especially david chalian. if there was ever a weekend that demonstrated that trump is back and trump is what democrats feared in 2016 and 2020, and why they won in 2018, and did better than expected in 2022, it was this weekend. it was his remarks on saturday kind of playing the old to some degree, deeply offensive hits to a p.o.w. in john mccain, and talking about the civil war. do you think this breaks through and does the shaking of the lapels like biden's team wants? >> personally i don't think this has any impact in terms of the republican electorate as we head out to the caucuses, phil, but i think the biden campaign at least welcomes donald trump back into the spotlight in this way, and using this kind of rhetoric, whether it's the continued lies about the 2020 election and focused on the past or whether it is saying things like abraham lincoln could have negotiated his way out of civil war which just raises a whole host of questions about what that means actually. this is exactly the kind of stuff that

let's bring in cnn political director david chalian. david, what do you think?think this happened so soon? >> first of all, presidential campaigns end usually for one main reason, that's the money dries up. the money dries up when you are not performing up to expectations. and that is what has happened here with ron desantis. you know, you fall 30 points behind donald trump in iowa after you had spent -- you bet the whole farm on iowa, if you will, and that was a really disappointing dyant second place showing. so he came out of iowa with no momentum to build in new hampshire. not a natural electorate for him anyway. and you know, it's so intriguing. in south carolina this week, he was answering questions, and he was making the case, nikki haley appeals to independents and moderates. you can't win a nomination that way. i appeal to conservatives. for instance, i went to all these iowa caucus sites on caucus night. you know what that told me, the trump voters, they're with me in 2028. that to me indicates you have this monster of a blockade if you're ron desantis

david chalian, your turn timely. thank you so much for waiting for me. >>> so, what or who might have gotten to ron desantis somewhere within the last 24 hours where he would now suspend his race, when he went to south carolina or was in south carolina yesterday, it was with the thinking, what an interesting strategy. he's getting ahead of things, he's going to south carolina, heading back to new hampshire. who possibly delivered that reality check for him? >> let's be clear. there's only one thing that ends campaigns -- not having enough money to move forward with a presidential campaign. that was a reality that desantis was facing as well. he was very much running on fumes, running 30 point behind trump in iowa, where he put everything on the line, did not result with getting infused with new cash, because he didn't get much momentum. the other reality, you don't need a what or whom, it's just basic math here. this is a battle to collect enough delegates to become the republican nominee. when you look at the path a

political director david chalian is with us here. david, the weather is a serious factor right now because it is insanely cold. how are you doing? how is this going to impact the candidates? they must be worried. >> in the immediate term, obviously, the impact is some events get pulled down today. some move events to remote events, virtual events, not in person. obviously, the desire for any candidate and campaign right now in these closing hours is to get in front of people, get them to sign that commit to caucus card that they are going to show up on monday night and support your candidacy. that's not happening. desantis had some events postponed as well. so it's not a great day for the candidates, but the snow will hopefully be gone by monday. it will be frigid here. and for the campaigns that have knocked on doors and have a robust ground game, the hope is that they are going to be able to get their people out even in the cold. as the time develops here, we're going to start sensing which campaigns fear that the weather is going t

with us the busiest man on earth, david chalian, cnn political director. one of the questions is what would success in new hampshire be forhill hale? the governor says she doesn't have to finish first. someone just told us she doesn't even need to get, he said if they can keep donald trump below 60% or 50%, that would be good for nikki haley. you'll see the highest margins and kpettive primaries before. reagan was the only one to get over 50. so how do you judge success? >> first of all, if she were to win the primary, i would consider that success. anything short of that is her campaign, her allies and others putting their best spin is forward to try to set expectations for everyone else. if she overperforms, where most of the polling has her, let's say she's within 5 points of donald trump, do i think she might be able to get some momentum, some continued funding and rational for moving forward, sure i'm not sure how long lasting that will be looking at the rest of the calendar. but here for nikki haley, where we are because of donald trump's overwhelmin

