A patchwork anti-Trump crew is rallying around Nikki Haley

When former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson threw his support behind Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential race, his message was as much an indictment of the former president as it was an endorsement of Haley ahead of New Hampshire’s Tuesday primary.

“Anyone who believes Donald Trump will unite this country has been asleep over the last 8 years. Trump intentionally tries to divide America and will continue to do so. Go @NikkiHaley in New Hampshire,” Hutchinson wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday afternoon.

Haley’s well-timed bump in the polls in the Granite State — bolstered by a timely endorsement from the state’s popular GOP governor, Chris Sununu — has elevated the first-in-the-nation primary as the event to watch this election season. It’s also drawn Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and former Trump administration official, the backing of several of the loudest anti-Trump voices still left in the Republican Party.

Around the same time Hutchinson called on New Hampshire voters to support Haley, GOP Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont did the same: “After years of controversy, violent rhetoric and growing polarization, the very last thing we need is four more years of Donald Trump,” Scott said in a statement, calling Haley “our only chance to ensure America has the choice it deserves in November.”

Just over a week earlier, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who’s been eyed as a possible third-party candidate, backed Haley ahead of Iowa’s caucuses, calling her “the strongest chance” for Republicans to put forward the best possible candidate in the general election.

And the most-prominent New Hampshire newspaper, the Union Leader, joined the chorus this weekend, endorsing Haley, touting both her character and her experience. Despite its conservative bent, the paper backed Joe Biden in the 2020 general election, defying its long history of supporting conservatives in the general election.

“If you can select a Republican ballot on Tuesday,” the editorial said, “we urge you to select Nikki Haley as your next president. New Hampshire is ready for a change. America is ready for a change. The world is ready for a change. We want a better option than we have had for the past eight years, and Nikki Haley is that option.”

The slate of late-breaking endorsements would normally be a boon for a candidate hoping to sway voters in the waning days of a campaign. But for Haley, it also brings risk.

The former U.N. ambassador has, like most of the GOP candidates, painstakingly avoided going after Trump head on. Only recently did she ramp up her criticism of the former president, and rule out the possibility that she would accept a job as Trump’s vice president.

While anti-Trump messaging may charm New Hampshire’s more moderate electorate — which includes a significant number of independent voters — it’s unlikely to appeal to the conservatives in other early voting states. And in recent campaign stops in New Hampshire, Trump has attempted to play up Haley’s independent support, claiming that liberals are attempting to "infiltrate the Republican primary,” in New Hampshire.

Haley is also still missing the support of two of the most nationally recognizable Trump detractors: former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Christie’s exit from the race earlier this month was poised to be a win for Haley, as polls indicated that likely Christie voters eyed Haley as a possible second choice in the race. But Christie, whose campaign hinged on taking on Trump, slammed Haley on his way out the door.

“She’s gonna get smoked,” Christie was caught saying of Haley — although he did not reference her by name. “And you and I both know it. She’s not up to this.”

Haley is still trailing Trump by double digits in recent polls of Granite State voters, her surge appearing to slow. Even Sununu, her top surrogate in the state, has tempered expectations for her on Tuesday.

"She doesn't have to win. I mean, look, nobody goes from single digits in December to 'you absolutely have to win' in January," he said Sunday during an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Trump, meanwhile, has scooped up the support of three of the other also-rans: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Vivek Ramaswamy and most recently (and most stingingly) Sen. Tim Scott, Haley’s fellow South Carolinian, as well as two of his 2016 primary foes, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

“It comes right down to, what does America need for the next president?” Scott said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“The only conclusion,” he added later, “is Donald Trump.”

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EU, US near deal on police access to online data

The European Union justice chief is "confident" of an agreement, despite "some major differences" in how to protect civil rights.

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Populism Keeps Rattling the Globe. Elites Have No Idea What to Do.

DAVOS, Switzerland — For more than a decade, forces on the ideological extremes have torn at the global political fabric. And for just as long, the luminaries at the World Economic Forum have fretted about how dangerous that phenomenon is — for the businesses they lead and the countries they govern.

But years into the transnational struggle with resurgent populism, the corporate leaders in Davos appear to have no serious solutions.

