been in need of reform for literally decades. On this, everyone agrees.”
Mayorkas has long been a target of Republican ire over the border. The House GOP effort to oust him would be the first potential impeachment of a Cabinet official since Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876, though it’s unlikely Mayorkas would be convicted in a trial in the Democrat-led Senate.
President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden talks to reporters outside the U.S. Capitol, Dec.13, 2023 in Washington. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A House panel will vote Wednesday on whether to hold Hunter Biden in contempt over his refusal to sit for a closed-door deposition with lawmakers in their ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden has said he would testify only in a public forum, castigating the Republican-led probe as “illegitimate.”
The House Oversight Committee on Monday released a 19-page report recommending he be held in contempt of Congress, as well as the text of the proposed resolution.
“Mr. Biden’s flagrant defiance of the Committees’ deposition subpoenas — while choosing to appear nearby on the Capitol grounds to read a prepared statement on the same matters — is contemptuous, and he must be held accountable for his unlawful actions,” the report stated.
Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News he has the votes to get the resolution out of committee.
A full vote on the House floor would be held at a later date. Comer said it could happen early next week.
Hunter Biden was subpoenaed to sit for the closed-door interview on Dec. 13 but instead held a defiant news conference just outside the U.S. Capitol.
“I am here to testify at a public hearing, today, to answer any of the committees’ legitimate questions,” he said. “Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say. What are they afraid of? I am here.”
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee’s top Democrat, also criticized Comer for “denying Hunter Biden the opportunity to answer all the Committee’s questions in front of the American people and the world.”
“Chairman Comer does not want Hunter Biden to testify in public, just as he has refused to publicly release over a dozen interview transcripts, because he wants to keep up the carefully curated distortions, blatant lies, and laughable conspiracy theories that have marked this investigation,” Raskin said in a statement.
Committee Republicans have countered that they are open to public testimony at an unspecified “future date” but “need not and will not accede to Mr. Biden’s demand for special treatment with respect to how he provides testimony.”
The Biden impeachment inquiry, launched unilaterally by ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy and then formalized months later by the House in a party-line vote, has yet to yield any concrete evidence to support GOP claims that President Joe Biden participated in and profited from his son and family’s foreign business dealings.
The House Oversight Committee report recommending a contempt charge stated Hunter Biden’s testimony is “necessary” to determine whether there are “sufficient grounds” for impeachment.
The committee has also subpoenaed President Biden’s brother, James Biden, and former Hunter Biden business associate Rob Walker. It also requested transcribed interviews with other members of the Biden family and Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter Biden.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station on Jan. 08, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic members of the House Homeland Security Committee lambasted Republicans efforts to begin impeachment hearings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and offered a full-throated defense of his tenure as secretary.
“What is going on tomorrow is an embarrassment to the impeachment clause of the Constitution,” New York Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman told reporters ahead of Wednesday’s hearing.
He added, “This is simply a policy dispute, a disagreement about how a different party is attacking a policy problem. And the Republicans are trying to abuse their power and the Constitution to convert what is simply a disagreement into somehow some way, a high crime and misdemeanor there is no crime, much less a high crime or misdemeanor here.”
Goldman was the lead impeachment lawyer when Democrats impeached former President Donald Trump in 2020. He was joined by other Homeland Security members Reps. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island and Glenn Ivey of Maryland, both Democrats.
Magaziner said that when Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer brought legal witnesses to the first impeachment hearing of President Joe Biden it was “disastrous.”
“Clearly, the Republicans have learned from that experience and tomorrow, they’re not bringing in any constitutional experts or scholars. They’re bringing in Republican politicians because they know that if they bring in any serious constitutional scholar or constitutional expert, they’re going to hear the same thing that they heard in the oversight hearing on the Biden impeachment push,” Magaziner, who represents the second congressional district in Rhode Island, said.
He said Republicans are “complicit” in the “ongoing struggles” at the southwest border.
“But House Republicans rather than trying to work with the administration and work with the Secretary to solve the problem, instead care more about having a political issue to run on than they do actually solving the challenges that we have at the border,” Magaziner said.
