January 11 - 2024 campaign updates and highlights from GOP debate

The ultimate winner of the Republican presidential primary is TBD, but the primary campaign has already had an effect on the direction of the party, which continues to reckon with former President Donald Trump’s populism.

The GOP’s major candidates have crystalized on certain key issues (deporting millions of migrants) and fractured on others (reforming Social Security and Medicare).

These tectonic policy movements were on display Wednesday night at CNN’s primary debate in Iowa featuring former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and at a Fox News town hall featuring debate no-show Trump.

In favor of mass deportation: The view held by the major GOP presidential candidates that millions of undocumented immigrants currently in the US must be deported represents a striking shift for the party.

A surge of migrants and asylum-seekers crossing the US border in recent years has been a motivating issue for Republicans concerned about border security. Trump, who built his first presidential campaign on promises to build a wall on the southern border, has long expressed admiration for a 1950smass-deportation effort.

CNN reported in November about his plans, if reelected, to amp up his immigration hard line with the building of large camps to house migrants waiting for deportation and tapping federal and local law enforcement to assist with large-scale arrests of undocumented immigrants across the country.

While Haley and DeSantis did not weigh in specifically on those ideas Wednesday night, they were asked by debate moderator Jake Tapper about the estimated more than 10 million undocumented immigrants already living in the US.

“The number of people that will be amnestied when I’m president is zero,” DeSantis said, when asked if he would allow any of the 10 million to stay in the US.

“You have to deport them,” said Haley. “And the reason you have to deport them is they’re cutting the line.”

Read more about how the GOP has changed during the primary campaigns.

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Donald Trump brought the campaign trail to the courthouse during closing arguments of his $370 million New York civil fraud trial on Thursday, delivering campaign speeches both inside and outside the courtroom to attack the case against him and the attorney general who brought it.

Trump’s decision to launch into a monologue at the conclusion of his lawyers’ closing arguments reflected the fact that the civil fraud trial is a serious threat to Trump’s business and brand – New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking to bar Trump from doing business in the state – as well as how Trump is eager to take advantage of the situation as he runs for president.

Judge Arthur Engoron has already found Trump is liable for fraud in the civil case, and he plans to issue a full decision by the end of the month.

The former president effectively delivered the same speech in multiple locations on Thursday: The cameras outside the courtroom, to Engoron inside court and at his 40 Wall Street property in the afternoon to reporters. Notably, the most important time he gave his speech was where there were no cameras: Inside the courtroom.

“This was a political witch hunt,” Trump said while speaking to Engoron in an unscheduled moment in court. “What’s happened here, sir, is a fraud on me.”

Just before breaking for lunch at about 12:55 p.m. ET, Trump attorney Chris Kise renewed his request to Engoron to give Trump “two-to-three minutes” to make his case directly to the judge. Engoron addressed Trump, asking if he would promise just to comment on the facts in the case.

“I think this case goes outside just the facts,” Trump responded, taking the opening to launch into a five-minute speech from the defense table. Engoron sat back for several minutes, letting Trump go on, before interrupting him to tell him his time was running short.

Trump’s closing argument speech mimicked his testimony when the attorney general called him as a witness, where Engoron tried and eventually gave up trying to get Trump to answer questions directly and not give political speeches.

Here are other key takeaways from Thursday’s oral arguments.

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

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie polled poorly pretty much everywhere in his now suspended bid for the GOP nomination. The exception to that was New Hampshire. 

Christie leaving the race changes what was already a tight race in the Granite State into one that is way too close to call. 

Our CNN poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire had Donald Trump at 39% to Nikki Haley’s 32%. Christie was back in third place at 12%. 

The poll also asked about who voters wanted as their second choice. The vast majority of Christie backers, 65%, said Haley. Less than 1% chose Trump. 

So what happens when you look at the horserace but reallocate Christie supporters to their second choice? It’s Trump at 40% to Haley at 40%. In other words, the race is a tie by any definition.

Of course, a Trump loss in New Hampshire may not mean that much because he looks significantly stronger elsewhere. As previously noted, New Hampshire is one of the best places to beat Trump given how moderate and wealthy the state is.

Still, the fact that Haley and Trump are even anywhere would be almost inconceivable for much of the 2024 campaign.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis participate in a CNN Republican Presidential Debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 10.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis reacted to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s sharp critiques of the drama and tumult behind the scenes of his presidential bid, which she argued indicates his ineffectiveness as a leader.

