EXCLUSIVE – Nikki Haley’s Republican presidential campaign says they brought in $24 million during the October-December fourth quarter of fundraising, in another sign of the Republican presidential candidate’s momentum in recent months.

The haul, shared first with Fox News on Wednesday, is more than double the $11 million raised in the third quarter and more than triple the $7.3 million brought in during the second quarter by the former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as ambassador to the United Nations in former President Donald Trump’s administration.

With less than two weeks to go until the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses kick off the 2024 GOP presidential nominating calendar, the Haley campaign touted that they had $14.5 million cash on hand in their coffers as of the beginning of the new year.

Haley’s team, showcasing their grassroots appeal, noted that it has received contributions in the past three months across their three campaign committees from 180,000 donors, including 83,900 new contributors, which they said were ‘nearly the same number of unique donors in all the previous quarters combined.’

And they touted that $16.25 million of the fourth quarter fundraising haul came from digital and mail grassroots efforts.

‘This is a two-person race between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump,’ Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney emphasized in a statement.

And Ankney claimed that ‘Nikki is the only Trump alternative with the voter support, the operation, and the resources to go the distance. Our momentum continues to build as we head into 2024.’

Haley’s campaign didn’t provide a breakdown of money raised for the Republican primaries versus fundraising for the general election.

Haley has enjoyed momentum in the polls in recent months, thanks in part to well-received performances in the first three GOP presidential primary debates. She leapfrogged Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for second place in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary and second overall contest in the Republican nominating calendar.

She also aims to make a fight of it in Iowa, where the latest polls suggest she is pulling even with DeSantis for a distant second place behind Trump, who remains the far and away front-runner in the GOP nomination race as he makes his third straight White House bid.

Haley appears to be the first of the major Republican presidential contenders to showcase their fourth quarter figures. The candidates have until Jan. 15 to file their fundraising reports with the Federal Election Commission.

Trump hauled in a whopping $45.5 million during the third quarter across his multiple fundraising committees, with over $37.5 million in his campaign coffers as of the end of September.

DeSantis brought in $15 million in the third quarter, down from his $20 million haul the previous three months.

Haley has run a frugal campaign since declaring her candidacy in February of last year. But in recent weeks she’s added campaign staff and along with an aligned super PAC has launched a major ad blitz in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

‘First of all the accountant in me saved cash this whole time through, and it’s just that we’re spending it smart and right now it’s go time,’ Haley said Tuesday in an interview with Fox News Digital ahead of a town hall in Rye, New Hampshire. 

Haley emphasized that ‘we’re less than two weeks out from Iowa, three weeks from New Hampshire, and we’re hitting it hard. We’re getting our message out. We’re shaking every hand, we’re answering every question. We’re rallying and the momentum on the ground is real. We feel it. It’s strong. People want something different. They’re ready.’

But Haley hit a road bump last week, with an unforced gaffe as she neglected to mention slavery when answering a question at a town hall in New Hampshire on the causes of the Civil War. 

Haley’s comments, and her clean-up attempts over the next two days, stirred controversy as they grabbed plenty of national attention.

Haley once again acknowledged in her Fox News interview that ‘I should have said slavery right off the bat. I was overthinking it…and I should have stated the obvious and we tried to clear that up.’

‘I think we’re moving on,’ she added. ‘But nobody on the ground is talking about it.’

And pointing to the media, she said ‘you guys have enjoyed talking about it, but nobody else is talking about it.’

Hamas has waived its demands for multiple monthslong cease-fires in its hostage negotiations with Israel after Israeli officials dismissed the request as ‘totally off base’ on Tuesday.

Hamas negotiators had demanded multiple cease-fires culminating in the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages, according to the Jerusalem Post. Now, the terrorist organization is saying it is open to an exchange of 120 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel for 40 of the hostages.

‘The five-way talks between Egypt, Qatar, the United States, Israel and Hamas are ongoing, but so far no agreement has been reached,’ a source close to the negotiations told the Arab World News Agency.