In conversation after conversation here, I detected resignation and helplessness among business executives when it came to their counterparts in government. There’s a desperate desire to see the world’s political leaders appeal more to moderates instead of capitalizing on extremes, but there’s also recognition that the political market doesn’t easily reward the people in the middle.

C-suite types fear the polarization will only deepen as half of the global population, in more than 60 countries, votes in 2024 — everywhere from South Africa to the United States. For them, financial consequences can be stark, especially if the results of an election threaten shipping lanes or when campaign rhetoric leads to violence in a place they’ve invested.

“The biggest concern is instability,” the CEO of a private equity fund told me.

These 12 months may well be the biggest election year in history. Many of the campaigns are unfolding in hotbeds of populist and nationalist sentiment, including major democracies such as India.

Far from seeing this as a moment to turn back the tide of insularism, executives are girding for endless backlash. Some say they are worried about speaking up about politics because the far right and the ultra left see them as an enemy. They also have financial responsibilities to shareholders of all political stripes and so must be careful about taking certain stances.

The CEO of one consumer goods company expressed dismay at the bleak campaign messaging across the globe.

“What I worry about is that all the narratives are negative,” this person said.

The WEF’s Global Risks Report 2024 made it clear that social fractures are a widespread worry. Respondents listed “societal and/or political polarization” in the top three concerns, behind No. 2 artificial intelligence-generated misinformation and disinformation and No. 1 extreme weather.

But even as they long for moderate forces to rise above the extremes, there appears to be little sense of how the business community can help make that happen. I kept asking for specific solutions that companies could offer to reduce societal polarization, but I received no concrete responses.

A health care company CEO — who, like others, was granted anonymity because the issue is sensitive in his circles — mused that by having workforces that are spread out and diverse, and by encouraging teamwork, maybe firms can counter destructive political forces.

“As much as politics fails in bringing people together, companies need to step up in bringing people together,” he said. “Many challenges from climate change to how to get equitable access to health care — opportunities and challenges — need debate and need teamwork, and not polarization and not simplification.”

It was a nice sentiment, but it didn’t inspire much more than vague hope.

Like many of the other political observations here, it could have been shared at any time in the past decade. If lessons have been learned from the world’s most acute populist convulsions — the first Trump administration, the Bolsonaro experience in Brazil, the implementation of Brexit and others — they were not in evidence.

Part of the problem for this crowd may be the incredible scale of the election year at hand.

Even some government leaders say the sheer number of elections makes for an uncertain business and regulatory landscape as politicians on the campaign trail put off difficult decisions until after the voting is over.

“I’m very nervous,” said Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, Norway’s minister of international development. “While all these countries are going into campaign mode, things are not getting done.”

Next month’s presidential election in Indonesia — a Muslim-majority country with a population above 270 million — is a case in point. Some corporate leaders are expected to delay their initial public offerings until after they have a sense of how pro-business the new leadership will be.

But by far the No. 1 election of concern here is the one in the United States, which could see Donald Trump return to the White House.

Corporate leaders are reading closely about the Republican frontrunner’s views on tariffs and other economic practices, which are far more isolationist than even the relatively cautious Joe Biden. Whichever way the United States is heading will affect the policies of other governments, leading business executives to ask some very basic questions.

“It’s something as simple as this: Many businesses we have operate across borders. Is a country for or against free trade?” the private equity fund CEO said.

Among those warning Trump against putting up trade barriers is Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer.

“It would be a profound mistake to move back to protectionism,” he said in Davos when asked about a possible Trump return.

One top question is the fate of the massive Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, which is spurring investment in green energy in the United States.

Trump’s team has indicated he plans to gut the law. So business leaders wonder whether now’s the time to put their money in the United States or other places indirectly affected by that legislation or whether their long-term contracts could wind up meaning nothing in a year.

In fairness, talk of pure business far outstripped talk of politics as the snow fell in this ski town.

This is, after all, the World Economic Forum, and the sessions are more likely to be about sustainability metrics or taxes than the political scene.

Attendees hobnob over wine and endless cheese in storefronts taken over by Arab Gulf states or companies that go by inscrutable acronyms. Stand outside the bathrooms and ask passersby if they are CEOs and a shocking number will say yes. (“One day!” a woman responded with a smile.)