DeSantis told CNN following a campaign event in Rock Rapids, Iowa, on Thursday he thinks a better indication of his managerial capacity is his tenure at the head of Florida’s government, rather than his presidential campaign, after Haley issued a scathing rebuke of the leadership changes, personal clashes and financial largess behind the DeSantis campaign and a pro-DeSantis super PAC.

DeSantis spoke to reporters in Rock Rapids following a town hall organized by Never Back Down, a super-PAC backing DeSantis that has seen changes in multiple leadership positions throughout the campaign. The Florida governor told CNN Haley’s attack reflects the strength of his record as governor.

DeSantis also criticized Haley for invoking the chaos in his campaign in response to his answer to a question on education policies and school choice programs.

“I thought it was offensive to try to equate, you know, super PACs with things that actually impact people’s lives,” he told CNN. “The voters here care about education. They don’t care about the minutia of all the political back and forth.”

In a post-debate interview with Anderson Cooper, DeSantis said Haley was “citing an organization that’s an outside group that I don’t even control,” referring to Never Back Down. The super PAC has played a critical role in DeSantis’ ground game in Iowa and he often appears at events as a “special guest,” including today. 

“People don’t care about process stuff. They care about the substance and they care about the leadership,” DeSantis told Anderson on Wednesday.  

When asked about turnover within his campaign, DeSantis said it was on “the PAC side.”  

Over the summer, more than a third of the campaign staff was cut and the campaign manager was replaced. More recently, Never Back Down parted ways with three senior officials on the heels of departures from chairman Adam Laxalt and chief executive Chris Jankowski. 

A pedestrian navigates a snow-covered sidewalk on January 9, in Iowa City, Iowa.

For Iowans, extreme weather is a fact of life.

Summers bring oppressive heat and tornadoes while perishing cold and blizzards make winter feel like it lasts forever. But on election night Monday, the weather will be brutal even by Iowa standards, with a fierce Arctic snap forecast to send temperatures plunging.

Since Iowa uses a caucus system that requires voters to leave their toasty homes in the evening and gather in community centers, firehouses, bars, school gymnasiums and public libraries to choose their candidates, this could be a problem. 

Campaign workers who collect names and addresses at every political event, may need to go door knocking to coax their voters outside. This could boost a candidate like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who invested heavily in a statewide ground game. But former President Donald Trump has also built a get-out-the-vote machine, unlike in the 2016 caucuses when he and his team barely had a clue how it all worked. Until recently, Nikki Haley was lagging in this area – but her endorsement by the powerful America for Prosperity Action group gave her access to a huge political network that could keep her viable in the state.

Haley, who is from balmy South Carolina, confessed Thursday at an event in a Des Moines suburb that she was struggling to comprehend the cold, and that her two adult kids who are traveling with her had never seen so much snow. 

“On the 15th, on Monday, it’s going to be so cold, I don’t even know what negative 15 is!,” she said, referring to forecast Fahrenheit temperatures – which would make it the coldest caucus night in history, especially if windchills reach the predicted — 40 degrees mark.

A snowstorm this week already disrupted the run-in to the caucuses, forcing candidates to cancel events as a winter storm barreled across the prairies. A car carrying Vivek Ramaswamy, the long-shot GOP candidate, ended up in a ditch. 

The Iowa campaign might have to take another snow day on Friday, with a fresh monster storm expected to dump up to 10 inches of snow. This will make it tough for candidates to barnstorm the state and force supporters to brave snowbound roads to see them.

A suspension may play into Trump’s hands, since Haley and DeSantis – who ironically comes from the Sunshine state – Florida – need to use every remaining hour to try to cut his wide lead in the polls.

Former President Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is urging the US Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court ruling barring Donald Trump from the state’s ballot. 

Ramaswamy, who has previously denounced the Colorado court ruling, told the justices, in a friend-of-the-court brief, that he disagreed with the state court’s finding that the Constitution’s so-called insurrectionist ban applies to the presidency. 

But he also stressed that if the justices in Washington, DC, leave the Colorado ruling intact, the consequences “will extend far beyond the dispute over President Trump’s eligibility,” potentially incentivizing voters and decision-makers in states to find ways to kick candidates off the ballot for their own personal and professional benefit. 

“For secretaries of state and state supreme court justices, the path to national notoriety will be illuminated: To enhance your credibility among co-partisans, simply concoct a reason to declare a disfavored presidential candidate of the opposing party ineligible to run for office,” he wrote in the brief. 

