| | | | |  | | By Charlie Mahtesian | |  A supporter waits in line ahead of a rally for former President Donald Trump today in Atkinson, New Hampshire. | Brandon Bell/Getty Images | IT’S GETTING LATE EARLY — Iowa produced a decisive outcome on Monday, but it left some questions unsettled. Donald Trump posted a sweeping, 30-point victory, but among a small sample: Boiled down to its essence, his victory was built on the votes of just 7 percent of Iowa’s registered GOP voters. Second place wasn’t really resolved either — Ron DeSantis edged out Nikki Haley, with neither delivering an inspiring performance. The caucuses did accomplish one thing, however: They made New Hampshire the whole ballgame. With Asa Hutchinson’s departure from the race today and Chris Christie’s exit last week, the most vigorous Trump critics are out of the race. GOP congressional leadership, with the exception of Sen. Mitch McConnell, has largely folded and fallen in line. Now, short of a Trump defeat in New Hampshire — or a close second-place finish from Haley or DeSantis — it’s looking like the nominating fight might not make it out of January. DeSantis traveled today to South Carolina, which makes some sense. He’s a distant third in New Hampshire and is better-suited for South Carolina’s Feb. 24 primary. But there’s a full month between the two primaries, and without a surprise result in New Hampshire, his campaign is not built to last that long. Haley is just as pressed. She won only one of Iowa’s 99 counties, and just barely — by a single vote. The story told by the Iowa entrance polls was a grim one. She failed to win among college graduates and got crushed among non-college grads. She finished a close third among women and a very distant third among white evangelical Christians. Her strengths? Haley ran strongest among self-described moderates/liberals and those looking for a candidate with the right temperament. She finished first among caucus goers for whom foreign policy matters most. She dominated among those who think Joe Biden won the presidency legitimately and those who would not consider Donald Trump fit to be president if he were to be convicted of a crime. Those traits might make her a formidable candidate in a general election, but not in a GOP primary. In the contemporary Republican Party, it’s the profile of a candidate with a short shelf-life. In the wake of Iowa’s results, Haley’s donors are already getting antsy — CNBC reported today that she faces pressure from some of her top fundraisers to either win New Hampshire or finish a close second. Without that momentum, there’s little chance of winning her home state of South Carolina four weeks later — Haley currently trails Trump there by a wide margin in the polls. (The two Nevada contests and the Virgin Islands caucus that will take place between Feb. 6 and 8 won’t provide nearly enough oxygen.) What Iowa has inadvertently done is conceal Trump’s flaws — that is, it accentuated his strength among Republicans and camouflaged his vulnerability in a general election — while shining a light on the weaknesses of his remaining foes. The result is that the primary timeline has been accelerated, making New Hampshire more than just the first-in-the-nation primary, but possibly the last one that matters. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at cmahtesian@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @PoliticoCharlie.
| | | | GLOBAL PLAYBOOK IS TAKING YOU TO DAVOS! Unlock the insider's guide to one of the world's most influential gatherings as POLITICO's Global Playbook takes you behind the scenes of the 2024 World Economic Forum. Author Suzanne Lynch will be on the ground in the Swiss Alps, bringing you the exclusive conversations, shifting power dynamics and groundbreaking ideas shaping the agenda in Davos. Stay in the know with POLITICO's Global Playbook, your VIP pass to the world’s most influential gatherings. SUBSCRIBE NOW. | | | | | | | | | — Court blocks JetBlue’s attempt to buy Spirit Airlines: The Justice Department and state attorneys general have successfully blocked JetBlue Airways’ $3.8 billion attempted purchase of ultra low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines, the second federal court decision in the past year delivering a blow to further consolidation in the U.S. airline industry. In a 113-page opinion issued today, U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston blocked the deal from closing. — House GOP hits pause on Hunter Biden contempt vote: House Republicans have paused their efforts to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress, as they negotiate a new date for a closed-door interview. The House Rules Committee will no longer tee up a contempt resolution for a floor vote during its meeting today, contrary to Republicans’ previous plans. A leadership aide familiar with the decision, granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, added that “negotiations are now underway for him to comply with the subpoena, so we are holding on the contempt vote while they work to set a date.” — Supreme Court rejects antitrust fight challenging Apple’s app store: Apple beat back a key antitrust challenge to its app store today after the Supreme Court declined to intervene in a yearslong legal fight. The high court, without explaining, said it will not hear appeals of a lower court ruling in a case brought in 2020 by Epic Games, maker of the popular online game Fortnite, against Apple. The decision leaves in place a ruling that was largely a win for Apple, and puts a spotlight on the Justice Department, which is in the final innings of four-year antitrust probe of the company.