The coats are oversized, and so are the egos.

And so, in some cases, is the sense of self-pity. In this rarefied environment, I was told that it doesn’t help to be a billionaire, millionaire or merely very rich when it comes to the political environment these days.

After all, actors on both the far left and far right of the political spectrum have anger toward the rich gathered here in Davos, often blaming them for the world’s ills.

“The right says everyone is under threat. The left says the capitalist system is exploitative,” the consumer goods company CEO said.

Some in the Davos crowd preferred to focus on the positive, trusting the logic of the markets to overcome populist currents.

Several pointed to renewable energy as an area in which economic forces appeared to be overcoming partisan resistance because of the falling costs of turning to wind, solar and other sources of power. Even politically conservative places, such as the state of Texas, are taking advantage of non-fossil fuel energies, despite such resources being viewed as leftist.

“If you’re driving down a highway in Texas, and there’s lots of really long straight highways in Texas, you’re going to have oil rigs, as far as the eye can see on this side — you’ve got wind farms, as far as the eye can see on this [other] side,” Suni Harford, president of UBS Asset Management, said during a panel when I asked about electoral calendar concerns.

The Biden administration sent a notable delegation to the forum. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan delivered remarks and answered questions on the main stage, but they stuck to well-worn talking points.

Even if the U.S. officials had unveiled some grand new ideas, most people here would not have taken them too seriously — certainly not to the point of investing money. Attendees watch the polls, and they know that it’s possible the Biden administration could be gone in 2025.

It does not help matters that the U.S. election comes so late in the year, carrying the potential to upend the global order just two months before the Davos crowd gathers here again.

That intense uncertainty could be why, according to the private equity fund CEO, at this point “very few people have priced in the risk of Trump coming back” in their market analyses.

“In a sense, most people are looking at this as business as usual and not thinking about how disruptive the Trump administration is going to be on geopolitics,” he said.

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She Took a Big Risk Backing Someone Other Than Trump. Then Her Candidate Lost.

DES MOINES, Iowa — She made her last stand in a public school library.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds had taken a huge political gamble in backing her friend and fellow Gov. Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination, bucking both Iowa governors’ traditional caucus neutrality and her erstwhile ally Donald Trump. The former president had ever since been foretelling the end of her political career and trashing her from campaign stops in her own state, sometimes getting boos at the mention of her name. These were ominous signals for a rising Republican star in a party beholden to Trump.

But in the days before the caucus, through a blizzard and plunging temperatures, through stubbornly consistent polls showing Trump lapping the field, Reynolds was out on the trail with DeSantis, chuckling gamely at his usually-people-don’t-leave-Florida-for-the-Midwest-in-January schtick, urging Iowans to defy the pollsters, to “layer up” against the cold and “show up” at the caucuses. The polls weren’t showing what she was seeing, she said. He was going to win this thing.

So on Monday night, she stepped to the front of a room of about 100 of her Madison County neighbors and made her pitch, once again, for a candidate polls said would be lucky to take second place. She thanked the caucusgoers, said what an honor it was to be their governor and took only a veiled swipe at the man expected to win by double-digits: “We need somebody that’s focused on the future, not the past. … Somebody that will fulfill the promises that they made to the people when they signed up to run for this position.” Polls were one thing, but surely a popular Republican governor could at least sway a room full of her own Republican neighbors in Madison County.

When all the handwritten paper slips had been counted about a half-hour later, Trump had dominated the room, just like he would the rest of the state. At that caucus location, the former president got 79 votes to DeSantis’ 23. The library erupted in applause and cheers.

It was a deflating moment for a governor accustomed to taking risks and winning. Since ascending to the post in 2017 — becoming Iowa’s first female governor after then-President Trump appointed then-Gov. Terry Branstad ambassador to China — Reynolds has evolved into one of the most successful conservative state executives in the country, with a national profile to match. If she had wanted, she could have just taken the safe route — used the 2024 presidential race, and Iowa’s caucus, to raise her profile further and showcase her state.

Instead, she went back on her promise to stay neutral and seemed to risk it all. From the moment she endorsed DeSantis (she said she didn’t think Trump could win in a general election and DeSantis could) it was clear what she stood to lose, not least a good relationship with the vengeful man who could be the next Republican president. Even before the endorsement happened, Trump declared that “it will be the end of her political career;” he continued to bash her right up until the night of caucus.

