Tag: New Hampshire

Video: For Christie, New Hampshire’s Primary Is Do or Die

[ad_1]

We’re here in New Hampshire, outside a brewery with Gov. Chris Christie because, as he told us, this is his make-or-break state. His path to the Republican nomination runs through New Hampshire, the first-in-the nation primary. “If Donald Trump wins here, he will be our nominee. And everything that happens after that is going to be on our party and on our country.” “You’re about second in the polls in New Hampshire, but President Trump is still 20 points ahead. How do you see your path now that this race has started to actually winning this?” “I see it right where we’re sitting. The path is to beat him here. I think once Donald Trump loses in one place, that entire rotted building will crumble.” “Is there any scenario that you could see where you would drop out?” “Look, Nick, if I don’t do well in New Hampshire, then I’ll leave. I mean, it’s like I’ve been through this before. I know what these races mean. And if I do very well here, then you bet I’ll continue on through the convention.” More so than any other candidate in this race, Governor Christie has been harshly critical of former President Trump. Most of the field has been trying to keep Trump out of it. Christie has made it central to his argument for why he deserves the presidency. “And we watched you stand up there and say that, you know, Donald Trump was unfit, and you were very right. We agree. And then all of a sudden, you back out of the race and we see you on the stage next to him.” “Yup.” “Sucking up to him —” “Yup.” “So I want to know why? And how do I know that you’re not going to do that again this time?” “Well first off, why was because I didn’t want Hillary Clinton to be president, and I was convinced he was going to be the nominee at that point.” “It’s retail campaigning in New Hampshire. You don’t come up here to give big policy speeches, normally. What you do is come up here to meet voters. Gotten a chance to meet a lot of voters, take a lot of photos, shake some hands. It’s amazing that this is the way we elect a president in this country. But it is. But just remember, the future of this country is going to be determined here. So America is counting on you, and I’m counting on you too.”

[ad_2]

Kassie Bracken, Emily Rhyne and Mark Boyer

Source link

September 14, 2023
Pence warns about future of GOP during New Hampshire stop

[ad_1]

Pence warns about future of GOP during New Hampshire stop – CBS News

Watch CBS News

During a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Wednesday, former Vice President Mike Pence warned voters, “Should the new populism of the right seize and guide our party, the Republican Party we’ve long known will cease to exist.” CBS News reporter Cara Korte has more on Pence’s message about the state of the GOP.

Be the first to know

Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.

[ad_2]

Source link

September 7, 2023
GOP Lawyer Killed In Stabbing At Home, Investigation Underway, New Hampshire AG Says

[ad_1]

A GOP activist and lawyer was fatally stabbed over the weekend under circumstances that police and prosecutors are still investigating.

Alexander Talcott, 41, was found dead inside his home in Durham, New Hampshire, early Saturday morning with a stab wound to his neck, the state attorney general’s office said in a statement released on Sunday.

Authorities said they have identified the parties involved in the stabbing and do not believe there is a threat to the public.

The killer’s identity has not been released to the public as the investigation remains active. The state attorney general’s office declined to comment further.

“The investigation into Mr. Talcott’s death is ongoing and includes whether the person who stabbed Mr. Talcott acted in self-defense,” the statement read.

No arrests have been made. Peter Hinckley, a senior assistant attorney general, told the Boston Globe on Monday that investigators found no signs of forced entry at Talcott’s home.

Talcott previously served as the Republican National Lawyers Association’s state director for New Hampshire, according to William O’Brien, the group’s current leader in the state.

In a statement to local news outlet NBC10 Boston, O’Brien called Talcott “a staunch advocate for the core values of the Republican Party.”

“His unwavering belief in liberty, free markets, and limited government resonated deeply in his role as a lawyer. Within the RNLA, his leadership was unwavering in promoting our shared values, ensuring every member felt empowered and well-prepared,” O’Brien told NBC10.

In an interview with Authority Magazine last year, Talcott described his passion for his work in real estate and private equity law.

“The times I’ve been called upon to brief senators, governors, members of Congress on areas of expertise in housing, finance, and political strategy have made me feel like I’m living up to my purpose,” Talcott said.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 28, 2023
Trump Is Beatable in Iowa

[ad_1]

The recent history of the Iowa Republican caucus offers the candidates chasing former President Donald Trump one big reason for optimism. But that history also presents them with an even larger reason for concern.

In each of the past three contested GOP nomination fights, Iowa Republicans have rejected the candidate considered the national front-runner in the race, as Trump is now. Instead, in each of those three past caucuses, Iowa Republicans delivered victory to an alternative who relied primarily on support from the state’s powerful bloc of evangelical Christian conservatives.

Read: The GOP primary is a field of broken dreams

But each of those three recent Iowa winners failed to capture the Republican presidential nomination or, in the end, even to come very close. All three of them were eventually defeated, handily, by the front-runner that they beat in Iowa. That pattern played out in 2008 when Mike Huckabee won Iowa but then lost the nomination to John McCain, in 2012 when Rick Santorum won Iowa but lost the nomination to Mitt Romney, and in 2016 when Ted Cruz won Iowa but lost the nomination to Trump. Not since George W. Bush in 2000, and before him Bob Dole in 1996, has the winner of the Iowa caucus gone on to become the GOP nominee.

That record frames the stakes for this round of the Iowa caucus, which will begin the GOP nominating process next January 15. Beating Trump in Iowa remains central to any hope of denying him the nomination. Among Trump skeptics, there is a widespread belief that “Iowa is more crucial than ever, because if Trump wins here, he will be your nominee; he’ll run the table,” as Bob Vander Plaats, the president and CEO of The Family Leader, an Iowa-based social-conservative organization, told me in an interview last week.

But even if Trump is defeated in the caucus, this recent history suggests that he will still be a strong favorite for the nomination if Iowa Republicans do not choose an alternative stronger than Huckabee, Santorum, or Cruz proved to be. The conundrum for the candidates chasing Trump is that the strategy that probably offers the best chance of upsetting him in Iowa—maximizing support among evangelical-Christian conservatives—also creates the greatest risk of limiting their appeal and making it harder to beat him in most later states.

Although focusing on evangelical conservatives can deliver victory in Iowa, “if the campaign you’re running is only aimed at those people … it’s hard to put together a coalition big enough to win” the nomination overall, says Dave Kochel, an Iowa Republican strategist.

As they watched the candidates shake hands at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines last week, local political observers and national reporters debated the usual questions: Who is collecting the most endorsements? Who has built the strongest grassroots organization? Who has the most supporters passionate enough to turn out on a cold night next January? But the largest question looming for Republicans may be whether the road to success in the Iowa caucus has become a path to ultimate failure in the GOP presidential-nominating process.

The common problem for Huckabee, Santorum, and Cruz was that even on the night they won Iowa, the results demonstrated that the base of support they had attracted was too narrow to win the nomination. Entrance polls conducted of voters heading into the Iowa caucuses found that each man finished well ahead among voters who identified as evangelical Christians. But all three failed to win among voters in Iowa who did not identify as evangelicals.

That math worked in Iowa because evangelical Christians constitute such a large share of its GOP voters—almost two-thirds in some surveys. But each man’s weakness with the Iowa voters who were not evangelicals prefigured crippling problems in other states. The difficulties started just days later in New Hampshire, which has few evangelicals. Huckabee, Santorum, and Cruz were all routed in New Hampshire; none of them attracted as much as 12 percent of the total vote.

The divergent results in Iowa and New Hampshire set the mold for what followed. All three men were competitive in other states with sizable evangelical populations. But none could generate much traction in the larger group of states where those voters were a smaller share of the GOP electorate. In the end, neither Huckabee, Santorum, nor Cruz won more than a dozen states.

Kedron Bardwell, a political scientist at Simpson College, south of Des Moines, says this history makes clear that Iowa Republican voters, especially evangelicals, have never placed much priority on finding candidates that they think can go the distance to the nomination. “I look at those past winners and think voters were saying, ‘We are expressing our conservative Christian values and not so much worrying about what will happen after that,’” Bardwell told me.

Vander Plaats predicts that will change in this election; the eventual failure of these earlier Iowa winners favored by evangelicals, he told me, will make local activists more conscious of choosing a candidate who has the “national infrastructure and capacity to go beyond Iowa.” Yet financial and organizational resources aren’t the only, or perhaps even the most important, measures of which Republican is best-positioned to convert an Iowa win into a lasting national challenge to Trump.

Even if someone topples Trump in Iowa with strong support from evangelicals, the key measure of their long-term viability will be whether they can attract a significant share of non-evangelicals. In fact, according to past entrance polls, the candidate who won the most support among the Iowa voters who are not evangelicals has captured the GOP nomination in all but one contested race since 1996. (The lone exception came in 2008, when John McCain, the eventual winner, did not compete in Iowa, and those voters mostly backed Mitt Romney.)

Kochel told me that the best way to understand the formula that might allow another candidate to overtake Trump in enough states to win the nomination is to consider the candidates who finished just above and behind him in the 2016 Iowa caucus: Cruz and Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

“If you want to put it in 2016 terms, particularly with Trump looming so large, you really need the Cruz-plus-Rubio coalition,” Kochel said. “You need the Santorum/Huckabee/Cruz supporters, Christians as defined by people like Vander Plaats. But then you also need the Rubio coalition: Ankeny soccer moms and old-school Republicans, college-educated non-evangelicals. That’s the coalition that can win a nomination.”

Can any of Trump’s rivals assemble such a coalition to threaten him, in Iowa and beyond? His following in the state remains passionate, as his exultant reception at the state fair last weekend demonstrated. And though he’s campaigned in the state considerably less than his leading rivals, Trump held a big lead in the recent New York Times/Siena poll of Iowa Republican voters. That survey showed Trump leading among evangelicals and non-evangelicals, largely on the strength of a dominant advantage among the likely caucus-goers in both groups without a college degree.