The source said Hamas had also demanded a one-day cease-fire in exchange for each hostage being released, an offer Israel also reportedly refused.

‘The proposal we received from Hamas on Sunday was totally off base, and we asked the mediators to try and produce a more acceptable proposal. They are working on it and let’s see what happens,’ an Israeli official told Axios.

The negotiations come after Israel announced a partial withdrawal of troops from Gaza. Military officials said the war had entered a new phase requiring more targeted strikes on Hamas militants and fewer mass air strikes and artillery barrages.

That change of pace is in line with requests from President Biden’s administration and Israel’s other Western allies, who had repeatedly sounded alarms about civilian casualties in Gaza.

Israeli officials believe there are roughly 133 hostages remaining in Gaza, though the U.S. has cautioned that there is no way to be sure how many of them are still alive.

SOME ISRAELIS ALLOWED TO RETURN TO BORDER COMMUNITIES NEAR GAZA STRIP, MILITARY SAYS 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that he expects the war to continue for ‘many more months’ despite the change in strategy this week.

A Russian aircraft accidentally bombed a village in the Voronezh region of the country as the Kremlin continues an all-out assault on major Ukrainian cities.

The warplane responsible for the friendly-fire was reportedly forced to make an ’emergency release’ on Tuesday while flying over the Russian village of Petropavlovka.

‘At around 9:00 a.m. on January 2, while an Air Force plane was flying over the village of Petropavlovka in the Voronezh Region, there was an emergency release of aviation munitions,’ said Russia’s Defense Ministry, according to translations from the Moscow Times. 

Petropavlovka is approximately 93 miles east of the Russian-Ukrainian border.

‘An investigation is underway into the circumstances of the incident. A commission is working on-site to assess the nature of the damage and assist in the restoration of buildings,’ the Defense Ministry said.

The Defense Ministry claimed there were no casualties caused by the accidental bombing, but at least six buildings were struck, according to the Moscow Times.

‘I tasked my colleagues in the Voronezh region government to swiftly address issues concerning compensation payments and the construction of new housing,’ Voronezh Governor Aleksander Gusev said, according to the translations. ‘Our commitment is to ensure no one is overlooked.’ 

Russia is sustaining bombardment of Ukraine’s two largest cities with hypersonic ballistic missiles as the conflict approaches the close of its second year.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced four civilians were killed in the strikes against the major cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv. An additional 92 individuals were injured.

Russia launched on Friday its largest missile attack against Ukraine since the beginning of the war, killing approximately 41 civilians — a sustained barrage has continued since then.

‘Another attack by Russian savages. Almost a hundred missiles of various types. At least 70 missiles were shot down. Nearly 60 of them were intercepted in the Kyiv area. There were also severe strikes on Kharkiv,’ Zelenskyy told the Ukrainian public on Tuesday. 

He continued, ‘Work is now being done to eliminate the consequences. Patriot, IRIS-T, and NASAMS — each of these systems has already saved hundreds of lives. Russia will be held accountable for every life lost. Glory to Ukraine!’

The House Republican majority is officially whittled down to three as the chamber updated its numbers after former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s retirement.

The House gathered in a pro-forma session on Tuesday, officially updating the number of seats held by members of Congress.

McCarthy’s resignation from Congress was effective Dec. 31, 2023, but Tuesday’s pro-forma session was the first gavel since the former speaker’s resignation went into effect.

With McCarthy’s departure, the House is down to 433 members in total.

House Republicans hold 220 seats in the lower chamber while House Democrats currently control 213 seats.

Two vacancies — McCarthy’s resignation and the removal of disgraced former New York GOP Rep. George Santos from Congress — have House Republicans walking a political tightrope under the new leadership of Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

With only a three-seat majority, Johnson can only have three defectors in his party should Democrats vote en-bloc on a measure.