But on the caucus night itself, it wasn’t necessarily clear that she’d lost anything other than her bet on DeSantis, or even that she would. The chance that she might have foreclosed on a possible spot in a Trump administration — some had once thought her a likely shortlist vice presidential pick — bothered her not in the least, according to a senior adviser, who told me that, given her 11 young grandchildren in Iowa, she didn’t want to go to Washington no matter who was president. And the potential fallout from Trump supporters in her own state seeking revenge on his behalf? Well, I couldn’t find any hint of that in the caucus room. In fact, there was a surprising amount of big-tent love.

“We agree to disagree on things like this,” said Angie Daniels, a communications contractor wearing a Trump sticker. Daniels had “zero animosity whatsoever about [Reynolds] supporting DeSantis. … It’s not our dog in the race. But, you know, that’s the whole point of all this.”

Reynolds was confident enough in her outlier position (Chris Sununu in New Hampshire is the only other prominent GOP governor to have endorsed against Trump this cycle) that she only doubled down after the results were in. Later on caucus night, at a West Des Moines Sheraton, she somewhat implausibly introduced DeSantis to a crowd of still-fired-up supporters as the next president of the United States. (Trump, at his victory rally, meanwhile, embraced Attorney General Brenna Bird, who had endorsed him, and told the crowd: “She stepped up. She’s going to be your governor someday, I predict.”) Reynolds is no “Never Trumper” — she has made clear she’d support Trump if he gets the Republican nomination. She’s just not ready to do that yet — unlike a parade of other prominent GOP figures (Sens. Marco Rubio and Mike Lee, for instance) who raced to endorse Trump before the first vote was cast.

Still, the school library that night was an almost gauzy picture of what post-primary Republican unity might look like — part Norman Rockwell, part realpolitik. Trump voters I spoke to there were fully at ease simultaneously liking Reynolds’ record in the state and Trump’s in the country. They waved away Trump’s own comments about her as just Trump being Trump. “It’s all fair in love and war, when you’re doing the political crap,” said Bryan Arzani, the mayor of Truro, the town where we stood. Arzani is enough of a Trump fan to have attended the former president’s rally in Washington on Jan. 6 to protest the 2020 election results. (“[I] didn’t do anything stupid,” he said.) The DeSantis endorsement “does turn some people off who don’t understand the bigger picture,” he said, but not enough of them to really hurt her politically. A few minutes later, I watched him and Reynolds share a hug.

Travis Daniels, Angie’s husband, an Army vet in a cowboy hat, didn’t think Trump’s attacks would hurt Reynolds in the state, either. “Iowans support Iowans,” he said. “We take this very seriously. We do our research. But at the end of the day, I’ve got to go to church with half these people. I’ve got to go to the grocery store with them. I do business with them. So we don’t hold grudges like that. …We’re all on the same team.”

‘Out there on an island’

Kim Reynolds has arguably been two different governors: the Kim Reynolds before Covid and the Kim Reynolds after. The pre-Covid version had found herself suddenly elevated from a lieutenant governorship that had also come about rather early in her state Senate career, and she’d barely assumed the office before she faced a tough reelection campaign. She wasn’t taking major conservative legislative swings; her priorities included items such as mental health care and education funding. And then, a little over a year after she won a close reelection, the pandemic hit.

“I think during the pandemic is when Governor Reynolds really grew into the role and became the strong leader she is today,” said state Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, a Polk County Republican. Indeed, talking to Reynolds fans at various pre-caucus campaign stops, I often heard people cite her pandemic performance as the reason voters liked her. She resisted shutdown orders at a time when most states had them and Trump’s pandemic team encouraged them.

As it happened, Ron DeSantis was doing something similar in Florida, which is how the two got to know one another. They were “out there on an island,” Reynolds said at quite a few DeSantis events leading up to the caucus — both heavily criticized in national media for shunning public health mandates and indeed some of the guidance coming from the Trump administration itself. The risks both of them faced — indeed every governor around the country faced — were not just political: They were deciding matters of life and death, children’s education and their citizens’ livelihoods.