But there may be a bigger group of Iowa Republicans willing to consider an alternative to Trump than polls now indicate. It’s not scientific, but my conversations with likely caucus-attenders at the fair last week found a surprising number expressing exhaustion with him.

Although they liked Trump’s performance as president, and mostly felt that he was being unfairly prosecuted, several told me they believed that he had alienated too many voters to win another general election, and they were ready for a different choice that might have a better chance of beating President Joe Biden. “He did the best he could for four years, but he didn’t win again, and we’re done with it, we’re done,” Mary Kinney, a retired office manager in Des Moines, told me. Later that afternoon, at a Story County Republican Party dinner headlined by Senator Tim Scott, Steve Goodhue, an insurance broker in Ames, looked around the crowded room and told me, “Even though Trump is leading in the polls in Iowa, this shows you people are interested in alternatives.”

Trying to reach those voters ready to move past Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is putting the most time and money into building a traditional Iowa organization. His campaign staff and the Never Back Down Super PAC that is organizing most of his ground game in the state both include key veterans of Cruz’s 2016 winning caucus effort. DeSantis has committed to visiting all 99 Iowa counties (what’s called a “full Grassley” in honor of the state’s Republican Senator Charles Grassley, who makes a similar tour every year), and his supporters have already recruited caucus chairs in every county as well.

DeSantis has announced endorsements from more than three dozen state legislators, including State Senate President Amy Sinclair. That’s much more than any other candidate. “Look at what the state of Florida has been doing, and look at what the state of Iowa through our legislature has been doing,” Sinclair told me, citing parental rights, school choice, cuts in government spending, and a six-week ban on abortion. “We’ve been working on all of the same things, so when Governor DeSantis steps into the presidential race and says, ‘I have a vision for the nation, and that vision is what we’ve done in Florida,’ well, that’s the same vision that the folks in Iowa have had.”

Many leading Iowa social conservatives also appear likely to coalesce around DeSantis. Steve Deace, an Iowa conservative-media commentator, endorsed him earlier this month, and in our conversation, Vander Plaats seemed headed that way too. Each had backed Cruz in 2016.

All of this shows how many Iowa Republican power brokers consider DeSantis the most likely to become the principal alternative to Trump. DeSantis also polled second to Trump in that New York Times/Siena Iowa survey. But my conversations at the fair failed to find anyone particularly interested in him. Several of those looking for options beyond Trump said they found DeSantis too much like the former president in his combative temperament and style.

Craig Robinson, the former state Republican political director, says he believes that DeSantis, by running so hard to the right on social issues, has already boxed himself into the same corner as Huckabee, Santorum, and Cruz, with little chance to reach out beyond evangelicals to the economically focused suburban Republicans who liked Rubio and Romney. When DeSantis entered the race, Robinson says, he could have appealed to “the Republicans who are sick of the bullshit and don’t want all the extras that come with Trump. Then he’s run a campaign about Disney and all this woke stuff, and all he’s done is make himself as controversial as Trump.”

Helen Lewis: The humiliation of Ron DeSantis

DeSantis’s positioning has created an opening among the Iowa Republicans uneasy about Trump that Tim Scott looks best positioned to fill. The senator may be developing a more effective formula than DeSantis for appealing to both evangelical social conservatives and more socially moderate, suburban economic conservatives. Unlike DeSantis or former Vice President Mike Pence, Scott doesn’t hammer away at social issues in a way likely to alienate suburban Republicans. Instead, he connects with evangelical Republicans through his testimony about the importance of religious faith in his own life, and the way in which he organically and authentically weaves Bible phrases into his conversation. As several Iowa Republicans told me, Scott “speaks evangelical” in a way DeSantis does not.

Still, Scott’s campaign message so far is bland, focused primarily on his personal story of ascending from poverty. The senator’s unwavering refusal to challenge or criticize Trump has left the impression among some activists that he is really running for vice president. So long as Scott fuels that perception by refusing to contrast himself with Trump, Vander Plaats predicted, “his poll numbers will not move, and his caucus support will not be there.”

The caucus is now less than five months away, but in earlier years, this final stretch often produced rapid shifts in fortune. Bardwell, the political scientist, notes that five different candidates led polls at some point leading up to the 2012 caucus before Santorum finally edged past Romney at the wire. Iowa social conservatives have frequently coalesced behind their favorite late in the race. The choice those evangelical Christian voters make this winter will likely determine whether Iowa sets Trump on an unstoppable course to another nomination or anoints an alternative who might seriously challenge him.

[ad_2]

Ronald Brownstein

Source link

August 20, 2023
Election officials reject calls to unilaterally block Trump from ballot using 14th Amendment but will defer to courts | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Election officials in key states have recently rejected calls to unilaterally remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot and are saying courts should decide whether he’s disqualified by the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”

The secretaries of state who oversee elections in Michigan, Georgia, New Hampshire and Minnesota have recently said they don’t have the power on their own to invoke the 14th Amendment and block Trump from the presidential ballot.

These officials, which include Democrats and Republicans, come from states comprising 45 electoral votes.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said Thursday in a Washington Post op-ed that this unilateral approach was “misguided” and “the courts” should decide.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that this would “reinforce the grievances of those who see the system as rigged and corrupt.”

A provision of the 14th Amendment, which was approved after the Civil War, says any American official who takes an oath to uphold the US Constitution is disqualified from holding future office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or have “given aid or comfort” to insurrectionists.

However, the Constitution doesn’t spell out how to enforce this ban, and it has been applied only twice since the late 1800s, when it was used against former Confederates.

Liberal advocacy groups and some leading conservative legal scholars believe this arcane provision applies to Trump because of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and block the peaceful transfer of power and for inciting the attack on the US Capitol.

Trump denies wrongdoing regarding the January 6, 2021, attack and says these candidacy challenges have “no legal basis.” He has pleaded not guilty to separate federal and state indictments that charged him with crimes stemming from his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

The left-leaning groups have filed major lawsuits in Minnesota and Colorado, asking courts to prohibit election officials from putting Trump’s name on the ballot. But some of these experts have also claimed the provision is “self-executing,” meaning that election officials involved in the ballot-printing process can simply disqualify Trump on their own.

That more aggressive approach is now being rejected by election officials in key states.

“Many states do not have a law on the books empowering the secretary of state to judge the eligibility of presidential candidates,” said Derek Muller, an election law expert who teaches at the Notre Dame Law School. “It’s no surprise that many secretaries would disclaim any such power.”

The Democratic secretary of state in Minnesota and the GOP secretary of state in New Hampshire also said they won’t block Trump from the ballot without court intervention.

“As long as he submits his declaration of candidacy and signs it under the penalty of perjury, pays the $1,000 filing fee, his name will appear on the presidential primary ballot,” New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan told reporters Wednesday.

Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech for People, which is one of the organizations behind the anti-Trump candidacy challenges, said his group will “continue to press this critical matter in the courts” so election officials will “carry out their duty to bar Trump from their state ballots.”

“While some secretaries of state may claim that they do not have the authority to follow the constitutional mandate of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the bottom line remains that Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on any state ballot based on his role of inciting, mobilizing, and facilitating the January 6th insurrection,” Fein said in a statement.

This story has been updated with additional details.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 2, 2023
John King is going all over the map in 2024. What he’s learned so far | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

CNN
—

You’re more likely to read about people in the aggregate in this newsletter – how groups are affected by something the government is doing and how polls suggest those groups feel about it.

CNN’s John King is looking at the 2024 presidential race from the other side in his new “All Over the Map” project. Building relationships with individuals in key states, he plans to chart how their opinions shift over the course of the campaign.

He’s filed reports from Iowa and New Hampshire so far:

I talked to King to hear what he’s learned so far. Our conversation, conducted by phone and edited for length, is below.

WOLF: What are you finding when you talk to people out in the country?

KING: This is how I started covering politics 106 million years ago. It’s just at this moment in the country where you have this weird combination of polarization and disaffection and a lot of people who are in the middle who would be moderate Republicans or true independents or centrist Democrats are just disgusted and they’re sitting out.

The people who are sitting out are empowering the extremes, and they know it, but they just can’t stomach national politics. So they vote for mayor and they vote for governor and sometimes they vote for Senate and Congress, but even that pisses them off. So it’s just a weird time.

WOLF: What I really like in these reports is the nuance of people’s opinions. They don’t fit into the buckets that we create for them here in Washington. How do you find people who will talk to you? I’ve talked to other reporters who have trouble doing that.

KING: It can be hard sometimes. We’re doing this a number of ways. Some of these are through people I know. The fishermen in New Hampshire we found through a woman I met years ago who’s part of an advocacy group for these independent small fishermen …

They’re interesting because they’re young, they’re Republican-leaning, they’re really hardworking, blue-collar people. People that when I started doing this – 35 years ago was my first campaign – they were Democrats.

Michael Dukakis only won 10 states in 1988, but he won West Virginia and Iowa. Farmers and coal miners and fishermen and people who work with their hands were Democrats then. And they are more and more Republicans now.

The idea here is to build relationships with them all the way through next November and hopefully beyond. But in the 2024 campaign context, we’re not going in to get people at a rally to say, “Are you for (former President Donald) Trump or are you for (President Joe) Biden? Are you for (former South Carolina Gov. Nikki) Haley or are you for (Florida Gov. Ron) DeSantis?”

We care about that, but I care much more about how they got there. Have they always been there? And again, in all caps in boldface to me is the question: why?

WOLF: You talk to a solar panel salesman who backs Trump and a commercial fisherman, who you just mentioned, who says Republicans are for the working man. What motivates people whose livelihoods are directly related to climate change to back Republicans who are largely opposed to having any government involvement with doing anything about it?

