Politics
Anti-Trump Republicans say Nikki Haley is their ‘only hope.’ But is her surge coming too late?
Retiree Reggie Alt handed a handwritten seven-page memo detailing her ideas for how to beat former President Trump to one of former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley’s aides.
Then she grasped Haley’s hands and offered the GOP presidential candidate some Star Wars-themed advice:
“Think of Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are our only hope,” the 68-year-old Algona resident told Haley.
At a recent campaign event in Spirit Lake, Iowa, Nikki Haley supporter Reggie Alt, 68, right, told the candidate, “Think of Obi-Wan Kenobi. You are our only hope,”
Haley laughed and wrapped her arms around the former receptionist.
Haley needs the support of caucusgoers like Alt, an independent voter who said she has supported presidential candidates of both parties over the past half-century, if she hopes to narrow former President Trump’s massive lead in state and national polls ahead of this month’s Iowa caucuses. A strong showing in the Jan. 15 contest could better position her to snatch her party’s nomination from her onetime boss.
“Haley has a strong chance” if Trump’s campaign collapses, Dianne Bystrom, director emerita of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University. “She’s a candidate who checks all the boxes — she’s a very good communicator, a very skilled debater, she has excellent television ads, and she comes across as strong and articulate.”
Nikki Haley speaks to a packed house at Okoboji Barn in Spirit Lake, Iowa.
Haley is enjoying a boomlet of sorts. Her poll numbers have risen in recent weeks, larger crowds are attending her events, she has won prominent donors and endorsers, and a recent Wall Street Journal survey showed her beating President Biden by 17 percentage points in a hypothetical contest — the biggest margin for any GOP candidate in the field. Increased scrutiny — including of Haley’s failure to mention slavery as a cause of the Civil War during a town hall in New Hampshire last week — has followed.
Her prospects of actually reaching the general election still look grim. Trump swamps Haley and the rest of the GOP field in national and early-state polls, including South Carolina, where she served as governor for six years. The top item in a recent campaign missive lauding “Haley’s Week of Wins” was a Fox News headline that asked whether New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s endorsement of Haley would “make a dent in Trump’s massive lead in GOP presidential primary race?”
Aside from nicknaming Haley “birdbrain,” Trump and his allies largely ignored her until recent weeks. Last month, a super PAC backing the former president launched a television ad in New Hampshire that distorts her gubernatorial record on a state gas tax. The ad shows video of Haley saying she opposed such a tax and then saying she supported one, while omitting that she said she would only support such a measure if the state’s income tax rates were was cut by 2%.
As Haley’s prominence has grown, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, once viewed as the top Republican challenger to Trump, and his allies have attacked the former ambassador as beholden to Wall Street, questioned her conservative bona fides and cast aspersions about her tenure as governor.
But neutral observers argue that if everything breaks Haley’s way, she has a narrow path to the GOP nomination.
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1. The shoes of a supporter of presidential candidate Nikki Haley next to a campaign sign. 2. Nikki Haley campaign materials. 3. Supporters have a wide choice of apparel emblazoned with Nikki Haley slogans. 4. Nikki Haley signs are prepositioned for supporters at an Iowa campaign stop by the Republican presidential candidate.
“If she finishes strongly in Iowa, and by strongly, I would say second place ahead of DeSantis … it’s plausible she can come to New Hampshire and say, ‘Look, New Hampshire, it’s either me or Trump,’” said Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire.
The author of “Stormy Weather: The New Hampshire Primary and Presidential Politics” said Haley has an edge in the Live Free and Die state over the other Republicans running.
“She has found a niche in New Hampshire among moderate voters, independents, people who have serious doubts about Donald Trump and don’t want him to be the nominee again,” Scala said, adding that such voters are also drawn to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s candidacy but find Haley more likable.
A poll of likely voters released by Saint Anselm College last month found Haley rising in the state, winning the backing of 30% to Trump’s 44%. Haley doubled her support since the last poll, while the former president held steady. Christie lagged at 12%, with the rest of the GOP field further behind.
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1. Kevin Boyens, 67, of Everly, Iowa, says he is an independent who will caucus for Nikki Haley. 2. Vincent Bedard, left, and Erik Kruse of Bloomington, Minn., pose for a photo with Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley holding their 3-week-old baby Dominik Kruse.