Meanwhile, it was an election year, though Reynolds herself was not on the ballot. A headline from The New York Times that fall warned that Iowans were turning “sour on the GOP” and that Reynolds’ pandemic performance could drag down other Republicans, including Trump and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst. Both in fact won the state quite comfortably in 2020, and on election night, Reynolds praised Trump’s administration as one of “action and outcomes,” and Trump himself as “a leader, a fighter, a president who puts America and Americans first.” And the following January, Reynolds signed a then-controversial law requiring schools to offer an option for in-person learning five days a week — making Iowa one of only four states to have such a requirement, along with Florida, Texas and Arkansas. Again, the critics were loud, but in the end the statistics tended to support the decision to bring students back early; a McKinsey study found that Iowa experienced some of the lowest pandemic-related learning delays in the country. Nationwide by the end of 2021, according to a POLITICO ranking, Iowa ranked just below average in health outcomes, with better-than-average economic and educational performance.

By the 2022 midterms, she’d built up some political clout, and she used it. She had made “school choice” a priority that legislative session, pushing a bill that would put state money into scholarships for private schools. Democrats accused her of trying to defund public schools, and some Republicans objected to the idea on conservative grounds — that government largesse could cost private schools their independence, or that the idea would hurt their small rural school districts. So, somewhat Trumpishly, she backed primary challengers to some of those dissenting Republicans. She caused some bitterness in the process, but she also prevailed: Four of the four incumbents she sought to oust ended up losing their primaries. Trump’s endorsement record was far longer but nowhere near as strong.

In that midterm year of 2022, Trump was blamed for dragging down other Republican candidates and thwarting an expected red wave, but in Iowa under Reynolds, the red wave actually happened. Republicans gained statewide offices, knocked off the last Democrat in the congressional delegation and expanded their legislative majority. “Kim had massive coattails,” the Republican operative David Kochel told the Des Moines Register at the time. She used that majority in turn to push through a slate of ambitious conservative proposals, including tax cuts, strict abortion restrictions and a major school choice bill.

In her inauguration speech, she discussed her pandemic response and said that trusting in God had given her “freedom to be bold and not beholden” whether “to others, to elections, or even to what’s popular.” Her school choice bill, in fact, wasn’t popular, according to an Iowa Poll that found 62 percent opposed to it after it passed. Nor did Reynolds, who openly supported a six-week ban on abortion when a majority of Iowans thought abortion should be legal in most or all cases, suffer the post-Dobbs punishment other Republicans did that year. In 2023, she got that abortion ban through the legislature, too. (The law is currently blocked and set for review in the state’s Supreme Court.)

‘She has Trump antibodies now’

“Today, Reynolds is much diminished,” David Yepsen, a former Des Moines Register chief political reporter and “Iowa Press” host, told Iowa Starting Line this week. “She upset [and] alienated a lot of Republicans with her endorsement and very active campaigning by DeSantis’ [side]. That goes against historic practices of leading Iowa politicians to sort of stay out of this thing.”

But Reynolds is not up for election until 2026 — and she hasn’t even announced she’s running. She will be in her mid-60s by then, and her husband Kevin is currently battling lung cancer. But at that point, if she even does seek a political future after having served two terms and change, her actual record likely will be more important to her fate, one way or another, than a two-year-old endorsement. Disaffected pro-Trump legislators will have a say in shaping that record over the next two years, but the effect, if any, remains to be seen.

“I think future elections, no matter who is running for what, are going to be won and lost on issues and organization,” said Rob Sand, Iowa’s auditor and the state’s only elected statewide Democrat. He is no fan of Reynolds’ policies in general, and he also points to narrow losses for statewide Democrats in 2022 as evidence that the state is not as red as it looks. In which case, to the extent the DeSantis endorsement makes any difference at all, it may be in a general election rather than a Trump-backed primary challenge. “I think a meaningful number of people who have voted for both Democrats and Republicans are frustrated with someone who basically spent six years saying one thing” — that she supported Trump — “and then turned on a dime.”