After the Colorado Supreme Court issued its ruling last month, Ramaswamy pledged to withdraw from the Colorado GOP primary unless Trump is allowed on the ballot. 

The Colorado decision has been on pause pending the US Supreme Court’s resolution of the case, and the state’s top election official last week certified the 2024 presidential primary ballots with Trump’s name on the Republican ballot. 

Ramaswamy joins fellows candidates in criticizing the Colorado Supreme Court ruling.

The US Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in the case on February 8.  

Former President Donald Trump is undeniably the frontrunner in Iowa’s Republican caucuses. While we have not had a single poll conducted and released publicly in January, the ones from December put Trump in the strongest position of any Republican at that point before the caucuses.

This might leave you asking why we should care about either Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley given they were both more than 30 points behind Trump in those same polls.

The pair will face off in a CNN debate on Wednesday night, their final chance for a breakout performance ahead of next week’s contest. Trump, for his part, declined again to debate his opponents and will instead do a Fox News town hall.

Here’s why DeSantis and Haley are vying for second place in the Hawkeye state:

Iowa results do a fairly lousy job of predicting what happens in the New Hampshire primary, but Iowa could help winnow the field as well as provide a momentum driven boost heading into New Hampshire.

Let’s start with what is obvious at this point: DeSantis is not doing well in New Hampshire. The latest CNN poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire has DeSantis down to fifth place with a mere 5% of the voter support.

It’s tough to imagine DeSantis having any real shot at the Republican presidential nomination if he came in third in Iowa and came in third or worse in New Hampshire. DeSantis’ campaign has to know that.

History is littered with southern conservatives who bet it all on Iowa and dropped out afterward. The one that comes most immediately to my mind is Phil Gramm.

He, like DeSantis, was a fundraising machine and was seen as Bob Dole’s strongest rival for the 1996 GOP nomination. Gramm, though, finished poorly in Iowa and left the race.

If DeSantis finishes second in Iowa, he may stay in the race for a significant amount of time. The Florida governor could claim to be Trump’s strongest rival.

Haley, on the other hand, isn’t looking to merely keep her campaign afloat after Iowa. She’s looking to use it as a launching pad to the Granite State. She’s down just 7 points to Trump in CNN’s latest New Hampshire poll.

The former South Carolina governor has risen from 20% in November to 32% now, while Trump is now at 39%. While Haley has a minimal chance of winning in Iowa, that doesn’t matter as much as you might think.

Read more about why placing second in Iowa is important.

A campaign worker places signs in a snow bank before a campaign event for Nikki Haley in Waukee, Iowa, on Tuesday.

Iowa voters will face their coldest caucuses ever on Monday, as a dangerous Arctic blast dives into the central US this weekend and lasts through early next week.

Monday is expected to be the coldest day in January for Iowa in at least five years, with wind chills as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Iowans will wake up to temperatures more than 15 degrees below zero on Monday morning.

Nearly the entire state will fail to climb above zero degrees Fahrenheit Monday afternoon, the exception being the far southeastern portion of the state that may reach a degree or two above zero.

This would be the first time since February of 2021 that the high temperature in Des Moines fails to reach zero degrees.

Add winds to this bitter cold and wind chill will reach life-threatening levels at minus 20 to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit for the entire day. 

The forecast average daily temperature for Des Moines on Monday is minus 9.5 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly 20 degrees colder than the previous coldest caucus night on January 19, 2004 when the average temperature was 9 degrees, according to CNN analysis of NWS data for Iowa caucuses.

Iowa has held caucuses every four years since 1972 in either January or February.

Record-shattering cold caucuses will be in store for the rest of the state as well. Sioux City is forecast to average minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday, more than 20 degrees colder than the 11 degree average for the caucus in 2004. Cedar Rapids is forecast to average minus 9 degrees Fahrenheit and Davenport minus 8 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday.

Previous coldest caucuses there averaged 5.5 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit respectively on January 24, 2000.

This bitter cold snap comes after what has been a mild winter thus far in Iowa. Nearly the entire state of Iowa is seeing their warmest start to winter on record with average daily temperatures running about 10 degrees above normal since December 1, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. 

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told CNN on Thursday that GOP candidate Nikki Haley will be packing her campaign schedule in the Granite State ahead of the January 23 primary.

“Nikki didn’t lay out any expectations for Iowa,” he said, again downplaying the former United Nations ambassador’s chances of winning the state’s January 15 caucuses.

