January 17 - 2024 campaign updates

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed he would be more electable than former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in a general election in an escalation of his attacks on his GOP presidential rival as the New Hampshire primary draws closer. 

Fresh off his landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses, the former president called for the Republican Party to unify behind him to “focus all of our resources and energy and effort on defeating crooked Joe Biden.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed his schedule ahead of the New Hampshire primary, telling reporters that he would be heading back to the Granite State most likely on Sunday, after events in South Carolina, and indicating he would be back through the primary – though nothing has been officially scheduled. 

DeSantis also acknowledged the staff cuts at the Never Back Down PAC but said he is not pulling campaign staff out of New Hampshire.

Pressed by reporters if he would be in New Hampshire the weekend before the primary, DeSantis said, “We’re looking at Sunday. We’re gonna do Friday, here. Probably Saturday, South Carolina, and then, probably Sunday back here.”

Some background: DeSantis’ half-hearted push in New Hampshire tacitly acknowledges the state is out of reach, a reality that has been apparent to many – including some of his top advisers and allies – for months. As DeSantis prioritized Iowa and tacked further to the right to appease conservatives there, he fell out of favor with New Hampshire’s more moderate New England electorate.

Donald Trump spent most of Wednesday in New York where he clashed with yet another judge overseeing one of his trials.

The exchange with Judge Lewis Kaplan was merely the latest in a string of Trump’s in-court fights during two civil trials in New York over the past several months, offering a preview of what’s to come if any of the former president’s criminal trials are held this year as he runs for president.

On the witness stand, his accuser, E. Jean Carroll, told the jury how Trump’s statements after she went public about him allegedly sexually assaulting her shattered her reputation and led to an onslaught of threatening messages. A civil jury last year found Carroll’s allegations to be credible.

“I thought I was going to get shot,” she said.

Carroll will return on the stand Thursday morning as Trump attorney Alina Habba finishes her cross-examination.

The former president is not expected to be there watching, as Trump plans to travel to Florida for his mother-in-law’s funeral, and Kaplan declined to postpone the trial in his absence at Trump’s request again on Wednesday.

Here’s what happened in the courtroom

With the Iowa caucuses in the rearview mirror, the 2024 presidential election continued on Wednesday with GOP candidates hitting the trail in New Hampshire ahead of the state’s primary election Tuesday.

Donald Trump won Iowa by a wide margin Monday and the two other remaining GOP candidates – former Gov. Nikki Haley and Gov. Ron DeSantis – are looking to blunt some of the former president’s momentum.

Here is what happened so far today:

Trump ups his attacks on Haley: Trump went after Haley while referring to her by her first name, Nimarata, in the latest example of Trump using racist dog whistles to attack his GOP presidential rival. He misspelled Nimarata as “Nimrada” as he attacked her in a new post on his social media platform Truth Social. Those comments came after he recently amplified a post that falsely claimed Haley was ineligible to run for president because her parents were not US citizens at the time of her birth.

Haley town hall: CNN will host a GOP presidential town hall with Haley tomorrow at 9 p.m. ET from New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, hosted by CNN’s Jake Tapper. She was set to host a rally this evening in Rochester alongside Gov. Chris Sununu, who has endorsed her. She had flown to South Carolina last night to visit her hospitalized father, who has since been released and is doing well, a source close to Haley told CNN.

DeSantis super-PAC lays off some staff: Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting DeSantis, let go of an undisclosed number of paid staff, a source with knowledge of the political operation told CNN. The layoffs include the organization’s Super Tuesday operation, some key senior staff and the team focused on Nevada, according to a source close to the group.  

DeSantis focuses on South Carolina: The DeSantis campaign is moving a majority of its staff to South Carolina, according to a senior campaign official, reflecting the campaign’s increased focus on the state. He planned to fly back to Florida Wednesday night, return to New Hampshire on Friday, and campaign in South Carolina on Saturday and Sunday.

Trump busy in court: Trump, meanwhile, was in New York attending the contentious second day of his civil defamation trial to determine how much, if any, damages the former president must pay to E. Jean Carroll for his 2019 defamatory statements about Carroll’s sexual assault allegations. He was expected to fly to New Hampshire for a rally later this evening.

The post was updated with details about Haley's trip last night back to South Carolina.