It’s not that Reynolds lacks critics. (Just before Christmas, she declined to participate in a federal food assistance program for low-income children; Democratic opponents, not surprisingly, noted the disconnect with the spirit of the season.) It’s just that the criticisms I heard in Iowa tended to be more about substance than about Trump. Polls vary depending on the survey, but one that Donald Trump cited is a Morning Consult governors’ approval ranking showing her with the highest disapproval, at 47 percent. This was an 8-point jump in disapproval from the beginning of 2023, and the result notably preceded the DeSantis endorsement but came after an active legislative session in which the governor got major conservative priorities passed, including polarizing education policies.

“To me it feels like, as a teacher, she just doesn’t ask us what we think would be helpful,” said a teacher at Perry High School, where a shooter had opened fire on Jan. 4, killing a sixth-grader and wounding five other students. The principal was shot trying to protect other students in the attack, and days later died of his wounds. Reynolds visited the school and promised support. She called the principal a hero and ordered flags flown at half-mast after he died. But this teacher, a former Republican disaffected by Trumpism, pointed to Reynolds’ ongoing push to streamline Area Education Agencies, which provide services including special education and mental health support. The teacher said those services were indispensable after the shooting. “The thing I’m really disgusted with is her saying she’s going to give us every support possible and then gutting the organization that can do that.”

In other words, it’s policy and track record that matters most, not her perceived popularity with the notoriously fickle and loyalty-obsessed Trump. That is reportedly not the vibe inside MAGA World, where the attention is very much on who did or didn’t endorse Trump — and most crucially when they finally “bent the knee” (looking at you, Ted Cruz). But there’s at least one bona fide conservative out there whose advice to Reynolds is simply not to sweat it.

“I told her she has Trump antibodies now,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who campaigned for DeSantis alongside Reynolds leading up to the caucus.

Massie knows from getting crosswise with Trump. The then-president tweeted that Massie was a “third rate Grandstander” after he voted against the CARES Act pandemic stimulus in 2020; Massie still remembers the exact date of the tweet, March 27, as a day he thought he could lose his seat in an ongoing primary. But despite Trump’s popularity in his district, which outstripped his own — despite, indeed, the popularity of the CARES Act among likely Republican voters there — Massie raised money off of Trump’s attacks and crushed his opponent with 81 percent of the vote that year. The next cycle, Trump endorsed Massie, who suggested that the endorsement should call him “a first-rate defender of the Constitution.” “So I went from a third-rate grandstander to a first-rate defender of the constitution in two years,” Massie said. (For what it’s worth, Massie said he, too, would support the eventual Republican nominee.)

“The reality is, the way bullies work is they pick on the weak,” Massie told me. “She’s not weak.”

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California Senate leader aims to be the state's first woman and LGBTQ+ governor

The burgeoning field to be California’s next governor grew even more crowded Friday as Toni Atkins, the San Diego Democrat who has held the state’s top legislative posts, launched a bid to succeed Gov Gavin. Newsom in 2026.

Atkins — who has made history several times over as the first out lesbian to be Assembly Speaker, as well as the first woman and LGBTQ+ person to lead the Senate — is betting that her long resume in elected office coupled with her boundary-breaking profile is the winning formula to distinguish her from the pack.

“It’s a combination of story and experience,” Atkins told POLITICO in an interview. “I truly believe my record shows I’m the most qualified candidate based on the experience and the things that I’ve done.”

Atkins, now serving as Senate leader, has been at the top of the legislative food chain for much of her tenure in Sacramento. The leadership roles have given her tremendous sway in negotiating budget deals and pushing policy priorities such as affordable housing and abortion rights.

But being a Capitol power broker rarely translates to widespread notoriety, leaving Atkins with a steep climb building name recognition among the state’s voters.

“I know the work is going to be daunting. I know it's going to be hard,” Atkins said. “I'm going to spend every waking minute figuring out how to introduce myself to people across California.”

She added: “I don't come from wealth, I don't have that to fall back on. So I am going to have to raise money, and fortunately, I've had experience doing that as the Speaker and the Pro Tem to protect my caucuses.”

The allusion to her hardscrabble Appalachian upbringing offered a barely veiled contrast with Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, who declared her candidacy for governor last spring in an early push to get out ahead of potential contenders. Kounalakis, a former ambassador and major Democratic donor, has drawn on family wealth to power her past campaigns.

