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  • Republicans are having a ‘malaise’ moment | CNN Politics

    Republicans are having a ‘malaise’ moment | CNN Politics

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



    CNN
     — 

    The Make America Great Again movement isn’t so sure that’s possible anymore.

    That’s according to a new CNN poll of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents conducted by SSRS. While the poll is most focused on the political landscape ahead of the 2024 presidential election, the number that stands out most is the one that suggests a deep pessimism about what’s to come.

    This is from CNN’s Jennifer Agiesta and Ariel Edwards-Levy:

    Just 30% of all Republicans and Republican-leaners say the country’s best days are still ahead of it – a dramatic shift from 2019, when Trump held the White House and 77% were optimistic that the best was ahead, and lower even than the 43% who said the same in the summer of 2016, prior to Trump’s election.

    It’s natural that Republicans and Republican-leaning independents would have a dimmer view during a Democratic administration, but the decline from the end of the Obama administration is noteworthy.

    Toward the end of the Trump administration, strong majorities on both sides of the political aisle (67% of those who lean toward Democrats and 77% of those who lean toward Republicans) said the country’s best days were ahead.

    That less than a third of those who lean toward the GOP say the same thing today suggests a dramatic mood shift.

    Note: When we refer to poll respondents in this story, we’re referring both to Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

    There have been warnings about a general national depression before. Then-President Jimmy Carter addressed the nation in July 1979 – 10 days after scuttling a previously planned speech about the energy crisis and subsequently trying to speak to a cross section of Americans – and declared a “crisis of confidence” in the country.

    “For the first time in the history of our country, a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years,” Carter said in the remarks, which were mocked by his opponents as his “malaise” speech, although he did not use the word “malaise.”

    The lack of optimism he transmitted to the country has been blamed for contributing to his loss in the presidential election a year later.

    The opinion columnist David French recently wrote in The New York Times that Carter’s speech sounds almost prophetic when read through the lens of today’s political climate.

    “It’s an address better suited to our time than to its own,” according to French.

    It’s certainly true that some of the themes Carter touched on – inflation, energy prices, political divisions and an intractable political process – hit a nerve today.

    “The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America,” Carter said back then.

    He added: “Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy.”

    It’s hard not to read that last line from Carter and consider another detail from the new CNN poll. More than halfway into Joe Biden’s presidency and after all the allegations of 2020 voter fraud have been examined and rejected, a solid majority of Americans who lean toward the GOP – 63% – still do not believe Biden legitimately won enough votes to win the presidency.

    Telling hard truths and encouraging a national therapy session turned out not to be winning politics for Carter and may have actually teed up Ronald Reagan to argue that he could chart a new and more optimistic course than Carter.

    There’s a lot of overlap here. Of the Republicans-leaners who think Biden did not legitimately win, 78% also think the country’s best days are behind us.

    Among the White Republicans and Republican-leaning independents without a college degree who form Trump’s political base, 75% said the best days are behind us in CNN’s poll.

    There’s some more optimism among Republican-leaning Americans with a college degree, who were more likely to prefer Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the new poll: 64% said the best days are behind us.

    Trump, who has officially launched his campaign, has the strongest support among potential GOP primary voters in the CNN poll. DeSantis, who has not formally launched a campaign, is close behind. Neither man has the support of more than 40% of that potential electorate.

    Both men are pushing the idea to their followers that government has been weaponized against them by a racially and culturally sensitive elite – which both Trump and DeSantis derisively refer to as “woke.”

    There is another shift Agiesta and Edwards-Levy note:

    Most Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (61%) say that the country’s increasing racial, ethnic and national diversity is enriching American culture, but a sizable and growing share see it as a threat.

    The 38% who consider those changes a threat now is about twice as high as four years ago, and similar to where the party stood in 2016.

    Meanwhile, a broad 78% majority of Republican-aligned Americans say that society’s values on sexual orientation and gender identity are changing for the worse.

    And 79% say the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses, just a touch below the share who felt that way at the height of the Tea Party movement during Barack Obama’s presidency.

    I couldn’t help read that portion of CNN’s poll and think of the new column by CNN’s Ronald Brownstein, about how Republican-controlled state governments are working to seize the powers of local governance from Democratic-run cities and counties.

    From Brownstein:

    These range from Georgia legislation that would establish a new statewide commission to discipline or remove local prosecutors, to a Texas bill allowing the state to take control of prosecuting election fraud cases, to moves by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey to dismiss from office elected county prosecutors who are Democrats, and a Mississippi bill that would allow a state takeover of policing in the capital city of Jackson.

    While the specifics of these efforts vary from minimum wage and family-leave laws to recycling policies, he argues the larger political struggle is over crime and political justice reform.

    Brownstein notes “an unmistakable racial dimension to these confrontations.”

    He writes, “In many instances, state-level Republicans elected primarily with the support of White, non-urban voters are looking to seize power from, or remove from office, Black or Hispanic local officials elected by largely non-White urban and suburban voters.”

    CNN’s John King put an interesting segment on his “Inside Politics” show in which he applied those current poll numbers to how the GOP primary actually works.

    The fact is that many states award all of their delegates to the highest vote-getter in the primary even if that vote-getter does not receive anywhere near a majority of votes.

    King noted that in 2016, when Trump first secured the GOP nomination, he lost the first contest in Iowa and won in New Hampshire and South Carolina, but with only about a third of the primary vote.

    He ultimately got about 45% of primary votes compared with the 50% split among his three chief rivals. That means the votes are likely out there to defeat Trump. But for now, it would mean Republicans would likely have to coalesce around a single alternative.

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  • DeSantis moves his presidential ambitions into the open with Iowa visit | CNN Politics

    DeSantis moves his presidential ambitions into the open with Iowa visit | CNN Politics

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    Davenport, Iowa
    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made his first appearance in Iowa on Friday, an unmistakable flirtation for a top-tier Republican presidential contender that brings his expected bid for the White House a step closer to reality.

    Though DeSantis doesn’t plan to make a formal announcement on his political future until May or June, the Iowa visit, followed by a stop in Nevada on Saturday, highlighted the increasing priority of his presidential ambitions and a desire to send a clear signal to GOP donors, activists and potential campaign staff in early voting states about his intentions.

    At a stop at a casino in the eastern Iowa town of Davenport, DeSantis acknowledged it was his first time in the state, which typically lures political aspirants much sooner. He told the audience that his record in Florida compared favorably with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who is popular among Republicans here and has championed similar education policies.

    “I always tell my legislators, you watch Iowa – do not let them get ahead of us on any of this stuff,” DeSantis told a standing-room-only crowd.

    Reynolds introduced DeSantis at the event Friday and later joined him onstage to lead a conversation. She also traveled to Des Moines to appear with DeSantis at the State Fairgrounds later in the day.

    DeSantis did not speak to the buzz around his 2024 decision, though Reynolds hinted at it in her remarks.

    “He is just getting warmed up. This guy is a man on a mission,” she said in Davenport.

    DeSantis’ visit to Iowa came amid high anticipation from state Republicans, who have watched him closely from afar and were eager to take his measure up close.

    “Our grandkids live in Florida, so we’ve had a chance to see and hear what he’s done down there,” Kim Schmett, a longtime Iowa GOP activist, told CNN before the visit. “But everyone in Florida tells us, we don’t want him to run for president because we want to keep him here. That’s a good thing to hear about somebody holding public office.”

    DeSantis’ carefully crafted travel schedule brought him to many of Iowa’s neighbors during last year’s midterm cycle and to friendly audiences from Staten Island to Southern California in recent weeks. But he had avoided public events in the GOP’s first nominating state and in New Hampshire, home of the party’s first primary.

    He broke the seal Friday, becoming the latest potential 2024 hopeful to begin courting Iowa’s Republican caucus voters in person. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who declared her candidacy last month, is wrapping up her own three-day tour of the state, and potential candidates such as South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu held events in Iowa as early as last year.

    At the outset of the year, sources close to the Florida governor were unsure if DeSantis would visit Iowa before he officially became a candidate. Reynolds, who attended his donor retreat in Palm Beach last month, personally urged DeSantis to visit the state sooner than later, her aides said. The release of his second book, “The Courage to Be Free,” and the ensuing national tour provided DeSantis the opportunity to touch down in Iowa on his terms.

    In Davenport, people lined up as early as 6 a.m. to enter the event room. DeSantis signed books after he concluded his remarks, which saw him recount many of his political battles of the past two years, from his management of the Covid-19 pandemic in Florida to fighting Disney over legislation that banned certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom.

    Besides the events in Davenport and Des Moines, DeSantis’ Friday itinerary was also filled with several private meetings with key Republican leaders.

    He met with a group of state legislators at the Capitol, where a robust debate has been underway all week on legislation similar to many of his signature proposals in Florida. Those involved in forming his political action committee had made calls to several influential Iowa Republicans, aides familiar with the conversations said, inviting them to meet with DeSantis on Friday.

    Top advisers to the Florida governor have spoken to several key Iowa GOP operatives about the possibility of joining his team in the state. No firm hiring decisions have been made, people familiar with the matter say, but veterans of Reynolds’ and former Gov. Terry Branstad’s campaigns are among those in discussions with Team DeSantis.

    At the same time, former President Donald Trump has been making his own calls into Iowa over the past two weeks – targeting some of the same legislators and longtime supporters and urging them to endorse his candidacy again.

    “President Trump is twisting arms and looking for endorsements, but many of us are keeping our powder dry for now,” a top Republican elected official told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid alienating the former president or the DeSantis team.

    Trump will hold his first Iowa event of the 2024 cycle in Davenport on Monday just days after DeSantis leaves town. Jeanita McNulty, chairwoman of the Scott County GOP, said many local Republicans are uncommitted and she expects to see familiar faces attend both the DeSantis and Trump events.

    “Republicans here are not closing a chapter or opening a new chapter,” she said. “They want to hear from both candidates, see what they have to say.”

    DeSantis did not mention Trump in his remarks in Davenport, but he contrasted his administration against the chaos and leaks that at times engulfed the Trump White House.

    “There’s no drama in our administration,” DeSantis said. “There’s no palace intrigue. (My staffers) basically just sit back and say, ‘OK, what’s the governor going to do next?’ And we roll out and we execute.”

    Nevertheless, in the state where the first votes of the Republican contest are expected to be cast early next year, caution signs abound for DeSantis.

    “He’s riding high for a lot of good reasons. He’s done a great job leading the state of Florida,” Bob Vander Plaats, president of influential Christian group The Family Leader, told CNN before the governor’s visit.

    “But in 2008, [Rudy] Giuliani was the nominee. In 2012, Rick Perry was the nominee. In 2016, Scott Walker was the nominee,” he said, referring to past candidates who failed to live up to lofty early expectations and fizzled before voting began. “For Gov. DeSantis, he has to not just take in all of the poll numbers right now but show he’s really willing to work.”

    Vander Plaats met privately with DeSantis near Naples, Florida, last month.

    In conversations with more than two dozen Republican voters and party activists this week in Iowa, DeSantis’ name came up again and again. To many, his decision to add Iowa to his national book tour highlights his intention to run, though he’s in no hurry to make it official.

    “Pushing a book in Iowa is a fishing expedition,” said Kelley Koch, chairwoman of the Dallas County Republican Party. “I think he will be pleasantly surprised to see how many people come out to the Fairgrounds to see him. People are very curious.”

    It remains unclear the extent to which DeSantis will prioritize Iowa and other early nominating states as he lays the groundwork for a campaign focused on outlasting Trump in the GOP primary. Two people with knowledge of the planning, who asked not to be named, said DeSantis’ political operation is plotting an ambitious, nationwide strategy that will focus as much on competing in Trump strongholds and large, winner-take-all contests as it will in the initial battlegrounds. His travel in recent days to Alabama, Texas and California is an early indication that DeSantis will not be singularly focused on winning over Iowa or New Hampshire, county by county.

    “I think you’ll see some things that are unconventional unfold in short order,” one source said.

    DeSantis has consistently flouted traditional political protocols amid his rise to become Trump’s top GOP rival, and there’s no playbook for challenging a former president in a primary. He has also built a fundraising juggernaut that is carrying over more than $70 million from his 2022 reelection and has raised another $10 million this year through his Florida political committee before even jumping into the mix. CNN previously reported that the governor’s political team expects to shift that money to a DeSantis-aligned federal committee should he run.

    Still, for a first-time presidential candidate who was unknown to most of the country two years ago, forging a national campaign out of the gate would be a precarious and expensive endeavor. It carries the added risk of turning off voters in early states such as Iowa.

    “They expect to meet the candidates, shake their hands and look them in the eye,” said McNulty, the Scott County GOP chairwoman. “That’s the beauty of the first-in-the-nation caucus. It would be unwise to overlook the power of retail politics here.”

    The most recent Republican winners of the Iowa caucuses – Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (2016), Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (2012) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (2008) – all spent considerable time in the state to secure victory. Though, none of them ultimately secured the Republican nomination.

    A source close to DeSantis’ political team said there is a sense among his operation that the political landscape has changed since 2016 to allow for a less conventional campaign.

    “Ron DeSantis has never been successful because he’s the best campaigner. He’s been successful because he’s been the best governor,” the source said. “Primary voters are less concerned if you’re having coffee with them than if you are authentic and doing what you say you’re going to do. I get it that Iowa and New Hampshire voters are used to a certain campaign style, and he’ll have to consider those factors. But Republican primary voters are so concerned with the direction of the country, and those things will be less important.”

    Routine favorable coverage from Fox News and other conservative outlets has allowed DeSantis to introduce himself to many prospective GOP voters already. He will spend much of the coming weeks promoting his book and creating reasons to speak to out-of-state voters, as he did when he rallied with law enforcement unions in New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois last month, sources said. Back home, a fully aligned GOP-led state legislature is expected to send to his desk a slate of ideological bills that will generate more headlines and could become a platform for his campaign.

    “Gov. DeSantis in some ways has an unfair advantage,” Vander Plaats said, “and that’s he’s governor of Florida. That is a large state, and he gets a lot of coverage.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • This is the dynamic that could decide the 2024 GOP race | CNN Politics

    This is the dynamic that could decide the 2024 GOP race | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The same fundamental dynamic that decided the 2016 Republican presidential primaries is already resurfacing as the 2024 contest takes shape.

    As in 2016, early polls of next year’s contest show the Republican electorate is again sharply dividing about former President Donald Trump along lines of education. In both state and national surveys measuring support for the next Republican nomination, Trump is consistently running much better among GOP voters without a college education than among those with a four-year or graduate college degree.

    Analysts have often described such an educational divide among primary voters as the wine track (centered on college-educated voters) and the beer track (revolving around those without degrees). Over the years, it’s been a much more consistent feature in Democratic than Republican presidential primaries. But the wine track/beer track divide emerged as the defining characteristic of the 2016 GOP race, when Trump’s extraordinary success at attracting Republicans without a college degree allowed him to overcome sustained resistance from the voters with one.

    Though the early 2024 polls have varied in whether they place Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the lead overall (with the latest round tilting mostly toward Trump), that same overriding pattern of educational polarization is appearing in virtually all of those surveys, a review of public and private polling data reveals.

    “Trump does seem to have a special ability to make this sort of populist appeal [to non-college voters] and also have a special ability to make college-educated conservatives start thinking about alternatives,” GOP pollster Chris Wilson said in an email. “I think we’ll continue to see a big education divide in his support in 2024.”

    The stark educational split in attitudes toward Trump frames the strategic challenge for his potential rivals in the 2024 race.

    On paper, none of the leading candidates other than DeSantis himself seems particularly well positioned to threaten Trump’s hold on the non-college Republicans who have long been the most receptive audience for his blustery and belligerent messaging. By contrast, most of the current and potential field – including former Governors Nikki Haley and Chris Christie; current Governors Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia; former Vice President Mike Pence; and Sen. Tim Scott – appear better suited to attract the white-collar Republicans who have always been the most skeptical of Trump.