KING: That part’s fascinating. Chris Mudd is the solar panel guy in Iowa and Andrew Konchek is one of the fishermen in New Hampshire. And to your point, our business makes the mistake – and the candidates, the politicians and the parties way too often make the mistake – of trying to put people in their lanes and in their boxes. And guess what, everybody is different. It’s a cliche, but it’s true.

So Chris Mudd – his family has an advertising business that employs just shy of 100 people in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It’s an anchor of the community, especially in a part of the country where you’ve had a lot of economic turmoil in the last 25 years, manufacturing disappearing. These guys are heroes in their communities. They are employers.

Then he started the spinoff solar installation business, and he admits straight up his business benefits – and quite significantly – from the Biden green energy tax credits. And yet, he says, he would take his chances without them because he thinks that money should be redirected to the border wall. That Trump should finish his border wall.

It’s not just immigration. It’s American sovereignty and the border. And so he’s willing to take an economic hit for his business. He thinks it would survive, but he would take a hit because immigration, American security, comes first to him.

The fisherman, on the other hand, wants to stay on the water. He came to Trump in 2016 because Trump was a newcomer, he was the insurgent. He loves the policies. In Andrew’s case, he does not like the tweets. He does not like the chaos. Prefers Trump would talk more about the future, not the past.

But his industry is in decline. And he says Trump is for less regulation – so they won’t be regulating the fishing industry as much – and he knows Trump hates wind energy farms, and he thinks the biggest immediate threat to his job, two or three years down the road, is a plan to build all these wind turbine farms off the coast of New Hampshire and off the coast of Maine.

And he thinks they’re gonna kill his business. So he’s for Trump because he wants to pay his mortgage.

WOLF: You talk to another guy in New Hampshire who’s switching from Trump to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The conventional wisdom would be that Kennedy would pull from Biden’s support because he is, at least technically, a Democrat. What is happening there?

KING: So that to me is fascinating on a couple levels. No. 1, Lucas was a Trump 2016 primary voter in New Hampshire. He quickly got turned off by the chaos. He was not for Trump in 2020. He went third party. But he’s a Republican-leaning guy who likes Trump’s policies. Does not like the Trump performance art, I’ll call it.

You would think he’d be looking for another Republican in this campaign, but he gets all the way over to Robert Kennedy.

A buddy of his, a crew mate, gave him a Joe Rogan podcast with Bobby Kennedy on it. And Kennedy is talking about how years ago, he helped these fishermen who were being hurt by industrial pollution when he was at the National Resources Defense Council.

So what was he thinking here? They don’t trust politicians. Politicians promised to help them all the time, and in their view, they never do. So here’s a guy who’s running for president, who actually helped people who do what he does. Done. That’s it. Right?

Yes, he knows there’s a lot of other controversy about Robert Kennedy. He says there’s going to be controversy about any politician. Here’s a guy who has helped people just like him.

WOLF: You talked about a couple of people just now who don’t like the Trump noise or chaos, but CNN ‘s latest polling – we just had one in New Hampshire. Trump leads there. He leads in Iowa, according to polling there. What does your reporting on the ground suggest is behind the fact that none of these many Trump challengers have caught on?

KING: Well, one of the issues is just that there are so many of them. The numbers are part of it, without a doubt. But a lot of these Republicans also view Trump as kind of an incumbent. And to a degree, he also benefits from the cynical effort to convince so many Republicans that he didn’t lose last time, even though we all know he did.

If you look at our New Hampshire poll, even a lot of Republicans who support the other candidates think Trump is the strongest general election candidate. That’s helping him. I think the bigger part there is just that the base is loyal to him.

He can be beat. Six in 10 Republicans in New Hampshire want somebody else, but there are 10 other people running and the support is fractured. Until you have a singular alternative, there’s no way to beat Trump.

The only thing I would add to that is what several Trump voters in New Hampshire (told us). They’re planning to vote for him, make no mistake, but they say it’s not as exciting. It’s not the same as it was in 2015 and 2016, when he was new, when that hostile takeover was so dramatic and to many Republicans so exciting.

The establishment didn’t think so, but a lot of Republican voters found it very exciting. Trump is not the new guy anymore. And in some ways, he’s the new establishment. That doesn’t mean his people aren’t loyal, but in the back of their mind, there does seem to be a little bit of, “I’m open to some change.”

WOLF: Joe Biden didn’t win either Iowa or New Hampshire in the 2020 primaries. And for a complicated and very strange Democratic reason, he may not take part in those contests this year. His nomination is probably a foregone conclusion, but what did you hear from Democrats in those states?

KING: I want to be a little careful here because we haven’t spent a ton of time with Democrats. The project’s going to expand over the next 13, 14 months, through the election.

The biggest question right now is can Trump be stopped and who is the Republican nominee going to be? So that’s where we have put 75, 80% of our energy and focus. Doesn’t mean when we go into the states, we’re not meeting and talking to Democrats, but I would be more careful about taking the anecdotal reporting we get from six, eight, 10, 12 voters and projecting it out.

I will say that a number of Democrats ask us, “Do you think there’s any chance he doesn’t run still?” Or they will share their own worries that there will be some event that will force him to not run again.

The age thing is a nagging thought for Democrats. Age, or is he up to the job might be a better way to put it. Does he have the stamina for another term? That’s lingering.

You don’t see any evidence that there’s anybody – no Democrat is running who has a serious chance or anything like that. We’re going get to the swing states as we go forward. I have a number of questions about whether key pieces of the Biden coalition are energized for any number of reasons.

Sometimes you hear this age, stamina, up-to-the-job question. Other times you hear, if you talk to organizers and activists, that some of the people absolutely critical to the Democratic coalition – blue-collar Black workers, blue-collar Latino workers – are still feeling it from inflation, don’t feel like the economy’s bounced back.

Those are things to cover as we go forward. I would not make any big sweeping findings in my reporting on the Democrats so far. I’ve got more questions than I have answers.

WOLF: Let me tweak that a little bit. Separating you from these reporting trips, as somebody who’s covered so many presidential elections, what could be the potential effect of the president not taking part in the first two contests?

KING: New Hampshire is very parochial. There are a lot of Democrats there who are, forgive my language, but pissed off at him. I think he could be “embarrassed” in New Hampshire.

Now, does it have any lasting meaning? Let’s see what happens.

The president did something, actually, that’s pretty courageous. I do not remember one cycle where there hasn’t been at least a conversation about, “Is it time to change this Iowa and New Hampshire thing?”

The Iowa electorate is 90% White. The New Hampshire electorate is 90% White. The numbers are even higher than that if you look at the Republican electorate. They’re overwhelmingly White states. They do not reflect the diversity, both from an ethnic perspective and even an economic perspective, of the Democratic Party.

This conversation comes up every four years in both parties. Are you gonna change it? Biden had the guts to do it. The cynic would say he did it for the reasons you mentioned – that he lost Iowa and New Hampshire, and he’s lost them before. That wasn’t the first time and so he wanted a new way. He wanted the Biden way.

Of course that’s one of the reasons he did it. Because he has more success in South Carolina. He has a history. So he has tilted the Democratic playing field to his favor. A bad number in New Hampshire might be embarrassing, but I think they’ve actually more protected themselves than exposed themselves by doing it this way.

My bigger question is does the way they’ve changed the Democratic (process) actually mask weaknesses? If there’s a weakness in Democratic enthusiasm, if there’s a turnout problem, they need to get a handle on that as soon as possible.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 2, 2023
2016 Presidential Debates Fast Facts | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Here’s a look at the 2016 presidential debates:

August 3, 2015
Event Type: Republican Forum
Location: Manchester, New Hampshire
Sponsors: KCRG-TV, WGIR-AM, New Hampshire Union Leader, Cedar Rapids Gazette, Post & Courier
Moderator: Jack Heath
Participants: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Scott Walker
Transcript

August 6, 2015
Event Type: Republican Debate
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Sponsors: Fox News/Facebook/Ohio Republican Party
Moderators: Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, Chris Wallace
Participants (decided by polling data): First Debate – Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum; Second Debate – Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, Scott Walker
Transcript – First Debate
Transcript – Second Debate

September 16, 2015
Event Type: Republican Debate
Location: Simi Valley, California
Sponsors: CNN/Salem Radio/Reagan Library Foundation
Moderators: Jake Tapper; Dana Bash and Hugh Hewitt also participate
Participants: First Debate – Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki, Rick Santorum; Second Debate – Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, Scott Walker
Transcript – First Debate
Transcript – Second Debate

October 13, 2015
Event Type: Democratic Debate
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Sponsors: CNN/Facebook
Moderators: Anderson Cooper; Dana Bash, Juan Carlos Lopez, Don Lemon also participate
Participants: Lincoln Chafee, Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb
Transcript

October 28, 2015
Event Type: Republican Debate
Title: Your Money, Your Vote: The Presidential Debate on the Economy
Location: Boulder, Colorado
Sponsors: CNBC/The University of Colorado Boulder
Moderators: Carl Quintanilla, Becky Quick, John Harwood
Participants: First Debate – Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki, Rick Santorum; Second Debate – Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump
Transcript – First Debate
Transcript – Second Debate

November 10, 2015
Event Type: Republican Debate
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Sponsors: Fox Business Network/Wall Street Journal
Moderators: Sandra Smith, Trish Regan, Gerald Seib and Neil Cavuto, Maria Bartiromo, Gerard Baker
Participants: First Debate – Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum; Second Debate – Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump
Transcript – First Debate
Transcript – Second Debate

November 14, 2015
Event Type: Democratic Debate
Location: Des Moines, Iowa
Sponsors: CBS, KCCI and The Des Moines Register
Moderators: John Dickerson; Nancy Cordes, Kevin Cooney, Kathie Obradovich also participate
Participants: Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders
Transcript