Both Kounalakis and Atkins are striving to make history as the state’s first female governor, as is former state controller Betty Yee. The field is stacked with a number of potential ‘firsts’ — Atkins could be the state’s first LBGTQ leader, Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is Filipino American, could be the first Asian American governor and Tony Thurmond, the state schools chief, could be the first Black person and Latino to win the top job.

Atkins, 61, is still serving as Pro Tem before handing over the reins to state Sen. Mike McGuire on Feb. 5. Her gubernatorial kick-off, which was rumored in Capitol circles for months, took place Friday morning at the Air and Space Museum in San Diego, which has been her California home base since she moved to the state in 1985 to help care for her sister’s newborn.

Among those present at the launch event were California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a longtime ally, and her political mentor Christine Kehoe, the former San Diego legislator.

“If someone had told me when I first came to California that I would be here today, I probably would have laughed out loud at how crazy that sounded,” Atkins said in prepared remarks. “I had always been too different. Too poor. Too country. Too gay. … Do I think my story provides some kind of golden ticket to the governor’s office? Of course not. But my experience defines me.”

Atkins served as a director of a women’s health clinic before entering local government, first as a City Council staffer before getting elected to the Council in 2000. In 2010, she was elected to the Assembly, where she won the speakership in 2014. One year later, she made the unorthodox choice to challenge a sitting Democrat for a state Senate seat (the incumbent, Marty Block, later dropped out) and ascended to the upper chamber in 2017. The next year, she was sworn in as Senate leader, making her the first person in 150 years — and third ever in state history — to hold the top job in both houses.

With her Southern drawl and low-key demeanor, Atkins is a well-liked figure among political insiders. Her leadership tenures have seen relatively few controversies, though she has been scrutinized over how her spouse Jennifer LeSar’s affordable housing consulting business flourished while Atkins’ Capitol clout grew.

Atkins acknowledged she has not been the flashiest figure in recent California politics, particularly as she worked with two high-profile governors — Newsom and Jerry Brown.

“Most people don't see me taking the spotlight because I've had to represent my caucuses, whether it's the Senate or the Assembly,” Atkins said. “But I assure you, I have a vision for what I want to do and how I want to do it.”

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Tim Scott to endorse Donald Trump

Sen. Tim Scott will endorse Donald Trump at a rally tonight in New Hampshire, a person familiar with the coming event confirmed.

The senator had competed against Trump for the Republican nomination before bowing out amid a failure to gain traction in the polls.

His decision to back Trump is a blow to Nikki Haley, a fellow South Carolina Republican, who is aiming to have a strong showing in New Hampshire’s upcoming primary. It was Haley who appointed Scott to the Senate in 2012 while serving as governor of the Palmetto state.

The New York Times was the first to report the coming Scott endorsement.

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Netanyahu says he has told U.S. he opposes Palestinian state in any postwar scenario

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he has told the United States that he opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of any postwar scenario, underscoring the deep divisions between the close allies three months into Israel’s assault on Gaza aiming to eliminate its Hamas rulers.

The U.S. has called on Israel to scale back its offensive and said that the establishment of a Palestinian state should be part of the “day after.”

But in a nationally broadcast news conference, Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with the offensive until Israel realizes a “decisive victory over Hamas.” He also rejected the idea of Palestinian statehood. He said he had relayed his positions to the Americans.

“In any future arrangement … Israel needs security control all territory west of the Jordan,” Netanyahu told a nationally broadcast news conference. “This collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can you do?”

“The prime minister needs to be capable of saying no to our friends,” he added.

More than 100 days after Hamas triggered the war with its Oct. 7 attack, Israel continues to wage one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history, with the goal of dismantling the militant group that has ruled Gaza since 2007 and returning scores of captives. The war has stoked tensions across the region, threatening to ignite other conflicts.

More than 24,600 Palestinians have been killed, some 85 percent of the narrow coastal territory’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, and the United Nations says a quarter of the population is starving.

Hundreds of thousands have heeded Israeli evacuation orders and packed into southern Gaza, where shelters run by the United Nations are overflowing and massive tent camps have gone up. Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets in all parts of Gaza, often killing women and children.

Early Thursday, medics said an Israeli airstrike on a home killed 16 people, half of them children, in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.