Ivey said Republicans should be focused on other issues, such as funding the government, instead of on attempting to impeach the secretary. He also said some Republicans in moderate districts like in New York might not support impeaching Mayorkas.
“Hopefully the voters will punish them for, you know, abusing the system in this way, and really putting the Constitution at risk,” he said.
The three members also said that while Mayorkas is working on negotiating a border bill, Republicans aren’t helping the solution.
“It’s not a good look for the House of Representatives that while the Senate is working diligently to try to craft the bill, the houses distracted by you know, an impeachment drive with no legal merit,” Magaziner said.
(Sioux City, Iowa) — Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is working feverishly to close the gap between her and former President Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican primary, with new polling showing Haley’s support growing in what could be a determinative contest in New Hampshire.
Just two weeks out from the state’s first-in-the-nation primary, a new CNN poll out Tuesday, conducted by the University of New Hampshire, shows Haley cutting into Trump’s lead, garnering 32% of the vote to his 39% and trailing him now by just seven points in the state, slicing her deficit from the last University of New Hampshire poll by 12 points.
The latest numbers are a positive signal for Haley, who has received several key endorsements over the last month from New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and the powerful Americans for Prosperity Action, backed by billionaire GOP megadonor Charles Koch.
“It’s another indication that there may be some real movement toward Haley and that she’s emerging as the main alternative to Trump,” Christopher Galderi, a professor at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, who studies the state’s primary, said of the recent University of New Hampshire poll.
Haley’s biggest gains appear to have come from undeclared voters, a key constituency in the fiercely independent Live Free or Die state, where she garnered support from 43% of those surveyed — up 18 points since the last poll in November and the largest share of any other candidate.
According to Dave Carney, a veteran New Hampshire-based GOP strategist who’s worked on several presidential campaigns, Sununu’s endorsement likely went a long way with the state’s undeclared voters, with whom he is particularly popular.
“I think if she gets a hunk of the independent or undeclared voters in her camp on election day, he [Sununu] gets a massive amount of credit because Nikki was campaigning for two years in New Hampshire, and they weren’t convinced,” he told ABC News.
Nearly 40% of New Hampshire’s electorate is composed of undeclared voters, who can choose whether to vote on a Democratic or Republican primary ballot. According to the University of New Hampshire poll, 45% of undeclared voters plan to vote in the GOP primary, which Carney said would be “historic” in a New Hampshire GOP primary if it rings true on Jan. 23.
Still, he warned not to oversimplify the impact of undeclared voters — who are often interchangeably referred to as “independents” — can have.
“Undeclared voters in Hampshire are not moderate or liberal. There are a lot of conservatives, and Trump will get a lot of those voters, too,” he said.
To ultimately beat Trump to the nomination, Haley will need to make up significant ground in more than just the granite state. Trump remains far and away the leader in Iowa, where caucusgoers will make their decision next Tuesday, and Haley’s home state of South Carolina — garnering support from 51% and 53% of voters in those states, respectively, according to FiveThirtyEight.
In Iowa, where Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are jockeying for a distant second place, it remains to be seen if any candidate will mount a feasible challenge against Trump.
In two campaign stops in New Hampshire last week, Sununu and Haley both appeared to downplay expectations of what lies ahead in the midwest state.
“I think she’s going to shock everyone in Iowa with a strong second. We know Trump’s gonna win the caucus in Iowa. That’s just a given. Right?,” Sununu said during a Haley town hall in Londonderry, New Hampshire, last Wednesday. Later that evening, Haley appeared to poke fun at the Iowa caucuses at a town hall in Milford, where she said that the state would later “correct” what Iowa starts in its caucus.
“I think Nikki Haley coming in second in Iowa would be a huge shock, right? But that’s what her campaign has been about. She’s been overachieving at every event. I mean, it’s gonna be tough,” Sununu told ABC News after the event, denying that she needed a second-place finish in Iowa to perform well in New Hampshire.
“Iowa and New Hampshire are completely separate. What you do in Iowa has nothing to do with New Hampshire. I mean, that’s just how it is historically,” he said.
But an underperformance in Iowa could have an adverse impact on Haley’s broader campaign, said Carney.
“If she came in a distant third in Iowa, it will hurt her tremendously,” he told ABC News. “When you’re building your campaign on perception and expectations, you need to hit those marks.”