    That could create a situation in which there’s too little competition to Trump for voters on the “beer track” and too many options splintering the voters resistant to him on the “wine track.” That was the dynamic that allowed Trump to capture the nomination in 2016 even though nearly two-thirds of college-educated Republicans opposed him through the primaries, according to exit polls, and he didn’t reach 50% of the total vote in any state until the race was essentially decided.

    While the political obstacles facing Trump look greater now than they were then, his best chance of winning in 2024 would likely come from consolidating the “beer track” to a greater extent than anyone else unifies the “wine track” – just as he did in 2016. In each of the past three contested GOP presidential primaries, the electorate have split almost exactly in half between voters with and without college degrees, analyses of the exit polls have found.

    “Right now, unless somebody cracks that code to get competitive with Trump there [among blue-collar Republican voters], it could fall into the old pattern which is the best scenario for him,” said long-time GOP strategist Mike Murphy, who directed the super PAC for Jeb Bush in the 2016 race.

    Jennifer Horn, the former GOP state chair in New Hampshire, added that while Trump’s ceiling is likely lower than in 2016, he could still win the nomination with only plurality support if no one unifies the majority more skeptical of him. “He isn’t going to need 50% to win,” cautioned Horn, a leading Republican critic of Trump.

    The wine track/beer track divide has been a consistent feature of Democratic presidential primary politics since 1968. Since then, a procession of brainy liberal candidates (think Eugene McCarthy in 1968, Gary Hart in 1984, Paul Tsongas in 1992 and Bill Bradley in 2000) have mobilized socially liberal college-educated voters against rivals who relied primarily on support from non-college educated White voters and racial minorities (Robert F. Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Bill Clinton and Al Gore in those same races). In the epic 2008 Democratic primary struggle, the basic divide persisted in slightly reconfigured form as Barack Obama attracted just enough white-collar White and Black voters to beat Hillary Clinton’s coalition of blue-collar Whites and Latinos. Joe Biden in 2020 was mostly a beer track candidate.

    Generally, over those years, the educational divide had not been as important in Republican primary races. More often GOP voters have divided among primary contenders along other lines, including ideology and religious affiliation. Both the 2008 and 2012 GOP races, for instance, followed similar lines in which a candidate who relied primarily on evangelical Christians and the most conservative voters (Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012) ultimately lost the nomination to another who attracted more support from non-evangelicals and a broader range of mainstream conservatives (John McCain and Mitt Romney).

    The conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan, in his long-shot 1992 and 1996 bids for the GOP nomination, pioneered a blue-collar conservatism centered on unwavering cultural conservatism and an economic nationalism revolving around hostility to foreign trade and immigration. Huckabee and even more so Santorum advanced those themes, clearing a path that Trump would later follow – with a much harsher edge than either.

    In 2008, there was no educational divide in the GOP race: McCain won exactly the same 43% among Republican voters with and without a college degree, according to a new analysis of the exit poll results by CNN polling director Jennifer Agiesta. But by 2012, Santorum’s blue-collar inroads meant Romney won the nomination with something closer to the Republican equivalent of a wine-track coalition: Of the 20 states that conducted exit polls that year, Romney won voters with at least a four-year college degree in 14, but he carried most non-college voters in just 10.

    Wilson, the GOP pollster, said that an educational divide also started appearing around that time in other GOP primaries for Senate, House and governor’s races more frequently though by no means universally.

    “This wasn’t always the driving demographic or ideological difference in primaries before Trump,” Wilson said. “Sometimes a candidate [who] was particularly strong in sounding populist themes would create this type of gap, but often a more traditional issue difference either on social issues or on issues like tax increase votes or support for Obamacare or something adjacent to it would be a stronger signal in a primary.”

    In 2016, Trump turned this traditional GOP axis on its head. He narrowed the big divisions that had decided the 2008 and 2012 races. He performed nearly as well among voters who identified as very conservative as he did among those who called themselves somewhat conservative or moderate, according to a cumulative analysis of all the 2016 exit polls conducted by ABC’s Gary Langer. Likewise, Trump performed only slightly better among voters who were not evangelicals than those who were, Langer’s analysis found.

    Instead, Trump split the GOP electorate along the wine-track/beer-track divide familiar from Democratic primary contests over the previous generation. According to Langer’s cumulation of the exit polls, Trump won fully 47% of GOP voters without a four-year college degree – an incredible performance in such a crowded field. Trump, in stark contrast, carried only 35% of Republican voters with at least a college-degree across the primaries overall. But the remainder of them dubious of him never settled on a single alternative. Sen. Ted Cruz, who proved Trump’s longest-lasting rival, captured only about one-fourth of the white-collar GOP voters, with the rest splitting primarily among Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Trump himself.

    In October 2015, I wrote that Trump’s emerging strength in the GOP nomination race could be explained in two sentences: “The blue-collar wing of the Republican primary electorate has consolidated around one candidate. The party’s white-collar wing remains fragmented.” That same basic equation held through the primaries and largely explained Trump’s victory. The question now is whether it could happen again.

    There’s no question that some of the same ingredients are present. Recent national polling by the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute, according to detailed results shared with CNN, shows that Republicans without a college degree are more likely than those with advanced education to agree with such core Trump themes as the belief that discrimination against Whites is now as big a problem as bias against minorities; that society is growing too soft and feminine; and that the growing number of immigrants weakens American society.

    The educational divide is also appearing more regularly in other GOP primaries for offices such as senator or governor, especially in races where one candidate is running on a Trump-style platform, Republican strategists say. It is also reappearing in polls measuring GOP voters’ early preferences for 2024. Recent national polls by Quinnipiac University, Fox News Channel and Republican pollsters including Whit Ayres, Echelon Insights and Wilson have all found Trump still running very strongly among Republicans without a college degree, usually capturing more than two-fifths of them, according to detailed results provided by the pollsters. But those same surveys all show Trump struggling with college-educated Republican voters, usually drawing even less support among them than he did in 2016, often just one-fourth or less.

    Wilson, for instance, said that in his national survey of prospective 2024 GOP voters, Trump’s support falls from about half of those with a high school degree or less, to about one-third of those with some college experience, one-fourth of those with a four-year degree and only one-fifth of those with a graduate education. In a recent national NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, half of Republicans without a college degree said nominating Trump again would give the party the best chance of winning in 2024; two-thirds of the Republicans with degrees said the party would have a better chance with someone else.

    State polls are showing the same pattern. The latest University of New Hampshire survey showed Trump attracting about two-fifths of GOP voters there without a high school degree, about one-third of those with some college experience, and only one-sixth of those with a four-year or graduate degree. A recent LA Times/University of California (Berkeley) survey in that state produced very similar results. Trump also ran much better among Republicans without a degree than those with one in the latest OH Predictive Insights primary poll in Arizona, according to detailed results provided by the firm.

    Craig Robinson, the former GOP state party political director in Iowa, said he sees the same divergence in his daily interactions. “The people that I hang out with or have breakfast with on Saturday, it’s the more business, more educated guys, and they are like, ‘Hey, we just want to move on [from Trump],’” Robinson told me. “But if I go back home to rural Iowa, they are not like that. They are looking for the fighter; they are looking for the person that they think will stand up for them and that’s Trump by and large.”

    Republicans who believe Trump is more vulnerable than in 2016 largely point to one reason: the possibility that DeSantis could build a broader coalition of support than any of Trump’s rivals did then. In many of these early state and national polls, DeSantis leads Trump among college educated voters. And in the same polls, DeSantis is generally staying closer to Trump among non-college voters than anyone did in 2016. “DeSantis may be able to do some business there,” said Murphy, referring to the GOP’s blue-collar wing.

    When DeSantis spoke on Sunday at the Ronald Reagan presidential library about an hour northwest of Los Angeles, he smoothly displayed his potential to bridge the GOP’s educational divide. For the first part of his speech, he touted Florida’s economic success around small government principles – a message that could connect with white-collar GOP voters drawn to a Reaganite message of lower taxes and less regulation. In the speech’s later sections, DeSantis recounted his clashes with what he called “the woke mind virus” over everything from classroom instruction about race, gender and sexual orientation, to immigration and crime and his collisions with the Walt Disney Co. Those issues, which drew the biggest response from his audience, provide him a powerful calling card with GOP voters, especially those without degrees, drawn to Trump’s confrontational style, but worried he can’t win again.

    “There is a lot of energy in the party right now around these cultural issues,” said GOP consultant Alex Conant, who served as the communications director for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. “If you watch Fox prime time, they are not talking about tax cuts and balancing budgets. They talk about the same cultural issues that DeSantis is putting at the core of his campaign.”

    The risk to DeSantis is that by leaning so hard into cultural confrontation on so many fronts he could create a zero-sum dynamic in the race. That approach could allow him to cut into Trump’s blue-collar base, but ultimately repel some college educated primary voters, who view him as too closely replicating what they don’t like about Trump. (If DeSantis wins the nomination, that same dynamic could hurt him with some suburban voters otherwise drawn to his small government economic message.)

    That could leave room in the top tier of the GOP race for another candidate who offers a sunnier, less polarizing message aimed mostly at white-collar Republicans. “I think there is absolutely room for more than two candidates, especially two candidates who are both competing very hard for the Fox News audience,” Conant said. Almost anyone else who joins the race beyond Trump and DeSantis (assuming he announces later this year) may ultimately conclude that lane represents their best chance to win.

    In many ways, Trump looks more vulnerable than he did in the 2016 primary. But assembling a coalition across the GOP’s wine-track/beer-track divide that’s broad enough to beat him remains something of a Rubik’s Cube, and the countdown is starting for the field that’s assembling against him to solve it.

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  • 2020 Presidential Candidates Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    2020 Presidential Candidates Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the 2020 presidential candidates and key dates in their campaigns.

    Donald Trump – 45th President of the United States. Running for reelection.
    Primary Campaign Committee – Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.
    Website – https://www.donaldjtrump.com/
    January 20, 2017 – The day he is inaugurated, Trump submits paperwork to the Federal Election Commission to be eligible to run for reelection in 2020.
    February 27, 2018 – The Trump campaign announces Brad Parscale, the digital media director of his 2016 campaign, has been hired to run his reelection bid.
    March 17, 2020 – Earns enough delegates needed to win the Republican nomination for president.

    Bill Weld – Former Massachusetts Governor
    Primary Campaign Committee – 2020 Presidential Campaign Committee
    Website – https://www.weld2020.org/
    April 15, 2019 – Announces he is running for the Republican nomination for president on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper.
    March 18, 2020 – Weld announces he is suspending his presidential campaign.

    Joe Walsh – Former US Representative from Illinois
    Primary Campaign Committee – Walsh 2020
    Website – https://www.joewalsh.org/
    August 25, 2019 – Announces he is running for the Republican nomination for president on ABC’s “This Week.”
    February 7, 2020 – Walsh tells CNN’s John Berman on “New Day” that he is ending his candidacy for president.

    Mark Sanford – Former Governor of South Carolina
    Primary Campaign Committee – Sanford 2020
    Website – https://www.marksanford.com/
    September 8, 2019 – Announces he will launch a primary challenge for the 2020 Republican nomination on “Fox News Sunday.”
    November 12, 2019 – Announces he is suspending his presidential campaign.

    John Delaney – US Representative from Maryland’s 6th District
    Primary Campaign Committee – Friends of John Delaney
    Website – https://www.johnkdelaney.com
    July 28, 2017 – In a Washington Post op-ed, Delaney announces he is running for president.
    January 31, 2020 – Delaney announces that he is ending his 2020 presidential campaign.

    Andrew Yang – Entrepreneur, founder of Venture for America
    Primary Campaign Committee – Friends of Andrew Yang
    Website – https://www.yang2020.com/
    February 2, 2018 – Announces he is running for president via YouTube.
    February 11, 2020 – Announces he is suspending his presidential campaign.

    Richard Ojeda – Former State Senator from Virginia
    Primary Campaign Committee – Ojeda for President
    November 12, 2018 – Announces he is running for president at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
    January 25, 2019 – Announces he is suspending his campaign for president.

    Julián Castro – Former Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under US President Barack Obama.
    Primary Campaign Committee – Julián for the Future Presidential Exploratory Committee
    Website – https://www.julianforthefuture.com/
    January 12, 2019 – Officially announces he is running for president.
    January 2, 2020 – Announces he is suspending his presidential campaign.

    Tulsi Gabbard – US Representative from Hawaii’s 2nd District
    Primary Campaign Committee – Tulsi Now
    Website – https://www.tulsi2020.com/
    January 11, 2019 – “I have decided to run and will be making a formal announcement within the next week,” the Hawaii Democrat tells CNN’s Van Jones.
    February 2, 2019 – Gabbard officially launches her 2020 presidential campaign at an event in Hawaii.

    March 19, 2020 – Ends her campaign for president, and endorses former Vice President Joe Biden.

    Kamala Harris – US Senator from California
    Primary Campaign Committee – Kamala Harris For The People
    Website – https://kamalaharris.org/
    January 21, 2019 – Announces she is running for president in a video posted to social media at the same time she appears on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
    December 3, 2019 – Harris ends her 2020 presidential campaign.

    Marianne Williamson – Author and activist
    Primary Campaign Committee – Marianne Williamson for President
    Website – https://www.marianne2020.com/
    January 28, 2019 – Williamson formally launches her 2020 presidential campaign with a speech in Los Angeles.
    January 10, 2020 – Announces she is ending her presidential campaign.

    Cory Booker – US Senator from New Jersey
    Primary Campaign Committee – Cory 2020
    Website – https://corybooker.com/
    February 1, 2019 – Releases a video announcing his candidacy, appears on the talk show, “The View,” participates in multiple radio interviews and holds a press conference in Newark, New Jersey.
    January 13, 2020 – Booker ends his presidential campaign.

    Elizabeth Warren – US Senator from Massachusetts
    Primary Campaign Committee – Warren for President, Inc.
    Website – https://elizabethwarren.com/
    February 9, 2019 – Warren officially announces she is running for president at a rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
    March 5, 2020 – Warren ends her presidential campaign.

    Amy Klobuchar – US Senator from Minnesota
    Primary Campaign Committee – Amy For America
    Website – https://www.amyklobuchar.com/
    February 10, 2019 – Announces her presidential bid at a snowy, freezing outdoor event in Minneapolis.
    March 2, 2020 – Klobuchar ends her presidential campaign.

    Bernie Sanders – US Senator from Vermont
    Primary Campaign Committee – Bernie 2020
    Website – https://berniesanders.com
    February 19, 2019 – Announces that he is running for president, during an interview with Vermont Public Radio.
    April 8, 2020 – Announces he is suspending his presidential campaign.

    Jay Inslee – Governor of Washington
    Primary Campaign Committee – Inslee for America
    Website – https://jayinslee.com/
    March 1, 2019 – Announces his presidential bid in a video.
    August 21, 2019 – Announces he is suspending his presidential campaign.

    John Hickenlooper – Former Governor of Colorado
    Primary Campaign Committee – Hickenlooper 2020
    Website – https://www.hickenlooper.com/
    March 4, 2019 – Hickenlooper launches his campaign with a biographical video entitled, “Standing Tall.”
    March 7, 2019 – Officially kicks off his campaign with a rally in Denver.
    August 15, 2019 – Hickenlooper ends his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

    Beto O’Rourke – Former US Representative from Texas
    Primary Campaign Committee – Beto for America
    Website – https://betoorourke.com
    March 14, 2019 – Announces his presidential bid in a video.
    November 1, 2019 – Announces he is ending his presidential campaign.

    Kirsten Gillibrand – US Senator from New York
    Primary Campaign Committee – Gillibrand 2020
    Website – https://kirstengillibrand.com/
    March 17, 2019 – Officially declares her Democratic candidacy for president via YouTube.
    August 28, 2019 – Announces that she is ending her campaign.

    Wayne Messam – Mayor of Miramar, Florida
    Primary Campaign Committee – Wayne Messam for America
    Website – https://wayneforamerica.com/
    March 28, 2019 – Officially declares his Democratic candidacy for president in a video released to CNN.
    November 20, 2019 – Messam announces that he is suspending his campaign.