“I think as long as she works hard, she has a strong showing, I think that’s great. But really, we’re focused on New Hampshire,” he told CNN’s Kasie Hunt.

Comparing former President Donald Trump’s support in the Granite State to Haley’s, he said, Trump will “get a couple thousand people every month, but Nikki will literally get five to 700 people, you know, three times a day.”

Haley drew large crowds in her last New Hampshire swing, including a 700 person crowd in an at-capacity gymnasium, according to fire marshals.

Pressed again on his comment last night to CNN that he would vote for Trump even if he was a convicted felon, and whether that would be true if he was found guilty in his election subversion case, Sununu responded, “that’s a massive hypothetical, right? That’s a year away. It’s a huge hypothetical,” before deflecting.

“Don’t think that he’s just going to be stopped because of what happens in a court case. That is a huge fallacy,” Sununu said. “A lot of folks are gonna get behind him no matter what. And that just that’s just the reality of the situation. This is how bad Joe Biden is,” he added.

Sununu said he hasn’t talked to Chris Christie in “a few weeks,” but that they had “exchanged some messages” around the time he endorsed Haley.

Christie suspended his campaign Wednesday.

Nikki Haley is seen at the CNN Republican Presidential Debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday.

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, appearing after Ron DeSantis at the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association summit on Thursday, used the opportunity to attack the Florida governor on his energy record. 

While serving in Congress, DeSantis co-sponsored a bill to eliminate the renewable fuel standard.  

As a presidential candidate, who has staked his claim in Iowa, DeSantis told KCCI in December that he would not end the renewable fuel standard.

Last fall, he wrote in an op-ed in the Des Moines Register, that his administration would “also support giving drivers additional low-cost options at the pump, including higher ethanol blends such as E30 and higher octane options.”  

DeSantis told the people gathered at the summit on Thursday that he would rely on Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ “guidance as things happen.”

Reynolds delivered her own remarks and introduced him to the stage.

“We’ve been able to go talk with a lot of people, what could be helpful to be able to take the industry to the next level, and I have checked all the boxes that they were looking for,” DeSantis said, voicing support for year-round E-15, for example.

“There’s possibilities of doing much higher blends and there should be a waiver,” DeSantis said. “Let people do that, if they want to do that.”

After a heated debate last night, Haley and DeSantis made brief remarks at the summit in Altoona before heading off to campaign events across Iowa. 

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Thursday said she’s not surprised by former Gov. Chris Christie’s comments in which he said “she’s gonna get smoked,” during a hot mic moment prior to him suspending his campaign on Wednesday obtained by The Recount.

“She’s gonna get smoked and you and I both know it. She’s not up to this,” Christie said.

Speaking to Fox News, Haley reacted to Christie’s comments saying, “look, it is not a surprise. These fellas have been talking like that from the beginning when it was 14 candidates, and I was at 2%. For us, slow and steady wins the race.”

“We have been putting in 11 months of campaigning. Not just in one state, but every state. We spent our money right and focus on relationships with people on the ground and gaining their trust. This has become a two-person race with me and Donald Trump. While everybody wants to discount us, I’ll tell you, we keep moving and moving for a reason,” she continued.

With four days until the Iowa caucuses, Haley weighed in on her expectations for Monday night’s results in the Hawkeye State and the path forward for her campaign.

“Our goal is to be strong in Iowa. We are going to move to a two-person race when we get to New Hampshire and get stronger when it’s in South Carolina. We’re going to finish it. This is very much open race. This is very much something that is going to happen,” Haley said.

The former UN ambassador again called out former President Donald Trump for not participating in any GOP primary debates, adding he has “a lot of things to answer for.”

“Trump didn’t show up on the debate stage, that is unfortunate. He has a lot of things to answer for. Just to do a town hall where you can answer questions easily is one thing. To get on a debate stage and take hard questions is something very different,” Haley said. 

President Joe Biden is seen in Washington DC on January 5.

President Joe Biden responded Thursday to comments from Donald Trump predicting an economic crash — hitting the former president for losing jobs under his administration while touting his own economic record.

A video posted on X shows Biden watching Trump make his remarks about the economy.

“He’s acknowledging that my economy is doing pretty darn well, because he doesn’t want that to continue,” Biden says in the video.

In part of Trump’s remarks, he says that he doesn’t want to be the next Herbert Hoover, who was president during the 1929 market crash.