Dr. Talat Barhoum at Rafah’s el-Najjar Hospital confirmed the toll and said dozens more were wounded. Associated Press footage from the hospital showed relatives weeping over the bodies of loved ones.

“They were suffering from hunger, they were dying from hunger, and now they have also been hit,” said Mahmoud Qassim, a relative of some of those who were killed.

Footage emerged Thursday of Israeli troops blowing up the main campus of a university outside Gaza City in a controlled detonation — one of multiple universities they have destroyed. The video, apparently taken by drone, showed a giant explosion engulfing the complex of buildings of Al-Israa University.

The university, a private institution founded in 2014, said in a statement that its main building for graduate studies and bachelor’s colleges were destroyed. It said Israeli forces seized the complex 70 days ago and used it as a base. It was unclear when the explosion took place. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.

According to Hamas, Israeli forces have destroyed more than 390 schools, universities, and educational institutions across Gaza.

Internet and mobile services in Gaza have been down for five days, the longest of several outages during the war, according to internet access advocacy group NetBlocks. The outages complicate rescue efforts and make it difficult to obtain information about the latest strikes and casualties.

There was meanwhile no word on whether medicines that entered the territory Wednesday as part of a deal brokered by France and Qatar had been distributed to dozens hostages with chronic illnesses who are being held by Hamas.

War reverberates across region

The war has rippled across the Middle East, with Iran-backed groups attacking U.S. and Israeli targets. Low-intensity fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon threatens to erupt into all-out war, and Houthi rebels in Yemen continue to target international shipping despite United States-led airstrikes.

The Israeli military said it fired an interceptor at a “suspicious aerial target” — likely a drone or missile — approaching over the Red Sea on Thursday, triggering air raid sirens in the southern Israeli coastal city of Eilat. The Houthis have launched drones and missiles toward Israel that mostly fell short or were intercepted and shot down.

Iran has meanwhile launched a series of missile attacks targeting what it described as an Israeli spy base in Iraq and militant bases in Syria as well as in Pakistan, which carried out reprisal strikes against what it described as militant hideouts in Iran early Thursday.

It was not clear if the strikes in Syria and Pakistan were related to the Gaza war. But they showcased Iran’s ability to carry out long-range missile attacks at a time of heightened tensions with Israel and the U.S., which has provided crucial support for the Gaza offensive and carried out its own strikes against Iran-allied groups in Syria and Iraq.

Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas to ensure it can never repeat an attack like the one on Oct. 7. Militants burst through Israel’s border defenses and stormed through several communities that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage.

Israel has also vowed to return all the hostages remaining in captivity after more than 100 — mostly women and children — were released during a November cease-fire in exchange for the release of scores of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Family members and supporters were marking the first birthday of Kfir Bibas, the youngest Israeli hostage, in a somber ceremony Thursday in Tel Aviv.

The red-haired infant and his 4-year-old brother Ariel were captured along with their mother, Shiri, and their father, Yarden. All four remain in captivity.

Medicines bound for hostages enter Gaza

The agreement to ship in medicines was the first to be brokered between the warring sides since November. Hamas said that for every box of medicine bound for the hostages, 1,000 would be sent for Palestinian civilians, in addition to food and humanitarian aid.

Qatar confirmed late Wednesday that the medicine had entered Gaza, but it was not yet clear if it had been distributed to the hostages, who are being held in secret locations, including underground bunkers.

Both France and Hamas had said the International Committee for the Red Cross, which helped facilitate the hostage releases, would have a role in distributing the medications. But on Thursday, the Red Cross said “the mechanism that was agreed to does not involve the ICRC playing any part in its implementation, including the delivery of medication.”

Hamas has continued to fight back across Gaza, even in the most devastated areas, and launch rockets into Israel. It says it will not release any more hostages until there is a permanent cease-fire, something Israel and the United States, its top ally, have ruled out.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 24,620 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, around two-thirds of them women and children, with over 61,800 wounded. It says many other dead and wounded are trapped under rubble or unreachable because of the fighting. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because it fights in dense residential areas. Israel says its forces have killed roughly 9,000 militants, without providing evidence, and that 193 of its own soldiers have been killed since the Gaza ground offensive began.

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