Doug Gross, a Republican Des Moines lawyer who recently endorsed Haley, said he expects Trump to win Iowa. But if Haley has a strong showing in second place, that would give her momentum going into New Hampshire, he said.
“Then you have a shootout in her home state of South Carolina,” he said. “That’s as good as it could get for Nikki Haley.”
Gross is among Haley’s backers who wish she had spent more time in Iowa, though he is hopeful that a recent endorsement by Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group with a significant presence in the state, could give her an organizational boost.
Haley, whose debate performances and voter town halls are spiked with a mix of Southern charm and acerbic wit, attempts to connect with Iowans by highlighting her own small-town roots.
“I was born and raised in a small rural town in South Carolina: 2,500 people, two stop lights,” Haley said recently, standing in front of an enormous green John Deere tractor and stacked bales of hay in a shed in Waukee, Iowa. “You couldn’t think about doing something wrong without somebody telling your mama.”
Windmills and hay bales dot the Iowa landscape on the road between Sioux Center and Spirit Lake following the Nikki Haley campaign.
In the waning weeks before the caucuses, Haley is pressing her electability against Biden as well as her foreign policy credentials and traditional neocon views — notable bona fides at a time of Russia’s ongoing onslaught against Ukraine, Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel and growing concerns about China’s intentions in East Asia.
Such views cemented the support of Michelle Garland, a 52-year-old college psychology professor, after she saw Haley speak at a tony restaurant in Clear Lake.
“To use a word in Yiddish, she has chutzpah. She’s genuine. She’s authentic,” said Garland, an independent voter. “She doesn’t say what people want to hear. She says what she feels. And if you don’t like that, well, you can go elsewhere.”
A question-and-answer period takes up the bulk of the former ambassador’s campaign events. Haley spends more time talking to voters, taking selfies with supporters and signing campaign mementos such as her book “With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace” than she does delivering her stump speech.
These are traits that have traditionally been key to winning the hearts and minds of Iowa voters.
“She could be your best girlfriend. Like, you know, we can open up a bottle of wine or have a coffee together and we would find just the human kind of association together,” said Claudia Ewald, 65, after asking Haley to sign a picture of them and her husband Dave at the Waukee gathering.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley talks with a man wearing a cap identifying him as a Korean War veteran after her event at Waukee, Iowa. Haley spends more time interacting one-on-one with voters at her campaign stops than she does speaking onstage.
The picture was taken at a 2021 fundraiser for Gov. Kim Reynolds, the first time Ewald met Haley. She was instantly smitten, saying Haley was “a woman who was solid, who could be a consensus builder.”
“Her national security [background] was her primary strength,” Ewald said, before adding that she made a point of seeing other candidates including DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy before making a decision. “Nikki just kept coming up on top. She’s a very genuine person.”
Haley does not overtly focus on her gender, despite it being an undercurrent in the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned federal protection of abortion rights.
But her remarks — whether about her role as a military wife and mom, firing back at her GOP rivals when they make gendered statements, or calling for “a badass woman” to be elected to the White House — appear to be aimed at the suburban female voters who could swing next year’s election.
Nikki Haley speaks in Spirit Lake, Iowa, in December.
This message and attitude has previously resonated with Iowan voters, noted David Kochel, a veteran GOP strategist who has advised Reynolds, as well as Iowa’s Sen. Joni Ernst and Rep. Ashley Hinson.
“Iowa has elected a number of candidates who sound a lot like Nikki Haley … strong conservative women,” Kochel said, adding that Haley’s message is “compelling.” “Now the question is — is there enough time?”
Politics
Dem fundraising giant in the hot seat as GOP lawmakers demand answers over dodged subpoena
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House Republicans are demanding ActBlue, a top Democratic campaign fundraising apparatus, turn over international communications, probing whether the organization knowingly misled lawmakers and dodged subpoenas to hide weaknesses in its screening process to weed out illegal, overseas donations.
House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., collectively laid out their demands in a letter published on Tuesday.