Still, there are signs that Haley’s message — which has partially focused on expanding the Republican Party’s tent to a more diverse electorate — is resonating with moderate voters in Iowa, as well.
At a Haley town hall in Indianola, Iowa, on Saturday, Heather Wilcoxsin, a Democrat who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, said that she would be caucusing for the former U.N. ambassador.
“I’m a lifelong Democrat, and I’m so proud to be supporting you. And I sure hope our state does not elect Donald Trump it will make me sick,” Wilcoxsin told Haley during the question and answer portion.
Speaking to ABC News after, she added that while she aligns “pretty much entirely” with Biden on his policies, she feels that the president is “really old.”
“I compare him to the people in my life who are his age, and I’m like, should they be president? Probably not,” she said.
“I’m not hesitant necessarily to vote for him [Biden], but I am caucusing for Nikki Haley because I am very passionate about her,” she added, noting that if Haley is the GOP nominee, then she would likely flip for the Republican ticket in 2024.
“I was like, ‘maybe I’m 99% gonna support Joe Biden,'” Wilcoxsin said. “I actually think I totally flipped, and I probably will support her.”
(DES MOINES, Iowa) — CNN is set to host the next debate in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, just days ahead of the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on Monday.
The debate, the first of two that will be hosted by CNN, is set for Wednesday night in Des Moines, Iowa.
With more stringent qualifications, even fewer candidates are expected to appear on the stage. Front-runner Donald Trump, again, isn’t set to attend.
Here’s what to know.
How to watch the debate
The debate, which will take place at 9 p.m. ET at Drake University, will be streamed live on CNN, CNN International, CNN en Español and CNN Max and for pay TV subscribers on CNN.com as well as CNN-connected TV and mobile devices.
The debate will be moderated by CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
ABC News will provide key takeaways while 538 has a preview of why it matters.
Who will participate?
On Tuesday, CNN announced the GOP primary candidates who qualified for the debate: former President Trump, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Trump, who has not participated in any of the previous GOP presidential primary debates in light of his enduring polling lead, is not expected to join this one either. Instead, he is countering the debate with a Fox News live town hall in Des Moines at the same time as the CNN debate — so the stage will be occupied by only Haley and DeSantis.
The qualifying window for CNN’s Iowa debate closed on Tuesday. Tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson did not meet the qualification requirements.
How did candidates qualify?
To make the stage, candidates needed to receive at least 10% (without rounding) in three separate national and/or Iowa polls of Republican caucusgoers or primary voters that met CNN’s standards for reporting. One of the three qualifying polls must have been an approved poll of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers.
The CNN qualification criteria for candidates to participate in the debate are higher than those used in previous Republican National Committee debates.
That previous threshold allowed Ramaswamy and Christie to join in on the fourth GOP debate.
CNN is hosting? What about the RNC debates?
The RNC previously required candidates to sign a pledge that they would not participate in any debates not sanctioned by the RNC. However, in December, the RNC changed course, saying that candidates would be free to participate in other debates going forward.
“We have held four successful debates across the country with the most conservative partners in the history of a Republican primary. We have no RNC debates scheduled in January and any debates currently scheduled are not affiliated with the RNC,” the RNC’s Committee on Presidential Debates said in a statement to Politico. “It is now time for Republican primary voters to decide who will be our next President and candidates are free to use any forum or format to communicate to voters as they see fit.”
When are other debates?
ABC News, partnering with WMUR, will host a Republican primary debate in New Hampshire ahead of the state’s primary contest.
The ABC News and WMUR debate will take place Jan. 18 at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.
To earn a spot on that stage, candidates will either have to finish in the top three in the Iowa caucuses or receive at least 10% in two separate national polls of Republican primary voters or at least 10% in two separate New Hampshire polls of Republican primary voters that that meet ABC’s standards for reporting.
CNN will host another debate on Jan. 21 at the New England College in New Hampshire.
To qualify for CNN’s New Hampshire debate, candidates must receive at least 10% in three separate national and/or New Hampshire polls of Republican primary voters that meet CNN’s standards for reporting. One of the three polls must be an approved CNN poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters.