cnn political director david chalian is at the magic wall to break it all down for us. vid, what did we learn? >> good morning, dana. this brand-new poll from cnn and the university of new hampshire, just two days out now, shows you donald trump with a pretty substantial lead in this new hampshire republican primary. 50% of likely republican primary voters say they're supporting trump to hailey's 39%, to desantis all the way back at 6%. and take a look at how this has changed since our poll in early january, before the iowa caucuses. you saw a lot of growth for trump, from 39% support to 50 now. you also see growth for hailey. 32% to 39%. they're both benefiting perhaps from some of the candidates that dropped out. chris christie, the lion's share of his supporters may be going to hailey. ramaswamy, a lot of his supporters going to trump. you see the growth for both of them there. and they have very different coalitions, dana. >> and on that note, as you just showed, is an overall support for donald trump. but when you look under the surface of that top line, their suppo

david chalian, jackie kucinich of "the daily beast," and priscilla alvarez. thank you for being here. let's start with what we're seeing today. you heard our reporters eva and jeff on the trail. gives us a david chalian 30,000-foot view of the snapshot of the race at this point. >> it's so odd to me thatters when in this place 12 days to go to the iowa caucuses and the bulk of our conversation is about a race for second place. i keep wondering to myself, well, what do you get in a nomination race if you come in second? you get nothing. so just anned a con fug ration of the dominance here. so we are eager to get voters to weigh in here to confirm whether he is that dominant or not, but i do think what jeffs was just talking about, the diminished money for desantis and increase in advertising and the momentum we have been seeing, i wonder how much margins will matter here. if ron desantis ends upcoming a lot closer to donald trump in iowa than people expect, you can imagine that being fuel for some donors to get back in the game. so i think we're now in a waiti

david chalian, you're our political director.this assessment of this major announcement from chris christie? >> yeah. it's a significant development in this race and the field is narrowing here just on the eve of voters beginning to weigh in and having christie who, of course, has been the most vociferous trump opponent inside the republican field depart from the stable tells the story of where the republican party is right now. according to sources, wolf, that i've spoken with, he is expected to say that he's done the calculation here and simply doesn't see a path to winning the nomination and that is where he came to this conclusion to suspend his campaign that he knows it's the right thing for him to do and that he is still going to stay committed to the rationale that got him into this race which is being opposed to donald trump and his dominance inside the republican party, to try to coax the republican party to move on from donald trump and he is like loly to talk about h for him personally that he is never in a position ag

david chalian is here with that. david, what are you seeing?> well, jake, we are sort of trying to take stock of what does this electorate look like in iowa tonight. these are early entrance pole results. these are people who arrived at the caucus site early. these numbers will change throughout the night as we do more introduce. look at this. a new part of the maga movement. 53%, a majority of those that we've interviewed thus far say yes, they consider themselves part of the maga movement. 41% say no, they're not. we also asked folks do you think joe biden legitimately won the 2020 election? 68%, 68%, more than two-thirds of those in these early entrance poll results showing up early to the caucus sites say no, he did not. wrongly say no, he did not win legitimately in 2020. and then we asked if donald trump is convicted of a crime, do you still think he's fit for the presidency? a similar result here nearly two-thirds of those who showed up at the republican caucuses tonight in iowa, at least these early arrivers tell us yes, donald trump is

the deadline to meet the polling threshold just passed, and our political director david chalian joins me now. david, who made the cut? >> as you noted, the deadline just passed and actually the window of qualification started way back on october 15th. we now know that for the cnn january 10th debate, the three candidates who have qualified are former president trump, nikki haley and ron desantis. we also know that donald trump has not participated in any debate yet this cycle, and he doesn't intend on participating at the cnn debate on january 10th. that leaves haley and desantis on the stage, and that would be the smallest debate stage that we have seen to date. that means that they were the only candidates to hit 10% support in three polls, iowa and national polls, going back to october 15th. no other candidate hit the 10% mark in any single poll of the 15 polls that fit into the qualification window. >> very interesting. thank you so much. appreciate that. nikki haley and ron desantis are spending millions in ads to pummel each other right now rather than attack the guy leading the