December 15, 2015
Event Type: Republican Debate
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Sponsors: CNN/Salem Radio
Moderators: Wolf Blitzer; Dana Bash and Hugh Hewitt also participate
Participants: First Debate – Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Rick Santorum; Second Debate – Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump
Transcript – First Debate
Transcript – Second Debate

December 19, 2015
Event Type: Democratic Debate
Location: Manchester, New Hampshire
Sponsors: ABC and WMUR
Moderators: David Muir and Martha Raddatz
Participants: Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders
Transcript

January 14, 2016
Event Type: Republican Debate
Location: North Charleston, South Carolina
Sponsors: Fox Business Network
Moderators: First Debate – Trish Regan and Sandra Smith; Second Debate – Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo
Participants: First Debate – Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum; Second Debate – Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump
Transcript – First Debate
Transcript – Second Debate

January 17, 2016
Event Type: Democratic Debate
Location: Charleston, South Carolina
Sponsors: NBC, YouTube and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute
Moderators: Lester Holt and Andrea Mitchell
Participants: Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders
Transcript

January 25, 2016
Event Type: Democratic Presidential Candidates Town Hall Meeting
Location: Des Moines, Iowa
Sponsor: CNN
Moderator: Chris Cuomo
Participants: Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders
Transcript

January 28, 2016
Event Type: Republican Debate
Location: Des Moines, Iowa
Sponsors: Fox News and Google
Moderators: Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, Chris Wallace
Participants: First Debate – Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum; Second Debate – Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio
Transcript – First Debate
Transcript – Second Debate

February 3, 2016
Event Type: Democratic Town Hall
Location: Derry, New Hampshire
Sponsor: CNN
Moderator: Anderson Cooper
Participants: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
Transcript

February 4, 2016
Event Type: Democratic Debate
Location: Durham, New Hampshire
Sponsor: MSNBC
Moderators: Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow
Participants: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
Transcript

February 6, 2016
Event Type: Republican Debate
Location: Manchester, New Hampshire
Sponsors: ABC News and IJReview
Moderators: David Muir and Martha Raddatz
Participants: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump
Transcript

February 11, 2016
Event Type: Democratic Debate
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Sponsors: PBS/WETA
Moderators: Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff
Participants: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
Transcript

February 13, 2016
Event Type: Republican Debate
Location: Greenville, South Carolina
Sponsor: CBS News
Moderator: John Dickerson
Participants: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump
Transcript

February 17, 2016
Event Type: Republican Town Hall
Location: Greenville, South Carolina
Sponsor: CNN
Moderator: Anderson Cooper
Participants: Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio
Transcript

February 18, 2016
Event Type: Republican Town Hall
Location: Columbia, South Carolina
Sponsor: CNN
Moderator: Anderson Cooper
Participants: Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Donald Trump
Transcript

February 23, 2016
Event Type: Democratic Town Hall
Location: Columbia, South Carolina
Sponsors: CNN
Moderator: Chris Cuomo
Participants: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
Transcript

February 25, 2016
Event Type: Republican Debate
Location: Houston, Texas
Sponsors: CNN/Telemundo/Salem Communications
Moderator: Wolf Blitzer
Participants: Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump
Transcript

March 3, 2016
Event Type: Republican Debate
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Sponsors: Fox News
Moderators: Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, Chris Wallace
Participants: Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump
Transcript

March 6, 2016
Event Type: Democratic Debate
Location: Flint, Michigan
Sponsors: CNN
Moderator: Anderson Cooper
Participants: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
Transcript

March 9, 2016
Event Type: Democratic Debate
Location: Miami, Florida
Sponsors: Univision/Washington Post/Florida Democratic Party
Moderators: Maria Elena Salinas, Jorge Ramos, Karen Tumulty
Participants: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
Transcript

March 10, 2016
Event Type: Republican Debate
Location: Miami, Florida
Sponsors: CNN/Salem Media Group/The Washington Times
Moderators: Jake Tapper; Dana Bash and Hugh Hewitt also participate
Participants: Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump
Transcript

April 14, 2016
Event Type: Democratic Debate
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Sponsors: CNN/NY1
Moderators: Wolf Blitzer; Dana Bash and Errol Louis also participate
Participants: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders
Transcript

September 26, 2016
Event Type: First Presidential Debate
Location: Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York
Sponsor: Commission on Presidential Debates
Moderator: Lester Holt
Transcript
Viewership: The debate is the most-watched debate in American history, averaging a total of 84 million viewers across 13 of the TV channels that carried it live.

October 4, 2016
Event Type: Vice Presidential Debate
Location: Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia
Sponsor: Commission on Presidential Debates
Moderator: Elaine Quijano
Transcript

October 9, 2016
Event Type: Second Presidential Debate
Location: Washington University in St. Louis
Sponsor: Commission on Presidential Debates
Moderators: Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz
Transcript

October 19, 2016
Event Type: Third Presidential Debate
Location: University of Nevada-Las Vegas
Sponsor: Commission on Presidential Debates
Moderator: Chris Wallace
Transcript

The final presidential debate

[ad_2]

Source link

August 2, 2023
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces independent run for president, ending Democratic primary challenge to Biden | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Environmental lawyer and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Monday his independent candidacy for president, officially ending his effort to defeat President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary in favor of a long-shot general election bid.

“I’m here to declare myself an independent candidate for president of the United States,” Kennedy said in remarks in Philadelphia.

Kennedy’s announcement comes after several weeks of speculation about his future in the 2024 field. CNN previously reported Kennedy met with the chair of the Libertarian Party earlier this year to discuss their common beliefs. And last week, a super PAC supporting Kennedy’s presidential campaign released the results of a poll they conducted testing Kennedy’s strength in a hypothetical three-way race between Biden and former President Donald Trump.

The campaign will host a series of events in Texas, Florida and Georgia later this month, a campaign official told CNN, pledging to travel “everywhere” in the lead-up to next year’s general election. The official said the campaign is confident they’ll gain ballot access in every state ahead of November 2024.

Independent and third-party candidates have struggled in the past to garner substantial support in presidential elections. In 1992, Texas businessman Ross Perot mounted one of the most successful independent presidential candidacies in recent history, which ended with him receiving 8% of the vote in the general election that was ultimately won by Bill Clinton.

On Monday, Kennedy acknowledged the unsuccessful history of independent presidential campaigns but said he’s optimistic about his chances.

“Today, we turn a new page in American politics. There have been independent candidates in this country before, but this time it’s going to be different. Because this time, the independent is gonna win,” he said.

Mark Gorton, co-founder of American Values 2024, the super PAC supporting Kennedy’s campaign, said the candidate will need to prove viability to voters by consistently increasing his support in the polls in order to have a realistic chance of winning the election. He feels they’ve “got a shot” to pull off a historic upset.

“I think it’s very important that Bobby a year from now be polling at the very least in the mid-to-high 30s in order to be seen as viable as anyone,” Gorton told CNN. “We need to be getting 1%, 1.5% of the electorate each month, but that’s a doable task.”

Kennedy’s campaign as an independent could further complicate a general election race that’s already expected to be closely contested. A Reuters/Ipsos poll of a hypothetical three-way race between Biden, Trump and Kennedy conducted last week among likely voters found 14% of voters supported Kennedy, with 40% supporting Trump and 38% supporting Biden. With over a year until the general election, it’s unclear whether the Kennedy campaign can translate that level of support into votes in November 2024. Kennedy said he hopes to win the election by pulling in both Biden and Trump supporters.

“They say my impact is only going to draw votes from the other candidates. The Democrats are frightened that I’m gonna spoil the election for President Biden, and the Republicans are frightened that I’m gonna spoil it for President Trump,” he said. “The truth is, they’re both right. My intention is to spoil it for both of them.”

“Voters should not be deceived by anyone who pretends to have conservative values. The fact is that RFK has a disturbing background steeped in radical, liberal positions,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that criticized Kennedy over his positions on China, guns, the environment and abortion. “… A RFK candidacy is nothing more than a vanity project for a liberal Kennedy looking to cash in on his family’s name.”

Trump’s allies and advisers have been building opposition research against Kennedy, intending to go on the offensive and paint Kennedy as a “liberal parading in conservative’s clothing,” one adviser told CNN, pointing to his past record as an environmental activist.

Kennedy first launched his campaign to defeat Biden in the Democratic primary in April and frequently visited early primary states like New Hampshire and South Carolina. But his efforts did little to sway Democratic primary voters, with just 9% of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire expressing support for Kennedy in a CNN/University of New Hampshire poll released in September.

The Republican National Committee issued a statement just prior to Kennedy’s announcement, characterizing him as “just another radical, far-left Democrat.”

Kennedy is the son of former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy. Some of his siblings issued a joint statement on Monday, calling his decision to run against Biden in a general election “dangerous to our country.”

“Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment. Today’s announcement is deeply saddening for us. We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country, ” Rory Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Joseph P Kennedy II and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend said in a statement.

A lifelong Democrat prior to announcing his run as an independent, Kennedy acknowledged his and his family’s long history with the Democratic Party and called the decision to disavow the party “very painful.” But he said he wants to fight against the two-party system, which he says has failed to provide Americans with viable options for the presidency. He criticized Biden’s age and competency as well as Trump’s ongoing legal troubles as a symptom of a corrupt political process.

“That’s what two-party politics has given us, and that’s why we need to pry loose from the hammerlock of the corrupt powers in Washington, DC, and make this nation ours again.”

The crowd of supporters in Philadelphia received Kennedy warmly, particularly when he discussed his plans to create a “tamper-proof election system” while expanding voting rights and called for the US “to pull our nation back from the brink of war with Russia.” A staunch anti-war advocate, Kennedy notably did not address the outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas over the weekend. Prior to Kennedy’s remarks, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a friend and informal adviser to Kennedy, spoke about the war and called for a moment of silence for victims in Israel.

