Primary season: What to watch

by Caroline Vakil and Jared Gans - 01/02/24 3:27 PM ET

Campaign Report

The Big Story

Primary season: What to watch

The 2024 GOP primary kicks off in less than two weeks with the Iowa caucuses. Former President Trump has a commanding lead in polls, while his top rivals are vying to blunt his momentum in the early state contests.

What’s on tap for the primary?: The first few months of the new year are set to be jam-packed with town halls, debates and the first early state caucuses and primaries.

That’s not to mention those are in addition to Trump’s court dates amid four separate indictments, redistricting disputes, looming government funding deadlines and an unclear timeline of when the Supreme Court will take up and issue a ruling on Trump’s presence on several primary ballots.

Here’s a look at some of the key dates ahead of a busy 2024 election season:

JANUARY

Jan. 4: CNN holds town halls for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 9 p.m. ET and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley at 10 p.m. ET in Des Moines, Iowa.

Jan. 10: CNN holds first GOP debate of 2024 in Des Moines at 9 p.m. ET while Trump takes part in a town hall with Fox News starting at the same time.

Jan. 15: Iowa GOP caucuses

Jan. 18: ABC News and WMUR-TV host second GOP debate in Manchester, N.H. at 9 p.m. ET.

Jan. 21: CNN holds third GOP debate in Henniker, N.H.

Jan. 23: New Hampshire GOP primary

FEBRUARY

Feb. 6: Nevada GOP primary

Feb. 8: Nevada GOP caucus

Feb. 24: South Carolina GOP primary

FIRST STRETCH IN MARCH

March 2: GOP caucuses in Michigan, Idaho, Missouri

March 3: Washington, D.C. GOP primary

March 4: North Dakota GOP caucus

March 5: Super Tuesday states hold their contests (include: Alabama, Arkansas, Alaska, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and American Samoa.)

The big challenge for Haley and DeSantis will be proving they can outperform Trump in the early state contests. Polls show Trump holding leads in Iowa and New Hampshire — and nationally.

At the same time, Trump will also be looking to avoid a lackluster finish in Iowa — a state he placed second in during the 2016 cycle before later winning New Hampshire.

Welcome to The Hill’s Campaign Report, we’re Julia Manchester, Caroline Vakil, and Jared Gans. Each week we track the key stories you need to know to stay ahead of the 2024 election and who will set the agenda in Washington.

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Essential Reads

Key election stories and other recent campaign coverage:

Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick meets with IDF officials in Israel

Dave McCormick, a Republican seeking to challenge Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) in November, met with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Israel on Tuesday. Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted photos of McCormick’s trip on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter. “Today he met w/ IDF officials at Kfar Azza. He will meet military leaders, government officials & hostage families. Source says he is there to show …

Full Story

Voter data expert hired by Trump campaign says 2020 election was not stolen

Ken Block, whom the Trump campaign hired in 2020 to find voter fraud in the election, penned an op-ed Tuesday stating unequivocally that the 2020 presidential election was not stolen and that there was no evidence of voter fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the election. “Can a steady diet of lies and innuendo overcome the truth?” the USA Today op-ed began. “In November 2020, former President Donald Trump asserted …

Full Story

Pro-Haley super PAC in new ad says DeSantis ‘tried to court China’ as governor

A super PAC backing former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination is going after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the issue of China in the closing days before the Iowa caucuses. The new ad hammers DeSantis for describing China as Florida’s most important trading partner and for the expansion of a Chinese-owned U.S. subsidiary near a U.S. military base in the state. “DeSantis …

Full Story

The Countdown

Upcoming news themes and events we’re watching:

13 days until the Iowa presidential caucuses
21 days until the New Hampshire presidential primary
308 days until the 2024 general election

On Our Watch

Where Biden, Trump stand in the polls

Trump and President Biden appear increasingly likely to become their respective parties’ nominees even as polls continue to show most Americans do not want either to run again.

Biden is facing minor opposition from his challengers, including Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and author Marianne Williamson, mostly receiving no more than single digits in polling.

Trump has meanwhile built up and maintained a significant lead over his GOP rivals in the polls. The former president leads his closest opponent in The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s national polling average by more than 50 percentage points.

His lead in the first two states to vote in the GOP nominating process — Iowa and New Hampshire — is somewhat smaller but still quite large.

Trump leads in the Iowa polling average by just more than 30 points and in the New Hampshire polling average by less than 20 points.

But he has been on the rise in the Hawkeye State in recent weeks. He has mostly stayed below 50 percent in the Iowa polling average throughout the campaign but has had a majority in the average since early December.

Nikki Haley has been trying to close in on Trump in New Hampshire ahead of the state’s Jan. 23 primary and has seemed to be making some inroads.

She is clearly in second in the state and has jumped up to more than 25 percent in the polling average to Trump’s 44 percent.

Ron DeSantis has been in second place for most of the election season but has mostly lost sole possession of the spot as Haley has risen somewhat.

In polls for a hypothetical general election matchup, Trump has had a slight lead over Biden in the polling average, leading by about 2 percentage points in the average at the end of last year. Biden has observed multiple polls in recent months showing Trump leading him nationally and in key states.

But as The Hill’s Alex Gangitano reports, Democrats are emphasizing that Biden is being underestimated with the polling and his low approval rating. They have argued that Biden should get more credit than he is receiving for the economy improving and his prospects for reelection will improve as the year goes on.

In Other News

Branch out with a different read from The Hill:

DeSantis, Haley qualify for CNN Iowa debate; Trump set for town hall counterprogramming

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley qualified for CNN’s GOP primary debate in Iowa next week, while former President Trump is set to counterprogram the event with a Fox News-hosted town hall. CNN reported Tuesday that DeSantis, Haley and Trump qualified for the network’s first GOP debate, which is scheduled for 9 p.m. EST on Jan. 10 in Des Moines, Iowa, though Trump is set to instead …

Full Story

Trump says he’ll compete in Democratic strongholds like NY, NJ, Minnesota

Former President Trump, in a new interview, signaled he plans to focus at least some of his time and energy in 2024 trying to flip traditional Democratic strongholds such as New York, New Jersey and Minnesota in the general election. “One of the other things I’m going to do — and I may be foolish in doing it — is I’m going to make a heavy play for New York, heavy play for New Jersey, heavy play for Virginia, heavy play for …

Full Story

Around the Nation

Local and state headlines regarding campaigns and elections:

New Dominion voting machines may not be widely available for 2024 election (Boston Globe)
The ‘why’ behind the effort to recruit Romney for president in 2024 (Desert News)

What We’re Reading

Election news we’ve flagged from other outlets:

American democracy has overcome big stress tests since the 2020 election. More challenges are ahead (The Associated Press)
‘I must be better than Trump’: Why California’s elections chief is keeping the former president on the ballot (Los Angeles Times)

Elsewhere Today

Key stories on The Hill right now:

Former White House ethics lawyer says Trump will ‘very swiftly’ lose immunity claim

Former White House ethics lawyer Jim Schultz, who served under the Trump administration, predicted Monday that former President Trump will “swiftly” lose his claim for immunity as he faces multiple federal indictments. The Supreme Court decided Dec. 22 not to take up whether Trump can be prosecuted for his efforts to overturn … Read more

House Republicans stew over members who caused upheaval

House Republicans are stewing over a lack of consequences for those in their ranks who were at the center of much of the internal upheaval that dominated last year — and bemoaning incentives that some worry reward being loud over being substantive. After enduring a year with two drawn-out Speaker fights and other battles that spilled out … Read more