| | | | SWING STATE ALARM — Former President Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden in Georgia according to a new poll. The survey, from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the University of Georgia, Trump held a 45 percent to 37 percent lead over the incumbent Democrat among registered voters. The rest of the respondents, about 20%, said they either were not sure, not voting or would be supporting another candidate. ON THE ATTACK — Nikki Haley is trying a risky new tactic in the Republican presidential race: She’s mounting an attack on Donald Trump. One day after her third-place finish in Iowa, the former South Carolina governor’s campaign and a pro-Haley super PAC began promoting TV ads here depicting Trump as a bully and a liar. Her campaign released a memo calling the former president “more vulnerable than commonly believed.” And Haley announced she would not participate in two scheduled debates media outlets scheduled ahead of the New Hampshire primary unless Trump joined her on stage — suggesting she plans to ignore Ron DeSantis and train her fire on the frontrunner. ASA OUT — Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson ended his long-shot bid for the White House today. The former two-term governor entered the race in April with an eye toward taking on former President Donald Trump, who saw a decisive win in Iowa on Monday night. Hutchinson found himself increasingly without a political home in a party that has embraced the man who once seemed toxic in the wake of Jan. 6, 2021. CANCEL CULTURE — ABC News has canceled a planned debate in New Hampshire, after GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley said today that she would only step foot on the debate stage again if Donald Trump or Joe Biden is there. The upcoming debates were slated to take place before the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 23. ABC News planned to partner with WMUR-TV to host a debate on Thursday, and CNN announced it would host a debate on Sunday.
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Houthi fighters and tribesmen stage a rally against the U.S. and the U.K. strikes on Houthi-run military sites near Sanaa, Yemen, on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. | AP | MORE FIRE — The U.S. military carried out preemptive strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen today, destroying four anti-ship ballistic missiles that the rebels were ready to launch, according to five U.S. officials, reports POLITICO. The strikes marked the latest salvo in an escalating tit-for-tat in the Red Sea. The U.S., along with its allies, launched a barrage of air and sea-based missiles against Houthi military targets in Yemen on Thursday and Friday last week, in retaliation for missile and drone strikes on international shipping. Those coalition strikes have not deterred the Houthis from continuing to attack commercial vessels: A Houthi missile fired on Monday hit the American-owned Gibraltar Eagle, a bulk carrier that was sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands. The attacks today were on a much smaller scale and “dynamic” in nature, meaning they were not pre-planned and rather taken in self-defense against missiles that presented an imminent threat to international shipping, one of the officials said. All of the officials were granted anonymity to speak about a sensitive operation before an official announcement. U.S. forces observed the Houthis preparing to launch the four ballistic missiles today, presumably against ships in the Red Sea. The head of U.S. Central Command then ordered U.S. forces to take out the threat, according to one of the officials. HELP COMING — France and Qatar, the Persian Gulf nation that helped mediate a previous cease-fire, said late today that they had brokered a deal between Israel and Hamas to deliver medicine to Israeli hostages in Gaza, as well as additional aid to Palestinians in the besieged territory, reports The Associated Press. France said it had been working since October on the deal, which will provide three months’ worth of medication for 45 hostages with chronic illnesses, as well as other medicines and vitamins. The medicines are expected to enter Gaza from Egypt on Wednesday. It’s the first known agreement between the warring sides since a weeklong truce in November.
| | | | YOUR GUIDE TO EMPIRE STATE POLITICS: From the newsroom that doesn’t sleep, POLITICO's New York Playbook is the ultimate guide for power players navigating the intricate landscape of Empire State politics. Stay ahead of the curve with the latest and most important stories from Albany, New York City and around the state, with in-depth, original reporting to stay ahead of policy trends and political developments. Subscribe now to keep up with the daily hustle and bustle of NY politics. | | | | | | | | | | | | | MELTDOWN — In the icy waters near Antarctica, a new arch-decorated iceberg has emerged— all due to erosion from climate change. The iceberg, known as A23a after it broke off of the Antarctica coast in 1986, is twice the size of the Greater London area but only recently started drifting in the water around the continent. But a ship run by Eyos expeditions got close enough to send a drone and see the iceberg is collapsing in certain areas to create arches and caves in the colossal ice formation. In this story for BBC, Jonathan Amos discusses how warmer water and air has started to melt the surfaces of A23a, bearing the question of how much longer the decades-old iceberg will survive.
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On this date in 1992: The El Salvadoran Peace Accords are signed at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City between the government of El Salvador and the FMLN guerrilla leaders, officially ending the country's 12-year civil war. Pictured is General Mauricio Ernesto Vargas (center right) of the Salvadoran armed forces embracing Schafik Handel (left) commander of the FMLN. | Joe Cavaretta/AP | | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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