When asked by CNN following the event about Kennedy not mentioning Israel and Hamas in his remarks, Boteach dismissed the oversight and said his involvement in the event spoke loudly about Kennedy’s stance toward Israel.

“I think that was very brave of him and showed tremendous solidarity that he asked a rabbi who’s his close friend. You know, he moved away from the political figures who could have introduced him and endorsed him,” Boteach said. “The fact that I’m the one that introduced him, I think said it all.”

Kennedy’s lack of mention of Israel’s war with Hamas comes after he received criticism from Jewish groups in July after he falsely claimed during a dinner in New York City that “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” people are “most immune” to Covid-19. Kennedy strongly pushed back against the accusations of antisemitism from those groups.

Kennedy has never held public office but has inspired a small contingent of supporters drawn to his advocacy against public health mandates and the influence of money on decisions made by government and private corporations. Kennedy founded Children’s Health Defense, an organization that regularly spreads anti-vaccine misinformation, and has promoted anti-vaccine conspiracy theories at campaign events.

Attendees at Monday’s event spanned the ideological spectrum, with conservatives, liberals and independents all gathering in Philadelphia for the announcement.

Walter Rodriguez, a teacher from New Jersey who identifies as an independent, said he plans to support Kennedy if he’s on the ballot in his home state. Otherwise, he said, he doesn’t plan to vote at all.

“I’m excited about the energy they bring to the table as a candidate, and I think some of the things that he’s talking about are things that I identify with,” Rodriguez said. “Not relying so much on central control of everything, pharmaceuticals, politics. So the fact that he’s declaring himself as independent today, that is the right way to go.”

Karl Hagstrom came to Philadelphia from Westchester County, New York. He said he supported Trump in 2016 and 2020, but said he plans to support Kennedy in 2024. He said he’s drawn to Kennedy because he feels the political outsider can bring unity to the country, unlike Trump, who he said has been too divisive.

“Just the constant insanity, the tweeting, the negativity, the just out-of-left field reactions to things. It’s not sustainable, it’s not something that can bring people together,” Hagstrom said.

Sarah Shulman drove to the event with a group of supporters from the Boston area. A practicing pediatrician, Shulman attended Kennedy’s Democratic campaign launch event in Boston in April and said Kennedy’s anti-corruption message and his position on vaccines inspired her to support him. She said she voted for Biden in 2020 and has never considered supporting a Republican but has felt disconnected from Biden’s message since he took office.

“He’s speaking our language,” Shulman said of Kennedy. “A Democrat, somebody in the liberal mind that’s compassionate, caring, who also is making sense.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 2, 2023
New Hampshire man pleads guilty to threatening Rep. Matt Gaetz after scrolling TikTok | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

A New Hampshire college student on Thursday pleaded guilty to federal charges of threatening to kill a member of Congress after he became angry while drunkenly scrolling on TikTok.

While authorities didn’t name the member of Congress, Rep. Matt Gaetz confirmed he was the target when he played the threatening voicemail at the heart of the case on his podcast earlier this year. CNN has reached out to the Florida Republican’s office for comment.

The defendant, 24-year-old Allan Poller, faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced in January.

According to court documents, Poller, who is a student at Keene State College in New Hampshire, placed a call to the Washington, DC, office of an unnamed member of Congress just after midnight on March 29.

No one in the office answered, prosecutors said, so Poller left a voicemail warning the member to stop “coming for the gays” and threatened to kill the member should they continue.

“If you keep on coming for the gays, we’re gonna strike back and I guarantee you, you do not want to f**k with us,” Poller said, according to court documents. “We will kill you if that’s what it takes. I will take a bullet to your f**king head if you f**k with my rights anymore.”

Poller later admitted to leaving the message in an interview with law enforcement, according to court documents, telling investigators that he had been drinking and become angry while watching videos on TikTok.

Poller’s attorney Jesse Friedman said in a statement that his client “recognizes that hate in any form is wrong and hurtful. He accepts responsibility for his actions and did not intend for his acts to cause harm or a threat to anybody.”

As part of his plea deal, Poller agreed that while he may not have intended to carry out the threat, he knew his voicemail would be viewed as such.

[ad_2]

Source link

August 2, 2023
Trump seeks to steer attention away from first 2024 GOP debate as rivals make final preparations for Milwaukee | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

The front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination is not only skipping the first presidential primary debate of the season – he’s also attempting to wrest the spotlight away from the stage in Milwaukee.

With the Republican National Committee’s window to meet fundraising and polling requirements having closed Monday night, the debate stage is set, and the GOP contenders vying to become the party’s top alternative to former President Donald Trump are making their final preparations ahead of what will be among the most-watched moments in many of their political careers. As his rivals prepare for the two-hour showdown on Fox News, Trump’s campaign is attempting to counter-program the debate.

The first debate, a key moment in any presidential primary, is also taking place in the middle of a week in which Trump’s legal troubles will once again take center stage.

Trump has already taped an interview with Tucker Carlson, the fired former Fox News host, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN Monday. It is unclear what platform the interview with Carlson will be published on. The sources said that it would be released around the time of the debate Wednesday night.

The former president, who on Sunday said he will skip the first debate and could skip others, is expected to spend Wednesday evening at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

But Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and other surrogates planned to travel to Milwaukee, where they would have had opportunities to weigh in on national broadcasts before and after the debate in the spin room.

However, Fox News informed the Trump campaign on Monday that they will no longer provide credentials to some surrogates of the former president to attend the spin room at the debate since the former president is not participating in the debate, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN.

Some of Trump’s surrogates are credentialed through outside media groups and will not be impacted. Former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Reps. Byron Donalds and Matt Gaetz of Florida and other Republicans are slated to attend the debate.

Members of Trump’s campaign, including his senior advisers Jason Miller, Steven Cheung and Chris LaCivita, were also planning on being in the spin room.

While Fox News is in charge of credentials for the spin room, the RNC manages credentials for the actual debate, and sources said those tickets are still expected be honored.

Members of Trump’s teams and his surrogates, however, are still planning on traveling to Milwaukee and are working on a resolution with the network as well as the RNC, two Trump advisers told CNN.

Fox News did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Ahead of the debate, some candidates are offering previews of their lines of attack – including criticizing Trump for choosing not to participate.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday said Trump “owes it to people” to debate, arguing voters – even those who appreciate the former president’s record – will be angry over his decision to skip the the first showdown.

“I don’t think they’re going to look kindly on somebody that thinks they don’t have to earn it,” DeSantis said on Fox News.

Trump, though, is poised to once again seize headlines this week with new developments in his legal troubles stemming from the former president’s efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.

In an election subversion case in Georgia, Trump has agreed to a $200,000 bond and other release conditions after his lawyers met with the Fulton County district attorney’s office on Monday, according to court documents reviewed by CNN.

Trump will turn himself in Thursday in Fulton County, the former president announced on his social media platform Monday.

With Trump out, DeSantis – who has consistently polled in second place nationally and in early-voting states – could be positioned to face the sharpest scrutiny Wednesday night, as other contenders seek to replace him as the party’s top alternative to Trump.

“We’ll be ready,” DeSantis said Monday. “I think that with Donald Trump not being there, I don’t think it’s any secret that I’m going to be probably the guy that people are going to come after.”

The Florida governor also continued to distance himself from a memo from the super PAC Never Back Down, which last week advised him to “hammer” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and defend Trump if he is attacked by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

“That’s a separate entity. I had nothing to do with it. It’s not something that I’ve read, and it’s not, not reflective of my strategy,” DeSantis said Monday.

However, DeSantis has unusually close ties with the super PAC. He has outsourced many typical campaign functions, including early-state organizing, to the super PAC, which can raise and spend unlimited sums. DeSantis frequently appears at events as a “special guest” of the super PAC.

Other candidates plot their strategies

Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old entrepreneur who has risen in polling in recent weeks, appears to have become a significant factor in the race in his rivals’ eyes.

Another contender, Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, attacked Ramaswamy on Monday, in a potential preview of a debate-stage showdown.

Haley said Ramaswamy is “completely wrong” for his call to reduce US military aid to Israel. During an interview with Russell Brand on Rumble last week, Ramaswamy claimed he would cut off additional aid to Israel in 2028, after the current $38 billion US aid package expires.

“This is part of a pattern with Vivek—his foreign policies have a common theme: they make America less safe,” Haley said on Twitter.

Ramaswamy, for his part, tweeted a video of himself, shirtless, practicing tennis. “Three hours of solid debate prep this morning,” he said.

One key wild card Wednesday night is Christie. He is the only contender on stage who has run against Trump before, and has proven lethal on the debate stage previously: In February 2016, he effectively stymied all momentum of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio when he mocked Rubio for delivering memorized, pre-planned lines.

Since launching his 2024 bid, Christie has focused most of his attacks on Trump. But as he campaigned in Miami last week, he also criticized DeSantis, pointing to the super PAC memo.

“The only way to beat someone is to beat them. If [DeSantis] thinks he’s gonna get on the stage and defend Donald Trump on Wednesday night, then he should do Donald Trump a favor and do our party a favor, come back to Tallahassee, endorse Donald Trump, and get the hell out of the race,” Christie said.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, a strong fundraiser who many within the GOP see as an increasing factor in the race, has largely stuck to a positive and optimistic message, making Wednesday night a test of whether and how he is willing to mix it up with his rivals.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has emphasized his conservative positions on ideological issues like abortion. But he had also looked for a debate-stage clash with Trump, his former running mate. On Sunday, he criticized the former president on ABC for skipping the first debate.

“Every one of us who have qualified for that debate stage ought to be on the stage willing to square off and answer those tough questions,” Pence said.

As the first debate approaches, polls of likely Republican voters nationally and of those in the early-voting states – Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada – have consistently shown Trump well ahead of his rivals at this stage of the race.