The House breakdown is likely going to change again soon with New York Democrat Rep. Brian Higgins’ resignation in February to take a position at Buffalo, New York’s Shea’s Performing Arts Center.

This will give House Republicans some breathing room, but potentially only for a little bit.

The special election to replace Santos in Congress will take place on Feb. 13, 2024, in New York’s Third Congressional District.

Should the seat flip blue, the GOP majority would once again narrow.

McCarthy’s resignation came after his removal from the speakership by eight Republicans led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and every Democrat present in the chamber.

McCarthy has taken parting shots at Gaetz as he headed for the exit door, recently telling Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade that history will not look back fondly on Gaetz’s move.

‘History will judge him,’ McCarthy said. ‘And history will judge all of us.’

Fox News Digital’s Taylor Penley contributed reporting.

President Biden is continuing to bleed support from a number of voter demographics key to any hopes he has at winning a second term in the presidential election later this year, a new poll has found.

According to the USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Monday, Biden’s support among Black voters has fallen to just 63%, down from the 92% that Pew Research Center data shows he won in the 2020 presidential election, while his support among Hispanic voters is down to 34% from 59%.

Additionally, Biden trails former President Donald Trump, his likely Republican opponent, 37%-33%, among voters under the age of 35.

On a positive note for Biden, the poll finds that most of that lost support shifts to third-party candidates rather than Trump, but still appears to give the former president the edge.

Trump leads Biden 39%-37% with an unnamed third-party candidate receiving 17%. With specified third-party candidates, Trump leads Biden 37%-34% while independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. garnered 10% support.

According to the poll, 20% of Black and Hispanic voters say they support a third-party candidate over Trump or Biden, while 21% of young voters say the same.

The poll also finds a significant enthusiasm gap between those supporting Trump and Biden, with 44% of Trump supporters describing themselves as ‘a 10,’ the highest level of enthusiasm, compared to just 18% of Biden supporters who say the same.

Among their respective likely primary voters, Trump and Biden continue to hold commanding leads. Sixty-two percent of Republicans say they will support Trump, light years ahead of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley at 13%, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 10%, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy at 6% and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 4%.

Biden performs even better within his party, garnering 74% support, compared to just 9% for author Marianne Williamson and 2% for Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips.

Just 39% of voters say they approve of Biden’s job performance, with 58% disapproving. That number edges Vice President Harris’ approval rating of 33%, compared to 57% disapproving.

The disappointing numbers for Biden come as pundits and experts from within his own party continue to sound the alarm over the possibility of Trump winning back the White House, including veteran Democrat strategist James Carville and former Obama administration official David Axelrod.

David Faris, a writer and political science professor at Roosevelt University, recently called the bad news for Democrats ‘even worse than it looks,’ and argued that Biden’s historically low polling numbers should ‘panic’ the party heading into 2024.

‘Precisely how scared Democrats should be about Biden’s standing depends on how his plight compares with those of presidents past. And there’s no sugarcoating it: This might be the worst polling environment for an incumbent president one year out from an election since the advent of the polling era in the 1930s and also the most dire situation facing any Democratic presidential candidate in decades,’ the liberal-leaning political scientist wrote. 

‘Panic is entirely warranted,’ he added.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.

Former President Trump is kicking off the new year by touting his dominance over his rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

‘I am honored to tell you that we are beginning the 2024 Election Year in our strongest possible position since the moment I rode down the Golden Escalator and announced my bid to run for president as a political outsider,’ Trump wrote in a New Year’s Day fundraising email to supporters, as he pointed back to the launch of his 2016 presidential campaign.

For Trump, a year makes a big difference.

At the dawn of 2023, the former president was the only declared candidate in the race for the Republican nomination.

However, he was far from a sure thing. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, fresh off an overwhelming gubernatorial re-election less than two months earlier, was neck and neck with Trump in some of the early 2024 polls. 

The former president was still facing plenty of criticism by fellow Republicans for contributing to the GOP’s lackluster performance in the 2022 midterms.

