The Run-up

Warning: this episode contains strong language.On Sunday, after a disappointing finish in the Iowa caucuses and with just two days to go before the New Hampshire primary, Ron DeSantis ended his campaign for president.His decision made it official: The race for the Republican nomination is now a head-to-head contest between two wildly different candidates, Nikki Haley and Donald Trump.And now, the famously independent New Hampshire voters are going to determine how serious a contest it is.We’re looking for three big things.First, how Haley’s recent change in tone and sharpening attacks on Trump will play with independents. Second, whether Trump is as dominant here as he was in Iowa. And third, what the Democrats are up to — since there’s a contest here on that side too.Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subs

Going into the Iowa caucuses, there were a handful of key things we were watching for: Would the frigid weather hamper turnout? Would his overwhelming dominance in the polls translate to a decisive victory for Donald Trump? And finally, could the other candidates muster enough of a showing to keep the race alive?Today: Through conversations with Iowa caucus goers — especially those who preferred another candidate to Trump — we get answers to our questions. And we check in with our colleague Nick Corasaniti in New Hampshire about how the state’s independents are approaching the primary next week — and how confident Trump is of a second early state victory.Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Finally. More than a year after Donald Trump first announced his 2024 presidential run, six months after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida refocused his campaign strategy to be all-in on Iowa, and right in the midst of debilitating winter weather, the Iowa caucuses are upon us.And “The Run-Up” has everything you need to know to understand what might happen today — and what it will mean for the race going forward.What’s at stake is clear: Anyone who is going to slow Mr. Trump on his path to clinching the nomination has to get started in Iowa, with at least a close second-place finish. Going into the caucus, Mr. Trump has a dominant polling lead. But now it’s up to the voters.Iowa voters tend to care more about candidates who can speak more to small-town and religious values. The state’s evangelical leaders have largely backed Mr. DeSantis, but evangelical voters themselves — including people coming out to Trump events in freezing temperatures in the last week — have largely backed Mr. Trump.There are three big ques

At the start of the 2024 Republican primary campaign, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida was considered by many in his party to be the biggest threat to Donald Trump. He was seen as someone who could win over the voters who were tired of Trump’s antics, and also bring along the MAGA movement. But it didn’t work out that way. And as Mr. DeSantis has struggled, one main opponent, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, has seen her star — and her standing in the polls — rise.Still, as the Trump alternatives crisscross Iowa and New Hampshire trying to appeal to voters, polling averages put the former president ahead by an average of 35 points.Now, with just days to go until the Iowa caucuses, we ask: Did anti-Trump Republicans rally around the wrong candidates? And have they run out of time to fix it?Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from po

It’s the start of the actual election year — and a new chapter in the campaign.Voting in early states is less than two weeks away. But, amid the crunchtime campaigning, another story line is unfolding.Two states are saying that Donald Trump can’t be on the ballot … at all.Officials in Colorado and Maine are basing this on a clause of the 14th Amendment, which bars candidates from holding office if they have engaged in insurrection.The Trump campaign is appealing. And other states, like California and Michigan, have ruled the opposite way on the same issue. But with more than a dozen similar cases pending, the question is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court.We speak to Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, about her decision to disqualify Trump from the 2024 primary ballot and to Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times.Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com Unlock full

Last summer, politics, country music and cultural grievance collided with the growing popularity of a new song from recording artist Jason Aldean.Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalkCarjack an old lady at a red lightPull a gun on the owner of a liquor storeYa think it’s cool, well, act a fool if ya likeIn the lyrics, Aldean lists behaviors he associates with cities, like lawlessness and disrespect for the flag or the police. And then he warns listeners of the consequences if they “try that in a small town.”The song quickly hit the country music charts. Then, the music video was released.In it, images of Aldean singing alternate with newsreel footage of looting, violence and scenes from the racial justice protests that took place during the summer of 2020.The video was quietly edited to remove some of the more contested footage, but the battle lines had already been drawn. The song quickly gained popularity on the political right. And Republican primary candidates, including Donald Trump, began praising Aldean

Iowa was supposed to be fertile ground for Donald Trump’s primary challengers. Its population is disproportionately evangelical, and voters were expected to coalesce around a more faith-driven alternative. But that’s not what’s happened.This past summer, Trump was polling at around 42 percent in the state, a lead that has only continued to grow. Increasingly, it looks like Iowa is on track to coronate the former president.So when we visited the state fair in August, it was less to follow around a bunch of the candidates while they were milking a cow or flipping a pork chop, but rather to ask Iowa’s voters: What’s different this time?Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at therunup@nytimes.com Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Watching the Republican primary debates can feel like a study in self sabotage. In the latest one, which Donald Trump skipped, the candidates spent most of their time attacking one another — not the guy who is 50 points ahead in the polls.But there is a logic to it. Candidates are trying to position themselves as the party’s alternative to the former president. And to do that, they have to push one another aside and unite the roughly 40 percent of Republicans who are still up for grabs.This week, we ask anti-Trump Republicans: What’s stopping their coalition from getting on the same page? And with the early contests fast approaching, is it too late? We travel to a debate night watch party for Nikki Haley in New Hampshire and check in with Bob Vander Plaats, an influential Iowa evangelical and supporter of Ron DeSantis. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

