THE TALK OF THE TOWN

As a way of launching the race for the Republican Presidential nomination, the Iowa and New Hampshire contests offer a neat thematic juxtaposition: in the Midwest, candidates fight for the social-conservative vote; in New England, for the support of small-business owners.

Last week, after winning the Iowa caucus by thirty points, Donald Trump complicated the story by ping-ponging between New Hampshire and a Manhattan courtroom, where a jury is considering the amount of damages he now owes E. Jean Carroll for defaming her by saying that she lied when she accused him of rape. “Here’s my schedule for the next four or five days,” Trump told a crowd in Atkinson, New Hampshire, on Tuesday evening. “I come here, I meet with great groups in New Hampshire. I then get on the plane late at night when it’s snowing and freezing out—wonderful. And the pilot says, ‘Sir, it’s gonna be tough.’ And I get there early in the morning, I go to a Biden witch hunt, then I come here in the afternoon.” Trump’s trials, in which he faces ninety-one felony counts, have often been described as a potential distraction for the candidate. But Trump, who complained in Atkinson that he has been indicted more times than Al Capone, did not sound distracted or gloomy about the prospect of spending that time in court. Quite the opposite.