Additionally, Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign launch at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, a couple of weeks after the midterms was panned by many pundits.

However, as the new year begins, Trump is the commanding front-runner for the Republican nomination as he makes his third straight White House bid.

Trump enjoys a formidable double-digit lead over his rivals in the latest polls in Iowa, where the Jan. 15 caucuses lead off the GOP nominating calendar. He holds an even larger lead in the most recent national polls.

Some pundits point back to last March to locate the start of the former president’s political resurgence after a period of vulnerability.

That was when Trump was indicted by a grand jury in the New York City borough of Manhattan on charges related to an alleged illegal 2016 hush money payment. Trump made history as the first former or current president to be indicted for a crime.

Trump was also indicted later in the year in three other cases, including charges he tried to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss. However, none of the cases have deterred his support among Republican voters.

It appears to be just the opposite, as Trump’s legal controversies have had a rallying effect among many Republicans.

‘I consider it a great badge of honor because I am being indicted for you,’ Trump said to cheers from his supporters at a boisterous rally in New Hampshire last month.

Seasoned Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams noted that ‘every time Trump’s targeted by legal actions, it just improves his standing with the conservative base.’ 

DeSantis, in an interview that aired on the Christian Broadcasting Network late last month, argued that the Trump indictments ‘distorted the primary.’

‘I would say if I could have one thing change, I wish Trump hadn’t been indicted on any of this stuff,’ DeSantis said.

Trump’s legal entanglements have also sucked the oxygen out of the room for his nomination rivals.

Longtime Republican operative and strategist Matt Gorman, a veteran of numerous GOP presidential campaigns who served as a top adviser to Sen. Tim Scott’s 2024 bid, emphasized that ‘anytime you’re being forced to defend an opponent, when you could be using that time and attention to draw contrasts, that’s not helpful.’

However, what has been beneficial to Trump to date in the GOP nomination race could end up serving as a detriment in the general election, with the strong likelihood of several trials unfolding and distracting him as 2024 progresses.

Also boosting Trump over the past year has been what many pundits describe as a very disciplined Trump campaign team.

As he ran an incumbent-style campaign, Trump decided against sharing the debate stage with his GOP rivals.

‘The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had,’ Trump wrote on his social media site ahead of the first GOP primary debate in August. ‘I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!’

The former president ended up skipping all four candidate showdowns held in 2023 while hosting competing events on the debate nights.

Trump’s absence did not seem to hurt him. He emerged relatively unscathed by his rivals, and his lead over the rest of the field has only grown since the first debate was held.

While the debates did not appear to affect Trump, they did help winnow the field of contenders, as nearly all the candidates who failed to qualify for the showdowns dropped out of the race. A field of more than a dozen candidates in August was down to just five major contenders by December.

While Trump mostly kept out of the line of fire, his rivals launched broadsides against each other.

Meanwhile, DeSantis spent much of the year fending off bad headlines. 

The candidate who was threatening the former president in the Republican primary polls at the beginning of 2023 came under attack from Trump repeatedly even before he launched his campaign.

The Florida governor was in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons during the late spring and summer, from a rocky campaign launch to a series of staff purges and resets.

There were more staff shakeups in the autumn, this time at the DeSantis-aligned super PAC Never Back Down, which had taken over many of the traditional duties of a presidential campaign, including grassroots outreach.

DeSantis for months was the clear No. 2 rival to Trump in the Republican nomination race. However, in many metrics, Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina governor, had surpassed DeSantis for second place by the end of 2023.

However, Haley stumbled over the holidays, as her answer to a question regarding the causes of the Civil War omitted slavery, which sparked a controversy.

Now, with the first votes in the Republican nomination race less than two weeks ago, Trump clearly remains in the driver’s seat.