    Tim Ryan – US Representative from Ohio’s 13th District
    Primary Campaign Committee – Tim Ryan for America
    Website – https://timryanforamerica.com/
    April 4, 2019 – Announces his presidential bid during an appearance on ABC’s “The View.” The televised announcement came just minutes after Ryan’s campaign website went live.
    October 24, 2019 – Announces he is dropping out of the presidential race.

    Eric Swalwell – US Representative from California’s 15th District
    Primary Campaign Committee – Swalwell for America
    Website – https://ericswalwell.com/
    April 8, 2019 – Announces he is running for president during a taping of the “Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
    July 8, 2019 – Announces he is dropping out of the presidential race.

    Pete Buttigieg – Mayor of South Bend, Indiana
    Primary Campaign Committee – Pete for America
    Website – https://peteforamerica.com/
    April 14, 2019 – Officially announces he is running for president during a rally in South Bend, Indiana.
    March 1, 2020 – Announces he is suspending his presidential campaign.

    Seth Moulton – US Representative from Massachusetts’ 6th District
    Primary Campaign Committee – Seth Moulton for America
    Website – https://sethmoulton.com/
    April 22, 2019 – Announces, via campaign video, he is running for president.
    August 23, 2019 – Announces that he is ending his presidential bid during a speech at the Democratic National Committee summer meeting in San Francisco.

    Joe Biden – Former US Vice President
    Primary Campaign Committee – Biden for President
    Website – https://joebiden.com/
    April 25, 2019 – Announces he is running for president in a campaign video posted to social media.

    Michael Bennet – US Senator from Colorado
    Primary Campaign Committee – Bennet for America
    Website – https://michaelbennet.com/
    May 2, 2019 – Announces his candidacy during an interview on CBS’ “This Morning.”
    February 11, 2020 – Announces he is ending his presidential campaign.

    Steve Bullock – Governor of Montana
    Primary Campaign Committee – Bullock for President
    Website – https://stevebullock.com/
    May 14, 2019 – In a video posted online, announces that he is running for president.
    December 2, 2019 – Announces he is ending his presidential campaign.

    Bill de Blasio – Mayor of New York City
    Primary Campaign Committee – de Blasio 2020
    Website – https://billdeblasio.com/
    May 16, 2019 – Announces he is running for president in a video posted to YouTube.
    September 20, 2019 – Announces that he is ending his campaign.

    Joe Sestak – Former US Representative from Pennsylvania’s 7th District
    Primary Campaign Committee – Joe Sestak for President
    Website – https://www.joesestak.com/
    June 23, 2019 – Announces his candidacy in a video posted to his website.
    December 1, 2019 – Announces he is ending his presidential campaign.

    Tom Steyer – Former hedge fund manager and activist
    Primary Campaign Committee – Tom 2020
    Website – https://www.tomsteyer.com/
    July 9, 2019 – Announces his candidacy in a video posted online.
    February 29, 2020 – Announces he is ending his presidential campaign.

    Deval Patrick – Former Governor of Massachusetts
    Primary Campaign Committee – Deval for All
    Website – https://devalpatrick2020.com/
    November 14, 2019 – Announces his candidacy in a video posted to his website.
    February 12, 2020 – Announces he is ending his presidential campaign.

    Michael Bloomberg – Former New York Mayor
    Primary Campaign Committee – Mike Bloomberg 2020
    Website – https://www.mikebloomberg.com/
    November 24, 2019 – Officially announces his bid in a letter on his campaign website.
    March 4, 2020 – Bloomberg ends his presidential campaign.

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  • Incumbent Lightfoot fights to make runoff in Chicago mayoral primary | CNN Politics

    Incumbent Lightfoot fights to make runoff in Chicago mayoral primary | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is fighting for her political survival, seeking to finish in the top two in Tuesday’s crowded primary and advance to an April runoff in her quest for a second term.

    Lightfoot, the first Black woman and first out gay person to serve as mayor of a city often pilloried by conservatives in national debates over violence and gun control, rose to prominence as a pugnacious reformer promising a break from the corruption and clubby governance that had long marked Chicago politics.

    But years of contentious brawls over policing, teacher pay and Covid-19 public safety policies, as well as mounting complaints about long waits in Chicago’s public transit system, have left Lightfoot vulnerable, raising the prospect of the Second City ousting its Democratic mayor in the first round of voting.

    Voters on Tuesday will sort through the nine-candidate field – including eight Democrats and one independent. No candidate is expected to top 50% of the vote, which would mean the top two finishers will advance to an April 4 runoff.

    Campaigns and Chicago political observers describe the contest as wide open, with four candidates emerging at the top: Lightfoot; progressive US Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García; Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson; and Paul Vallas, a law-and-order candidate and a onetime head of schools in Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans.

    If the outcome is close, it could take days to determine the top two finishers, as mail-in votes postmarked by election day get delivered.

    Powerful interests with which Lightfoot has at times brawled are split among her major challengers. Conservatives and the police have aligned behind one rival. Teachers have backed another. And many progressives are backing a third major contender.

    Above all else, concerns about crime and public safety have rattled Chicago. Violence in the city spiked in 2020 and 2021. And though shootings and murders have decreased since then, other crimes – including theft, car-jacking, robberies and burglaries – have increased since last year, according to the Chicago Police Department’s 2022 year-end report.

    Lightfoot and her rivals have placed the issue at the forefront of their campaigns.

    “We absolutely need to hire more officers,” Lightfoot said at a WTTW mayoral forum earlier this month. “This is one of the toughest times in the country to recruit, and mayors all over the country are experiencing the difficulty.”

    Chicago’s municipal elections are nonpartisan, which means all voters – Democrats, Republicans and independents – can participate. However, Chicago is an overwhelmingly blue city, and all the major contenders say they are Democrats.

    Vallas, however, has attracted support from conservatives, and has described the Democratic Party as moving away from him in recent years on certain issues. Lightfoot, in an email to supporters, said Vallas “has so strongly aligned himself with Republican views that he can’t even be considered a moderate Democrat.”

    Vallas, who unsuccessfully ran for Illinois governor as a Democrat in 2002 and was the losing Democratic lieutenant governor nominee in 2014, was endorsed by the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, the same organization that hosted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in nearby Elmhurst earlier this week.

    “I have talked about the need to take our city back from the criminals that are preying on our residents and preying on our businesses,” Vallas told CNN in an interview.

    Johnson, meanwhile, has floated the idea in the past of diverting some funds from the police budget to alternate sources, saying he wants to “invest in people.”

    He has the backing of the Chicago Teachers Union, a powerful organization that has repeatedly clashed with Lightfoot – including over teachers’ pay and class sizes in 2019 that led to an 11-day strike and then last year as Lightfoot pushed teachers to return to classrooms at a time of rising Covid-19 cases.

    “The reason we don’t have enough police officers is because we are asking them to be social workers, therapists and marriage counselors,” Johnson said at the WTTW forum. “I’m actually investing in actually having social workers, therapists to show up on the front line, to actually free up law enforcement to deal with the more severe crime that happens in the city of Chicago.”

    García – a former Cook County commissioner who in 2015 forced then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff – has sounded similar themes.

    “Hiring more civilians to free up more police officers with their guns and badges to walk the walk, to talk to people, rebuild trust is the most important. The other important element is investing in communities and investing in violence prevention programs,” he told CNN.

    Vallas, whose message has revolved around a tough-on-crime message, said Chicago needs more police on “L” station platforms and on trains as part of a push to place more officers on local beats.

    He said combating violent crime is the “first, second and third priority” of his campaign.

    “Everything becomes undermined if you can’t provide public security,” Vallas told CNN.

    Lightfoot in recent days has lambasted Vallas after he told a crowd that his “whole campaign is about taking back our city, pure and simple.”

    The mayor told reporters that Vallas was “blowing the ultimate dog whistle.”

    “Take our city back, meaning what? To what time? And take our city back from whom?” she said.

    When pressed by CNN, Vallas said he was referring to criminals in his remark that Lightfoot has criticized.

    “I have talked about the need to take our city back from the criminals that are preying on our residents and preying on our businesses,” he said.

    For her part, Lightfoot has touted Chicago’s lawsuit against an Indiana gun store – part of an effort to demonstrate that the influx of firearms into the city isn’t a result of Chicago’s gun policies, but rather neighboring states with more lax laws.

    She has also touted her administration’s efforts to hire nearly 1,000 additional police officers, put privatized, unarmed security on public transit and create teams and task forces focused on car-jacking, halting the flow of guns into the city and more.

    The Chicago Tribune, the city’s largest newspaper, has endorsed Vallas. The newspaper’s editorial board credited Lightfoot’s financial management of the city and her navigation of the Covid-19 pandemic and said it hopes the mayor will advance to face Vallas one-on-one in the runoff.

    “Vallas has the ear of rank-and-file police officers on the street. We will expect him to use that trust to improve police conduct and the abysmal clearance rate for violent offenses,” the editorial board said.

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  • Primary voters aren’t excited about Biden or Trump. What does that mean for 2024? | CNN Politics

    Primary voters aren’t excited about Biden or Trump. What does that mean for 2024? | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The first phase of the 2024 presidential primary season is officially underway, bringing with it a cavalcade of early polling designed to answer a seemingly basic question: whether President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, have the support of their respective parties.

    That topic, though, is more complicated than it seems, reflecting voters’ complex attitudes toward the two men, which in both cases fall far short of either an enthusiastic endorsement or a definitive rejection.

    At first glance, Trump, who launched his third bid for the presidency in November, and Biden, who is yet to officially announce his reelection plans, seem to face similar challenges.

    Just 44% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll said they’d prefer to see Trump win the party nomination in 2024, with an even slimmer 31% on the Democratic side saying they’d like to see Biden renominated.

    That’s in line with other recent polls, including a December CNN survey that found just 38% of Republican-aligned voters and 40% of Democratic aligned-voters thought their parties should renominate Trump and Biden, respectively.

    But while many Republicans and Democrats would prefer to see someone else nominated, the vague concept of “someone else” isn’t an eligible challenger for the presidency. And when it comes to specific, viable rivals, Trump and Biden currently face very different situations.

    So far, one potential primary challenger to Trump has significantly broken through among the GOP faithful, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, although polls have varied on his precise strength against the former president.

    When a recent Monmouth University poll asked GOP and GOP-leaning voters an open-ended question about whom they’d like to see as their party’s nominee next year, most named either Trump (33%) or DeSantis (33%). Two percent or fewer mentioned anyone else as a possible nominee – including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the latest entrant into the GOP race who’d yet to declare when the survey was taken.

    CNN’s December polling found that among Republican-aligned voters who favored a nominee besides Trump, 47% had a particular alternate candidate in mind, including 38% who singled out DeSantis.

    There are no similarly prominent rivals to Biden: 72% of Democratic-aligned voters in CNN’s December poll who wanted to see the party nominate someone else said they had nobody specific in mind.

    Despite the lukewarm partisan reactions to Trump’s and Biden’s 2024 candidacies, both are well-regarded within their parties, for the most part.

    In the Post-ABC poll, 79% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they’d feel positively if Trump were elected to the White House in 2024, with 72% of Democrats and Democratic-leaners saying the same about the prospect of Biden being reelected. Just 7% on the Republican side said they’d be angry to see Trump return to office, with only 3% on the Democratic side saying they’d be angry to see Biden serve another term, the Post-ABC survey found.

    And in a January CNN poll, 29% of Republican adults said they viewed Trump unfavorably, compared with the 14% of Democrats who expressed an unfavorable view of Biden.

    With nearly a year to go before any votes are cast, the 2024 primary landscape remains liable to change, as new candidates enter the race and voters learn more about them. That’s particularly true on the Republican side, where a number of politicians have openly signaled interest in running; Democratic leaders, by contrast, have largely shied away from calls to challenge a Biden reelection campaign.

    None of the recent survey findings predict how the presidential primary landscape will develop in the months to come, or how public opinion might evolve in response. But taken together, they help to paint a fuller picture of where things stand now.

    Both Trump and Biden remain generally well-liked by their respective parties, even as Democrats and Republicans also express a shared eagerness to find alternatives. And so far, Trump, unlike Biden, has seen at least one real potential challenger emerge.

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  • Why it’s better to start a presidential campaign early | CNN Politics

    Why it’s better to start a presidential campaign early | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The nascent 2024 presidential campaign seemed to hit a different gear this week with Nikki Haley entering the Republican primary. The former South Carolina governor and onetime United Nations ambassador joins former President Donald Trump as the only major competitors to declare bids for the presidency.

    Haley’s announcement, and the lack of one so far from President Joe Biden and a slew of Republicans, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, got me thinking: Do primary winners tend to be early or late entrants to the presidential race?

    The answer depends on who else is running. If you’re in a primary without an incumbent, then it’s better to be early, while it matters far less with an incumbent running.

    The modern primary era began in 1972 on the Democratic side and in 1976 on the Republican side. Since then, hundreds of major candidates have decided to run for president or at least formed exploratory committees with the Federal Election Commission. For each of them, I jotted down whichever date was first, to see if there was a pattern.

    It turns out that the median date for candidates to enter a presidential primary without an incumbent has been March 16 the year before the general election. There has been a wide variation on that from year to year. Some years, the median candidate gets in really early (January 2007 for the 2008 cycle on both the Democratic and Republican side), while other years it’s much later (August 1991 for the 1992 cycle on the Democratic side).

    There is no real correlation between how late or how early a field forms and the eventual nominee’s success in the general election. Democrats, for example, won the presidency in both 1992 and 2008, even with a much later start in 1992.

    What does seem to matter for winning a primary is when candidates get into the race compared with their competitors. In the 17 primaries since 1972 that did not feature an incumbent, 10 of the winning candidates entered earlier than that year’s median candidate. Two of the winners were the median candidates. Five got into the race later than the median candidate.

    There were six who started running about one and a half months or more before that cycle’s median candidate. Democrat George McGovern, in the 1972 cycle, started nearly a full year before the median hopeful that cycle.

    McGovern remains the only major-party nominee who had less than 5% of the vote in early national surveys while the polling leader had more than 20% support. McGovern’s success is part of the reason why primary campaigns seem to start so early compared with when the actual voting takes place.

    Getting in the public eye early, raising money and building an organization are key to winning a presidential campaign. If you fall too far behind, it can be a disaster.

    Even candidates you might “think” entered the race late, often got in far earlier. Trump’s June 2015 official announcement became well known for his ride down the escalator. Less remembered was the fact that he started an exploratory committee in March 2015, and he was already campaigning at the time.

    Of course, joining a presidential race early is no guarantee of success. Former Florida Gov. Reubin Askew in the 1984 cycle and ex-Maryland Rep. John Delaney in the 2020 cycle filed with the FEC for the Democratic primary less than a year after the previous presidential election. Neither got very far.

    Still, on the whole, joining early is better than getting in late. After all, the winners who have gotten in late didn’t get that late. The latest, for example, was Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 campaign. He entered less than three months after the median candidate.

    Biden, in the 2020 cycle, was the other winning candidate to enter more than 15 days after the median candidate.

    Both Biden and Reagan shared some qualities that few others had. They had previously run for president and were well known nationally, so they didn’t need time to build name recognition or a campaign and fundraising apparatus.

    What we’ve seen more often is the late-entering “savior” candidate who enters on a white horse – and fails. Think about former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson in the 2008 cycle and then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the 2012 cycle. Both Republicans entered with a splash and proceeded to win zero primaries combined. The same was true for Democrat Mike Bloomberg in the 2020 cycle, though he won American Samoa.

    For incumbents, meanwhile, there’s a much greater ability to wait before indicating publicly that they’re going for another term.

    The median date, since 1976, for presidents to either form an exploratory committee or announce their campaign is April 30 of the year before the general election. That’s about a month and a half later than when the median nonincumbent’s campaign gets started.