“For more than a year, the Committees have conducted oversight regarding ActBlue’s ‘fundamentally unserious approach to fraud prevention,’” the letter reads.
“Recent reporting … strongly suggests that ActBlue deliberately obstructed the Committees’ investigation, including through misleading statements and noncompliance with our subpoenas.”
BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL: LEFT-WING GROUPS DEFIANT AS GOP SHEDS LIGHT ON GROUPS TIED TO CHINA
Rep. Jim Jordan leaves a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 10, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
The letter is addressed to Regina Wallace-Jones, the CEO and president of ActBlue, and is the most recent entry in investigations that began in 2023 when Republicans originally raised concerns about foreign donations possibly influencing American elections.
It also follows New York Times reporting on a memo from Covington & Burling, a law firm, warning that gaps in its screening armor could present “a substantial risk for ActBlue.”
The memo, on its own, does not implicate wrongdoing or indicate that ActBlue accepted international donations. Even so, the reporting caught the eye of Republicans in Congress.
Steil, Jordan and Comer are collectively asking ActBlue to produce two internal documents to examine the internal understanding ActBlue may have had about its own weaknesses.
The first is a resignation letter from General Counsel Aaron Ting — a document Republicans contend centers on liabilities created by ActBlue’s donation security.
Republicans believe the second, a message from ActBlue’s former legal counsel Zain Ahmad, relates to an ignored whistleblower complaint about those practices.
HOUSE HEARING RAISES RED FLAGS OVER FORMER TECH MOGUL’S ‘CCP NETWORK’ ALLEGEDLY FUNDING OF FAR-LEFT GROUPS
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) speaks to the media on his Committee’s investigation into former President Joe Biden’s cognitive state, in the Rayburn House Office Building on July 24, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Republicans have already requested those documents before, but haven’t received them.
“There is considerable reason to believe that ActBlue may have deliberately withheld this responsive material to impede our investigation,” the letter states.
For its own part, ActBlue has claimed it makes every effort to ensure its fundraising complies with legal requirements.
In ActBlue’s own letter published in Nov. 2023, Wallace-Jones, the CEO, affirmed that the organization maintained the highest standards for scrutiny of its fundraising.
“Our approach is multilayered, with checks and confirmations occurring throughout the donation process to verify donors and donor information,” Wallace-Jones wrote.
“These measures, which include compliance measures, technological tools, and manual reviews, help to ensure the identity of donors, root out potential foreign contributions, and protect donors from financial fraud.”
OVERSIGHT DEMANDS DOJ ANSWERS ON FOREIGN FUNDING OF AGITATOR GROUPS AS IRAN, ANTI-ICE PROTESTS CONTINUE
Regina Wallace-Jones of Palo Alto soaks up the first evening of the DNC Convention at the United Center in Chicago, IL on Monday, August 19, 2024. (Photo by Yalonda M. James/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
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Republican lawmakers have given ActBlue two weeks to produce the requested documentation, setting a deadline for April 28, 2026.
“Absent these steps, the Committees are prepared to use available mechanisms to enforce our subpoenas,” the letter reads.
Politics
Swalwell scandal sparks fears of deeper rot on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON — Eric Swalwell’s downfall has raised the possibility of a broader reckoning on Capitol Hill as congressional staffers, reporters and opposition researchers race to verify long-standing rumors of a sordid underground culture among the city’s most powerful.
Former lawmakers across the political spectrum have warned for years of a hushed congressional bacchanal marked by inappropriate revelry and sexual misconduct. But a sense of growing momentum gripped Congress on Tuesday, as Democrats grappled with Swalwell’s resignation and Republicans called for other lawmakers to face scrutiny.
The 72-hour collapse of Swalwell’s political career has shifted attention not only to his closest associates in Congress, but also to a larger set of sitting lawmakers from both parties suspected of lurid sexual activity. Several members have claimed that Swalwell’s alleged behavior was an open secret amid a cacophony of rumors on social media of other potential offenders.
“I think that many people knew about this for a while,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, said in an interview with The Times.
Luna, who planned to lead the charge to expel Swalwell before he resigned, alleged that young staffers would talk among one another about Swalwell’s conduct. Lawmakers should have done more to approach him about the rumors, she said.