Trump held a clear lead over his rivals in a Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll of likely Iowa GOP caucusgoers released Monday, though just over half say they are not locked in to their choice and could be persuaded to support someone else.

Overall, 42% say Trump is their first choice, followed by 19% supporting DeSantis. No other candidate reaches double digits. Behind them, 9% back Scott, 6% each back Haley and Pence, 5% support Christie, 4% back Ramaswamy, 2% back North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and 1% support former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, with the rest of the field tested landing below 1%.

About two-thirds say they have favorable impressions of DeSantis (66%) and Trump (65%), with majorities also expressing positive views of Scott (59%) and Haley (53%). Views of Christie (60% unfavorable to 28% favorable) and Pence (53% unfavorable to 42% favorable) break negative. Many of the other candidates have low name recognition, with four in 10 or more not sure about them.

About half, 52%, of likely caucusgoers say they could be persuaded to support someone other than their first choice candidate, while 40% say their minds are made up. Trump’s supporters are more likely to be locked in (66% say so), yet a third say they could be persuaded to back someone else (34%). Among those backing a candidate other than Trump, 69% say they could be persuaded to support someone else, and 31% say that their mind is made up.

The poll was conducted by Selzer and Co. August 13-17 among a random sample of 406 likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who considered his own presidential run before passing earlier this year, said Monday on CNN’s “Inside Politics” that the GOP primary field needs to narrow before the race reaches the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.

He said candidates who are mired in the low-single digits in the polls by early December should drop out.

“By New Hampshire you need three or four candidates in the race to really make it, you know, a real opportunity and an option for the Republican voter,” he said.

And Sununu dismissed Trump’s steady national polling leads, saying that his lead would fall “as we get around to Christmas,” while pointing to early state polls, where the former president still leads, though by a smaller margin.

“Trump is really dominating the national media airwaves. It’s not shocking that he’s there,” he said. “But as the debates start, as people get more and more into that conversation in October, November, as we get around to Christmas, I think nationally his numbers come back down to what you see in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

[ad_2]

Source link

August 2, 2023
Escaped New Hampshire inmate shot and killed by police officer in Miami store

[ad_1]

An inmate who escaped from a New Hampshire correctional facility was shot and killed by a police officer after threatening two people with a knife, officials said.

On July 21, Darien Young walked off the grounds of the Calumet House transitional housing unit — a facility for prisoner re-entry in Manchester — and didn’t return, the New Hampshire Department of Corrections said in a news statement.

Six days later, Miami Beach police said they received a 911 call at 5:32 p.m. that a man was threatening two people with a knife at a Victoria’s Secret. Police arrived at the location and an officer shot Young.

Young, 29, was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition, Miami Beach Police said.

He later died, the corrections department confirmed.

Young, who was incarcerated for controlled drugs, burglary and other charges, was eligible for parole on July 31.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement will investigate the shooting, the Miami Beach Police said.

More from CBS News

Cara Tabachnick

Cara Tabachnick is a news editor for CBSNews.com. Contact her at cara.tabachnick@cbsinteractive.com

Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.

Create your free account or log in
for more features.

[ad_2]

Source link

July 29, 2023
Manchin refuses to rule out third party presidential campaign, says ‘if I get in a race, I’m going to win’ | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin on Monday defended his flirtation with a third-party presidential campaign, telling voters at a No Labels forum at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire that he had no plans to play “spoiler” in the 2024 election.

“I’ve never been in any race I’ve ever spoiled. I’ve been in races to win,” Manchin said. “And if I get in a race, I’m going to win.”

Sitting beside former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a Republican, Manchin railed against withering bipartisanship in Washington, DC, saying the “business model” of the two major parties “is better if you’re divided.” Huntsman offered a similar critique, as the men complimented one another’s work and blamed the “extremes” of the Republican and Democratic parties on Capitol Hill for holding up popular legislation.

“We’re here,” Manchin told a supportive audience, “to make sure the American people have an option.”

Manchin largely demurred when faced with direct questions about his future plans. He is up for reelection to the Senate in 2024. When asked about a potential pivot to running on a No Labels ticket for the White House, Manchin said people were “putting the cart ahead of the horse” and that the group was only aiming “to make sure the American people have an option.”

“I have no idea what Joe’s gonna do,” Huntsman said. Both men told reporters afterward any talk of a Manchin-Huntsman ticket was premature and a distraction.

Manchin, in an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” Monday night, also would not say whether he planned to run for Senate for another term: “I haven’t made any decision, nor will I make a decision until the end of the year.”

The West Virginia Democrat told Collins he believes President Joe Biden has “been pushed too far left,” but “has the strength to fight back.”

Before Manchin and Huntsman stepped onstage before a crowd of a few hundred people, No Labels founding chairman Joe Lieberman, the former US senator from Connecticut and 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, and national co-chairs Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. and former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, touted the group’s “Common Sense” policy manifesto and warned that a rematch next year between Biden and former President Donald Trump could lead them to launching a candidate of their own.

McCrory described No Labels’ efforts to get on presidential ballot lines in states across the country as an “insurance policy” against that result, but said that the group’s “first goal is to influence the agenda of politicians who are coming to New Hampshire and other states during this primary season.”

He also warned Democrats and Republicans against trying to keep No Labels off the ballot.

“Sadly, we have some operatives out of Washington, DC, who want to just keep the status quo as it is who are trying to stop our efforts,” McCrory said. “But I’m telling you right now, it won’t work.”

He also set Super Tuesday as the date when the group would take stock and make a decision about running a presidential ticket.

“We will present a president and vice president candidate on a No Labels ticket if Biden and Trump are on track to win their parties’ nominations,” McCrory said. “We plan to do that. But only if we see we have an opportunity to win.”

Before the event began, New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley denounced the group, claiming it was a front for right-wing interests hoping to “pave the way for another four years of scandal and division with Donald Trump.”

“Granite Staters aren’t stupid,” Buckley said, “and they won’t be fooled by some out of state dark money group. Whatever they do, New Hampshire will be blue once again in 2024.”

A new bipartisan super PAC, called “Citizens to Save Our Republic,” also announced its plans on Monday to push back against any third-party campaign, noting a recent poll that showed a No Labels candidate effectively swinging the election from Biden to Trump.

“In normal times, we would have no problem with this No Labels effort,” the group, which is being launched by operatives from both parties, said in a statement. “But these are not normal times. As conservative Judge Michael Luttig told the January 6 committee, our democracy hangs on a ‘knife’s edge.’”

For more than a decade, the No Labels movement has promoted bipartisanship over political extremes in Washington. The group, which registers as a non-profit and declines to disclose its donors, plans to raise $70 million for a candidate-in-waiting.

The group, in its 2024 debut, unveiled what it called a “Common Sense” policy book – aiming to find middle ground on controversial issues from abortion rights to guns to immigration, putting forward an agenda that sounds downright utopian in today’s deeply divided Washington.

What Manchin and other leaders of the No Labels group describe as a unity ticket, many Democrats simply call a spoiler – by siphoning just enough votes from Biden to help Trump win back the White House.

Former Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham of South Carolina, a national co-chair of the group, pushed back on that assertion in an interview on Monday.

“We don’t intend to be a spoiler,” Cunningham told CNN. “If we got in it, we would be in it to win it. It’s that simple.”

No Labels has secured ballot access in Arizona, Alaska, Oregon, Utah and Colorado, aides say, with a goal of reaching 20 states by the end of the year.

“Folks are looking at a rematch of Trump v. Biden,” Cunningham said. “It’s a rematch no one really wants. Two thirds of Americans don’t want to see it.”

While third party efforts have shown little promise in modern American history, deep displeasure with Trump and Biden have shined a brighter light on the prospects this year. Mindful of an enthusiasm shortfall facing Biden, Democrats are increasingly sounding the alarm, haunted by Ross Perot’s independent bid in 1992 and Green Party runs from Ralph Nader in 2000 and Jill Stein in 2016. Cornel West, the leftist professor and political theorist, launched a third-party run in June and is now competing for the Green Party’s nomination in 2024.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

[ad_2]

Source link

July 17, 2023
How would a third-party bid affect the 2024 presidential race?

[ad_1]

How would a third-party bid affect the 2024 presidential race? – CBS News

Watch CBS News

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin will headline an event in New Hampshire for the political group “No Labels” on Monday. The group is considering a third-party “unity ticket” in the 2024 presidential election. Political strategists Leslie Sanchez and Chuck Rocha join “America Decides” to discuss if Manchin is a potential third-party contender for 2024, and how it could affect the chances for President Biden and Donald Trump.

Be the first to know

Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.

[ad_2]

Source link

July 17, 2023
Manchin’s New Hampshire trip will leave Democrats shivering | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin will be back driving Democrats to distraction Monday by appearing in New Hampshire with a group whose exploration of a third-party presidential ticket is stoking fears they could hand the White House to Donald Trump.

The moderate Democratic senator will take part in a town hall hosted by the group No Labels to help launch a new “common sense” platform on immigration, health care, gun control, the economy and other issues that it believes are being ignored by what it views as two ideological and increasingly extreme main parties.

Manchin – who’s facing reelection to the Senate next year but has not yet said whether he’ll run – will be in his familiar political sweet spot, staking out ground to the right of his party and attracting a political spotlight he uses to maximize his influence. Last year, for instance, Manchin’s initial refusal to back a massive climate, tax and social safety net planned forced President Joe Biden to scale back and renegotiate a huge piece of his domestic agenda.

The West Virginia Democrat’s model has served him well with repeated statewide wins in one of the most conservative pro-Trump states in the nation. But he has Democrats doubly nervous – about how any presidential bid could roil Biden’s reelection and how a decision not to seek reelection himself would hand Republicans a Senate seat in 2024.