“And by the way, the idea that he wants to see a crash in the next twelve months — he doesn’t want to be Herbert Hoover, he has to understand, he’s already Herbert Hoover. He’s the only other president who lost jobs during his term,” Biden said.

Earlier this week, Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez blasted Trump, saying the GOP frontrunner “should just say he doesn’t give a damn about people, because that’s exactly what he’s telling the American people when he says he hopes the economy crashes.”

First Lady Dr. Jill Biden speaks at the White House on December 6.

First lady Dr. Jill Biden offered rare comments on former President Donald Trump and the House Republicans investigating her son Hunter Biden, ramping up her pushback against critics with the 2024 presidential campaign in full swing.

The first lady spoke candidly about how the GOP-led probe into her son, and whether President Joe Biden financially benefited from Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, has been “horrible.”

“I think what they are doing to Hunter is cruel, and I’m really proud of how Hunter has rebuilt his life after addiction,” the first lady said in the interview with MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski that aired Thursday. “I love my son and it’s hurt, it’s hurt my grandchildren, and that’s what I’m so concerned about – that it’s affecting their lives as well.”

The comments mark a rare instance of the first lady discussing her son Hunter and his ongoing legal issues. The president’s son will appear in court in California Thursday on federal charges for allegedly failing to pay more than a million dollars in taxes.

He has yet to enter a plea on the charges, but Hunter Biden’s attorney has argued that they amount to nothing more than a political hit job.

His court appearance comes after a pair of Republican-led House committees voted Wednesday evening to approve a report recommending a contempt of Congress resolution against Hunter Biden for his failure to comply with a subpoena, hours after he made a surprise visit to Capitol Hill.

Ron DeSantis’ campaign manager James Uthmeier told CNN This Morning that “you can’t buy, pay for or try to create a ground game now. That work was done six-plus months ago. Team DeSantis has the grassroots leaders across the state, a team coordinated to ensure that in icy, snowy, below freezing conditions, people get out and caucus for their guy.” 

Uthmeier clarified that “the media has kind of set the narrative and already written us off for dead, predicting you know a 40-point win,” when asked by CNN’s Phil Mattingly what those expectations are. “I’ll leave Monday to speak for that but we’re ready to go and we’re expecting very good results on Monday.”

“You can see who’s here and who’s not here,” Uthmeier said, and added that the campaign has the infrastructure to “drag people to the polls when it’s cold and perhaps in unsafe conditions.”

“Nikki Haley is not a conservative and the Republican Party right now is not going to nominate somebody who is not a conservative,” Uthmeier argued.

Ron DeSantis speaks at the CNN Republican Presidential Debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized former President Donald Trump for refusing to take the debate stage — yet again — Wednesday night in Des Moines, Iowa.

DeSantis also discussed why he believes Trump shouldn’t be on the ballot.

“I made the point at the debate last night going on this road where we’re going with the legal issues and the trials and January 6 being the center of the election, we’re giving the Democrats a huge advantage, because those are terms that the Democrats would love to fight the election on. It’s not going to be good for Donald Trump,” DeSantis said.

He warned that the “fate of the Republican party” could be “determined by a jury, probably all Democrat jury in Washington, DC,” referring to the election subversion case. “Is that really the direction that we want to go with all this stuff? We have a choice to make,” he said. 

Pressed on if he believes Trump is a threat to democracy given the cases involving stolen documents and the January 6 insurrection, DeSantis said that Trump didn’t use his presidential authority enough. 

“I think some of it is rhetoric versus the actual reality of being a strong versus a weak president. I wish he would have leaned in more on some of these issues that he promised to do and didn’t do,” DeSantis said.

“A lot of Trump’s rhetoric is bluster,” he said. 

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign is up with a new TV ad in New Hampshire hitting GOP presidential rival Nikki Haley over her proposal to raise the retirement age for Americans currently in their 20s and limiting Social Security and Medicare benefits for wealthier Americans. 

Trump has said he would not cut any money from those programs, even though his administration’s budget proposals included cuts to Social Security and Medicare. 

“Americans were promised to secure retirements. Nikki Haley’s plan ends that,” the narrator says in the new 20-second spot. 

The ad includes a clip of Haley being asked about how she would approach Medicare and Social Security and she says, “We’ll say the rules have changed. We change retirement age to reflect life expectancy. What we do know is 65 is way too low and we need to increase that.”

