Trump’s January: Court Dates and Election Nights

In the political world, Donald J. Trump is on the cusp of something that eluded him in 2016: a clear victory in the Iowa caucuses this month. His advisers hope it will be the first in a series of early state victories that propel him to collect enough delegates to be the presumptive Republican presidential nominee by late March.

In the legal world, however, the former president is at the same time facing two trials this month that hit on a deeply personal level. One is the wrap-up of the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against him and his company and an expected decision from the judge on the penalties he must pay. The other is the damages trial for defaming E. Jean Carroll, a New York writer who said he raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s. A jury last year said he had sexually abused her.

It is a juxtaposition that Mr. Trump has so far managed to his advantage on the campaign trail, casting himself as the victim of political and legal persecution by a Democratic establishment out to silence him and his supporters. In both trials, he could face substantial financial penalties and a significant change in how — or if, in a worst-case scenario for him — he continues to control his business.

If Mr. Trump has helped himself in court with his methods, it has been hard to discern so far, given how the judges have engaged with him and his arguments. Yet, in the face of this political-legal collision, he considers himself his own best defender and communicator, and in 2024, what the court of Republican public opinion will tolerate is different from what a court of law will allow.

Mr. Trump is among the most disciplined undisciplined political figures in modern U.S. history: For all his self-inflicted