There was a moment in early 2023 when Donald Trump seemed like a politician in decline.And it wasn’t just his political opponents who thought so. National Republicans, who blamed Mr. Trump for the party’s run of bad results in the midterms, largely agreed.But now it’s starting to set in: It appears the former president’s staying power was underestimated … again. Mr. Trump is the overwhelming favorite to be the Republican presidential nominee — and his supporters remain the most influential force in the party’s politics.This week, through conversations at an event with South Carolina Republicans, we try to understand why the party continues to back an embattled Mr. Trump — and how it came to feel as though this primary ended before it even began. Then, Astead talks with Jonathan Swan, a New York Times political reporter, about how the Trump team has approached this campaign with discipline and strategy, and what it is planning should he win back the White House. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts an

The former president’s legal status is one of the biggest wild cards heading into 2024.Even as he dominates the Republican primary and his party, Trump has been indicted on 91 felony charges, across four criminal cases in state and federal courts.We spent a day talking to our colleagues in The Times’s newsroom, trying to get answers to questions it’s surreal to even be asking.Among them: Are Republicans coalescing around a man who may soon be a convicted felon? And how much will Trump’s legal troubles collide with an election cycle that is unlike any we’ve seen before?Guests:Jonah BromwichRichard FaussetAlan FeuerMaggie Haberman Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Polls suggest that they are – and that Black voters’ support for Donald Trump, especially among men, is rising. Astead W. Herndon convened a special "Run-Up" Thanksgiving focus group to explore what might be behind those numbers. He spoke with family, friends and, parishioners from his father’s church, community members and people he grew up with. It’s a lively conversation with real implications for what might happen if the 2024 presidential election is a Biden-Trump rematch.Because where better to talk politics than over turkey and an ample dessert spread? Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Vice President Harris believes that democracy is once again on the line in November. She is key to the Biden campaign’s strategy for getting that message to its skeptical base — and winning over groups of voters that Democrats can't afford to lose.In a wide-ranging conversation recorded in Chicago in August, Astead Herndon sat down with the vice president to discuss her life and work before Washington, and the fight ahead for her party.This interview was conducted as part of the reporting process for a New York Times Magazine cover story on Ms. Harris, which you can read here. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Yes, President Biden’s team has seen the polls that show him struggling in a 2024 rematch with Donald Trump. But it says it’s focused on other things — like how well Democrats are doing at the ballot box.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Out of more than 3,000 counties in the United States, Clallam County, Wash. is the only one that has voted for the winner of the presidential race every year since 1980. It earned this distinction in 2020, the election that broke everyone else’s streak.We’re a year out from the 2024 presidential election and despite a robust Republican primary field, the race is looking like it could easily be a 2020 rematch. So we thought Clallam County could give us something resembling a prediction. Here’s how the people there are feeling — and how they think this is going to go.To see photographs from our reporting trip to Washington, click here.  Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

It could be 2020 all over again. That’s what makes 2024 so different. And why it demands a different kind of political reporting. That is The Run-Up’s specialty. We’ll be back Nov. 2. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

For the past few months, The Run-Up has been reporting on political insiders and the work they’ve quietly been doing to shape the 2024 presidential election.What we’ve found is a group of people — Republicans and Democrats — all operating under the premise that this race will revolve around former President Donald Trump. That his nomination — and thus a rematch between Trump and President Biden — is almost inevitable.But if anything is going to blow up that assumption, it’s probably going to start in Iowa.As the first state in the Republican primary process, Iowa plays a key role in narrowing the field. If Trump wins there, it may effectively mean that he has secured the nomination.However, there’s a group of voters that holds disproportionate power in the state and in American culture more broadly. These voters were once part of Trump’s coalition — and they are now wavering.If they go another way, the whole race could open up.In our final episode of the season, The Run-Up goes to Iowa and inside the evangeli

Back in 2020, Joe Biden stood out in a crowded Democratic primary field filled with younger, more historic candidates. Voters worried that Mr. Biden was too moderate, too uninspiring and too old.One of his challengers, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, got a lot of attention for his willingness to echo those concerns.But after going hard at Mr. Biden in a debate, his campaign fizzled and Mr. Castro, once a rising star in the Democratic Party, left Washington altogether. To some, it seemed like evidence of the consequences of stepping out of line with the party.Heading into the 2024 election, as voters grapple with the same questions about the incumbent president, Astead sits down with Mr. Castro to explore the party’s code of silence surrounding Mr. Biden’s primary alternatives and his advanced age.For more information on today's episode, visit nytimes.com/therunup.  Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today a

Heading into the 2024 presidential election, a big part of the Democratic Party’s approach is to win through defense — to watch Republicans and promise voters that Democrats will be the solution to G.O.P. extremism.Some Democrats, however, argue that this is not a viable long-term strategy.This week, Representative Elissa Slotkin shares what happens when Democrats have a plan, and Megan Hunt, a Nebraska state senator, explains what happens when they don’t. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Dobbs decision upended political calculations on both sides of the abortion debate. Democrats used the issue as evidence of Republican extremism, and it cost the G.O.P. seats in the 2022 midterms.Now, with a presidential primary looming, abortion activists have an opportunity to reset their strategies for 2024 and roll out new litmus tests for their respective candidates.This week, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and Alexis McGill Johnson, head of Planned Parenthood, on how they’re trying to reshape the abortion debate in the U.S. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Two things are true: Bothsidesism can flatten the realities of political extremism in this country. And many voters really do see the Democratic and Republican parties as equally extreme at this moment.The parties know this. And they’re fighting to convince voters that it’s the other side that’s gone too far. That Republicans are the party of Donald Trump, election denial, Jan. 6 and six-week abortion bans. That Democrats are the party of woke-ism and the Squad.Today, we talk to two congressmen who have publicly clashed on this question — Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat, and Byron Donalds, a Republican — and press them on the roles they play in the fight. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.