    Some presidents do go early. Trump’s failed 2020 reelection campaign started the moment he entered the White House. (He formed an exploratory committee on Inauguration Day.)

    Later is the general rule, however, for incumbents. Reagan’s highly successful 1984 reelection campaign, for instance, didn’t get underway until October 1983. George H.W. Bush, likewise, got going on his 1992 reelection bid in October 1991.

    It shouldn’t be too surprising that incumbents can afford to go later. They rarely have any major competitors for their party nomination. They have universal name recognition, and incumbents don’t need the same amount of time to ramp up their campaign infrastructure to raise money.

    All of that seems to match up with what Biden is going through at this point. In fact, some reports suggest he’ll likely announce a reelection bid in April.

    But for Republicans wondering whether it’s too soon to start campaigning, history is pretty clear. It’s better to start sooner or you might fall too far behind to recover.

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  • Key senators torn over retirement decisions as party leaders try to fortify 2024 standing | CNN Politics

    Key senators torn over retirement decisions as party leaders try to fortify 2024 standing | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Sen. Joe Manchin, torn over whether to run for reelection, says he’s “given everything I possibly can” over four decades of holding public office. Sen. Jon Tester is close to making his final decision on a 2024 bid and concedes there’s a risk of his seat flipping next year.

    “It’s a commitment,” the Montana Democrat said of another run.

    They’re not the only ones in a tough spot.

    Sen. Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, is weighing health considerations after treatment for prostate cancer. Sen. Bernie Sanders, 81, says he’ll make a decision about whether to run for a fourth Senate term in Vermont “at the appropriate time.”

    And Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican who has gone to battle with former President Donald Trump, says he’ll decide whether to run for a second term by mid-April, sounding ready to take on his party’s MAGA wing if he runs again.

    “People understand that every action has a consequence, and you accept the consequences for the actions that you think are right,” Romney, 75, said of potentially facing a stiff challenge from the right. He then added bullishly: “If I run, I’ll win.”

    As the 2024 landscape begins to take shape, the senators’ decisions about their political futures will dramatically alter the map and hold major ramifications for the makeup of the institution itself.

    For Democrats, the concern is the most acute. They already have a difficult road to maintain their slim 51-49 majority, with 23 seats to defend compared to just 11 for the GOP.

    Plus they’ll have to hold onto Democratic seats in GOP terrain, such as in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia – not to mention keep their seats in swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada. The map provides them with scant pickup opportunities, since Republican incumbents are mostly running in ruby-red states or states that have trended to the GOP, like Florida.

    Then there’s the complicated dance for both parties in Arizona, if Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, now an independent, decides to run again for a seat that would put her up against a Republican and Democrat in a messy, three-way race. For Republicans, fear is growing that the hard-right Kari Lake may mount a bid and put their hopes for a pickup in jeopardy.

    And with few pickup chances, Senate Democrats recognize they’ll have to limit losses – and prevent retirements – in order to cling to power.

    “I’m doing everything I can to help Manchin in West Virginia,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told CNN when asked if he were concerned that the conservative Democrat might hang it up, referring to legislative actions.

    After Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow announced she’d retire, Schumer and his top deputies are hoping to prevent others from following suit, recognizing that an open seat would give Republicans an even better chance of seizing control of the chamber they lost in the 2020 elections. The exception is California, where the 89-year-old Dianne Feinstein announced her retirement this week, something widely expected, as Democrats are expected to keep the seat in their control in the blue state.

    In particular, Democratic leaders are urging Tester and Manchin to run again, knowing full well that finding another Democrat to win in those conservative battlegrounds will be an extremely tall order in 2024.

    “Clearly, it’s important for them to run,” said Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Democratic campaign arm, when asked about Tester and Manchin. “I don’t know where they are. I’ve talked to them, but they’re just working through issues, personal issues for themselves as to what they want to do. So we just have to give them time to think that through and I look forward to their answers.”

    Peters acknowledged that his party’s effort to keep the Senate will grow bleaker if either or both men retire.

    “Those are states that are very Republican,” Peters told CNN, referring to Montana and West Virginia. “And I know they can win again, but they’re without question the strongest candidates in those states. It’d be more difficult without them running.”

    Democrats acknowledge they have close to no backup plans in Montana or West Virginia. But they have been heartened by the polls that are being released publicly by Republican groups in those states, showing their numbers have been better than expected – and perhaps encouraging – for the incumbents.

    But neither Manchin nor Tester seem concerned that the seat could turn red if they retire.

    “That’s not my factor,” Manchin said in the interview. “I’m not weighing that because of my, what it might do to the numbers as far as up here. No, I’ve been at this for quite some time. This term being up, there’ll be 42 years I’ve been in public service so I’ve given everything I possibly can.”

    Several Democratic operatives involved in planning for Senate races tell CNN they expect that ultimately, Tester will run and that Casey will as well after his successful surgery this week. Manchin has them more on edge, and they anticipate that’s how they’ll remain for almost a year: the West Virginia filing deadline isn’t until next January.

    That, after all, is what he did in 2018.

    Manchin, a former governor and state legislator who has served in the Senate since 2010, insists he’s not concerned about the prospects that the GOP governor, Jim Justice, is strongly considering a run against him, though Justice would have to escape a difficult primary against Rep. Alex Mooney and potentially the state’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, who may run as well. He has acknowledged that Justice would be the toughest candidate to face, though he insists he could still pull off a victory.

    Manchin, 75, just doesn’t know if he wants to do it again as he looks back at the last several years – especially in the 50-50 Senate in the last Congress where he was at the peak of his power in the chamber and played a central role shaping major laws. The question Manchin is weighing: whether he’ll have the same kind of impact with another six years.

    “I make a decision based on if I’ve been able to deliver for the state, have I been able to support the Constitution and the oath I’ve taken, I think I have,” Manchin said, confirming he’s been urged by Biden and Schumer both to run. “Is there more I can do in different, other areas? I don’t know.”

    Tester, who also said Schumer has been urging him to run, conceded that his seat could flip if he bows out.

    “Oh, absolutely there’s a risk of flipping there’s no doubt about that but so are all of them,” Tester said.

    But he contended other Democrats could mount a vigorous challenge for the seat.

    “Actually, we’ve got some really good folks in the wings that can run,” Tester, 66, said before he noted that things have gotten dire for Democrats in recent cycles. “We haven’t had the best of luck the last few cycles in Montana but I think that’s as much self-inflicted as it is the state turning red.”

    But Tester pointed to key positions he holds – chairing a subcommittee on Pentagon spending and running the veterans panel – as he weighs another run.

    “I’m at a point and time where we can get a lot of good things done because of my position on Veterans Affairs and defense chairman but it’s just something where I think you just need to take the time to think over,” he said.

    Yet Democrats could benefit from a potentially divisive GOP primary in Montana – with the possibility of candidacies from two House members, the governor and the state attorney general. That will put the other Montana senator, Republican Steve Daines, to the test as he plans to use his National Republican Senatorial Committee to be more assertive in GOP primaries to root out lackluster general election candidates, though it’s unclear how he would handle his home state.

    In an interview, Daines was noncommittal when asked about one candidate in particular – Rep. Matt Rosendale – a hard-right Republican who lost to Tester in 2018 and is considering running again. He said “it’s early” since candidates have yet to declare and that the field will get “sorted out,” contending the race is “winnable.”

    “These are three red states where the only statewide elected official left that’s a Democrat is a US Senator. That’s Montana, it’s West Virginia, it’s Ohio,” Daines said. “These are going to be spirited races.”

    And after last cycle’s GOP debacle, where several Donald Trump-aligned candidates petered out in the general election and effectively cost them winning the majority, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell is determined not to allow that to happen again.

    “I just think we need to focus on candidates who can win in the general election,” said Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas and close McConnell ally. “We had some great primary candidates, but that won’t get the job done. You got to have somebody who can have a broader appeal than just the base. That was one of the most important lessons of this last cycle.”

    Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, at left, is challenging Sinema, at right, for her US Senate seat in 2024.

    Senate leaders in both parties see Arizona as the biggest wildcard – depending on what Sinema decides to do and which Republican decides to run.

    Lake, the Trump-aligned Republican who lost one of the nation’s premier governor’s races last fall, recently met with officials at NRSC headquarters – even though many Republicans are nervous about her potential candidacy and one GOP strategist called the potential of a Lake Senate run “disastrous.”

    As she made the rounds in Washington, Daines told CNN that he spoke with Lake.

    “I want to see a candidate who can not only win a primary, but can win a general election,” Daines said when asked about that visit, not commenting on Lake directly.

    Other top Republicans are unnerved about Lake – and her evidence-free claims of widespread election fraud – and are pushing for other candidates to jump into the race.

    “I’ve just said to any of our candidates or potential candidates in 2024, that you got to talk about the future, not the past,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican. “And I think if you’re building your campaign around the theme of a stolen election, that’s not a winning strategy. We’ve seen that. So if she does decide to do it again, I think she’s gonna have to talk about the things that are on the hearts and minds of American people.”

    Schumer and Democratic leaders, themselves, are in a bind in the state, refusing to say if they’ll back their party’s nominee with Sinema still undecided on a run. The reason: They need Sinema to continue to organize with them in order to maintain their 51-49 majority and are in no mood to alienate her.

    But some Democrats are angry at their leaders for refusing to say if they’ll back their nominee, especially backers of Rep. Ruben Gallego, the party’s leading candidate in the race.

    “At some point, they’re going to have to endorse a Democrat,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, a fellow Arizona Democrat who backs Gallego, noting it would be “problematic” if party leaders didn’t dump huge resources to help their party’s nominee win a general election.

    “If they don’t, that would be an insult at many levels,” Grijavla said.

    While some Democrats are nervous that Gallego and Sinema would split the vote and give Republicans a victory, Gallego dismisses the possibility and says only a “strong Democrat” can win.

    “No matter what happens, Kyrsten Sinema is always going to be in third place,” Gallego said. “I also doubt she fully runs.”

    As she’s grown more alienated from her former party, Sinema has grown closer to Republicans, including one – Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – who told CNN she would endorse the senator if she ran again.

    “I absolutely support Sen. Sinema,” Murkowski said, noting she’s also backing Manchin. “She’s not afraid to take on hard things, and I’m gonna be supporting her too.”

    Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan speaks to members of the media at the U.S. Capitol on August 03, 2022 in Washington, DC.

    Even in safe Democratic seats, there’s the potential for a shakeup that could bring more diversity and younger members into the ranks, including in Maryland and Delaware where Sens. Ben Cardin and Tom Carper, respectively, have not made a final decision to run yet.

    Cardin, 79, who hasn’t spent much time fundraising yet, said he would make his decision sometime in the spring, while Carper, 76, said he’d be ready to run but noted that campaigns are “way too long.”

    In Hawaii, Sen. Mazie Hirono said she plans to run again, as did Maine’s Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

    “There’s only two ways to run: Scared or unopposed,” King said.

    In more contested states, Nevada’s Jacky Rosen said she is running, as did Ohio’s Sherrod Brown. And in Wisconsin, Sen. Tammy Baldwin said she’d make her announcement about her plans in the spring after upcoming elections in the state.

    In Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz has announced plans to run for a third Senate term, and Democrats are weighing whether to mount a serious effort to try to unseat him in the red state – with a focus on whether Democratic Rep. Colin Allred will try to mount an upset bid against the conservative senator.

    In Michigan, where Stabenow’s retirement is leaving Democrats with an open seat in a swing state, Rep. Elissa Slotkin is eying a run and could get some implicit help from the outgoing senator herself. Stabenow has spoken by phone with several prominent Michigan Democrats, and while some have perceived that as dissuading some weaker candidates from running, a Stabenow spokesperson says she’s just been giving everyone advice on the challenges of running statewide in Michigan and not trying to clear the field.

    Republican recruitment efforts in the state are also up in the air, with a push for newly elected Rep. John James, who has lost two previous bids for the Senate. If he passes, GOP leaders believe other contenders will emerge, potentially former Rep. Peter Meijer and even some current members of the House delegation or local officials.

    While several potential Democratic candidates have decided not to run, other political players in the state remain unsure about Slotkin’s statewide strength and have continued talking privately about finding an alternative.

    Given how much Democrats in the state rely on high turnout in heavily African-American Detroit, finding a candidate who could run strong there has been a major topic in those discussions. Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, who got his start in Detroit politics is “very seriously thinking about making a run” and is expected to make a decision over the next month, according to a person familiar with his thinking.

    Meanwhile, several Democrats in Michigan tell CNN they have been surprised by outreach they’re getting from “The Good Doctor” actor Hill Harper, whose political experience mostly relates to being Barack Obama’s law school roommate, but who owns a coffee shop in Detroit and has gotten involved with the local business community there. Harper did not return a request for comment.

    Stabenow said she’s not endorsing any candidate in the primary to replace her.

    “What I’m saying to folks is that I want somebody that is strong, effective, who can raise money, who can win,” Stabenow said. “But I’m talking to everybody.”

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  • Landmark national security trial of Hong Kong democracy activists begins. Here’s what you need to know | CNN

    Landmark national security trial of Hong Kong democracy activists begins. Here’s what you need to know | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Some were seasoned politicians and veteran protest leaders. Others were academics, unionists and health care workers. They hailed from different generations and held a range of political views, but were brought together by what they say was a shared commitment to Hong Kong’s democratic future.

    Now, the “Hong Kong 47,” as the group of pro-democracy activists in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory has come to be known, will start appearing in court from Monday facing charges that could send them to prison for life.

    Sixteen of the defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges laid against them and are expected to be the first ones to take the stand.

    Their alleged crime? Organizing and participating in an unofficial primary election that prosecutors have called a “massive and well-organized scheme to subvert the Hong Kong government.”

    This is Hong Kong’s largest national security law trial since Beijing imposed the sweeping legislation on the city following mass anti-government protests in 2019. The law criminalizes vaguely defined acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces, all of which are punishable by life in prison.

    The landmark trial – the first involving subversion charges – is expected to run for weeks, but its implications could last for years or even decades in a city critics say is rapidly losing its political freedoms and autonomy.

    John Burns, emeritus professor at the University of Hong Kong, said the trial of the democrats is a “test of will” of Beijing’s capacity to completely wipe out organized opposition in Hong Kong.

    Burns said arresting the democrats and pressing charges against them was meant to both intimidate and eliminate the opposition, either by chasing them out of Hong Kong into exile or by jailing them.

    “It is a process of removing them. By shutting down political parties, shutting down trade unions, they are shutting down the basis of the support for organized opposition,” Burns said.

    The Hong Kong government has repeatedly denied such accusations. Instead, it insists the law has ended chaos and restored stability to the city.

    “Hong Kong prides itself on the rule of law; law enforcement agencies are duty-bound to take action against unlawful acts, regardless of the political background of the suspects. Arrests made are based on evidence and strictly in accordance with relevant laws and regulations,” the government said in a statement in response to the criticism.

    Here is what you need to know about the case:

    The 47 pro-democracy figures have been charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the national security law over their alleged roles in an unofficial primary election in July 2020.

    The vote was held ahead of a legislative election to find out which contenders would be best placed to bid against pro-Beijing candidates.

    Such contests are held in democracies around the world, and involve political parties selecting the strongest candidates for an election. Hong Kong’s democrats had previously held such votes in an attempt to match the organization and discipline of the rival pro-Beijing camp and avoid splitting the opposition.

    Authorities, however, said the primary vote was a “vicious plot” intended to “paralyze the government and undermine state power” by winning a majority of seats and using the mandate to block legislation.

    The government’s Electoral Affairs Commission also responded that the “so-called” primaries were “not part of the electoral procedures of the Legislative Council Election or other public elections.”

    In January 2021, the 47 democrats were arrested en masse in a dawn raid. Since then, many have been remanded in custody or are in jail for other protest-related offenses. Fifteen have been granted bail under specific conditions.

    It is extremely rare for defendants not to be granted bail in Hong Kong under the common law system. However, the national security law stipulates that defendants cannot be granted bail unless the court is convinced they will “not continue to commit acts endangering national security.”