‘Last year around this time, you saw a platonic ideal of what candidate who could take down Trump would look like,’ Gorman noted. ‘But we live in the real world, and people come with flaws and missteps, and that ideal seemed to be a standard that couldn’t be met, or at least hasn’t been met yet.’

A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied Michael Cohen’s attempt to revive his lawsuit against former President Trump in which he claimed he was jailed in retaliation for writing a tell-all book.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said in an order that it would not revive the lawsuit. A lower-court judge had tossed out the lawsuit, ruling that the law did not seem to provide a damages remedy for most claims that someone was jailed in retaliation for their criticisms of a president.

The court of appeals on Tuesday ruled that Cohen already obtained relief by getting a judge to order his release from imprisonment to home confinement weeks after he was imprisoned, when the government claimed he violated severe restrictions on his public communications.

The court said the law did not provide an outlet for more relief than that.

Cohen served more than a year of his three-year sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to tax evasion, campaign finance charges and making a false statement to Congress.

Cohen, however, told Fox News Digital he will bring the challenge to the Supreme Court.

‘The outcome is wrong if democracy is to prevail,’ Cohen told Fox News Digital. ‘A writ of habeas corpus cannot be the only consequence to stop a rogue president from weaponizing the Department of Justice from locking up his/her critics in prison because they refuse to waive their first amendment right.’

He added: ‘We will be filing a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court.’

In a statement Tuesday, Cohen’s attorney Jon-Michael Doherty of Gilbert LLP said they plan to take the fight to ‘the highest court in the land.’

‘While we are of course disappointed in the Second Circuit’s ruling, our consistent expectation has been that this novel issue involving the appropriate remedy against a rogue President who seeks to use the prisons to silence his personal critics would need to be addressed by the United States Supreme Court,’ he said. ‘In America, an adequate remedy against this sort of abuse of power must deter future misconduct by federal officials.’

He added: ‘We look forward to taking the fight for Americans’ right to speak freely about their government without fear of imprisonment to the highest court in the land.’

Cohen filed the initial lawsuit in 2020.

Meanwhile, Trump attorney Alina Habba told Fox News Digital that they are ‘very pleased with today’s ruling.’ 

‘Mr. Cohen’s lawsuit was doomed from its inception,’ Habba told Fox News Digital. ‘We will continue to fight against any frivolous suits aimed at our client.’

Cohen had been released on furlough on May 21, 2020, to serve out the remainder of his three-year sentence — but allegedly failed to take necessary steps to finalize that transfer. In a statement, the Bureau of Prisons charged that instead of complying with the terms of the U.S. Probation Office’s Federal Location Monitoring (FLM) program, Cohen was obstinate.

At the time, the Bureau of Prisons said: ‘Any assertion that the decision to remand Michael Cohen to prison was a retaliatory action is patently false.’

The Bureau of Prisons also said that during the process of transitioning to home confinement, Cohen ‘refused to agree to the terms of the program, specifically electronic monitoring.’

The agency said he was ‘argumentative’ and ‘was attempting to dictate the conditions of his monitoring, including conditions relating to self-employment, access to media, use of social media and other accountability measures.’ Cohen also allegedly ‘refused to acknowledge and sign the conditions of his transfer of home confinement and was remanded into custody.’

‘While it is not uncommon for BOP to place certain restrictions on inmates’ contact with the media, Mr. Cohen’s refusal to agree to those conditions here played no role whatsoever in the decision to remand him to secure custody nor did his intent to publish a book,’ the bureau said at the time.

In July 2020, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York Alvin Hellerstein said the move to put Cohen back in prison was ‘retaliatory’ and claimed it was related to his forthcoming tell-all book. Hellerstein noted that probation officers had demanded Cohen agree to avoid engagement with the media, then cuffed him when he didn’t agree.

‘I’ve never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people. How can I take any other inference but that it was retaliatory?’ Hellerstein said at the time.

The Justice Department, at the time, led by then-Attorney General Bill Barr, denied the move was retaliatory, as did the Bureau of Prisons.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.