Manchin told CNN’s Manu Raju last week that his appearance in the Granite State has nothing to do with any third-party presidential run but is merely about advancing a “dialogue for common sense.” But the senator – who has built a power base by keeping people guessing – added, “I’ve never ruled out anything or ruled in anything,” and he dodged a question about whether an independent ticket could hurt Biden in November 2024.

No Labels says it is considering a third-party unity ticket with one Republican and one Democrat in November 2024 and will make a final decision next year based on whether its “insurance plan” has a viable chance of victory.

For now, Manchin’s noncommittal answers are worrying some of his Democratic colleagues. Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, who represents a swing state Biden won by a sliver of just over 10,000 votes in 2020, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he has raised the issue of potential third-party candidacies with Manchin.

“I don’t think No Labels is a political party,” Kelly said. “I mean, this is a few individuals putting dark money behind an organization. And that’s not what our democracy should be about. It should not be about a few rich people,” Kelly said. “I’m obviously concerned about what’s going on here in Arizona and across the country.”

CNN has reached out to No Labels, a registered non-profit that does not disclose its donors. The group has blasted previous efforts to dispute its right to participate in the political process as undemocratic.

Democrats are also concerned about a planned third-party run by former Harvard professor and public intellectual Cornel West, who supported independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during his 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential campaigns. Even if West were to take just a few thousand votes from Biden – for instance, in the key swing state of Georgia – he could still compromise the president’s hopes of victory.

But West, who is running for the Green Party’s nomination, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday that it was “simply not true” that he could tip the election to Trump, should the ex-president become the GOP nominee. And he accused Democrats of failing to speak up for poor and working people and warned Biden was “leading us toward a Third World War,” in an apparent reference to US support for Ukraine’s attempt to repel Russia’s invasion.

Doubts about the current 80-year-old president are also fodder for Robert Kennedy Jr.’s bid for the Democratic nomination. He has a history of repeating unfounded conspiracy theories about child vaccines or that man-made chemicals could be making children gay or transgender. Kennedy this weekend became embroiled in new controversy after falsely stating that “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” people are “most immune” to Covid-19.

Growing speculation about a potential third-party challenge in 2024 – despite the futile history of most previous such efforts – is being fueled by public dissatisfaction with the options. Polls show that both Biden and Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, are unpopular. In fact, a rematch between the two is the one race many voters don’t want to see. Anger at the political establishments in both parties – a defining factor of the politics of the first 20 years of the 21st century – is one reason why some political experts believe that there may be substantial running room for a third-party ticket this cycle, even if the obstacles for success are immense.

The fresh intrigue over the 2024 election also comes as the pace of the campaign heats up. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has failed to meet expectations so far as the main GOP challenger to Trump, polling in second in most national polls but still well behind the former president. DeSantis is showing the classic signs of a pivot. His campaign has shed staffers (a spokesman told CNN the number was fewer than 10), and he’s venturing out of his safe zone of only engaging conservative media. On Tuesday, he will join CNN’s Jake Tapper for an exclusive interview after a campaign event in South Carolina.

But Trump is upping his efforts to knock his former protege out of the race, even as he deals with the overhang of two criminal indictments. The ex-president claimed on Saturday he was “totally dominating” DeSantis in Florida polls and it was time for his rival to “get home.” Trump’s fundraising lead is cementing his front-runner status following new campaign finance data. An impressive $72 million haul by Biden and the Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, is not yet assuaging all of the Democratic concerns about the president’s reelection prospects.

No Labels is laying out its platform in a new “Common Sense” booklet that Manchin and Utah’s former Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman will promote in a town hall at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. The platform contains multiple ideas splitting the difference between the Democratic and Republican position on key issues with bipartisan stances anchored to the political center ground.

On immigration, for instance, the group calls for tighter border controls, a reform of asylum procedures and a path to citizenship for Dreamers, or undocumented migrants brought to the United States as children. On guns, the group wants to uphold the right to bear arms but calls for dangerous weapons to be kept out of the hands of “dangerous people,” including with universal background checks and by closing loopholes that make it easier to buy weapons at gun shows. No Labels also wants better community policing and crackdowns on crime.

Given the gridlock, anger and dysfunction in Washington, it’s hard to argue that the current political system is working. But many of these solutions are familiar, having been tried by presidents in either party or groups of cross-party senators. Their failure to make it into law both encapsulates the rationale behind a third-party bid to smash Washington’s political deadlock, but also explains the institutional and political barriers to an independent president ever being elected or effective.

“We think there is an opening today, and if it looks like this a year from now, there could be an opening,” said Ryan Clancy, the chief strategist for No Labels, in an interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish in May. “To nominate a ticket, we’ve got to clear two pretty high bars, which is the major party nominees need to continue to be really unpopular, but a unity ticket needs to have an outright path to victory.”

No Labels says it would draw supporters equally from Republicans and Democrats and argues that previous third-party candidacies – for instance, by Green Party nominee Jill Stein, consumer advocate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson – were unsuccessful because voters didn’t believe they could win. (Some Democrats accused Nader in 2000 and Stein in 2016 of siphoning away votes from Democratic nominees Al Gore and Hillary Clinton and opening the way for the GOP to claim the White House).

The center-left think tank Third Way is warning that a No Labels candidate could be especially dangerous for Biden in the key states that will decide the election. It is highlighting research showing that in 2020, Biden won six of seven states where the margin of victory was three points or less. It argues, therefore, that 79 electoral votes are potentially at risk for Biden from the involvement of a third-party challenger.

Such a challenger would also need to win states where Biden won big, and at least some conservative bastions. And given that Trump’s deeply loyal voters are unlikely to desert him, a third-party candidate seems more likely to pull from the same pool of anti-Trump Republicans and moderate and independent voters Biden is targeting with a campaign rooted in his warnings against the threat to democracy from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” populism.

An analysis by CNN’s Harry Enten shows that voters who don’t have a favorable view of either Biden or Trump are more likely to side with the current president in the end. In an average of the past three Quinnipiac University polls, Biden leads Trump by 7 points among those who don’t have a favorable view of either man. A third name on the ballot could complicate this equation.

There is also the question of whether No Labels – with its condemnation of “two major political parties dominated by angry and extremist voices driven by ideology and identity politics” – is drawing a false equivalency between Republicans and Democrats. Trump, for example, sought to overturn a democratic election in 2020 to stay in power, while Biden has enacted rare bipartisan legislation including over gun safety and infrastructure.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is hoping to thwart Trump’s bid for a third consecutive GOP nomination, warned Sunday that a third-party candidacy could play directly into the former president’s hands. “There are only two people who will get elected president of the United States in November of ’24 – the Republican nominee for president and the Democratic nominee for president,” Christie said on ABC News’ “This Week.”

“They think they know who they (are) going to hurt. They want to hurt Donald Trump if he’s the nominee. But. … you never quite know who you’re going to hurt in that process.”

[ad_2]

Source link

July 16, 2023
Why Trump’s Republican rivals should focus on New Hampshire, not Iowa | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Donald Trump continues to be the clear favorite to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Most of his rivals – from South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott to former Vice President Mike Pence – have a game plan to slow down the Trump train: Compete hard in the first-in-the-nation Iowa Republican caucuses, now scheduled for January 15.

The idea makes sense on its face. These candidates have to beat Trump somewhere, so why not do it in the first contest where they can potentially change the narrative.

There are just a few problems with this proposition. First, a Trump loss in Iowa is by no means a guarantee of anything for the non-Trump Republicans based on history. Second, the polling suggests the voters among whom Trump is most vulnerable are more plentiful in the state with the second-in-the-nation contest: New Hampshire.

Republican presidential candidates are currently flocking to Iowa as they have every four to eight years in modern memory. They go to fairs, eat corn and pizza, and ask Iowans for their vote.

Many hope to upend the national front-runner at the Iowa caucuses, as Mike Huckabee (2008), Rick Santorum (2012) and Ted Cruz (2016) have done before.

All those candidates, however, then proceeded to lose the New Hampshire primary and the party nomination.

Iowa, it turns out, has not been very good at picking Republican nominees for president. In primary seasons since 1980 that didn’t feature a GOP incumbent, the Iowa winner went on to win the nomination two times. Both times, that candidate had been the national front-runner prior to his Iowa win (Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000). Five other Iowa winners did not become the nominee.

One reason Iowa hasn’t done nearly as well at predicting nominees is that socially conservative candidates often appeal to the state’s religious conservative base. Religious conservatives tend to have an outsize influence in the Hawkeye State compared with other states.

New Hampshire has had a significantly better track record. Republican primary voters there have picked the eventual nominee in five out of seven elections since 1980 without an incumbent GOP president. This includes the last three primary seasons without an incumbent, while Iowa, at the same time, has gone 0 for 3.

Of course, 2024 could end up being like 1996 or 2000, when Iowa went with the eventual nominee while New Hampshire did not. We have a limited historical sample size.

That said, there are also a few characteristics about New Hampshire Republicans that indicate they may be more open to a Trump challenger than Iowa Republicans this time around.

We have seen, for example, ideology play a major role in how Republicans view Trump. Polling has consistently shown the former president to be far weaker in the center of the GOP political spectrum than he has been on the right – which is a change from 2016 when Trump was weakest among “very conservative” voters.

Trump’s national polling lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in last month’s Quinnipiac poll, for example, dropped from 41 points among the very conservative to 31 points among those who were somewhat conservative to 14 points among moderate and liberal potential Republican primary voters.

New Hampshire GOP primary voters are usually more moderate than their counterparts in Iowa. In 2016, 40% of Iowa Republican caucusgoers described themselves as very conservative, according to the entrance polls before voting began. Only 26% of New Hampshire Republican primary voters identified the same way. The percentage who called themselves moderate or liberal in New Hampshire (29%) was nearly double that in Iowa (15%).

Trump has also been weaker among demographic groups who make up a larger share of the New Hampshire Republican electorate.