    A Department of Justice spokesman told CNN that bail application in cases concerning offenses “endangering national security” has been “handled fairly and adjudicated impartially by the court having regard to admissible evidence, applicable laws and merits of the case.”

    The cases will be heard without a jury, deviating from the common law tradition.

    The defendants include a wide variety of political activists who describe themselves as ranging from moderate democrats to radical localists, a movement that advocates Hong Kong’s independence from mainland China.

    Among the 16 pleading not guilty is former journalist Gwyneth Ho, 32, of the now-defunct Stand News, which was closed down after a police raid in 2021 and two editors were charged with sedition.

    Ho live-streamed the moment when assailants indiscriminately hit people – many of whom were returning from a pro-democracy march – with sticks and metal bars at a train station in July 2019. Ho’s footage of the incident made international headlines, sparking a probe into the lack of police presence. Ho was injured herself in the attack. She later stepped away from journalism to run for the 2020 Legislative Council elections.

    Gwyneth Ho seen working at her office in Hong Kong on August 4, 2020.

    Leung Kwok-hung, 66, nicknamed “Long Hair” for his signature locks, is a former legislator and retired civil servant. He had been on the front lines of the city’s politics for over two decades and is an outspoken critic of China. He’s known for political protests – both on the streets and inside the city’s legislative chamber. In 2017 he was disqualified from the legislature for refusing to take an oath swearing allegiance to China.

    Activist Leung Kwok-hung holds a placard that says

    Lam Cheuk-ting, 45, regularly joined street protests which at times escalated into clashes with police, and he was often seen negotiating with officers and asking them to stop using tear gas.

    He was sentenced to four months in prison in January 2020 for disclosing the personal information of individuals in a police investigation to the Yuen Long mob attack.

    Former pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting stands outside the Eastern Magistrates' Court on December 28, 2020.

    On the other hand, several prominent activists have pleaded guilty and await sentencing. They have either been detained under pre-trial custody or are serving jail time for other protest-related offenses.

    These include well-known activist Joshua Wong, 26, labeled an “extremist” by China’s state media, and Benny Tai, 54, a former law professor and co-founder of the 2014 Occupy Central movement. Claudia Mo, 66, a former journalist-turned-legislator, who has previously been an outspoken critic of Beijing’s tightening grip over Hong Kong, has also pleaded guilty.

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  • Can any Republican beat Trump or DeSantis in 2024? | CNN Politics

    Can any Republican beat Trump or DeSantis in 2024? | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Polls show the 2024 Republican primary is a contest between former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and everybody else. The “everybody else” group includes candidates such as former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who look like they’re itching to get into the race despite only polling in the single digits.

    But if Trump and DeSantis are the front-runners, what is the chance one of these single-digits candidates (e.g., Haley or former Vice President Mike Pence) can actually win the nomination?

    It’s not nothing, but the odds clearly favor either Trump or DeSantis becoming the 2024 GOP nominee.

    Trump (polling in the low 40s) and DeSantis (in the low 30s) are each above 30% nationally on average, while no other candidate reaches double digits.

    Historically, only a few candidates have polled above 35%, on average, in early polling (i.e., January to June in the year before the primary) in the modern primary era (i.e., since 1972). Most of them have gone on to win the nomination.

    The two who didn’t are familiar to most political junkies: Democrats Ted Kennedy in 1980 and Hillary Clinton in 2008. The other six (not counting mostly unopposed incumbents) each ended up as their party’s nominee, meaning that 75% of candidates who were at 35% or above in early polling went on to win their primary.

    Importantly for this year, Kennedy and Clinton didn’t lose to candidates who were polling poorly in the early going. The eventual nominees (President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Barack Obama in 2008) were both polling above 20% over the January to June period in the year before the primary.

    In fact, 40% of the eventual nominees in competitive primaries since 1972 were polling in the 20% to 35% range – a recent example is now-President Joe Biden back in 2019.

    Now, does this mean that anybody in this “everybody else” group (i.e., those polling in the single digits) is doomed from the start? Not exactly.

    For one thing, history doesn’t necessarily tell us what is going to happen in the future.

    Moreover, there have been single-digit candidates in the early polling who ended up winning the nomination. Trump was one of them. Remember, he struggled to reach 5% in early 2015 before gaining a national polling lead that he rarely relinquished over the rest of the primary season.

    Trump wasn’t the only candidate polling in the single digits early on to later win his party’s nod. George McGovern in 1972, Carter in 1976, Michael Dukakis in 1988 and Bill Clinton in 1992 all barely registered in the national polls in the January to June period before the primaries began.

    All told, five of the 17 candidates to win nominations without an incumbent running in the primary (i.e., 30% of them) were polling under 10% in the early polls.

    Nevertheless, single-digit candidates face a two-fold problem this cycle.

    The first is that most candidates poll below 10% in the early polls. So while it wouldn’t necessarily be shocking for a candidate from this group to ultimately win the nomination, the probability of any single candidate doing so is low. Historically, less than 5% of candidates polling in the single digits at this point actually win the nomination.

    The second is that it’s worth examining the years in which early single-digit candidates emerged as the eventual winners.

    Carter, Dukakis, Bill Clinton and Trump were all running in years in which there wasn’t a polling front-runner (or front-runners). The leading candidates in the national primary polls in each of those cycles were at 20% or less. The early polling leader in 1992 was New York Gov. Mario Cuomo (at 20%), and he ended up not running.

    There has been an exception, of course.

    McGovern won the Democratic nomination in 1972 when there were two candidates polling in the 20s and one in the low 30s in the early surveys of that primary. I’m not exactly sure how applicable the 1972 cycle is to 2024 given that was the first year of the modern primary era, when it wasn’t clear exactly how early-state momentum could dictate the nomination process. Even so, McGovern’s win is notable.

    Another notable polling ascent happened during the 1984 Democratic primary. Gary Hart didn’t get above 5% in the national polls in either the first or second half of 1983. The Colorado senator was far behind the eventual nominee (former Vice President Walter Mondale) who was polling in the 30s in the first half of 1983 and in the 40s in the second half of the year.

    While Mondale eventually emerged victorious, Hart finished close behind. The 1984 race (like potentially 2024, with DeSantis) featured another much-hyped candidate (Ohio Sen. John Glenn) who was polling above 20% in early polling. Glenn, of course, flamed out.

    Again, I’m not saying DeSantis is like Glenn. My belief is that the 2024 GOP nominee is likely going to be either DeSantis or Trump.

    But what I am saying is that while Trump or DeSantis are the odds-on favorites for the nomination, there is enough history of low-polling candidates later gaining traction to at least be open to the idea that a Haley, Pence or somebody else could, if nothing else, make things interesting come voting time.

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  • Republicans elevate ‘parental rights’ as top issue while looking to outflank each other heading into 2024 | CNN Politics

    Republicans elevate ‘parental rights’ as top issue while looking to outflank each other heading into 2024 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republican presidential hopefuls have begun casting themselves as impassioned defenders of “parental rights,” turning schoolbooks and curricula, doctors’ offices, and sports leagues into a new political battleground as they work to distinguish themselves ahead of the 2024 GOP primary.

    The issue had already emerged as a major vein in the GOP bloodstream, emanating partly from the coronavirus pandemic, when school closures and vaccine mandates upended family routines and rankled vaccine-hesitant parents. But it took off after Republicans watched Glenn Youngkin defeat Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial election following a campaign that placed “parents’ rights” at its center.

    While critics have denounced the theme of parents’ rights as oppressive, 2024 Republicans have nevertheless plowed ahead, seeking to one-up each other with provocative campaign pledges and legislative actions – the most obvious moves in recent weeks coming from former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    Several Republican governors – many with presidential ambitions – responded to Youngkin’s success by championing parental rights in their states, enacting bills that give parents and guardians unfettered access to school curricula, books and learning materials, and, in some instances, requiring school principals to review parental complaints about textbooks and lesson plans before they can proceed with using the material in classrooms. In some states, such as Texas, Florida and Iowa, parental permission is now needed to discuss certain topics with students. Other states, such as Georgia, have put parents and school communities in charge of vetting books their children could encounter at school for signs of race-related or sexual themes, appealing to conservatives who have voiced concerns about “radical” literature.

    But Republicans have also since turned parents’ rights into an umbrella term for a host of cultural issues. Declaring that parents deserve a say in what their children are taught, some GOP power players have pushed to end diversity and equity programs in public schools. Others have sought to restrict lessons about sexual orientation or gender identity. And some have looked to prevent schools from using a child’s preferred pronouns without parental permission.

    “We saw it with Youngkin’s race, and [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis has been playing it up for the last year. The issue has been building from Covid and extended to where we are now,” said Jennifer Williams, who in 2016 became the first openly transgender delegate to the Republican National Convention. Both DeSantis and Youngkin are said to be eyeing 2024 presidential campaigns.

    The sprint to get ahead on the issue is likely to play out over a combative presidential primary, while allies and advisers see it as an opportunity to appeal to a broader electorate if their candidate becomes the next GOP presidential nominee.

    “There are more parents than teachers, so it’s an easy equation. If you’re on the side of parents, that’s going to win you at the local level, and it’s going to win you at the national level,” said Keith Naughton, a longtime Republican consultant. Still, he also cautioned Republicans against “moving too far away from the consensus.”

    But public opinion around parental rights remains murky.

    A Quinnipiac poll released in February 2022 found that nearly 8 in 10 Americans considered efforts to ban books in schools and libraries purely political, versus 15 percent who said the efforts stemmed from content concerns. And as Republicans confront sensitive issues such as transgender rights while championing what they describe as parental empowerment, they could face similar political peril. A separate November poll by Marquette University Law School found that while a majority of Republicans (82%-18%) believed transgender athletes should be prohibited from participating in sports competitions – a topic the GOP has devoted much attention to in recent years – independent voters were nearly evenly split on the matter. The same survey showed that Republicans favored the 2020 Supreme Court decision that the 1964 Civil Rights Act bars employers from discriminating against gay and transgender workers by a 47-point margin, underscoring the political risks 2024 GOP hopefuls could encounter as they link LGBTQ rights to their parental rights push.

    Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, said Republicans are using the guise of parental rights “to eliminate people, history books and marginalized communities.”

    “This is not about parents. It’s a tactic that DeSantis found really whipped up his base in Florida and so [Republicans] are taking it out for a run to see how it does. Their goal, it seems, is that these politicians are trying to turn parents against each other and make classrooms a battleground so they can further their political ambitions,” Ellis said.

    GLAAD is expected to launch a messaging campaign in March that Ellis said will “fill the knowledge gap” that Republicans have “exploited.”

    “They tap into the worst anxieties of any parent,” said Ellis, a parent herself.

    Trump, currently the only declared candidate in the GOP presidential field, is one of several 2024 hopefuls who have elevated “parents’ rights” to new prominence as they work to curry favor with the party’s base.

    Trump pushed to create a “patriotic education” commission and ordered the federal government to end diversity trainings during his term in office, though much of his focus over the past two years has been on relitigating the 2020 election. Recently, though, he has refocused his attention on the kinds of cultural battles that have enabled some of his likeliest rivals – most notably DeSantis – to gain considerable popularity among Republican voters.

    In two straight-to-camera videos this week, Trump suggested that parents should select school principals through a “direct election” process and threatened to end federal funding for schools that teach “a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body” if he were to win another term.

    Even those who agreed with Trump’s proposals suggested he was playing catch-up with his fellow culture warriors – especially as he also went on the attack against DeSantis recently, calling the Florida governor “disloyal” and a “globalist RINO” in separate broadsides.

    “Obviously, DeSantis taking on Disney has shown a lot of leadership on this issue and frankly, I think it’s why Trump came out with his statements this week because in a lot of ways he sees himself running against DeSantis,” said Bob Vander Plaats, a social conservative activist who runs the Iowa-based Family Leader coalition. Vander Plaats was referring to the Florida governor’s push to strip the Walt Disney Company of its special governing powers after the company criticized his legislative efforts to restrict lessons on LGBTQ rights and gender identity in Florida classrooms.

    “Trump is saying, ‘How do I get to the right of DeSantis on this issue?’” Vander Plaats added.

    Allies of the former president rebuffed suggestions that he is taking cues from rivals rather than setting the agenda. They pointed to actions Trump took during his term in office to develop a counter-curriculum to the 1619 Project, an initiative launched by The New York Times to teach American students about slavery but which conservatives have decried as “propaganda.” And they cite the many instances in which Trump has condemned the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports, a topic he first weaved into his stump speech at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference and one that tends to draw some of the biggest applause lines at his campaign rallies.

    “This isn’t anything new,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said. “On the school education stuff and critical race theory, he’s been talking about it since 2019 and 2020. And when he talks about gender ideology, he’s been mentioning that in his rallies, too.”

    “He’s a candidate now, and he’s focused on forward-looking policy proposals,” Cheung added.

    Some conservative activists who are still waiting to see how the 2024 primary field takes shape said Trump appears to be taking steps to ensure he isn’t outflanked by opponents on the issues that currently animate Republican base voters. Terry Schilling, executive director of the socially conservative American Principles Project, said Trump is “trying to play catch-up, but it’s good.”

    Referring specifically to Trump’s recently unveiled plan to curtail transgender rights, including ending medical treatments for transgender teens, Schilling suggested the former president was “making sure he’s the most conservative candidate on this issue.”

    “I think he’s just trying to ensure he doesn’t lose any ground or get outflanked. … It’s tough because DeSantis and Youngkin have actually been changing the policies on it, which is why I think he is going above and beyond … to kind of get a leg up,” Schilling said.

    A spokesman for DeSantis’ political operation declined to comment, but the Republican governor’s actions suggest he will not cede the issue by any stretch as he marches toward a potential campaign for president. This week, DeSantis released a 2023 budget framework that repeatedly emphasized the importance of “protecting parents’ fundamental rights,” nearly a year after he signed a “Parents Bill of Rights” into law that banned instructions on sexual orientation and gender identity to K-3 grade students.

    During the 2022 midterms, DeSantis took the unprecedented step of vetting, endorsing and campaigning for school board candidates, generating a wave of like-minded conservatives to carry out his agenda in districts across the state. Meanwhile, at DeSantis’ urging, a state medical board stacked with his appointees has effectively banned medication and surgeries for minors seeking gender transitions. DeSantis has decried such interventions as “chemical castration.”

    In leading these cultural clashes, DeSantis has become a superstar among highly engaged conservatives. He and his wife, Casey, were treated like rock stars at last year’s Tampa summit of Moms for Liberty, a group that mobilizes conservative matriarchs across the country, where he was heralded onstage as an “American hero” and a “shining light” for parents across the country who wish that “Ron would be their governor.” The Florida Republican was reelected to a second term in November by a 19-point margin, a victory he touted at a news conference earlier this week following a fresh round of attacks from Trump.

    Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, said parental rights weren’t on the forefront of minds during Trump’s first campaign in 2016 or when DeSantis first ran for governor in 2018. But DeSantis was among the first to recognize during the pandemic the parental angst around closed schools, mask mandates and an apprehension to ideological creep into the classroom, she said, and it has him well positioned when parental rights becomes “a litmus test for all candidates in 2024.”

    “He’s being rewarded already by having his colleagues and peers watching what he is doing and emulating him across the country,” Justice said. “Ron DeSantis stood up for parents when no one else was. I think he’s a leader that way, and parents across the country have recognized him for that.”

    Indeed, DeSantis’ actions have spawned copycat bills in statehouses across the country this year. The National Center for Transgender Equality is tracking 231 bills in state legislatures across the country that seek to curb transgender rights – 86 of which would restrict access to transgender care. In a sign of how swiftly Republicans have pivoted to this issue, as recently as 2019, not a single state legislature in the country was debating cutting off access to gender affirmation treatment or surgeries, said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of the center.

