In New Hampshire, Haley and DeSantis Were Asked About Race in America. It Got Awkward.

When Ron DeSantis was asked on Tuesday night in a televised town hall in New Hampshire if he agreed with Nikki Haley that “America has never been a racist country,” as she had said earlier in the day, it seemed like an easy opportunity to hit his rival.

But Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, avoided answering the question directly, saying instead that America is not currently a racist country. He also alluded vaguely to “things in our history” that America had overcome.

Wolf Blitzer, the CNN moderator, again asked if Mr. DeSantis agreed that America was never a racist country. He again answered indirectly, taking a stance that neither agreed or disagreed with Ms. Haley’s claim.

“We had challenges with how race was viewed,” he said, pointing — as he often has on the campaign trail — to the Dred Scott decision in 1857, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Black people could not be citizens of the United States. He added, “That was wrong — that was discriminating on the basis of race.”

The back-and-forth provided another reminder of how carefully the Republican candidates have navigated racial politics on the campaign trail.

Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, made the claim while being interviewed on Fox News on Tuesday. She drew the distinction between “racism” and being “racist,” saying that she had faced racism when she was young but that America was “not a racist country” and had “never been a racist country.”