david chalian has those numbers. david? the poll has closed, we can look more how voters are splitting between haley and trump. between registered republicans which make up 50% of the electorate, donald trump is winning 74% of them to nikki haley's 24%. a 50-point lead with half the leck tort, the republicans. now, these registered undeclareds, they make up a slightly smaller share, 47% of the electorate. haley is winning them 66% to 32%. so she's winning them by a narrower, or slightly narrower margin than donald trump is winning republicans and they're a smaller group. as for the education divide it's not just in american politics broadly, it's also within this republican nomination race in new hampshire. college graduates make up 48% of the electorate. haley wins them 59% to donald trump's 39%. voters without a college degree make up a smaller share, 52% of the electorate today in new hampshire and trump wins them by a big margin, 66% to haley's 32%. so, again, we're seeing donald trump win these slightly larger groups b

david chalian, desantis and haley aren't taking trump on directly. even echoing many of trump's talking points. is that a mistake? >> i guess we'll see the ultimate answer when voters weigh in. it's not been a strategy that has been proving to be a good one thus far for the desantis campaign. i think it sort of gets at a key conu conundrum, a problem for desantis to solve here. how do you overtake the guy you're trying to overtake, who's 30 points ahead of you in the polls, but not only are you not making the case directly against him, you're actually using his own lines because you are in this tension between his dominance in the race and what republican primary voters are eager to hear. and desantis just seems to be stuck in this problem that he hasn't yet solved for. >> kevin madden is with us as well. we see these new dueling ads. we just saw some from the hailey and desantis sides attacking each other. does that change the dynamic of the race when trump, according to all the polls, is still very much the dominant front-runner? >> not really. i t

joining us from des moines, cnn political director david chalian. top line us to start here. what stands out to you as you kind of dig through these new poll numbers? >> well, you showed the horse race there. this is our brand new cnn university of new hampshire poll. trump at 39%, haley at 32%. i think that explains everything you need to know as to why those ads are running that you just played, fphil. the trump universe, the trump campaign, the trump super pac unleashing a torrent of criticism and critique of nikki haley as they try to deal with keeping her at bay specifically in new hampshire. look at the growth over time in our poll as well, and you see that nikki haley's momentum that we've been talking about for weeks in this campaign is apparent here as well. she's increased her share of the vote by 12 points. she was at 20% in our november poll. she's at 32% now. you see trump has moved very little. in fact, he's been remarkably stable throughout this entire campaign in new hampshire. so that movement is exactly what the trump team is trying to blunt as they try to g

. >> want to go straight to david chalian at the magic wall to break this down. let's start with nikki haley who says she's not backing down. show us the reality. >> i will show some reality that i think informed what you heard there from the chairwoman who, by the way, is supposed to be neutral in this process. that didn't sound that way. take a look here. this was how republicans split their vote in new hampshire last night, dana. so among self-identified republicans in the new hampshire primary, which is half the electorate, donald trump wins them by 49 points. is that right? or how about -- yeah. 74% to 25%, okay. so you have to understand if you look at the map all the way out from now to june, the far majority of voters in this process are self-identified republicans. that is a strength for trump and a weakness for haley. in south carolina, her sweet home state as she says, in this next one independents are not going to be nearly as large a share as they were in new hampshire. that was fertile ground for her. in a 2012 when it was just a republican contest

. >> david chalian, thank you. 72% of republicans said trump is fit for the presidency if convicted of a crime. >> this is a recurring story, he spun a story about the election which made the insurrection seem like an act of patriotism in the minds of a lot of his supporters or at least the blues impulse was to try to change that. andy's indictments as politically motivated but if i am looking at this from the standpoint of the biting campaign, and i said this last week in iowa, this universe of people who do not say that among independents and republicans, that is the universe you want to explore. that is a place where you might be able to pick up votes. i agree with what abby said earlier, which is that republican voters will fall in line because we are in a travel moment in our politics. this will be a marginal race and the margin may be those voters who answer the question in the negative. >> there's a lot to like in the stuffer trump, that number just as it did with iowa jumps off the page at me. you cannot lo