    “If you rewind to 2018, this was not a political matter. There were no bills in statehouses. There were no presidential candidates talking about it. Transgender people were getting health care without a problem, and it was universally recognized as essential care by leading medical institutions,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “It was almost literally overnight we saw these bills pop up.”

    “And the places where we’ve seen the most aggressive actions against transgender people,” he added, “are in states where there’s a governor with all points suggesting they are seeking higher office.”

    Among those governors is Texas Republican Greg Abbott, whose administration has investigated parents of transgender teens for child abuse. In Iowa, where GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds already signed a bill to give parents and guardians more access to their children’s educational lives, lawmakers are now considering whether to ban instruction of sexual orientation or gender identity through eighth grade. Another potential 2024 Republican candidate, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, authored and signed a bill in 2022 that banned transgender women and girls from female scholastic sports, and in December her administration canceled a transgender advocacy group’s contract with the state’s Department of Health. There is also Youngkin, the term-limited Virginia governor who held a donor summit last fall to explore a possible presidential campaign and who recently rolled out a series of policy changes aimed at transgender students, one of which seeks to require parental sign-off for students who wish to use names or pronouns that diverge from what is listed on their official record.

    But not every Republican agrees with the policy fights being waged by the party’s potential presidential contenders as they aim to give parents more control over their childrens’ education.

    “When Youngkin and DeSantis do things like this, they aren’t taking into account the discrimination that can result,” said Williams, the former RNC delegate. “If parental rights are constantly about gender identity and critical race theory, it doesn’t seem to be about education. It seems to me it’s about making sure I can shield my kid from anything other than what I want them to know.”

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  • Democrats approve shake-up of 2024 calendar but it’s far from a done deal | CNN Politics

    Democrats approve shake-up of 2024 calendar but it’s far from a done deal | CNN Politics

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    Philadelphia
    CNN
     — 

    The Democratic National Committee on Saturday approved a plan to shake up the 2024 presidential primary calendar and demote longtime early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire, but significant questions remain about how the new order will be implemented.

    The new calendar upends decades of tradition in which Iowa and New Hampshire were the first two states to hold nominating contests and moves up South Carolina, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan. President Joe Biden has argued the new nominating order would better reflect the diversity of the nation and the Democratic Party.

    But the party’s early nomination calendar, which was approved Saturday at the DNC’s winter meeting in Philadelphia, is facing opposition from some impacted states and could remain unsettled for months.

    Under the new calendar, South Carolina would hold the first primary on February 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on February 6, Georgia on February 13, and Michigan on February 27. Any state can hold a nomination contest starting March 5.

    The changes reflect longstanding concerns from party leaders that the previous calendar, which featured Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina in early voting, prioritized two states that are largely White and don’t represent the diversity of the party. Iowa has gone first in the nominating process since 1972, while New Hampshire has held the first primary in the process since 1920.

    “This calendar reflects the best of who we are as a nation, and it sends a powerful message all across the country,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said Saturday. 

    The calendar passed with overwhelming support. However, while the DNC sets the rules for the party’s nominating process, state governments (or state parties) ultimately set the dates of their contests, and New Hampshire and Georgia likely won’t be able to comply with the assigned dates.

    The chairs of the Iowa and New Hampshire Democratic parties objected to the calendar at Saturday’s meeting, noting that Democrats did not have the power in those states to unilaterally change their state laws. Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire control the office of the governor and both chambers of the state legislature.

    Rita Hart, the chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, argued, “Iowa has been put in a position that makes it impossible to comply with both DNC rules and our own state law, which has exactly zero chance of being changed by the Republican legislature.”

    Hart said, “Democrats cannot forget about entire groups of voters in our part of the Midwest without doing significant damage to the party.”

    Ray Buckley, the chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said the DNC rules committee “knew that Republican leaders in the state would not bend to their will, and even knowing this, the RBC still decided that New Hampshire Democrats should be set up for failure,” referring to the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee.

    “Every vote matters in New Hampshire,” Buckley said. “Victories are determined by a small number of independent swing voters. Those voters are already being bombarded by the Republicans, who are saying that Democrats have abandoned New Hampshire.”

    New Hampshire has a state law that protects its first-in-the-nation primary status, while Georgia’s primary date is set by Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and an early primary would open Peach State Republicans up to sanctions from their own national party.

    New Hampshire and Georgia now have until June to take steps toward scheduling their contests on the assigned dates. If they don’t, they won’t be able to hold primaries before March 5 without being penalized by the DNC.

    While Georgia would likely just hold its primary once any state is allowed to do so, a New Hampshire primary scheduled for “7 days or more immediately preceding the date on which any other state shall hold a similar election,” as state law requires, could lead to delegate penalties for the state party.

    Additionally, any candidate who campaigns in or even has their name on the ballot in a noncompliant primary would be unable to receive delegates from that state and could face other penalties.

    Despite the implementation hurdles ahead, the calendar passed with overwhelming support, and several officials spoke in support of the new order. Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell, who has been a leading advocate for her state to join the early-voting calendar, gave a fiery speech Saturday in support of the proposal, saying it would reflect the diversity of the country.

    “We are overdue in changing this primary calendar to ensure it reflects the range of ideas, thoughts and hopes of Americans throughout this country,” Dingell said.

    While the Democratic rules drop New Hampshire from the second contest (and first primary) into a tie for the second primary, fellow longtime early state Iowa has been removed from the early set entirely.

    Like New Hampshire, Iowa is largely White, but it’s also far less politically competitive – then-President Donald Trump won it by 8 points in 2020 – and uses a complex and less accessible caucus format.

    Iowa’s early caucuses are also protected by state law, and then-Iowa Democratic Party Chair Ross Wilburn said in December that the party would follow that law when planning its contest while also pledging to reform the process.

    The other three early states shouldn’t have a problem complying with the new schedule. In South Carolina, each state party chair has the ability to set the date of their presidential primary. Nevada’s new date matches the one set by state law in 2021, and Michigan this week enacted a law to schedule their primary for February 27 (although the state legislature will have to end its session a few weeks early for it take effect in time).

    The calendar approved Saturday applies only to the Democratic party’s nominating process. Republican early-voting states will be unchanged from recent years, with Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

    “The [Republican National Committee] unanimously passed its rules over a year ago and solidified the traditional nominating process the American people know and understand,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement Saturday. “The DNC has decided to break a half-century precedent and cause chaos by altering their primary process, and ultimately abandoning millions of Americans in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

    The DNC changes could affect Republicans, especially in Michigan, where the new primary date violates national GOP rules. To avoid a delegate penalty, Michigan Republicans could use a party-run process at a later date.

    Ultimately, if Biden seeks a second term, he’s unlikely to face serious opposition, and the order of states would be largely irrelevant. However, the changes demonstrate that the party won’t be permanently attached to the traditional set of early states, and party leaders have already started to prepare to reexamine the schedule again after the 2024 election.

    In her speech, Dingell backed that idea: “No one state should have a lock. We do need to revisit this every four years.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • New Hampshire GOP governor says he’s considering 2024 White House bid | CNN Politics

    New Hampshire GOP governor says he’s considering 2024 White House bid | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    GOP Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire said Sunday he is considering a White House bid in 2024, citing the Granite State’s “live free or die” spirit as a model for the Republican Party.

    “Yes,” Sununu said when asked by CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” whether he was considering a presidential run.

    “I really don’t have a timeline. I’m spending a lot of time naturally trying to grow the party as Republicans, talk to independents, talk to the next generation of potential Republican voters that right now no one is really reaching out to,” he said.

    So far, former President Donald Trump is the only high-profile Republican to have officially filed for a 2024 White House run, but several others, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are considering challenging him for the nomination.

    Sununu, who won a fourth two-year term as governor by more than 15 points last fall, acknowledged Sunday that DeSantis “would probably win New Hampshire right now, without a doubt.” He said Trump, who spoke at a meeting of the New Hampshire GOP on Saturday, could win the state again but added that the former president was “not really bringing that fire, that energy, I think, that a lot of folks saw … in ’16.”

    “He’s also going to have to earn it,” Sununu said of Trump. “And that’s New Hampshire. Even if you’re the former president, you got to come and earn it, person to person.”

    Support for another Trump bid for the presidency among GOP-aligned voters declined across three CNN polls on the topic last year. In January 2022, the poll found a near-even split: 50% said they hoped Trump would be the nominee and 49% wanted someone else. By July, 44% wanted Trump to be the party’s nominee, and by December, 38% said the same.

    Sununu was asked Sunday about a recent University of New Hampshire poll that showed DeSantis leading Trump 42% to 30% among likely state GOP primary voters, with all other polled candidates, including the Granite State governor, in single digits.

    “I’m surprised other candidates, I think a lot of us, aren’t doing better,” Sununu said. “I’m surprised I’m on that poll at all, frankly.”

    Whether or not he seeks the presidential nomination, Sununu said candidates should also know when to exit the race.

    “I think there’s a lot of hope and opportunity for good candidates to get in, drive the message where it needs to be,” he said. “But the discipline is getting out too. The discipline and saying, ‘Look, you’re only polling at 5%, you got to get out.’ We don’t want a crowded field here.”

    Sununu on Sunday outlined the values that would anchor a potential White House bid as he called for Republicans to return to “believing in individual responsibility” rather than wading into cultural fights.

    “I think a lot of Republican leadership is getting behind this idea that we have to fight. And I get it, as, in a leadership position, you have to be willing to have the fight. But we cannot have leadership that is only about the fight,” he said.

    Politics runs in Sununu’s family: He is the 82nd governor of New Hampshire, while his father, John H. Sununu, was the 75th governor, serving from 1983 to 1989, before becoming President George H.W. Bush’s White House chief of staff. His older brother, John E. Sununu, represented the state in the House and Senate from 1997 to 2009.

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  • Why a historically small presidential primary field is possible in 2024 | CNN Politics

    Why a historically small presidential primary field is possible in 2024 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The 2020 presidential primary race was already in full motion at this point four years ago, with candidates jumping in left and right. The Democratic primary field, as well as the combined Democratic and Republican fields, were well on their way to being the largest in the modern primary era.

    We’re in a considerably different place today heading into the 2024 cycle. The only major candidate to declare is former President Donald Trump, and, while other candidates are entertaining bids, the field will almost certainly end up being much smaller than it was in 2020.

    Indeed, the 2024 primary field could be the smallest on record in the modern era – with an incumbent president running for reelection on the Democratic side and historically dominant front-runners on the Republican side.

    How small are we talking? The last time there was a combined primary field with fewer than 20 major candidates was 2012. The last time there was one with 10 or fewer was 1992. The record in the modern primary era (i.e., since 1972) is nine, in 1984.

    We could be heading toward 1984 or 1992 territory.

    Now, predicting who will and will not run for president in the early stages is somewhat of a fool’s errand. Two factors, though, suggest that many will pass on running.

    The first is that Democrats already have an incumbent in President Joe Biden, who seems geared to run for another term. Incumbents rarely face major primary challengers. Those who even get one do so because they’re not beloved within at least part of their party.

    Think of Trump’s biggest GOP challenger in 2020: William Weld. The former Massachusetts governor, who won a sole delegate in the primary and was polled many times, was a moderate, well-educated New England Republican. Trump’s approval rating among moderate or liberal Republicans with at least a college degree was only about 50% around the time Weld announced his candidacy.

    The last presidential incumbent to lose a state primary – Jimmy Carter in 1980 – had an approval rating south of 70% among Democrats overall. The same low overall approval rating was true for Gerald Ford among Republicans before Ronald Reagan took him all the way to the Republican National Convention in 1976.

    Biden doesn’t have any of those particular weaknesses in polling. His approval rating among Democrats in our most recent CNN/SSRS poll, for example, was 84%. There wasn’t a single segment that I could find within the Democratic electorate for whom Biden’s numbers were anywhere near where Trump was among moderate, college-educated Republicans at this point in the 2020 cycle. Biden polled well among younger and more liberal Democrats, who have traditionally been some of his weakest supporters.

    If Biden does end up running for reelection, I’m not sure there’s a single Democrat whom most would define as a major candidate who would try to take him on.

    The second factor that presages a smaller-than-usual 2024 field is the fact that most prominent politicians generally don’t run for president if they don’t think they can win. By winning, I mean earning the nomination and then the presidency itself. Biden, no doubt, is vulnerable in a general election, given that his overall approval rating is well below 50%.

    The problem for a lot of Republicans is they may ultimately decide that winning the nomination is going to be very difficult if your name isn’t Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    Both Trump and DeSantis are each regularly polling above 30% among GOP primary voters. Trump, himself, is usually in the 40s if not 50s. No one else is close to 10%, with former Vice President Mike Pence leading this second tier of candidates.

    Trump and DeSantis combined are polling well into the 70s among Republicans nationally.

    A look at polling from years past reveals that this is the first time this early in the cycle that two presidential candidates in a primary without an incumbent were each polling above 30%, on average, at the same time.

    The only contest that looks anything like the Republican one right now is the 1980 Democratic primary, which featured an incumbent president, Carter. Then-Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts was his most prominent challenger. Both were polling above 30% at this point in the primary.

    Only four major Democrats – using the widest definition of “major” – ended up running for president in 1980.

    The 2024 Republican field will probably be larger than four candidates, though it’s not clear how much larger.

    I can think of only two other primary fields where the two leading candidates were combining for more than 70% of the primary vote this early on. Both were on the Democratic side: 2000 and 2016.

    Just five major Democrats ran in 2016, given how much Hillary Clinton looked like a juggernaut. The primary ended up being relatively competitive (with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders doing surprisingly well), but the result was never really in doubt.

    A mere two top Democrats ran in 2000, when Al Gore, the sitting vice president, was polling above 50%. His challenger, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, didn’t win a single state.

    We obviously don’t know how many Republicans or Democrats will end up running in 2024. Right now, by my count, about 10 candidates, including Biden, are getting regularly polled.

    Given the history, that strikes me as a fairly decent (if not a little bit high) place to start. Whether this 2024 field ends up being truly historic will ultimately depend on whether Biden, DeSantis and Trump can keep up their strong polling.

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  • Why there are more Republican women in Congress than ever before | CNN Politics

    Why there are more Republican women in Congress than ever before | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Lori Chavez-DeRemer sat in the gallery of the House nearly two decades ago with her mom and her twin daughters – tourists peering down at lawmakers on the floor of the chamber.

    “I’d really love to be here someday,” the Oregon Republican recalled telling her mother, who encouraged her to think about a run. She’d recently been elected to her city council, but she had her doubts. “I said, ‘Everybody on the floor there probably has a law degree. I’m a stay-at-home mom.’”

    But Chavez-DeRemer flipped a Democratic seat in November, helping Republicans win a narrow House majority. She is now among a record 42 Republican women in Congress and one of the first two Latino members of Congress from Oregon.

    The trail she has blazed is emblematic of the progress that the Republican Party has made in electing women over the past decade – hard-fought milestones reached only after outside groups began playing a larger role in primaries.

    Still, GOP women are far from reaching parity with Democrats. Thirty-three of them will serve in the House alone this term, compared with 91 Democratic women. Though many women (and men who care about electing them) applaud a recent shift in attitude among GOP leadership and a segment of the donor class – for whom identity politics has often been anathema – long-term hurdles remain.

    Some leaders, including House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, want to see the party do more.

    That push is not just about statistics. It’s imperative as the party tries to appeal to a broader spectrum of voters, including the many suburban women who abandoned the GOP after Donald Trump was elected in 2016.

    “Suburban women and independent women are going to continue to be the X factor in whether we win,” said Annie Dickerson, the founder and chair of Winning for Women, an outside group that helps elect female Republicans.

    When Erin Houchin first ran for the Indiana state Senate in 2014, she urged a few party leaders to support female candidates in primaries – especially in deep-red seats where the primary is the only competitive election.

    “The answer I got was, ‘Well, we don’t get involved in primaries. You should go see if other women will help you,’” Houchin recalled.

    After winning her race, she ran for Congress in 2016 – the only woman in a five-person primary for a safe Republican seat. The party officially stayed out; the National Republican Congressional Committee’s policy is to never take sides in primaries.

