January 20 - 2024 campaign updates

Former GOP presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson endorsed Nikki Haley on Saturday ahead of the New Hampshire primary. 

Hutchinson, who suspended his presidential campaign on Tuesday, posted on X, “Anyone who believes Donald Trump will unite this country has been asleep over the last 8 years. Trump intentionally tries to divide America and will continue to do so. Go @NikkiHaley in New Hampshire.”

Hutchinson announced he was ending his presidential campaign following a dismal showing in Monday night’s Iowa caucuses, which were dominated by former President Donald Trump.

He finished sixth in the caucuses, according to the Iowa GOP, capturing only 191 votes.

As South Carolina politicians line up behind front-runner Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stressed on Saturday that endorsements don't necessarily translate to results.

“Iowa Republican leadership lined up behind me, and we came in second. So, I think, like, there's a limit to what the leadership can do,” DeSantis told reporters in Myrtle Beach.

In Iowa, DeSantis had the backing of Gov. Kim Reynolds and evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, which he often touted on the trail.

Despite Trump’s influence in South Carolina, DeSantis there’s “a lot of fertile ground” for his campaign in the state, given its conservative constituency, similarities to Florida, and the fact that he is the only veteran in the race. 

Indicating that he sees the contest in South Carolina as between himself and Trump, DeSantis said, “There's just too many conservative voters here for someone like Nikki Haley to win the state."

While former President Donald Trump is getting a boost from South Carolina lawmakers in New Hampshire this weekend, Nikki Haley’s campaign is preparing to launch a $4 million media buy in South Carolina beginning on the day of the New Hampshire primary, Haley’s campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, told reporters Saturday.

The statewide buy — which will include TV and digital ads — is part of the campaign’s effort to show it is ready to compete in the GOP primary process beyond New Hampshire. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, will also host a major event in Charleston on Wednesday, Ankney said.

“We are loaded to bear in South Carolina. We have been smart about how we have played it,” Ankney said in Manchester, New Hampshire, at a roundtable hosted by Bloomberg.

The South Carolina media buy comes the day after Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina endorsed Trump and as South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster prepares to campaign with Trump in New Hampshire this weekend. Ankney downplayed the effect the support could have.

“There is a broad infrastructure and base of support for her in South Carolina that exists far beyond any legislative endorsements or the endorsement of the governor or Tim Scott. ... Nikki Haley is very popular in her home state,” she said. 

Ankney refused to say whether Haley needed to win in South Carolina to be competitive, saying only that the campaign needs to “continue to show strength and grow” and that it expects “to do well” in the state's February 24 primary.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a strong Donald Trump ally who endorsed the former president in 2022, will campaign with him in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Saturday. 

McMaster's presence on the trail is part of a broader strategy by the Trump campaign to hammer his rival former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the final days before New Hampshire's primary. On Friday, Trump picked up a major endorsement from Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, his former presidential primary rival.

McMaster, teasing his appearance alongside Trump, posted on X Saturday that he and his wife, Pamela, "are on our way to Manchester, New Hampshire to join @realDonaldTrump for tonight's rally and help put him back in the White House!"

South Carolina Reps. Russell Fry and William Timmons are also expected to campaign with Trump in New Hampshire this weekend, CNN previously reported, as part of the former president's effort to undercut Haley's momentum in the Granite State.

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, said Saturday she would be "honored" to serve in a future Trump administration as she campaigned for the former president in New Hampshire.

"Of course I would be honored, I've said that for years, to serve in the future administration in any capacity," she told reporters when asked about potentially being Donald Trump's running mate.

"We have a lot to do as House Republicans holding Joe Biden accountable between now and next November, when we're going to elect President Trump to the White House, we're going to win back the United States Senate and grow our majority in the House," she said after speaking at Trump's campaign headquarters in Manchester.

When asked about respecting the results of Tuesday's election, as Trump falsely claims that Democrats can vote in New Hampshire's GOP primary, Stefanik pivoted to talking about an "unprecedented attack," referencing efforts in some states to remove Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment.

Some Republican lawmakers and strategists believe Stefanik has been jockeying to become Trump’s pick for vice president after a series of moves that appear designed to please the former president, such as filing ethics complaints about the judges overseeing Trump’s legal cases and calling on the other candidates to drop out of the race after Trump's Iowa victory.

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.

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.

Ron DeSantis pledged to bring a “Live Free or Die” mindset to the presidency in an editorial piece for the New Hampshire Journal.

Rattling off his achievements as governor, DeSantis wrote, “My record represents my attitude toward leadership: protect people’s freedoms and enhance people’s lives by keeping government small and fighting to proactively curb new schemes of government control.” 

The Florida governor vowed to bring term limits for members of Congress, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, line-item veto for the president, and to close the southern border while holding "the Mexican drug cartels accountable.”

The piece ends with a call to action: “Support me in the coming New Hampshire primary, and I will embody the live free or die spirit as your next president.”

Nikki Haley’s campaign will begin airing a three-minute TV ad in New Hampshire on Monday featuring the mother of an American college student who died in 2017 after being detained by North Korea the previous year.

The ad is an effort to highlight Haley’s foreign policy experience and the personal relationship she built with Otto Warmbier’s mother, Cindy Warmbier, on the eve of the New Hampshire primary.

“My son, Otto, was invited to North Korea on an organized tour. He was taken hostage, tortured, and murdered by the government of North Korea,” Warmbier’s mother says in the ad. 

Over the course of Haley’s time as ambassador to the United Nations, she built a strong relationship with the Warmbier family after their son’s death. 

“She told us to be loud and fight back. To fight for justice. To fight for ourselves. And to fight for Otto. We passed laws in Otto’s name, seized North Korean assets, and helped close down illegal businesses run by the North Koreans,” Warmbier will tell New Hampshire voters, adding that Haley demonstrated strength and compassion in supporting her traumatized family. 

“I will tell you how she promised me she would do everything she could to make sure the world never forgot Otto,” Warmbier says.

The new ad is just one piece of the massive investment Haley and her allies have made in the New Hampshire primary, spending roughly twice as much on advertising there as Donald Trump’s political network since the start of the 2024 White House race. But Trump and his allies have used recent weeks to ramp up spending in the state to counter signs of momentum for the former South Carolina governor. 

Warmbier has not been a regular facet of Haley’s campaign but she did introduce the former ambassador to the UN in South Carolina when she launched her campaign last year.