The Biden campaign raised more than $1.6 million from grassroots donors in the 24 hours after former President Donald Trump won the Iowa caucuses by a wide margin, it said Wednesday.

In a video posted to X, President Joe Biden shared the campaign's haul and said that his campaign “is nurses and teachers versus the extreme MAGA Republicans, and we need you with us.”

CNN’s Arlette Saenz reported earlier this week that the president raised more than $97 million for his campaign and the Democratic Party in the fourth fundraising quarter last year.

House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik is slated to campaign with Donald Trump in New Hampshire later this week, a Trump campaign adviser told CNN, in an appearance that will be viewed by some in the GOP as an audition to become Trump’s running mate.

The New York Republican is just one of several speakers who is scheduled to appear on stage ahead of Trump during his event in Concord on Friday, and numerous Trump surrogates – including members of Congress – were stumping for Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire this week. But Stefanik’s presence in New Hampshire is particularly notable, as some Republican lawmakers and strategists believe she has been jockeying to become Trump’s pick for vice president after a series of moves that appear designed to please the former president.

Stefanik was the first member of Congress to endorse Trump, throwing her weight behind the former president before he even officially announced his plans and lobbying her colleagues to follow suit.

More recently, Stefanik has embraced Trump’s rhetoric about the January 6 defendants, calling them “hostages” one day after the third anniversary of the Capitol attack. Stefanik has also filed multiple ethics complaints about the judges overseeing Trump’s legal cases. And after Trump’s landslide victory in Iowa, Stefanik called on all other candidates to drop out of the race.

Read more about Stefanik's support for Trump

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is returning to New Hampshire on Friday for multiple events with the super PAC backing him, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN. 

As CNN previously reported, DeSantis will travel to Florida on Wednesday night. 

After New Hampshire on Friday, DeSantis is expected to campaign in South Carolina on Saturday and Sunday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sidestepped a question from a voter in Hampton, New Hampshire, to respond to criticism from former South Carolina Nikki Haley that he was ignoring the Granite State ahead of the primary there Tuesday.

“Nikki Haley says that you’re ignoring New Hampshire. This is my fifth event with you. Can you square that circle?”

DeSantis laughed and said, “I can’t, but you know what, Nikki Haley is also somebody that wrote in her book, that the– her inspiration for running for office was not Ronald Reagan, not Margaret Thatcher, but Hillary Clinton.”

DeSantis didn’t directly state his commitment to the state of New Hampshire, instead painting Haley as an untrustworthy politician and unreliable when it comes to delivering on conservative issues.  

While DeSantis has campaigned in New Hampshire, the energy and resources of his campaign had largely been focused on Iowa. Now that Iowa is in the rearview mirror, the campaign sent another message: South Carolina is the priority. 

Moments before DeSantis’ Hampton event started, news broke that he is leaving New Hampshire tonight, heading back to Florida and to South Carolina for events over the weekend. A majority of his staff is also moving to South Carolina. It’s unclear if he is returning to New Hampshire before the state’s primary on Tuesday.

All Republican primary candidates are vying for the 22 delegates who are at stake in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary

While winning the New Hampshire primary is helpful, it is not critical to winning the nomination or the White House. Joe Biden, Barack Obama and George W. Bush all lost the New Hampshire primary before going on to win their first term in the general election. Donald Trump won the primary in 2016.

The Granite State continues to be an important battleground in the general election. George W. Bush just eked out a narrow victory in 2000, without which Al Gore would have won the White House. While Biden won the state with nearly 53% of the vote, it hasn’t always gone to the national winner. John Kerry won the state in 2004, and Hillary Clinton won it by less than half a percentage point in 2016.

In the 2020 general election, 46% of New Hampshire’s voters were self-described independents. 31% of the state’s voters identified as Republicans and 23% identified as Democrats. Biden won 62% of the voters who identified as independents.

Critical battleground: Republicans and Democrats have their typical area of success, but the greater Manchester and Nashua region is a critical battleground. While the cities have leaned Democratic in recent years, GOP Gov. Chris Sununu won both cities in 2020 and 2022, even as they voted Democratic in federal races. The surrounding towns are highly competitive, but recently Democrats have had more success to the west of Manchester and Nashua.