    Houchin had support from Republican women, including early backing from Value in Electing Women, or VIEW, PAC, which encouraged female members of Congress to write checks for her.

    Those checks, however, were no match for what Houchin was up against: an opponent who benefited from a big-spending super PAC that likely could have outspent her even if she had more institutional party support. Trey Hollingsworth won that primary and the general election and went on to represent the 9th District for three terms before retiring last year.

    Houchin was once again the only woman in the primary to succeed Hollingsworth out of a field of nine, but this time, she emerged the winner. She easily won the general election for a district that Trump would have carried by 27 points in 2020.

    “There were many more groups this time around that did engage,” Houchin said, praising VIEW PAC, Winning for Women and Stefanik’s leadership PAC, known as Elevate PAC or E-PAC. “That made a difference.”

    Republicans have long viewed supporting diverse candidates differently from Democrats, who were earlier to embrace building coalitions among specific demographics.

    “Some of the Republican men didn’t necessarily think that it ought to be a priority,” GOP strategist Parker Poling, the executive director of the NRCC for the 2020 cycle, said of the party’s prior attitude toward boosting female candidates.

    “I had to sell it very differently in the beginning, back in 2017,” Dickerson recalled. “And it was real work persuading donors that it wasn’t identity politics. It was really about identifying excellence.”

    Stefanik raised the alarm with House GOP leaders after the 2018 election, when, as the first female recruitment chair of the NRCC, she had enlisted more than 100 women to run. Just one of them won.

    Democrats flipped the House that year, buoyed in large part by the success of female candidates, but the number of GOP women in the chamber declined by nearly half. Even if Republican leaders didn’t immediately recognize the problem – then-NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer called Stefanik’s desire to get involved in primaries a “mistake” – they quickly came around in their public support for her mission.

    “I am very proud that our efforts have been pretty much embraced across the board,” Stefanik said last month when asked if leadership now understands the importance of supporting women.

    That commitment to changing those dynamics showed in 2020 – which some have called the “Year of the Republican Woman” – when a record-breaking number of nonincumbent House GOP female candidates won, helping flip several pivotal Democratic seats.

    “There’s an understanding now that Republican women candidates can be very successful in the general election and in many cases are stronger candidates than men,” said Cam Savage, a veteran Republican consultant who worked for Houchin. “It’s been true for a while; it just hasn’t been recognized.”

    McDaniel accepts a shirt from Rep. Michelle Steel at the congresswoman's campaign office in Buena Park, California, in September 2022.

    McDaniel also noted that the tenor of conversations with donors has changed.

    “Our investors – when I started, some of them would say to me candidly, ‘You have young kids. How can you be a mom and do this?’” she said. “I don’t have those conversations anymore. It’s more: ‘What other women candidates can we invest in?’ ‘Where can we support women in our party?’”

    After impressive gains in 2020, Republican women made more nominal progress in 2022. Just one GOP woman, Virginia’s Jen Kiggans, unseated a Democratic incumbent in a swing seat, while several others flipped open seats in Oregon, Florida and Texas.

    There’s excitement, however, about conservative women’s success in red districts and how that could help deepen and extend the longevity of the bench of female Republicans in Congress.

    “You can’t just focus on electing women Republicans in swing seats. That’s why we had, you know, such a historic loss in 2018, as most of our women members were in those swing seats,” Stefanik said.

    Of the seven nonincumbent Republican women elected last year, five represent districts Trump would have carried in 2020.

    “That allows those members to gain seniority over time and also to make investments in other candidates,” added Stefanik.

    In other words, electing women in safe seats means they’re more likely to stay there – although not always. Liz Cheney lost her deep-red Wyoming seat in a primary to another woman backed by Stefanik.

    And those very primaries in deeply conservative districts have sometimes been harder for women to win, even if – based on their policy positions and voting records – they are the most conservative candidates.

    Houchin, for example, said it was important for her to be very clear about where she stood on the issues because “it’s been easier to paint female candidates as more moderate or more liberal. That’s certainly not my profile.”

    Helping women get through primaries in safe red seats could become more difficult after a deal reached between two outside groups as part of the Republican negotiations over the House speaker’s election. Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC backed by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, agreed to stay out of open-seat primaries in exchange for the anti-tax Club for Growth’s support for his speakership bid.

    Chavez-DeRemer — one of those Republican women to flip an open seat last year — now calls her self-doubts during that visit to the Capitol silly.

    Chavez-DeRemer is seen in Happy Valley in the Portland suburbs in September 2022.

    “Little did I know that, really, my whole life, I was probably preparing for this,” she said. “I needed to just be me.”

    The former mayor of Happy Valley, in suburban Portland, won a five-way primary in Oregon’s 5th District and went on to win the general election over a Democratic woman, who had defeated the incumbent in her primary.

    Her story speaks to the message pushed by potential White House aspirant Nikki Haley, who has channeled her energies into elevating female Republican candidates through her Stand for America PAC.

    “What we need to do is to tell women, ‘We need you. We need you at the table. We need you making the decisions. We need your experience. We need your ability to talk about families and budgets and crime, and all of those things,” the former South Carolina governor and onetime US ambassador to the United Nations said in a brief interview on the campaign trail in Nevada last year.

    Haley speaks at a campaign event for De La Cruz and Rep. Mayra Flores in McAllen, Texas, in October 2022.

    “Success begets success,” Poling added of female candidates’ track record. “When people see that this helped us win more seats, then they’re more likely to put the time and effort into recruiting and helping female candidates.”

    Party operatives credit strong recruitment – both in 2022 under NRCC recruitment chair Carol Miller of West Virginia and in 2020, under then-Rep. Susan Brooks of Indiana.

    “That begins with the acknowledgment that the way you recruit women is different from men,” Savage said. “You don’t have to recruit men. They line up to tell you they’re the best fit.”

    But one of the major lessons from 2018 is the recognition that getting women to run isn’t enough: Helping them through the process is also critical.

    “I don’t look at women as a monolith – they come with different backgrounds and experience – but sometimes fundraising can be a challenge, or life balance,” said McDaniel, who was elected RNC chair in 2017.

    One part of addressing that is female candidates supporting each other. Monica De La Cruz was one of three Republican women running for South Texas swing districts along the southern border last year.

    “We had a support group of women who understood exactly what you were going through at that moment, so it was a very special time,” said De La Cruz, the only one of the three to win.

    And increasingly, there’s recognition that a female perspective can be a strength in the eyes of voters.

    “I had no political background. I’m a small-business owner, single mom of two teenage children. And people could relate to that,” said De La Cruz, who has been tapped to serve on the RNC’s advisory panel to examine how the party can continue broadening its appeal to women and more diverse voters.

    De La Cruz takes a selfie with supporters in McAllen, Texas, in October 2022.

    “They saw me at the Friday night football games, and the Saturday morning volleyball games,” she said. “They saw me in parent-teacher conferences at the school. My community saw themselves in me.”

    The GOP still has a lot of catching up to do. Even with leadership PACs and outside groups committed to boosting women in Republican primaries, the party lacks the firepower of a group like EMILY’s List, which has been helping elect Democratic women who support abortion rights since the mid-1980s.

    Some of the outside groups backing GOP women have diverged in primaries, either not engaging in the same races or even backing different women in the same primaries.

    To expand institutional support, McDaniel pointed to the example of programs such as League of Our Own, a campaign program she worked with in her home state of Michigan that has focused on training female candidates.

    “We talked about things like, ‘How do you raise money? How do you pick a campaign manager?’” McDaniel said. “You’d see these women who were graduates, going on to be state reps or state senators. It’s really, really impactful to see how even just that little bit of campaign school and that little bit of help can go a long way in bringing women into the conversation.”

    Chavez-DeRemer said the party must “keep reaching out” and “make sure that all women are running at a local level.”

    Stefanik echoed that sentiment, pointing to a robust state and local pipeline as a lynchpin to deepening the bench of Republican women in Congress in the years ahead.

    “It’s a long-term strategy,” she said.

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  • Stabenow’s retirement gives Republicans an opening in Michigan. But will they take it? | CNN Politics

    Stabenow’s retirement gives Republicans an opening in Michigan. But will they take it? | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Longtime Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow is calling it quits and will not stand for reelection in 2024.

    At a minimum, her decision makes Democrats’ already difficult job of retaining Senate control in 2024 even harder. Senators caucusing with the party hold 23 of the 34 seats expected to be up for reelection. Seven of them represent states Trump won at least once. This includes Michigan.

    Sen. Gary Peters – the last Democrat not named Stabenow to run for Senate in Michigan – won reelection by less than 2 points in 2020.

    Stabenow likely would have made Democrats’ job easier had she opted to run again. After narrowly unseating Republican Sen. Spencer Abraham in 2000, she has won reelection by at least 5 points in three subsequent contests.

    But Democrats now have a battle on the horizon in another state that flipped from Donald Trump in 2016 to Joe Biden four years later. Beyond Michigan, Democrats face a messy situation in Arizona with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema becoming an independent.

    With 51 senators now caucusing with Democrats, losses in Arizona and Michigan alone could be enough to flip the chamber to Republicans.

    Yet, Republicans’ ability to flip Michigan will be highly dependent on two important questions.

    First, what type of party do GOP primary voters want?

    And second, will Republicans in key Great Lakes battleground states continue to outperform national results if Trump isn’t on the ballot?

    In 2022, we saw GOP primary voters across the map select nominees who ended up being rejected by the general election electorate. Republicans underperformed the partisan fundamentals in a number of key Senate races, allowing Democrats to maintain control of the chamber while narrowly losing the House.

    There were several examples of this in Michigan last year. While there was no Senate race, the state held elections for key statewide offices, including governor, attorney general and secretary of state. The Republican candidates for these positions promoted false claims that Biden had not won the 2020 election legitimately.

    The result was that none of them came close to winning any of these races. This was most evident in the gubernatorial contest, where Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer turned what should have been a close race against Republican Tudor Dixon into a double-digit blowout.

    If Republicans are going to want to compete in Michigan in 2024 – or any swing-state Senate races in two years – primary voters will likely need to choose more mainstream candidates than they did in 2022.

    Of course, it won’t just be about individual candidates. It will be about regional trends as well.

    One of the biggest electoral changes in the past decade has been the Republican breakthrough in Great Lakes states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They went from voting to the left of the nation in the 2012 presidential election to voting to the nation’s right in 2016 and 2020. This was in large part because of Trump’s appeal to White voters without a college degree.

    But Trump may not be on the ballot in 2024, and it’s unclear whether the pro-Republican trend in these Great Lakes states will continue without him.

    Look at what happened last year. Michigan voted to the left of the nation in US House races. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin voted basically in line with the nation, once you account for uncontested races.

    Indeed, it would not be surprising to see a shift in how states vote relative to the nation if Trump is out of the picture. This has happened every eight years in recent cycles (e.g., 1976, 1984, 1992, 2000, 2008 and 2016).

    And that would make Democrats less vulnerable in Michigan than you might think, even without Stabenow as their nominee. Keep in mind that Democrats haven’t lost a Senate race in the Wolverine State since 1994.

    A return to the pre-Trump era in Michigan and other key Great Lakes states may also mean that the advantage Republicans have held in the Electoral College relative to the popular vote in the two most recent presidential elections may not materialize in 2024.

    That’s something Democrats would certainly welcome going into 2024 after one of the closest midterm cycles of the past century.

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  • Kyrsten Sinema’s defection without a difference | CNN Politics

    Kyrsten Sinema’s defection without a difference | CNN Politics

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



    CNN
     — 

    The recent history of party-switching senators includes stories of moderates feeling abandoned, longtime politicians unwilling to face primary voters or thrown out in primaries, and secret campaigns by one party to pick the other’s pocket.

    President Joe Biden knows this history, since as a senator and then vice president he was instrumental in drawing then-Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania across the aisle in 2009. Specter’s switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party briefly gave Democrats a filibuster-proof majority and allowed them to pass the Affordable Care Act. Specter left the GOP after realizing he wasn’t going to be able to win a primary.

    Joe Lieberman, the moderate Democrat and former longtime senator, lost a Democratic primary in Connecticut in 2006, largely over his support for the Iraq war. He would go on to win reelection as an independent. The corollary to Lieberman is Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who lost a primary but won reelection, incredibly, as a write-in candidate, in 2010. She remained in the GOP.

    Earlier, in 2001, Democrats executed what CNN at the time referred to as a Cold War era defection operation to turn then-Sen. Jim Jeffords, the Vermont Republican, into a Vermont independent and briefly give Democrats control of the Senate. Jeffords was angry that Republicans wouldn’t spend more money on education.

    Other defections, like those of Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama and then-Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, had to do with Southern Democrats realizing they’d be more at home as Republicans. Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire left the GOP only to quickly return for a plum committee chairmanship.

    Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema appears to be different as she becomes the 22nd senator to change party affiliation while in office.

    She’s not leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent because of a pressure campaign, although she has faced fierce criticism from Democrats for opposing elements of Biden’s agenda. She’s not going to give Republicans a majority. She’s simply exerting independence, as she told CNN’s Jake Tapper in announcing her departure from the Democrats.

    “When I come to work each day, it’ll be the same,” Sinema said. Read more about her decision.

    She doesn’t want to change the balance of power – she dismissed Tapper’s question about such things as a Washington, DC, obsession – and it appears she will maintain the committee assignments she has as a Democrat.

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer endorsed the arrangement and agreed to let Sinema keep her committee assignments. He said Democrats would maintain their functional majority.

    Certainly a sure-thing primary challenge when she’s up for reelection in 2024 must have crossed Sinema’s mind.

    But she argued that she’s making space in the middle.

    “Removing myself from the partisan structure – not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship,” she told Tapper.

    The other lawmaker who has frequently frustrated the party is Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who is the last Democrat standing in a state that during his lifetime was full of them.

    Manchin has turned his moderating effect on national Democrats into a potent political brand in West Virginia.

    Sinema’s political evolution has taken her from anti-war supporter of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader to senator in the mold of the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.

    It’s hard to pin down exactly what Sinema’s ideology is – she said it’s hard to put her in a box. She rejected Democrats’ attempts to raise the minimum wage and raise corporate tax rates. She opposed a voting rights bill. But she hasn’t exactly sided with Republicans on social issues.

    Independence and bipartisanship are her entire brand at this point, and she’s used it to play pivotal roles in bipartisan efforts on infrastructure, guns and marriage.

    Much of Nader’s politics in the early 2000s, when he arguably spoiled Democrat Al Gore’s presidential run, was about breaking up what he referred to as the two-party “duopoly.”

    McCain tried to fashion himself as a “maverick” who could buck the party system. Some of his most awkward political moments came when he had to appeal to primary voters, such as in 2010 when the Arizona primary dragged him to the right. He stayed a Republican even after former President Donald Trump demonized and insulted him.

    Sinema will be the first independent senator who isn’t from New England in more than a generation. Among sitting senators, she’ll join Sens. Angus King of Maine, a former Democrat, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a democratic socialist, as lawmakers who aren’t technically Democrats but give Democrats their majority.

    Sanders and his influence in the party he doesn’t technically belong to, dragging Democrats to the left during successive presidential campaigns, is perhaps part of what makes Sinema seem out of place as a Democrat.

    Sanders’ previous decision to run for president as a Democrat is evidence of how hard it is to be in national politics without a party. It will be interesting to see how and whether Sinema can maintain support in her state and how and whether she can mount a bid as an independent without help from the party that put her in office.

    While Arizona is frequently referred to as the home of modern conservatism, it’s been a long time since Barry Goldwater, the former Republican senator, ran for president from there – and the state’s political makeup has changed at lightning speed.

    Until Sinema was elected, Arizona had two Republican senators and a Republican governor.

    Now it has two elected Democratic senators (Sinema was elected as a Democrat in 2018) and a governor-elect who is a Democrat.

    But there are and more independents in Arizona.

