Republican debate: Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis face off in Iowa days before caucus

A new poll from CNN shows former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley within single digits against former president Donald Trump in the New Hampshire primary.

The poll shows that 39 per cent of Republican primary voters prefer Mr Trump while 32 per cent support Ms Haley. The next closest competitor, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, is 20 points behind Ms Haley at 12 per cent. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy polls at 8 per cent and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis polls at 5 per cent.

Support for Ms Haley increased by 12 points since the November CNN/UNH poll.

Former president Donald Trump is set to begin his final conquest of the Republican Party a week from Monday when the Iowa Caucuses kick off. The twice-impeached-four-times-indicted former president remains the prohibitive favorite, leading his nearest competitors by double digits.

But despite the fact that Mr Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee, a majority of Republican senators have not endorsed him. So far, only 18 of the 49 senators in the Republican conference in the Senate have endorsed Mr Trump despite his widespread popularity, according to Business Insider.

Sens Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, Iowa’s two Republican senators, have maintained their neutrality in the name of preserving the caucuses.

“I don’t know that I will,” Ms Ernst told The Independent when asked whether she will make an endorsement after the caucuses.

Eric Garcia reports from Washington, DC:

Vivek Ramaswamy has resumed TV ad spending a month after announcing that his campaign would no longer spend money on TV ads.

It comes after Mr Ramaswamy called TV ad spending “idiotic, low-ROI & a trick that political consultants use to bamboozle candidates who suffer from low IQ.”

Mr Ramaswamy made the comments in a post on X, in which he also shared an NBC News report that stated the Ramaswamy campaign would be stopping its spending on TV ads and slot reservations.

Martha McHardy has the story:

The former president remains the clear front-runner in nearly all polls, despite the myriad legal problems he faces, any one of which could yet derail his hopes of mounting a return to the White House.

As it stands, he has been crossed off the primary ballot papers in Colorado and Maine after those states ruled that he was ineligible under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, which bars anyone found to have violated their oath of office by engaging in insurrection from standing again.

Mr Trump has vowed to appeal those decisions and it could yet fall to the conservative-majority US Supreme Court to adjudicate on whether such a step is valid and can be applied in the case of a former commander-in-chief, even one whose reign ended in the ignominy of the Capitol riot of 6 January 2021.

But the former president is nothing if not unconventional and so far none of the controversies surrounding him appear to have deterred a majority of American conservatives from supporting him.

They also appear not to mind his blanket refusal to participate in the party’s televised debates with his fellow candidates, accepting his insistence that he has nothing to gain and plenty to lose from allowing his rivals a free shot at his record as simple good sense.

CNN has announced which Republican 2024 candidates have qualified for the next GOP primary debate – and it’s bad news for some of the presidential hopefuls.