Multiple current and former female staffers who spoke with The Times described a broader culture of warning one another about lawmakers with reputations for inappropriate conduct.
But the warnings, passed privately among junior aides, have focused on “sleazy” activity and boundary-crossing behavior, said one former legislative aide, who asked to remain anonymous. Whispers about sleazy behavior generally do not meet the coverage threshold for traditional newsrooms, which are bound by strict ethical standards.
Another former aide said that quiet guidance shared among female staffers focused on behavior that is legal, but nevertheless viewed as unprofessional and unbecoming of members of Congress — a line that has prevented many from speaking out publicly.
Now, a race is on for leverage between two political parties facing comparable strategic risks — each with members facing growing questions over their alleged conduct — and for scoops among news outlets, seeking to break the story first.
The Monday resignations of Swalwell and Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales, who faced his own sex scandal, was also forcing lawmakers to address the issue publicly. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) — one of Swalwell’s closest friends in Congress — answered questions from reporters at length Tuesday, telling them he should have confronted Swalwell when he heard rumors about his behavior.
“You let your guard down. I let him into my circle. … I deeply regret it,” Gallego said.
He denied knowing about Swalwell’s alleged misconduct when asked about the behavior.
“Look, we socialized. We went out. But I never saw him engage in any of the predatory behavior, harassment, sexual assault,” Gallego said.
Notably quiet was President Trump, who has faced sexual assault accusations of his own and frequently parried with Swalwell throughout his presidency. Although Trump posted an article reporting Swalwell’s resignation on social media, he has not commented on the matter in his own words.
The unraveling scandal comes at a time when lawmakers have come together across party lines to push for transparency in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender and alleged sex trafficker whose network of powerful associates included Democrats and Republicans alike.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, details of the Swalwell scandal continued to unfold Tuesday, as a Beverly Hills woman accused him of drugging and raping her in 2018. The Times could not immediately reach his attorney; he previously denied allegations of rape and sexual misconduct made by multiple women in published accounts last week.
Sex scandals are not a new phenomenon on Capitol Hill, which has seen over a dozen members embroiled in controversy over the last decade, including Katie Hill of California, Cory Mills and Matt Gaetz of Florida, and Blake Farenthold of Texas, among others.
But several prominent former members — including former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — have warned of a more widespread cultural problem.
“Every member in Congress knows not to let any young staffer get around Swalwell or Matt Gaetz. It’s not a secret there,” McCarthy said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
Luna had pressed lawmakers to address alleged sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill. In February, she called on the “predatory freaks” in Congress to leave office as she complained about the process to get ethical complaints handled.
“It pisses me off because while some of us are actually working and busting our asses, these clowns are sexually harassing their own staff, doing illegal crap, insider trading etc,” Luna wrote at the time.
Luna said Monday that she was encouraged to see bipartisan support for expelling Swalwell and Gonzales.
A longtime staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said Tuesday that allegations against Swalwell have sparked conversations about how to do more to help staffers report sexual misconduct, such as reforming procedural rules that would allow staffers to report any of their concerns directly to ethics panels, and about the need for ethics investigations to move more quickly.
“Congress has a short-term memory, that is the difficulty here,” the staffer said. “After these guys leave their seats, there needs to be a concerted and consistent effort for reforms to be established and be made permanent.”
Politics
Video: Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs
new video loaded: Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs
transcript
transcript
Vance Says Pope Should Stay Out of U.S. Affairs
Vice President JD Vance weighed in on the tension between President Trump and Pope Leo XIV as Catholics expressed dismay about Mr. Trump’s attacks.
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“I certainly think that in some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality, to stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic Church and let the president of the United States stick to dictating American public policy.” “I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing. And I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace.” “Pope Leo said things that are wrong. There’s nothing to apologize for. He’s wrong.” “I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person. I don’t think he’s doing a very good job.” “I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor, and it had to do with the Red Cross. There’s a Red Cross worker there, which we support.” “It’s terrible. It’s gross. It’s blasphemous.” “I stand with the pope. I mean, the pope speaks the Gospel. He speaks for peace.”
By Shawn Paik
April 14, 2026
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