    In the recent midterm election, just 22% of Arizona voters described themselves as liberal and 36% said they were conservatives. The largest portion, 42%, said they were moderates.

    About a third of voters said they were Republicans, 27% said they were Democrats and 40% said they were independents.

    Four years ago when Sinema was elected, a smaller portion, 31%, described themselves as independents.

    Nationwide, in 2022, voters had a similar ideological split to Arizona in the exit polls – 24% liberal, 40% moderate and 36% conservative.

    But across the country, more identified with the two major parties and less than a third said they were independents, the same portion as in 2018.

    It can be hard to maintain political shape-shifting. Charlie Crist, a moderate who felt out of place in the GOP, went from being a Republican governor in Florida to Democratic congressman. He recently lost a bid to rewin the governor’s mansion as a Democrat.

    The most complete political evolution may be that of Lincoln Chafee, the Rhode Island politician who was a Republican senator, independent governor and failed Democratic and Libertarian presidential candidate.

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  • The latest on Donald Trump’s many legal clouds | CNN Politics

    The latest on Donald Trump’s many legal clouds | CNN Politics

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



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump has been campaigning in between his many different court appearances for much of the year.

    But his decision to attend the first day of his $250 million civil fraud trial in New York created another opportunity to appear on camera from inside a courtroom when the judge allowed photographers to document the moment before proceedings got underway.

    Keeping track of the dizzying array of civil and criminal cases is a full-time job.

    He is charged with crimes related to conduct:

    • Before his presidency – a hush money scheme that may have helped him win the White House in 2016.
    • During his presidency – his effort to stay in the White House by overturning the 2020 election.
    • After his presidency – his treatment of classified material and alleged attempts to hide it from the National Archives.

    Trump denies any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty in all of the criminal cases. He alleges a “witch hunt” against him. But each trial has its own distinct storyline to follow.

    Here’s an updated list of developments in Trump’s very complicated set of court cases, beginning with the one playing out in Manhattan this week.

    The civil fraud trial, unlike Trump’s multiple criminal indictments, does not carry the danger of a felony conviction and jail time, but it could very well cost him some of his most prized possessions, including Trump Tower.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the $250 million lawsuit in September 2022, alleging that Trump and his co-defendants committed repeated fraud in inflating assets on financial statements to get better terms on commercial real estate loans and insurance policies.

    Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that Trump and his adult sons are liable for fraud for inflating the value of his golf courses, hotels and homes on financial statements to secure loans.

    The trial portion of the case, playing out in court in Manhattan, will assess what damages will be levied against Trump and how Engoron’s decision to strip Trump of his New York business licenses will play out.

    In May, a federal jury in Manhattan found Trump sexually abused former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and awarded her about $5 million.

    A separate civil defamation lawsuit will only need to decide how much money Trump has to pay her. That case for January 15 – the same day Iowa Republicans will hold their caucuses, the first date on the presidential primary calendar.

    In August, Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the aftermath of the 2020 election. The former president was arraigned in a Washington, DC, courtroom, where he pleaded not guilty.

    The case is based in part on a scheme to create slates of fake electors in key states won by President Joe Biden.

    In late September, Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected Trump’s request that she recuse herself from the case. Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee, has overseen civil and criminal cases related to the January 6, 2021, insurrection and has repeatedly exceeded what prosecutors have requested for convicted rioters’ prison sentences.

    Chutkan set the trial’s start date for March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday, when the largest batch of presidential primaries will occur. The trial marks the first of Trump’s criminal cases expected to proceed.

    Trump has been charged in Manhattan criminal court with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his role in a hush money payment scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels late in the 2016 presidential campaign.

    The former president pleaded not guilty at his April arraignment in Manhattan.

    Prosecutors, led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, accuse Trump of falsifying business records with the intent to conceal $130,000 in payments to Daniels made by former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen to guarantee her silence about an alleged affair.

    Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels.

    The trial was originally scheduled to begin in late March 2024, but Judge Juan Merchan has suggested the date could move. The next court date is scheduled for February.

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is using racketeering violations to charge a broad criminal conspiracy against Trump and 18 others in their efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia.

    The probe was launched in 2021 following Trump’s call that January with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the president pushed the Republican official to “find” votes to overturn the election results.

    The August indictment also includes how Trump’s team allegedly misled state officials in Georgia; organized fake electors; harassed an election worker; and breached election equipment in rural Coffee County, Georgia.

    One co-defendant, bail bondsman Scott Hall, has pleaded guilty to five counts in the case.

    Fulton County prosecutors have signaled they could offer plea deals to other co-defendants.

    Willis this week issued a subpoena to former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, a Trump ally, who in turn demanded an immunity deal in exchange for testimony.

    Trial for two co-defendants is expected to begin this month and could last three to five months. A trial date has not been set for Trump, who has pleaded not guilty.

    Federal criminal court in Florida: Mishandling classified material

    Trump has pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges brought by Smith over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Smith added three additional counts in a superseding indictment.

    The investigation centers on sensitive documents that Trump brought to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after his White House term ended in January 2021.

    The National Archives, charged with collecting and sorting presidential material, has previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records.

    Trump was also caught on tape in a 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the former president discussed holding secret documents he did not declassify.

    Smith’s additional charges allege that Trump and his employees attempted to delete Mar-a-Lago security footage sought by the grand jury investigating the mishandling of the records.

    Trial is not expected until May, after most presidential primaries have concluded.

    There are other cases to note:

    Trump’s namesake business, the Trump Organization, was convicted in December by a New York jury of tax fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records in what prosecutors say was a 15-year scheme to defraud tax authorities by failing to report and pay taxes on compensation provided to employees.

    Manhattan prosecutors told a jury the case was about “greed and cheating,” laying out a scheme within the Trump Organization to pay high-level executives in perks such as luxury cars and apartments without paying taxes on them.

    Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to his role in the tax scheme. He was released after serving four months in jail at Rikers Island.

    Several members of the US Capitol Police and Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police are suing Trump, saying his words and actions incited the 2021 riot.

    The various cases accuse Trump of directing assault and battery; aiding and abetting assault and battery; and violating Washington laws that prohibit the incitement of riots and disorderly conduct.

    In August, Trump requested to put on hold the lawsuit related to the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, citing his various criminal trials. The estate of Sicknick, who died after responding to the attack on the Capitol, is suing two rioters involved in the attack and Trump for his alleged role in egging it on.

    Other lawsuits have been put on hold while a federal appeals court considers whether Trump had absolute immunity as the sitting president.

    Former top FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, who was fired in 2018 after the revelation that he criticized Trump in text messages, sued the Justice Department, alleging he was terminated improperly.

    In summer 2017, former special counsel Robert Mueller removed Strzok from his team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election after an internal investigation revealed texts with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page that could be read as exhibiting political bias.

    Strzok and Page were constant targets of verbal attacks by Trump and his allies, part of the larger ire the then-president expressed toward the FBI during the Russia investigation. Trump repeatedly and publicly called for Strzok’s ouster until he was fired in August 2018.

    Trump is set to be deposed this month as part of the case, according to Politico.

    A federal judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, several ex-FBI officials and more than two dozen other people and entities that he claims conspired to undermine his 2016 campaign with fabricated information tying him to Russia.

    “What (Trump’s lawsuit) lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances,” US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote.

    Trump appealed the decision, but Middlebrooks also ruled that the former president and his attorneys are liable for nearly $1 million in sanctions for bringing the case.

    Trump launched a Hail Mary bid in July to revive the sprawling lawsuit, relying on a recent report from special counsel John Durham that criticized the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe.

    Trump’s former lawyer Cohen sued Trump, former Attorney General William Barr and others, alleging they put him back in jail to prevent him from promoting his upcoming book while under home confinement.

    Cohen was serving the remainder of his sentence for lying to Congress and campaign violations at home, due to Covid-19 concerns, when he started an anti-Trump social media campaign in summer 2020. Cohen said that he was sent back to prison in retaliation and that he spent 16 days in solitary confinement.

    A federal judge threw out the lawsuit in November. District Judge Lewis Liman said he was empathetic to Cohen’s position but that Supreme Court precedent bars him from allowing the case to move forward.

    Trump sued journalist Bob Woodward in January for alleged copyright violations, claiming Woodward released audio from their interviews without Trump’s consent.

    Woodward and publisher Simon & Schuster said Trump’s case is without merit and moved for its dismissal.

    Woodward conducted several interviews with Trump for his book “Rage,” published in September 2020. Woodward later released “The Trump Tapes,” an audiobook featuring eight hours of raw interviews with Trump interspersed with the author’s commentary.

    Trump-filed lawsuits: The New York Times, Mary Trump and CNN

    The former president is suing his niece and The New York Times in New York state court over the disclosure of his tax information.

    A New York judge dismissed The New York Times from Trump’s lawsuit regarding disclosure of his tax returns and ordered Trump to pay the newspaper’s legal fees. Trump is still suing his niece Mary Trump for disclosure of the tax documents. She had tried to sue him for defrauding her out of millions after the death of his father, but the suit was dismissed.

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  • Midwestern Democrat voices concern over Iowa possibly losing front-runner status on 2024 calendar | CNN Politics

    Midwestern Democrat voices concern over Iowa possibly losing front-runner status on 2024 calendar | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois voiced concerns Sunday with Iowa potentially losing its status as the first state to vote in the presidential nominating process following a proposal by President Joe Biden to reshape the 2024 calendar.

    The rule-making arm of the Democratic National Committee voted Friday voted to approve a plan that would make South Carolina the first state to hold a primary, followed by other early-voting states of Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia and Michigan. The proposal needs to be approved at a full DNC meeting, and states will still need to set their own primary dates.

    Such a shake-up would strip Iowa of the first-in-the-nation status it has held since 1972.

    Bustos, who is from the Quad Cities area that includes both Iowa and Illinois and represents a district that borders the Hawkeye State, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that the “bad” part of the proposal starts with the economic impact it would have on Iowa.

    “The other thing is, do you think a presidential candidate is going to care about ethanol? Or care about farm country as deeply as they do now because Iowa was always that first state for the caucuses?” said Bustos, who is retiring next month after five terms in the House.

    “So that’s the kind of thing that concerns me. I’ve got close to 10,000 family farms in the congressional district I represent. So it’s more about: What issues are going to take a back seat because of this? That is a concern I have,” she added.

    GOP Strategist: If we nominate Trump, Biden will probably win re-election

    Asked by Tapper if Biden was “stabbing the Midwest in the back” with the proposed change to Iowa’s status, Bustos said he wasn’t, pointing to the inclusion of Michigan, a Midwestern state that she said “better exemplifies the make-up of our country.”

    Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status came under scrutiny after the chaos of the 2020 Iowa caucuses received widespread backlash. Additionally, there has been pressure on the Democratic side to oust Iowa from its top slot because it is largely White and no longer considered a battleground state.

    But enacting the new dates on the 2024 Democratic nominating calendar could prove a steep challenge, as primary dates are set at the state level and each state has a different process.

    Lawmakers in Iowa have also made their displeasure with the proposal clear. The state’s junior senator, Republican Joni Ernst, told Fox News on Sunday that “Democrats have really given middle America the middle finger.”

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  • Opinion: How the Democrats’ Iowa caucuses self-destructed | CNN

    Opinion: How the Democrats’ Iowa caucuses self-destructed | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Laura Belin is the primary author at the website Bleeding Heartland. She has been covering Iowa politics since 2007. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    The Democratic National Committee’s overhaul of the presidential nominating calendar will create many challenges for Iowa Democrats, who are already at a low point following another disappointing election cycle.

    The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted Friday to recommend a schedule that removes Iowa from the small group of early primary states. The full DNC will vote on the calendar in January; while some tweaks are possible, it’s nearly certain the Iowa caucuses won’t be in the mix.

    I grew up in Iowa with the luxury of seeing presidential candidates up close and have enjoyed attending precinct caucuses since I was 18 years old in 1988. But as painful as it is for fans of the caucuses to accept, the DNC has valid reasons to start the presidential campaign elsewhere.

    Although Iowa was a bellwether state for six straight presidential elections and voted twice to elect Barack Obama, five of the last seven general elections have been Republican landslides here.

    It’s one thing to experience a red wave when the same thing is happening nationwide, as in 2010 and 2014. It’s another for Iowa Democrats to lose up and down the ballot last month — including in many onetime strongholds — when the party’s candidates exceeded expectations in many other states.

    Next year, Iowa will have no Democrats in our congressional delegation for the first time since 1956, only one Democratic statewide elected official for the first time since 1982 and the smallest Democratic state legislative caucuses in decades.

    Granted, South Carolina (which would supplant Iowa on the DNC’s new calendar) is not a swing state either. But moving that state ahead will give Black Democrats a bigger role in choosing a nominee, which is overdue.

    As critics of the current calendar have noted for years, the electorates of Iowa and New Hampshire are much less diverse than the US population and bear little resemblance to the Democratic Party’s base.

    Moreover, President Joe Biden and others, notably former presidential candidate Julián Castro, have rightly pointed out that it is much more difficult to participate in a caucus than a primary election.

    Iowa Democrats didn’t do enough to make our caucus system more accessible and transparent before the last couple of presidential election cycles. Party leaders dismissed most calls for serious reform, instead choosing a united front with New Hampshire.

    The party altered the system in 2020, creating a paper trail and reporting raw supporter totals for the first time. But Iowans who wanted to help select a presidential nominee still needed to be in a specific place and time for an hour or more on a cold winter night. No early voting, no absentee voting, no proxy voting.

    The massive problems with reporting the 2020 caucus results after a mobile app malfunctioned further damaged Iowa’s case for remaining first.

    Iowa Democratic leaders proposed bigger changes this year, including “presidential preference cards” that could be mailed before caucus night. The complicated “realignment” process, which sometimes produced screwy delegate math, would have been eliminated as each caucusgoer selected one presidential contender. It was too little, too late.

    Losing the early state slot will make it harder for Iowa Democrats to rebuild. For decades, presidential candidates have helped the party identify supporters and recruit volunteers. Old-timers will tell you Tom Harkin’s first US Senate campaign in 1984 got a big boost from the organizing that preceded that year’s Democratic caucuses.

    Presidential candidates have headlined fundraisers for numerous down-ballot candidates and local party groups in the early states. Their campaigns have paid large sums directly to the Iowa Democratic Party for access to the voter file or tickets to large “cattle call” events. All of that is going away now.

    Financial considerations aside, Iowa’s 2024 Democratic candidates will find it harder to qualify for the ballot without thousands of caucusgoers signing their nominating petitions as they attend their neighborhood caucuses.

    Meanwhile, Iowa GOP candidates and party organizations will continue to enjoy the old ways as presidential hopefuls generate local enthusiasm and boost attendance at events throughout the coming year.

    Republicans, including Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, already are portraying the DNC’s decision as an insult not only to all Iowans but also to all Americans outside urban areas. Gov. Kim Reynolds tweeted, “Democrats have abandoned rural America and denied everyday Iowans a voice in the presidential nominating process.”

    Iowa law requires our state’s precinct caucuses to take place “at least eight days earlier” than the scheduled date for any other state’s caucus or primary in the presidential nominating process. Republicans who control the Iowa Legislature have no interest in changing that law, especially since the GOP is preserving our state’s first-in-the-nation status.

    Iowa Democratic Party Chair Ross Wilburn confirmed last week that Democrats will follow state law “and address compliance with DNC rules” later. So the party will hold caucuses in early 2024 to select delegates to county conventions and members of various party committees.

    But those caucuses will have no broader significance. While more than 100,000 Republicans show up to support their favorite presidential candidate, only hard-core Democratic activists will attend.

    Serious presidential candidates will avoid campaigning here, so as not to lose delegates under the DNC’s new rules, which would penalize contenders who have staff, run ads or give speeches in unsanctioned early states. Iowa will lose half the state’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention as well.

    As Iowa Democrats prepare for life after the caucuses as we know them, they should seek inspiration from state parties that never received the money and attention that comes with being first.

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