It comes as the Trump campaign shifts its focus to attacking Haley days before voting begins in the GOP primary and as the former South Carolina governor sees some momentum in polls, particularly in New Hampshire. 

CNN has asked the Trump campaign for more details about how much money is behind the ad and where it is running. 

Creating a flat tax. Eliminating the federal gas tax.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who are vying for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, threw out some catchy phrases about their tax plans at CNN’s debate on Wednesday. But they did not provide many details.

With the start of the 2024 primary season only days away, DeSantis, Haley, former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden have yet to flesh out their tax proposals. They are unusually thin for this point in the election cycle, experts said.

“They’re being deliberately unspecific,” said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

All the candidates, including Biden, have at least one thing in common: They want to extend at least some of the measures of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump championed and signed into law. The fate of the individual income tax provisions will be a top priority of whoever wins the November election since they are set to expire at the end of next year.

However, continuing the individual income and estate tax cuts would slash federal revenue by $2.6 trillion over a decade, according to the right-leaning Tax Foundation. And restoring some business and international tax measures that were changed by the 2017 TCJA law would reduce revenue by up to another $1.1 trillion.

That drop in tax revenue would come at a time when both political parties are worried about widening federal budget deficits and mounting debt, sparking battles in Congress over funding government agencies for fiscal 2024.

Read more about what we currently know about the candidates’ tax plans.

As the 2024 election season begins, it’s time for voters in America to choose who will be on the ballot come November.

These ballots will have a single presidential candidate for each of the major parties, selected earlier in the year by a series of primary elections held in each state.

On January 15, Iowa Republicans will kick off the season by holding their version of a primary election — the Iowa caucuses.

Here’s what you should know about caucuses and the process in Iowa:

CNN’s Ethan Cohen contributed to this report.

Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are tearing into each other to stay alive in the Republican presidential primary. But the front-runner, Donald Trump, is running another race entirely – against the courts and the rule of law.

This dual reality of the 2024 election playing out in the run-up to Monday’s Iowa caucuses will take another surreal twist on Thursday when the ex-president deserts the conventional campaign trail again – for his second court appearance this week.

That means the focus will quickly shift from the fireworks of Wednesday night’s CNN debate between the former South Carolina governor and Florida’s governor, who are fanning out across snowbound Iowa on Thursday, seeking to win the post-game of the first head-to-head debate of the presidential race.

Trump’s skill at capitalizing on his four criminal indictments has been the decisive factor in the Republican primary race — far more so than anything Haley, DeSantis or other candidates have done on the debate stage or in their town halls or rallies.

His aberrant conduct in office and afterward is presenting the country’s political and legal institutions with perhaps their greatest test of the modern era. But it’s a sign of Trump’s political dexterity that he’s still dominating the party he transformed amid a storm of scandals that would have felled any conventional politician years ago.

The most outspoken critic of the ex-president’s behavior, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, mastered the first part of that equation – but at the expense of the second part. He’s no longer in the race, after folding his White House bid on Wednesday, in a move that could help Haley squeeze Trump in the New Hampshire primary a week after the caucuses.

The failure of Haley and DeSantis to meaningfully exploit Trump’s greatest potential general election liabilities — the fact that he could be a convicted felon by November and that he tried to cling to power after losing in 2020 – has been a feature of the entire campaign.

But both candidates made more of an attempt to take advantage of Trump’s legal morass at the Iowa debate — albeit carefully.

The one thing that Christie’s campaign proved is that there is no nationwide constituency for a Republican candidate willing to tell harsh truths about Trump, his legal liability or the threat he appears to pose to democracy if he wins in November. So while Haley and DeSantis sometimes lack the stomach for a fight against Trump, they may be making a solid strategic calculation.

But that begs another question. If they are unable to use every potential political attack against Trump, how can they beat the strongest front-runner in any contested presidential primary race in living memory?

And why then are they running at all?

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis participate in a CNN Republican Presidential Debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 10.

The two Republicans vying to become the top alternative to former President Donald Trump in the party’s 2024 presidential primary— Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley — opened their one-on-one CNN debate Wednesday night in Des Moines, just five nights from the Iowa caucuses, slinging attacks — and calling each other liars.

The debate – hours after another 2024 contender, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, dropped out of the race – was a demonstration of both candidates’ belief that the field needs to be further winnowed before the last non-Trump candidate standing shifts focus to the former president.

Here are key takeaways from Wednesday’s debate:

Read more key takeaways.