Income, which was not too much of a predictor of primary voting patterns in 2016, seems to be playing a bigger role this year.

Our most recent CNN/SSRS poll found, for example, that Trump had a 27-point lead over DeSantis among potential Republican primary voters with a household income of less than $100,000. His advantage over DeSantis among those making $100,000 or more was a mere 3 points.

Although the 2016 Iowa entrance poll did not ask about income, the 2020 general election exit poll did. Among self-identified Republicans in Iowa, 26% had a total family income of $100,000 or more. Among self-identified Republicans in New Hampshire, 48% of them did.

(Note: Household and family income are somewhat different measures, but I’m merely demonstrating that New Hampshire Republicans are, on the whole, wealthier than Iowa Republicans.)

Perhaps, it should come as no surprise that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie seems to be the rare Republican basing his campaign in New Hampshire and not Iowa. Christie is by far the most anti-Trump candidate registering in the polls at all.

His chance of winning the nomination is slight, but he seems to have the right idea.

If Trump is going to get tripped up in the 2024 primary, the numbers suggest his opponents would be wiser to focus more on New Hampshire than on Iowa.

[ad_2]

Source link

July 9, 2023
Dozens injured after vehicle crashes into New Hampshire restaurant, authorities say | CNN

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Nearly three dozen people were injured in New Hampshire Sunday after an SUV plowed into a roadside restaurant in Laconia, officials said.

The SUV crashed into the Looney Bin Bar and Grill during lunchtime and injured 34 people, according to the Laconia Fire Department.

A vehicle was making a left turn as it pulled out of a nearby business when the driver of another vehicle, which was in the center lane turning into the same establishment, gave them the go ahead, Laconia Police Chief Matthew Canfield told CNN.

The driver of the vehicle pulling out didn’t apparently see a third vehicle, which was heading south, in the third travel lane. The two vehicles collided, sending the southbound vehicle careening into the Looney Bin, Canfield said.

Fourteen people were taken to area hospitals and another 20 people were treated at the scene and released, authorities said.

Two of the hospitalized patrons sustained “significant lower leg injuries,” while others who were transported to hospitals were treated for lacerations, contusions and other non-life-threatening injuries, the news release stated.

A window that survived the crash displayed an “open” sign – which accurately described the state of the restaurant’s busted front wall where only a single column of wood still stood, video from CNN affiliate WMUR showed.

The vehicle’s impact left pieces of the structure scattered on the restaurant’s floor. Firefighters were seen shoveling up broken wood and debris from the damaged front portion of the restaurant on the rainy Sunday afternoon.

The hole in the restaurant was boarded up after the crash, WMUR reported.

Laconia lies at the center of New Hampshire’s lakes region. Its population is about 16,700, according to the 2021 Census.

[ad_2]

Source link

July 2, 2023
Ad wars heat up in the 2024 presidential race as spending nears $70 million | CNN Politics

[ad_1]

CNN
—

Former President Donald Trump is dominating cable airwaves, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is betting on Iowa and South Carolina, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is blanketing New Hampshire as candidates tailor their ad spending with the 2024 presidential race heating up.

Spending data from AdImpact shows how the various White House contenders have different strategies for the early primary map, investing resources in the states and messages they hope can serve as launching pads to the nomination – spending nearly $70 million along the way.

Allies of Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, have taken a unique approach among the crowded field, devoting more than three-quarters of their ad spending dollars to national cable advertising campaign.

MAGA Inc., the super PAC backing his campaign, has spent $15.7 million on national cable advertising out of a total of nearly $20 million in ad spending so far. The pro-Trump group has split the rest of its spending, a little more than $4 million, between Iowa and New Hampshire.

Reflecting that strategy, in the last month, MAGA Inc. spent $1.6 million on an ad running in major media markets (Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia) which criticizes the former president’s indictment in the classified documents case. The super PAC has also kept ads attacking DeSantis in rotation in the early primary states.

There are also hints at the strategy of DeSantis’ camp in the ad spending of a super PAC backing his campaign, Never Back Down. The group has spent a total of about $15.5 million on advertising so far, directing $4.3 million to Iowa and $3.7 million to South Carolina. On Tuesday, the group launched a new TV spot in Iowa proclaiming that DeSantis was “waging a war on woke and winning.”

By contrast, the group has spent just $1.3 million in New Hampshire so far. Notably, Never Back Down has spent about $630,000 in Nevada, another early voting state, making it the only GOP group with a significant presence on the airwaves there. The group has also spent about $5 million on national cable advertising.

South Carolina Sen Tim. Scott – another top advertiser in the early going of the White House race – has taken a traditional approach to ad budgeting, splitting his advertising between Iowa, where he’s spent about $3.5 million, and New Hampshire, where he’s spent about $2 million. In both states, he’s been a steady presence on the air, running ads that tout his “conservative values” and feature clips from the campaign trail.

And the super PAC allied with Scott has followed a similar pattern, spending about $3.1 million in Iowa and $1.9 million in New Hampshire. Unlike the Trump and DeSantis super PACs, Scott and his camp have spent little on national advertising campaigns.

Meanwhile, North Dakota’s Burgum has emerged as the top advertiser in New Hampshire so far, spending more than $2.1 million in the state as the independently wealthy candidate works to raise his profile among voters.

Burgum has also spent $2 million advertising in Iowa. Excluding outside groups, only Scott has spent more on campaign advertising – and even including the super PACs, Burgum is the fifth biggest advertiser in the race so far.

A look at who has spent money so far on 2024 ads
MAGA Inc.: $19,922,815
Never Back Down: $15,511,532
Scott for President $5,679,567
Trust in the Mission PAC $5,605,080
Burgum for President: $4,220,175
Perry Johnson for President: $2,119,553
Future Forward USA Action: $2,063,400
Biden Victory Fund: $2,022,898
Democratic National Committee/Biden: $1,636,147
Ramaswamy for President: $1,409,095
American Action Network: $1,219,358
Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee: $877,800
Binkley for President: $857,445
SOS America PAC: $827,280
Defending Democracy Together: $786,377
DeSantis for President: $763,910
Biden for President: $758,026
Trump for President: $682,998

Overall, since the start of 2023, all campaigns and outside groups have combined to spend nearly $70 million on advertising for the presidential race already. That amount is nearly double what had been spent at this point in the last presidential cycle – during a competitive Democratic primary – when all candidates and groups had spent about $35 million in the first six months of 2019.

This year, Trump’s super PAC, DeSantis’ super PAC, Scott and his super PAC, and Burgum account for over half that total, combining to spend just over $50 million.

Only two other candidates have spent more than $1 million on ads so far: Vivek Ramaswamy and Perry Johnson, both of whom are independently wealthy businessmen self-funding their campaigns.

And while candidates have taken different approaches to investing their resources, the traditional early voting states are continuing to draw the lion’s share of the ad dollars. Candidates and groups have spent about $17.4 million in Iowa, $10.9 million in New Hampshire, $3.9 million in South Carolina, and $830,000 in Nevada.

The ad wars are heating up as candidates in the crowded GOP field are scrambling to qualify for the first presidential debate in August.

Several long-shot Republican presidential candidates, with smaller budgets for TV advertising, have been appealing to donors online to help them make the debate stage after the Republican National Committee released the qualification requirements, which include both polling and fundraising thresholds.

As he seeks to nab the 40,000 individual donors required to be on stage, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is up with Facebook ads that read, “I am running for President to bring out the best in America. From securing the border to creating a robust economy, I have the experience to deliver. Chip in $3, $5, or $10 today to help me get on the debate stage and move our nation forward.”

Ramaswamy – who is self-funding his campaign – is also urging supporters to help him qualify. “To secure a prime spot on the debate stage, we need solid polling numbers AND unique grassroots donors. Can you chip in just $1 today to help get to the debate stage?,” one of Ramaswamy’s ads says.

And Johnson, the wealthy Michigan businessman, is making similar appeals. “Even though I’m self-funding, the RNC is requiring that I get 40,000 donors to make the debate stage. Can you donate $1 NOW to ensure that I make the cut to share my plan to stop inflation and balance the budget?,” reads one of his ads.

Tag: New Hampshire

Video: For Christie, New Hampshire’s Primary Is Do or Die

Pence warns about future of GOP during New Hampshire stop

GOP Lawyer Killed In Stabbing At Home, Investigation Underway, New Hampshire AG Says

Election officials reject calls to unilaterally block Trump from ballot using 14th Amendment but will defer to courts | CNN Politics

2016 Presidential Debates Fast Facts | CNN Politics

The final presidential debate

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces independent run for president, ending Democratic primary challenge to Biden | CNN Politics

New Hampshire man pleads guilty to threatening Rep. Matt Gaetz after scrolling TikTok | CNN Politics

Trump seeks to steer attention away from first 2024 GOP debate as rivals make final preparations for Milwaukee | CNN Politics

Other candidates plot their strategies

Escaped New Hampshire inmate shot and killed by police officer in Miami store

Manchin refuses to rule out third party presidential campaign, says ‘if I get in a race, I’m going to win’ | CNN Politics

How would a third-party bid affect the 2024 presidential race?

Manchin’s New Hampshire trip will leave Democrats shivering | CNN Politics

Why Trump’s Republican rivals should focus on New Hampshire, not Iowa | CNN Politics

Dozens injured after vehicle crashes into New Hampshire restaurant, authorities say | CNN

Ad wars heat up in the 2024 presidential race as spending nears $70 million | CNN Politics

A look at who has spent money so far on 2024 ads

Trump’s New 2-Word Description Of Himself Leaves Critics Flummoxed

Trump and DeSantis trade shots in New Hampshire showdown | CNN Politics

New Hampshire woman and her 18-month-old daughter fatally shot; father found dead near bank of Merrimack River